Night Film(54)

I’d always thought Theo Cordova looked like a deranged Puck: strung-out, half naked, eyes glassy, blood and what looked to be human bite marks covering his bare chest. He looked even more horrendous now, given Crowboy123’s anecdote on the Blackboards. As he knocked on the car window, trying the door, and said his only line—“Help me, please,” words barely audible over Jenny’s screams—his voice oozed out like some strange sap.

Nora, standing beside the flat-screen, paused it.

Frame by frame, she inched toward 5:48, where it was possible to see that Theo was missing three fingers.

“There.”

“It’s a movie. It could be special effects, makeup, prosthetics—”

“But the look on his face is real pain. I know it.”

She pressed play, and Theo’s hand dropped out of sight.

Jenny managed to get the car started, and, nearly running over this strung-out, wounded boy, she barreled back into the road, tree branches cracking the windshield, tires squealing. As she blindly took off, petrified, blinking away tears, she watched him in the rearview mirror.

The boy’s half-naked figure glowed red in her taillights, quickly faded to a thin black silhouette, and then—fast as an insect—he darted out of the road, vanishing from view.

Nora scrambled back to the couch, pulling the wool blanket over her legs and reaching down to pick up Septimus from the coffee table, as if that ancient bird would protect her from the horror about to unfold on-screen.

“Want me to make some popcorn?” I asked her.

“Definitely.”

We ended up watching all of Wait for Me Here.

Cordova’s films were addictive opiates; it was impossible to watch just one minute. One craved more and more. Around 5:30 A.M., when my head was soaked with gory imagery and that hellish story—not to mention echoing with whispers of those anonymous voices calling out from the Blackboards—Nora and I called it a day.





30


The next morning I woke up to learn Vanity Fair was reporting that they had “the inside scoop” on Ashley Cordova and the article was due to be published on their website within days. This meant not only that other reporters were hot on the trail, but it was probably just a matter of time before they ended up at Briarwood Hall—and on the doorstep of Morgan Devold. Whatever advantage I’d had, thanks to Sharon Falcone and getting my hands on Ashley’s police file, would be gone.

And unfortunately, my own investigation had stalled.

We’d learned about Ashley’s escape from Briarwood and her diagnosed affliction, nyctophobia, “a severe fear of the dark or night, triggered by the brain’s distorted perception of what would or could happen to the body when it’s exposed to a dark environment,” according to The New England Journal of Medicine. We’d had a small coup by logging successfully on to the Blackboards, able now to ransack through the rumors of his staunchest fans.

Yet there was no new lead to follow.

Ashley had come to the city by train after leaving Morgan Devold, but why, or where she’d gone during the ten days before her death—besides the thirtieth floor of the Waldorf Towers—was still a mystery.

I could bribe an employee at the hotel for a list of every guest staying on that floor within the time frame—September 30 to October 10—but from personal experience I knew I needed something more, a filter for the names. The list would be substantial, many of the guests doubtlessly wealthy tourists who wouldn’t appreciate—or feel any obligation to honestly answer—questions about what they were doing at the hotel. By the time I tracked everyone down, showing them Ashley’s picture, I’d probably have little to go on and, even worse, the exercise would take up a hell of a lot of time.

“Maybe we could take Ashley’s picture to businesses around the Waldorf,” Nora said, after I explained some of this to her. “Ask if someone noticed her. She’d stand out with that red coat.”

“I might as well take her picture to Times Square and ask random passersby if they noticed her. It’s too vast. We need specifics.”

She suggested we watch Cordova’s films. “Maybe we’ll spot a hidden detail, like Theo’s three missing fingers.”

With no immediate alternative, I dusted off the box set of the eight films released by Warner Bros.—The Legacy (1966) through Lovechild (1985)—packaged to resemble the infamous Samsonite briefcase in Thumbscrew (1979), and we pulled the living-room shades, made more popcorn, and settled in for a Cordova marathon.

Nora called Hopper, inviting him to join, but he didn’t respond. I actually wouldn’t have been surprised if we never saw him again. I sensed from his restlessness—whatever his relationship with Ashley—his desire to be involved in the investigation would be as erratic as his moods. He seemed to veer between intense interest and a desire to forget the entire thing.

As we settled in to watch Thumbscrew, I was in the kitchen making more popcorn when the buzzer to my apartment rang.

“I’ll get it!” sang Nora.

After a minute, when I noticed nothing but silence, I stuck my head out. To my shock, Cynthia and my daughter, Sam, were in the foyer, staring in bewilderment at Nora.

It was my weekend for custody. I’d forgotten.

Seeing my ex-wife was still a jolt to the system. Jeannie was the designated go-between for Sam. The appearance of Cynthia in my home was akin to a grizzly wandering into my remote campsite: a life-threatening scenario I’d considered, but only as a worst-case disaster.