Night Film

26

Nora didn’t want me to drive her home, but I insisted, so she told me to drop her off at Ninth and Fifty-second Street.

As I drove, neither of us spoke.

It’d been a long day, to say the least. I hadn’t eaten anything but jelly beans and Bugles. Hopper’s chain-smoking had left me with a dull headache. Everything we’d uncovered about Ashley — the escape from Briarwood, the housekeeper’s apparent sighting — was too fresh to make sense of at this hour. My immediate plan was to go home, pour myself a drink, go to bed, and see how it all looked in the morning.

I made the left onto Ninth, pulling over in front of a Korean deli.

“Thanks for the ride,” said Nora, grabbing the strap of her purse and opening the door.

“Did you miss work tonight?” I asked. “The Four Seasons?”

“Oh, no. My last day was yesterday. The normal girl came back from maternity leave. Tomorrow I’m starting as a waitress at Mars 2112.”

“Where’s your apartment?”

“Down there.” She pointed vaguely over her shoulder. “Guess I’ll see you later.” Smiling, she heaved her bag onto her shoulder, slammed the door, and took off down the sidewalk.

I stayed where I was. After she’d gone about ten yards, she glanced back — clearly checking to see if I was still there — and continued on.

See you later.

I pulled out onto Ninth Avenue, stopping at the red light. Nora was still walking down the block but slowed to glance over her shoulder again. She must have seen me, because she immediately skipped up the front steps of the nearest cruddy building.

Jesus Christ. Sartre really wasn’t kidding when he said Hell is other people.

The light turned green. I floored it to get in the right-hand lane but was immediately cut off by an articulated bus. As usual, the driver was driving like he thought he was in a goddamn Smart car, not a block-long centipede on wheels. I braked, waiting for him to pass, turned right onto Fifty-first Street, again onto Tenth and then Fifty-second.

I pulled over behind a truck and spotted Nora immediately.

She was sitting back along the ledge of the front steps of the apartment building she’d seemingly disappeared into, checking her cell. After a minute, she stood, peered around the columns to take a furtive look at the spot where I’d just dropped her off. Seeing I was now gone, she skipped down the steps, heading back to the corner.

I edged into the street. Reaching the deli, she strode past the rows of fresh flowers — saying something to the old guy sitting there — and entered.

I pulled over again to wait. A minute later, she emerged carrying those two giant Duane Reade shopping bags she’d had back at the Pom Pom Diner as well as — oddly enough — a large, white wire cylindrical birdcage.

She crossed the street with this luggage, heading south down Ninth.

I waited for the light to turn green and made a right, watching her jostle down the sidewalk in front of me. I slowed, so as not to pass her — a taxi behind me laying on the horn — and saw her stop at the door of a tiny, narrow storefront. PAY-O-MATIC, read the sign. She pressed a button to enter, waiting, and vanished inside.

I accelerated, making a fast right onto Fifty-first Street, parking in front of a fire hydrant. I locked the car and headed back to Ninth.

The glass façade of PAY-O-MATIC was covered in signs: WESTERN UNION, CHECKS CASHED, 24-HOUR FINANCIAL SERVICES. The shop was tiny, with brown carpeting and a couple of folding chairs, boxes piled on the floor. Along the back wall there was a teller window with bulletproof glass.

I rang the buzzer. After about a minute, the back door opened and a large bald man stuck his head out.

He was wearing a black short-sleeved shirt and had a face like a piece of pastrami. He pressed a switch on the wall and the entrance clicked open.

As I stepped inside, he moved into the teller window, wiping his hands on the front of his shirt, which I now saw had branches of red bamboo sewn all over it. As a rule, I didn’t trust men who wore embroidery.

“I’m looking for a young woman with shopping bags and a birdcage.”

He made a bogusly confused face. “Who?”

“Nora Halliday. Nineteen. Blond.”

“It’s just me here.” He had a thick New York accent.

“Then I must be Timothy Leary tripping on serious acid, because I just saw her walk in.”

“You mean Jessica?”

“Exactly.”

He stared at me, worried. “You a cop?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t want trouble.”

“Neither do I. Where is she?”

“The back room.”

“What’s she doing there?”

He shrugged. “She gives me forty bucks. I let her crash here.”

“Forty bucks? That’s it?”

“Hey,” he said defensively. “I’ve got a family.”

“Where’s the back room?”

Without waiting for his answer, I stepped to the only door and opened it.

It led down a cluttered, dark hallway.

“I don’t want trouble.” He was right next to me, his heavy cologne nearly knocking me over. “I did it as a favor.”

“To whom?”

“Her. She showed up here six weeks ago, crying. I helped her out.”

I stepped past him into the hall. Muffled rap music throbbed on a floor above, giving the building a thudding heartbeat.

“Bernstein!” I shouted.

There was no answer.

“It’s Woodward. I need to talk to you.”

At the end of the hall were two closed wooden doors. I moved toward them, around a janitor bucket filled with dirty water, passing a kitchenette, a half-eaten sandwich sitting on top of a folding table.

“I know you’re in here somewhere,” I called out.

The first door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open with my foot. It was a bathroom, a crumpled issue of a skin magazine and a ribbon of toilet paper stuck to the floor.

I moved past it, knocking on the second door. When there was no answer, I tried the handle. It was locked.

“Nora.”

“Leave me alone,” she said quietly. It sounded as if she were mere inches away, behind a piece of cardboard.

“How about opening the door so we can talk?”

