Marisha Pessl - Night Film

“He’s fun,” I said, turning to her.

She eyed me uncertainly, her hands — they, too, had those long black painted fingernails — tightly holding the edge of the bar as if to keep herself moored there; otherwise, so skinny, she’d waft to the ceiling like a helium balloon. Her blue eyes, heavily made up, looked watery, the pupils dilated. She’d done something to her mouth to make it puffy, injected it with something, which made it exaggerated and sad like a clown’s.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

That prompted an immediate Game Over. She cast me an icy look. I was sure she was going to move away, but instead she tilted her head.

“You’re a friend of Fadil’s,” she said.

“Where is Fadil? Haven’t seen him.”

“Back in France, isn’t he?”

Harry banged the glass of water onto the bar. She grabbed it, gulping it down, a drop of water trickling out the edge of her red mouth, sliding down her chin. She set the empty glass down, wobbling unsteadily on her heels, and the bartender wordlessly moved away to refill it. He’d been through this drill with her before.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her fingers.

“Sure you’re all right?” I asked in a low voice.

She didn’t answer me, instead inspected the plunging V-neckline of her dress, her puffy mouth in a clownlike frown as she straightened the fabric.

“You should eat something. Or go home. Get a decent night’s sleep.”

She glanced at me in drowsy confusion as if I’d again said something off-putting. Harry shoved the second glass in front of her, and without a word she guzzled it.

I cleared my throat, smiling at him. “As I was saying, I’m a friend of Fadil’s.”

The name — Arabic — meant something to him. He nodded grudgingly and moved to the other end of the bar, where a short, fat man signaled to him.

I leaned in toward the woman.

“Maybe you can help me.”

But her attention was on the young busboy stacking glasses under the bar in front of us. With shaggy brown hair, freckles, he looked no older than sixteen, like he’d just popped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

“Hey,” she whispered. “Do me a favor? Get me a vodka cranberry?”

He ignored her.

“Oh, fuck. Don’t worry about Harry. He’s a pussycat. I’m dying.”

Her pleading, threatening to get shrill, caused the boy to look up at her reluctantly, then down to the other end of the bar, where Harry was busy fixing another drink. The kid must have felt sorry for her because he turned, grabbing a bottle of Smirnoff.

“You’re an angel-boy,” she whispered.

He added the juice, set it in front of her, and resumed stacking the glasses.

“Any chance I can get some ice?” I asked, sliding my drink forward.

He nodded. When he brought it back, I slid a folded hundred-dollar bill into his hand. He glanced at me, startled.

“Don’t react,” I said, glancing down the bar at Harry. “I need some information.” I took out the photo of Ashley from my pocket, slipping it across the bar.

“You recognize her?”

He kept his head lowered, stacking the glasses.

“Take it off the bar,” he whispered. “They got cameras.”

I stuck it back into my wallet. If someone was watching, I hoped they’d assume I’d just showed the kid a picture of my daughter — or, given the clientele here, my jailbait Eastern European girlfriend who spoke no English.

“Can you help me out?” I asked.

The boy squinted off to his right and scratched his cheek. “Uh, yeah, she was the breach.”

“The what ?”

He resumed arranging the glasses. “She was the security breach from a few weeks ago. They got her picture posted downstairs.”

“What happened?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I’ll be up shit’s creek if—”

“This is life or death.”

The kid eyed me nervously. He looked better suited for a paper route, leading a band of Boy Scouts, than working in this place. I reached into my pocket for another hundred-dollar bill, leaned over the bar to grab a black drink stir, and dropped it at his feet.

He bent down and picked it up, then set about ordering the stacks of red cocktail napkins emblazoned with a single black O, though the more I stared at the letter I realized it was an open mouth, a screaming mouth.

“She attacked a guest,” the kid said under his breath.

“Attacked?”

“She, like, went after him. That’s what I heard.”

“How?”

He didn’t seem to want to elaborate — or didn’t know.

“Which guest?”

He looked apprehensively at Harry and picked up a towel, wiping down the bar.

“He’s called the Spider.”

“What?”

He shrugged. “That’s his nickname.”

The words had an odd effect on the girl. She’d been sucking down her drink, ignoring us, but now she swiveled around on the stool, trying to focus her bleary eyes on me.

I turned back to the kid, now replenishing with a pair of silver tongs the crystal jar of maraschino cherries on the bar. The cherries, I noticed with surprise, were entirely black, including the stems, and every one was a connected twin, one tied to another.

“What’s his real name?” I asked, casually sipping my drink.

The kid shook his head. He didn’t know.

“Is he here tonight? Can you point him out to me?”

He nervously licked his lips, was on the verge of answering me, but then spotted something over my shoulder. He turned, grabbing the empty crate on the counter, and scooted out the door with it, eyes averted, vanishing into that Italian countryside.

I looked to see what made him bolt.

A middle-aged man with spiky silver hair was striding through the crowd, his eyes glued to the woman beside me. He stepped right behind her and whispered in her ear.

She jerked upright in shock. He then grabbed her bare arm and wrenched her off the stool so hard she spilled her drink, leaving an ugly dark wound down the front of her dress. She sullenly mumbled something in a foreign language, the music too loud to hear what it was. Then she sprang away, lurching into the main lounge, fighting through the crowd and up the steps, fleeing down one of the dark pathways.

I turned back to the bar, sipping my scotch, ignoring the man, still standing behind me, his attention now squarely on me.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” he said.

“You think right,” I answered.

“Let’s remedy that.”

“I’m a guest of Fadil’s.”

He hesitated, taken aback. He had to be the manager of the place. He wore an expensive suit, an earpiece, and had the overinflated posture of all short, insecure men in positions of power. I sensed he was about to leave me alone, but then, looking me over, frowned at the saltwater ring on my pants.

“How are you acquainted with Mr. Bourdage?” he asked.

“Ask him.”

“Come with me, please.”

“I’d like to finish my drink.”

“Come with me or we’re going to have a serious problem.”

I studied him with bored indignation. “You sure?”

“Do I look like it?”

I shrugged, taking time to down the rest of my scotch, and stood up.

“It’s your funeral,” I said.

If this unnerved him even a little, the man gave no indication. He stepped stiffly to the steps leading down into the main lounge, waiting for me to follow.

This isn’t going to end well. I headed after him and as we moved down into the crowd I felt another unnerving surge of vertigo. It was like sinking into another dimension, hitting a snag in reality. The trompe l’oeil murals must have been painted to be viewed from this central vantage point, because every one came into greater focus. Coastal towns bustled. Sunflower fields rippled in the wind, a flock of crows exploding over them — yet unable to fly away. Jungle bromeliads shook, a dark animal stalking through them. A snake writhed over a wall. Even the pulsing music seemed to converge onto me. I could actually feel the sun beating down on my neck. As we jostled our way through the crowd, the suits and ties, the girls, boys in those dresses, which down here looked to be made not of fabric but fish scales, I caught snippets of conversations over the music: be here, sometimes, I agree, water ski.