Arlene Machiavelli is the false name Beatrix Kiddo uses during her attempt to start another life in El Paso. During that period, she works in a used record store and prepares to marry Tommy Plympton, the business owner. The name belongs to an ordinary project very different from the work she did for Bill.
The identity has a precise function within Kill Bill. It allows Beatrix to relate to people who do not know her past and keep the group of assassins she comes from at a distance. The film links that decision to her pregnancy and the future she wants for her daughter, without explaining a detailed process of document falsification.
The two volumes provide different information about Arlene. The investigation into the attack identifies the name as false; the earlier conversation between Beatrix and Bill shows the life behind it. Between those two moments appears a woman who wants to change jobs and surroundings, even if she has not managed to stop being recognizable to whoever is looking for her.
Arlene Machiavelli and Beatrix Kiddo are the same person. The alias corresponds to the El Paso period, before the chapel attack. It should be distinguished from Black Mamba, her name within the squad, and from The Bride, the name the film associates with the circumstances in which she was found.
A false name uncovered by the investigation
The transcript of the first volume preserved by Springfield captures the police dialogue with precision: Arlene Machiavelli appears in the marriage document, and the investigators know that name is false. The observation explains why they do not have a reliable identification. The dress, by contrast, offers an immediate description to refer to the survivor.
That detail limits what can be said about the falsification. The story presents the result of a hidden identity, but it does not develop who prepared the documents or what steps made them available. The focus is on the gap between the information available to the investigators and the story of the woman they are trying to identify.
For Beatrix Kiddo, changing her name makes it easier to form relationships that do not begin with recognition of her work as an assassin. Each new person can know her through what she does at that moment. The possibility is fragile because the alias also depends on her past staying outside those relationships.
The work with Tommy and the life Beatrix wants to keep
In the second volume, Bill asks about Tommy's job and Beatrix's. She explains that he owns a used record store in El Paso and that she works there. Her answer includes her enjoyment of listening to music during the day. The information introduces a concrete satisfaction and a job that does not require carrying out violent orders.
The store gives substance to an aspiration that might otherwise remain an abstract statement about starting over. There is a workplace shared with her fiancé and an activity to devote time to. The security she seeks is not expressed through wealth or prestige, but through the continuity of an ordinary occupation.
Tommy knows the woman he is going to marry as Arlene. The relationship forces Beatrix to sustain a version of herself in which decisive aspects remain hidden. That imbalance of information creates its own problem: the new life can be a sincere desire of hers and, at the same time, rest on secrets that affect the person with whom she plans to share it.
Bill's arrival tests that balance before the chapel massacre. He knows what the name is meant to keep offstage. Beatrix has to speak with a man from her past in the very space where she is preparing her future. The tension comes from that coincidence, without the alias being able to prevent it.
The meeting with Tommy adds a small performance within the scene. Beatrix asks Bill to call her Arlene and introduces him as her father. Bill momentarily accepts that role, so the two of them cooperate in maintaining a false explanation in front of the fiancé. The politeness of the exchange depends on information Tommy does not have.
The situation makes it possible to see how an identity is maintained in conversation. The name has to match the family relationship that is being claimed and what the other person already believes he knows. An ordinary question can force an improvised answer. Beatrix is not simply using another word to name herself: she is trying to make several people understand in the same way who she is and where she comes from.
Bill has an advantage in that game. He can continue the performance or break it, while Tommy receives his presence as an unexpected family visit. The alias keeps being spoken normally just when Beatrix's ability to control the situation begins to shrink.