“But it’s okay to be gay now,” she said.
“It wasn’t then. In the end all they remember is you’re some kind of damaged goods.”
“But no other business in the world treats its veterans so well,” said Broadhead.
“I said it didn’t shoot them. Everyone’s afraid of losing the job he’s got.”
Kym Trujillo joined them, carrying file folders as usual. She acknowledged Valentino’s introductions with a preoccupied air.
“You usually call,” she said.
“I meant to, but I lost my cell phone.”
She noticed the slicker. “Are you expecting a hurricane?”
“I may be coming down with a cold.”
“Where’s your straw hat?” She pointed at the cane with the corner of a folder.
“I threw my back out.”
She freed a hand to reach down and turn the paper tag so she could read it.
“I threw it out at Universal,” he said.
“You’re just falling apart, aren’t you? Should I get a room ready?”
“I take back what I said before,” Broadhead said. “I’m not your only friend.”
“Is Warren Pegler in his room?” Valentino asked.
“I saw his nurse going into the break room. I’ll check. It’s not as if I have a department to run or anything like that.” She strode out the door.
“Attractive woman,” Broadhead said.
“Tough customer,” said Fanta. “What did you say her name was?”
“Greer Garson!”
This was one of the game players huddled in front of the TV.
“It’s Shelley Winters, you moron,” said the other. “Don’t you know the difference between Mrs. Miniver and Lolita?”
“Shelley Winters wasn’t Lolita. That was Sandra Dee.”
“Sandra Dee was Gidget.”
“Then who in thunder was Lolita?”
“Search me, but it sure wasn’t Greer Garson.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
“Did too.”
“Didn’t.”
Broadhead said, “I’d swear I was at a meeting of the university faculty.”
“You haven’t been to one in years,” Valentino said.
“I wonder why,” Fanta said.
Kym returned, worry lines on her forehead. “He’s in the solarium, with an attendant. He’s not having a good day. I wish you’d called. In his condition he’s easily agitated.”
“A little agitation might do him some good,” Broadhead suggested. “Increase the blood flow to his brain.”
She asked him if he was a medical doctor.
He shook his head. “History and Humanities. I can prescribe a course of study, but that’s all.”
“Alzheimer’s is different from simple senility,” she said. “Accelerated circulation can trigger paranoia, even violence. I’m not his physician, so I can’t forbid you to see him if he himself doesn’t object, but I don’t think a visit would do you or him any good in this mood.”
Valentino said, “There’s a time factor involved. I don’t mean to be cold-blooded, but at his age I don’t know how many other chances we’ll have to get answers to the questions we need to ask. Primary sources are crucial.”
Her expression was unreadable, which he regarded as a bad sign.
“Unfortunately—fortunately, for you—his doctor is in Cedars of Lebanon this afternoon, attending a patient from this facility. If he were present, I doubt he’d let you see Warren. But our policy is to respect the resident’s wishes in the absence of medical opinion. I’ll take you to him, but I need to ask him if he’ll see you. If he says no, that’s it.”
Valentino started to thank her.
“Thank the patients’ bill of rights. This is the first time I’ve known you to put your job ahead of respect for your sources.”
“This is the first time it’s been this important.”
She made a slashing gesture with her free hand, severing the discussion. He hoped that was all she’d severed. She turned and broke into a trot. The three followed.
“Ben-Hur!”
“The Ten Commandments, you jerk. You can’t even keep your Testaments straight.”
On his way past the two old character actors, Broadhead stopped to snatch the remote out of the hand holding it, pointed it at the plasma screen, and pushed a button. The screen went black. He smacked the remote down on the coffee table. “Isn’t there a game of checkers going on in the park?”
The pale, seamed, half-remembered faces stared up at him with injury and indignation.
“It’s raining,” one said.
In the hallway, Valentino asked Broadhead what he thought he’d accomplished.
“Nothing. I saw myself in ten years.”
Fanta said, “I know the pictures they were talking about.”
