Night Film: A Novel

by Marisha Pessl

  The manager was a few feet ahead, glaring as he waited for me to catch up. But suddenly a tall, blond man tapped him on the shoulder, greeting him, shaking his hand.

  I held back a few seconds. This was probably my chance.

  The man introduced a friend beside him. The manager turned and I hastily did a 180, barging away from him through a large group, accidentally ramming the back of a waiter. A cocktail slid out of his hands, exploding onto the floor.

  I picked up my pace, my eyes averted. The women were wearing stilettos, and their toenails were painted black, filed into points, like bizarre thorns. Abruptly, I spotted something out of place: dirty white Converse sneakers. A waiter was wearing them.

  Hopper.

  He’d actually put on one of the uniforms from the storage room. He was wielding a silver tray, wandering among the guests like he owned the place. I slipped beside him.

  “I need to get the fuck out of here. I’ve been caught.”

  He nodded. “Follow me.”

  We cut sharply left, elbowing through the crowd, skipping up the marble steps, Hopper striding deliberately toward the crumbling stone wall that ringed the entire plaza.

  There was no visible door. But he extended his hand, pressing the face of a reclining stone statue of a woman covered in moss.

  Nothing happened. Frowning, he ran his hands over it, pressing the weathered statue’s arms, legs, bare feet, trying to find whatever the hell opened the door.

  I glanced over my shoulder.

  Two guests sitting in the lounge were watching us, alarmed. One of them turned around, signaling to a waiter.

  And then I saw the manager. He was pushing aggressively through the crowd, whispering into his earpiece, scanning the atrium’s perimeter.

  He was seconds from spotting me.

  “Any chance we can speed this up?” I muttered.

  “I swear I just walked out of here.”

  I stepped beside him, sliding my hands over the wall, and Hopper moved left toward another reclining statue. He pressed her hands, face, breasts, eyes, and thank Christ, she unexpectedly gave way into a regular rectangular door, which led into a long corridor with white walls and orange linoleum.

  We sprinted down it, two stainless-steel doors visible at the end.

  “And you thought I was getting our asses kicked,” Hopper said over his shoulder.

  “Fallout from obtaining vital information.”

  “Oh, yeah, what’s that?”

  “Ashley crashed this party a few weeks ago. She went after a member known as the Spider. That’s what you call skills.”

  “The Spider? What’s his real name?”

  “Didn’t get it.”

  We charged through the swinging doors into an industrial kitchen. It was lively, with cooks in uniform, bubbling pots, smells of roasted meat and garlic. A few glanced up curiously as Hopper and I raced around the counters, the stoves with sizzling pans, wheeled carts, dessert trays.

  We flew out of a second swinging door into another empty corridor.

  Hopper stopped, panting, pointing.

  “Take it all the way to the end, make a right, the door leads outside.”

  I took off, turning around when he didn’t follow.

  “You’re staying?”

  He was heading back into the kitchen. “Just getting started.”

  “Be careful. And thanks for saving my ass.”

  He smiled. “It’s not saved yet.”

  52

  I reached the end of the hall, followed it right, running toward the emergency exit door at the end. An alarm began to sound from an intercom.

  The manager must have alerted a security breach.

  I shoved it open, sprinting outside.

  It was a brightly lit loading area, the driveway packed with supply trucks, two black Escalades. A lone waiter sat on a crate, smoking a cigarette. He smiled as I walked casually past and jogged down some steps, then along a stone pathway winding around the side of the house.

  It had to be the eastern side.

  Rounding the corner, I stopped dead.

  In front of me was the mansion’s entrance, an elaborate columned porte cochere crowded with security guards dressed in black. A silver Range Rover was parked out front, the backseat window unrolled—whoever sat there clearly being checked on a guest list. The driveway curved left through dense trees, probably heading north toward Old Montauk Highway—the way out of here. Visible farther to my left beyond the foliage was a lawn, quite a few cars parked there.

  I couldn’t make it out this way. The guards had obviously been alerted, because they were fanning out, heading inside. One turned in my direction, motioned to another—taking off toward me.

