Night Film(27)

“That’s not—okay, yes, they were a team, but they each brought something substantive to the table.”

“I can bring something to the table.”

“Like what? Your deep knowledge of Ashley Cordova?”

She stopped dead. “I’m coming,” she announced behind me. “Or I’ll call the hospital and tell them you’re a fake using a fake name.”

I stopped in my tracks, turning around to survey her. There it was, that Teflon personality I’d gone mano-a-mano with at the Four Seasons. That was women for you—always morphing. One minute they were helpless, needing shelter and English muffins, the next they were ruthlessly bending you to their will like you were a piece of sheet metal.

“So it’s blackmail.”

She nodded, her stare fierce.

I walked the remaining yards to my car, a dented silver 1992 BMW parked along the curb.

“Fine,” I muttered over my shoulder. “But you’re staying in the car.”

Nora, squeaking with excitement, hurried around to the passenger side.

“You’ll do everything I say at all times.” I unlocked the trunk, shoved the Whole Foods bag inside. “You’ll be a silent operative with no personality. You’ll simply process and execute my orders like a machine.”

“Oh, sure.”

I climbed in, yanking on my seatbelt and starting the car.

“I don’t want feedback. Or yammering. I don’t chit, and I sure as hell don’t chat.”

“Okay, but we can’t leave yet.” She leaned forward, turning on the radio.

“Why not?”

“Hopper’s coming.”

“No. He’s not. This isn’t a f*cking fourth-grade class trip.”

“But he wanted to meet up with us. You really hate people, huh?”

I ignored that comment, inching out onto Perry, though a taxi barreling down the street behind me laid on the horn. I slammed on the brakes and was forced to retreat meekly back to the curb as a motorcade of cars passed, piling up at the light, trapping us in the space.

“You remind me of this man back at Terra Hermosa.”

“What the hell’s Terra Hermosa?”

“A retirement community. His name was Hank Weed. At mealtimes he’d always take the good table by the window and put his walker against the empty seat so no one else could sit down and see the view. He died like that.”

I didn’t answer, silenced by the sudden realization that I had absolutely no idea if any of what came out of this girl’s mouth was true. Maybe she was really good at improv. I couldn’t be certain she was nineteen or that her name really was Nora Halliday. Maybe she was like one of those sweaters with an innocent little thread hanging off of it: One pull, the whole thing unraveled.

“Do you drive?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Give me your license.”

“Why?”

“I have to make sure there’s not an Amber Alert out for you. Or that you weren’t profiled on Dateline as some kind of tween criminal.”

Smirking, she leaned forward, dug around in that hulking bag, removing a green nylon LeSportsac wallet, so stained and filthy it looked like it’d floated for a couple of years down the Nile. She flipped through a few snapshots encased in plastic—deliberately turning the wallet away so I couldn’t view them—and slipped out the license, handing it to me.

In the picture she looked about fourteen.

Nora Edge Halliday. 4406 Brave Lane. Saint Cloud, FL. Eyes: blue. Hair: blond. Born June 28, 1992.

She was nineteen.

I handed it back, saying nothing. Both Edge as a middle name and Brave Lane—not to mention the year of her birth, which was pretty much yesterday—were enough to render me mute.

The light turned green. I put the car in drive, easing out.

“If you want to wait for Hopper, be my guest. I have work to do.”

“But he’s here,” she yelped excitedly.

Sure enough, Hopper was shuffling down the sidewalk in his gray coat. Before I could stop her, Nora reached over and repeatedly honked the horn. Seconds later, in a blast of cold air, cigarette smoke, and booze, Hopper collapsed in the backseat.

“What’s up, cholos?”

The kid was bombed again.

I accelerated through the yellow light, speeding across Seventh Avenue. Hopper muttered something incomprehensible. A half-hour later he asked me to pull over on the side of the New Jersey Turnpike and got sick.

It didn’t look like he’d been home all night; he was still wearing the white GIFFORD’S FAMOUS ICE CREAM T-shirt from yesterday. TRY OUR 13 HONEY-PIE FLAVORS! it whispered in faded letters. When he finished, he seemed to want to sit down on the guardrail and watch the traffic blasting inches from my car like cannonballs, so Nora climbed out to help him, guiding him back to the car. She did this with remarkable tenderness and care. I couldn’t help but sense she’d done such a thing many times before. For whom? The dead mother? The convict father possibly awaiting Old Sparky? Grandmother Eel Eye?

Why the hell did she care about Ashley Cordova—about any of this? And Hopper—was a stuffed monkey anonymously mailed to him really why he chose to be with me on a Wednesday morning, not in bed with Chloe or Reinking or some other downtown girl reeking of cigarettes and indie bands?