“Forget them,” Broadhead said. “Erase them from your memory. Consider it a step back from the graveyard. The only thing a girl your age should know about is who’s in Air Supply.”
“Air Supply was my mother’s favorite.”
He groaned mortally.
The sun’s access to the solarium was limited that day. The room was in effect a greenhouse, built of glass on a steel frame, with palms and ferns growing in profusion from terra-cotta pots and wicker and rattan all around. But the look that afternoon was film gris. The persistent rain bled viscuously down the panes, blurring the vista of cul-de-sacs and feral palms and third-generation Spanish Modern housing developments stacked one atop another to the scrub hills and the towering wooden letters of the fabled Hollywood sign staggered across them. It looked like the phoniest process shot from a film made entirely on a sound-stage in Cincinnati. Valentino, Broadhead, and Fanta hung back in the wide sliding-glass doorway while Kym conferred with a blocky attendant in casual dress and the man in the wheelchair at the far end of the room. The three were dwarfed by scenery that Valentino felt would shoot up onto a roller, flapping comically, the moment someone tugged on a cord.
They were alone in the room, despite abundant seating. A cheerful place when the sun shone, it now wore a sodden air of bleak introspection, with each drop that plunked from a leaky gutter measuring the passage of time like a tick from a clock.
The man in the wheelchair turned his head to look at the visitors. Valentino recognized the white hair and withered face. At that distance he couldn’t tell if the recognition was mutual. The old man turned back, raised a hand from the arm of the chair, and let it drop. Kym strode back their way, her spine as straight as in her days on the runway.
“Twenty minutes, with the attendant present,” she said. “If Warren becomes upset, he’ll shut you down.”
“We’ll be careful,” Valentino said.
She left without another word.
Broadhead stopped him before he could take a step inside. The professor reached down and jerked loose the wardrobe-department tag from his walking stick. “No reshoots on this set,” he said. “You’ve got to get it right on the first take.”
Valentino thrust the stick at him and held it until Broadhead took it. Then he fastened the snaps on the slicker to the neck, concealing completely what he wore beneath. “Let’s give honesty a chance. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try it your way.”
“I’ll distract the guard.” Broadhead spoke out of the side of his mouth.
“Let me.” Fanta wound an arm inside his, as she had once before with Valentino. “Lean on that cane, and follow my lead.”
The attendant was fortyish, powerfully built, with broad, honest features, a receding hairline, and a plastic badge on his shirt that said his name was Todd. His expression was polite but wary.
Fanta gave him her best coed’s smile. “Todd, I wonder if my grandfather and I can ask you a few questions about the Country Home. He’s considering moving in.” She patted Broadhead’s arm.
“You should talk to Ms. Trujillo.” Todd had a rough, burring voice, accustomed to intimidating belligerent patients. “
I can’t show you around. I have to stay here with Warren.”
“Oh, we won’t have to leave the room. We just want the perspective of someone who spends most of his time with the residents. Grandpa’s particular. He produced Dallas.”
“Masterpiece Theater,” Broadhead corrected. “I became a father at a very young age. Most people think Frances is my daughter.”
“Well, I’ve been here a year. I guess I could fill you in.”
They drifted down the room, Broadhead supporting himself on the cane and Fanta’s arm, Todd stooping a little to talk and listen with his hands folded behind his back. Valentino smiled down at Warren Pegler. “Hello,” he said. “Do you remember me?”
Pegler looked up, squinting. “Erich, that you?”
CHAPTER
23
VALENTINO HESITATED. HE’D actually heard the h in Erich. The old man’s eyes, normally as sharp and bright as a bird’s, were smoky. He was wearing another crisp dress shirt, fresh trousers stitched neatly at the knees where his legs ended, but today he seemed shrunken inside his clothes. His complexion was as gray as the scene outside the glass.
Valentino was tempted. But he chose the high road.
“We met the other day. I asked you some things about the Oracle theater.”
