Night Film

110

“The business with you started because she was sick again,” Gallo blurted with evident contempt.

I drained my drink, feeling the scalding whiskey course down my throat.

“How’s that?” I muttered.

She turned to me, exasperated. “I told you. Ashley was a charismatic girl. Thanks to her inventive upbringing, her solitary life at The Peak, her sickness, she had trouble distinguishing made-up stories from real life. When Ashley was ten, Astrid made the mistake of inviting a witch doctor from Haiti to reside for four months at the house for fun. She didn’t realize it would permanently uproot Ashley’s imagination, like running along a coastline filled with quietly roosting flamingos, displacing them. Suddenly, everything in Ashley’s head became riotous and squawking and in motion, all pink feathers and screeching and flapping wings everywhere. She came to believe in it all, voodoo. Witchcraft.” She shook her head. “I found spells she’d laid for me in my own room, protection from evil, or so she claimed. She was certain she’d been marked by something evil, that the devil was causing her illness. It was heartbreaking. And delusional. Ashley was terrified to be in close physical proximity to people she cared about, because she believed she’d harm them. She claimed this darkness growing inside her due to her—I don’t even know how to put it — her soul slowly being overtaken by the devil — that it made her dangerous. Lethal. The idea was, of course, absurd.”

Gallo sighed. “Six months ago, when we learned she was sick again, her mental state became especially precarious. She had periods of not knowing where she was. Or who she was. Not that it was her fault, after what she’d withstood as a child, having those staring contests with Death, over and over again. She made it clear she didn’t want to be in a hospital bed anymore, plugged into tubes and monitors, weak with morphine. Astrid refused to accept it. She took Ashley, against her will, to a clinic, hoping it’d bring her to her senses, that she’d agree to another round of treatment.”

“And that clinic was Briarwood Hall.”

Gallo nodded. “She escaped, as you know, thanks to some horny half-wit working in security. Ashley was a master at manipulation, especially men. They melted and sweated and went weak in front of her like a bunch of idiot iced teas. She vanished into thin air. It was horrifying for all of us. We’d no clue where she’d gone. Theo and Boris searched everywhere for her, but she was clever. She knew how to remain invisible. We found out later she’d shacked up in a tenement slum on the Lower East Side.”

“Eighty-three Henry Street.”

“Astrid went out of her mind with worry. By then Ashley had grown quite sick. Astrid wanted her to die at home with her family around her. Still, we had a few inklings as to where she’d go. There wasn’t a day that went by that she didn’t think about that boy. Hopper. She’d kept track of him over the years, knew he’d gotten into trouble with the law, was making a mess of his life. We sensed she’d seek him out in some way. The other option, of course, was you.”

“Me?”

“She’d been interested in you ever since her father dealt with you snooping into his life the only way he knew how. Fighting fire with fire.”

“Dealt with me? Is that what Cordova called it?”

A challenging look flickered across her face, but she remained silent.

“Was it a setup? Who in hell was the man who contacted me, then? John.”

She shrugged. “Someone paid to lead you astray.”

“But what he told me, Cordova visiting all of those schools in the middle of the night—”

“A juicy fabrication. And one just salacious enough for you to blurt it out and hang yourself by your own hubris. I’m sure it was a painful lesson for you to learn, Mr. McGrath, but an artist like him needs just one fundamental thing in order to thrive. And he’ll do anything to keep it.”

“And what’s that?”

“Darkness. I know it’s hard to fathom today, but a true artist needs darkness in order to create. It gives him his power. His invisibility. The less the world knows about him, his whereabouts, his origins and secret methods, the more strength he has. The more inanities about him the world eats, the smaller and drier his art until it shrinks and shrivels into a Lucky Charms marshmallow to be consumed in a little bowl with milk for breakfast. Did you really think he’d ever let that happen?”

As she said this, her still-very-much-alive reverence for Cordova took up in her voice, tossed it high into the air, made it swoop in figure-eights, trailing wild red ribbons — a voice otherwise limp, lying in a dull heap on the ground. I’d also noticed that during the entire conversation Inez Gallo hadn’t actually said the word Cordova, not a single time — referring to him only as he or Ashley’s father.

It had to be her private superstition or she didn’t like cavalierly intoning the word, as if it were akin to God.

As she stood up, stalking over to the bar and returning with the whiskey bottle, hastily splashing it into our glasses, I considered what she said. If there was no devil’s curse, there could be no reason for Cordova to obsess over an exchange, no reason to visit those schools at night, no pit filled with children’s belongings. Had I been hallucinating after all, thanks to the Mad Seeds?

