Night Film

25

“The police can be of further help,” said Hashim as he deposited us outside the hotel’s entrance on East Fiftieth Street. “Best of luck.”

He watched us walk to the corner of Park Avenue by Saint Bartholomew’s Church, then said something to the doorman — doubtlessly orders to alert security if we came back — and vanished inside.

It was after eleven now, a cold, clear night. Taxis and town cars were roaring down Park, though the wide sidewalks stretching north were quiet and deserted, the grand buildings nothing more than hollow cathedrals standing in the sky. In spite of the traffic, it felt lonely. The church’s entrance was strewn with the dark immobile forms of men in bulky overcoats, asleep on cardboard boxes. They might have been dark whales, caught unaware by a tide that suddenly receded, leaving them stranded on the steps.

“What do you think?” Nora asked me.

“Lupe? She was a bit dramatic but had to be telling the truth. Her version of it.”

“Why would Ashley be on the thirtieth floor, just sleeping there?”

“Maybe she was staying with someone. Didn’t have a key. Or she was meeting someone.”

“Did you see the way she stared at the coat? It was like she thought it was going to lunge at her or something.”

“She called it the devil’s coat. Hashim forgot to mention that.”

“He forgot to mention a lot of things,” interjected Hopper. He’d been squinting back at the entrance to the hotel, but now he stepped over to us, fumbling in his coat pockets. “He made half that shit up.”

“So you do speak Spanish,” I said.

“I lived since I was seven in Caracas. Then wandered Argentina and Peru for about a year.” He announced this offhandedly as he tapped out a cigarette, turning his back to the wind to light it.

“Like Che Guevara in Motorcycle Diaries?” asked Nora.

“Not really. It was hell. But I’m glad it was good for something. Like knowing when someone’s trying to con me.”

I was surprised, to say the least. I hadn’t expected the kid to be bilingual. But then I remembered a detail he’d let slip when he was telling me about Six Silver Lakes back in his apartment. I’d been traveling with my mom in South America for this missionary cult shit she was into. I ran the fuck away.

“I wanted to see if he was on the up and up. And he wasn’t.” Hopper exhaled a long stream of smoke. “I didn’t like that guy.”

“He certainly liked you.”

He didn’t respond, seemingly bored by the comment.

“So, what did she really say?” I asked.

“It was kinda tough to follow because she was speaking in a Guatemalan dialect. And she was bat-shit crazy.”

“Why was she bat-shit crazy?” asked Nora.

“She believed in ghosts, spirits, like, they’re all floating around us like pollen. She went on for like fifteen minutes about how she came from a long line of curanderas.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Some folksy medicine-woman bullshit. I’ve heard of them, actually. They cure bodies and souls. A one-stop shop for all your troubles.”

“So, what did he lie about?”

“He was right about the housekeeper seeing Ashley on the thirtieth floor. But the second he got to the part where she was wheeling the cart down the hall, he took all kinds of liberties. She actually called her espíritu rojo, a red spirit. She never thought it was a person sitting there, but some kind of confused soul or something, trapped between life and death. The nearer she got, she felt something, like some change in the gravitational pull of the Earth. When she crouched down in front of Ashley she said she was inconsciente. Unconscious. But not from drugs. She called her una mujer de las sombras. A woman of shadows.” He shrugged. “No clue what that meant. She touched her, and Ashley was like ice, so she shook her by the shoulders and when she opened her eyes, she saw la cara de la muerte staring back at her. The face of death.”

He fell silent, thinking it over. “She said Ashley was marked,” he added.

“In what way?”

“By the devil. Told you the woman was nuts. She said there was a second pupil in her left eye, some shit, and it was …” He tossed his cigarette to the ground. “She called it huella del mal.” He ground the butt out with his heel, and when he glanced up again, he seemed surprised by our expectant faces, waiting for him to translate.

“It means evil’s footprint,” he said.

“That’s why she pointed at her left eye,” I said.

Nora was staring at Hopper, speechless. She rolled the Whole Foods bag containing Ashley’s coat even tighter, as if to make sure whatever aura negativo attached to it remained securely inside.

“Then what happened?” I asked. “Stigmata appeared on Guadalupe’s palms?”

“She was scared, ran to the basement, got her things, and went to church for the rest of the day. She didn’t call security, which was why Hashim was pissed. She didn’t follow housekeeping protocol. Hashim thought Ashley was homeless, and he told Guadalupe he was going to speak to her boss about her handling of the situation. So after all that, I think we got the woman in trouble.”

It made perfect sense. When I saw Guadalupe staring at herself in the bathroom mirror with that odd look on her face, it had to be because she feared she might lose her job.

Hopper now looked rather dismissive of the entire episode. He’d taken his phone from his pocket, scrolling through messages.

“I gotta bounce,” he said. “Catch you guys later.”

With a slipshod smile, he turned, stepping off the curb.

Even though cars were racing down Park, surging toward us, he jogged right out in front of them, oblivious, or else he didn’t care if he was hit. A taxi braked and honked, but he ignored it, hopping right up onto the median, waiting for the cars to pass on the other side, and then he dashed across the street, Nora and I looking on in silence.