Night Film: A Novel

by Marisha Pessl

  Not too shabby. Spanning the wall was a row of oversized steel refrigerators, and beyond that in an alcove, hanging from a line of hooks, black pants and shirts—some type of waiter’s uniform. There was a long wooden table at the center of the room cluttered with supplies, and I stepped over. Piled across it were cellophane-wrapped blocks of what had to be cocaine, each one about a kilo. There were at least a hundred, plus four padlocked cash boxes chained by a metal cable to the table legs.

  “It’s an airport duty-free shop in Cartagena,” I muttered.

  Hopper stepped beside me, raising his eyebrows. “Or some billionaire’s outfitted his bunker really nicely for the end of the world.” He grabbed one of the bricks of coke, tossed it into the air like it was a football, he a seasoned quarterback. He caught it and stuffed it into his coat pocket.

  “Are you nuts?”

  “What?”

  “Put it back.”

  He shrugged, wandering over to the refrigerators. “It’s market research.” He wrenched open one of the steel fridge doors, the shelves packed with foam cartons and trays.

  “I’ve crashed parties like this before.” He rummaged through the containers. “It’s underwritten by a Saudi prince, maybe a Russian. All this shit for them is like Bud Light and pretzels to us. Would you give a shit if a couple bags of Fritos go missing?”

  I picked up a box of Cuban cigars. Cohiba Behikes.

  Hopper, scrutinizing a black glass jar, returned it to the shelf. “There’s more caviar here than the Black Sea.”

  “Help yourself. I’m getting out of here before the Saudi prince needs a pick-me-up.” I stepped over to the door on the opposite side of the room. I could hear house music, throbbing like the gears of the Earth as it turned, shimmering, relentless.

  I opened the door a crack and peered out. It took a moment of adjustment to understand what I was seeing.

  It was a party. And yet the floor—black-and-white geometric inlaid tiles—rippled like a sea. It spanned an immense circular atrium, ringed with Corinthian pillars, yet there was no ceiling, just a bright blue cloud-filled sky. How the hell was it a perfect summer day in here? In the distance, beyond stone arches covered in ivy and dark doorways leading down dirt paths, there was a luscious bloom-filled garden where stone Greek statues reclined in the sun. An egret waded in a shining stream. Red-and-green parrots soared through the jungle, sunlight filtering divinely through the canopy.

  As my eyes madly searched for some semblance of reality, my mind short-circuited, both entranced and trying to form some rational conclusion as to what the hell it was: a biosphere, a staged play, an adult Disney World, a portal to another planet. And then I caught a flaw in the tropical paradise: Along the floor, about a foot from where I stood, there was a light socket.

  All of it was painted, a photorealist trompe l’oeil of such detail and beauty, in the dimmed amber light it was all somehow alive, thriving. At the sunken center of the room, seated on the leather couches, standing around the marble tables, was a dense crowd. They were real, I was certain. They were middle-aged men, most with the battered gargoyle faces of self-made tycoons (a few with the flabby demeanors of those who’d inherited their wealth), most of them Caucasian, a few Japanese. Women drifted among them, dripping in gowns and jewels, though due to the liquid floor, they seemed to float in a pool of water, snagging on a group of men like scraps of paper caught on a branch before spinning across the room on another mysterious current.

  There was a strict dress code—which the person who’d answered my post on the Blackboards had failed to mention. The men were in suits and ties. Hopper and I were certainly going to stick out—not to mention the fact that I had chalky rings of saltwater on my pants.

  Hopper moved behind me, and I stepped aside so he could take a look.

  “Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

  “It’s got to be some kind of cult. Anyone offers you Kool-Aid or a hot shower, say no. And don’t forget the reason why we’re here. Find someone who saw Ashley.”

  He turned to me and extended his hand. “See you on the other side.”

  We shook hands, and I exited the storage room.

  50

  A black marble bar spanned the far wall, a handful of men seated there—one vacant red stool on the farthest-right side.

