Night Film

107

Beckman, dressed in black corduroys and a blue plaid flannel shirt, was speaking in front of a packed lecture hall. There were at least three hundred students, every one hanging on his every word.

“The film keeps the tension skin tight deep into the final minutes,” Beckman was saying, “when Mills learns the contents sealed inside the FedEx-delivered box — his wife’s severed head. The film ends on a cliffhanger and we’re left to wonder what the poor detective’s fate is. He was once so brash, so confident. Now he’s come face-to-face with the horrors that he was chasing. He has the chance to turn into horror himself. Will Mills be savaged or saved? We have to evaluate the story’s moral universe, everything that’s come before, to know the answer. Does he make it out alive?”

Rather dramatically, Beckman turned on his heel, raising the remote — like a sorcerer pointing a magic wand — and a film clip appeared on the gigantic screen behind him. It was the final minutes of Se7en, which featured Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt as Somerset and Mills, and Kevin Spacey as John Doe in the back of the police car.

I knocked a second time on the window, and this time Beckman heard me, jolted in evident surprise, glanced back at his students, and scurried over.

“McGrath, what the hell,” he hissed, opening the door a crack.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Can’t you see I’m in the middle of something?”

“This is an emergency.”

His dark eyes blinked at me behind his glasses. He glanced over his shoulder. His students remained transfixed watching the clip, so he quickly darted out into the hall, silently closing the door behind him.

“What in Christ’s—you know I don’t like to be interrupted while I’m teaching. There’s a little something called creative flow—”

“I need the names of your cats.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your cats, your fucking cats. What are their names?”

A female student walking past turned, eyeing me warily.

“My fucking cats?” Beckman repeated, glaring at me. “This is why I’ve never liked you, McGrath. Not only are you rude and demanding, but cats you’ve been introduced to fifteen, sixteen times you don’t have any recollection of, as if they’re somehow beneath you.” He opened his mouth, on the verge of berating me further, but must have noticed I was frantic, because he pushed his glasses farther onto the bridge of his nose.

“Their full birth names or their nicknames?”

“Full birth names. Start with the one you told me about the other day. Something about Murad Turkish cigarettes.”

Beckman cleared his throat. “Murad Cigarettes. Boris the Burglar’s Son. One-Eyed Pontiac. The Peeping Tom Shot. The Know Not What. Steak Tartare.” He kneaded his eyebrows. “How many’s that?”

“Six.” I was writing them down.

“Evil King. Phil Lumen. And last but not least, The Shadow. There you have it. Enjoy.” With a matador’s olé, he started for the door.

“These are what, Cordova’s trademarks?”

He sighed. “McGrath, I’ve explained it to you countless times—”

“How do they work, exactly? Where do they appear?”

He closed his eyes. “In every story Cordova constructs, rain or shine, at least one or two, sometimes up to five of these trademarks — signatures, if you will — show up unannounced, like long lost family members on Christmas Eve. Naturally they cause a great deal of drama.” He squinted at me, observing my scribbling. “What’s this about, anyway?”

I reached into my pocket, holding out the cigarette butts. Beckman, frowning, picked up one, scrutinizing it, and then, probably reading the brand printed by the filter, stared at me in alarm.

“Where in God’s name did you find—”

“In the country. At the scene of a house fire.”

“But they don’t exist except in a Cordova film.”

“I’m in one.”

“Excuse me?”

“I think I’m inside a Cordova film. One of his narratives. And it’s not over.”

“What are you talking—?”

“He set me up. Cordova. Maybe Ashley, too. I don’t know why or how. All I know is that I tried to uncover the circumstances around Ashley’s death and every person I spoke to, everyone who met her, has disappeared. The man had a penchant for working with reality — manipulating his actors, pushing them to the brink. Now he’s done it with me.”

Beckman’s mouth was open, his eyes wide with disbelief. He appeared to have entered some kind of unresponsive fugue state.

“Just tell me about the cigarettes,” I said.

He took a breath. “McGrath, this is really not good.”

“Can you be a little more specific?”

“Didn’t I tell you to leave him alo—?”

“The cigarettes!”

He tried to collect himself. “If you’re the first character who appears in the scene after the Murad cigarettes have been smoked, it means you’re marked, McGrath. You’re fated. You’re doomed.”

