Chapter Fifteen

I don't understand Glenn Beck. I don't understand this book. I don't understand his characters. Or maybe, I don't understand Glenn Beck's relationship with his characters. Because he doesn't seem to like them all very much.

Which is okay, if you're Bret Easton Ellis and your characters are supposed to be unlikeable dipshits. But Molly is our heroine. Why is Beck playing her as a goggle-eyed rube while at the same moment lambasting nefarious (and nameless) elites for viewing his precious teabaggers as goggle-eyed rubes?

They got out at the corner, and as Noah signed off with the driver, he saw Molly standing there on the sidewalk, looking all around as if she'd just stepped off the last bus from Poughkeepsie, taking in the ritzy sights of the Upper East Side.

"Is that where you live?" she asked, pointing.

"No, not there. See those flags? That's the French Embassy."

So Molly is too stupid to tell the French Embassy from Noah's swanky apartment building? But she knows the truth about Freedom and Patriotism? Maybe because she's a Real American she doesn't give two fucks about the French and their Socialist embassies. Or something. Incoherence, thy name is Beck. Though, it's not just outside that Molly is agog: "The instant he'd keyed them inside, Molly took off to explore, marveling at the panoramic floor-to-ceiling view, running from room to room like a toy-starved moppet cut loose in FAO Schwarz."

Also, douchebaggery, thy name is Beck. Backing up a bit to the elevator ride to the twenty-third floor:

They walked inside and made their way across the ornate lobby to the elevator bank. As the double doors were closing a hand reached in to stop them. They reopened to reveal a lanky, fiftyish man in a blue jogging suit. He was flush from a morning run, a rakishly handsome fellow with dark, thinning hair and sharp blue eyes. He thumbed his numbered floor button and those blue eyes gave Molly a leisurely, detailed once-over, which she seemed just barely able to coolly ignore. When the elevator stopped and opened at his floor, the guy glanced to Noah with a subtle nod before he departed, a man-to-man stamp of approval indicating their shared good taste in fine feminine company.

As paragraphs go, that one is pretty fucking awful. Fine upstanding patriot is ogled by Noah's pervert neighbor. Sheesh. Really, on top of the writing ("fine feminine company") it's tasteless, offensive. It stopped me in my tracks, the objectification of our supposed heroine. And somehow, it manages to get even worse with the next few lines. Read it again:

They walked inside and made their way across the ornate lobby to the elevator bank. As the double doors were closing a hand reached in to stop them. They reopened to reveal a lanky, fiftyish man in a blue jogging suit. He was flush from a morning run, a rakishly handsome fellow with dark, thinning hair and sharp blue eyes. He thumbed his numbered floor button and those blue eyes gave Molly a leisurely, detailed once-over, which she seemed just barely able to coolly ignore. When the elevator stopped and opened at his floor, the guy glanced to Noah with a subtle nod before he departed, a man-to-man stamp of approval indicating their shared good taste in fine feminine company.

The doors hissed closed again, leaving the two of them alone.

"Was that who I think it was?" Molly asked.

"Eliot Spitzer."

"The governor. Of New York."

"Former governor. And maybe you noticed just then, if you hadn't already read about him in the papers, that he's also a total horndog."

No. Fucking. Way. Right? This isn't possible, is it? This is not actually a book that someone wrote, someone else edited, some company published. Along the way someone created a cover (someone created several covers, actually), and someone typeset it, and there were marketing meetings and sales conferences about it. This shit was printed and bound and boxed up and loaded onto trucks and shipped to book stores all over the country and clerks at shops everywhere unpacked those cartons and put the books on shelves. This. This book. All of that happened with this book. With its paragraph about Elliot Spitzer being "a total horndog."

Sit down and think about that for a while.

Okay. Molly and Noah shower (separately) and head to their beds and things just get worse. I know I keep saying things get worse, but they do. They really do. Whenever I think this book can't possibly get any more awful, it somehow manages to. I mean, logically, you'd think, at some point, we'd reach the nadir and things would turn around. "Hey, that was horrible, but at least it wasn't as bad as chapter nine!" But no. There is some force at work here making each chapter exponentially worse, like a Fibonacci sequence of hack writing.

Sitting in bed after 24+ hours awake, Noah attempts to read himself asleep, but is interrupted.

He heard a soft knock from the hallway, looked over, then sat up a little straighter when he saw her peeking in.

"Me again," Molly said.

"Hi." He laid his book beside him, holding his page.

"I used your phone. I hope that's okay."

"It's fine, anything you want."

"I was calling about Danny. Remember him? Danny Bailey, from the bar?"

"Yeah. I wish I didn't, but yeah."

"Nobody remembers seeing him after the raid, and he wasn't with the rest of us at the police station. I called around to see if anyone had heard from him."

Hey, Noah, remember that guy whose speech you derailed that ended with you up on stage giving your own speech? Remember him? No? The guy who was awful cozy with your date early in the evening? Not ringing any bells? Oh, oh, I know! He's the guy who was shot at! After which everyone ended up in jail? Remember him?

I hate stupid questions.

So, yeah, plot point, Danny is missing. He's no doubt been abducted by the "contract security forces" the busted up the teabagger rally. I know, I know, I just ruined the upcoming thrill of a later chapter when this is all revealed. I am a bad person. On the plus-side, we don't know if he's dead or not, so there is some suspense in this revelation. Right?

Who cares anyway? Let's find out what Molly is wearing!

The faded jersey was much too big, of course, and she'd gathered the slack and tied it up, leaving a spellbinding glimpse of a taut, smooth waist above the northern border of a lucky pair of his own navy boxers.

Her hair was down, towel-dry and glistening, dark and curly and caressing her shoulders as she walked.

Are you hot? I am totally getting hot just reading that. I'm not really. But Noah is:

"I thought you were going to sleep in the other room."

"Do you mind?"

"No, not a bit. It's just like that time my aunt Beth took me to the candy store and then wouldn't let me eat anything. I didn't mind that, either."

"I'll go if you want."

"No, stay, stay. I'm kidding. Kind of. Just try not to do anything sexy."

Just try not to do anything sexy. Or what? There is nothing quite as charming as being vaguely threatening to a half-naked woman in your bed.

She ran her hands through her hair and stretched again, wriggled herself under the covers, and rolled onto her side with one arm across him, the long, cool silkiness of her bare legs against his skin.

"Now see?" Noah said. "That's what I just asked you not to do."

Okay, let me interject here and tell you nothing happens. Good, bad or ugly. They just fall asleep cuddled up together. But Noah does deliver his now immortal line.

"I'm only getting comfortable." Her voice was already sleepy, and she shivered a bit. "My feet are cold."

"Suit yourself, lady. I'm telling you right now, you made the rules, but you're playing with fire here. I've got some rules, too, and rule number one is, don't tease the panther."

Don't tease the panther. I don't know exactly what that means. Maybe it has something to do with his "outstanding record of success with the ladies." But, basically, it sounded like Noah was threatening to rape her if she got too sexy. I doubt that was what the author intended to convey here, but hey, welcome to Rape Culture. Our hero is a wild animal that can't be stopped once he gets all wound up, and that is supposed to be sexy.

Anyway, Molly kisses Noah (on the cheek) goodnight, and he lies there in bed, "having begun to dream quite a while before he finally drifted away."

And with that, Part One of this thriller draws to a close. I just hope Part Two is more than just Noah's Saturday night at the Knitting Factory. I can't take another night of speeches.