  That would be a perfect vantage point for me to wait until I understood just what I was dealing with, so I strode casually toward it around the atrium, passing the columns—those were real—feeling slight vertigo from the shifting floors and the teeming landscapes surrounding me.

  The ceiling was high as a cathedral’s and the mural of the sky so realistically painted, it looked infinite, glaringly blue. Staring up made me light-headed, and I nearly collided with a short, fat man with thinning black hair who’d abruptly crossed in front of me. He expressly avoided eye contact, making a beeline toward the stone garden wall. He pushed a moss-covered urn atop a post and it smoothly opened into a door. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a black-and-white tiled bathroom, a male attendant in a black uniform standing beside the sinks, hands clasped, eyes discreetly on the ground, before it all vanished again into that empty garden.

  I slid onto the vacant stool at the very end of the bar, relieved to feel it was sturdy and real, and turned to observe the scene.

  Waiters in black slacks and Asian tunics moved among the marble tables, balancing drinks on silver trays. There was a deejay up high in a bell tower. He was wearing a purple T-shirt, headphones around his neck, his hair in dreads that reached to his waist. He looked relatively normal, straight from Brooklyn or the Bay Area, though I noticed he kept his eyes averted from the crowd below as he expertly worked the controls on a synthesizer and two MacBooks.

  He must have been told not to stare at the guests.

  I returned my attention to the crowd. The women were stunning. They were all different races, many of them dark-skinned and exotic, their unifying attributes a height of about six feet and a thinness that made them resemble insects swarming, feeding insatiably on the dark suits and balding heads. They looked young. As one turned, her blond hair so pale it seemed to float like a gleaming white halo around her face, she tipped her head back, smiling, and I caught sight of a prominent Adam’s apple.

  Christ. She was a man.

  Ignoring an irrational feeling of alarm, I scrutinized another wandering through the crowd in a blue sequin dress. After speaking with a group of men, she—or he—touched one on the shoulder. She had long fingernails painted black, her arms laden with jewelry. Very slowly, as if to move suddenly in this place was prohibited—would puncture the dream—they detached from the group. She took him by the wrist, led him up the steps along a crumbling stone wall, the Aegean stretching beyond it. They slipped through an arched doorway and down a dirt path, vanishing. There were at least twelve identical entrances around the room. They led to—what? A crying game.

  It had to be a high-end bondage club. Never underestimate the desire for wildly successful men to torture themselves for fun.

  “May I bring you something, Mr.… ?”

  I turned to see the bartender standing across from me. Though he was dressed in a slick gray suit like everyone else, a double-Windsored blue silk tie, he was muscular, with a crew cut, craggy features, and an iron-rod posture that made me guess he was ex-military.

  “Scotch, straight up,” I said.

  He didn’t move, the friendliness draining from his face. I was doing something wrong, revealing myself as a sham. I didn’t react. Neither did he. He was so brawny from anabolic steroids he looked like an action figure, as if his arms might not bend at the elbows and his head could pop off from heavy play.

  “Any preference of scotch?” he asked.

  “Your choice.”

  He grabbed the bottle of Glenfiddich from the shelves.

  As he poured my drink, a hidden door opened beside the bar—a pastoral scene of a Tuscan landscape—and the young kid I’d seen outside hauling trash slipped in c
arrying a crate of glasses. His head lowered—he, too, seemed to have been told not to make eye contact—he began stacking them on the mirrored shelves.

  The bartender returned with my drink and stood there expectantly.

  “Your card?” he prompted.

  “Which one?” I made a production of fumbling for my wallet.

  “Membership.”

  “Yeah, I don’t have one of those. I’m a guest.”

  “Whose guest?”

  “Harry, can I have a glass of water, quick? I feel dizzy.”

  I couldn’t have timed it better. One of the women—or boys, if that’s what they were—had slunk up beside me. She had a pouting doll profile, long blond hair, a purple silk dress so tight it looked like it’d been poured over her.

