Famous

Lancelot Blue Dunkquist is a thirty-eight-year-old legal secretary at a Charlotte patent-law firm who lives rent-free above his parents' garage in Huntersville, North Carolina. He has been mistaken for film star James Jansen eighty-seven times and has saved $41,617.21. Lance insists that his interest is not in Jansen himself but in the opportunities their resemblance might give him. He studies celebrity behavior and has kept his plans to himself.

Office manager Janine brings Lance to partner Jeff Hardy, who fires him after Lance misaddresses a patent-related letter. The recipient, Dr. David Dupree, has dropped the firm as a client because he received correspondence intended for someone else. Jeff also criticizes Lance's casual clothing. Lance transfers his money-market savings to checking, withdraws $2,000, and buys an expensive gray Hugo Boss suit and other clothes. He then pays for a spa package and a haircut modeled on Jansen's appearance. He had planned to save $50,000 before leaving but decides that his present savings will suffice.

Lance already has a flight booked for New York the following morning. At dinner, after watching coverage of a movie premiere, he tells his parents that he is finally pursuing a long-held dream and will leave the next day, without explaining his plan. His mother becomes tearful, while his father, who has been drinking, responds with little interest. Lance wonders whether he will ever return to the house.

At Charlotte airport, Lance imagines the security checkpoint as a portal through which he leaves his own identity behind. Wearing his new gray Hugo Boss suit, he boards a first-class flight to New York and imitates James Jansen's mannerisms. He interprets a flight attendant's glance as possible recognition, but she does not identify him. When a businesswoman in a lavender suit sits beside him, he gives her Jansen's carefully practiced, one-sided smile.

To prompt the woman to speak first, Lance conspicuously pretends to read the script for an obscure film called The Way. After watching his performance, she asks whether he is James Jansen. He falsely confirms it, introduces himself as Jim, and learns that she is Denise, a brokerage-firm consultant. He claims to be considering a theater project in New York and says he is not presently working on a film, matching what he knows of Jansen's career. He intentionally addresses her as Diane, and she does not correct him. When asked about Jansen's supposed recall of movie lines, Lance says he has a 'photogenic memory,' which makes Denise laugh.

Lance considers inviting Denise for a drink in New York. Although he finds her attractive, he decides against it because he imagines that a celebrity of Jansen's standing would pursue someone still more glamorous. His performance is driven by his own assumptions about how famous people act.

Arriving at La Guardia, Lance goes to a hotel on West 140th Street in Harlem and books a week at $65 per night rather than spend his savings on more prestigious accommodation. He takes a cab to Columbia University's School of the Arts, where he approaches Professor Paul Wittig. He initially claims to be looking for Professor Jerry Boomhower, whom Wittig says is taking the semester off, then introduces himself as Jim Jansen. Wittig appears impressed and invites him inside.

Lance claims that he is researching an upcoming film role as an aspiring actor in New York and that he wants to experience theater. Wittig offers to take him that evening to Love in the 0's, a one-act off-off-Broadway play written and directed by a former student. When Wittig brushes Lance's knee, Lance is unsure whether it was accidental or flirtatious; he brushes Wittig's knee in return and immediately regrets the gesture.

Before the show, Lance buys a DKNY suit and silk shirt at Macy's because he believes celebrities should change clothes frequently. He arrives deliberately late for drinks at O. Wilde's, across from Playhouse 47. Although he is actually staying at the cheap Harlem hotel, he tells Wittig he is staying at the Waldorf. He orders James Jansen's preferred double Absolut vodka with one ice cube and no lime, repeating Jansen's explanation of the ice from a Vanity Fair interview. Lance has not drunk alcohol since college and struggles with the vodka. Wittig notices women watching them and speaks enthusiastically about his former student Matthew; Lance suggests they leave for the theater.

At Playhouse 47, Lance watches Love in the 0's with Professor Wittig. The small audience sees a one-act, experimental depiction of a relationship, beginning with a man walking a stuffed dog. Lance loses interest and observes the audience, although he tells Wittig he likes the production. In the cab to director Matthew Gardiner's party, he offers a critique about the play being overly didactic, borrowing it from Roger Ebert's review of an older James Jansen film, Room 116.

The two arrive at Matthew's crowded apartment, where Wittig introduces Lance as James Jansen. Matthew is surprised to meet the supposed actor. After drinks, the three move to the balcony thirty-nine floors above the street. Lance admires the city but tries to conceal his excitement in keeping with his assumed celebrity persona. Wittig goes back inside, and Matthew explains that Love in the 0's is still a workshop with scenes that he is testing and revising. When Lance claims to be researching the off-Broadway acting world, Matthew offers him a therapist scene that might replace a female therapist part. They arrange for Lance to read the scene at two the next afternoon; Matthew suggests that, if it goes well, it could appear in Thursday's performance. No performance has yet occurred or been confirmed.

Two women on the balcony, Dawn and Heather, have wagered on whether Lance is James Jansen. When one asks if he is the actor, Lance says he is not, but does so flirtatiously enough that she doubts his denial. Dawn says she has also bet Heather that he will go home with them, and Lance indicates interest without the chapter establishing what happens afterward. Matthew briefly returns with Lance's drink and tells him to find him later to collect the script. The chapter ends with Lance spotting Wittig dancing inside between two men.