“I’d like you to leave, please.”

“But I want to offer you a job.”

She didn’t answer.

“I’m looking for a research assistant. Room and board included. You’d have to share the bedroom every few weekends with my daughter and her stuffed animal collection. But otherwise, it’s yours.” I glanced over my shoulder. The big guy from out front was eavesdropping, his fat frame plugging the hallway.

“What’s the starting salary?” she asked from behind the door.

“What?”

“Of the job. The salary.”

“Three hundred a week. Cash.”

“Really?”

“Really. But you’ll handle your own money laundering.”

“What kind of health benefits?”

“None. Take echinacea.”

“I won’t sleep with you or anything.”

She noted this as if announcing a food allergy. I won’t eat shellfish or peanuts.

“No problem.”

“Everything okay back here?” The guy from the front was now behind me.

The door suddenly opened, and Nora was there, still wearing that ice-skating skirt but with her long hair down around her shoulders, her face solemn.

“Yeah, Martin,” she said. “I’m leaving.”

“With a cop?”

“He’s not a cop. He’s an investigative journalist. Freelance.”

That seemed to really disturb the guy — not that I blamed him. Nora smiled at me, suddenly shy, and turned back inside, leaving the door open.

It was a large walk-in closet, a bare bulb shining overhead. Spread out in the corner were a sheet and an army blanket. Along the wall were a bag of hotdog buns, a folded pile of T-shirts, a bag of Forti Diet Bird Food, plastic forks and knives, and anthills of tiny salt and pepper packets — probably swiped from a McDonald’s. Beside the birdcage — there didn’t seem to be anything in there — was a blue yearbook that read, HARMONY HIGH SCHOOL, HOME OF THE LONGHORNS. Beside the makeshift bed were two tiny colored photos taped to the wall — close to the spot where she’d put her head. One was of a bearded man, the other a woman.

It had to be the dead mother and convict father.

I took a step inside to get a better look and realized the man was actually Christ, the way he appeared in Sunday-school classrooms: milky complexion, starched blue dressing gown, a beard trimmed as painstakingly as a bonsai tree. He was doing what he was always doing: cupping blinding light in his hands like he was trying to warm up after a long day of downhill skiing. The woman taped next to him was Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz. They made quite a pair.

Nora shoved a stack of shirts into the plastic bag. “If I take this job, you’re not allowed to ask me tons of questions. I’m none of your business.” She grabbed a pair of discarded gold sequined hot pants tossed in a ball in the corner, stuffing them inside the bag. “This is just till we find out about Ashley. After that I’m doing my own thing.”

“Fine.” I bent down to check out the birdcage. Inside, there was a live blue parakeet, though the thing was so still and faded it looked like taxidermy. Ornate toys were strewn all over the newspaper in front of him — colored balls, feathers and bells, a full-length mirror — but the bird seemed too exhausted to summon any interest in them.

“Who’s this guy?” I asked.

“Septimus,” she said. “He’s an heirloom.” She stepped over, smiling. “He’s been inherited so many times no one remembers where he came from. Grandma Eli got him from her next-door neighbor, Janine, when she died. And he was bequeathed to Janine from Glen when he died. And Glen inherited him from a man named Caesar who died of diabetes. Who he belonged to before Caesar, only God knows.”

“He’s not a bird, he’s a bad omen.”

“Some people think he’s got magical powers and he’s a hundred years old. Want to hold him?”

“No.”

But she was already unlatching the door. The bird hopped over and chucked himself into her hand. She took mine and slipped the bird into it.

He was not long for this world. He looked like he had cataracts. He was also trembling faintly like an electric toothbrush. I’d have assumed he was catatonic, if he didn’t suddenly jolt his head to one side, staring up at me with a cloudy yellow eye that looked like an old bead.

Nora put her face up to him.

“Promise not to tell anyone?” she asked quietly, glancing at me.

“About what?”

“This. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.” Her eyes moved off of the bird and onto me, her gaze steady.

“I promise.”

She smiled, satisfied, and resumed packing, collecting every one of those salt and pepper packets, sprinkling them into the Duane Reade bags.

“I actually have condiments at my place,” I said.

She nodded — like I’d just reminded her to bring her pajamas — and set about pulling down black stockings and bras hung to dry along the top shelves, crazy leopard and zebra prints tacked down by Black & Decker drills and paint cans.

The girl was like one of those picture books with pages that unfold and unfold all the way out, which caused children’s eyes to grow wide. I suspected she’d never stop unfolding.

After Nora packed up her clothes, she set about peeling Jesus and Judy Garland off the wall. Jesus came off easily. Judy, predictably, took a bit of coaxing. She grabbed the Harmony High yearbook, opened it, carefully tucked the two pictures inside, and then returned Septimus to his cage.

I realized, staring at the army-green blob he’d left, the bird had taken a shit in my hand.

“It’s best if you let that dry first, then flick it off,” said Nora, glancing at it. I’m ready. Oh. Almost forgot.”

She rummaged through her purse and handed me a colored photograph. I assumed she was showing me a member of her family, but then realized with surprise it was a photo of Ashley.

Her gray eyes, hollowed by dark circles, seemed to fasten onto me.

“When I disappeared from the tour at Briarwood and got in trouble? That’s what I went back to get. I saw it on those bulletin boards by the dining hall under ‘Weekly Picnic.’ It’s her, isn’t it?”

La cara de la muerte, the Waldorf maid had said. The face of death.

I understood what she meant.