Night Film(186)

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.”