After leaving Matthew Gardiner's party with Dawn and Heather, Lance rides to their apartment in Murray Hill. The short-haired woman notices his chin scar, which Lance deliberately made four years earlier with a razor to reproduce James Jansen's quarter-inch scar. The wound required four stitches. He falsely tells the women that he acquired it by walking into a car door on the set of Greener Grass. When Heather asks why they cannot go to his place, Lance invents a girlfriend staying with him, concealing that he is actually booked into a cheap Harlem hotel. The women's apartment displays photographs and magazine covers featuring them. Lance suspects they are models but does not establish their occupations.

Heather says she is twenty; Lance gives his true age of thirty-eight, overlooking that Jansen is thirty-nine. The women describe their practice of inviting home a man they both like as a 'triangle of goodness.' Lance, who recalls having had only one previous sexual partner, is anxious about joining them but follows them into the bedroom. He imagines that his former identity is fading as the women invite him into bed. The next morning, he gets up before they wake, finds little breakfast food in their refrigerator, and leaves without a note. Despite his excitement, he is troubled by the lack of lasting personal connection.

At a diner called Diner, Lance eats breakfast and reflects on how his happiness fades when he thinks about its impermanence. He then reads the script Matthew gave him for Love in the 0's. His role is Dr. Lovejoy, a therapist asked to see Gerald and Cindy. The excerpted scene reveals that Cindy microwaved Gerald's dog Poopsie for twenty-five seconds, injuring but not killing her, and Gerald wants permission to microwave Cindy's Persian cat in retaliation. Lovejoy dismisses genuine therapy as pointless and the written scene ends on his abrupt 'Ready?' Lance has not yet rehearsed or performed it.

Back in his inexpensive Harlem hotel the morning after leaving Dawn and Heather, Lance feels the distance between his actual circumstances and his new persona. He changes clothes and goes to Central Park to study Matthew Gardiner's scene for Love in the 0's. Although he has memorized his lines and can imitate James Jansen's appearance and voice, he fears that working with professional actors will reveal his lack of professional acting experience. His only stage experience mentioned is a high-school production of Our Town.

At a Greek deli near the park, a woman named Lauren requests Jansen's autograph on a credit-card receipt. Lance signs it, but realizes as he leaves that he wrote his own name, Lancelot Blue Dunkquist, instead of James Jansen. He arrives five minutes late at Playhouse 47, where Matthew introduces Jane Rindle and Ben Mazer, the actors playing Cindy and Gerald. Both believe they are working with the famous actor. Lance admits to Matthew that he has read the scene and falsely claims to understand the theatrical term 'off-book.'

Matthew wants the therapist scene to unsettle the audience without overly broad acting. During the initial reading, Lance forgets lines, consults his script, and delivers a wooden performance. Matthew interrupts despite having promised not to, assumes Lance has deliberately chosen to act ineptly, and asks him to move from behind the desk and slow down. The second attempt falters almost immediately. Fearing exposure, Lance turns Matthew's mistaken assumption into a proposal: Dr. Lovejoy should appear to be a bad actor on purpose, while Jane and Ben continue their normal performances, leaving the audience unsure whether the awkwardness is intentional. Jane tentatively supports the idea, Ben defers to Matthew, and Matthew agrees to try another run-through. No public performance occurs in this chapter.

After leaving the Playhouse 47 rehearsal at about 7:30 p.m., Lance eats at Manta, a Thai restaurant filled with aquariums. He orders Jansen's customary vodka and studies his script for the following night's performance, worrying that Matthew may reconsider the deliberately bad-acting approach they have agreed to try. He overhears a group he takes to be graduating NYU business students celebrating and disparages their talk of drinking and romantic encounters. After they leave, he watches a moray eel circling inside the restaurant's aquarium.

Reluctant to return to his Harlem hotel, Lance walks through the city and pays to enter Henry's, a blues club near Stuyvesant Square. He sees a guitarist whose unassuming clothes and appearance contrast, in Lance's estimation, with his powerful playing and singing. After a song called 'Twice as Deep,' the musician introduces himself as Corey Mustin. His next song concerns loneliness after moving to New York; Lance wonders whether Mustin is singing from personal experience.

Moved by what he perceives as the beauty and lack of self-consciousness in Mustin's performance, Lance becomes distressed. He compares his reaction to how he imagines demons must feel when confronted by divine beauty, which they resent because it exposes their own ugliness. Less than ten minutes after entering Henry's, he pushes through the crowd with tears in his eyes and leaves. Outside, his last expressed thought is an angry, hypothetical wish to kill Mustin if they met in the street; no encounter or act of violence occurs.

On Thursday morning, with his planned performance at Playhouse 47 less than ten hours away, Lance goes to Columbia to speak at Professor Paul Wittig's acting workshop. Wittig introduces him as James Jansen to fourteen students and suggests that he might do scene work. Unsure what to say, Lance asks the students their names and reasons for acting, then delivers a speech about how difficult and commercially driven the business is. He privately admits borrowing the speech from Jansen's Inside the Actors Studio interview with James Lipton. The students and Wittig applaud.

