Night Film(171)

“It was probably ‘Welcome to the Jungle.’ ”

“I don’t know why you’re freaking out. It’ll be cool.”

It’ll be cool. I felt as if a rug were being yanked out from under me when I’d been standing on hardwood floors in bare feet.

“This is because of last night,” I said.

She only raised her chin, grabbing her Harmony High School yearbook, frowning dramatically as she paged through it.

“You’re angry because I was a gentleman? Respected the boundaries of our working relationship?”

She snapped the book closed, sticking it inside the bag. “No.”

“No?”

“No, it’s because of Hamlette auditions at the Flea Theater.”

“Hamlette auditions at the Flea Theater.”

She nodded triumphantly. “They’re reversing the genders of all the roles, so there are finally good parts for females. I’m going to try for Hamlette, so I have to practice my monologues night and day. It’d drive you crazy because you hate my acting.”

“That’s not true. I’ve grown quite fond of your acting.”

She was folding an old gray cardigan with a sequin flying bird pin on the shoulder and a massive gaping hole in the left elbow that resembled a silently screaming mouth.

“You yourself said last night that I have to go hurling forward into space and you’ll be my cheerleader on the sidelines. So that’s what I’m doing.”

“Why would you take my advice?”

“I said it was temporary. That it was until we found out about Ashley. And we did. And I have money now.”

I’d paid Nora before we’d gone to The Peak, including a very sizable bonus that I was now sort of regretting.

“Plus, you’re going to be busy publicizing everything and making money off of Ashley for your own benefit, just like Hopper said.”

I let that remark sail past me like a grenade blowing up inches from my face. She wouldn’t stop zipping around the room like some insect with ten thousand eyes, folding, tucking, packing it all away.

“The investigation is not over,” I said. “You’re quitting in the end zone, fourth quarter, five seconds left, three downs.”

She glared at me. “You still don’t get it.”

“What don’t I get? I’d be fascinated to find out.”

“You don’t see that if Cordova had ever done something that’d hurt anyone, Ashley wouldn’t have allowed it. I trust her. And so does Hopper. You obviously don’t trust anyone. Here’s your coat back.” She’d brutally yanked Cynthia’s black coat off a closet hanger and chucked it over the bed. It sagged onto the floor. I’d given it to her weeks ago, so she’d have something without feathers to wear to Olivia Endicott’s. She’d loved it, announcing with unabashed joy that it made her feel like a French person, whatever that meant.

“I gave it to you,” I said.

She put on the coat, stepped in front of Sam’s Big Bird mirror, and took a very long time fixing a bright green scarf around her neck. She then grabbed a black fedora off the bedpost, setting it delicately atop her head like a lost queen crowning herself. I followed her downstairs in a sort of daze. She set down her bags, heading into my office. She’d picked up Septimus from the kennel. She crouched beside his cage.

“When Grandma Eli gave me Septimus, she gave me the directions that went with him,” she said. “You have to give him away to someone who needs him. That’s part of his magic. You’re supposed to know the right time to give him away, and it’s when it hurts the most. I want you to have him.”

“I don’t want a bird.”

“But you need a bird.”

She unlatched the door, and the blue parakeet fluttered into her palm. She whispered something into his invisible ear, returned him to his swing, and then she was moving again, slipping past me down the hall. She didn’t stop until we were outside on my stoop.

“I’ll go with you. Interview the hippie. Make sure this person wasn’t part of the Symbionese Liberation Army—”

“No. I’m handling it.”

“So that’s it? I’ll never see you again?”

She wrinkled her nose as if I’d said something idiotic. “’course you’re going to see me again.” She reached up onto her tiptoes and hugged me. The girl gave the most premium of hugs—skinny arms clamped around your neck like zip ties, bony knees bumping yours. It was like she was trying to get an indelible impression of you to take away with her forever.

She grabbed her bags and took off down the steps.

I waited until she rounded the corner, then took off after her. I knew she’d kill me if she saw me, but thankfully the sidewalks were mobbed with shoppers, so I was able to stay out of sight, tailing her all the way into the subway, where she hopped on a 1 train, transferred to the L and then the 6, finally exiting at Astor Place.

Emerging from the packed station, I lost sight of her. I looked everywhere, even began to panic, worried that was it, I’d never know what happened to her, if she was safe—Bernstein, the precious gold coin slipping out of my fumbling hands, disappearing into New York’s millions.

But then I spotted her. She’d crossed Saint Marks Place, was walking with her usual corkscrew gait past the pizza parlor, the racks of magazines. I followed her down East Ninth, coming to a small triangular garden where the street intersected Tenth. She skipped up the steps of a shabby brownstone. I held back, slipping into a doorway.