Night Film(25)

But after what Hopper had told me, shyness didn’t seem an underlying part of Ashley’s personality. Quite the opposite.

I had to get back to Perry Street: first, to make arrangements to drive upstate to Briarwood so I could learn about Ashley’s stay there. I also wanted to check out the URL of the Blackboards I’d swiped off of Beckman’s computer.

I grabbed the Whole Foods bag, exiting the diner. The sun was out, splattering brash light over the cars speeding down Eleventh Avenue. It did nothing to lighten the unease I felt over the simple, startling fact that the red coat, that blood red stitch in the night from the Reservoir, had appeared one last time in front of me.

It was in my own hands.





From: Elizabeth J. Poole <[email protected]> Hide

Subject: Re: Tour

Date: Oct 25 2011 06:24:44 PM EDT

To: Dr. Leon Dean <[email protected]>




Dear Dr. Dean:


Thank you for your inquiry.


I would be delighted to give you a guided tour of our state-of-the-art health facility and also to answer any questions you may have. I’ve penciled you in for tomorrow at 11:30 AM.


In the meantime, please browse our website and the attached literature about Briarwood and its esteemed history.


Please call me at your earliest convenience.


Very truly yours,


Elizabeth J. Poole

Director of Admissions


Briarwood Hall Hospital

Restoring Mental Health since 1934





14


The following morning, an hour before I was set to leave for the three-hour drive upstate to Briarwood, I was in my kitchen making a fresh pot of coffee when there was a knock on my front door.

I walked into the foyer and checked the peephole.

Nora Halliday was at my door.

I didn’t know how in the hell she’d found out where I lived, but then I remembered: It was on that damn business card I’d given her back at the Four Seasons. Someone must have buzzed her in. I considered pretending I wasn’t at home, but she knocked again and I knew the old wood floors of my apartment squeaked with every step, so she could hear me standing there.

I unlocked the door. She was wearing a tight black wool jacket with a collar of ostrich feathers, black tights, boots, and a zebra-print nylon miniskirt, which looked like a figure-skating costume from the Lillehammer Olympics. She had no shopping bags with her, only that gray leather purse, her long blond hair braided into two cords wrapped around her head.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m ready to work.”

“It’s eight o’clock in the morning.”

She picked at something crusty on the hem of her jacket. “Yeah, well, I thought maybe you could use someone to bounce ideas off of.”

I was about to tell her to come back tomorrow—then obviously I’d have to move or join a Witness Protection Program—but I remembered that observation Hopper had made, that the girl didn’t have a place to live. She did look pale and faintly exhausted.

“You want to come in for a cup of coffee?”

She beamed. “Sure.”

“I’m about to leave for an appointment, so it won’t be long.”

“No problem.”

“What exactly are you wearing?” I asked, leading her through the foyer into the living room. “Your mother doesn’t let you walk around like that, does she?”

“Oh, sure. She lets me do whatever. She’s dead.” She slung her purse beside the couch—it had to contain at least one bowling ball.

“Then that grandmother you mentioned, she doesn’t let you walk around like that.”

“Eli?” She really pronounced the hell out of the name: EEL EYE. “She’s dead, too.”

Something told me I should stop while I wasn’t ahead.

“What about your father?”

She leaned forward to study the painting above the fireplace.

“He’s at Starke.”

“Starke?”

“Florida State Prison. They have an Old Sparky there.”

Old Sparky—it was the nickname of the electric chair. I waited for her to clarify that her dad wasn’t destined to meet Old Sparky, but she moved to the bookcase, inspecting the books, leaving that strand of the conversation dangling like the end of a party streamer she didn’t bother to tape up.

“How do you like your coffee?” I asked, retreating into the kitchen.

“Cream, two sugars. But only if it’s not too much trouble.”

“It’s no trouble at all.”

“You wouldn’t have anything to eat, would you?”

I set the girl up in my living room with coffee, two toasted English muffins piled with butter and marmalade, and a copy of my book Cocaine Carnivals. After making sure there was no cash lying around or any other valuables she could feed to her carnivorous purse, I went back into my office to print out directions to Briarwood Hall.

I also tried logging on to the Blackboards website again, but I was tossed back to the exit page, as I’d been before.

My IP address appeared to have been blocked.

When I returned to the living room, Nora had settled in. She’d taken off her boots, pulled a wool blanket over her legs, and drained some of the contents of that purse onto my coffee table: two stage plays, a tube of lipstick, that beat-up Discman.