A student named Natalie asks how Jansen enters a character so convincingly. Lance improvises an answer about thinking of ordinary matters rather than the role itself, then uses Natalie's hesitation when asked to perform a monologue to urge the students to act confidently without waiting for success. Later, at Playhouse 47, Lance feels unusually happy and calm while waiting in the greenroom with Jane Rindle and Ben Mazer. He wears a brown wool suit and yellow bow tie for his debut as Dr. Lovejoy before a sold-out audience.

Once the scene begins, Lance cannot recall his first line and asks Ben to start again. His partial reply falters, and Jane mouths the next words to help him. Overwhelmed, Lance leaves the rehearsed staging, tells Jane to stop prompting him, and vomits on the stage, avoiding the other actors. Trying to rescue the scene, he recites the famous one-bullet detective line from Jansen's film And Then There Was One, unrelated to Dr. Lovejoy's dialogue. Jane begins to cry. Lance initially narrates that the lights go down, then corrects himself: he is the one falling, his face striking the stage floor as the audience gasps and voices call out Jansen's name. The chapter ends there without establishing his subsequent condition.

After collapsing during Love in the 0's, Lance lies on the greenroom couch and comforts himself by recalling James Jansen's Oscar victory ten years earlier for Down from the Sleeping Trees. He has watched the recording of that awards ceremony repeatedly for years, sometimes pretending he is Jansen delivering the acceptance speech. Matthew confronts him about the disastrous performance while Wittig, Jane, Ben, and a stagehand crowd around him. Lance becomes panicked, demands to be left alone, and, once everyone except Matthew has gone, uses the threat of vomiting again to end their conversation.

Lance hurries out of the greenroom, warns the people in the corridor that he might be sick, and accidentally emerges onstage because he does not know the rear exit. The stage manager is telling the audience that Jansen is being taken away by ambulance, even though Lance is walking through the theater. He proceeds up the aisle and stops at the lobby doors. Turning back toward the audience, he loudly claims that the entire disturbance was part of the show, then runs out into the warm rain.

Rather than abandon his impersonation, Lance mentally counts his New York experiences, including meeting Wittig, attending Matthew's party, spending the night with Dawn and Heather, speaking to the acting class, and appearing onstage. He rationalizes that celebrity depends less on acting skill than on recognition, deciding that the people he has encountered accepted him as Jansen. At Poppy's diner, he tells a waitress he has just acted in a play and offers her tickets for the following night in exchange for a towel. He resolves to leave New York the next morning for Los Angeles. Imagining how he would answer a question about going home, he claims to belong in a splendid house in the Hollywood Hills, a fantasy rather than an established residence.

Chapter 10 opens with Lance recalling the last time he saw his younger brother Bo, nine years earlier at a cousin's wedding in Statesville, North Carolina. Lance despised the ceremony at drought-stricken Lakewood Park but remembers spending an hour walking with Bo through the park's woods. Bo, who then lived in Seattle, neither criticized Lance for still living with their parents nor pressured him to change his life. Lance regards his brother as someone who accepts him as he is, and remembers their time together as unusually happy. He says Bo is four years younger, now married, and the father of a three-year-old boy, although he does not know Bo's occupation.

The narrative shifts to Lance arriving at Los Angeles International Airport on a Friday night, elated that he is roughly twenty miles from James Jansen's home. The plane lands at 10:02 p.m. local time. After 11:30 p.m., Lance reaches Bo's bungalow by cab, unannounced, but hesitates on the porch while hearing two couples talk inside. He judges their conversation as dull and suburban, particularly a woman's story about reading a novel during a lengthy traffic jam. He finally knocks after midnight, feeling guilty for not warning Bo. Bo immediately recognizes and enthusiastically greets him as 'Lancer,' and they embrace.

Inside, Bo introduces Lance, under his real name, to his friend Nick, Nick's wife Maggie, and Bo's wife Hannah. Maggie independently remarks on Lance's resemblance to James Jansen; Lance feigns surprise rather than claiming to be the actor. Hannah is the woman whose traffic-jam anecdote he had disparaged from outside. Lance tells her that he wanted to attend her wedding to Bo but could not afford the trip four years earlier. Nick and Maggie decide to leave after Lance's arrival. Bo then asks Lance to be quiet because his three-year-old nephew Sam is asleep, and the chapter ends with Lance looking forward to meeting the boy.

After arriving at Bo and Hannah's house, Lance finds a guest room Hannah has prepared for him. He feels grateful yet privately doubts her assurances that his visit is welcome. Later, he joins Bo on the rear deck of their home on the outskirts of Altadena. Bo asks why he has come; Lance says he quit his legal-assistant job, although he was actually fired, and wanted to get away from their parents' house. Bo tells him that he never needs to call before visiting, that the house is his too, and asks whether he has enough money. Lance says yes despite knowing that his savings are depleted. He interprets Bo's easy company as an acceptance he rarely finds elsewhere. Before bed, Bo quietly takes Lance into his three-year-old son Sam's room and shows him the sleeping boy.