  The bartender, Harry—he looked more like Biff—shot her a furious look, indicating she was breaching serious protocol by asking such a thing.

  “Try downstairs,” he said with a tight smile.

  “I can’t. I—I just need some water and I’ll be fine.”

  He glared at her, and with a hard look at me—I’m not done with you yet—he stepped away.

  “He’s fun,” I said, turning to her.

  She eyed me uncertainly, her hands—they, too, had those long black painted fingernails—tightly holding the edge of the bar as if to keep herself moored there; otherwise, so skinny, she’d waft to the ceiling like a helium balloon. Her blue eyes, heavily made up, looked watery, the pupils dilated. She’d done something to her mouth to make it puffy, injected it with something, which made it exaggerated and sad like a clown’s.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  That prompted an immediate Game Over. She cast me an icy look. I was sure she was going to move away, but instead she tilted her head.

  “You’re a friend of Fadil’s,” she said.

  “Where is Fadil? Haven’t seen him.”

  “Back in France, isn’t he?”

  Harry banged the glass of water onto the bar. She grabbed it, gulping it down, a drop of water trickling out the edge of her red mouth, sliding down her chin. She set the empty glass down, wobbling unsteadily on her heels, and the bartender wordlessly moved away to refill it. He’d been through this drill with her before.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her fingers.

  “Sure you’re all right?” I asked in a low voice.

  She didn’t answer me, instead inspected the plunging V-neckline of her dress, her puffy mouth in a clownlike frown as she straightened the fabric.

  “You should eat something. Or go home. Get a decent night’s sleep.”

  She glanced at me in drowsy confusion as if I’d again said something off-putting. Harry shoved the second glass in front of her, and without a word she guzzled it.

  I cleared my throat, smiling at him. “As I was saying, I’m a friend of Fadil’s.”

  The name—Arabic—meant something to him. He nodded grudgingly and moved to the other end of the bar, where a short, fat man signaled to him.

  I leaned in toward the woman.

  “Maybe you can help me.”

  But her attention was on the young busboy stacking glasses under the bar in front of us. With shaggy brown hair, freckles, he looked no older than sixteen, like he’d just popped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

  “Hey,” she whispered. “Do me a favor? Get me a vodka cranberry?”

  He ignored her.

  “Oh, fuck. Don’t worry about Harry. He’s a pussycat. I’m dying.”

  Her pleading, threatening to get shrill, caused the boy to look up at her reluctantly, then down to the other end of the bar, where Harry was busy fixing another drink. The kid must have felt sorry for her because he turned, grabbing a bottle of Smirnoff.

  “You’re an angel-boy,” she whispered.

  He added the juice, set it in front of her, and resumed stacking the glasses.

  “Any chance I can get some ice?” I asked, sliding my drink forward.

  He nodded. When he brought it back, I slid a folded hundred-dollar bill into his hand. He glanced at me, startled.

  “Don’t react,” I said, glancing down the bar at Harry. “I need some information.” I took out the photo of Ashley from my pocket, slipping it across the bar.

  “You recognize her?”

  He kept his head lowered, stacking the glasses.

  “Take it off the bar,” he whispered. “They got cameras.”

  I stuck it back into my wallet. If someone was watching, I hoped they’d assume I’d just showed the kid a picture of my daughter—or, given the clientele here, my jailbait Eastern European girlfriend who spoke no English.

  “Can you help me out?” I asked.

  The boy squinted off to his right and scratched his cheek. “Uh, yeah, she was the breach.”

  “The what?”

  He resumed arranging the glasses. “She was the security breach from a few weeks ago. They got her picture posted downstairs.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I’ll be up shit’s creek if—”

  “This is life or death.”

  The kid eyed me nervously. He looked better suited for a paper route, leading a band of Boy Scouts, than working in this place. I reached into my pocket for another hundred-dollar bill, leaned over the bar to grab a black drink stir, and dropped it at his feet.

