Alone

by Loren D. Estleman

  “I almost succeeded. I paid him without protest for months, building up evidence to support my story. I even tricked Roger into putting his fingerprints on the fake letter by pretending I’d mixed it up with some documents I wanted him to file. He gave it right back without guessing what it was. I knew he wouldn’t, because I wrote it in Swedish, a language he didn’t read; but the police would have a hard time proving that.”

  “How’d you get his prints on the bust he was supposed to have threatened you with?”

  Rankin smiled wanly. “I told him his latest payment was in an envelope under the bust. He thought I was being churlish. When he picked it up, I shot him.”

  “What made you choose Valentino as your witness?”

  “It could have been anyone. I’d made up my mind to plant the story with him only the night before, there in the study where I carried it out.” He shuddered, and looked again at Valentino. “Lord, that girlfriend of yours gave me a turn when I saw her in that costume. I thought Garbo had come back from the grave to spoil my plan.”

  “For the record,” Padilla said, “here in the presence of your attorney, Clifford Adams, Valentino, a civilian, and officers of the Beverly Hills Police Department, you, Matthew Rankin, confess to planning the murders of your wife, Andrea Rankin, and your assistant, Roger Akers, and carrying out those murders.”

  “Yes. If it will spare me from the executioner.”

  At a signal from Conroy, Sergeant Stimson came forward and switched off the video camera. The chief then nodded at Padilla, who asked Rankin to rise and present his wrists. He was manacled in a moment.

  “Lieutenant,” said Conroy, when Padilla turned his prisoner toward the door behind which the press continued to prowl. The lieutenant looked from his superior’s face to Rankin’s, which was dead white now. Padilla stripped off his suit coat, folded it, and draped it over the tycoon’s shackles.

  At the door, Rankin stopped and turned toward Valentino. “Not very sporting, young man. I gave you How Not to Dress and lent you my projectionist.”

  “Those weren’t the reasons I wanted to help you. I thought you were innocent.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “When the police were slow to announce the letter was a fraud, you were in no hurry to set the record straight. I knew then you weren’t as devoted to Andrea’s memory as you pretended. At that point, Padilla’s suspicions started to make sense.”

  “How very righteous. That’s the very same attitude that got me where I am.”

  “Are you ready?” Padilla asked.

  At that moment, Valentino ceased to exist for the man in custody. He stared at the door, behind which the murmur of reporters discussing the case among themselves and over cell phones rumbled like low-grade thunder. He took a deep breath, lifted his chin, and nodded.

  Padilla placed his hand on the knob, hesitated, and withdrew it. “Sergeant?”

  Stimson presented herself. The lieutenant stepped away. After a pause, the sergeant placed a hand on Rankin’s shoulder and turned the knob.

  When the door shut against the jabber and bright lights, Valentino said, “You’re missing your fifteen minutes.”

  “I guess whatever Garbo had was contagious.” He held out his hand.

  Valentino took it. “You know, you clean up pretty nice.”

  “Keep your voice down.” He was whispering. “Conroy wants to put me in for captain. If he gets his way I’ll have to wear a necktie all the time.”

  **

  He didn’t go from there to the office and he didn’t go home. Instead he went to the campus projection room and watched How Not to Dress alone for the first time. He laughed sympathetically at young Greta Lovisa Gustafsson’s first awkward flirtation with a camera that would fall in love with her soon enough, and probably too soon for a peasant girl of sixteen. She’d started out eager for attention, appreciation, and celebrity, even played the Hollywood game, granting interviews, making public appearances, and colluding to invent a past for herself commensurate with the glamorous roles she played; then, without warning, had stopped—the first in her profession to do so, and in so doing made herself more sought after than before. She’d done the same with poor John Gilbert, hurling herself into a romance with all the publicity potential of a Pickfair or, in a later day, a Brangelina, then, abruptly, turning and sprinting in the other direction. Too much had happened too soon, and she had better than sixty years to go. Meanwhile her legend fed upon itself and upon whatever fleeting scraps fell to the public—crossing a street in Midtown Manhattan, bundled in scarves and sweaters and the ubiquitous dark glasses, boarding a plane at JFK bound for Sweden, sunbathing nude on a private beach on the Riviera. No lurid romantic interests fueled the fire, no sordid scandal; not even so much as a scuffle with a reporter. She’d asked to be let alone, and that was one favor the world refused.

  **

  She looks out upon the East River, a moving picture shot by a stationary camera. Tugs, pleasure craft, stately cargo ships glide past, oblivious to the icon at the window. Today is like yesterday, tomorrow will be like today. Perhaps she will put on a disguise and visit the flea market on Broadway; but, no, she was out yesterday, and a young man in the elevator had recognized her and made bold enough to demand of her the time. She’d replied that he should buy a watch. That was foolish; how much better that she should ignore him, give him not so much as the time of day. Such stories were retold and reshaped, and only added to the compost. No, she will stay home and design a rug, sit cross-legged on her own floor with her colored pencils and butcher’s wrap, drawing and smoking cigarettes, creating a screen They cannot penetrate.