On Saturday morning, Lance listens from bed as Bo entertains Sam with an imaginary character called Ani the Anteater. At breakfast, Lance meets the shy, curious child while Bo cooks for the family. He learns that Bo designs video games and Hannah is a psychologist, a discovery that makes him worry she will scrutinize his behavior. Lance and Bo recall their family's annual North Myrtle Beach vacations, including a hurricane their father insisted they endure in their motel rather than evacuate. The conversation offers Lance a brief, genuine connection with his brother.

After breakfast, Lance persuades Bo to drop him at a Starbucks opposite Exotic Car Rentals of Beverly Hills, concealing his reservation at the rental agency. He pays $6,265 to rent a yellow Lamborghini Diablo for one week, reasoning that someone posing as James Jansen should drive an extravagant car. He takes it out onto I-10 and along Mulholland Drive, then stops at an overlook above Los Angeles. In the harsh daylight the scene lacks the romantic atmosphere he associates with films, yet Lance feels no need for conventional optimism: in his own grandiose assessment, his ambitions are certainties and the city already belongs to him.

Lance drives his rented yellow Lamborghini to Hollywood Boulevard and searches the Walk of Fame until he finds James Jansen's star. When Japanese tourists photograph him, he leaves rather than appear to be a movie star admiring his own name. Later, at a Sunset Boulevard traffic light, an attractive blonde passenger in a Ferrari calls him Jim and compliments his car. Lance wonders whether she actually knows Jansen, but avoids testing that possibility. She says she is going to La Casa, where DJ SuperCas is playing, prompting him to spend the afternoon shopping for a watch, phone, cologne, and conspicuous nightlife clothes.

Returning to Bo's home in the outskirts of Altadena around seven, Lance watches Bo, Hannah, and Sam eat together outside and feels proud of Bo's attentive parenting. Bo comes into the bathroom while Lance showers to ask about the Lamborghini. Bo questions why his unemployed brother would rent such an expensive car and says he had hoped they would eat dinner together. Lance falsely insists that he has plenty of money. He then dresses in costly black Armani clothing and two-thousand-dollar boots, applying expensive cologne and eyeliner based on advice from Clarice at the Scent Room. Before leaving, he kisses Sam and promises to play with him the next day.

At the downtown nightclub La Casa, Lance observes the crowd and the doormen's selective admission policy. He initially joins the waiting line but notices a celebrity couple receive an immediate entrance after arriving in an SUV. He pays a valet $200 to drive his Lamborghini around the block and deliver him to the entrance as though he has just arrived. Fans call out Jansen's name, but the doormen are not readily impressed. Lance acknowledges that he is not on the guest list and invents a close friendship with 'Bill Flanagan,' whom he claims is a club owner; he admits to the reader that he has no idea who owns the club and made up the name. The doormen unhook the rope and let him inside. Before entering, Lance threatens that all three will be fired that night, although the chapter establishes no actual firings.

Having bluffed his way into La Casa, Lance pays a $30 admission charge and enters a crowded nightclub filled with neon lighting, bars, and dancers. He notices DJ SuperCasanova presiding over the main dance floor, takes a vacant table, and watches patrons drinking tequila from one another's bodies. As he sips his imitation of Jansen's customary vodka order, Lance reflects cynically on the club's sexual atmosphere, judging the people around him by their looks and imagined motives. These sweeping claims about Los Angeles and romance are his opinions, not established facts.

Lance moves across the dance floor and sits near five women celebrating a bachelorette party. He correctly guesses that the smiling brunette is the bride-to-be, buys the women another round of drinks, and introduces himself as Jim Jansen. He remembers only one of their names: Amy, a small, short-haired blonde whose composure attracts him. The women react strongly when he finally gives his surname, especially after one links him to the film Down from the Sleeping Trees. The real actor Richard Haneline then approaches Lance as if he knows Jansen, asks whether he received a message, and invites him to a party following a Tuesday premiere. Lance falsely blames voicemail trouble and supplies the number of his new Nokia 3210 so Haneline can contact him with details.

When Haneline returns to the dance floor, Lance asks Amy to dance, admitting that he dances badly. Despite the rapid music, he asks to slow-dance; she agrees, and they move together at their own pace. Lance finds the encounter unexpectedly moving and imagines that he understands Amy more deeply than the people he has met since leaving North Carolina. This is Lance's impression, formed before the two have said much to each other, not proof of a mutual romantic commitment.

After two more dances at La Casa, Amy tells Lance that the loud music hurts her ears and accepts his offer to leave. She tells her four friends that she is unwell and that Jim is taking her home. Lance drives her toward Westwood in the rented Lamborghini. Amy admits she feels nervous in his company but criticizes the shallowness of the nightclub crowd. She then tells him candidly that their dance felt like a real connection, distinct from his supposed fame. Lance agrees that dancing with her was extraordinary.

