Night Film by Marisha Pessl
But the sidewalk had no red tear. The street, the night, remained flawless and still.
I’d actually started to forget the entire episode—until now.
It had been Ashley Cordova.
The realization was startling, and it was quickly followed by the paranoid feeling something was wrong, including this awkward coat-check girl. She had to be involved in some kind of setup. But the girl only smiled innocently back at me. Hopper, on the other hand, must have seen something on my face—complete shock—because he was squinting at me suspiciously.
“What is it?” he asked, nodding at the coat.
“Ashley’s coat,” she said. “She was wearing it when she came into the restaurant.” She picked up her knife and fork and cut into her French toast. “She left it with me. When the police came later, asking about her, I gave them a black coat from the lost and found and said that one was Ashley’s. If they found out I was lying, I was going to say I’d mixed up the tickets. But they never came back.”
Hopper slid the coat toward him, unfolded it, holding it up by the shoulders. For all its elaborate stitching, the coat looked worn, even seemed to smell of the city, the dirty wind, the sweat. The inside was lined with black silk, and I noticed, sewn into the back collar, a purple label. LARKIN, it read in black letters. Rita Larkin was Cordova’s longtime costume designer. I was about to mention this detail when I noticed there was actually a long dark hair stuck to the sleeve in an elongated S.
“Why’d you lie to the cops?” Hopper asked Nora.
“I’ll tell you guys. On one condition. I want to be part of the investigation.” She looked at me. “You said last night you were investigating Ashley.”
“It’s nothing that formal,” I said, clearing my throat, managing to look away from the coat and at Nora. “I’m really investigating her father. And Hopper’s just here today. We’re not partners.”
“Yeah, we are,” he countered, shooting me a look. “Absolutely. Welcome to the team. Be our friggin’ mascot. Why’d you lie to the police?”
Nora stared at him, taken aback by his intensity. Then she looked at me, awaiting my response.
I said nothing, because I was adjusting to what it meant, this encounter with Ashley. I took a deep breath, trying to at least pretend I was considering her request. For the record, it’d be over my dead body that I’d ever employ a sidekick—particularly one who’d just crawled out of the Florida boonies.
“This is not the adventure of a lifetime,” I said. “I’m not Starsky. He’s not Hutch.”
“If I’m not involved from beginning to end when we find out who or what made Ashley die before her time”—she articulated all of this decisively, as if she’d rehearsed it sixty times in front of the bathroom mirror—“then I’m not telling you what she was like or what she did, and you can both get lost.” She slid the coat back and began to mash it inside the bag.
Hopper looked at me expectantly.
“There’s no need to be so black-and-white about it,” I said.
She ignored me.
“Okay. You can work with us,” I said.
“You swear?” she asked, smiling.
“I swear.”
She extended her hand, and I shook it—mentally crossing my fingers.
“It was a quiet night,” she went on eagerly. “After ten. There wasn’t anyone in the lobby. She walked right in wearing that, so of course I noticed her. She was beautiful. But really thin, with eyes almost clear. She looked right at me and my first thought was, Oh wow, she’s pretty. Her face was more in focus than everything else in the room. But as she turned and started walking toward me, I felt scared.”
“Why?” I asked.
She bit her lip. “It was like, when you looked into her eyes the human part was detached and there was something else looking out.”
“Like what,” Hopper prompted.
“Don’t know,” she said, gazing down at her plate. “She didn’t seem to blink. Or breathe, even. Not when she pulled off that red coat, not when she handed it to me, not when I gave her the ticket. As I hung it up on the coat rack, I could feel her eyes on me. When I turned back, I thought she’d still be standing there, but she was already disappearing up the stairs.”
I’d witnessed the same startling movement when she’d suddenly appeared in the subway.
“At that point, other people came in. As I was checking their coats I noticed she was coming back down the stairs. Without looking at me she headed outside. I figured she’d gone out to smoke. I didn’t see her come back, so I figured I’d been so busy I missed her, but at the end of the night her red coat was still hanging there. The only one left.”
She took a quick gulp of water.
“Three days went by,” she went on. “Every night when I closed the coat-check booth I put her coat in the lost and found. When I returned the next day, I’d take it out and hang it up. I was sure she’d come back for it. But I dreaded it, too.” She paused, tucking her hair behind her ears. “At the end of my shift on the fourth night it was cold out and I only had this navy windbreaker. So after I closed up, instead of returning her coat to the lost and found, I put it on and I walked out wearing it. I could have taken any of the coats from the lost and found. But I took hers.”
Nora stared down at her hands, her face flushed. “The next day when I arrived at the restaurant, the police were there. They saw me walk in wearing her coat. When they told me what happened, I was so upset, what I’d done. I was afraid they’d think I had something to do with it. So, I took the Yves Saint Laurent coat out of the lost and found and said that one was hers.” She took an agitated breath. “I thought for sure they’d find out I lied, that they’d show it to her family. But …” She shook her head. “No one came back to ask me anything. Not yet, anyway.” She looked at me. “Only you.”
