Rake by Scott Phillips Read Free Book Online Page A

Mathieu introduced as Esmée. Not knowing whether she was attached to Mathieu, and having just been attacked by another of her admirers, I didn’t press my attentions on her, but her cocked eyebrow suggested an interest in getting to know one another.
    “You mentioned a movie,” Mathieu said. “As it happens Esmée is an actress as well as a model.”
    “Is that so. I knew I’d seen you before,” I said, though this wasn’t the case.
    “Mostly commercials. A small part in a Dutch film last year.”
    “Her husband is one of the investors here. Is your film funded yet?”
    “Not completely. We’re still looking for co-producers.”
    Esmée smiled, and I could easily imagine that face on screen. Her head was large in proportion to her body, and if that sounds like a backward compliment, it isn’t. Head-to-body ratio is one of the key elements of stardom, determining how a person photographs. Look back at the great stars of twentieth-century cinema: Bogart, Bette Davis, Gabin, Gable—all had enormous heads in relation to their bodies. It’s no different in modern times: Hoffman, Depardieu, Julia Roberts, Jackie Chan. Picture Philippe Noiret with his head slightly smaller, and suddenly he’s your neighborhood grocer, or trash collector. Without his massive head threatening to capsize his tiny body every time he takes a step, Tom Cruise is the guy who tears the tickets at the movie theater, not the giant on the screen.
    “As it happens my husband is looking for a project to fund, something I could be in.”
    “Something that might feature the club as well. Is there room for a nightclub scene?”
    “Absolutely, it’ll fit right in. I’m meeting with the writer in the morning.”
    “Splendid. Maybe you can bring him along tomorrow night? The place should be a bit more lively. In the meantime, anything you want from the bar is on the house.”
    The door opened and the blond kid with dreadlocks stepped inside. He looked chastened, though not necessarily by me. Esmée’s expression grew stern.
    “Are you ready to take me home now?” she asked. No, let me amend that; though posed in the form of a question, it was nonetheless a command. She turned to me, all smiles again. “Let me introduce my stepson, Bruno.”
    •       •       •
    It was around three in the morning when I got out of the taxi in front of the hotel, and for once there was no one passing on the sidewalk to stop and point. The lobby was nearly empty, and the man at the reception showed no sign of recognition as he handed me my key and wished me a pleasant night’s sleep. As I climbed into bed, by myself for once, I almost felt as though I were someone else.

MERCREDI, QUATRE MAI
    A S A YOUNG MAN I CARRIED AROUND A GREAT deal of anger, and I used to be a brawler. Not the kind I am now, where somebody else starts the thing and I finish it, but the kind who looks for trouble and starts it when there’s none to be found. When I was seventeen years old I got into a fight over a girl and put the other guy into the hospital with a broken clavicle. When I came before the judge for sentencing he offered me a choice, much like the choice the army gave me later on: I could go to jail for a year and a half, or I could enlist. What the hell, I thought, the army sounded like a good way to bust some heads, and I joined up. I did so well in Basic Training they kicked me upstairs, and I kept on acing every test they gave me until I got into U.S. Army Special Forces. The Green Berets.
    Once in, I continued to outperform all my peers intellectually and physically. I’d finally found something I was good at, better than anybody else around me. I was born to be a warrior.
    The trouble was, I kept that anger coiled in me like a spring, and all the training was doing was wrapping that spring tighter and tighter. I hadn’t found a way to let it out, and then one day, having been taught a couple of dozen ways to kill a man with my bare hands, an