Outside Amy's apartment building near UCLA, Lance hopes to see her again. She explicitly says she will not invite him upstairs, but proposes that he pick her up at the same entrance at eleven the following morning so they can spend the day together. Lance leaves without obtaining her telephone number and decides to go back to Bo's house rather than seek another party. At 6:30 a.m. he rises and cooks the only dish he knows how to make, a spicy Mexican omelet, for the household. Hannah reacts coolly to his strong coffee and breakfast, asks about his employment plans, and gives Sam fruit rather than the omelet. Bo enjoys Lance's coffee, and Lance tells him that he met a woman he plans to see that day.

After breakfast, Bo and Lance go outside with Sam to refill the small pool and watch him play. While sitting nearby, Lance asks Bo about marriage. Bo says he is happy, but Lance distrusts the answer and says he suspects Hannah dislikes him. Bo suggests she was unsettled by Lance's unexpected arrival, and Lance offers to apologize. When Hannah asks Bo to come inside for a moment, Lance interprets his quick compliance as proof that Bo fears and hates his wife, although neither claim is established by Bo's words or behavior. Left with Sam, Lance sits in the pool with him and exchanges toy boats. He tells the boy he loves him, but Sam responds mainly by continuing to play.

At 10:59 on Sunday morning, Lance collects Amy in his rented Lamborghini for a day trip Bo suggested to Los Padres National Forest. They stop in Castaic for picnic food, where Amy says the attention from her friends after La Casa has made it difficult to forget that she is dating a celebrity. Lance asks her to call him Lance rather than Jim Jansen and supplies the name Lance Blue Dunkquist. She initially laughs and protests that it is not his name, but agrees to use it as a kind of private fiction. He does not establish that he has confessed the impersonation; Amy continues to believe she is spending the day with the movie star.

On the way to Mount Pinos, an older couple photographs them at an overlook, and Lance introduces himself by the alternate name. The pair hike to a high meadow, picnic, and rest together on a blanket. Amy explains that she is a UCLA art-history graduate student studying Renaissance painting, but her academic analysis has made it hard to experience paintings emotionally. She also mentions her roommate Colleen and a cat named Slick. Lance avoids giving comparable details about his own life. They fall asleep, and on waking Lance kisses Amy. He regards the day as unusually happy and intimate.

During the drive back, Amy asks to see where Lance lives, a request he does not answer before his new Nokia rings. Richard Haneline confirms a Tuesday premiere at the El Capitan and says he will put Jansen and a date on the guest list for an after-party. Haneline also passes along a greeting from Margot and jokes about a former romance; Lance plays along rather than admitting he does not know these people. When Lance invites Amy, she worries about being an obscure outsider among stars. He insists, and she agrees on the condition that he stay beside her. Amy does not repeat the request to see his house. He takes her home, promises to call the next day, and considers it the best day of his life.

Lance returns to Bo and Hannah's house in time for a dinner of white chili and jalapeno cornbread. Afterward he asks Bo to take a walk. Hannah objects that Sam still needs a bath, and Bo offers to wash the dishes if she bathes the child; she drops and breaks a glass in frustration. Bo and Lance leave with German beer. Bo acknowledges that he and Hannah have things to work on, but Lance finds his brother warmly receptive when he describes his day with Amy. They reach a nearby soccer field and sit on the bleachers.

Lance admits that he has withheld parts of his background from Amy, particularly his seventeen years living with their parents, but he does not tell Bo that Amy knows him as James Jansen. Bo insists that Lance is not a loser. Asked whom he once wanted to be, Bo recalls aspiring to be rock star Tommy Fields of the No-Names. Lance uses the memory to argue that obscurity is intolerable because ordinary people will be forgotten after death, while celebrities remain famous. Bo disagrees: he describes the nightly satisfaction of seeing his sleeping son safely sheltered under the roof he provides. Lance dismisses that fulfillment as mere reproductive instinct, angering Bo. Bo suggests that someone like Hannah might help Lance understand what he wants. When Bo asks directly what Lance wants, Lance refuses to answer and walks away.

After one in the morning, Lance sits awake in Bo's quiet house, thinking about the following night's premiere and the temptation to continue impersonating Jansen only in clubs and social settings. Returning to the house as Lance has become painful for him, and he concludes that this temporary game is no longer enough. He rereads a scrap of paper he has carried in his wallet for two years, bearing James Jansen's address at 203 Carmella Drive, Los Angeles, California 90069. Lance calls it the address of his new home. This signals his intention but does not establish that he owns, occupies, or has reached the property. The thought calms him enough to sleep.

Before dawn, Lance leaves Bo's house and stops at Bobo's diner on Sunset Boulevard. There he overhears a young aspiring screenwriter boasting about celebrity encounters. The man, M. Connor Bennett, recognizes Lance as James Jansen and offers him a three-hundred-page screenplay titled Until the End of Time, written with Jansen in mind. Lance accepts it and claims to be seeking a new project. He drives into the Hollywood Hills and finds 203 Carmella Drive, the address he has carried for two years. From a parked yellow Lamborghini about a hundred yards downhill, he watches the gate and reads the screenplay, which he regards as terrible. It concerns a banker whose former wife proves to be a Russian spy.

