Marisha Pessl - Night Film

As I stepped inside, he moved into the teller window, wiping his hands on the front of his shirt, which I now saw had branches of red bamboo sewn all over it. As a rule, I didn’t trust men who wore embroidery.

“I’m looking for a young woman with shopping bags and a birdcage.”

He made a bogusly confused face. “Who?”

“Nora Halliday. Nineteen. Blond.”

“It’s just me here.” He had a thick New York accent.

“Then I must be Timothy Leary tripping on serious acid, because I just saw her walk in.”

“You mean Jessica?”

“Exactly.”

He stared at me, worried. “You a cop?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t want trouble.”

“Neither do I. Where is she?”

“The back room.”

“What’s she doing there?”

He shrugged. “She gives me forty bucks. I let her crash here.”

“Forty bucks? That’s it?”

“ Hey, ” he said defensively. “I’ve got a family.”

“Where’s the back room?”

Without waiting for his answer, I stepped to the only door and opened it.

It led down a cluttered, dark hallway.

“I don’t want trouble.” He was right next to me, his heavy cologne nearly knocking me over. “I did it as a favor.”

“To whom?”

“ Her. She showed up here six weeks ago, crying. I helped her out.”

I stepped past him into the hall. Muffled rap music throbbed on a floor above, giving the building a thudding heartbeat.

“ Bernstein! ” I shouted.

There was no answer.

“It’s Woodward. I need to talk to you.”

At the end of the hall were two closed wooden doors. I moved toward them, around a janitor bucket filled with dirty water, passing a kitchenette, a half-eaten sandwich sitting on top of a folding table.

“I know you’re in here somewhere,” I called out.

The first door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open with my foot. It was a bathroom, a crumpled issue of a skin magazine and a ribbon of toilet paper stuck to the floor.

I moved past it, knocking on the second door. When there was no answer, I tried the handle. It was locked.

“Nora.”

“Leave me alone,” she said quietly. It sounded as if she were mere inches away, behind a piece of cardboard.

“How about opening the door so we can talk?”

“I’d like you to leave, please.”

“But I want to offer you a job.”

She didn’t answer.

“I’m looking for a research assistant. Room and board included. You’d have to share the bedroom every few weekends with my daughter and her stuffed animal collection. But otherwise, it’s yours.” I glanced over my shoulder. The big guy from out front was eavesdropping, his fat frame plugging the hallway.

“What’s the starting salary?” she asked from behind the door.

“What?”

“Of the job. The salary.”

“Three hundred a week. Cash.”

“Really?”

“Really. But you’ll handle your own money laundering.”

“What kind of health benefits?”

“None. Take echinacea.”

“I won’t sleep with you or anything.”

She noted this as if announcing a food allergy. I won’t eat shellfish or peanuts.

“No problem.”

“Everything okay back here?” The guy from the front was now behind me.

The door suddenly opened, and Nora was there, still wearing that ice-skating skirt but with her long hair down around her shoulders, her face solemn.

“Yeah, Martin,” she said. “I’m leaving.”

“With a cop ?”

“He’s not a cop. He’s an investigative journalist. Freelance .”

That seemed to really disturb the guy — not that I blamed him. Nora smiled at me, suddenly shy, and turned back inside, leaving the door open.

It was a large walk-in closet, a bare bulb shining overhead. Spread out in the corner were a sheet and an army blanket. Along the wall were a bag of hotdog buns, a folded pile of T-shirts, a bag of Forti Diet Bird Food, plastic forks and knives, and anthills of tiny salt and pepper packets — probably swiped from a McDonald’s. Beside the birdcage — there didn’t seem to be anything in there — was a blue yearbook that read, HARMONY HIGH SCHOOL, HOME OF THE LONGHORNS. Beside the makeshift bed were two tiny colored photos taped to the wall — close to the spot where she’d put her head. One was of a bearded man, the other a woman.

It had to be the dead mother and convict father.

I took a step inside to get a better look and realized the man was actually Christ, the way he appeared in Sunday-school classrooms: milky complexion, starched blue dressing gown, a beard trimmed as painstakingly as a bonsai tree. He was doing what he was always doing: cupping blinding light in his hands like he was trying to warm up after a long day of downhill skiing. The woman taped next to him was Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz. They made quite a pair.

Nora shoved a stack of shirts into the plastic bag. “If I take this job, you’re not allowed to ask me tons of questions. I’m none of your business.” She grabbed a pair of discarded gold sequined hot pants tossed in a ball in the corner, stuffing them inside the bag. “This is just till we find out about Ashley. After that I’m doing my own thing.”

“Fine.” I bent down to check out the birdcage. Inside, there was a live blue parakeet, though the thing was so still and faded it looked like taxidermy. Ornate toys were strewn all over the newspaper in front of him — colored balls, feathers and bells, a full-length mirror — but the bird seemed too exhausted to summon any interest in them.

“Who’s this guy?” I asked.

“Septimus,” she said. “He’s an heirloom.” She stepped over, smiling. “He’s been inherited so many times no one remembers where he came from. Grandma Eli got him from her next-door neighbor, Janine, when she died. And he was bequeathed to Janine from Glen when he died. And Glen inherited him from a man named Caesar who died of diabetes. Who he belonged to before Caesar, only God knows.”

“He’s not a bird, he’s a bad omen.”

“Some people think he’s got magical powers and he’s a hundred years old. Want to hold him?”

“No.”

But she was already unlatching the door. The bird hopped over and chucked himself into her hand. She took mine and slipped the bird into it.

He was not long for this world. He looked like he had cataracts. He was also trembling faintly like an electric toothbrush. I’d have assumed he was catatonic, if he didn’t suddenly jolt his head to one side, staring up at me with a cloudy yellow eye that looked like an old bead.

Nora put her face up to him.

“Promise not to tell anyone?” she asked quietly, glancing at me.

“About what?”

“This. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me.” Her eyes moved off of the bird and onto me, her gaze steady.

“I promise.”

She smiled, satisfied, and resumed packing, collecting every one of those salt and pepper packets, sprinkling them into the Duane Reade bags.

“I actually have condiments at my place,” I said.

She nodded — like I’d just reminded her to bring her pajamas — and set about pulling down black stockings and bras hung to dry along the top shelves, crazy leopard and zebra prints tacked down by Black & Decker drills and paint cans.

The girl was like one of those picture books with pages that unfold and unfold all the way out, which caused children’s eyes to grow wide. I suspected she’d never stop unfolding.

After Nora packed up her clothes, she set about peeling Jesus and Judy Garland off the wall. Jesus came off easily. Judy, predictably, took a bit of coaxing. She grabbed the Harmony High yearbook, opened it, carefully tucked the two pictures inside, and then returned Septimus to his cage.