Loren D. Estleman - Valentino 01 - Frames

by Loren D. Estleman

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I was still downtown,” Harriet Johansen said. “What’s everyone doing?”

  “They spend most of their time cleaning their instruments. A piece of grit you can barely see can make a scratch twenty feet long onscreen. That fellow there has the crucial responsibility of making sure the temperature in that storage cabinet never exceeds seventy degrees and that the relative humidity stays below fifty percent. To heat and moisture, celluloid is like sugar to an ant. The cabinet’s built to hold a hundred and fifty thousand feet of film. It’s strictly short term, for work in progress. After that it goes into the vault downstairs for extended storage. You can guess what the camera’s for. Transferring silver nitrate to safety stock is a frame-by-frame process. A lot of people think it’s just a matter of pushing a button, like copying videotape.”

  “Why isn’t it?”

  “For the same reason you don’t unwrap a three thousand-year-old mummy by yanking on the bandage. This is brittle stuff in the first stage of decomposition.”

  “No wonder they have to wear so much gear.”

  “That’s for their protection, not the film’s. In the second and third stage, it releases nitric and nitrogen dioxide, among other nasty gases. Extremely toxic. When it reaches stage three, it goes in there.” He pointed at a schoolbus-yellow cylinder standing three feet tall in the center of the room, with a lock-lid on top and a scarlet skull-and-cross-bones on the side. Stenciled warnings in three languages appeared below.

  “I guessed it was fragile. I never knew it was dangerous.”

  “That’s just the tip of the iceberg. After stage three, it goes into a steel drum and the drum goes to the bottom of the Pacific, next to all the nuclear waste. That’s if it doesn’t burn or blow up en route.”

  She smiled. “Now you’re exaggerating.”

  “Only a little, because every precaution is taken to prevent combustion. The material’s laced with silver. Silver oxidizes, oxidation produces heat, and celluloid is extremely inflammable even in its pristine state. If it were introduced today, the Federal Trade Commission would never allow it to go on the market.”

  “How many stages of decomposition are there?”

  “Five.”

  “Five? Three sounded scary enough. What happens in stage four?”

  “It degenerates into a glutinous mass, fused into an orange lump that smells like vinegar. In the final stage it crumbles into a fine powder that’s about as volatile as magnesium. You know, photographer’s flash powder. Poof!” He sprang open his hands.

  She tilted her head toward the technicians. “Are they in danger?”

  “Minimally. They’re trained to handle hazardous materials. We installed ventilation fans and an automatic sprinkler system in compliance with OSHA and the National Fire Protection Association and made some improvements of our own. People who specialize in removing asbestos are at greater risk.” He had a sudden premonition of personal crisis.

  She saw it on his face. “You’re thinking about the Oracle, aren’t you? Old theaters and asbestos go together like fried potatoes and grease.”

  “There’s a lot of insulation hanging out of the ceiling,” he said. “But Max Fink was cutting corners, trying to save money. Maybe he used rock wool.”

  “We’ll keep a good thought.” She touched his arm. Then she turned back toward the window. “What is safety stock?”

  “Cellulose triacetate. Kodak brought it out in nineteen forty-eight, and within three years it replaced silver nitrate at all the studios. It met all the performance requirements and was fire retardant besides. The jury’s still out on whether triacetate adds much to the actual life of the film. The hues of Technicolor seem to resist fading in the old stuff better than the new. We’ll know more when it’s been around as long as what came before. Bored yet?” He smiled. He could still feel the touch of her hand on his arm.

  “Not at all. So the one with the copy camera is striking off a new print on triacetate from silver nitrate. What’s the film? You said it’s a major project.”

  “A wonderful old silent that’s been missing for eighty years.”

  “What’s it called? Maybe I’ve heard of it.”

  He knew the subject would come up, but he decided it was too early to hit her up for a word on behalf of his mission. “Greed, directed by Erich von Stroheim.”

  She popped her head in that little shrugging movement he liked. “I score okay on some of the highlights: Citizen Kane and William Randolph Hearst, the Gish sisters, John Ford’s westerns. I know Marcello Mastroianni isn’t a kind of pasta. Douglas was the buff.”

  “Douglas was your fiancé?”

  “Yes. The first time I called him Doug, he corrected me. I should have known where it was going then.” She looked troubled. “I’m picturing Erich von Stroheim, why is that? Directors are kind of invisible.”

  “You probably saw him in Sunset Boulevard, his swan song. He couldn’t stay away from the other side of the camera. He played Gloria Swanson’s butler.”

  “Yep. Saw it. Can you show silver nitrate?”

  “Only as late as the first stage, and then it requires a special projector with an air-cooling system. It’s an experience no one should miss. The silver provides an illumination all its own; a glossy glow that’s lost in transference to triacetate. When they called it the silver screen, they weren’t just being poetic.”

  “If you’re asking me to the movies, I accept.”

  She kept her profile turned toward him, watching the technicians at work. He said, “I’ll set it up.”

  “‘Flammable Solid,’” she read from the English legend on the side of the drum; back to business. “What’s the difference between ‘flammable’ and ‘inflammable?’”

  “There isn’t any. Too many people were smoking around oil tankers, thinking ‘inflammable’ meant ‘uninflammable.’ It was cheaper to change all the signs than educate them.”

  “Like ‘irregardless.’”

  “Exactly. Only in this case people were blowing themselves up.”

  He spoke of molecular sieves and ester-base film, formaldehyde and sulfur dioxide, pointed out the air-quality monitors, and was about to suggest a visit to the storage facility in the basement when the technicians started climbing out of their protective gear. The red bulb above the door had stopped flashing. He looked at his watch.

  “That’s lunch. My God, I’ve been jabbering for two hours.” Way to make an impression on a first date.

  “Are you serious? It seemed like five minutes.”

  They entered the lab, where he introduced her to the crew, one of whom was a woman a little older than Ms. Johansen. “Marge is our safety inspector,” Valentino said. “If we get any more shorthanded, we’re going to have to get the head of the department down here to help empty the wastebaskets.”

  Marge, a short redhead with freckles the size of dimes, gripped the visitor’s hand tightly, one woman in a male-dominated trade to another. “We should get together sometime and swap war stories,” she said. “How’d they break you in?”

  “My section chief made a sandwich out of a human liver and slipped it into my sack lunch. What about you?”

  “Someone poured vinegar in my locker; I never found out who. I was on my way to the dump barrel with my favorite cashmere sweater when the laughing started. So did you take a bite?”

  “Just a nibble.”

  One of the others showed her a section of negative on safety stock. Valentino couldn’t resist looking over her shoulder when the man held it up to the light. It was the seduction scene in the dentist’s office. Harriet Johansen asked if it was a stag film.

  “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.”

&
nbsp; “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 the 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 multi
ply?”

  “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.”