Lance has assembled what he believes to be details of Jansen's five properties and recent life from tabloids, rumors, and websites. According to those accounts, Jansen has not left Los Angeles in nine months, has not worked on a film project in three years, and has made no major public appearances since before Christmas. These are claims and interpretations based on Lance's reading, not facts he independently verifies. At 10:35 a.m., a white Porsche exits the property. Lance follows it to a second, Spanish-style mansion behind a gate. He thinks he glimpses the back of Jansen's head under a baseball cap but has not conclusively identified the driver.

Lance waits outside the second property for roughly eight hours. During the stakeout, he calls Amy, who says she is studying for an exam and asks him to call the next day before noon; Lance interprets her brevity as possible distance and even imagines marrying her. He also calls Connor, falsely praises the screenplay, promises professional meetings and a director, and urges him to celebrate. Connor weeps with gratitude. When the Porsche finally emerges, Lance abruptly ends the call, follows it through West Hollywood along Melrose Avenue, and watches it enter Paramount Pictures through the Melrose Gate. Unable to follow it inside, he parks illegally near the studio entrance.

At 6:25 p.m., the white Porsche exits Paramount Pictures. Lance follows it back into the Hollywood Hills, where it enters Jansen's driveway. Exhausted and hungry after a day of surveillance, he nearly gives up, but about fifteen minutes later the Porsche leaves again. He trails it into West Hollywood and watches its driver enter the Brick Room, a small jazz club off North Fairfax. Lance first eats pepperoni pizza at nearby Mikey's Slice of Joy, where he overhears wealthy teenagers talking, then returns to the club at about 7:55 p.m. The Porsche is still parked outside.

Inside, Lance finds the actual James Jansen sitting alone near the stage while a jazz quartet plays. At the bar, bartender Bruce initially asks Lance whether he needs more ice, apparently thinking he is Jansen; after seeing the real actor at a separate table, Bruce's manner changes. Lance orders a beer and sits across the room to observe. Jansen wears jeans, Converse sneakers, and a white polo shirt and drinks Absolut vodka from a bottle set beside an ice bucket. When the quartet takes a break, Jansen compliments the singer, leaves several fifty-dollar bills in a guitar case, and requests Summer Wind. The band plays it at the start of its next set.

After ten o'clock, with Jansen having drunk roughly half the bottle, Lance finally takes a seat at his table and imitates the actor's relaxed posture. Jansen is astonished by their resemblance and asks if Lance underwent plastic surgery. Bruce approaches, but Jansen permits Lance to remain. Lance gives his name as Lancelot, denies being a reporter, and struggles to hold a conversation with the man whose life he has studied. Jansen pays for Lance's vodka, and Lance adds a single ice cube to imitate Jansen's customary drink. They toast each other. Near the chapter's end, Jansen asks whether Lance wants to come home with him; the invitation is made, but its consequences lie beyond this chapter.

With James Jansen intoxicated at the Brick Room, Lance offers to drive him home in the rented Lamborghini. Although Lance already knows the address, he pretends to need directions. On Carmella Drive, Jansen asks why Lancelot is in Los Angeles, and Lance falsely presents himself as a screenwriter who made an art-house film called Growing Old. Jansen touches Lance's face before they arrive at his lavish bungalow, where he introduces two friendly golden retrievers, Bailey and Chip. In a private den equipped as a home theater, Lance sees Jansen's Academy Award in a display case. Jansen opens it and lets him hold the statuette. When asked whether receiving the Oscar was the best night of his life, Jansen says it was.

Jansen abruptly asks Lance for a sexual encounter. Lance agrees to follow him into a candlelit room with mirrored walls and ceiling, asking to bring the Oscar along. During the encounter, Lance watches their reflections and becomes enthralled by the resemblance. As Jansen kneels before him, Lance suddenly strikes him in the head with the Oscar. The first blow leaves Jansen conscious; Lance continues to strike him repeatedly. The chapter does not explicitly describe a medical confirmation of death or what Lance does with Jansen's body.

At 1:00 a.m., Lance steps onto the patio, now referring to the house as his own, and calls Amy. He apologizes for the late hour, says he has been thinking about her, and arranges to pick her up around six for the following night's premiere. Afterward, with the Oscar between his legs, Lance describes receiving the award as though it were his own remembered achievement. He even imagines the actor Henry Goodson announcing the nominees and boasts of his acceptance speech. This is Lance appropriating Jansen's history, not evidence that Lance actually won an Oscar. The chapter closes on his conviction that fame is the best thing in the world.

The following morning, Lance wakes in James Jansen's master suite and moves through the house as though it belongs to him. At 8:15 a.m., the landline answering machine records a message from a collaborator referring to a scene involving Bernard and a sex worker and expecting to meet at ten. Lance eats breakfast on the patio and becomes unexpectedly moved by a large spider web glittering in the morning light. He tours the house but deliberately does not enter the mirrored room. In the master suite he discovers a wallet, car keys, a Philips Savvy mobile phone, bank statements, contracts, account information, and security codes that may help him impersonate Jansen.

