Night Film: A Novel

by Marisha Pessl

  The consensus was Olivia.

  “Perhaps,” Beckman would say. “But who knows what jealousies have eaten away her insides like acid on old pipes?”

  There was one final detail. It concerned Cordova.

  Even after she was married to Knightly, Olivia Endicott continued to work here and there on Broadway throughout the eighties, though she gave up the stage in order to fulfill her role as a mother, wife, and philanthropist.

  Yet she remained a rabid Cordova fan.

  According to Beckman, Olivia wrote the director letter after letter, hounding him with mad persistence. She begged to work with him, audition for him, take even a silent walk-on role. At the very least, she hoped to meet him. Cordova appeared to be the last thing she required—the final pie piece—to wholly vanquish her sister.

  “And to Olivia’s every letter, Cordova responded with the same typewritten sentence,” Beckman said.

  At this point in the story, Beckman stood up, steadying himself on his Persian ottoman. Then he’d shuffle over to the dark, dank corner of his living room, where he’d brutally jerk open a desk drawer stuffed with papers, receipts, Broadway Playbills, rooting around the contents. A minute later, when he staggered back to the gathering, he’d be holding a pristine cream-colored envelope in his hands.

  Slowly, he’d present it to the nearest student, who would nervously open it, pulling out a letter, silently reading it before blinking in awe and passing it to the kid next to him.

  Beckman claimed he’d found the copy randomly at an estate sale.

  November 11, 1988

  My dear du Pont:

  If all of the people on Earth were dead but you, you would still not appear in my picture.

  Cordova

  64

  Relaying the tale to Nora, I was nowhere near as theatrical in the telling as Beckman.

  “ ‘Fly on, beautiful child’?” she repeated. “That’s the saddest goodbye in the world. Do you think it’s all true?”

  “I do.”

  “Call Olivia. Immediately.”

  I dialed the number.

  “Of course, Mr. McGrath,” said the secretary on the other end. “Are you available tomorrow? Ms. du Pont is off to Saint Moritz the following day. She was hoping you’d forgive her for the late notice and squeeze her into your busy schedule, as she won’t be back for four months.”

  I agreed to meet Olivia at her apartment at noon the following day. The address was about as close to an American Buckingham Palace as you could get: 740 Park Avenue. It’d been the childhood home of Jackie Kennedy and countless other legendary heirs and heiresses, and was pure old rich New York: staunch, graying at the temples, secretive, and snooty as hell.

  As I hung up, I realized that my cellphone was buzzing.

  I didn’t recognize the number, Golden Way Market, Inc.

  “Who is it?” asked Nora.

  “I suspect it’s the first person calling about Ashley’s missing-person flier.”

  65

  Golden Way was a Chinese grocery that ignored the English language so aggressively, standing in one of the narrow aisles, pungent with smells of fish and sesame, I could convince myself I was in China’s Chongqing province.

  There were shriveled whole chickens strung up by their talons, trillions of noodles, black teas, and lethal-looking produce—red chilies that’d numb your tongue for a year; greens so spiky, they looked like they’d slit your throat as you swallowed them. Outside, the store looked like an underworld heavy lurking on the sidewalk—a dirty red awning pulled low over its cruddy windows and stands of bruised fruit.

  I headed after Nora, who’d disappeared in the back, finding her alone in front of a table piled with what appeared to be packets of potato chips, until I read the label: ROAST DRIED SQUID SHAVINGS.

  She shrugged, puzzled. “I just spoke to a man, but he disappeared through there.” She pointed at a set of steel doors beside a few fish tanks, gray fish drifting inside.

  When I’d answered the call, a man who barely spoke English announced he had informations, though he was unable to explain what exactly it was. Finally, a woman came on the line to bark an address: 11 Market Street. The address was near East Broadway, only a block and a half from 83 Henry, so it was certainly feasible Ashley had come in.

  At this moment, a slight middle-aged Chinese man emerged, followed by what had to be his entire extended family: his wife, his daughter of about eight, and a grandmother who looked to date back to the days of Mao Zedong.

