Night Film(63)

I was halfway down the hall now, but stopped because a small boy—no more than five or six years old—was peering at me through the stairwell door. After a pause, he slipped out, standing sullenly behind the woman. He was in a dirty T-shirt, cotton pants too short in the leg, and socks meant for much larger feet.

“Is that your nephew?” I asked.

She surveyed him coldly and turned back to me, saying nothing.

“You mentioned Kay watched him once when you were out. Can he tell me anything about her?”

She pointed at me. “For a friend, you don’t know too much.”

I noticed then a shard of light was coming out of a room beside me, the door moving. Someone was eavesdropping. Before I could see who it was, there was a loud clanging. The landlord and boy had just disappeared into the stairwell. I took off after them.

“Hold on!”

“You leave us alone.”

I raced down the steps, tripping on fliers, catching up on the next landing. Without thinking, I grabbed the boy’s arm. He emitted a bloodcurdling squeal, as if I’d just branded him with an iron.

Startled, I let go, yet he continued to scream as he watched something—some kind of action figure he’d just dropped—careen down through the metal railings, bouncing on the steps, skidding across the tiles on the ground floor. With a whimper, he took off after it.

“Look what you done now,” the woman mumbled furiously, heading after him. “Take your friends and get out of here. We don’t know nothin’.”

When I reached the ground floor, I found the two of them frantically scouring the hallway. The boy stood up, turning to the woman, his fingers working fast in the air. He was speaking in sign language. He was deaf. And I’d traumatized him.

Guilty, I turned, searching the tiled floor, kicking aside fliers and wrappers. I soon found it in a rectangle of light under the stairwell.

It was a tiny wood carving of a snake—three inches long, mouth open, tongue extended, twisted body. It felt oddly heavy.

Suddenly beside me, the landlord snatched it, handing it back to the boy. She then seized his arm, hauled him toward an apartment door. I caught a glimpse of a cluttered room, a TV playing cartoons, as she shoved the boy inside, darted in after him, the door slamming.

Nora and Hopper were racing downstairs, the building growling with the noise. They ran straight down the hall, Nora turning, silently beckoning me to hurry. I exited after her into the cool night, realizing I was gasping for breath, as if I’d just wrenched free of something—something that, without my knowledge, had been suffocating me.





37


“Did you take the roots over the door?” I asked when I caught up with Nora and Hopper across the street.

“Yep,” she said, opening up her purse to show me.

“Okay, let’s grab a cab—”

“We can’t. A neighbor of Ashley’s is coming down to talk to us.”

I recalled that shard of light I’d seen outside room #13.

“While you chased the landlady, this other woman stuck her head out, upset by all the commotion. Hopper showed her Ashley’s picture, and she recognized her. She’s coming down to talk to us in two seconds.”

“Nice work.”

“Here she comes,” whispered Nora, as a figure emerged from 83 Henry.

The woman was tall, wearing a white zip-up sweatshirt and sneakers. She carried a black duffel bag over her shoulder, and whatever was in there—assault rifles, by the shape of it—appeared to be quite heavy, making her walk stooped over. She hurried across the street toward us.

“Sorry I took so long,” she said breathlessly, skipping up onto the curb in a potent blast of perfume. “Couldn’t find my keys. I’m off to work, so I don’t have much time. What’d you want to ask me?”

Her face was quite pretty, fringed with bleached blond curls, though wearing so much makeup, it was difficult to know where she ended and her illusion began. She looked about thirty, though I noticed she stood deliberately away from the streetlight and kept her hands shoved in the pockets of her hoodie, shoulders hunched, as if not entirely at ease with people getting a close look at her.

“Just a few questions about your neighbor Kay.”

She smiled. “Oh, yeah. How’s she doing? Haven’t seen her.”

“Fine,” I answered, ignoring Nora’s look. “We’re friends of hers and want to know about her stay here. What’d she do with herself?”

“Gee, I wouldn’t know. We barely talked.” Setting the duffel down on the sidewalk—mysterious metallic clangs—the woman removed a ball of Kleenex from her pocket and blew her nose. “Sorry. I’m just getting over a bad cold. I only saw Kay, like, once.”

“When?” I asked.

“A month ago? I was just getting in from work. About five, six in the morning. I went into the bathroom to take my makeup off. There’s only one per floor. Everyone shares. I was in there, like, forty-five minutes, brushing my teeth, probably even talking to myself, when all of a sudden there was a splash behind me.” She shuddered. “Scared the shit out of me. I screamed. Probably woke up the whole building.”

“Why?” I asked when she didn’t go on, but paused to blow her nose again.

“She was right there,” she said, giggling, a high-pitched, jingle-bell sound. “Kay.”