“What else did she have on?” I asked.
“Jeans, black boots, a black T-shirt with an angel on the front.”
The same clothing Ashley was wearing when she died.
“Did she speak to you? Mention if she was meeting someone?”
Nora shook her head. “I said my usual ‘Good evening’ and ‘Will you be joining us for dinner?’ There’s a little script they like you to memorize to be welcoming. But she didn’t answer. Every night since I met her—before I knew she’d passed away—I’ve had nightmares. You know the kind where you wake up fast and sounds are echoing through the room but you have no idea what it was you’d just screamed out loud?”
She was actually awaiting an answer, so I nodded.
“That’s what I’ve had. And my grandmother Eli on my mom’s side of the family said the Edges are in tune with stuff from fourth and fifth dimensions.”
I sensed it was compulsory to intervene now before we were treated to more wisdom from Grandma Eli.
I smiled. “Well, I’ll look everything over and be in touch.”
“First we need to exchange numbers,” Nora said.
She and Hopper gave each other their info. I was just starting to wonder how I was going to auto-eject myself out of here, when Nora glanced at her watch and let out a squeak, scrambling out of the booth.
“Shoot. I’m late for work.” She grabbed the check, digging through her purse. “Oh, no.” She looked at me, nibbling a fingernail. “I left my wallet at home.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it.”
“Really? Thanks. I’ll definitely pay you back.”
If that was indicative of her acting talent, not even a daytime soap would hire her. She zipped up her purse, heaved it onto her shoulder, and grabbed the Whole Foods bag.
“I can take the coat. So you don’t have so much to carry.”
She glanced at me with a flash of mistrust, but then reconsidered, handing me the bag.
“See ya later,” she called out cheerfully as she jostled away, bags banging her shins. “And thanks for breakfast.”
I climbed out of the booth and, reading the check, saw that the gi
“What’d you think?” asked Hopper, sliding out behind me.
I shrugged. “Young and impressionable. Probably made most of it up.”
“Right. That’s why you looked so bored and nearly tripped over yourself to get your hands on that coat.”
I said nothing, only pulled two twenties from my wallet.
“For one thing,” he said, “she’s got no place to live.” He was staring out the window where Nora Halliday and her many bags were still visible, far across the four-lane street. She was using a building’s mirrored reflection to fix her hair into a ponytail. She then picked up the bags and vanished behind a delivery truck.
With a last hard look at me—clearly indicating he didn’t trust me or particularly like me—Hopper put his phone to his ear.
“Keep those eyes open, Starsky,” he said, heading out.
I held back, waiting for him to duck past the window. I doubted I’d see him again—or Hannah Montana, for that matter. When New York took over, both of them would fall by the wayside.
That was the magnificent thing about the city: It was inherently Machiavellian. One rarely had to worry about follow-throughs, follow-ups, follow the leaders, or any kind of consistency in people due to no machinations of one’s own but the sheer force of living here. New York hit its residents daily like a great debilitating deluge and only the strongest—the ones with Spartacus-styled will—had the strength to stay not just afloat but on course. This pertained to work as much as it did to personal lives. Most people ended up, after only a couple of months, far, far away from where they’d intended to go, stuck in some barbed underbrush of a quagmire when they’d meant to head straight to the ocean. Others outright drowned (became drug addicts) or climbed ashore (moved to Connecticut).
Yet the two of them had been helpful.
All those nights ago, it had been Ashley Cordova. I thought I’d decided on my own to look into her death, and yet incredibly she’d come to me first, wedged herself like a splinter into my subconscious. I’d have to review the timing, but I remembered the Reservoir encounter was a little more than a week before her death. When I saw her it must have been just a few days after she’d escaped from the mental-health clinic, Briarwood Hall.
How had she known I’d be there? No one knew I went to the park to jog in the dead of night except Sam. One evening months ago, while tucking her into bed, she’d announced that I was “far away” and I’d answered I wasn’t, because I went up to her neighborhood to run. With every lap, I could look up to her window and see she was snug in her bed, safe and sound. This was a stretch, of course; I could no more see Cynthia and Bruce’s ritzy apartment on Fifth Avenue than the Eiffel Tower, but the thought had pleased her. She’d closed her eyes, smiling, and fell right to sleep.
The only possible explanation, then, was that Ashley had been following me. She would have known about me after her father’s lawsuit. It was conceivable she’d tracked me down in order to tell me something, something about her father—John’s ominous words immediately came to mind, There’s something he does to the children—but had lost her nerve.
But after what Hopper had told me, shyness didn’t seem an underlying part of Ashley’s personality. Quite the opposite.
I had to get back to Perry Street: first, to make arrangements to drive upstate to Briarwood so I could learn about Ashley’s stay there. I also wanted to check out the URL of the Blackboards I’d swiped off of Beckman’s computer.