  Hell—maybe it was Mao. She had his long forehead, his tired face and gray workman’s pants, the flip-flops on her bare feet, which resembled two dry chipped bricks that’d fallen off the Great Wall.

  The family all smiled eagerly at us and set about getting a stool for the old woman, helping her sit. The wife then handed her a piece of crumpled paper, which I recognized as the missing-person flier.

  “We have information,” the little girl announced in perfect English.

  “About the girl on the poster?” I clarified.

  “Did you meet her?” Nora asked.

  “Yes,” said the little girl. “She came here.”

  “What was she wearing?” I asked.

  The family conferred heatedly in Cantonese.

  “A bright orange coat.”

  That was close enough.

  “And what did she do when she was here?” I asked.

  “She talked with my grandmother.” The little girl indicated Mao, who was carefully inspecting the flier as if it were a speech she was about to present in class.

  “In English?”

  The little girl giggled as if I’d made a joke. “My grandmother doesn’t speak English.”

  “She spoke to her in Chinese?”

  The girl nodded. Ashley spoke Chinese. That was unexpected.

  “What did they talk about?” I asked.

  For the next few minutes, there was so much wild Cantonese flying back and forth Nora and I could do nothing but watch. Finally, the entire family hushed quickly because Mao had at last spoken, her parched voice scarcely audible.

  “She asked my grandmother where she was born,” explained the girl. “If she missed her home. She bought chewing gum. And then she talked to a taxi driver who comes in here for dinner. He said he’d take her where she wanted to go. My grandmother liked her very much. But your friend was very tired.”

  “Tired in what way?” I asked.

  The girl conferred with Grandmother Mao. “She was sleepy,” she answered.

  “This taxi driver, do you know who he is?”

  She nodded. “He comes in here to eat dinner.”

  “What time?”

  This resulted in more debate, during which the girl’s mother did most of the talking.

  “Nine o’clock.”

  “Will he come tonight?” asked Nora.

  “Sometimes he comes. Sometimes he doesn’t.”

  I checked my watch. It was eight.

  “Might as well wait,” I said to Nora. “See if he shows.”

  I explained this to the girl, who relayed it to her family. I thanked them, and, smiling, the whole family came forward to shake our hands, moving aside so we could shake Mao’s hand, too.

  Removing my wallet, I thanked the father and tried to give him a hundred dollars, but he refused to take it. This back-and-forth went on for a good ten minutes, though I noticed his wife’s eyes were glued to the money. I had to get the guy to take it; if I didn’t, judging from the look on his wife’s face, he wouldn’t survive the night.

  He finally relented and I turned back to Grandmother Mao with the intention of asking her a few more questions. Yet the old woman had silently moved off the stool, disappearing through the doors and into the back of the store.

  66

  “Fuck, man,” said the taxi driver, “you scared the shit outta me. I thought you were here to deport me.” He cackled with laughter, revealing a set of blinding white teeth, a few capped in gold. He scratched his red
-and-yellow Rasta cap as he studied Ashley’s picture.

  “Yah, sure. I did pick her up here.”

  “When?” I asked.

  “Coupla weeks ago?”

  “What color coat was she wearing?” interjected Nora.

  He thought it over, rubbing the gray stubble on his chin.

  “Greenish brown? But I’m color-blind, man.”

  He called himself Zeb. He was black—from Jamaica, I guessed from his slight accent—66, lean yet disheveled and slouched, like a palm tree after a mild hurricane.

  During the past hour, as Nora and I waited, we’d managed to stitch together some basic information. He came to Golden Way five nights a week for dinner. He ate outside, leaning against the hood of his cab, playing loud music with the windows unrolled, and then took off, doubtlessly resuming his all-night driving shift, which ended at 7:00 A.M.

  “When I got here,” Zeb went on, scratching his head, “she was in da back talkin’ to da old lady. I got my dinner. She followed me outside.”

