Valentino let out air. “Well, that’s that.”
“Was Akers with you the whole time?” Harriet asked.
Valentino looked at her. For someone who was quick to point out that forensic technicians never conducted interrogations, she seemed to be on the scent of something. Her eyes were bright and her back was straight.
Rankin looked wry. “Well, we didn’t sleep together, but the archives close in the evening. The rest of the time—no, wait.” He drummed his fingers on the stem of his glass. “One afternoon I sent him out to pick up a particular brand of cigars to give to my friend as a gift, his favorite label. Roger was gone two hours. He said he had to visit three smoke shops before he found one that had the brand in stock. Is that helpful?”
Valentino looked at Harriet. He was suddenly very conscious of the narrow ledge he stood on with the law. Her attention was on Rankin.
“This was last autumn?” she asked.
“The autumn before. I wish you’d tell me why it’s important.”
“Sometime between a year ago last spring and this morning, a number of letters disappeared from the Garbo collection in Stockholm. Both the Beverly Hills Police and the LAPD are working on the theory that whoever stole them may have used the material to create a computer program to forge the letter Akers was using to extort money from you. Placing him within reach of the archives anytime during that period would remove reasonable doubt, not only that he’d planned the scheme from the start, but also that he went to a good deal of risk to set it up. That suggests a strong motive for violent rage when you refused to go on paying him and corroborates your claim of self-defense when he came at you with a marble bust.”
Rankin was silent for a moment. Then he refilled his glass from the bottle, forgetting to offer to do the same for his guests. His hand quaked and his face blanched beneath the tan. Valentino thought the tycoon was going to faint again. Then he drank a long draft and set down the glass, a flush climbing his cheeks.
“When the police told me the letter was a forgery, I naturally assumed Roger had discovered a piece of correspondence that Andrea had neglected to destroy and used it for a model. I thought it was serendipity. What you suggest is monstrous. Squeezing money is one thing, but this is so premeditated. How could I have worked so closely with someone for so long and never suspect he was so cold-blooded?”
Valentino said, “Maybe you were too close to see it. You appreciated his machinelike efficiency without stopping to wonder how far it went.”
“Airline and hotel records should confirm Akers was with you in Stockholm,” Harriet said. “I may be going out on a limb here, but it seems to me you’re as good as off the hook.”
Valentino proposed a toast to vindication, but Rankin vetoed it. This time he topped off all their glasses and lifted his. “To friendship: Andrea’s and Greta’s, yours and Ms. Johansen’s and mine. Wholesome, straightforward, and without agenda.” They drank. “And now dessert.”
Harriet said, “Didn’t we already have it?”
“We had sweets. A satisfying meal ends on a more substantial note.” Rankin tapped a spoon against his glass. It chimed, and the housekeeper appeared in the doorway. “Mrs. Soon, coffee in the theater, if you please.”
**
The basement auditorium bore all the hallmarks of a Leo Kalishnikov design. They entered through an Art Deco lobby and sat in deep plush seats arranged stadium style in graduated rows facing a stage and proscenium flanked by red velvet curtains. Valentino recognized some of the same original Garbo posters that had decorated the ballroom, now encased in locked glass cabinets with sconces inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright glowing between. Although it was scaled down to accommodate a dozen or so guests, the room provided a hint of everything Valentino hoped for from the Russian’s efforts with The Oracle.
Seated next to Harriet with Valentino on her other side, the host waited until the housekeeper had served their coffee in black-and-white china cups, which they placed on spacious trays between the seats, then flipped the switch on an intercom at his elbow. “Phil, you cued up?”
“Yes, sir,” buzzed a reedy voice from the speaker.
“Whenever you’re ready.” Rankin switched off and smiled at the others. “Phil’s belonged to the projectionists’ union almost as long as it’s existed. I acquired him from Grauman’s when they pensioned him off.”
Valentino scarcely heard him. He felt the old excitement coming on, as he did whenever the lights came down and the screen became luminous. He found Harriet’s hand and squeezed it. She squeezed back.
The beam shot through the darkness, setting millions of dust motes afire in a shaft from the booth in the rear above the heads of the audience. It was the mother of all illusions; experts in physics insisted that light was invisible until it landed on something tangible. The countdown began, the numerals jumping off plumb, intended as they were to be seen only by those insiders who saw the raw cut—nine and six spelled out as an aid to editors to avoid splicing them in upside-down— then onto the screen crept a simple letterpress title card: How Not to Dress, surely the least possible dramatic introduction to the greatest star the silver screen would ever know.
