Night Film: A Novel

by Marisha Pessl

  “It’s dark inside,” said Nora, still peering in the window.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  Hopper checked his phone. “Ten after four.”

  “Let’s give it fifteen minutes.”

  We left, heading west down the block to Lexington Avenue and into the East Harlem Café. I bought Sam a granola bar, again explaining that we were on a field trip and afterward we’d go to Serendipity 3 for hot-fudge sundaes. She barely paid attention and only pretended to nibble the granola bar, transfixed, instead, by Hopper. I didn’t know what this intense fascination meant until he was standing in line to order another coffee.

  “Do you want to watch me jump from there to right there?” Sam asked him, pointing at the floor.

  Hopper glanced at me, uncertain. “Uh, sure.”

  Sam readied herself, feet together at the edge of one of the orange floor tiles, and then, making sure Hopper was watching attentively, she jumped the length of the café, stopping at the display of coffee mugs.

  “That was awesome,” Hopper said.

  “Do you want to watch me jump there to there and through there?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She took a deep breath, holding it—as if she were about to plunge underwater—and then she toad-hopped, square to square, in the other direction. She stopped and looked back at him.

  “Amazing,” Hopper said.

  Sam swiped her curls from her eyes and took off hopping again.

  If worse came to worst, I could wait with her outside. It was a bustling street with trees and sun, a constant stream of cars. Even if the Spider was a maniacal presence, there was nothing he could do now—not in the light of day.

  Ten minutes later, we headed back to The Broken Door. Nothing appeared to have changed. The garage door was still closed, the windows dark.

  Hopper tried the narrow wooden door, turning the handle—and this time, it opened. I stepped behind him.

  It was a dim warehouse filled with antiques so densely heaped, chairs on top of tables on top of wagon wheels, that the way into the store wasn’t obvious. The door didn’t even open all the way, and the entrance was crowded with a birdbath encrusted with birdshit, a rusty sundial, banged-up steamer trunks, and piled on top of those, an Eisenhower-era radio, faded brass lamps with yellowed shades, stacks of old newspapers.

  Hopper and Nora crept through the narrow opening, disappearing inside. I bent down, scooping up Sam in my arms.

  “No,” Sam protested. “I’m too big.”

  “It’s just for a minute, sweetheart.” I put my finger to my lips and widened my eyes—going for the hard sell that this was an incredible game—and we stepped inside.

  Overhead, fluorescent lights sizzled with blued, greasy light. Hopper and Nora were far ahead, quickly making their way single-file down what looked to be the only discernible pathway in—a constricted gorge through piles of junk. The place was cavernous, an entire block deep, though the light gave up on reaching the outer reaches of the store, letting it wallow in dirty shadow. There were tables and wardrobes, a cracked suitcase labeled ASBESTOS FIRE SUIT, Sherlock Holmes pipes, a carafe with a coiled preserved cobra inside it, a red bottle reading CHAMPION EMBALMING FLUID. Comic books rose in piles all around us like red rock formations in Arizona. I held my breath due to the overwhelming stench—something between mothballs and an old man’s halitosis.

  I had to proceed carefully because the store looked rigged, as if it was hoping you accidentally elbowed something so the whole place came crashing down and you were charged a couple hundred thousand bucks for the damage.

  As Sam and I went deeper inside, squeezing past a sewing machine, an antique train set, a wooden Quaker chair with what looked to be a mummified dog resting stiffly against the seat, we reached a section packed with barbaric-looking old medical equipment.

  I moved Sam to my other side so she wouldn’t see it: toddler-sized hospital cots with grayed mattresses, blemished basins that had probably held leeches, rubber tourniquets and crusty yellow vials, pumps and syringes, a wooden case featuring silver tongs, large and small. Dented tin lockers stood stiffly along the back wall. Hundreds of brown medicine bottles—every one with a white label, too far away to read—were clustered on a stainless-steel table, which had worn-out leather restraints dangling off the sides. To restrain someone during their lobotomy. I glanced apprehensively at Sam. Thankfully, she was staring clear in the opposite direction, at Hopper.