  “And you drove her somewhere?”

  “Yah.”

  “Do you remember where?”

  He thought it over. “Some big-ass house on the Upper East.”

  “Could you take us there now?”

  “Oh, no.” He held up a hand. “Da stops and starts all bleed together when you drive.”

  “We’ll pay you,” blurted Nora.

  He perked up. “You’ll pay da meter?”

  Nora nodded.

  “Okay. Sure. We can do that.”

  Grinning, as if he couldn’t believe his luck, Zeb cheerfully grabbed a foam container and began to load it with noodles, egg rolls, sesame chicken—if it was chicken; the gray meat looked like the siopao or cat in a steamed bun I’d once eaten by accident in Hong Kong. Astonishing how quickly money jogged a man’s memory.

  Nora and I headed outside to wait.

  “This is going to be expensive,” I muttered, squinting farther down Market Street, where a lone man was shuffling toward us. Instantly I recognized the gray wool coat and the cigarette.

  “Look who decided to make an appearance.”

  Nora, unabashedly worried, grilled him on why he’d stood us up this morning. “We waited for you. I almost called the police.”

  “I had things to do,” Hopper said unconvincingly.

  He looked like he’d been up all night. I was beginning to realize the key to his behavior could be found in his own description of Morgan Devold: He’s coming back. He has to. He’s dying to talk about her.

  Nora eagerly filled him in on the latest. In no time, the three of us were tearing up Park Avenue crammed into the backseat of a taxi with a steering wheel covered in blue shag and a rearview mirror wearing more gold chains than Mr. T. I leaned forward to study Zeb’s picture ID—his full name was Zebulaniah Akpunku—noticing a worn-out paperback, Steppin’ Into the Good Life, on the passenger seat beside him.

  “Did you notice anything unusual about the girl?” I asked Zeb through the bulletproof window.

  He shrugged. “She was a white girl. They all kinda look alike.” He guffawed happily, quieting only to take a bite of his food.

  “Did she talk to you? Anything you can tell us about her?”

  “No way, man. I got one rule as a driver.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Never look in da rearview mirror.”

  “Never?” We drifted into the left-hand lane, cutting off a cab.

  “It’s not healthy to keep a’ watchin’ what you leavin’ behind.”

  Ten minutes later, we were weaving our way up and down every street in the East Sixties between Madison and Lexington. The meter ticked from twenty dollars to thirty, forty.

  “Oh, yeah, dis is right,” Zeb would say, leaning forward to scrutinize the quiet rows of townhouses until he’d reach the end of the block. “Shit. I got it wrong.” He’d sigh in apparent frustration, then cheerfully help himself to more sesame chicken. “No worries, man. It’s da next block.”

  But the same thing happened on the next block. And the next.

  After another fifteen minutes, the meter was $60.25. Nora was gnawing her fingernails, and Hopper hadn’t said a word the entire ride, slumped against the seat, staring out the window.

  I was about to call it off when, as we were cruising down East Seventy-first, Zeb abruptly slammed on the brakes.

  “Dat’s it!” He was indicating a building on our left.

  It sat entirely in the dark, a massive townhouse that looked more like an embassy than a residence—pale gray limestone, twenty-five feet wide. It was weathered and run-down, dead leaves strewn across the front steps, the double doors littered with takeout menus—a sure indication no one had been there for weeks.

  “We already drove down here,” I said.

  “I’m telling you. Dat’s the house.”

  “All right.” I opened the door, and we climbed out. I handed Zeb eighty bucks.

  “Peace out, brother.”

  Zeb happily tucked the money into his shirt pocket, alongside what looked to be a gigantic half-smoked joint. He turned up the Rolling Stones, and though there was a yellow light at the intersection—yellow lights to Zeb were cues to floor it and pray—he barreled out into Park Avenue in a noisy clanging of loose parts and stuttering transmission, the trunk thudding as he blasted over a pothole and swerved south, leaving us on the quiet street.

