Loren D. Estleman - Valentino 01 - Frames

by Loren D. Estleman

  Burning was the optimum word. In the lobby, which had been cleared of dust and rubble, dozens of candles flickered in colored glass bowls, casting a soft glow that fell short of the painters’ and plasterers’ drop cloths in the corners and of paint buckets shunted outside the range of the flames’ heat. They stood on the floor and on stands and bordered a rich red carpet runner unfurled from the entrance to the doors leading into the auditorium. Kyle Broadhead watched Valentino lighting the last of them with a long taper.

  “I hope you remember to blow those out,” he said. “As picturesque as it might be for a film archivist to die in a burning theater.”

  “I’ll remember.” Valentino blew out the taper. In contrast to his friend’s daily uniform of rumpled corduroy over a sweater-vest streaked with pipe ash, the film detective looked positively formal in a midnight blue suit and gray silk necktie. “I wish I’d thought to get scented ones. The place still smells like a tomb.”

  “Throw in a couple of cadavers and Harriet will feel right at home.”

  “One corpse was enough. Did you get the projector set up?”

  “Almost. How much did you slip the electrician to wire the booth?”

  “Leo Kalishnikov handled that part. I think it appealed to his eccentric aesthetic. We’ll both be in trouble if an inspector happens by.”

  “No more than I, if they miss that projector before I can smuggle it back onto campus. Our department head frowns on borrowing six thousand dollars’ worth of equipment for a private screening. But we’re used to ticking off the authorities, aren’t we?” He lit his pipe. “This ought to clear out some of the musk.”

  Construction was only ten days old, and already the building wore an air of industry. Sheets of blue tarpaulin protected the roof from leaks until it could be replaced, rotten plaster had been pulled down and drywall put up to substitute, winged Pegasus had been removed to a sculptor’s shop for repair and to serve as model for a new mate to be built, and estimates were coming in from various artisans eager to take part in the restoration of woodwork, gold leaf, and custom fixtures. As they spoke, Kalishnikov, the designer, was in Texas, going over the plans for the new marquee with a sign maker who specialized in oversize projects. County and city permits were posted on the boarded-up windows in front. Valentino’s savings and investments had already taken a hit of Peglerian proportions; soon he would have to tap in to the fifty thousand dollars his department head had parted with to obtain Greed for the archives. The check had changed hands with an outward show of reluctance that had failed to disguise the inner delight of both parties: The major find, on top of the solution to a grotesque and therefore sensational mystery connected with it, had brought a barrage of publicity to the film preservation program, and subsequently a large donation from an anonymous party (whose initials, appropriately, were Q.T.).

  “Nice.” Broadhead tested the thickness of the red carpet with a foot. “This should be out on the sidewalk. Haven’t you ever attended a premiere before?”

  “I was afraid someone would steal it. I have to have it back to the Hollywood Foreign Press before the Golden Globes.”

  The professor took something from his side pocket and held it out. It was wrapped in silver foil and tied with a red bow. “A housewarming gift. Fanta wrapped it. The number’s the same, and it has some features your old one lacked.”

  The package was the size of a deck of cards. Valentino unwrapped it and opened the box. It contained a cell phone, smaller and sleeker than the one Broadhead had thrown out the window on the Santa Monica Freeway. “I’d say you shouldn’t have,” Valentino said, “but of course you should. Thank you.”

  It rang, raising two pairs of eyebrows.

  “Probably the company,” Broadhead said. “Telling you it’s obsolete and offering to sell you a new one.”

  Valentino pulled up the antenna. “Hello?”

  “Hey, Doc, you’re killing me. Why didn’t you tell me you were running a sneak preview?”

  It was Henry Anklemire in Information Services. “How’d you find out about it?”

  “I got sources. Listen, we need the bounce from when the story broke. You can’t live on it forever; people forget. San Diego cops dug up a human femur in the old navy yard this morning. Dem bones of ours are dead as Pharaoh. I can put a photog out front in twenty minutes, get you the front page of the entertainment section.”

  “It’s a private showing, Henry. Just for two.”