  He was wandering toward the back, where there appeared to be a long wooden table piled with papers and an antique cash register.

  “Hello?” he called out loudly. “Anybody here?”

  Nora, wading through the store far on the other side, looked captivated. I wasn’t surprised. The place was right up her alley—especially the vintage clothing hanging along the walls like scarecrows: old ’40s dirt-brown dresses, fluffy pink strapless gowns worn to some 1950s prom. She stopped beside a hat tree, carefully plucked a purple felt hat off—a crispy black feather glued to the side—lifted her chin, and put it on, then set about climbing through the junk to get to the speckled mirror propped against a black wagon wheel.

  “Hello?” Hopper shouted.

  Frowning, he picked up what looked to be a real bayonet, the end rusty and pointed.

  “I don’t want to be carried anymore.” Sam was kicking like a colt.

  “You have to. This place is enchanted.”

  She stared. “What’s enchanted?”

  “This place.” I stepped around an African drum—it looked to be made out of human skin, cured and dried—heading after Hopper.

  Suddenly, I accidentally kicked the leg of a wooden table and it collapsed at the center. It was piled with tarnished skeleton keys, chrome car-hood ornaments, a dirty crystal chandelier, and it all started to spill off, a loud cascade of crystal drops, chains, hundreds of metal keys clattering stridently onto the floor. Clutching Sam—who mashed her face against my shoulder—I managed to catch the chandelier with one hand and right the table legs with my knee.

  Hopper snapped his fingers.

  He pointed at the back wall, where there was a cruddy skylight and a narrow door with frosted glass.

  A human shadow had just moved directly behind it, though, as if sensing we’d spotted it, it froze.

  It looked like a man, elongated head, broad shoulders.

  “Anybody there?” Hopper called out again.

  After a slight hesitation, the door opened and a man poked his head out. It was too dark to see his face, but he had a full head of orange-blond hair.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear anyone come in.”

  The voice was husky yet delicate—oddly so. With a sharp intake of breath, the man stepped inside, closing the door behind him. And yet, facing us, he remained exactly where he was, his arm tucked behind him, his hand probably on the doorknob, as if considering escaping back through there in a matter of seconds.

  It had to be him. The Spider.

  He was a massive presence—at least 66″—with a hulking, muscular build. He wore all black, the only interruption in his black attire a priest’s white clerical collar.

  “How may I help you?” His voice came out in a rush, followed by silence, almost as if the words accumulated in his mouth like pebbles in a drain, then suddenly burst out, giving him this strange, jarring cadence. “Are you looking for something in particular?”

  “Yes,” said Hopper, stepping slowly toward him. “Hugo Villarde.”

  The man went absolutely still.

  “I see.”

  He said nothing else, didn’t move a muscle for at least half a minute. Yet I could see, even from where I was standing a fair distance behind Hopper and Nora, his shoulders rising and falling.

  He was afraid.

  “Don’t bother making a run for it,” Hopper said, stepping toward him. “We know who you are. We just want to talk.”

  The man lowered his head in submission, his hair—an unnatural bronze color—cat
ching the light.

  “You’re police, I take it?” he asked.

  None of us responded. I was surprised by the assumption. I was, after all, holding a child in my arms.

  Yet perhaps he hadn’t noticed me. He was staring at the floor.

  “I—I actually knew you’d come,” he whispered. “Eventually. So you found it all up there, is that it? At long last, it’s all coming out.”

  He whispered this with evident fear—again, in that low, eerily female voice.

  “How many were there?” he asked.

  “How many what?” I demanded, stepping toward him.

  He raised his head, noticing me for the first time.

  He then turned to stare pointedly at Nora and then Hopper, slowly gathering that he’d misjudged the situation: We were not police. And though he did nothing specific, I was somehow aware that as this dawned on him, his shoulders relaxed, his head rose an inch, as if he no longer was deflating himself or tucking himself away.

  When he finally looked back at me a chill of unease shivered through me. I was certain he was an even blacker form hovering there by the door, as if extreme confidence were slowly returning to him and it made him swell slightly, come more darkly into being.

