“It was a little less scandalous in nineteen twenty-five,” Valentino said. “They told rape jokes back then. We’re going to take some heat from several special-interest groups when this is released. One of the secondary characters is bound to attract the attention of the Jewish Anti-Defamation League. Luckily for us, von Stroheim was a Jew.”
“And Stepin Fetchit was black. That didn’t stop the NAACP from hounding him to his grave.” Marge laughed. “If you hang around with these characters long enough, you’ll qualify for a film-school diploma.”
Harriet said, “I’ve learned plenty just this morning. I’m looking forward to walking Val through the county morgue.”
“Val, is it?” The technician, a rawboned post-graduate named Artie, grinned. He’d joined the preservation program on the advice of Kyle Broadhead, who’d smashed his hopes for a directing career with a failing grade. “We were told to expect an official visit.”
Valentino decided to stop that conversation in its tracks. “It is official. California’s a first-name-only state. I guess they didn’t teach you that in North Dakota.”
“South Dakota,” Artie corrected.
“What part?” Harriet asked.
“Rapid City.”
She uncased that brilliant smile. “I’m from Pierre.”
“We beat the pants off you on the varsity court.”
“We got them back on the football field.”
Valentino and Harriet left. In the hallway, he asked if she was free for lunch.
“My father used to say, ‘Free, white, and twenty-one’; but I don’t want to offend any special-interest groups. I’ve been starving for an hour, ever since I mentioned fried potatoes. Is there a good place close by? I should get back, but no one downtown knows how long it takes to tour a film preservation laboratory.”
They took his car to the Sunset-Vine Tower and got a table in Room at the Top, just ahead of the rush. Their window spot looked out on a hundred years of Hollywood history. The waitress, an obvious would-be starlet in makeup too heavy for her tender years, brought them a salad and a breast of chicken. Harriet stuck a fork into her romaine. “How’d you get interested in movies?”
“I’ve taken up enough of your time on that subject,” he said. “What drew you into criminology?”
“My father was chief of police in Pierre. I guess it’s in my blood. I enrolled in the program at USC on the theory that the practical experience in Los Angeles has it all over the smash-and-grab specialists in South Dakota. I guess that doesn’t make me any less of a starry-eyed kid than our waitress.”
“I saw that too, but you’re no starry-eyed kid. You got a spot on the LAPD.”
“Well, they need women who can make the grade, to wheadle budget allocations from the politicians. We’re not nearly as well represented as we are on those TV shows. But how many male viewers are going to tune in to watch some stud shaking a test tube?”
“False modesty’s almost as bad as idle boasting. I saw you at work. Sergeant Clifford doesn’t strike me as the type who defers to just anyone.”
“I’ve worked with her a couple of times. If she doesn’t make lieutenant on the next round, I may just join NOW. But we can discuss my work when it’s my turn to conduct a tour.” She munched on a radish. “First-date food orders don’t count. Where do you stand on sushi?”
“Do you like it?”
“I’d rather eat my latex gloves.”
“Thank God.” He exhaled. “Vegetarian?”
“Douglas was, which made me one, too. The night we broke up I went to Ruth’s Chris and ordered a porterhouse as big as my head.”
He laughed. She watched him. “Are you seeing anyone?”
“Most of the women I meet started collecting social security before I was born. I almost popped the question once.”
“May I ask what happened?”
“Religious differences. She was Three Stooges, I was the Ritz Brothers.” He savored the sound of her laughter. It was deep and unguarded. “Dog person or cat fancier?”
“Dog,” she said. “But I work too late to keep one. You?”
“Same story. I don’t have a friend I’d trust to feed and walk it while I’m in Cannes. What do you do when you’re not busy dissecting cadavers?”
“I run, when I’m not at work and the smog won’t defeat the purpose.”
“Me, too. Everyone out here’s into good health habits, and the air’s more poisonous than—”
“Stage-five silver nitrate,” she finished. “We should run together sometime, when our schedules are both in line and the air’s clear.”
“I don’t like those odds.”
“Then we’ll bring our masks and pare them down.” She swallowed a piece of lettuce, then drank Perrier. Their eyes met above the candle flickering in its orange holder. “A glass of Chardonnay would make this go down smoother,” she said.
He smiled. “A bottle would be even better.” He looked for their waitress.
**
CHAPTER
13
VALENTINO WAS SITTING in the tumbledown clutter of his office, staring at the wall, when Kyle Broadhead came in without knocking. The professor made room for himself in a chair and played with his pipe. “What’s the scoop?” he asked.
“We saw Quentin Tarantino. He was coming in as we were leaving, with an entourage bigger than the cast of his last movie. None of them had on a jacket. The headwaiter ran out of loaners and had to give Tarantino his. Since the waiter was built like Brian Dennehy, I’ll bet he dragged the sleeves through every course.”
“You took her to lunch?”
“We went Dutch.”
“Tacky.”
“She insisted. The dating scene’s changed since your day.”
“For the better, I think; at least until the IRS lets you write off a dinner disaster as a bad investment. Still, it’s a good sign. You got along.”
“She’s smart and funny. Even the technical stuff held her interest.”