A dreary period promotional feature, crafted to showcase merchandise available to post-World War I department-store shoppers weary of the drab recycled material available while the globe was in turmoil, the two reels were notable only for providing the first glimpse on record of an immortal star at sixteen, whose plump figure and awkward deportment had disqualified her from the more glamorous footage devoted to sartorial propriety. Yet Valentino saw in young Greta Lovisa Gustafson that Certain Something that separated the greats from the vast gray crowd. Muffled in unbecoming layers of sweaters, scarves, and dowdy hats, the daughter of Swedish peasant farmers looked out upon the spectators with that same sleepy, up-from-under gaze that would conquer the world before she was twenty. But he admitted to himself that her debut on film, valuable artifact that it was, would prove undiverting for general audiences. It would be relegated to the second disc of a two-disc set, undoubtedly framing Flesh and the Devil or The Temptress, and go largely unseen beyond a curious first glimpse. As history, however, it was irreplaceable.
“So that’s what all the shouting’s about. I don’t get it.”
Harriet’s comment jarred him out of his reverie. The film had finished clattering through the gate and they were staring at a blank screen.
“That’s the general reaction,” said Rankin, before Valentino could rally himself to Garbo’s defense. “People say the same thing the first time they’ve heard Bix Beiderbecke on the cornet, or look at Van Gogh’s early sketches before they’ve seen Starry Night. You’re unfamiliar with her later work?”
“I remember seeing part of Grand Hotel on TV when I was little, and of course Val screened Mata Hari for me before we planned my costume for the party. I was too young the first time, and then I was distracted the next because I was too busy studying details to appreciate the rest. I’m not sure she has much to offer to the generation that grew up since rhinoplasty and breast implants. I’m sorry, Val. I knew you wanted me to be blown away, but she may have saved her best moments for glamour photographers.” She squeezed his hand tighter.
“I expected something on that order.” Rankin clicked his switch. “Phil, fire up the digital.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rankin spoke to the others. “Nothing so exclusive this time, I’m afraid. I got this remastered disc from Ted Turner. It goes into general release next month.”
The movie was The Temptress. A short five years had elapsed between the actress’ uncertain debut and her entrance on the scene of a gala masquerade at age twenty-one, but when Antonio Moreno persuaded the mysterious guest to remove her mask, it seemed to Valentino as if the world had entered a new orbit. Ethereally slender, astonishingly beautiful, her preternaturally long eyelashes casting shadows on her high cheekbones, Garbo slunk through a breakneck four reels, gat
hering men’s hearts like flowers and destroying their lives as easily as plucking away the petals. Had she approached the role as a scheming seductress, it might never have risen above any of the vamps standard at the time, and Garbo herself might have faded to a vague memory of a name along with Theda Bara and Louise Brooks, who lived on only as exotic faces on the screen savers of cinema geeks. Instead, her Elena drifted from European villa to Argentine wilderness to the slums of Paris, innocently unaware of the potency of her venom or its effect. With updated settings and costumes, full color, and a soundtrack, the film might have succeeded in any modern first-run house; but only with Garbo in the lead. Compared to her performance, Julia Roberts, Reese Witherspoon, and Halle Berry did little more than make faces for the camera.
The final image faded, of a dissipated temptress walking the Parisian streets looking for the price of a drink (“I meet so many men”). Harriet stared at the blank screen, her profile sharpening as the lights came back up.
She caught Valentino looking at her and wiped her eyes quickly. “Having a musical score helped.”
“‘Fess up,” he said. “She got you, too.”
Rankin came to her rescue. “Why not? She practically invented the chick flick. But men came in herds to see her as well.”
He got up and excused himself to go talk to Phil. When he left she said, “Exactly what happened to her between sixteen and twenty-one, besides puberty?”
Valentino said, “Mauritz Stiller. He took her and molded her into what we just saw. He directed her in Gösta Berlings Saga, taught her how to sit and stand and move and dress—some say to make love, too, but there’s no more evidence to support that than her so-called lesbianism—and when MGM brought him from Sweden to direct pictures for them he forced her on the studio in a package deal. By the end of the decade, he was a dead has-been, and his creature was the toast of two hemispheres. That’s showbiz.”
Matthew Rankin came back down the aisle, carrying two shallow black boxes stacked one atop the other and secured with straps. Each was big enough to contain a large pizza. Valentino and Harriet stepped out to meet him.
“This is the safety print,” Rankin said. “I’ll put someone in touch to make transportation arrangements for the nitrate print tomorrow. It’s been stored at a steady thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit and is in the same condition it was when I put it down. You saw the quality of the safety.”
Harriet read the label. “Fran topp till ta. It translates as From Head to Toe. I don’t—”
“That was the original title in Swedish. It was changed to How Not to Dress for English-speaking audiences.” Rankin was looking at Valentino. “This stock doesn’t need much babying, but I wouldn’t leave it in the trunk overnight.”
Valentino took away his burden. It was heavy. Nearly two thousand feet of celluloid wound onto two steel reels and packed in polypropylene and aluminum brought physical substance to a medium usually referred to in terms of light. “I accept it on behalf of the UCLA Film Preservation Department. Should I send the receipt here?”
“I’m not giving it to the university. I’m giving it to you. Do with it what you like, but if you donate it, as I’m sure you will, by all means get a receipt. The tax deduction will defray some of the cost of your construction project. You went a roundabout way of earning it, but you freed me from a grotesque state of affairs, and cleared the reputations of two great women. I know Andrea would have wanted you to have it.”