  I backtracked and broke into a sprint, dashing past the loading dock again and the lone waiter. He stood up, shouting something as I raced past, veering around the next rambling wing of the mansion, the windows dark, though for a split second, maybe it was the wind through the brush, I swore I heard a man’s dull, prolonged moan.

  Christ. I kept going, racing toward the backyard through flower beds and shrubs, rounding the corner.

  I froze.

  The back lawn was flooded with light. Guards were milling around the patio and pool, two of them far across the lawn, inspecting the stairs where Hopper and I had climbed up.

  I whipped around, checking behind me. I could hear the guards’ footsteps, getting closer.

  I scrambled past the piles of garbage bags, up onto the stone wall, racing across the strip of grass into a tall hedge, forcing my way through, the branches so dense it was like fighting through a tightly woven net. I crouched down, breaking the limbs with my hands, crawling through headfirst.

  There was shouting behind me cutting through the rumbles of the ocean.

  I tore free on the other side and stumbled to my feet.

  I wasn’t in another backyard as I’d hoped, but in an empty expanse of moorland—no house or lawn, only darkness and tangled shrubbery shoulder high, impossible to walk through. I slipped along the hedge I’d just crawled out of, where the understory wasn’t as thick, fighting through what felt like holly or rosebushes, heading in the direction of the ocean.

  I had to find another flight of stairs down to the beach. I reached the bluff, squalls of wind barreling off the Atlantic. I headed unsteadily along it, but could see within minutes there were no stairs.

  This had to be a wildlife preserve. I was trapped. There wouldn’t be another flight of steps or a house for miles.

  I checked behind me. The hedge was shaking, black forms emerging through the branches, flashlight beams sweeping the gnarled thickets, heading in my direction.

  They were still coming. The manager had probably declared a fatwa on my ass.

  I scrambled to the edge of the cliff. It wasn’t a sheer drop to the water, but a slight incline, jagged with shrubs. Grabbing a plant to brace myself, I began to slide down it, feet first, creating an avalanche of loose rocks and sand. Flashlights were already inspecting the vegetation directly above me, the men’s shouts barely audible over the waves. I pressed my back against the rocks, waiting until they moved farther down, then hurriedly continued on, many of the shrubs pulling out in my fists so I dropped in a free fall until I managed to seize a root that held my weight.

  I reached a rock promontory jutting out over the beach.

  The tide had come in. There was no beach—only five-foot waves, which receded for a few seething seconds, exposing spiky crags along the cliff’s base, before they somersaulted aggressively forward, erupting in wild explosions against the rocks.

  I waited, checking above me for movement.

  I was safe. No one would be idiotic enough to follow me down here.

  Yet the instant I figured this, I could see two dark figures bending down, clamoring after me.

  I groped my way down a few more feet, reaching some boulders. I began crawling between them, heading westward, moving quickly when the waves receded. After a few min
utes, I could make out the spindly skeleton of what had to be Duchamp’s staircase, far ahead, rising out of the waves.

  I edged toward it. Flashlights suddenly appeared at the top of the cliff, searching the shoreline, the beams sliding along the rocks just a few feet from where I was crouched.

  They were waiting. The light slipped right over me.

  Shouting cut through the waves. I took off again, faster, half expecting a ricochet of bullets clattering against the rocks around me.

  When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I wedged my boots between two rocks to steady myself and looked up. A guard was actually attempting to climb down, the whole structure trembling under his weight. I seized the most rotten of the beams and after a few attempts managed to wrench it loose, a large section of the railing detaching with it. I threw it into the water behind me and took off across the rocks, drenched by another onslaught of waves.

  After another few yards, I quickly checked behind me.

  The guard on the staircase had fallen through a section of stairs above what I’d dismantled and was clinging to the cliff face, seemingly awaiting help. I moved on, scaling a precarious section of the cliffs where there wasn’t much to hold on to and had just started to let myself think that I might be home free, when a massive wave suddenly lobbed itself against the rocks.