  “I am on the lam.” She smiles as she says it aloud: American gangsterisms have always held a fascination. Her earliest attempts at English came from reading pulp magazines with missing-link thugs and naked women on the covers, and she is drawn to movies where the antihero spends the last reel evading platoons of police at the wheel of a powerful automobile; the kind of movies in which she never appeared, because she would have spent too little time on-screen. Invariably she leaves the theater before the end, when the lobby is deserted and the fugitive is still at large. “I am on the lam,” she says again. “You will never take me alive.”

  **

  When the film finished flapping through the gate, he stirred himself from a doze, removed the take-up reel from the projector, and sealed it in its can. The ancient librarian— shrunken, androgynous, and completely deaf—checked in the material without comment and returned it to its cabinet.

  Valentino checked his cell for messages. He had none. Kyle Broadhead and Harriet were working, but always before they’d found time to maintain contact. He called Ruth, but she said the lines had been silent at the office. The rush hour hadn’t started; he drove up to a take-out window without having to wait and took home his order through four lanes of scattered traffic. No one was at work in The Oracle. He went up to the booth, ate, read a chapter in a book, and got up to look down at the rows of seats slumbering under drop cloths in the dark. He wanted to call out, but he was afraid there would be no echo.

  His cell rang. He answered without checking the number.

  “I don’t want to be alone,” Harriet said. “Do you?”

  His heart bumped. It felt as if it were starting again. “Where can we meet?”

  “What’s wrong with right here?” And he realized her voice was directly behind him.

  **

  CLOSING CREDITS

  The following sources were instrumental in the writing of Alone:

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  1. Greta Garbo

  Bainbridge, John. Garbo. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1971.

  This is probably the best biography published during its subject’s lifetime, updated twice by the author.

  Cahill, Marie. Greta Garbo: A Hollywood Portrait. New York: Smithmark, 1992.

  Basically a picture book, formatted for the coffee t
able. Photos tell the truest story of Garbo’s life on film, and the text, although brief, is informative and accurate.

  Conway, Michael, McGregor, Dion, and Ricci, Mark. The Complete Films of Greta Garbo. Secaucus, New Jersey: The Citadel Press, 1991.

  The Citadel series is the Bible of professional information, actor by actor, and this volume is no exception. Parker Tyler’s thumbnail biography and analysis of Garbo’s screen persona is a valuable addition to this exhaustive filmography since its first appearance in 1968.

  Gish, Lillian. Dorothy and Lillian Gish. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1973.

  Lillian Gish, who was present when the first flicker of light appeared on the silver screen, was an accomplished wordsmith (particularly for a silent-screen star!) and a keen observer of the motion-picture industry throughout its first eighty years. This book shed some light on John Gilbert’s appearance in La Boheme, whose set he abandoned to attend his infamous wedding-that-never-was with Garbo.

  Horan, Gray. “Greta Garbo: The Legendary Star’s Secret Garden in New York.” Los Angeles: Architectural Digest, April 1992.

  Architectural Digest’s “Hollywood at Home” issue, recently reinstated as a recurring feature, is a treasury of personal and professional information on contemporary and classic movie icons. Horan’s article, the first exhaustive piece to appear following Garbo’s death in 1991, provides details of her later years hitherto kept from the public by the small circle of loyal intimates with whom she shared it. The cover story coincided with Sotheby’s auction of personal items from her fabulous estate.

  Swenson, Karen. Greta Garbo: A Life Apart. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1997.

  This is the first major posthumous biography, and the best to date. Swenson takes an unblinking look at the Swedish Sphinx from life to death and beyond, closely examining rumors regarding her sexual preferences, exploding myths, and casting doubt on cherished portions of her legend, while avoiding the salaciousness and contempt for her subject that usually travel hand in hand with so frank a book.

  Uncredited. “Garbo’s Letters Missing.” Press release, December 11, 2005.

  Three inches of tantalizing newspaper coverage of the discovery that two letters and two postcards written by Garbo to her friend, Vera Schmiterlöw, had been removed from the Swedish Military Archives and not returned. Despite an alternative development written into this book, the correspondence remains missing and the circumstances of its disappearance are unknown.

  **

  2. General

  Anderson, Brett. Photographed by Phillip Ennis. Theo Kalomirakis’ Private Theaters. New York: Abrams, 1997.

  A sumptuous picture book, with an extensive text, showcasing the world’s premiere designer of high-end home theaters for the Matthew Rankins among us who can afford them. Exquisite reproductions of Golden Age picture palaces scaled down for the manse (one diminution includes a miniature shopping mall annex complete with a well-stocked jewelry store and a dealership displaying classic cars), these salivary treasures are lovingly presented in full color, closely detailed. (Yes, “Theo Kalomirakis” does look like “Leo Kalishnikov” when you squint.)