  What was it Marlowe Hughes had said?

  You see, that priest—he was still there, hanging on, silently waiting at the perimeter. An oily shadow always around.

  Though the man’s face remained immobile, his eyes—what I could see of them—flicked curiously around Sam.

  I needed to get Samantha away from him. Now.

  91

  I moved with her back down the narrow pathway toward the front of the shop. I needed a safe enough distance but close enough where I could keep an eye on her. About ten yards away I found a large, plum-colored velvet armchair, the seat worn white. Beside it was a table with a stack of magazines and a yellow plastic horse, nothing of any danger.

  “Noooooo,” Sam whined as I placed her in the chair. “I don’t want to.”

  “Honey, I need you to wait right here.”

  “It’s enchanted.” She stared up at me, her face distraught and crumpled. She was on the verge of tears.

  “Not anymore, honey. It’s fun.”

  She shook her head and clamped her arms around my leg, burying her face against my knee. I picked up the horse.

  “Great Scott. Do you know who this is?”

  Keeping her forehead glued to my thigh, she craned her face back an inch to eye the toy sideways.

  “It’s Hi Ho Silver. Incredible. He’s a thousand years old, and if you’re nice to him he’ll tell you his secrets. Now, I’ll be right over there. Do not touch anything. I’ll be right back. And then you and I are going to have huge ice-cream sundaes, okay?”

  There must have been something intriguing about the horse—he looked to date back to the forties, his saddle and reins painted on—because she took him, sullenly turning him over in her tiny hands.

  Unfortunately, they’d all been listening to this interaction, Nora and Hopper apprehensively, Hugo Villarde with what I took to be a faint smile on his face. But as I moved toward him he immediately lowered his head, as if he didn’t like anyone staring directly at him.

  I stepped between him and Sam so he wouldn’t have a view of her. Just a few more minutes and then I’ll get her the hell out of here.

  “Let’s start with Ashley Cordova,” Hopper said. “How do you know her?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Why was she looking for you?” pressed Hopper.

  “Looking for me?” the man repeated. “You mean hunting me.”

  “Why?”

  He took a few cautious steps away from the door, reaching down to grab a metal stool hidden beneath a table. He dragged it slowly toward him across the concrete floor—it made a loud grating, rasping sound, which he seemed to enjoy—then he slipped around it and perched on the very edge, facing us. He hooked the heel of his shoe—a black cowboy boot with elaborate white stitching—on the top rung.

  He sat there like that, staring at us like a muscular old swan, once majestic, now barely alive, so unnervingly graceful for such a towering presence. He was in a bit more light now, and I could see his face was deeply wrinkled, though on the right side, from his eye down into his neck, the skin was blistered and scarred. Marlowe Hughes must have been telling the truth. Because that scarring had to be from the night she’d told us about, when Ashley had allegedly burned the Spider alive.

  “What were you doing on the thirtieth floor of the Waldorf Towers?” I asked.

  He looked surprised.

  “I—I was meeting somebody,” he said.

  “Who?” demanded Hopper.

  “My Deformed Unreal.” He smiled. “That’s what he called himself. We met on the Internet.”

  “Who was paying who?” Hopper demanded rudely.

  Villarde inclined his head in acceptance. “I was paying him.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I followed his very specific directions. I obtained the room. Put it under my real name. I stripped down to nothing but a bathrobe. And when I heard the knock, three times, I opened the door. I expected a beautiful boy to be standing there.” He paused, swallowing. “Certainly not that thing.”

  “You mean Ashley?” I asked.

  His eyes met mine. He seemed to find the simple mention of her name repellant.

  “She set you up,” I said.

  He nodded. “I’ve never been so horrified. I shoved her aside. Ran screaming down the hall into the elevator, shaking, convulsing from the shock. I ran through the lobby out onto the street wearing nothing but a bathrobe. No keys. No wallet. I’d left thousands of dollars in the room. But I had to get out of there. My life depended on it.”

  From his breathy, saccharine voice you’d have thought he was a nervous fifteen-year-old girl sitting there—not a hulking man in his late sixties. I couldn’t get used to this disconnect between his lilting voice and his physical self. In fact, the more he talked the more unnerving it became.

