Night Film: A Novel

by Marisha Pessl

  “Two tickets?” I asked.

  He nodded, embarrassed.

  “You hoped to go with her.”

  He stared down at the ground. “Seems crazy now. But I’m romantic. I thought we’d go together. She kept smiling at me. But when I got back to my car with the tickets, she was gone. I saw a train had pulled in. I ran up to the platform, but the doors had already shut. I moved down it, searching for her in every car, feelin’ sick about it until I found her. She was sitting right by the window. I knocked. And slowly, she turned to me, stared at me. I’ll never forget the look she gave me, not for the rest of my life.”

  He said nothing for a moment, his shoulders hunched.

  “She didn’t know me.”

  He exhaled, his breathing unsteady.

  “You were fired shortly afterward?” I asked quietly.

  He nodded. “Soon as Ashley was found missing it was all traced back to me.”

  “When did you find out that she’d died?”

  He blinked. “Head of the hospital called me in.”

  “Allan Cunningham?”

  “Yeah. He said nothing would happen in terms of the law if I signed a confidentiality paper sayin’ I’d acted alone and never, ever talk about it—”

  “Morgan!”

  It was Stace again. Her voice startled all of us, not just by its shrillness but its close proximity. We couldn’t see her, but heavy footsteps were coming nearer, heading down the dark gravel drive.

  “Morgan! Are those people still here?”

  “You’d better go,” Morgan hissed at us.

  Before I could stop him, he’d snatched the paper from me, racing back up the driveway.

  I took off after him.

  “That paper—we’d like to keep it—” I shouted.

  But he was sprinting with remarkable speed. I could barely keep up.

  Stace abruptly appeared at the top of the hill. I froze. She wasn’t brandishing a shotgun, but even more terrifyingly, she was brandishing children. The half-naked baby was still in her arms, and the girl wearing the nightgown was holding her mother’s hand, sucking her thumb.

  “They’re going right now,” Morgan said. “They needed directions to the highway.” He put his arm around her, saying something inaudible as he moved them back toward the house, shoving the paper into his back pocket.

  Damn. I’d wanted to keep it, compare the handwriting with that on the envelope mailed to Hopper.

  They moved out of sight, though I could hear them walking through the leaves, Stace angrily saying something, the baby whimpering.

  I turned, making my way back down the drive, Hopper and Nora in the beam of the headlights, waiting for me. I hadn’t taken ten steps when a rock scuttled behind me.

  I turned around, startled, and saw I wasn’t alone.

  That little girl in the nightgown was following me.

  Her face in the darkness looked hard, her eyes hollowed black.

  She was barefoot. The white of her nightgown glowed purple; the cherries looked like chain links and barbed wire. She was also, I realized, holding that rotten doll Morgan had exhumed from the swimming pool—Baby—clutching it in the crook of her arm.

  My first reaction was revulsion, followed by the urge to run like hell.

  She suddenly extended her arm. A chill shot down my spine.

  Her hand was in a tight fist, her stare pointed. She was holding something black and shiny in her fingers. I couldn’t see exactly what it was, but it looked like a tiny doll.

  Before I could react, she spun around and scampered back up the drive, vanishing over the top in a streak of white.

  I stood there, staring at the empty space on the hill, sensing, for some reason, she’d reappear.

  She didn’t. And yet it was oddly silent.

  There was no trace of Stace’s harsh voice—no baby whimper, no footsteps, no screen door swinging open followed by a slam, nothing but the wind shoving through the shrubs.

  Even that lonely hound in the distance had gone quiet.

  I turned, jogging the rest of the way to the car.

  “What was that?” asked Hopper.

  “His little girl followed me.”

  I unlocked the car, climbed in, and within minutes we were speeding back down Benton Hollow Road. They didn’t say so, but I suspected all three of us were relieved to be rapidly putting some serious distance between ourselves and the Devolds.

  22

  “That’s what happens when you marry the wrong woman,” I said. “A wife sets the ambience of a man’s life. He can very easily get stuck listening to Michael Bolton Muzak droning in a loop from tin-sounding speakers for the rest of his life, if he doesn’t keep his wits about him. You can’t blame the guy for wanting to run.”

