Loren D. Estleman - Valentino 01 - Frames

by Loren D. Estleman

  “Sure you are. You don’t need chains and a creepy old house to qualify.”

  Valentino fumed, Broadhead purred, Fanta reasoned, Sister Agnes sighed and tapped her foot, and in the end her assistant escorted Valentino to a changing room behind a heavy curtain. Ten minutes later he exhibited himself to the others in a tweed suit that fit him loosely in the shoulders but snugly everywhere else, with a knitted tie on a soft Oxford shirt. He carried his street clothes in a bundle under one arm. The fumes from the mothballs forced him to hold his chin high to keep his eyes from watering; Broadhead said the pose enhanced the illusion of Erich von Stroheim at the arrogant peak of his powers.

  Fanta agreed. “You don’t look like the same man.”

  “I’m not. I’m a walking dress dummy. My skin itches all over. I think the poison’s working.”

  Broadhead said, “Save some drama for opening night. You’re probably just allergic to wool.” He squinted. “Something’s wrong.”

  “You’re just realizing that?”

  “He has too much hair,” Sister Agnes said.

  “That’s it. Von Stroheim was bald.”

  “I’m not shaving my head!”

  The professor took off his bucket hat, turned the brim up in back in a Tyrolean effect, and placed it on Valentino’s head at a rakish angle. Then he stepped back to take in the whole picture. “With a stick and a monocle, and if you remember to stand with your back to the light, it might not be a disaster. It’ll help if the old fellow has cataracts.”

  “He hasn’t,” Valentino said. “His eyes are fine and so’s his hearing. I’m beginning to worry about yours.”

  “The stick we can do,” Sister Agnes said. “No monocle. That’s the prop department.”

  Broadhead said, “A stick’s a prop.”

  “It’s contractual. My predecessor lived through the Great Falsie Strike: Wardrobe and makeup both claimed jurisdiction over bra pads. The unions ironed it out by assigning the rubber ones to makeup and the cotton ones to wardrobe.” She peered down at her watch.

  “Von Stroheim’s not von Stroheim without his monocle,” Broadhead said. “I don’t know anyone in the prop department.”

  Sister Agnes sighed. She took off her glasses and pressed at one of the round thick lenses with a thumb until something popped. She put the glasses back on and held the loose lens out to Valentino, shutting her naked eye. “Take care of it. Someone else will have to thread all my needles until you bring it back.”

  CHAPTER

  21

  “STOP SQUIRMING,” BROADHEAD said.

  “I can’t help it,” said Valentino. “This suit’s scratching me to death. I’m breaking out in a rash.”

  “Can you two hold it down?” Fanta, behind the wheel, glared at them in the rearview mirror. “This car’s bigger than my roommate’s. It’s hard enough steering it through traffic without you weirding out in the backseat.”

  Broadhead thrust the makeshift monocle into Valentino’s hand. “Practice with this. It’ll take your mind off the itching.”

  It wasn’t just the suit that bothered him, or even the oppressive stench of camphor from the mothballs, which had forced Fanta to open all four windows to prevent asphyxiation, letting in rain. The bulky yellow oilcloth slicker he wore to cover his disguise was stifling. The heat increased perspiration, which aggravated the abrasion. He accepted the distraction of the monocle and tried fitting it to his left eye. It kept popping out.

  “Try the right,” Broadhead said. “That was where von Stroheim wore it anyway.”

  “That’s my dominant eye. I can’t see a thing through this lens. It’ll be tough enough convincing him I’m an immortal director without bumping into walls.”

  “Well, keep practicing. If a kid can balance a spoon on the end of his nose, you can keep a hunk of glass in your eye.”

  Fanta said, “I’ve got Crazy Glue in my bag.”

  Valentino redoubled his efforts. Eventually he screwed it into a position where the muscles held it in place.

  “Let’s hear the accent.”

  “Achtung! Gesundheit! Sauerbraten!”

  “That’s Chaplin. The Great Dictator. More Bavaria, less Birkenwald. And spare us the sum total of your German. Pegler’s wife’s name was Gerda. He may know more than you do.”

