Page 68 of The Little Liar
He glanced both ways, assuring there was no one in sight.
“Would you do me a favor? Would you hold this for one second?”
“Sure.”
He stood up to hand her a wrench, and as she took it, he pulled a revolver from his jacket and shot her once in the forehead, a silencer masking all but a soft plinking sound of thebullet. Moments later, he tossed her body over the bridge and heard it splash in the rushing river below. He put the wrench and jack in the trunk, drove off, and left the car at a prearranged junkyard, where it was crushed before noon the next day.
Carter won his election by a large margin. And the man named George Mecklen gained a permanent position on his staff. Pleased at how easily killing came back to him, Udo Graf poured himself a drink. He was one step closer to real power now, the kind of power that could get rid of that Jew in Vienna, and see the Nazi dream restored.
The Envied Eccentric
I must confess a confusion in this world. Why, if people so loudly value the Truth, are they so fascinated by liars?
Your literature has been about it for centuries. Molière’sTartuffeis a fraudster from the start. So is the title character inThe Great Gatsby.
Your modern films celebrate liars and cheats.All About Eve.The Godfather. Perhaps this is why Nico was attracted to movies. Nothing is real. Everything is pretend.
One afternoon, during his time with Katalin Karády, Nico had asked why she’d chosen to be an actress.
“Because I can disappear,” she said. “I can hide inside someone else. I can cry their tears, scream their curses, love their loves, but when the day is over, none of it touches me.
“I get the experience without the pain.”
Experience without the pain. The idea was alluring to Nico. When he arrived in California, he immediately asked how he could enter the movie business. The fastest route, he was told, was to find work as an extra. It was an easy way to get onto a set and observe the process.
Many films in those days were being made about the war. On one such project, Nico was hired for a day’s work as a background soldier in a battle scene. He was fully costumed when an actor tripped over a piece of sheet metal, gashed his leg, and was taken away for medical care.
“You!” someone yelled at Nico. “The blond guy! Can you do a line?”
Nico had never said a word during a production, but he promptly responded, “Yes, of course.” He was told to run to a fallen body, roll it over, look up, and yell, “He’s gone!” Then wait for the director to holler “Cut!”
They practiced this once, and Nico lifted the body of the other actor, whose eyes were closed. When the director shouted, “Let’s set it up!” the actor opened his eyes and said, “Hey, where’d the other guy go?”
“He got hurt,” Nico said.
“Oh. That’s a shame. Nice fella.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Charlie Nicholl.”
“I’m... Richie.”
“Richie what?”
“Richie James.”
It was a name he’d invented on the spot.
“So. You done a lot of films, Richie?”
“Oh yes.”
“Which ones?”
“Lots. Hey. We should prepare for this scene, right?”
“What’s to prepare? I lie here. You find me. At least you get a line.”
