By Saturday afternoon the light settling over Berkeley Hills had flattened into a soft gray and Harry kept glancing at the clock like it owed him money.
After four, the first limited-release numbers for Providence would start rolling in, New York first, then Chicago, then the Westside houses. He had told himself he wouldn't hover; then he had told himself a walk with Sparky would calm him; then he had told himself one look at the phone would be harmless. None of it worked.
Sparky didn't care. He chased a tennis ball, skidded on the flagstone, and sent a planter flying with golden-retriever enthusiasm that understood nothing of premieres or per-screen averages.
Harry laughed against his better judgment, tossed the ball again, then tossed it aside and dropped on the back steps. The house was quiet.
Lisa was downtown with Gregory, stationed near the Fox distribution desk to get numbers quicker than whoever would fax them to his home office.
James was triaging press inquiries. Maria had banished him from the kitchen - "You pace like a ghost, señor" - so it was the patio that was where he waited.
His phone buzzed.
"Go," said Harry, answering before the second vibration.
"Patience," said Gregory. "Early showings only. Lincoln Plaza, New York City: sold out at 7 p.m., two-thirds for matinee. Angelika respectable. Chicago Music Box - strong." A pause, some tapping. "Rough cut: we're pacing for about five hundred to five-fifty for the weekend on twenty-eight screens. Call it a $19-20k PTA, if the late shows hold."
Harry exhaled a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. "So... not a miracle. Not a funeral."
"Exactly." Gregory's tone remained measured. "For a debut? Good shape. If Sunday doesn't crater, Fox is widening to a hundred-plus screens next weekend. We're not chasing Memento's arc, but we're not dragging either."
"Get me the theater-by-theater when you have it."
"I will. And Harry - enjoy this. This is what 'yes' looks like the first time out."
He hung up, set the phone beside him, and rubbed Sparky's head until the dog flopped against his leg, a sack of warmth. For the first time all day, the knot behind his sternum relaxed.
Another notification. Unknown number from LA. Out of instinct, he answered.
"Harry. Chris."
"Hey," said Harry, standing, automatically, and pacing his room, putting the lie to Maria's directive. "You heard?"
"I did. Congrats." Nolan maintained the same level of unflappable calm his voice always had—even the crackle on the line seemed measured. "Limited doesn't mean small. It means specific. Those are hard wins. It's great."
"Thank you. How's Insomnia?"
"Foggy," Chris said dryly. "In every way. Pacino is razor-sharp. Robin has an… unexpected stillness that is unnerving. Studio wants days I don't have; I want takes they don't want. You know the drill."
"I'm learning the steps," Harry said. "Slowly."
After hanging up, Harry stayed where he was and stared at nothing. It was oddly grounding to be congratulated by someone already a few paces further along the same path. He tossed the ball again for Sparky, and Sparky thundered off, trotted back breathless, tongue like a bellows, tail a metronome.
The sun fell behind a layer of coastal clouds. He got up and went inside, not to look at the phone but to lay it down face down on the kitchen island and pour himself some water in a chipped mug. The quiet had weight to it, and in that weight, his mind did what it does when it isn't being monitored--it went somewhere.
It went to a piano.
Not the elegant classical sheen of a Steinway recital, but the kludgy corner in a place that wasn't really a bar, and wasn't quite a restaurant, with a battered piano. He could hear it--those thin, percussive, virtuoso fingers trying to loosen up by making things harder. A practice trick. A challenge.
What if, he thought, the pianist pretended to be blind?
Not a gimmick. An experiment. To peel away the visual crutches and make his hands listen.
He grabbed a legal pad and wrote un-notated, "Piano. Blindness-fake-practice method." He underlined fake twice, then stared at it until it morphed, gazing at the letters of the word, from a concept into a lie.
There is a lie, there has to be a consequence.
He made circles around the kitchen, Sparky followed close behind. The legal pad filled at intervals. The city came first—not Los Angeles. That was too much of a given. He wanted city with music in it. New Orleans was coming in like a brass line; the air felt as humid on the page there as it really was. He could hear plates banging together in a family diner off Magazine Street, the bell on the door, a girl with an innocent name that could belong to anyone, a father who'd been booking little acts since the seventies.
He wrote: New Orleans. Pianist: Arin Shah (NJ kid, 24). Sophie—local, father owns supper club.
He said the names out loud—putting some heft to the sound—and scratched the spelling, changed it, changed it back. He drew an arrow from Arin to opaque contact lenses and another arrow to temptation—takes them off to look at Sophie. The lie deepened—also the risk.
A knock at the sliding door; it was James, his head coming in with the apology already in place. "Lisa says to tell you Variety's early blurb is calling the PTA 'promising.' Fox isn't exactly firming the cities for expansion until Monday morning."
Harry nodded. "Five minutes, I'll call in."
"You're writing," James said, looking at the pad, a smile not hidden.
"Maybe," Harry said.
When the door shut he began again. If the lie is in place, how do you tighten it? You put him where the act could help him - and hurt him. You seat him at a private anniversary for someone important enough to equal luck to get an invitation.
A name came: Preston Sykes, retired TV star, second-tier famous, the type a local paper would still take a picture of if he showed up at a charity gala, Preston's wife opened the door. Not blonde. He wrote Simone, and without meaning to, he wrote danger.
He saw the room: bouquets already suspecting decay, a cake with stiff frosting, a body on the floor out of frame, and Arin sitting down to play because he had to commit to the lie, he had said he was blind, to sit any longer was to break it. He saw a second figure creeping in a door with a gun, half-obscured by the bathroom door. He wrote Detective Mark Haner next to it, and circled detective with a thin mean line.
Sparky whuffed at nothing and laid his head on Harry's shoe. Harry scratched the dog's ear and kept moving down the page. The keystrokes became beats: He plays. He watches. He cannot react.
The phone buzzed again: a text from Gregory about the early roll-up—a set of columns, cities, numbers lined up like they were supposed to mean something else. They meant enough. He set the phone down.
Where do legacies of lies go? To the police station. He saw Arin standing at a station counter, trying to report a murder without being able to explain it away without confessing to his own crime; he saw the cop step forward—Detective Haner again, without the shelter of the loo door—and say, "Are you sure you saw what you think you saw?"
And Arin, who is not blind, has to pretend he doesn't see anything.
Harry sat, crossed out Haner and wrote Hanner, then Hanner (31)—looks kind but isn't. He wrote Simone manipulation neighbor (some Mrs. Desautel) into silence; he wrote kid with camcorder vultures Arin minus lenses because 2002 still had camcorders in almost every second lounge. He felt the beat patterns settle; lie → convenience → opportunity → trap.
When the dog thumped back against his leg, he wrote one more word at the top of the page in block letters:
Blindfold.