  I lost my grip. I fell backward, my ears filled with deafening thunder as I was tossed upside down, choking on salt water. I managed to fight my way to the surface, gasping for air, but within seconds, another wave surged forward, pulling me back before throwing me toward the cliffs. Kicking as hard as I could, I was shoved against another boulder and managed to sling myself up onto it, coughing up salt water.

  I lifted my head, my eyes burning. I was alone in a narrow inlet. I sat crouched on the rock, waiting for one of the guards to appear.

  No one came.

  When the sky was turning a silvered gray, I saw, as I squinted down the beach, a ribbon of sand. I dropped down onto it, breaking into a jog, trekking past silent condos and along the wooden fence bordering Whaler’s Way, the deserted alley coming into washed-out focus in the pale morning.

  I stopped, staring at the empty parking space.

  My car was gone.

  Bewildered, I headed to Emerson Street and the Sea Haven Diner, scanning the parking lot. There was no sign of my car, only a silver pickup and a Subaru. Entering, I saw the place was empty, apart from an old man in a back booth and a redheaded waitress slumped over the counter, reading a magazine.

  “You look shipwrecked,” she said as I approached.

  “I’m looking for a young woman. Blond. Green dress. Was she here?”

  She smiled in recognition. “You mean Nora?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Sure, she was here.”

  “Well, where the hell is she?”

  “Beats me. Got up and left about an hour ago.”

  I slid onto one of the counter stools, pulling off my leather jacket, still drooling salt water.

  “I’ll have some coffee, three eggs easy, bacon, toast, orange juice.”

  The waitress disappeared through the swinging doors. When she returned with my coffee, she sighed heavily, crossing her arms.

  “She got a call from some guy. Ran out of here real excited.”

  I glanced at her, taking a sip. “A call on her cell?”

  “No. Cell service sucks out here. Just one bar. He called the diner, asked for her by name. You’re her dad, I take it, comin’ to pick her up?” She didn’t wait for my response, only nodded knowingly. “Don’t know how you dads put up with it. Girls always going after the bad boys. Then there’s the Internet, which makes it ten times worse with the stalkers and the sex predators.”

  My breakfast came quickly, thank Christ.

  A few locals wandered in, but there was no sign of Hopper or Nora.

  After I ate, I tried calling them—I was surprised to see my cell still worked—but the waitress was right: no service. I used the phone at the cash register, but for both of them it rang and went to voicemail.

  When I boarded the 9:45 A.M. Long Island Rail Road train, taking me back to civilization—if you can call Manhattan that—I’d conked out cold before we left the station.

  53

  When I arrived in the city, it was after noon. There was still no word from Hopper or Nora. I took a cab back to Perry Street. Nora had a spare set of keys, so I wondered if she’d somehow been unable to get in touch and had beaten me home. But the apartment was empty, no messages on my home phone.

  I took a shower, considered going back to bed, but felt too strung out, too uneasy—too annoyed.

  They’d left the general for dead on the battlefield. Or had something happened? I didn’t have time to worry about it, because my cell buzzed, reminding me that Peg Martin, one of the actors in Isolate 3, would be in the Washington Square Park dog run tonight at 6 P.M. It was the lead Beckman had given me almost a week ago.

  I headed into my office, feeding Septimus some birdseed, and pulled Peg Martin’s 1995 Sneak interview out of my box of notes. After Cordova’s 1977 Rolling Stone piece, it was the only time anyone who’d worked with him had spoken candidly about the experience.

  She was seventeen when she’d appeared in Cordova’s film, which today would make her thirty-five.

  I Googled her name and a few stills from Isolate 3 appeared. She had only three scenes in the film, a grainy version of one of them posted on YouTube. Peg played Vivian Jean, one of the maids who worked all night cleaning the midtown offices of the law firm Milton, Bowers & Reid, ends up disappearing into a back stairwell, and is never seen again. Moments before she vanishes, she says Scientists look for aliens in the universe, but they’re here. Aliens who pass for men. They’ve already invaded. She was talking about her abusive husband, how monstrous the people you loved could be. I’d always found interesting the fact that Martin in the interview used that line to describe Cordova.

