Valentino: Film Detective

by Loren D. Estleman

  There in the dark he fell in love all over again with the incendiary blonde who had won the heart of America’s Rhett Butler and hundreds of thousands of moviegoers in New York and San Francisco, Terre Haute and Cincinnati. He had always found her unsympathetic in Century, and so had most of middle America during its first run, but now he appreciated the breezy skill with which she met every challenge from John Barrymore, the prince of players. Her ditzy debutante in Godfrey charmed him as it had William Powell, who despite their real-life divorce had insisted upon casting her opposite his socialite-turned-tramp-turned-butler (and netting her an Academy Award nomination), and although little of the chemistry between her and Gable showed in No Man, it comforted Valentino to see them together again, in a medium where no catastrophe, natural or man-made, could separate them. From her golden hair to her shimmering gowns she glowed, and there was more erotic tension in the arch of her brow and the hollow of her cheek than in the most explicit NC-17 ever shot.

  Gable had known that. Valentino rejected out of hand the notion that the spark between them had been just another invention of the flacks in the MGM publicity department. What if all the legends were fake? If someone else had been at the wheel of James Dean’s wrecked Porsche? If Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn had secretly loathed each other? If a stunt double had hung off the high clock in Harold Lloyd’s place? An industry without a healthy mythos might as well churn out bottle caps.

  When the last frame flapped through the gate he rewound the final reel and retired to bed and his Deco dreams.

  “Well?”

  Two days had passed since their conference in the projection room. Broadhead had entered Valentino’s memorabilia-cluttered office in his usual fashion, without knocking, swept a stack of French film journals off a chair, and sat scraping out the bowl of his pipe with a Tom Mix penknife he found on the desk.

  “Edith Jenkins,” he said.

  “What about her, whoever she is?”

  “Was. She enlisted as a nurse just after Pearl Harbor, to escape her abusive husband. When she’d been AWOL six weeks, the husband was arrested for questioning, but without a body or any other evidence he was released. The papers lost interest after a while, as they will when the story has no conclusion. She never turned up.”

  Valentino started to rise. “Then that means—”

  “Don’t get excited. This isn’t a movie, where everything ties together just before the fade-out. She was a brunette. She wouldn’t have left any blond hair in any broken airplane.”

  “She might’ve dyed it when she ran away from her husband. Lombard dyed hers.”

  “I’m not through.”

  Valentino sat.

  “This kid’s a freshman, but Bill Gates better watch his back. He dug up a dozen unexplained disappearances involving young women within two weeks of the accident. Two showed up alive later, three dead. No information on whether any of the others were in the army, although two were nurses, a vulnerable occupation then as now. One of them might have signed up under a nom de guerre. Point is the results are inconclusive.”

  “Huh.”

  “Eloquently put.” Broadhead found high C on his stem.

  “We could use that.”

  “You could. I’m a publish-or-perish academic. If I start endorsing Elvis and Bigfoot, this institution will retire me on my over-upholstered laurels and I’ll wind up writing paperbacks about alien autopsies and weapons of mass destruction.”

  “Your liberal bias is showing.”

  “You’re right. Scratch the alien autopsies. So what are you going to do?”

  “There’s always DNA.”

  “You said the old lady turned you down flat on that.”

  “She wouldn’t have to take part. If we found a cousin or something of Lombard’s—a ‘shirttail blood relative,’ as she put it—exhumed the body from Forest Lawn, and compared samples, we could either settle the question or make her claim credible.”

  “Even if you could do that, say you proved the corpse is Lombard’s, which of course would be the result. She might destroy the other three reels of A Perfect Crime out of spite.”

  “Not if she relinquishes possession first. We could stall for time, go ahead with the publicity arrangements as promised. No one could expect us to follow through with them once she’s exposed as a pretender.”

  Broadhead put away the pipe. “Where’d you tell me you were from originally?”

  “A little town called Fox Forage, Indiana. I saw my first movie there in a stuffy little box made of concrete.”

  “I think you should go back there for a vacation. You’ve been out here so long you’re beginning to think like a grafter.”

  Valentino sat back, deflated. “I didn’t like it when I heard myself saying it.”