  “Romance! Hey, that’s almost as good as murder. She take a good picture? Never mind, this guy can make Janet Reno look like Britney Spears. Tell her to show some leg.”

  “If a photographer shows up, I’ll have him arrested for trespassing.”

  “That’s cold. Here I am trying to help, and you set loose the Cossacks.”

  “Sorry, Henry.”

  Broadhead rolled his eyes and puffed up a head of smoke.

  “How about another one of those protest dealies?” Anklemire asked. “Any injuns in that picture?”

  “None in the picture, and none out front. They packed up and went back to Berkeley when the police arrested Warren Pegler.”

  “That was a bust. He ain’t even going to be tried. A week on Court TV’s as good as thirty seconds in the Super Bowl.”

  “Good-bye, Henry. I’ll let you know when we open the film to the public.”

  Broadhead watched him flip the phone shut. “Little twerp.”

  “Ten more like him and we could revive the career of Bull Montana.”

  “Are you sure you know how to handle that projector? I’d feel better if I stayed.”

  “I wouldn’t. Three’s a crowd. I can handle a projector.”

  “This isn’t a sixteen-millimeter toy.”

  “I had a good teacher.”

  Broadhead bit down on his pipe. “Don’t noise that around. They might expect me to teach more than two sessions a semester. Try not to touch the film. When you change the reels, don’t forget to put on gloves. I left you a whole package in case you misplace a pair.”

  “If I misplace the package, I can always borrow a pair from Harriet.”

  “Yes, she’s sure to carry one in her date purse. You know you’ll be jumping up every twenty minutes or so to change reels.”

  “That’s why we’re watching from the booth.”

  “You fixed it up nice. Comfortable bachelor apartment. Moving in?”

  “Just for tonight. I don’t have a certificate of occupancy.”

  “For what it’s worth coming from an old widower, you made a fine catch,” Broadhead said. “The shop talk alone should fill the awkward silences.”

  “Thanks, Kyle.” He was moved.

  Broadhead puffed vigorously. He seemed to be trying to build a smoke screen.

  “Speaking of awkward silences,” Valentino prompted.

  The pipe came away; went back for another puff, then came away again. “I’m thinking of asking Fanta to marry me.”

  “Congratulations. She’s as good a catch as Harriet.”

  “I thought you’d be surprised.”

  “I’ve been expecting something of the sort ever since you saw her in Michelle Pfeiffer’s dress. You’re not as inscrutable an old coot as you think.”

  “But I am an old coot. She had no trouble convincing that gorilla at the Country Home I was her grandfather.”

  “She’s a good actress. Dr. Zinnerman owes her an apology.”

  “Do your grizzled mentor a favor and forget I said anything. The idea’s demented. I should check out that room.”

  “Why don’t you ask her opinion? Over dinner, and wear something that doesn’t look like you borrowed it from Sister Agnes in the Universal wardrobe department.”

  “Agnes needs to cool off before I go back there. You dropped that make-believe monocle so many times she couldn’t see through the scratches.” He shook his leonine head. “If anyone from UCLA sees me dating a student, I’ll be out on my pension. It’s marriage or nothing.”

  “You�
�re an ornament of the university. No one forces ornaments into early retirement.”

  “Just between you and me, it’s not that early. Very well, I’ll ask her to dinner. Where do young people like to eat these days? Not one of those ghastly nightclubs, I hope.”

  “They go there to dance. Take her to the microbrewery.”

  “Ump. Romantic.”

  “I met Harriet at a crime scene. Our second date was an autopsy.”

  “We’re a fine pair of academics, you with your CSI beauty, me with my prom queen. Running around solving murders and haunting old theaters like the Phantom of the Opera. If Henry Anklemire were half the flack he thinks he is, he’d have us up to our mortarboards in paparazzi morning, noon, and night.”

  “I’m not an academic.”

  “Very well. Archivist.”

  “Not that either.” Valentino pocketed his cell phone, took out a silver-plated card case, and handed it to Broadhead. It was engraved:

  VALENTINO

  FILM DETECTIVE

  Broadhead sighed and handed it back. “One would think you were smart enough to save your money. That’s a crystal doorknob for the ladies’ lounge.”