  “Varren? Varren Peckler, is dat choo?”

  Silence filled the car, surrounded by honking horns and the rumble of a motorcycle.

  “Dr. Zinnerman was wrong,” Fanta said. “I’m not the worst actor who ever lived.”

  “I never claimed to be any other kind.” His cheeks burned, as if the rash were spreading.

  But Broadhead was sanguine. “Even the best talents need direction. Try again. You’re a foreigner trying to sound like an American, not the other way around.”

  “Varren Pegler, is dat choo?”

  “Better.”

  Fanta said, “It sounded the same.”

  “No, this time I heard the g, and the V was softer.”

  Valentino said, “I sounded like a Katzenjammer Kid even to me.”

  “You’re not directing this performance. Try something else, this time with a soupçon of German.”

  “I vant mein Kindling!”

  “That was Garbo.”

  “I’m quoting von Stroheim directly. From my dream, I mean.”

  “Well, I wish you’d bring him back. It may take the greatest auteur of the last century to carry this one off.”

  “I told you it was hopeless.”

  “Try it again, without the firewood.”

  “Kindling isn’t—”

  “It sounds like it when you say it. Say, ‘I want Greed.”

  “I vant Greed!”

  “Give me the w.”

  “I want Greed!”

  “Drop the exclamation point.”

  “I want Greed.”

  Broadhead looked up at the rearview mirror. Valentino saw his satisfaction reflected in Fanta’s eyes.

  Broadhead said, “By George—”

  “Stop right there,” Valentino said. “Before you break into a number.”

  “Now shout it.”

  “I want Greed!”

  “Without the exclamation point, I said.”

  “How can you shout without exclaiming?”

  “Ask yourself that question. You’re von Stroheim.”

  “I want Greed.”

  “Again.”

  “I want Greed.”

  “Once more. You’re angry, but you’re desperate. You’re demanding and pleading at the same time.”

  “I want Greed.”

  This time it rang off the headliner, tearing something loose inside him and numbing him to his fingers and toes. Belatedly he realized they’d stopped for a red light. The Mexican cab driver stopped next to them turned away from the holy icons stuck to his dash to stare at the red-faced man in the Tyrolean hat and yellow slicker. Valentino raised a sheepish hand. The driver shifted his attention to the truck in front of him without returning the wave.

  “Congratulations,” Broadhead said. “That’s your first rave review.”

  “I’m sure he doesn’t think he’s the one who was raving.”

  “He must be new to Los Angeles,” Fanta said.

  The light changed. They resumed moving. Valentino retrieved his monocle from his lap and returned it to where it had popped loose. “Give me something else.”

  Fanta said, “Do ‘Show me the money!’”

  “That’s the spirit, both of you.” Broadhead chuckled. “Sorry. I meant ‘enthusiasm.’”

  When Valentino ran out of lines and started quoting from Hogan’s Heroes, he began to get hammy again. Broadhead told him to rest his voice.

  “I keep thinking about those reels,” he said as they entered the Santa Monica Freeway. “Not so much why they were divided between the projection booth and the basement, but where. The four-hour cut Thalberg released originally ran twenty-four reels. That was exactly as many as there were in the boo
th.”

  Valentino sat up. “Do you think it isn’t a complete print?”

  “No. Twenty-five picks up where twenty-four left off, long before Pitts’s murder. I couldn’t resist peeking. It’s just a strange coincidence that whoever went out of his way to store the rest in the basement should choose the very reels that would indicate it ran the full eight hours.”

  “Or ten,” Fanta said. “I wonder if we’ll ever know for sure just how long it is.”

  “We may, if Val doesn’t forget himself and start channeling Colonel Klink.”

  A familiar tune played inside the car. Valentino fumbled at his pockets, then remembered his street clothes in the bundle on the front passenger’s seat. “That’s my cell.”

  Fanta found it and handed it to him over the back of the seat.

  Broadhead said, “You downloaded the theme to Gone With the Wind?”

  “The soundtrack selection was thin.” He looked at the LED. “It’s Sergeant Clifford’s number in West Hollywood.” He tugged up the antenna.

