Marisha Pessl - Night Film

I reached a rock promontory jutting out over the beach.

The tide had come in. There was no beach — only five-foot waves, which receded for a few seething seconds, exposing spiky crags along the cliff’s base, before they somersaulted aggressively forward, erupting in wild explosions against the rocks.

I waited, checking above me for movement.

I was safe. No one would be idiotic enough to follow me down here.

Yet the instant I figured this, I could see two dark figures bending down, clamoring after me.

I groped my way down a few more feet, reaching some boulders. I began crawling between them, heading westward, moving quickly when the waves receded. After a few minutes, I could make out the spindly skeleton of what had to be Duchamp’s staircase, far ahead, rising out of the waves.

I edged toward it. Flashlights suddenly appeared at the top of the cliff, searching the shoreline, the beams sliding along the rocks just a few feet from where I was crouched.

They were waiting. The light slipped right over me.

Shouting cut through the waves. I took off again, faster, half expecting a ricochet of bullets clattering against the rocks around me.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I wedged my boots between two rocks to steady myself and looked up. A guard was actually attempting to climb down, the whole structure trembling under his weight. I seized the most rotten of the beams and after a few attempts managed to wrench it loose, a large section of the railing detaching with it. I threw it into the water behind me and took off across the rocks, drenched by another onslaught of waves.

After another few yards, I quickly checked behind me.

The guard on the staircase had fallen through a section of stairs above what I’d dismantled and was clinging to the cliff face, seemingly awaiting help. I moved on, scaling a precarious section of the cliffs where there wasn’t much to hold on to and had just started to let myself think that I might be home free, when a massive wave suddenly lobbed itself against the rocks.

I lost my grip. I fell backward, my ears filled with deafening thunder as I was tossed upside down, choking on salt water. I managed to fight my way to the surface, gasping for air, but within seconds, another wave surged forward, pulling me back before throwing me toward the cliffs. Kicking as hard as I could, I was shoved against another boulder and managed to sling myself up onto it, coughing up salt water.

I lifted my head, my eyes burning. I was alone in a narrow inlet. I sat crouched on the rock, waiting for one of the guards to appear.

No one came.

When the sky was turning a silvered gray, I saw, as I squinted down the beach, a ribbon of sand. I dropped down onto it, breaking into a jog, trekking past silent condos and along the wooden fence bordering Whaler’s Way, the deserted alley coming into washed-out focus in the pale morning.

I stopped, staring at the empty parking space.

My car was gone.

Bewildered, I headed to Emerson Street and the Sea Haven Diner, scanning the parking lot. There was no sign of my car, only a silver pickup and a Subaru. Entering, I saw the place was empty, apart from an old man in a back booth and a redheaded waitress slumped over the counter, reading a magazine.

“You look shipwrecked,” she said as I approached.

“I’m looking for a young woman. Blond. Green dress. Was she here?”

She smiled in recognition. “You mean Nora?”

“Exactly.”

“Sure, she was here.”

“Well, where the hell is she?”

“Beats me. Got up and left about an hour ago.”

I slid onto one of the counter stools, pulling off my leather jacket, still drooling salt water.

“I’ll have some coffee, three eggs easy, bacon, toast, orange juice.”

The waitress disappeared through the swinging doors. When she returned with my coffee, she sighed heavily, crossing her arms.

“She got a call from some guy. Ran out of here real excited.”

I glanced at her, taking a sip. “A call on her cell?”

“ No. Cell service sucks out here. Just one bar. He called the diner, asked for her by name. You’re her dad, I take it, comin’ to pick her up?” She didn’t wait for my response, only nodded knowingly. “Don’t know how you dads put up with it. Girls always going after the bad boys. Then there’s the Internet, which makes it ten times worse with the stalkers and the sex predators.”

My breakfast came quickly, thank Christ.

A few locals wandered in, but there was no sign of Hopper or Nora.

After I ate, I tried calling them — I was surprised to see my cell still worked — but the waitress was right: no service. I used the phone at the cash register, but for both of them it rang and went to voicemail.

When I boarded the 9:45 A.M. Long Island Rail Road train, taking me back to civilization — if you can call Manhattan that —I’d conked out cold before we left the station.

When I arrived in the city, it was after noon. There was still no word from Hopper or Nora. I took a cab back to Perry Street. Nora had a spare set of keys, so I wondered if she’d somehow been unable to get in touch and had beaten me home. But the apartment was empty, no messages on my home phone.

I took a shower, considered going back to bed, but felt too strung out, too uneasy —too annoyed.

They’d left the general for dead on the battlefield. Or had something happened? I didn’t have time to worry about it, because my cell buzzed, reminding me that Peg Martin, one of the actors in Isolate 3 , would be in the Washington Square Park dog run tonight at 6 P.M. It was the lead Beckman had given me almost a week ago.

I headed into my office, feeding Septimus some birdseed, and pulled Peg Martin’s 1995 Sneak interview out of my box of notes. After Cordova’s 1977 Rolling Stone piece, it was the only time anyone who’d worked with him had spoken candidly about the experience.

She was seventeen when she’d appeared in Cordova’s film, which today would make her thirty-five.

I Googled her name and a few stills from Isolate 3 appeared. She had only three scenes in the film, a grainy version of one of them posted on YouTube. Peg played Vivian Jean, one of the maids who worked all night cleaning the midtown offices of the law firm Milton, Bowers & Reid, ends up disappearing into a back stairwell, and is never seen again. Moments before she vanishes, she says Scientists look for aliens in the universe, but they’re here. Aliens who pass for men. They’ve already invaded. She was talking about her abusive husband, how monstrous the people you loved could be. I’d always found interesting the fact that Martin in the interview used that line to describe Cordova.

According to IMDb, after appearing in HBO’s New Found Glory —a modern remake of It Happened One Night, canceled after one season — Peg Martin appeared in the ABC TV Western Dust Up, costarring Jeff Goldblum. After 1996, she had no more credits. There was no current information about her and no indication of what she’d done with her life, though I did recall Beckman had mentioned she’d been a heroin addict — probably the reason she’d had such a brief film career.