  “He was a total loser,” said Hopper from the backseat.

  “That’s another way to put it.” We were hashing over Morgan Devold and all we’d learned about Ashley at Briarwood, now driving down the New Jersey Turnpike, minutes from the city.

  That was the wonderful thing about New York: You might spend a few nervous hours in rural landscapes with nurses who threw themselves in front of your car and strange families, but the closer you came to Manhattan and took one look at that bristling skyline—then took a look at the guy who just cut you off in a pimped-out Nissan blasting Tejano-polka—you realized that all was right with the world.

  “Ash played him,” Hopper went on, without looking up from his phone, buzzing with texts. “She knew someone was watching her on the camera. So, she decided, whoever he was, he was her best bet for breaking out of there.”

  “What about this fear of the dark?” I asked, glancing at Nora. “Which reminds me. How did you know that term, nyctophobia?”

  She’d dismantled her hair from those long braids and was absentmindedly staring out the window, untangling the ends. “Terra Hermosa,” she said. “A gentleman on the second floor named Ed. He used to go down this phobia list and boast about all the ones he’d had. He’d never had nyctophobia. But he had automatonophobia.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Fear of ventriloquist dummies. Anything with a waxy face. He went to see Avatar and had to be hospitalized.”

  “He should definitely stay away from the Upper East Side.”

  “It’s bullshit,” said Hopper, shoving his hair out of his eyes. “Ash wasn’t scared of the dark. She probably just put that act on for the doctors, so they’d leave her alone.”

  “What about the way she looked at Morgan from the train?” asked Nora. “Maybe she didn’t know him. Maybe she had amnesia or short-term memory loss.”

  “No,” Hopper said. “He’d served his purpose and she was done with him. That was it.”

  “One other thing kind of worried me,” Nora added.

  “Only one other thing?” I asked.

  “Morgan said Ashley read his daughter a bedtime story.”

  “So?”

  “You don’t let a stranger you just broke out of a mental hospital spend time with your child. Do you?”

  “He’s not winning any awards for Father of the Year. What about that Bride of Chucky he fished out of the kiddie pool? Baby. Not to mention that little tyke that tailed me down the drive. When she grows up she’s going to need a long sojourn at Briarwood.”

  Nora tilted her head. “You don’t think Morgan hurt Ashley, do you? When he took her to his house to change clothes—there was something about the way he described it, it gave me the creeps.”

  “He didn’t lay a hand on her,” interjected Hopper.

  “How do you know?” asked Nora, turning around to him.

  “Because if he had, he’d be severely maimed right now.”

  I glanced at him in the rearview mirror, startled by his tone of voice. He was staring out the window, his face gilded by lights of the passing cars. One thing I’d gathered in the past few hours was that his knowledge of Ashley—Ash, he’d called her—was significantly more intense than the casual acquaintanc
e of years ago he’d claimed. He knew her better than he let on, or else he’d once observed her carefully, maybe even from a distance like Devold. I was tempted to press him on it, try and get him to admit he hadn’t been forthcoming, but decided against it—for the time being. He’d probably only glower and become defensive, and that wouldn’t get me anywhere.

  I checked the clock on the dashboard: 9:42 P.M.

  “So, where am I dropping you two off?” I asked.

  Nora turned to me. “We’re not done yet. We still have to go to that hotel, the Waldorf, see if somebody noticed Ashley. He said she was going there. So we should go.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” muttered Hopper, meeting my eyes in the rearview mirror.

  “It’s a long shot,” I said. “But sure. Let’s check it out.”

  23

  Like most New Yorkers, I went out of my way to avoid the Waldorf Astoria. It was like a very rich, very large, and mercifully very distant great-aunt who had three rolls of fat under her chin, wore taffeta, and had a personality so bossy you only needed to not see her but hear about her once to have your fill of her for the next fifteen years.