“That money hole.” The eyes cleared. “The miserable place took everything I had.”
“You put a lot into it: widescreen technology, three-D projectors, new speakers for stereo. That must have cost a bundle. Did you take out a loan?”
“Stole it.”
Valentino’s face went numb.
“Tax man, building inspectors, my business manager—hell, even my employees. They stole the place right out from under me, just as if they’d used a gun.”
The visitor relaxed. He drew up a wicker armchair and sat on the edge facing Pegler. “I was curious about that. You said your business manager took your investments and disappeared into Nazi Germany.”
“He was a friend of Gerda’s family. They all came over on the same boat. But a Kraut’s a Kraut. He took my whole portfolio and gave it to Hitler for a good spot in the Party. Gerda’s half Swiss, that’s her saving grace.” He’d switched tenses again. The past seemed to move in and out of focus without warning.
“That must have been before the war ended in forty-five. You hung on to the theater another eleven years. How’d you pay for all those improvements?”
The old man stared at something above Valentino’s head, possibly old ghosts. “Pipe that, will you? This is the only place in the world where they need a big sign to tell them where they live.” He was looking at the Hollywood sign.
Valentino tried it again from a different angle. “Albert Spinoza. Did he work for you? He was a projectionist.”
“I’m sorry, son. Who’d you say you were?”
He sighed and told him his name.
“No, it isn’t. I’m not that far gone. He died way back when I was in physical therapy.”
“Tell me about the accident at Metro.”
“Some damn fool left a cigarette burning next to fresh film stock. When the flames hit the chemicals on the shelves, the darkroom went up and me with it. They had to cut me in half to save what didn’t burn.” He rubbed one of his stumps.
“You almost died in the fire. You would have, if Erich von Stroheim hadn’t been nearby.”
“That fraud. Von Stroheim, my aunt’s fanny. I bet he shoveled out the stables.”
“What about recreation?” Fanta was asking the attendant at the other end of the room. “I don’t want Grandpa just sitting around watching Nick at Nite like he does at home.”
“The Discovery Channel,” Broadhead corrected.
Valentino leaned closer. “Spinoza was a runaway. He might have been using a different name. Twenty-one years old, short, slightly built. He disappeared not too long before you sold the theater.”
The eyes in the pleated face grew sharp as points of crystal. If the visitor had been looking away he’d have missed it, because in the next instant they went as dull as if his brain had cast over.
“I didn’t catch your name,” Pegler said. “Did you say Mr. Thalberg sent you?”
Valentino searched his face. He couldn’t tell if it was an act. He glanced toward the others. Todd was pointing something out on a floor plan of the facility mounted on the solid wall beside the entrance. Fanta was asking a question. Broadhead turned his head, catching Valentino’s eye.
Showtime.
“Excuse me,” he said, unnecessarily; Pegler appeared to have forgotten he was there. He got up, stepped around behind the wheelchair, and shed the yellow slicker onto a rattan love seat, retrieving the soft hat from the pocket. He put it on at an arrogant angle with the brim turned up in back, the front turned down over one side of his forehead. He adjusted the tweed coat, tightened his tie, took the naked lens from a watch pocket, blew lint off it, and screwed it into his right eye. He missed the cane, but it was proving useful elsewhere. He squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and stamped his feet around in a brisk half circle, finishing with his back to the window, glaring down at the old man with the light coming from behind him.
“Varren?” He paused to soften the accent slightly. “Warren Pegler, is that you?”
Pegler’s face lifted slowly as dawn. Confusion rippled across the features, then spread out smooth. A sardonic smile twisted the cracked lips.
“Erich, you old fake. Still wearing that monocle. I bet you’re blind in both eyes by now. Someone told me you were dying.”
Valentino held his breath. Von Stroheim had died in France in 1957, six months after Pegler sold The Oracle. He’d been dying when Albert Spinoza disappeared.
