Night Film(98)

“Well …” She sighed, as if it were the end of the conversation rather than the beginning. This meant, because she was a woman, she’d probably already had this discussion umpteen times in her head.

“Is it about Hopper?” I asked. “Are you worried about him spending the night in jail? Because he’ll be fine.”

The bed jerked.

“Did you nod? It’s too dark to see in here.”

“It’s nothing to do with him. It’s something I said that I feel bad about.”

“What?”

“That I wouldn’t sleep with you.”

“No need to clarify it. It goes unsaid. And it’s nothing I haven’t heard before.” I did not know where Bernstein was going with this, but I had a bad feeling. It was crucial to get the girl out of my room, back to her own bed, stat. Adding sex to investigative reporting was as inspired an idea as Ford unveiling the Pinto—what was meant to be fun, sexy, and practical was actually a nightmare, causing great personal injury on all sides.

“You’re handsome,” Nora said. “If you were at Terra Hermosa, the ladies would die.”

“Isn’t that what they do anyway?”

“I didn’t want any professional lines to be crossed.”

“You were right. I can’t tell you how many women I’ve crossed all kinds of lines with and afterward felt terrible.”

“Really?”

“Like I’d just been given a prognosis of a few weeks left to live.”

She giggled.

“Started my very first time when I was fifteen. Lorna Doonberry. Talk about lines; she played bridge with my mother. I got carried away. She fell into a shower curtain. You know that little soap holder in bathtubs?”

“Sure.”

“Her face hit it. She lost two teeth. Blood everywhere. Lorna went from a perfectly attractive fortysomething divorcée to a lead character in Night of the Living Dead.”

“My first time was Tim Bailey.”

I waited for more information. None came.

“Don’t tell me he was a resident at Terra Hermosa.”

“Oh, no. He worked at Premier Pool Services. He cleaned the pool every Friday.”

“How old was he?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“How old were you?”

“Sixteen. But an old sixteen. He had a wife and two kids. I felt awful about it. It’s a terrible thing, to lie. It’s a field you keep seeding and watering and plowing, but nothing will ever grow on it.” She wrapped her arms around her knees, fidgeting her shoulders. “I tried to end it a couple times, but Tim and I would go out behind the kitchen when everyone was at Wine and Cheese, and he’d dance with me to the country music coming through the kitchen window. He was a good dancer. But he was sad. He dreamed of just taking off and starting over, pretending his life never happened in the first place.”

“Did he?”

“Don’t know. Can I tell you something?”

“Of course.”

“You won’t make a big deal out of it?”

“I promise.”

“When I first got to New York at Port Authority it was three in the morning. Septimus got stolen.”

She paused, clasping her hands between her knees.

“One of the people on the bus did it. I knew who it was. He got on at Daytona Beach, and he sat behind me and Septimus the whole way. He smelled like alcohol, and he tried hard to make conversation during the ride, but I just put on my headphones and pretended to be asleep. Something was wrong with him. Mentally, you know? But when we got to Port Authority I let my guard down when we were all getting off. This lady needed help getting one of her kids into a stroller. I helped her, then went to the underneath part to get my bag, and when I went back to the curb Septimus wasn’t there. His cage was gone. I went crazy. I told the driver, and he told me to report it to the main office, but all I could think was that I was going to die. I was going to die without Septimus. I couldn’t think. By then all the other passengers had left. I exited the lot into the part where all the shops are and it was quiet. The next thing I knew, that same man was walking behind me. He whispered he had my bird. He said he wanted to give him back. All I had to do was give him a blowjob in the bathroom.”

I stared at her. I felt as if the wind had been kicked out of me, so sudden was this confession. I was careful not to do anything at all, not even to move.

“I said I didn’t believe him, so he brought me behind a Villa Pizza and into the women’s bathroom. Septimus’s cage was there on the floor, but it was empty. And then I saw that the man had stuck him in one of those silver containers in the stalls. You know, where you throw stuff away? He was fluttering around in there, going crazy. Because he hates the dark. Always has. You’re supposed to put a sheet over the cage to calm a bird, but Septimus doesn’t like it. He has to see. The man said all I had to do was that and he’d let him go. I got into the stall with him. There was actually a lady getting dressed in the back, but she didn’t say anything when I called out to her. He unzipped his pants and leaned back with his fist clamped hard on the lid of the silver thing. So I did it. I thought of trying to get Septimus out, biting the man, but there wasn’t the chance. When I stopped, the man punched me in the face. He kept calling me Nancy over and over. Nancy. Nancy. When it was done, he smiled and took out Septimus, holding him really tight in his fist, squeezing him like toothpaste. I screamed and screamed, and when I couldn’t take it anymore he laughed and threw him out of the stall. I didn’t know where he was at first. But then I found him on the floor under the radiator. I got his cage and my bag, and I ran as fast as I could. The place was deserted with closed-up shops, only a few people staring at nothing like a bunch of ghosts. I took the escalator up to the street. I went over to the taxi stand, climbed in, and I asked the driver to take me to the center of everything. Madonna did it, when she first came to New York. She asked the cabdriver to take her to the center of everything.”