He stammered his thanks. Rankin accompanied them outside to their car, and when Valentino had secured the boxes with care in the trunk and shut the lid, the archivist and the tycoon clasped hands. Rankin stood with one hand raised until the curve of the driveway swept his image from the rearview mirror.
“Congratulations, Val,” Harriet said. “I’m sure you’ll watch it again as soon as you can get to a projector. It’s the next best thing to a private conversation with her.”
“It’s better.” He turned into the street. “Silence lasts longer.”
**
CHAPTER
12
ON TUESDAY, THE day after the prisoner was released, the Los Angeles County Prosecutor called a press conference to announce that his office had dropped all charges against Matthew Rankin except one misdemeanor count of discharging a firearm inside the Beverly Hills city limits, with a recommendation to the judge to sentence him to time served. (Later that day, this charge, too, was dropped.) Questions were directed to the commissioner of the Beverly Hills Police Department, who directed them in turn to his chief of detectives, who adjusted his tinted glasses and displayed all the symptoms of acid reflux. The un-photogenic Lieutenant Ray Padilla was not present.
On Wednesday, a van marked with the three convergent triangles of a vehicle containing hazardous material arrived at the UCLA Film Preservation Department laboratory, and a two-man crew assisted technicians in transferring two reels of silver nitrate film packed in boxes from the van to ventilated archival cabinets inside the building. (Kyle Broadhead alternately referred to the two teams dressed in hooded haz-mat suits and shiny black neoprene gloves as “Morlocks” and “Oompa-loompas.”) How Not to Dress had moved into its permanent home.
On Thursday, Dwight Spink red-tagged the grand staircase in the lobby of The Oracle for failure to meet safety regulations requiring a space of no more than three and one-half inches between the turned mahogany ballustrades in the banister railing. The inspector explained that children were inclined to get their heads stuck. Leo Kalishnikov suggested installing brass rods between the ballustrades at an additional cost of $2,500, not counting labor.
Later that same day, Spink approved the change but cited evidence of vermin activity on the premises that violated the health laws. Valentino got the inspector on the phone.
“They’re mice, not rats,” he said. “Rats don’t hang around a place when there’s no food. I learned that much growing up on a farm in Indiana.”
“I suggest the construction workers have been less than thorough cleaning up after themselves at the end of their lunch breaks. Hire an exterminator, Mr. Valentino.”
Valentino tracked down Kalishnikov at an excavation for a basement in Glendale, where the owner of a Mercedes dealership was planning to build his house around a home theater twice as big as Matthew Rankin’s in Beverly Hills. The theater designer wore an oilcloth cape and a yellow hard hat with a plume and stood in pirate boots up to his ankles in greasy clay. He took in the latest news with a shake of his head.
“Spink smells blood in the water,” he said. “The only way you’re going to get him off your back is to ask him his price and pay it.”
“You mean bribe him?”
“I would not use the word in his presence.” Kalishnikov slipped back into his accent. “His kind is cautious. He hopes by turning the screws to cause you to bring up the subject of emolument. That way he cannot be accused of initiating the negotiations.”
“What if I report him to the county?”
“For what, fulfilling his official responsibilities? Every matter he has brought up is legitimate. Most inspectors overlook minor things such as rodents, of which there is a healthy colony residing in the basement of City Hall. The building code is as long as the Bible and just as contradictory: One cannot conform to half the regulations without violating the other half. Spink has a zealot’s own knowledge of county scripture.”
“Well, I won’t pay him off. I’ve had all to do with blackmail I care to.”
“I applaud your integrity. I hope your pockets are deep enough to support it.” He rolled up the blueprint he’d been studying. “Bite the bullet and pay the two bucks. Otherwise the Oracle will take as long to put up as the Great Pyramid, and you’ll be buried in debt underneath it.”
Returning to his office, Valentino had Ruth put through a call to an exterminator, who calculated square footage and gave him an estimate of eight hundred dollars for the job.
“They’re mice, not escaped
tigers. How much can it cost to set out a few traps?”
“It isn’t a Tom and Jerry cartoon, mister. I have to get a permit from the city, and then the building has to be evacuated and tented before I can start spraying.”
“How long does that take?”
“Oh, I can do it in an afternoon.”
“That’s not so bad. I was afraid I’d have to stop construction for a couple of days.”
“Well, that’s the actual spraying. The place will need three days to air out before anyone can go back in.”
Valentino groaned and told him to go ahead. When he hung up, Broadhead was standing in the doorway. “Rats in the revue?”
“Just one.” Valentino told him what Kalishnikov had said.
“He’s right,” Broadhead said. “Pay the two dollars.”
“Not if it were two dollars. It’s because people knuckle under to corruption that it flourishes. If I did, I’d never be able to look at the place again without thinking of that civil-service Uriah Heep.”
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