  If you decided to venture inside, however, through the Art Deco revolving doors past the businessmen from Milwaukee and the Unitarian Church group, then took a breather before beating your way through the crowd up the carpeted stairs past the line into Starbucks and the woman rolling her carry-on suitcase over your shoes, instantly you were assaulted by the bloated luxury of the place. There were vaulted ceilings. There were palm trees. There were gilt clocks. There was marble. If there was a wedding reception—and there usually was, the bride and groom, Bobby and Marci of Massapequa, Lawn Guyland—the lobby throbbed like a gymnasium on prom night.

  Hopper and Nora followed me through the lobby, ducking around an extended family wearing matching Red Sox sweatshirts toward a discreet wooden doorway. It was labeled with a tiny gold plaque, THE WALDORF TOWERS—so tactful its obvious aim was to go unseen.

  I strode down the corridor to the elevator banks, stepping inside, Nora and Hopper right behind me.

  “You really know your way around here,” said Nora, as I pressed G.

  I did, unfortunately.

  The Waldorf Astoria was only a distraction from the section of the hotel where the important people stayed, the more exclusive Waldorf Towers, hotel of choice to presidents, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Saudi princes, and various high-rolling Wall Street businessmen when they rendezvoused with their mistresses, which, sadly, was something along the lines of how I knew the place.

  I wasn’t proud of it—and I sure as hell didn’t recommend it—but there was a six-month hellish stretch when, shortly after my divorce, I saddled myself with an affair with a married woman. And I met her here, at the Waldorf Towers, a total of sixteen times, though this was only after she’d sent me feedback emails in the bitter tone of an unsatisfied boss informing me the first hotel I’d chosen for our trysts, one I could actually afford, the generic Fitzpatrick Manhattan on Lex—known by its devoted clientele as The Fitz—was too close to her office, the rooms didn’t get enough light, the sheets stank, and the man at reception gave her a funny look after he asked if she needed help with luggage and she announced she didn’t have any, she’d be there for only forty-five minutes.

  The elevator doors opened, spilling us into the Waldorf Towers lobby, small, elegant, and totally empty.

  The three of us walked around the corner to the reception area, where a young man of Middle Eastern descent stood alone behind the front desk. He was tall, with a narrow build, dark eyes. His nametag read HASHIM.

  I briefly introduced myself. “And we were hoping you might help,” I went on. “We’re searching for information on a missing woman. We think she came here sometime in the last month.”

  He looked intrigued. He also, thankfully, made no sign of needing to go fetch his manager.

  “Mind taking a look at her picture?” I asked.

  “Certainly not.” It was a bright, genial voice, gilded with a British accent.

  I removed Ashley’s missing-person’s report from my inside coat pocket, folded so only her picture was visible, and handed it to him.

  “When was she here?” he asked.

  “A few weeks ago.”

  He handed it back. “I’m sorry. I’ve never seen her before. Of course, it’s hard to tell from the picture. If you like I can make a photocopy and post it in the back, in case any other staff met her or remember her.”

  “Nothing was reported out of the ordinary?”

  “No.”

  “Do you videotape the lobby?”

  “We do. But that would require a warrant. I assume you’ve contacted police?”

  I nodded, and Hashim smiled with flawless five-star sorrow at being unable to help me further—and it was time for us to be on our way.

  “She would have been wearing this,” said Nora, pulling Ashley’s coat out of the Whole Foods bag and setting it, folded, on the leather desk pad.

  He looked down at it and was about to shake his head when something about the coat visibly stopped him.

  “You recognize it,” I said.

  He looked puzzled. “No. It’s just, a member of housekeeping reported an incident. It was a while back. But I think it did have something to do with a person in a red coat. The reason I remember is the matter came up again this morning, when the same housekeeper refused to clean one of the floors. It caused a disruption because we’re at capacity.”

  Hashim, looking up, noticed all three of us were leaning with great intensity over the desk.

  He took a step back, alarmed.

  “Why don’t you leave a number and my supervisor can speak with you?”

  “We don’t have time for a supervisor,” said Hopper, jostling Nora as he moved closer to Hashim. “With a missing person, every minute counts. We need to talk to the housekeeper. I know it’d mean you bending a few rules, but …” He smiled. “We’d appreciate it.”

