The Kill Artist

suddenly stepped from behind the camera and ran a hand through his hair. He was frowning. "Clear the studio, please. I need some privacy."
    Jacqueline thought: Oh, Christ. Here we go.
    Michel said, "What the hell's wrong with you?"
    "Nothing's wrong with me!"
    "Nothing? You're flat, Jacqueline. The pictures are flat. I might as well be taking pictures of a mannequin wearing the dress. I can't afford to give Givenchy a set of flat prints. And from what I hear on the street, you can't afford it either."
    "What's that supposed to mean?"
    "It means you're getting old, darling. It means that no one's quite sure whether you have what it takes anymore."
    "Just get back behind the camera, and I'll show you I have what it takes."
    "I've seen enough. It's just not there today."
    "Bullshit!"
    "You want me to get you a drink? Maybe a glass of wine will help loosen you up."
    "I don't need a drink."
    "How about some coke?"
    "You know I don't do that anymore."
    "Well, I do."
    "Some things never change."
    Michel produced a small bag of cocaine from his shirt pocket. Jacqueline sat down in the prop chair while he prepared two lines on a glass-topped table. He snorted one, then offered her the rolled-up hundred-franc note. "Feel like being a bad girl today?"
    "All yours, Michel. Not interested."
    He leaned over and snorted the second line. Then he wiped the glass with his finger and spread the residue over his gums. "If you're not going to have a drink or do a line, maybe we need to think of some other way to light a fire in you."
    "Like what?" she said, but she knew what Michel had on his mind.
    He stood behind her, placed his hands lightly on her bare shoulders. "Maybe you need to be thinking about getting fucked." His hands moved from her shoulders, and he stroked the skin just above her breasts. "Maybe we can do something to make the idea a little more realistic in your imagination."
    He pressed his pelvis against her back, so that she could feel his erection beneath his leather trousers.
    She drew away.
    "I'm just trying to help, Jacqueline. I want to make sure these pictures come out well. I don't want to see your career crash and burn. My motives are purely selfless."
    "I never knew you were such a philanthropist, Michel."
    He laughed. "Come with me. I want to show you something." He took her by the hand and pulled her off the set. They walked down a hallway and entered a room furnished with nothing but a large bed. Michel pulled off his shirt and began unbuttoning his trousers.
    Jacqueline said, "What do you think you're doing?"
    "You want good pictures, I want good pictures. Let's get in the right frame of mind. Take off the dress so it doesn't get ruined."
    "Go fuck yourself, Michel. I'm leaving."
    "Come on, Jacqueline. Stop fooling around and get into bed."
    "No!"
    "What's the big deal? You slept with Robert Leboucher, so he would give you that swimwear shoot in Mustique."
    "How did you know that?"
    "Because he told me."
    "You're a bastard, and so is he! I'm not some seventeen-year-old who's going to spread her legs for you because she wants good pictures from the great Michel Duval."
    "If you walk out of here, your career is over."
    "I don't give a shit."
    He pointed at his erection. "What am I supposed to do about this?"
    Marcel Lambert lived a short distance away, on the rue de Tournon, in the Luxembourg Quarter. Jacqueline needed time to herself, so she walked, taking her time in the narrow side streets of the Latin Quarter. Darkness falling, lights coming on in the bistros and the cafés, the smell of cigarettes and frying garlic on the chill air.
    She crossed into the Luxembourg Quarter. How quickly it had come to this, she thought-Michel Duval, trying to threaten her into a quickie between takes. A few years ago he wouldn't have considered it. But not now. Now she was vulnerable, and Marcel had decided to test her.
    Sometimes she was sorry she ever got into this business. She had planned to be a ballet dancer-had studied at the most prestigious academy in Marseilles-but at sixteen she was spotted by a talent scout from a Paris modeling agency, who gave her name to Marcel Lambert. Marcel scheduled a test shoot, let her move into his flat, taught her how to move and act like a model instead of a ballerina. The photographs from the test shoot were stunning. She had dominated the camera, radiated a playful sexuality. Marcel quietly put the pictures into circulation around Paris: no name, nothing about the girl, just the