  “Don’t feel bad. I said, ‘Even if you could’ get Lombard’s body exhumed. You can’t. You’d need that theoretical cousin’s permission or a court order, which you won’t get because there’s no probable cause for a search, and then you’d have to pay for it. Digging corpses out of mausoleums is ten times more expensive than putting them in. Then you have to pay to put them back. UCLA won’t foot the bill; we’re lucky it keeps us in paper clips. How’s your cash?”

  “Ask my contractor. He’s seen it more recently.”

  “Well, there it is. You’ve got one reel of a film you can’t exploit and a crazy old bat who thinks she’s the Queen Mother of Hollywood.”

  “I liked her, though. If she isn’t who she says she is, she oughta be.”

  Valentino was having a familiar dream. In it, he was standing on a thousand-foot cliff overlooking the ocean, arranging lemmings into an orderly herd to drive inland to safety. Suddenly a storm broke out. Thunder and lightning and lashing winds panicked the lemmings, who stampeded between his feet, dodging his grasping hands, and plunged over the edge of the cliff and down into the pitching waves, which swept them out to sea and out of sight.

  He was grateful when the telephone woke him. The lemmings were a unique breed, black and glistening as the bits of film he gathered from both hemispheres to assemble and save from obscurity. Too often he failed just when success seemed at hand.

  “I’m not getting any younger,” said a cigarette-hoarse voice. “None of us is, but I’m moving faster than most. Do we have a deal or what?”

  “I’m sorry, Miss Peters.”

  “I’m sorry, too, if ‘Miss Peters’ means what I think it means.”

  “It’s just too risky without proof you’re Carole Lombard. My reputation’s one thing, but the preservation program’s is another. A lot of important work has been destroyed in the past because someone failed to check his facts, deliberately or by accident.”

  “In other words, I’m a damn liar.”

  “There’s just nothing to show the world you’re telling the truth.”

  “What’s A Perfect Crime, chopped liver?”

  “The argument could be made that you don’t have to have been in it to acquire a print. You said yourself the studios were careless in those days. You know a lot about Lombard, but she’s been written about a lot. I’m sorry.”

  Silence crackled for what seemed a long time. “Well, people have been called phonies less politely. You know, you could have had what you wanted just by blowing smoke up my skirt until I kicked the bucket.”

  “I admit the idea was discussed, but I couldn’t live with it. I’d have gotten a bad case of hives every time Nothing Sacred played on TCM.”

  “Bill Wellman directed that one at the top of his lungs. I waited until we wrapped, then got the crew to tie him up in a straitjacket.” She exhaled, probably blowing smoke. “Toodle-oo, kiddo. Drop reel three by anytime.” The line clicked and the dial tone came on.

  Gloria Voss answered the door. She looked as trim and elegant as ever, but her eyes were red. “Jane passed early this morning, in her sleep.”

  “I’m sorry.” He truly was, somewhat to his surprise. He gripped the film can he was holding so ha
rd his fingers went numb.

  The nurse excused herself and went into the bedroom. She came out carrying the rest of A Perfect Crime in a stack. “She asked me—told me—to give you these in case she missed you. ‘Tell him to go to hell, and no hard feelings,’ those were her words. It was the last thing she said before she went to sleep.”

  “But that wasn’t the deal.”

  “I know. We had no secrets. She liked to come on as a tough old broad, but she had a heart as big as L.A. She ordered me not to see her films because they might corrupt me. Once, she said, she altered a contract with her agent so he owed her ten percent of everything he made instead of the other way around. He signed it without reading. She had him over a barrel, but she laughed and tore up the contract and had him draw up another.

  “I’ve heard that story.”

  “I think she was testing you. Congratulations. You passed.” She held out the stack of cans.

  His cell phone rang. He apologized and answered. It was Kyle Broadhead. “Listen, my whiz kid found a great-grandniece of Lombard’s in Fort Wayne, that’s where Lombard was born. She’s agreed to provide DNA samples.”

  “Kyle—”

  “I’m not finished. I talked to Ted Turner’s people. He’ll finance an exhumation in return for distribution rights to A Perfect Crime. We’ve got the niece’s permission, and Turner already owns everything Lombard did for MGM. He wants to put together a box set with her debut film included.”