“To comprehend the force that was Ashley,” Gallo said, sitting back against the couch, clutching her drink, “you must understand, she was her father’s daughter. The family’s favorite fairy tale was Rumpelstiltskin. That’s what they did, what they were, fantastical creatures spinning the ordinary, dreary straw around them into gold. They won’t stop until they’re dead. And so Ashley reconceived her illness to be a devil’s curse.”

“But it wasn’t just Ashley who believed it. Marlowe Hughes and Hugo Villarde were also pretty convinced.”

She scoffed. “Marlowe Hughes is a drug addict. She’d believe the sky was hot-pink polka dots if you told it to her. Especially if you wrote it in a fan letter. She spent time with Ashley. Became swept up in her tales. And Villarde, after what Ashley did to him? The man went out of his mind. He believed her to be the devil’s queen, trembling at the sight of a flea.”

I suddenly recalled how Villarde had described, without shame, crawling on his hands and knees across his shop to hide from Ashley, cowering in a wardrobe like a terrified child.

“What about how Cordova worked?” I asked. “The horrors on the screen — they were real, weren’t they? The actors aren’t acting.”

She looked me over, her stare challenging. “It was nothing they didn’t ask for.”

“I’ve heard serial killers say the same thing.”

“Everyone who stayed at The Peak knew full well what they were getting into. They were dying to work with him. But if you’re asking me if he ever crossed the line into pure insanity, if he jumped headfirst into hell, he didn’t. He knew his limits.”

“What are they, exactly?”

She narrowed her eyes. “He was never a murderer. He loves life. But believe what you want. You’ll never find any evidence.”

You’ll never find any evidence. It was an odd thing to say. It sounded almost like an admission—almost. I thought back to the boy’s tiny shriveled shirt, caked not in blood but corn syrup, according to Falcone. What Gallo was saying certainly backed up the results Sharon had given me, whether I wanted to accept it or not.

“Why has everyone I’ve talked to about Ashley disappeared?”

“I took care of them,” Inez said with a hint of pride.

“What does that mean? They’re all lying in an unmarked grave?”

She ignored this, sitting up stiffly. “I also took care of the coroner’s photos of Ashley’s body, and then the body itself — before she was cut open in front of strangers like a lab rat. I’ve paid everyone off handsomely and sent them on their merry way.”

“How did you know who I talked to?”

She looked surprised. “Why, your own notes, Mr. McGrath. Surely you remember the break-in at your apartment. They were very helpful for tying up loose ends.”

Of course: the break-in.

“We were desperate,” she went on. “We didn’t know where Ashley had gone, what had happened to her in the time she’d vanished from Briarwood and ended up in that warehouse dead. The only thing we did know was that she came here one night, broke in, took money from a safe. I suspected you’d know more. Briarwood, after all, informed us that you’d showed up there, snooping. We broke in to find out what you knew.”

“Any chance I can have my laptop back?”

“It’s been a costly enterprise, in the wake of her death, getting rid of each witness. But it’s all in keeping our promise to her, never letting anyone know the truth. It’s what he wanted. Ashley’s history will now forever remain where she wished it, where she believed in her heart it always was — beyond reason, between heaven and earth, land and sky, suspended much closer to legend than ordinary life — ordinary life where the rest of us, including you, Mr. McGrath, must remain.”

“Where the mermaids sing,” I added quietly, reminded of the Prufrock poem. As Hopper had explained it, the mermaids were the one thing the family was always seeking out, always fighting for — life’s most stunning and precarious razor edge. Where there was danger and beauty and light. Only the now. Ashley said it was the only way to live.

Inez Gallo, I noticed, was staring at me, her mouth open in shock — seemingly surprised I knew such an intimate detail about the family. She decided not to delve further into it, however, taking a long sip of her drink.

“Marlowe Hughes suffered an overdose,” I said. “Did you have anything to do with that?”

“I asked her drug dealer to scare her a little. I didn’t expect him to nearly bump her off.”

“Your compassion is very moving.”

She glared at me. “It was the best thing that could happen. It got her out of that apartment. Right now she’s sitting in an oceanview suite at Promises in Malibu, climbing up onto that first, very high, very worn-out step of all twelve-step sobriety programs.”

“And what did you say to Olivia Endicott?”

She shrugged. “Nothing. She’s out of the country. But I did speak to her secretary. I paid the girl a small fortune to avoid you like the plague and not to pass along any of your messages to her employer.”

“And Morgan Devold? Why did his house burn down?”

