Marisha Pessl - Night Film

Sam stared sullenly back at me. Even though I’d just explained, crouched down on her level with as much drama as I could muster, that her dad had some top-secret business to attend to and needed to run, so she was staying with Mommy — she didn’t say a word.

“Next weekend we’ll be spending four days together,” I said. “Just the two of us, okay?”

Still, the silence. But then, seemingly thinking something quite serious, she reached her right hand way up and patted me on my head. She’d never done that before. Cynthia, her face flushed, shot me a look —Great parenting —but, smiling agreeably for Sam’s sake, she extended the handle of the Toy Story suitcase, handing it off to Sam, who dutifully wheeled it to the door like a tired stewardess learning she had to fly an extra leg to Cincinnati.

“Bye, sweetheart,” I said. “I love you more than —what was it again?”

“The sun plus the moon,” she answered, heading down the hall.

“I’ll make it up to her,” I said to Cynthia.

“Of course. ” She swept her hair over her shoulder and smiled, stepping after her. “We’ll put it on your tab.”

I strode to the hall closet, trying to ignore the tsunami of guilt flooding through me.

“Hopper called,” I said to Nora over my shoulder. “We’re meeting him uptown now. He has a lead.” I grabbed my keys, but Nora didn’t move from the living-room doorway. She was staring at me, wide-eyed.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“That was bad. ”

“What was bad?”

“That.”

“My ex-wife? Yes, I know. Can you believe that woman used to live to karaoke on a Saturday night? In college, we called her Bangles. You couldn’t pay her to stop singing ‘Walk Like an Egyptian’ in public.”

“ She’s not what I’m talking about.”

I was helping Nora into her coat. “Then what are you talking about? And tell me quickly, because we need to get going.”

“You think you’re subtle, but you’re not.”

I was jostling her into the hallway, locking the door. “Subtle about what?”

“That you’re crazy mad in love with her.”

“ Hey. No one’s crazy or mad or in love with anyone here.”

She put a hand on my shoulder, a look of evident pity.

“You need to move on with your life. She’s happy. ” And with that, she took off merrily down the hall, leaving me staring after her.

Hopper was waiting for us on the corner by the HSBC bank, smoking a cigarette, the serious, hollowed-out expression on his face suggesting that he’d barely slept in the two days since we’d seen him.

“What are we doing here?” I asked him.

“Remember what Morgan Devold said? He thought Ashley had to play the piano every day?”

“Sure.”

“Yesterday I started thinking, if Ashley came into the city to track someone down, if she wanted to play, where would she go?”

“Jazz clubs. Juilliard. A hotel lobby? It’s hard to say.”

“None of those places would let a stranger off the street just sit down and start playing, uninterrupted. But then I remembered, I got a friend who’s big into the classical music scene. If you’re really good, the showrooms on Piano Row let you come in and play as long as you like. This afternoon I went into a bunch, asked around, and a manager in one of the shops actually recognized her. Ashley came in twice the week before she died.”

“Nice work,” I said.

“Right now he’s waiting to talk to us. But we have to hurry because they’re about to close.” He chucked the cigarette onto the pavement and took off down the sidewalk.

I’d never heard of Piano Row. It was a splinter of Fifty-eighth Street between Broadway and Seventh Avenue, where delicate piano stores had tucked themselves between hulking sixties apartment buildings like a few sparrows living among hippos. We hurried past a small shop called Beethoven Pianos, posters taped in the windows advertising Vivaldi concerts and voice lessons. Inside, identical shiny baby grands were lined up, lids open, like hefty chorus girls awaiting a cue. Hopper shuffled past the Morton Williams supermarket and crossed the street, passing a fire station, and then pausing in front of a shop with a dirty green awning that read KLAVIERHAUS.

I held the door open for Nora and we entered. Unlike Beethoven Pianos, there were only three pianos on display. The store was empty, without a single customer or employee. It appeared in the Internet age, pianos, like physical books, were fast becoming culturally extinct. They’d probably stay that way unless Apple invented the iPiano, which fit inside your pocket and could be mastered via text message. With the iPiano, anyone can be an iMozart. Then, you could compose your own iRequiem for your own iFuneral attended by millions of your iFriends who iLoved you.

Hopper emerged from a door in the very back with a middle-aged wisp of a man sporting brown corduroys and a black turtleneck, a weedy patch of gray hair sprouting off his balding head. He looked like a classical music man-child. You could spot these Mahler-loving men within a ten-block radius of Carnegie Hall. They tended to wear earth tones, have on DVD all of public television’s Great Performances series, live alone in apartments on the Upper West Side, and have potted plants they spoke to daily.

“This is Peter Schmid,” Hopper said.

“The manager of Klavierhaus,” Peter added with pride.

Nora and I introduced ourselves. “I understand Ashley Cordova came in here a few weeks ago,” I said.

“I had no idea who she was at the time, ” Peter said eagerly, clasping his hands together. “But based on Mr. Cole’s description, yes, I believe she came to Klavierhaus.”

He was one of those people you initially believed had a foreign accent, though it turned out he was American, only spoke delicately, as if every word were something to be carefully dusted off and held up to the light.

“Did the police come here to ask about her?”

“No, no. We’ve had no police. I had no inkling of who she was until Mr. Cole came in this afternoon. He gave me her description, and I recognized her immediately.” Peter glanced at Hopper. “The dark hair. The red coat with the black detailing along the sleeves. The beauty.”

“When exactly did she come in?” I asked.

“You need the precise date?”

“It’d be helpful.”

Peter hurried into the administrative alcove along the opposite wall. After fumbling down behind the counter, he produced a large leather calendar stuffed with papers.

“It was almost certainly a Tuesday, because we’d just had our weekly concert salon,” he mumbled, flipping open the cover. “Usually it’s over by ten-thirty. On this night, around eleven, I was in the back cleaning up when suddenly I heard the most exciting interpretation of Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales. I’m sure you know it?”

We shook our heads, which seemed to concern him.

“ Well. I’d forgotten to lock the door.” Scrutinizing the calendar, he frowned, thoughtfully pressing a finger to his lips. “It was October fourth. Yes. That has to be it.”

Smiling, he slid the calendar around for us to take a look, tapping the day in question with his index finger.

“I hurried into the showroom, and I saw her at the piano.”

“Which one and where?” I asked.

He pointed toward the front. “The Fazioli. There in the window.”

I strolled over to it, Nora following me.