  It’d been my suggestion back in the car to allege that Ashley was missing, not dead; the missing, I’d found, prompted a greater sense of haste and willingness to help. This strategy seemed to work. Or perhaps it was just Hopper’s looks cranked up and turned blazingly onto the man, because Hashim stared at Hopper, a few seconds too long. And I saw the brief yet brazen look of male desire flash on his face, unmistakable as an oil tanker blinking a light at another ship. The man picked up the phone and, tucking the receiver under his chin, swiftly dialed a number.

  “Sarah. Hashim at the front desk. Guadalupe Sanchez. That episode she reported a few weeks back. Wasn’t there something about a red coat? Isn’t that what—oh.” He fell silent, listening. “Is she still on duty tonight?” He listened. “Twenty-nine. All right, thank you.”

  He hung up.

  “Come with me,” he said with a curt smile at Hopper.

  24

  We followed Hashim into an elevator, where he inserted a white keycard into the slot and pressed 29.

  We rose in silence, though quite a few times Hashim glanced swiftly at Hopper, who was staring down at his Converse sneakers. I wasn’t sure what was going on in this silent communication, but it was working; the doors opened, and Hashim exited briskly, making his way down the cream-colored hallway.

  A housekeeping cart was parked at the end. We made our way toward it, Nora hanging back to inspect the few black-and-white photographs hanging on the wall, pictures of Frank Sinatra and Queen Elizabeth.

  Reaching the cart, Hashim knocked sharply on the door marked 29T, slightly ajar.

  “Miss Sanchez?”

  He pushed it open. We filed after him into a suite’s empty sitting room: blue couches, blue carpet, an extravagant mural painted on the walls, featuring Greek columns and a blue-skinned goddess.

  Hashim stepped through a kitchen alcove, the three of us following.

  It led into a bedroom where a petite silver-haired woman was in the process of making up the bed. She was His
panic, wearing a sea-gray housekeeping dress. She didn’t react because she was listening to music—a mint-green iPod strapped to her arm.

  She moved around the bed, tucking the sheet, and spotted us.

  She cried out shrilly, clamping a hand over her mouth, eyes bulging.

  You’d have thought we just filed in wearing hooded robes and wielding scythes.

  Hashim spoke in Spanish, an apology for scaring her, and the woman—Guadalupe Sanchez, I gathered—removed the earbuds from her ears, and in a raspy voice muttered something back.

  “How’s your Guatemalan Spanish?” Hashim asked brightly.

  “Spotty,” I said.

  Nora and Hopper both shook their heads.

  “I’ll do my best to translate, then.” He turned officially back to her and fired off some immaculate Spanish.

  She listened with keen interest. Occasionally her gaze left Hashim to study us. At one point—it must have been when he explained why we were there—she nodded almost reverentially and whispered, Sí, sí, sí. She then stepped around the bed toward us slowly, nervously, as if we were three bulls that might charge her.

  Seeing the woman only a few feet away now, her face was round and girlish with the fat cheeks of a toddler, yet her caramel skin was so finely wrinkled, it looked like a brown paper bag once tightly wadded in a hand.

  “Show her the picture,” Hashim said.

  I removed it from my coat pocket.

  She took a moment to carefully unfold her glasses, setting them on the end of her nose, before taking it. She said something in Spanish.

  “She recognizes her,” Hashim said.

  Nora, who’d been fumbling with Ashley’s coat in the Whole Foods bag, finally shook it loose, holding it up by the shoulders.

  The woman took one look at it and froze, whispering.

  “She thinks she’s seen it before,” Hashim said.

  “She thinks?” I said. “She looks pretty convinced.”

  He smiled uncomfortably, turning back to the woman and asking her a question. She responded, her voice serious and low, eyeing Ashley’s coat as if worried it might come alive. Hashim interrupted to ask a question, and she heatedly responded, taking a few steps away from the coat. She talked for several minutes, so dramatically at times I wondered if she were a popular telenovela actress on Venevisión. I tried to dig through the stream of Spanish to find a word I might recognize, and, abruptly, I did.