“You didn’t bore her with trivia, I hope.”
“At lunch, she asked me about my interest in movies, but I changed the subject. You’d have been proud of me.”
“I am proud of you. So is she going to plead our case with Sergeant Clifford?”
Valentino’s heart took a dip. “I forgot to ask.”
Broadhead stared, his hands frozen in the midst of twisting his pipe apart.
“I thought of it once, but the time didn’t seem right. Then I never thought of it again. I’m sorry, Kyle. I screwed up.”
He twisted it back together, dug out his pouch, and filled the bowl. His friend watched him strike a match and draw at the tobacco. He let a ball of blue smoke escape out the side of his mouth. “Congratulations.” He shook out the match.
“Are you being sardonic? I can’t always tell.”
“I’m sincere. I’ve been worried about you lately, but I see now you’re going to be all right.”
“Worried about me how?”
“There were rumors.”
“About what? My sexuality?”
“Your lack of it. Eighty years ago I’d have felt compelled to play the surrogate father and arrange an assignation for you in Tijuana. In those days, people didn’t go down there for the designer knockoffs. Movies are escape, not life. You can’t live it and hide from it at the same time.”
“Movies are my work. Yours, too.”
“You’re half right. I watch them because I’m paid to, and then only to confirm I’ve found what I was looking for, or gather material to lecture to young imbeciles. When I want to relax, I’d rather listen to music—not a motion-picture soundtrack—or read a book—not a history of cinema. Not you. You eat, drink, and breathe the things, and now you’ve begun to dream them. You can’t escape them even when you sleep. You’ve had it all backwards. But if you can worm your way into the confidence of a woman who’s in a position to help you in your work and not even remember to take advantage of the situation, there’s hope on th
e horizon.”
“But what about Greed?”
“Civilization seems to have stumbled along without it all these years. If the film crumbles to dust in police custody, I suspect the species will survive.” He leered around his pipe stem. “Anyway, who’s going to search for the stuff that’s still lost if the Valentinos of this world don’t try to be fruitful and multiply?”
“Is that why you’ve been riding me about her for two days?”
“No. That was recreation. Are you going to see her again?”
“Are you asking that as a colleague, a friend, or my surrogate father?”
“A friend. We’ve established I don’t care all that much for movies, and I have no connections in Tijuana.”
“She offered to take me on a tour of the forensics lab at police headquarters.”
Broadhead frowned. “Not promising.”
“I invited her to the movies, sort of. I didn’t know it was an invitation until she accepted.”
“Better. Something with Julia Roberts, I hope.”
“Zasu Pitts. I sort of talked myself into asking her to see a film printed on silver nitrate, for the experience. Greed seems appropriate, since that was what was being processed when I took her through the lab.”
Broadhead rolled his eyes. Then he made a gesture of resignation with the pipe. “Baby steps are better than standing still.”
“It also gives me another reason to help the police close the case before they confiscate the film. It would be socially awkward to ask Harriet for any favors now.”
“You’re hopeless. If I cut your throat, you’d bleed movie popcorn butter.” The professor rose, took a fold of paper from an inside pocket, and dropped it atop the heap on the desk. “That’s the number I promised you, for the theater designer. Do your old friend a favor and call him right away. Construction’s a bitch, but it keeps you too busy to meet with underworld characters in parking garages.”
Left alone, Valentino remained quiet a moment, breathing secondhand smoke. Then he mouthed a silent apology to Broadhead and dialed Fanta’s number first. It was busy. He hoped that meant she was making progress with her online investigation. Then he unfolded the scrap of paper and called the number written in Broadhead’s neat block hand.
A youthful tenor with a light Russian accent answered. “Kalishnikov Imaging.”
“Mr. Kalishnikov, please.”
“Speaking.”
Valentino introduced himself and explained his errand. He’d barely mentioned West Hollywood when he was interrupted.
“The Oracle,” Kalishnikov said. “Wonderful! Every day I expect to pick up the Times and see it’s been demolished. You know its history?”
“Quite a bit of it. I’m willing to bet you know more.” He experienced a sudden surge of inspiration; perhaps the designer knew something that would help clear up the mystery. But the man on the other end dashed that hope by reciting a long list of the architectural influences that had gone into its construction. It was of no practical use unless the murderer were a citizen of Byzantium or old Granada.
Suddenly Kalishnikov interrupted himself. “Wait. The Oracle. I’m getting something.”
Valentino waited. He felt as if he were having his fortune told.
“I did read about it in the Times,” the designer said. “The crime section. Are you the one who found the skeleton?”
“Yes. I’m sorry if you find that up—”
“Terrific!” The implied y between the second r and the first i came straight from the Black Sea. “I love a project with a sinister past. Tell me truthfully; is it haunted?”
He hesitated. He wasn’t at the point where he confided his ghostly visitations to strangers. “There’s a legend, but what building in this city doesn’t have one of those after fifty years? Poor old Max Fink.”
“Who? Oh, yes, Fink. Tough break.”
That laid to rest any hope of a solution from the Russian’s corner. He’d know all there was to know about the architect, but nothing about the various owners. Valentino was about to ask what he charged for consultation when Kalishnikov spoke again.