  67

  We crossed the street to get a better view. It was dim on that side, with just a streetlamp and a high-rise apartment building, its entrance around the corner on Park, so it afforded some privacy to watch the townhouse.

  It was after eleven o’clock, the neighborhood deserted. New York might be the city that never slept, but the well-heeled residents of the Upper East Side got tucked into their bespoke sheets around ten.

  “Doesn’t look like anyone’s lived there for years,” I noted.

  I noticed Hopper was staring intently at the place, the expression on his face unreadable, though I sensed a sort of deep-seated hostility, as if within its hulking grandeur he saw something he detested.

  It was unapologetic in its opulence, five stories, a garden on the roof—tree branches could be seen reaching over the top cornice. Every window was dark, a few adorned with heavy curtains, the panes dirty. A narrow covered balcony extended outside the windows on the second floor, detailed with an oxidized copper roof, black iron latticework along the sides and railing. And yet in spite of its lavishness, or because of it, the townhouse had a cold, lonely demeanor.

  “Are we going to knock?” whispered Nora.

  “You two stay here,” I said.

  I headed across the street and skipped up the marble steps strewn with leaves and bits of trash, a deli napkin, a cigarette butt. I rang the bell, noting the black bubble of a security camera above the intercom. I heard it ring inside—a strident clanging straight out of nineteenth-century England—but there was no response.

  I pulled out the papers wedged through the mail slot, a Burger Heaven menu and two ads for a twenty-four-hour locksmith. They were faded, warped from the rain. They’d been there for months.

  “Some loaded European probably owns it,” I said, moving back to Hopper and Nora. “He uses it two days a year.”

  “Only one way to find out,” said Hopper. He took a last drag of his cigarette, chucked it to the ground, and, pulling up the collar of his coat, crossed the street.

  “What’s he doing?” whispered Nora.

  Hopper stepped right up to the townhouse, grabbed the black iron grating over the arched window on the ground floor, and began to climb. Within seconds, Hopper was twelve feet off the ground. He paused for a minute, looking down, then stepped on top of one of the old lanterns flanking the front doors and, straddling about five feet of space, grabbed ahold of the concrete ledge of the second-floor balcony.

  He hoisted himself higher, dangling there for a few seconds, his gray coat floating around him like a cape. He hooked his
right leg over the railing and fell sideways onto the balcony. Immediately, he scrambled to his feet and, with another furtive glance down at the sidewalk, crept along the narrow veranda to the window on the farthest right. Crouching, he shielded his eyes to look through the glass, then fumbled inside his coat for what appeared to be his wallet. He cracked the casement, probably using a credit card, slid the window open, and without the slightest hesitation, he crawled inside.

  There was a moment of stillness. He reappeared as a silhouette, slid the window closed, and disappeared.

  I was stunned, expecting at any moment now a maid’s bloodcurdling scream or sirens. But the street remained silent.

  “What the hell?” whispered Nora, clamping a hand over her chest. “What do we do?”

  “Nothing. We wait.”

  As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait long.

  Hopper had been inside not ten minutes when a lone taxi coasted down the street toward us, slowing and stopping directly in front of the townhouse.

  “Oh, no,” whispered Nora.

  The backseat door opened and a heavyset woman emerged.

  “Text Hopper,” I said. “Tell him to get the hell out of there.”

  As Nora fumbled for her phone, I slipped between the parked cars, aiming for the woman who was moving up the townhouse steps, digging through her purse, trying to find her keys.

  68

  “Excuse me?”

  She didn’t turn. She jammed the key in the lock, pushing open one of the doors.

  “Ma’am, I’m looking for the nearest subway.”

  She darted inside, switching on a light. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a white entryway, a black-and-white checked floor, and as she whisked around, the woman herself, before she slammed the door hard.

  A deadbolt clicked, followed by the seven-digit beep of an alarm.

  I froze in shock. I knew her.

  Suddenly, the lamps over the entrance switched on, bathing me in bright light. She wanted a good look at me in the security camera.