Lance also finds pages of a screenplay, The Great Wide Open, which Jansen has been writing with actor Brad Morton. Lance calls Morton from the phone, pretending to be Jansen and to be ill with a severe hangover so he can cancel their appointment. He studies Jansen's personal details and access codes while bathing. Around 10:30 a.m. he leaves, returns his rented Lamborghini for the deposit, and takes a cab to the Brick Room to retrieve Jansen's Porsche. He then uses the spare key Bo gave him to enter the family house in Altadena while Hannah and Sam are away, collects his possessions, and leaves intending not to return. Back at Jansen's bungalow, he reads the screenplay: its character Bernard discovers an affair between his wife and son and has a breakdown in a public bathroom.

With several hours remaining before the premiere, Lance drives to Ravenous Games in Century City to see Bo at work. He announces that he is leaving immediately, and they sit by a pond in the office complex. Asked where he is going, Lance claims only that he may buy a used car and travel to Mexico; he has not made such arrangements. Bo is moved and worried, says he loves his brother, apologizes for their earlier argument, and offers money, a place to stay, or help finding work. Lance tearfully tells Bo he envies not his suburban life itself but his ability to love it and feel settled. When Bo asks whether Lance is at peace, he says not yet but that he is getting there. Lance nearly tells Bo about the spider web but stops, afraid Bo would not understand. The chapter ends with their conversation, without documenting the subsequent premiere.

At 4:30 p.m. Lance calls limousine driver Rex to arrange transport for the premiere of Richard Haneline's The Action at the El Capitan Theatre. Wearing a gray Canali suit from James Jansen's closet, he collects Amy from her apartment. She is anxious about meeting reporters and fans, and Lance reassures her that he will stay close. Amy says she wants to be with him rather than become famous.

Rex brings them to the red carpet at about 6:30. Although Lance seems confident, he is excited and nervous. He signs an autograph for Bethany, gives her a kiss on the cheek, and briefly speaks with a Hollywood Starz! interviewer he believes may be named Marcy Meyers. Asked about upcoming projects, he offers only vague assurances that something is in development. Amy is complimented on her dress and thanks the reporter.

In the lobby, director Linwood Beame greets Lance as Jansen and says he wants to speak with him at the after-party. Amy introduces herself as Amy Suthers. Lance tells Amy that Beame directed Jansen's Oscar-winning film Down from the Sleeping Trees. They watch The Action, in which Haneline plays Wally Miller, a compulsive gambler who has lost his family's savings. Lance is deeply moved by a casino scene in which Wally loses $110,000, receives a $1,000 chip from a woman, and is escorted away while crying. The response of the departing audience appears thoughtful to Lance, though his assessment remains subjective.

After the premiere, Amy enthusiastically tells Lance about meeting actress Jan Bollinger, but Lance worries about mingling with people who know the real James Jansen at Richard Haneline's party. Rex takes them to Santa Monica Pier, where they drink champagne near the water at about 9:30 p.m. Lance finds the moment with Amy nearly perfect, which makes him sad because he believes happiness must decline after reaching its peak. He considers skipping the party, while Amy feels increasingly comfortable about attending.

Rex passes Haneline's Malibu mansion at eleven and returns fifteen minutes later when the party is underway. Richard and his wife Margot greet Lance and Amy warmly. Margot's familiar manner causes Lance to wonder about her history with Jansen, but he has no direct knowledge of their relationship. On a large veranda above the ocean, Lance and Amy admire the moonlit view, which he thinks the other guests have overlooked. Amy says she notices both the view and him, and she wishes they could leave together.

Lance goes to get drinks while Amy stays by the railing. He notices Jan Bollinger acknowledge him from the dance floor. At the bar, an unidentified young man grabs his arm and confronts him about a supposed prior encounter with Jansen and a screenplay that the actor purportedly agreed to consider. Lance has no way to verify the man's account. He responds with two threats, the first prompting the man to release his arm. The guest looks frightened, and Lance walks back toward Amy with his heart racing. The chapter does not establish any subsequent retaliation or resolution.

At Richard Haneline's party, Amy impresses Rich and Margot with her UCLA art-history studies. Margot takes Amy inside to see a Manet painting, leaving Lance alone with Richard. Rich notices Lance's vodka, warns that Jansen's drinking could kill him, and throws the glass over the veranda railing. He asks about the screenplay with Brad Morton, then remarks that 'Jim' seems different, perhaps more grounded and at peace. Lance panics briefly at being noticed but manages a noncommittal response.

While Amy is away, Lance encounters party guests who appear to know Jansen, including an agent who praises a reported New York Times review of his off-off-Broadway appearance. Many ask about the screenplay with Morton, and Lance worries about meeting their expectations. He tries to avoid director Linwood Beame, who finds him in the house's atrium anyway. Beame proposes that Jansen take the lead in Next Door, a film about a Midwestern car salesman whose wife has an affair with their neighbor Michael. The character subsequently kills and buries Michael, and the rest of the story follows his guilt and his wife's growing suspicions. Beame mentions Guy Watson and Tyler Law as other actors seeking the role. Lance, hoping to end the conversation, agrees only to read with an actress Beame is considering; he does not commit to starring in the film.