  “You’re not the only one who gives me presents.” Valentino admired the case and put it away. “I got it from Harriet for my birthday.”

  “Your birthday was in July.”

  “We hadn’t met yet. We’re making up for lost time.”

  Broadhead’s mouth formed something cutting. Then his face paled a shade. “Fanta’s birthday is next week. What do young woman want these days?”

  “How about a complete set of Agatha Christie?”

  The professor went back upstairs to finish adjusting the projector. Alone in the lobby, Valentino saw that a candle had gone out. He lifted the taper off the empty candy counter, lit it from a candle, and stepped over a bank of tiny flames to reignite the wick. When he turned back, the taper burning in his hand, he looked into the stern face of Erich von Stroheim.

  The director stood in the center of the red carpet with his feet spread in black boots that glistened to his knees, both hands folded behind his back. Tonight he wore the uniform of a high-ranking officer in the Austrian Imperial Guard, or what Valentino thought such a uniform would look like if he’d ever visited Vienna before the collapse of the empire; it was a dead ringer for the one von Stroheim had worn in The Merry Widow, down to the skintight black tunic paved with medals and crowned with epaulets and ropes of braid, and the spiked helmet fixed with a gold tassle that hung down to cover it completely, like the fezzes worn by Shriners. His monocle glittered, and candlelight twinkled on the rows of decorations from battles won and lost. His tan riding breeches showed every muscle in his powerful thighs; the old auteur had observed a military regimen of exercise in his prime. Valentino smelled polished leather; a new feature in these visitations. The others had been sight and sound only.

  “Look,” Valentino said, “you can stop pestering me now. The silver nitrate’s here, and we’ve got it on safety in negative and positives in long-term storage. We’re releasing it to theaters through MGM next spring. It’ll be out on DVD in the fall. I don’t know what else I can—”

  A palm in an immaculate white glove swept out from behind the other’s back and up, silencing him. It snapped down to his side, the thumb precisely parallel with the seam of his breeches. He stood motionless in that position for what seemed a full minute. Then he bowed, a short, jerky movement from the waist, no more than an inch. His heels collided with an explosive charge. He straightened and swept up his other hand. The braided leather riding-crop he held in it touched the visor of his helmet. It swished when he swept it back down.

  The toe of one boot hooked itself behind the heel of the other, and with one movement, von Stroheim turned his back on his host and marched directly into the full-length stained-glass window in the wall. His squared shoulders and pinched waist blended with those of the Teutonic knight silhouetted on the panes and evaporated.

  For an instant between the bow and the salute, Valentino thought he’d seen a tear gleam in the autocrat’s naked eye. Surely he’d imagined that part.

  “Are you interviewing ushers tonight?” Broadhead asked.

  Valentino jumped. He hadn’t heard him coming down from the projection booth. He blew out the taper and turned to face his friend standing in the auditorium doorway. “Not yet. It’s way too early for that. Why?”

  “Then who was the character in the uniform?”

  “You saw him?”

  “I couldn’t miss him in that getup.” He looked around. “Where’d he go?”

  “I don’t know, but don’t tell Harriet.”

  She arrived by cab, wearing a simple black dress, high heels, and a white lace wrap covering her bare shoulders. Valentino opened the car door for her and paid the driver. They entered the lobby arm in arm. “You look beautiful.”

  “So do you. I wasn’t sure about the dress. All these years in L.A. and I’ve never been to an opening.”

  “Not even with your negative cutter?”

  She kissed him. It lasted fifteen seconds.

  When their lips parted, she leaned back in his arms and used her fingertip to rub lipstick from his mouth. “That was to shut you up. You don’t bring up old relationships on a hot date.”

  “I’d better get a booster shot, just in case.” He kissed her.