“But there’s some way out—”

“No.” He arched an eyebrow. “There is a very slim chance if you manage to make a huge and improbable leap of faith you will survive, but it’s like jumping from the top of one skyscraper to the next. It almost always ends with you splat on the sidewalk, either dead or caught forever in a sticky hell, struggling in your cocoon like Leigh at the end of La Douleur.”

I jotted it down. “What about Boris the Burglar’s Son?”

“Cordova’s longtime stuntman. His full name is Boris Dragomirov. He’s a diminutive but brawny Russian. His father was a notorious gangster known back in the motherland simply as The Black Eye. The man managed to successfully escape every gulag they ever locked him in and he taught his only son, Boris, all of his techniques. Cordova used Boris in every film. He did all the dirty work, the cons, the beat-ups, the breaking and entering, the car wrecks, the cliff dives. His largest role was playing the blackmailer in A Crack in the Window, the one who appears on the other side of that confessional screen, scaring the bejesus out of Jinley. He runs as fast as a supercharged Maserati and can escape anything at any time.”

It took only a second for me to know where I’d encountered him.

“I chased him,” I said. “I spoke to him.”

“You spoke to Boris the Burglar’s Son?”

Quickly I explained how he’d broken into my apartment, hightailed it across the West Side Highway out onto the pier, posing as a cruising gay man and then vanishing in the blink of an eye.

“McGrath, how could you miss it? He used the Horny Geezer on you, one of his most legendary cons.”

“What about One-Eyed Pontiac?”

Beckman thoughtfully interlaced his fingers. “There’s always a dark-colored Pontiac, black, blue, or deep maroon, with a single headlight. Whatever object or person it illuminates in its single glaring light will be annihilated.”

I remembered it immediately: Hopper had claimed to see such a car in the parking lot of the Evening View, when they’d been waiting for me to return from The Peak. I hastily made a note of it, Beckman eyeing my scribbles.

“You saw the One-Eyed Pontiac?” he gasped. “Don’t tell me you were in its headli—”

“I wasn’t. Someone else saw it. The Peeping Tom Shot?”

He blinked in flustered exasperation. “It’s Cordova’s trademark shot. Much like Tarantino’s signature trunk shot, the Peeping Tom is a single extended shot of another person who doesn’t know he or she is being closely observed. It’s always framed by a pulled curtain, venetian blinds, the muddy backseat window of a car, or a cracked door.”

I thought it over, but it didn’t seem to shed any light on what I’d encountered over the course of the investigation.

“The Know Not What?” I went on.

Beckman shrugged. “He’s the henchman, the right-hand man, the face-man, the flunky. He appears when his boss will not, passively carrying out his orders with no judgment, thereby releasing a dark, malevolent force upon the world. The phrase comes from the Bible, of course, Luke, chapter twenty-three: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ ”

It took me a moment of racking my brain, and then the answer hit me. It was so obvious I nearly laughed out loud. I scribbled down his name.

“Theo Cordova?” said Beckman, reading over my shoulder. “What do you want with Theo Cordova?”

“He’s been following me.”

“Cordova’s son? But how did you know it was he?”

“He’s missing three fingers on his left hand.”

Beckman looked startled. “That’s right. Theo was always a strange, silent young man. Badgered by his father, lovesick for the same older woman for years.”

I hastily made a note of it. “Steak Tartare?”

Beckman eagerly licked his lips. “In every Cordova film someone, often an extra, can be seen eating finely chopped raw meat. Well. The very next person who appears on-screen in either a medium or close-up shot after this uncooked consumption? He or she will be malignant. He or she has secretly — usually off-screen — become a turncoat, a whore, a defector, a deserter, and can no longer be trusted. It’s Cordova reminding us of our omnipresent inner cannibal, a reminder that we all are, in the end, ravenous beasts who will satisfy our ugliest desires when the timing is right. They say it’s his favorite meal.”

I wasn’t sure I’d noticed anyone eating the dish. I wrote a question mark beside it.

“Evil King?”

“Evil King,” Beckman announced officially, clearing his throat. “He’s the villain. A universally terrifying character of both myth and the real world. He can look outwardly repellant or totally innocuous. Usually it’s someone in a position of great power. The smarter and more conniving the Evil King, the more turbulent and satisfying the tempest he creates.”