At about 2:00 a.m., Rex drives Lance and Amy back toward Jansen's house. Amy notices Lance's withdrawn mood. He tells her that Beame wants him for a film and that people keep asking about the screenplay, but worries aloud about being unable to deliver what they expect. Amy, unaware of the imposture, reassures him that he is an Oscar-winning actor. Her praise increases his anger rather than relieving his fear. He realizes that gaining Jansen's fame has brought obligations he cannot simply imitate.

After Richard Haneline's party, Lance brings Amy to Jansen's bungalow and gives her a tour. She admires the home theater and the Oscar, which he lets her hold. Lance privately notices tiny traces of dried blood on the statuette and hopes she will not see them. On the patio, Amy says Margot asked about Jansen's problems with substance use. With no knowledge of the real actor's circumstances beyond what others have said, Lance improvises an assurance that he went through difficult times but is now healthy. They then retire to his bedroom.

As they pass the closed yoga-room door, the golden retrievers bare their teeth when Lance tries to pet them. Later, around three in the morning, Lance hears the door creak and sees what he describes as a hand, arm, and head dragging themselves out into the hall. He interrupts his intimacy with Amy, claiming that the dogs are misbehaving, and closes the bedroom door. He drives the dogs away, drags the moving figure back into the yoga room, and says that he makes it stop moving. The narrative does not explain how it was moving or specify precisely what he does. Lance cleans up, returns to Amy, and resumes the evening while concealing the disturbance.

The next morning, Amy rushes to prepare for an eleven o'clock teaching recitation. Lance offers her Jansen's manual-transmission Land Rover Defender, and she drives away. He then takes a shovel from a tool shed and digs a shallow hole on the hillside about a hundred feet below the patio. After considerable effort he drags the remains from the yoga room to the secluded spot and lowers them into the hole. The chapter ends before he describes filling it. Staring down, Lance imagines that the burial represents killing the unwanted parts of himself, comparing his act to Luke Skywalker confronting his own face beneath an enemy's mask. This metaphor reflects Lance's self-justification, not an objective moral transformation.

After dealing with the remains on the hillside, Lance calls James Jansen's screenwriting partner Brad Morton. Brad angrily says he has been trying to reach him all morning and warns him not to arrive intoxicated. He also says that someone named Tom expects to see their screenplay the following week. Lance has no idea who Tom is. He tells Brad he is coming over, partly because having someone expecting him could help speed a rescue. On his way out, he takes four large swallows of vodka from Jansen's bar.

Driving Jansen's Porsche down Laurel Canyon, Lance adopts the language of amnesia to account for gaps in his knowledge of the actor's life. He claims to remember growing up near Missoula, Montana, while having inexplicable memories of North Carolina, and worries aloud about being unable to perform the work expected of an Oscar-winning actor. These are the competing histories of Lance and the identity he has stolen, presented as if he were a disoriented Jansen. Rather than risk having his impersonation exposed by Brad Morton or Linwood Beame, Lance plans a car wreck that will make ignorance of Jansen's life seem medically plausible.

At the edge of a steep ravine, Lance stops in the road, takes a breath, and fastens his seat belt. Hearing another car approaching, he chooses that moment to drive over the edge in the hope that someone will find him quickly. He imagines surviving with only minor injuries and assumes doctors will find no physical explanation for the memory loss he intends others to believe. The crash is deliberate, but its actual outcome is not yet established in this chapter. Lance accelerates with his eyes closed, and the chapter ends with the Porsche tumbling into the ravine as a life he does not consider his own flashes before his eyes.

On April 15, 2003, four years after the ravine crash, the first-person narrator sits beside a half-frozen lake at a mountain cabin in Montana. He is paralyzed from the neck down and has third-degree burn scars covering forty percent of his body. Pam, his live-in nurse, helps him with an itch, puts on his sunglasses, and gives him tea through a straw. She says a man named Bo Dunkquist has called repeatedly and wants to visit. The narrator cannot remember whether he knows Bo and struggles to retain even Pam's name during their conversation.

He asks Pam to read the identity note kept in his pocket, then reads it himself when she unfolds it. The note says his name is James Jansen, that he is forty-three, and that he was a famous Oscar-winning actor before a car wreck four years earlier. It says he was in a coma at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles until the previous September, names Pam as his nurse, and says his sister Courtney lives near Missoula. It identifies his Oscar-winning film as Down from the Sleeping Trees and tells him that the golden statuette in his lap is the Academy Award he received. The note offers this as his history, but the chapter does not independently confirm the account's completeness or explain what he remembers of his former identity.

As wind blows the paper into the grass, the narrator considers asking Pam about his life before the crash. He stops, unsure whether he has already asked many times or has only imagined asking. He says that he is no longer in pain, does not feel sad, and finds it easier to remain attentive to the lake, mountains, trees, and Montana sky than to seek an inaccessible past. The ending leaves him momentarily content in the present, while his uncertain memory and the recurring calls from Bo preserve the unresolved separation between the man he was and the identity recorded on the note.