  He took her on a tour of the ground floor. She gasped when they entered the auditorium. The light coming from the square opening of the booth flattered the threadbare carpet and the rows of seats awaiting reupholstering. He’d spent all day dusting and polishing the woodwork and climbing up and down a stepladder with a broom, sweeping cobwebs out of the coffers. He’d had the shreds of the old linen screen removed and replaced with one made of a synthetic material that seemed to provide its own source of illumination. “I never dreamed you’d made so much progress,” she said.

  “Most of it’s illusion. It’s Hollywood, don’t forget. The halfway point’s still so far away you can’t see it.”

  “Are you exaggerating?”

  “You’ll know I’m not when you find yourself using the gentlemen’s lounge. They’re still pulling asbestos out of the ladies’.”

  “What about your organ?”

  He hesitated, searching her face in the reflected light. “The pipe organ! It needs new stops, a new pedal assembly, new everything. We evicted a family of mice from one of the pipes. A man’s on his way from Chicago to dismantle it and put it right. He works for the company that made it originally. It’s still in business; and so will the Oracle be, only not soon.”

  “Will you open it to the public?”

  “I may have to, to cover the overhead. I haven’t decided.”

  “Are you going to live here?”

  He smiled. “Where better, for a professional film buff?”

  “You’ll never get away from the movies.”

  “The movies are where you go to get away from everything else.”

  She shook her golden head. “I have a confession to make. I’ve never seen a silent movie.”

  “What about those Rudolph Valentino shorts in Toronto?”

  “We got in a fight during the first scene. I left.”

  “That’s not so bad, as confessions go. You have to promise to see it again when it’s scored. Silent films were never really silent. Dr. Broadhead’s prowling the UCLA Music Department for a gifted young composer who won’t charge us the farm.” He opened the hidden door to the stairs. They started up.

  “Is a skeleton going to fall in my lap?”

  “If it did, you’d probably dust it for prints.”

  They entered the projection booth, which bore no resemblance to the gutted chamber of only a month before. Electric lamps cast a soft glow over a pair of armchairs from Valentino’s apartment, a low round coffee table supporting a bottle of wine and two long-stemmed glasses, a figured rug, a sofa that unfolded into a bed. The massive air-cooled projector borrow
ed from the university stood sentinel at the opening into the auditorium, Greed stacked neatly in forty-two archival-quality cans on the floor beside it, the package of disposable latex gloves to hand. Harriet laughed when she saw the microwave oven and packets of unpopped corn.

  Valentino started the film rolling and joined her on the sofa, set on a raised platform to look down on the screen. She snuggled close to him and intertwined her fingers with his. He asked her where she’d been all his life.

  “I know where I’ll be the next eight hours.”

  “Or ten.” He smiled.

  CLOSING CREDITS

  The following sources were instrumental in the writing of Frames:

  BOOKS

  TECHNICAL

  Cameron, James R. Sound Pictures: Motion Picture Projectionist’s Guide. Woodmont, Conn.: Cameron, 1944.

  The material is dated, but that was no hindrance to a story centered around a film shot eighty years ago. This updated edition of “the most practical book ever offered projectionists” appeared twenty-nine years after the first, with insights on the handling and presentation of nitrocellulose (silver nitrate) film, four years before the introduction of cellulose triacetate (“safety stock”).

  Kiesling, Barrett C. Talking Pictures: How They Are Made/How to Appreciate Them. New York: Johnson, 1937.

  Dated also, Kiesling’s entertaining text nevertheless dissects the Dream Factory at the height of its success.

  Schary, Dore (as told to Charles Palmer). Case History of a Movie. New York: Random House, 1950.

  The movie, The Next Voice You Hear, is a dog; but Schary, head of production first at RKO, then MGM (Irving Thalberg’s old job), provides an insider’s tour of the moviemaking process from concept to public exhibition.

  HISTORICAL

  Architectural Digest, “Hollywood at Home” (various issues). New York: Condé Nast, 1990–2000.

  For many years a fixture at Academy Awards time, the swanky home magazine served up capsule biographies of stars, directors, writers, and producers classic and contemporary, with glimpses of their private lives and bushels of industry anecdotes—until cranky letters from color-photo fetishists persuaded the editors to discontinue the tradition.