  Castle, Steven. Photographed by Phillip Ennis. Great Escapes: New Designs for Home Theaters by Theo Kalomirakis. New York: Abrams, 2003.

  The sequel. If The Oracle winds up looking half as good as the basement haven of best-selling horror novelist Dean Koontz (who furnishes the introduction), Valentino will be ecstatic— and in debt for the rest of his life.

  Corey, Melinda, and Ochoa, George. The Dictionary of Film Quotations. New York: Three Rivers, 1995.

  This is a quick, entertaining celebration of the terse wit and wisdom of movie dialogue, although at 413 pages of text it’s necessarily less extensive than the Nowlands’ 741-page (not counting the index) “We’ll Always Have Paris,” about which more anon. The editors’ personal screening of every film cited, as diverting and enjoyable a task as it must have been, spares the harried researcher thousands of hours of time and effort.

  Doherty, Thomas. Pre-Code Hollywood: Sex, Immorality, and Insurrection in American Cinema 1930-1934. New York: Columbia, 1999.

  There was a code of decency prior to 1934, but the enforcers were mostly looking the other way while the first generation of talking-picture artists forged a subversive response to the accepted mores of the Great Depression. This one is a real eye-opener to those who believe the cinema didn’t lose its innocence until the 1960s.

  Halliwell, Leslie. The Filmgoer’s Companion. New York: Avon, 1977.

  Halliwell was a terminal curmudgeon, but his annual film guides were invaluable (Leonard Maltin’s are better known, but he leaves out the names of studios), and remain so under the direction of his successors. This encyclopedic study of movies belongs on the shelf of anyone who considers himself a cineaste. It first appeared in 1965, and by this edition had been updated five times.

  LaSalle, Mick. Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000.

  How those jazz babies did carry on. LaSalle makes the point that the 1934 crackdown froze the revolutionary development of film for more than thirty years, and that if it had not taken place, open political dissent, graphic sex, and full nudity would have reached the screen by the end of the 1930s.

  LaSalle, Mick. Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002.

  The inevitable sequel, but freestanding and just as progressive in its vision. Clark Gable’s 1939 Rhett Butler was a wuss compared to the characters he played just as heroically years earlier. LaSalle states that mature males in our time are hesitant to call themselves men, with all that entails, and enforces his claim.

  Nowlan, Robert A., and Nowlan, Gwendolyn W. “We’ll Always Have Paris”: The Definitive Guide to Great Lines from the Movies. New York: HarperPerennial, 1995.

  Unlike more recent books that concentrate on lines from films made since the collapse of the studio system, this monster volume squeezes most of the twentieth century for the best and most memorable passages, and credits them to screenwriters rather than to the actors who spoke them, a revelation to moviegoers who think Bruce Willis is witty. Casablanca alone is cited forty-seven times, and each example is superior to Quentin Tarantino’s entire output. (“Burger Royale,” indeed!)

  Wilhelm, Elliot. Videohound’s World Cinema. Detroit: Visible Ink, 1999.

  The Videohound franchise is fast overtaking Maltin and Halliwell. Most film guides display native prejudice for the USA and the U.K. Wilhelm provides a balanced view of every civilized (and some not so) country’s contribution to the moving image.

  (See “Closing Credits” in Frames, the first Valentino novel, for more recommendations of value to this series.)

  **

  FILMOGRAPHY

  1. Greta Garbo

  The following is an abridged list of Garbo’s landmark films, all currently available on DVD:

  Torrent. Directed by Monta Bell, starring Ricardo Cortez, Greta Garbo, Gertrude Olmstead, Edward Connelly, Lucien Littlefield, Martha Mattox, Lucy Beaumont, Tully Marshall, Mack Swain, Arthur Edmund Carew, Lillian Leighton, and Mario Carillo. MGM, 1926.

  Meddling parents break up an unsuitable romance between the classes, with results that satisfy no one.

  This was Garbo’s first American film, hence her billing beneath Ricardo Cortez (né Jake Krantz). He was recruited in the 1920s in a failed attempt to fill the Latin-lover gap left by the death of Rudolph Valentino. If Cortez is remembered at all today, it’s as the first Sam Spade in the 1931 version of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon. He was more effective than Warren William in Satan Met a Lady, the 1936 remake, but the role will always belong to Humphrey Bogart in the third adaptation in 1941. Considering how thoroughly he was upstaged, charity demands we single Cortez out as Garbo’s first Hollywood leading man, and one of the few not to sport a silly moustache.

  Willi
am H. Daniels, whose career spanned Foolish Wives (1922) and The Maltese Bippy (1969), photographed Garbo here the first of many times, discovering the ineffable quality that projected her far beyond the footlights; none of the studio brass took much notice of her until the rushes. (Daniels also filmed Erich von Stroheim’s notorious Greed; see Frames.)