He willed himself to stay in character. “I am not dead yet, you drugstore developer. Where is mein Kindling?”
“Speak English, you damn Kraut. Over here we burn kindling. Burning, that’s something you know a little bit about.”
That almost shook him out of his role. This was territory he hadn’t covered.
“I want Greed,” he said.
It came out louder than intended. Startled, Todd looked their way. Fanta repositioned herself in front of him and raised her voice to ask if the swimming pool was heated. Valentino took in his breath again, let it out when the attendant cleared his throat and explained that there was a heated pool outdoors and an unheated one in the recreation room.
Pegler looked befuddled. Valentino pressed his advantage. “Don’t act stupid.” Schtupid came out in a harsh whisper. “You developed every frame of the original forty-two reels. I know you didn’t destroy them when T’alberg ordered you to. I want Greed!”
The man in the wheelchair flinched, as if he’d shouted again. For the first time he seemed afraid; his jaw wobbled. Valentino felt sick to his stomach. Bullying a weak old man hadn’t been part of the plan.
“Who told you there were forty-two reels? I only showed you twenty-four. Have you been talking to Spinoza?”
His visitor felt hot all over. It had nothing to do with wearing heavy wool in California in August.
The twisted smile returned. Pegler’s eyes were clear again, but glassy. He was seeing the past with a clarity of vision mere memory could not provide. “Well, no matter. I was saving the rest to bleed you later, when you thought you’d bought me off for good. I had Gerda hide the rest of the reels in the basement for the second show. It’s all here in the theater, every last sweaty, self-indulgent inch of your damn masterpiece, and you’ll keep on paying me storage till I get sick of looking at them and sell them to you outright. And if you stop paying, or hire some studio thug to break in and steal them, I’ll put a match to them, even if it means burning the miserable building to the ground and me with it. It won’t take long. You’ve seen yourself how fast that stuff goes up.” He was stroking both his stumps with his hands.
“You are blackmailing me?” It came out blackmailink, but without self-conscious burlesque. He was von Stroheim. He raised his imaginary stick.
Now it was a riding crop poised to strike an insubordinate junior officer. “I saved your life!”
“‘I saffed your life!’” Pegler mocked the accent. “Gerda’s been in this country nowhere near as long as you, and she speaks the language better. You don’t know where all those cheesy parts leave off and you begin. Okay, you saffed my liffe. You wouldn’t have had to saffe it at all if you hadn’t put it in danger in the first place. Why didn’t you save my legs while you were at it?”
The old man’s voice was shrill. Todd took a step their way.
Fanta put a hand on his arm. “Let me talk to my brother. He gets carried away sometimes.” Over her shoulder she said, “Grandpa, ask him about the library. You know how much you love westerns.”
“Western philosophy,” Broadhead corrected. “Let’s get down to brass tacks. Tell me, young man, are there any attractive widows in residence?”
The fit of emotion had subsided. The old man sat as calmly as if it had never taken place. Valentino sank down onto the chair facing him. His own legs were rubbery. The attendant frowned, then rolled his great shoulders and turned back to answer Broadhead’s question.
“Everything all right?” Fanta’s tone was soothing.
Valentino, rattled and forgetting his role, started to answer.
Pegler interrupted him. He looked up at the young woman with an expression so nakedly guilty he shared the old man’s discomfort. “Gerda. I thought you were downstairs in the auditorium.”
She and Valentino exchanged glances. He nodded.
She straightened her posture and folded her hands at her waist. “I heard a noise and came up.” Her speech was slower than normal, the tone deeper. “Warren, what have you done?”
He jerked his chin toward the floor. “I caught this young fool going through storage. I told him to stay out of there and in the booth where he belongs, but he got nosy. He must have heard about Greed at that theater he worked in back East. I couldn’t have him running around telling everyone he found it. I hit him with an empty can. Might as well throw it away, it’s too bent up to use. Do you think he’s dead?”
Loren D. Estleman - Valentino 01 - Frames Page 18