“I must see it. When may I?”
“Whenever you like, if you don’t mind ducking under police tape.”
Kalishnikov asked him to hold. He came back on after a moment to announce that he was meeting with a building inspector in Beverly Hills tomorrow afternoon. Could Mr. Valentino meet him at the theater at three o’clock?
“Certainly. But it’s not Mr. Val—”
“Terrific!” The line went dead.
He’d just cradled the receiver when the telephone rang. He snatched it up, hoping it was Fanta.
“You made an impression on my CSI,” said Sergeant Clifford, without greeting. “Tell me you didn’t promise to take her away from all this. She’s the only one I can talk to without a medical dictionary in my hand.”
He let that slide. “What progress have you made on the investigation?”
“We’re pursuing several leads. She said she told you that was no trick skeleton you found. I’m going to need that film.”
“This is Wednesday. You gave me till Friday morning.”
“The William Castle stunt angle was looking good then. When it went blooey I Asked Jeeves about Greed. You didn’t tell me collectors were offering up to half a million for a complete print.”
“I didn’t know that, though I’m not surprised. In my area you tend to think more in terms of artistic value than market price.”
“You and I don’t work the same area. When it comes to murder, I look for a motive, and the good old seven sins are always at the top of the chart.”
“Greed.” He couldn’t resist.
But her mind was working more linearly; she didn’t react. “Allowing for inflation, fifty years ago those reels had to have been worth ten or fifteen thousand. People have been killed for a whole lot less.”
“But if stealing them were the motive, the murderer wouldn’t have left them behind with the victim.”
“Maybe he panicked. More likely he walled them up with Mr. Bones intending to come back for them later, when there was less chance of getting caught with them. When we know who was killed and who killed him, we’ll know more of the circumstances. There’s no chance of retrieving latent prints after all this time, but if there’s a bloody thumbprint on one of those cans and we can trace it through the FBI data base, I can send the media wonks home and focus my attention on the killers that walk among us.”
He saw his out. “You can have the cans any time. Standard procedure requires removing the reels from the original containers anyway and packing them in fresh aluminum or polypropylene.”
“I don’t care if you pack them in Cracker Jacks. I’m not Harriet Johansen. I’ll send officers to collect those cans. If we don’t turn anything there, we’ll need to check the film itself for content.”
“Content?”
“Two years ago, my lieutenant cracked the alibi in a domestic homicide when the suspect showed up in a crowd shot on KB LA. Since then we’ve maintained a cordial relationship with the tape librarians at all the local stations.”
“If your suspect showed up in Greed, he’s either dead or too old to stand trial.”
“Well, we can’t speculate on the connection until we’ve seen the show.”
“It’s archival material, Sergeant. You can’t show it on any old projector.”
“We pay people to sit in rooms and examine that kind of evidence by hand, frame by frame.”
His chest felt constricted; he wondered if this was how it felt to go through cardiac arrest. “With all due respect, I can’t allow a desk jockey downtown to handle eighty-year-old film over a box of Dunkin’ Donuts!”
“I’m glad you said it with all due respect. Otherwise I’d be there in an hour with a court order, demanding immediate surrender of the evidence in question. It’s two-fifteen. You’ve got less than forty-four hours.”
He was getting used to sitting there holding
a dead phone.
Ruth buzzed and told him she was putting through a call from “that Prong person.” When he opened his mouth to protest, a stranger interrupted him.
“Claudel Blount, Berkeley Prong.” The voice was deep but youthful, with a slight drawl. “You’re the man who found the deceased?”
He reminded himself to ask Ruth to brush up on her diversity. This man was no rapper. “Yes, but I—”
He had to put the man on hold to answer the other line. He recognized the light baritone of the evening anchor on KBLA. “Mr. Valentino, we’ve been trying to reach you for days. Would you agree to a live telephone interview about the Oracle Mystery?” His tone capitalized both words.
“I don’t think the police would—hang on.” The intercom was buzzing.
“The Times,” she said. “On three.”
“We have a three?” Before she could answer, he asked her to tell the caller he was out. Then he returned to Claudel Blount.
“I just wanted your comment on the fact that a busload of Native Americans here at Berkeley is on its way to Los Angeles to picket the theater,” said the young man from the Prong.
“Whatever for?”
“Their spokesperson says they’re concerned the remains may be tribal and will end up as an irreverent display in a museum.”
“The bones aren’t Indian!”
“Are you an anthropologist?”
“No, but—” He stopped himself before he could blurt out what Harriet had told him about the body’s dental work and probable ethnic origins. He didn’t want to get her in trouble by going public with details the police might be holding back, or anger Sergeant Clifford into revoking his grace period. “Talk to the police.” He excused himself, cut the connection, and spoke to the TV reporter. “I just own the building. I’m a film archivist. I’ll be happy to go on the air and talk about my work, but I don’t know anything about murder.”
“It is murder, then?” The mellow voice was deadly calm.
His heart bumped. That was a bad slip. “I can’t answer that one way or the other. The police don’t confide in me. If you want to ask me about film preservation—”
“Thanks for your time.”
Frames Page 10