I grabbed the Whole Foods bag, exiting the diner. The sun was out, splattering brash light over the cars speeding down Eleventh Avenue. It did nothing to lighten the unease I felt over the simple, startling fact that the red coat, that blood red stitch in the night from the Reservoir, had appeared one last time in front of me.
It was in my own hands.
From: Elizabeth J. Poole
Subject: Re: Tour
Date: Oct 25 2011 06:24:44 PM EDT
To: Dr. Leon Dean
Dear Dr. Dean:
Thank you for your inquiry.
I would be delighted to give you a guided tour of our state-of-the-art health facility and also to answer any questions you may have. I’ve penciled you in for tomorrow at 11:30 AM.
In the meantime, please browse our website and the attached literature about Briarwood and its esteemed history.
Please call me at your earliest convenience.
Very truly yours,
Elizabeth J. Poole
Director of Admissions
Briarwood Hall Hospital
Restoring Mental Health since 1934
14
The following morning, an hour before I was set to leave for the three-hour drive upstate to Briarwood, I was in my kitchen making a fresh pot of coffee when there was a knock on my front door.
I walked into the foyer and checked the peephole.
Nora Halliday was at my door.
I didn’t know how in the hell she’d found out where I lived, but then I remembered: It was on that damn business card I’d given her back at the Four Seasons. Someone must have buzzed her in. I considered pretending I wasn’t at home, but she knocked again and I knew the old wood floors of my apartment squeaked with every step, so she could hear me standing there.
I unlocked the door. She was wearing a tight black wool jacket with a collar of ostrich feathers, black tights, boots, and a zebra-print nylon miniskirt, which looked like a figure-skating costume from the Lillehammer Olympics. She had no shopping bags with her, only that gray leather purse, her long blond hair braided into two cords wrapped around her head.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I’m ready to work.”
“It’s eight o’clock in the morning.”
She picked at something crusty on the hem of her jacket. “Yeah, well, I thought maybe you could use someone to bounce ideas off of.”
I was about to tell her to come back tomorrow—then obviously I’d have to move or join a Witness Protection Program—but I remembered that observation Hopper had made, that the girl didn’t have a place to live. She did look pale and faintly exhausted.
“You want to come in for a cup of coffee?”
She beamed. “Sure.”
“I’m about to leave for an appointment, so it won’t be long.”
“No problem.”
“What exactly are you wearing?” I asked, leading her through the foyer into the living room. “Your mother doesn’t let you walk around like that, does she?”
“Oh, sure. She lets me do whatever. She’s dead.” She slung her purse beside the couch—it had to contain at least one bowling ball.
“Then that grandmother you mentioned, she doesn’t let you walk around like that.”
“Eli?” She really pronounced the hell out of the name: EEL EYE. “She’s dead, too.”
Something told me I should stop while I wasn’t ahead.
“What about your father?”
She leaned forward to study the painting above the fireplace.
“He’s at Starke.”
“Starke?”
“Florida State Prison. They have an Old Sparky there.”
Old Sparky—it was the nickname of the electric chair. I waited for her to clarify that her dad wasn’t destined to meet Old Sparky, but she moved to the bookcase, inspecting the books, leaving that strand of the conversation dangling like the end of a party streamer she didn’t bother to tape up.
“How do you like your coffee?” I asked, retreating into the kitchen.
“Cream, two sugars. But only if it’s not too much trouble.”
“It’s no trouble at all.”
I set the girl up in my living room with coffee, two toasted English muffins piled with butter and marmalade, and a copy of my book Cocaine Carnivals. After making sure there was no cash lying around or any other valuables she could feed to her carnivorous purse, I went back into my office to print out directions to Briarwood Hall.
I also tried logging on to the Blackboards website again, but I was tossed back to the exit page, as I’d been before.
My IP address appeared to have been blocked.
When I returned to the living room, Nora had settled in. She’d taken off her boots, pulled a wool blanket over her legs, and drained some of the contents of that purse onto my coffee table: two stage plays, a tube of lipstick, that beat-up Discman.
“Who’s C.L.M.?” she asked, turning back a few pages to stare at the dedication page.
“My ex-wife.”
She was astonished. “You have an ex-wife?”
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“Where’s she?”
“Probably working out with her trainer.”
“Got any kids?”
“A daughter.”
She thoughtfully considered this. I figured it was as good a time as any to bring up the mystery of her living arrangements.
“So where exactly do you live?” I asked.
“Hell’s Kitchen.”
“Where in Hell’s Kitchen?”
“Ninth and, like, Fifty-second.”
“Like Fifty-second?”
“I just moved in, so I forget the cross-street. Before I was on a friend’s pullout.” She resumed reading.
“Any roommates?”
She didn’t look up. “Two.”
“And what do they do?”
“What d’you mean?”
“Are they pimps, drug addicts, or working in the porn industry?”