  Valentino explained the situation.

  “Doesn’t change a thing,” Broadhead said after a pause. “You can’t buy publicity like this, but thank God Ted Turner can. People love a clever fake. The attention will bring in donations to the program like—like—”

  “Lemmings,” Valentino finished. “Tell Turner no deal.”

  “I heard some of that,” Gloria Voss said, when he flipped shut the instrument. “It means you don’t believe her, but it was a wonderful thing to do.”

  “I don’t know what to believe. Whichever way it went, it would have spoiled a beautiful story.”

  “Grandma would say, ‘Thanks, buster.”

  He reacted after a beat. “Grandma?”

  “She’s the one who talked me into becoming a nurse. She had a soft spot for them.”

  “So you’re the granddaughter of—”

  “Jane Peters and the owner of Buffalo Shipping. That’s what it says on Mom’s birth certificate.” She thrust the cans into his arms, smiling with Carole Lombard’s cheekbones and Clark Gable’s mouth.

  Wild Walls

  CHUB GARRETT SAT IN his favorite pub in the Dublin suburb of Maynooth, drinking gin and bitters and mourning the smoky atmosphere of days gone by.

  “Sure, it was poisonous, and they were quite right downtown to vote in the ban,” he said. “My only complaint is it takes twice as long to kill yourself with booze. But I’m an outsider; my opinion doesn’t count. I only live here because artists don’t have to pay income tax. Uncle Sam glommed on to what was left after my dear parents and darling ex-wives robbed me blind.”

  Valentino didn’t know whether to chuckle at that. Chub—right name William, before his trademark babyfat cheeks had made him the most recognizable of the Pint-Size Pirates in a series of 1930s comedy shorts—appeared to have no sense of humor. This wasn’t unusual among gifted comics, who in their private lives could pose for posters for anti-depression research. Wattles spilled over his heavy turtleneck and he wore loose-fitting khakis and rubber Wellingtons. His guest, who was suffering from jet lag brought on by two long hops, from L.A. to New York and from New York to Ireland, would have chosen brighter company if Chub (“Don’t call me Mr. Garrett, son; that was my father, may he rot in hell”) weren’t sitting on a film archivist’s goldmine.

  “You seem to have done all right for yourself since then,” Valentino said. “Homes in Santa Fe and Ireland, royalties for your signature line of children’s fashions.”

  “The royalties barely cover both mortgages. I could liquidate and live quite comfortably for the time I have left. Only I can’t, because both properties are frozen solid until I can prove I’m not an imbecile. Bad luck for me, good luck for you. The courts overlooked the product of my art.”

  He used the word with irony; but “art” was what Valentino thought of those reels of safety stock Chub maintained in climate-controlled storage in Dublin: the entire existing run of Pint-Size Pirates comedies, unseen in their original state since long before Valentino was born. In the meantime the world had had to content itself with grainy prints butchered to make room for commercials during afternoon TV airings and late shows. The UCLA board of directors had been persuaded to foot his travel bill to procure the films for a reasonable price. Valentino himself had done the persuading. The loss of so valuable a collection of artifacts to the history of popular entertainment would have cast in shadow all his efforts to preserve the twentieth century’s past to date.

  Chub drank, spilling color briefly into his sallow octogenarian features. “I wanted to will them to the Smithsonian, but my damn doctors are determined to keep me alive past a hundred, and I don’t intend to spend that time in a nursing home. Eleven children from eight marriages are just as keen to declare me incompetent and divvy up my estate. I need cash to fight them in court, which is why I’m being so mule-ass stubborn about the asking price.”

  “It’s worth it, in my opinion, but it’s not my hand on the purse strings. If the university were to agree to your terms, it means passing up the next three ex-presidents speaking at commencement. They don’t come cheap. The way they look at it, settling for a former secretary of state would mean accepting second-class status behind Harvard. Would you accept an honorary Ph.D. in lieu of the difference?”