  The professor tore the phone out of his hand and threw it out the window. A car coming up on the outside lane chirped its brakes and swerved to avoid the unidentified flying object. Fanta took evasive measures, cutting off a minivan on the inside and starting a chain reaction of screeching brakes and furious horns.

  Valentino stared at Broadhead. “That was unexpected.”

  “Yes, she’s a more accomplished driver than I thought.”

  “Kyle, I have a stick.” He lifted the malacca cane by its crook. The tag tied to it with string read PROPERTY OF UNIVERSAL PICTURES.

  “These days the police can trace you through your cell phone signal,” Broadhead said. “I doubt they’d offer us an escort to the Country Home.”

  “We don’t know that was a hostile call.”

  “Have you ever received any other kind from that number?”

  “It’s early for them to have made it past those first three reels of film. Especially if they’re examining it frame by frame.”

  “Unlike archivists and academics, not all cops are obsessive-compulsive. They might be perverse enough to inspect them out of order. I barely had time to change the labels on the cans, and none at all to edit out the title sequences.”

  “So now we’re fugitives from justice.”

  “I prefer to think of it as ‘fugitives for justice.’ I’m beginning to believe that Rin-Tin-Tin was an appropriate choice.”

  “Stop the car,” Valentino told Fanta.

  She met his gaze in the mirror. “In the middle of the Santa Monica Freeway?”

  “Find an exit with a telephone. It’s not always easy to tell when things have gone too far, but when you’re running away from the law dressed like a dead Austrian movie director, it’s clear you’ve crossed the line.”

  “All the more reason to keep going,” Broadhead said.

  “That’s what Bonnie told Clyde.”

  “If she hadn’t, the movie would have been shorter, but the ending wouldn’t have changed. This isn’t George Washington and the cherry tree. Clifford won’t reward your honesty by returning the film. She’ll hang it up that much longer to use as evidence in our prosecution, and this time she won’t be disposed to observe the niceties of cold storage. We passed the point of no return the moment you put on that monocle.”

  “Believe it or not, there are more important things than rescuing a movie. Fanta belongs in that category. How’s she going to practice law with a felony on her record?”

  “She’s a minor. I’ll say I took her hostage.”

  She spoke up. “That’s bogus. I turn twenty-one next month. I’m old enough to know what I’m getting into.”

  “Then you must be older than I am,” Valentino said. “At least I’ve got a good chance of pleading insanity in this outfit.”

  Broadhead said, “We’re already turning on each other, and we’re not even in custody yet. Whatever happened to honor among thieves?”

  Valentino started laughing.

  He laughed so hard the monocle flew out of his eye and landed somewhere on the floor. Tears formed and he hiked up the sleeve of his slicker and dragged a tweed cuff across his eyes. “Ouch. What’d they weave this from, barbed wire?”

  That brought on a new fit. His chest ached and his throat was raw, a symptom of his allergy to wool and the harsh German gutturals that had rasped through it. Bad acting was funny. He guffawed. When at last he grew too exhausted to raise even a giggle, he realized they were no longer moving. Fanta had pulled off onto the shoulder of the exit to Woodland Hills and sat with one elbow over the back of the seat, watching him with brow puckered. He was aware too of Broadhead’s scrutiny.

  “A little hysteria is refreshing,” his friend said then. “Cracking apart like Bette Davis on the stand is a tad over the top.”

  “I’m not crazy.” Valentino caught his breath. His side hurt. “I thought I was all week, but I know now I’m the only sane member of the cast. Every good Mack Sennett short needs a straight man. Anytime now I expect to look out the back window and see an army of cops with clubs and Chester Conklin moustaches swarming up from the Valley.”

  Broadhead rumpled his hair. “You never called Kym Trujillo in Admissions. Why don’t we find a phone, and if she says it isn’t a good time to visit Pegler, we’ll go home. This may not be your night to perform.”

  “It’s my only night. Help me find Sister Agnes’ right eye, will you? I think it rolled under Fanta’s seat.”

  The professor found it and wiped it on his trousers. He examined both sides. “You were right. This wouldn’t fool a baby.”