  Something else about the man was off.

  For one thing, I hadn’t expected him to pull up a chair, sitting down to chat without any evident discomfort or resistance. Marlowe Hughes—I understood her desire to talk, an isolated and neglected fallen star, so eager to bathe in the attention of a captive audience. But this gnarled human bird? Why tell us the truth so easily? There had to be something he wanted from us.

  Uneasy, I looked back at Sam. She’d put the horse down on the table and was closely inspecting him.

  “Where did you see Ashley again?” I asked, turning back. “Oubliette?”

  Villarde was visibly astonished by the mention of the club. He shifted on the stool, hunching his shoulders and back before going still.

  “My, my. You have done your homework. That’s right.”

  “How did she know you’d be there?” Hopper asked him.

  “I assume she found my member’s card in my wallet, which I’d left back in the Waldorf hotel room when I’d fled. On the back there’s a private number to call in order to arrange for your captivity. I found out later that Ashley had called and made arrangements to come as my guest.”

  He paused, heavily breathing in and out, a sensuous, nauseating sound.

  “I—I was with my defeater in my cell when she stepped out of the dark. As if from the stone walls themselves. I screamed. I ran away. Alerted security. They went right after her, chasing her down along the beach by the cliffs, a whole fleet of guards. But they came back empty-handed. They said her footprints simply cut out, as if she’d flown away like a bird. Or she’d walked right into the waves and drowned.” He lowered his head, gazing at his lap. “The following day, there was no sign of her. But I knew it was just a matter of time. She was coming.”

  “And did she?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes. Most definitely.”

  “Where?”

  “Right here.” He held out his arm, indicating his own shop
. “I was doing inventory in the back, when suddenly I was aware that all light had retreated from the store, as if the sun had fled, cowering behind a cloud. Alarmed, I glanced up. And she was right there.”

  He pointed toward the front of the store, where light from the street streamed in through the stained-glass windows and the cracked door.

  “She hadn’t seen me yet, so I crouched down, crawled across the floor on my hands and knees, trying to be as silent as I could. I reached the back corner and hid inside there.”

  He turned to his right, gesturing toward a huge double-door wooden wardrobe in the far corner.

  “I heard every step she took, coming closer and closer toward my hiding place. As if she was the devil coming. There was a long stretch of silence. I heard her reach for the handle on the door. Very slowly it creaked open. And I knew that was it. That I’d come face-to-face with my own death.”

  He fell silent and shivered, hunching his shoulders.

  Trying to ignore the repulsion flooding through me, I turned, again checking on Sam. Thankfully, she and the horse were now the best of friends. She was explaining something of great importance to him, whispering in his ear.

  “Why’d she come after you?” asked Hopper suddenly.

  Villarde said nothing, only guiltily lowered his head.

  “You worked with the townspeople from Crowthorpe Falls?” asked Nora gently, taking a step toward Villarde. “You helped them access The Peak property?”

  “I did,” Villarde said, smiling wanly, grateful for her kindness.

  “How did it work, exactly?” I asked. “You made a deal with them?”

  “I did,” he whispered meekly.

  “With who?”

  He shook his head. “I never knew. There were so many of them. I—I’d just moved to Crow. I met Stanislas for the first time, quite by accident, at the General Store. His wife had sent him into town to buy her gardening gloves. He asked me what I thought of the selection. ‘Which of these gloves are fit for a fairy queen?’ It was the first thing he said to me. We had an instant attraction. When men desire each other, they crash together like wrecking balls, quenching their need right then and there, as if the world were about to end. We began to meet around town, and within the month he invited me to his estate. He gave me my own suite in the top tower, mahogany with red damask curtains, the most beautiful room I’d ever seen. Several weeks later, I was back in town, having lunch at a diner, when a bearded man in overalls slid into the seat right across from me, a toothpick in his mouth. He asked if I had any interest in a mutually beneficial arrangement. I didn’t have any money at the time. I felt that if I built up some goodwill with the locals it would help me setting up my ministry.”