“He needed the insurance money. He was in dire financial straits, two kids, no job. When I explained who I was, that I was there to offer a helping hand, he was quite receptive. If you ever approach him again, he’ll swear he’s never seen you or Ashley before in his life.” She lifted her chin, satisfied. “Everyone in this world has a price, Mr. McGrath. Even you.”

“You’re wrong. Some of us aren’t for sale. Who set the house on fire?”

“Theo and Boris. Boris is a longtime friend of the family.”

“Who smokes Murad cigarettes?”

She was visibly irritated by the question. “Theo. It was his father’s favorite brand.”

Again, she deliberately said his father, rather than simply Cordova. She was taking the long way to avoid a certain hazardous stretch of road.

“Years ago,” she went on, “he cleaned out the world’s supply. Murad. The brand’s been discontinued since the mid-thirties. It’s very rare. But he bought up every last pack from every obscure tobacco collector across the globe. He liked the caramel smell, the gorgeous packaging, and the fact that it was the only detail he remembered about his natural born father, a Spaniard, whom he’d last seen when he was three. But he especially liked the way they burned. It’s like nothing else. There are hundreds of shots of it in the films. The smoke spirals through the air like it’s alive. ‘Like a swarm of white snakes were struggling to be free,’ he once said to me.”

She’d gone on with strange, unchecked fervor, her eyes bright and raised to the ceiling, her mouth twitching in excitement. But then, remembering me, she stopped herself.

“I don’t see why it’s so important to you, these details,” she muttered in annoyance.

“It’s where the devil is. Haven’t you heard?”

She eyed me disdainfully. “You’ve done a lifetime’s worth of mining, Mr. McGrath. Maybe it’s time to come back to the surface and go home with whatever lumps of coal you’ve managed to dig loose.”

“And be on my merry way. Like all the others.”

She shrugged, unperturbed. “Do whatever you like with the information. Of course, now there’s no one in the world to back up your story. You’re alone again with your wild claims.”

Staring at the woman, I couldn’t help but marvel at her smug meticulousness, the way she’d managed to get rid of each and every witness, one by one.

“What happened to Ashley’s mother? Astrid?”

“Gone. Somewhere in Europe. With her precious child now dead, there’s nothing keeping her here. Too many black memories.”

“But you don’t mind them.”

She smiled. “My memories are all I have left. And when I’m gone? They’re gone.”

I frowned, suddenly doubtful again of what she’d been telling me, suddenly struck by something. Maybe it was the last dying whisper of magic—the kirins and devils, the supernatural powers of one startling woman — before it was all laid to rest.

“But I went up to The Peak,” I said. “I broke in—”

“Did you?” Gallo interrupted excitedly. “What did you find?”

Her reaction was puzzling, to say the least. She actually looked thrilled by my admission.

“A perfect circular clearing in which nothing grows,” I went on. “A maze of underground tunnels. Soundstages. Film sets entirely intact. Everything is overgrown and black. I walked over the devil’s bridge. And I saw …”

Gallo was hanging on my words so excitedly, waiting for me to continue, I fell silent, bewildered.

“Who lives there?” I went on. “Who are the watchmen with the dogs?”

She shook her head. “I’ve no idea.”

“What—you … you no longer work for the family?” I asked.

“You really don’t understand. The Peak’s been left to the fans.”

“What?”

“The Cordovites. It belongs to them now. They’ve overtaken it. Quite a few squat there year-round. It’s a dangerous theme park, left, free of charge, to his most dedicated. It’s become a secret rite of passage, a cult expedition to be there, wander the work or get swallowed inside it. They can fight over it, tend it, destroy it, rule it as they see fit. He hasn’t set foot there in years. It’s finished for him. His work is done.”

I wondered if it could actually be true — the men who’d chased me, the mongrels, the spray-painted red birds. I’d been terrorized by fans? I’d hardly managed to get my mind around this, when I had no choice but to reach for the other question she’d just left dangling in front of me.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“I was wondering when you might ask me that.” She turned away, staring somewhere in front of us, her expression like a truck driver looking out at a lonely road twisting interminably in front of her.

I had a sudden vision of that drunken South African journalist years ago, cautioning me that some stories are infected, that they’re like tapeworms. A tapeworm that’s eaten its own tail. No use going after it. Because there’s no end. All it will do is wrap around your heart and squeeze all the blood out.

For the first time since I’d met her, Inez Gallo smiled warmly at me. And I knew then I had it wrong. Because here it was. The end. The tail.

I’d found it, after all.