  “Babies are easier to fool than Clifford. If her people haven’t spotted the switch by now, they’re sure to before we get another chance. They won’t stop to listen to our theories while they’re booking us.” He took the monocle and stuck it in his eye socket. “I may be going out there a kid from the chorus, but I’ve got to come back a star.”

  “Ew,” Fanta said.

  CHAPTER

  22

  NO ONE STOPPED them to ask for ID on their way through the Motion Picture Country Home. There were no passes, no barred doors, no visible security personnel. In the huge foyer, a three-time Oscar nominee for Best Original Soundtrack played “Chopsticks” on a white baby grand that had once belonged to George Gershwin. His fingering was flawless.

  “All these famous old people,” said Fanta. “Aren’t they at risk too?”

  Broadhead grunted. “Not as much as Charlize Theron’s underwear at Universal. This town has the long-term memory of a fruit fly.”

  Valentino demurred. He crowded close to his companions, self-conscious of his oversize slicker and walking stick. He’d rolled the hat into a tube and put it in a slash pocket. “No other business in the world treats its veterans so well. In Russia they’d be shot the moment they had trouble remembering their lines.”

  “Not always a bad policy,” Broadhead said. “It would have spared us Brando in Last Tango.”

  The chubby young man was not at the desk in the office. Behind the trivet that read ASSISTANT ACTIVITIES DIRECTOR sat an equally heavyset young woman in a USC sweatshirt, and her differing approach to the work showed in the rubble that had already accumulated on the glass desktop. Paperwork, loose-leaf fillers filled with loose leaves, and boxes and boxes of board games built a retaining wall with TRIVIAL PURSUIT: MOVIE EDITION balanced on top.

  Broadhead pointed to the last. “That must end in a bloody draw every time.”

  She made no response. The stockade of clutter seemed to represent a shield between her and the professor’s disarming brand of charm. She held up a sheet of names she’d managed to extract from the pile. “You’re not on the list. I’ll need to check with Ms. Trujillo.” She launched an expedition for the telephone.

  “We’ll wait.” He looked around for a seat.

  “Visitor’s room’s down the hall on the left.”

  This was a well-lighted area with comfortable-looking ch
airs and sofas and a plasma TV, before which crouched a couple of former character actors with hearing aids, shouting answers at the screen. The plastic sleeve on the coffee table identified the game they were playing as Scene It?, an interactive DVD about the history of film.

  “Allen Jenkins!” cried one.

  “Roscoe Karns, you idiot,” said the other.

  The answer was Joe Sawyer.

  “Who in thunder’s Joe Sawyer?” asked the first.

  “Not Allen Jenkins, that’s for sure.”

  “You thought he was Roscoe Karns.”

  “I did not.”

  “You said Roscoe Karns.”

  “Your battery’s dead.”

  “You’d think they’d know more,” Broadhead muttered.

  Valentino approached a familiar figure reading a tattered script by the rain-streaked window, a slender man in his sixties in slacks and a pullover sweater with a silk scarf knotted around his throat. He’d played a juvenile well into his forties, and nothing since he’d begun to show his age. He smiled when he recognized Valentino and shook his hand without getting up.

  “How are you?” asked the visitor.

  “If you’d asked me last week, I’d have had to say not so good.” He slapped the script. “They’re remaking the first thing I ever got credit for, over at Fox. This time they want me to read for the character’s grandfather. Rob Reiner’s directing.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “There might be a nomination in it. Look at Gloria Stuart.”

  Valentino introduced Broadhead and Fanta. They chatted, wished him luck, and drifted away as he returned to his lines.

  “That’s cool,” Fanta said.

  Valentino said, “Don’t believe everything you hear under this roof. There’s usually a man behind the curtain.”

  Broadhead said, “Did you see how old that script was?”

  “It’s probably the same one he had when he was seventeen.”

  “You mean he dreamed up the audition? That’s whack.”

  “Oh, some assistant at Fox might have made a courtesy call, but that’s probably the end of it,” Valentino said. “His last chance for a comeback blew up when some sleaze journalist outed him on the set of The Edge of Night. The blacklist never really went away; it just changes its targets with the fashion.”