  He bent down and picked it up, then set about ordering the stacks of red cocktail napkins emblazoned with a single black O, though the more I stared at the letter I realized it was an open mouth, a screaming mouth.

  “She attacked a guest,” the kid said under his breath.

  “Attacked?”

  “She, like, went after him. That’s what I heard.”

  “How?”

  He didn’t seem to want to elaborate—or didn’t know.

  “Which guest?”

  He looked apprehensively at Harry and picked up a towel, wiping down the bar.

  “He’s called the Spider.”

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “That’s his nickname.”

  The words had an odd effect on the girl. She’d been sucking down her drink, ignoring us, but now she swiveled around on the stool, trying to focus her bleary eyes on me.

  I turned back to the kid, now replenishing with a pair of silver tongs the crystal jar of maraschino cherries on the bar. The cherries, I noticed with surprise, were entirely black, including the stems, and every one was a connected twin, one tied to another.

  “What’s his real name?” I asked, casually sipping my drink.

  The kid shook his head. He didn’t know.

  “Is he here tonight? Can you point him out to me?”

  He nervously licked his lips, was on the verge of answering me, but then spotted something over my shoulder. He turned, grabbing the empty crate on the counter, and scooted out the door with it, eyes averted, vanishing into that Italian countryside.

  I looked to see what made him bolt.

  A middle-aged man with spiky silver hair was striding through the crowd, his eyes glued to the woman beside me. He stepped right behind her and whispered in her ear.

  She jerked upright in shock. He then grabbed her bare arm and wrenched her off the stool so hard she spilled her drink, leaving an ugly dark wound down the front of her dress. She sullenly mumbled something in a foreign language, the music too loud to hear what it was. Then she sprang away, lurching into the main lounge, fighting through the crowd and up the steps, fleeing down one of the dark pathways.

  I turned back to the bar, sipping my scotch, ignoring the man, still standing behind me, his attention now squarely on me.

  “I don’t think we’ve met,” he said.

  51

  “You think right,” I answered.

  “Let’s remedy that.”

  “I’m a guest of Fadil’s.”

  He hesitated, taken aback. He had to be the manager of the place. He wore an expensive suit, an earpiece, and had the
overinflated posture of all short, insecure men in positions of power. I sensed he was about to leave me alone, but then, looking me over, frowned at the saltwater ring on my pants.

  “How are you acquainted with Mr. Bourdage?” he asked.

  “Ask him.”

  “Come with me, please.”

  “I’d like to finish my drink.”

  “Come with me or we’re going to have a serious problem.”

  I studied him with bored indignation. “You sure?”

  “Do I look like it?”

  I shrugged, taking time to down the rest of my scotch, and stood up.

  “It’s your funeral,” I said.

  If this unnerved him even a little, the man gave no indication. He stepped stiffly to the steps leading down into the main lounge, waiting for me to follow.

  This isn’t going to end well. I headed after him and as we moved down into the crowd I felt another unnerving surge of vertigo. It was like sinking into another dimension, hitting a snag in reality. The trompe l’oeil murals must have been painted to be viewed from this central vantage point, because every one came into greater focus. Coastal towns bustled. Sunflower fields rippled in the wind, a flock of crows exploding over them—yet unable to fly away. Jungle bromeliads shook, a dark animal stalking through them. A snake writhed over a wall. Even the pulsing music seemed to converge onto me. I could actually feel the sun beating down on my neck. As we jostled our way through the crowd, the suits and ties, the girls, boys in those dresses, which down here looked to be made not of fabric but fish scales, I caught snippets of conversations over the music: be here, sometimes, I agree, water ski.

  I had to stay calm and make an exit—pronto. We appeared to be heading toward one of those dark passageways and I’d be damned if I was going to follow him down there and get my legs broken, maybe worse.

  My eyes scanned the atrium’s periphery for the door back into the storage room, but it was lost in the glinting scenes around me.