Marisha Pessl - Night Film

I opened the door a crack and peered out. It took a moment of adjustment to understand what I was seeing.

It was a party. And yet the floor — black-and-white geometric inlaid tiles — rippled like a sea. It spanned an immense circular atrium, ringed with Corinthian pillars, yet there was no ceiling, just a bright blue cloud-filled sky. How the hell was it a perfect summer day in here? In the distance, beyond stone arches covered in ivy and dark doorways leading down dirt paths, there was a luscious bloom-filled garden where stone Greek statues reclined in the sun. An egret waded in a shining stream. Red-and-green parrots soared through the jungle, sunlight filtering divinely through the canopy.

As my eyes madly searched for some semblance of reality, my mind short-circuited, both entranced and trying to form some rational conclusion as to what the hell it was: a biosphere, a staged play, an adult Disney World, a portal to another planet. And then I caught a flaw in the tropical paradise: Along the floor, about a foot from where I stood, there was a light socket.

All of it was painted, a photorealist trompe l’oeil of such detail and beauty, in the dimmed amber light it was all somehow alive, thriving. At the sunken center of the room, seated on the leather couches, standing around the marble tables, was a dense crowd. They were real, I was certain. They were middle-aged men, most with the battered gargoyle faces of self-made tycoons (a few with the flabby demeanors of those who’d inherited their wealth), most of them Caucasian, a few Japanese. Women drifted among them, dripping in gowns and jewels, though due to the liquid floor, they seemed to float in a pool of water, snagging on a group of men like scraps of paper caught on a branch before spinning across the room on another mysterious current.

There was a strict dress code —which the person who’d answered my post on the Blackboards had failed to mention. The men were in suits and ties. Hopper and I were certainly going to stick out —not to mention the fact that I had chalky rings of saltwater on my pants.

Hopper moved behind me, and I stepped aside so he could take a look.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered.

“It’s got to be some kind of cult. Anyone offers you Kool-Aid or a hot shower, say no. And don’t forget the reason why we’re here. Find someone who saw Ashley.”

He turned to me and extended his hand. “See you on the other side.”

We shook hands, and I exited the storage room.

A black marble bar spanned the far wall, a handful of men seated there — one vacant red stool on the farthest-right side.

That would be a perfect vantage point for me to wait until I understood just what I was dealing with, so I strode casually toward it around the atrium, passing the columns —those were real —feeling slight vertigo from the shifting floors and the teeming landscapes surrounding me.

The ceiling was high as a cathedral’s and the mural of the sky so realistically painted, it looked infinite, glaringly blue. Staring up made me light-headed, and I nearly collided with a short, fat man with thinning black hair who’d abruptly crossed in front of me. He expressly avoided eye contact, making a beeline toward the stone garden wall. He pushed a moss-covered urn atop a post and it smoothly opened into a door. I caught a fleeting glimpse of a black-and-white tiled bathroom, a male attendant in a black uniform standing beside the sinks, hands clasped, eyes discreetly on the ground, before it all vanished again into that empty garden.

I slid onto the vacant stool at the very end of the bar, relieved to feel it was sturdy and real, and turned to observe the scene.

Waiters in black slacks and Asian tunics moved among the marble tables, balancing drinks on silver trays. There was a deejay up high in a bell tower. He was wearing a purple T-shirt, headphones around his neck, his hair in dreads that reached to his waist. He looked relatively normal, straight from Brooklyn or the Bay Area, though I noticed he kept his eyes averted from the crowd below as he expertly worked the controls on a synthesizer and two MacBooks.

He must have been told not to stare at the guests.

I returned my attention to the crowd. The women were stunning. They were all different races, many of them dark-skinned and exotic, their unifying attributes a height of about six feet and a thinness that made them resemble insects swarming, feeding insatiably on the dark suits and balding heads. They looked young. As one turned, her blond hair so pale it seemed to float like a gleaming white halo around her face, she tipped her head back, smiling, and I caught sight of a prominent Adam’s apple.

Christ. She was a man.

Ignoring an irrational feeling of alarm, I scrutinized another wandering through the crowd in a blue sequin dress. After speaking with a group of men, she —or he —touched one on the shoulder. She had long fingernails painted black, her arms laden with jewelry. Very slowly, as if to move suddenly in this place was prohibited — would puncture the dream — they detached from the group. She took him by the wrist, led him up the steps along a crumbling stone wall, the Aegean stretching beyond it. They slipped through an arched doorway and down a dirt path, vanishing. There were at least twelve identical entrances around the room. They led to —what? A crying game.

It had to be a high-end bondage club. Never underestimate the desire for wildly successful men to torture themselves for fun.

“May I bring you something, Mr.…?”

I turned to see the bartender standing across from me. Though he was dressed in a slick gray suit like everyone else, a double-Windsored blue silk tie, he was muscular, with a crew cut, craggy features, and an iron-rod posture that made me guess he was ex-military.

“Scotch, straight up,” I said.

He didn’t move, the friendliness draining from his face. I was doing something wrong, revealing myself as a sham. I didn’t react. Neither did he. He was so brawny from anabolic steroids he looked like an action figure, as if his arms might not bend at the elbows and his head could pop off from heavy play.

“Any preference of scotch?” he asked.

“Your choice.”

He grabbed the bottle of Glenfiddich from the shelves.

As he poured my drink, a hidden door opened beside the bar — a pastoral scene of a Tuscan landscape — and the young kid I’d seen outside hauling trash slipped in carrying a crate of glasses. His head lowered — he, too, seemed to have been told not to make eye contact — he began stacking them on the mirrored shelves.

The bartender returned with my drink and stood there expectantly.

“Your card ?” he prompted.

“Which one?” I made a production of fumbling for my wallet.

“Membership.”

“Yeah, I don’t have one of those. I’m a guest.”

“Whose guest?”

“Harry, can I have a glass of water, quick? I feel dizzy.”

I couldn’t have timed it better. One of the women — or boys, if that’s what they were — had slunk up beside me. She had a pouting doll profile, long blond hair, a purple silk dress so tight it looked like it’d been poured over her.

The bartender, Harry — he looked more like Biff — shot her a furious look, indicating she was breaching serious protocol by asking such a thing.

“Try downstairs,” he said with a tight smile.

“I can’t. I–I just need some water and I’ll be fine.”

He glared at her, and with a hard look at me —I’m not done with you yet —he stepped away.