  “I already have two, from USC and Penn State. Not bad for a kid who bribed his tutors to give him a passing grade in math so he could play David Copperfield on radio. I think Edith took both diplomas when she cleaned out the house in Burbank. She sold them on eBay, along with my honorary Oscar. One more wouldn’t get me a GED. So I guess you know my answer.”

  Edith was Chub’s sixth wife. He’d had two more before one stuck, for fifteen years until she’d died. “That’s all I can offer,” Valentino said. “I might swing you an honorarium as a visiting lecturer. The film school’s slim on those from the classic age.”

  “That’s only because Jackie Coogan had the bad taste to die. I couldn’t accept anything less than a hundred grand. That’s the standard retainer for the legal talent I need. I can get two weeks out of it.”

  “The people I work with won’t go that high.” He felt as played out as anyone who had ever embarked upon a crusade, only to settle for less than a lousy T-shirt. He wondered if a side trip to London might yield an acceptable print of Lassie Come Home. Roddy McDowall, before he died, had given him hope that one still existed in the basement of an assistant director on Basil Street.

  “I like you,” Chub said, thumping down his glass. “If I agree to a private showing, do you think your people might reconsider?”

  “I’d kill for it. But I couldn’t say yes in good conscience. Chub, I’m a fan.”

  Chub Garrett, the brains of the Pint-Size Pirates, stewed over the question, glass in hand. Despite his bald head and age spots, he remained an icon of Valentino’s youth, the mischievous savant of a band of juvenile delinquents with the best of comedic intentions. While he was considering, a plump, buxom barmaid—she ran so true to type that no pangs of liberated shame entered into the choice of terminology—came over and offered them a pint on the house, in deference to Chub’s good reputation. A twinkle of old times sparked in the old man’s pale blue eyes, but he asked her for the bill. Valentino covered it with a five-pound note.

  “Boyo, you couldn’t have settled it better with a knighthood.” The former child star hoisted himself from his seat. “Let’s go see just how cruel the passage of time can be to a boy from the Lower East Side.”

  Chub drove, at the wheel of a stubby
little car with a windscreen close enough to bend Valentino’s eyelashes, his fingers clutching the dash on the left side where the steering wheel belonged, oncoming traffic threatening him from the wrong lane, explosions from the exhaust pipe farting black smoke, and the driver using his horn in preference to the brake. When they rocked to a stop in front of a charming ivy-jacketed cottage straight out of The Quiet Man, the passenger unclamped his fingers from vinyl and remarked upon the beauty of the place.

  “I’ll take credit for that,” Chub said. “Me and Miles, my groundskeeper. It was overgrown with thistles when I bought it and hired him from the village. He’s got enough poison stored in the old smokehouse to wipe out the British Army.”

  The interior of the cottage was open, the stone-paved medieval kitchen flowing into a comfortably furnished living room. The rotund host manipulated hidden switches, lowering a screen from the ceiling in front of a painting of peasants at work in a field and raising a bullet-shaped projector from inside a table between two leather armchairs.

  Valentino enjoyed immensely the next two hours. Chub had spliced seven Pint-Size Pirates shorts onto four reels, and his guest laughed loudly throughout: Chub, in his trademark letter sweater and shabby fedora, “Sassafrass,” the group’s poker-faced spokesman, Glory, a ten-year-old glamour queen, and Shadow and Moon Pie, the stereotypical black children, outsmarted Mugs, the swaggering bully, at every turn, frequently with results humiliating and messy for the slowwitted antagonist. Alonzo, the Pirates’ scruffy little dog, was always on hand to lick custard pie off Mugs’s face. Every member of the cast was a gifted comic and, disregarding the shuffling behavior of the two minority members, their performances would stand up against any on the modern screen. Valentino had always enjoyed the features on cable, mutilated as they had been, but seeing them as they were intended to be seen was like spending quality time with the Mona Lisa, only with pratfalls.

  The old man switched off the projector and turned on a lamp. “I went into debt snapping up the prints when the studio went under and transferring them to safety stock, but I made it back in a hurry renting them to local TV stations across the country. I was smart enough to dupe off copies, knowing how scissor-simple those affiliates can be. I tried to get Bernie to go in with me on it, to reduce the outlay, but he was still hemming and hawing when he died.”