  According to IMDb, after appearing in HBO’s New Found Glory—a modern remake of It Happened One Night, canceled after one season—Peg Martin appeared in the ABC TV Western Dust Up, costarring Jeff Goldblum. After 1996, she had no more credits. There was no current information about her and no indication of what she’d done with her life, though I did recall Beckman had mentioned she’d been a heroin addict—probably the reason she’d had such a brief film career.

  I checked my watch. It was almost five. I needed to get going. But a lone man wandering a public park being friendly, asking too many questions—it would set off all kinds of alarm bells.

  I needed a decoy.

  54

  “Mrs. Quincy called to alert me you’d be here,” announced Dorothy, surveying me skeptically over the rim of her glasses. “But not a half-hour early. Samantha’s in the midst of her Nutcracker audition.”

  Dorothy was the gray-haired czarina who ruled the Manhattan Ballet School with an iron fist. I’d encountered her before, and every time she treated me like I was an escapee from a Siberian gulag.

  “Okay, but we have a reservation at the Plaza for a father-daughter tea.”

  “If you pull her out now, she won’t be in the running for getting a doll from Herr Drosselmeyer. She might not even make it to the party scene.”

  “Come on, Dorothy. Sam has to make the party scene. She is the party scene.”

  Dorothy sighed, relenting. “Go ahead.”

  Winking at her, I turned, striding down the hall to the ballroom where they held the classes, the wood floors creaking under my feet. I’d called Cynthia to ask if I might spend a few quality hours with Sam this evening—to make up for my postponing her visit—and miraculously, she’d agreed to it. I didn’t exactly go into detail as to what we’d be doing during these quality hours, but no matter what happened with Peg Martin, Sam would enjoy the dog run, and afterward I’d treat her to a dinner and a hot-fudge sundae at Serendipity 3.

  I found Sam at the end of the hall in a sunlit studio blaring Tchaik
ovsky. She was dancing in a flock of five-year-olds. They were all holding their arms over their heads, jumping. Sam looked ready for the Bolshoi: leotard firebird red, white tights, slippers, and white tutu. She was right in front, watching the ballet mistress demonstrate the steps.

  I knocked on the glass door.

  The children froze. The mistress craned her long neck, surveying me imperiously.

  “Yes, sir? May I help you?”

  I stepped inside. “I’m here for Samantha.”

  55

  Even though it was getting dark, Washington Square Park was crowded with students and skateboarders, doting couples, a break-dancer with an eighties boom box who’d attracted a crowd. Most of the women stopped mid-conversation to beam, dazed and enchanted, as Sam nimbly plodded past them, tightly holding my hand. Though she’d agreed to put on her black coat and pink Rapunzel backpack, she’d refused to take off her tutu, tights, or ballet slippers.

  “She’s a very nice woman,” I said. “We’re going to chat with her and visit her dog for a few minutes. Okay?”

  Sam nodded, brushing her gold curls out of her face.

  “What’s wrong with your hand?” she asked.

  After my cliffside escape from Oubliette, my hands were cut up badly.

  “Don’t have to worry. Your dad’s tough. Now give me the four-one-one on Mommy. Is she still working at the gallery?”

  Sam thought it over. “Mommy has a problem with Sue,” she answered.

  “The manager. They’ve always butted heads. What about your stepdad?”

  “Bruce?” she clarified.

  Good. He was still a proper noun like me. Thank Christ he wasn’t Dad.

  “Yes, Bruce. Has the SEC investigated him yet? Any arrests for insider trading I should know about?”

  She squinted at me. “Bruce has a spare tire.”

  “Mommy said that?”

  Sam nodded, hanging heavily on my arm. “Mommy makes him drink green juice, and Bruce goes to bed hungry.”

  So Old Man Quincy had put on a couple of lbs. and was suffering through one of Cynthia’s infamous juice cleanses. Suddenly I felt fantastic.