That one was easy. Cordova.

“Phil Lumen?”

Beckman nodded. “A small detail. The Phil Lumen Company is the manufacturer of all light sources in a Cordova film. Lightbulbs, flashlights, headlamps, strobes, lava lamps, and streetlights — they all come from the Phil Lumen Company, which is Latin for love of light. Occasionally the name is called out in airport or store intercoms. ‘Paging Mr. Phil Lumen. Please report to United Airlines Terminal B.’ ”

I didn’t recall hearing anything of the kind — not that I would have noticed.

“The Shadow?”

Beckman paused, smiling sadly. “My favorite. The Shadow is what people are hunting throughout the tale. Or else it can dog the hero, refusing to leave him alone. It’s a potent force that bewitches as much as it torments. It can lead to hell or heaven. It’s the hollow forever inside you, never filled. It’s everything in life you can’t touch, hold on to, so ephemeral and painful it makes you gasp. You might even glimpse it for a few seconds before it’s gone. Yet the image will live with you. You’ll never forget it as long as you live. It’s what you’re terrified of and paradoxically what you’re looking for. We are nothing without our shadows. They give our otherwise pale, blinding world definition. They allow us to see what’s right in front of us. Yet they’ll haunt us until we’re dead.”

It was Ashley. Beckman had seamlessly described my encounter with her at the Reservoir. As he watched me write down her name, his black beady eyes moved from the word to my face.

“What else?” I asked.

“What else about what?”

“Cordova’s mind. His stories.”

After a moment, Beckman shrugged, a wistful expression on his face. “Those constants festering inside Cordova’s brain are all I’ve ever been able to come up with. The rest, as they say, is — not history, I’ve never liked that phrase — but revolution. Constant upheaval. Conversion. Rotation. Oh, dear.” He jolted upright, struck by an idea. “One thing, McGrath.”

“What?”

“Often, at some point in a Cordova narrative, the hero encounters a character who is life and death itself. He or she will be sitting at the intersection of the two, the beginning of one, the end of another.” Beckman took a short breath, pointing at me. “It will be a decoy, a substitute to grant freedom to the real thing. He’s Cordova’s favorite character. He’s always there, when Cordova’s mind is at work, no matter what, do you understand?”

I wasn’t sure I did, but hastily made note of it.

“And what about his endings?”

“Endings?” Beckman looked startled.

“How does it all end?”

He nervously scratched his chin, too troubled to continue.

“You know as well as I do, McGrath. His endings are seismic jolts to the psyche. Parting shots that keep you awake and wondering for days, for the rest of your life. You just never know with Cordova. His ends can be as full of hope and salvation as the tiny green-white bud of a new flower. Or they can be devastating charred-black battlefields strewn with lost legs and tongues.”

I made a note of it, feeling an insidious wave of dread as I did, folding the scrap of paper into my pocket.

“Thank you,” I said to Beckman — abruptly he appeared to be in too ruminating a mood to speak. “I’ll explain when I have more time,” I added, starting down the hall.

“McGrath.”

I stopped, turning. He was staring after me.

“I need to give you a last bit of advice in the off chance this rather extraordinary and enviable situation in which you find yourself is actually true—that somehow you’ve fallen deep down into a Cordova story.”

I stared back at him.

“Be the good guy,” he said.

“How do I know I’m the good guy?”

He pointed at me, nodding. “A very wise question. You don’t. Most bad guys think they’re good. But there are a few signifiers. You’ll be miserable. You’ll be hated. You’ll fumble around in the dark, alone and confused. You’ll have little insight as to the true nature of things, not until the very last minute, and only if you have the stamina and the madness to go to the very, very end. But most importantly — and critically—you will act without regard for yourself. You’ll be motivated by something that has nothing to do with the ego. You’ll do it for justice. For grace. For love. Those large rather heroic qualities only the good have the strength to carry on their shoulders. And you’ll listen.”

He licked his lips again, frowning.

“If you’re the good guy, you just might survive, McGrath. But of course, there are no guarantees with Cordova.”

“I understand.”

“Good luck to you,” he said, then spun quickly on his heel and, without looking at me again, vanished back inside his classroom.