Loren D. Estleman - Valentino 02 - Alone

by Loren D. Estleman

  “A gang of them was camped on the curb when I got home,” Rankin said. “The police sent a squad-car team to break them up as a traffic obstruction. Clifford Adams says the department is trying to get on my good side before I take it to court.”

  Harriet asked if Beverly Hills had dropped the charges against him.

  Rankin gulped single-malt Scotch and shook his head. “Adams says they will tomorrow. If they moved as fast to clear an innocent man as they did to besmirch his reputation in the first place”—he smiled apologetically—“but let’s not talk about that. I’m going to be a self-indulgent host and inform you both you’re in for a treat tonight.”

  “The meal sounds wonderful.” Valentino drank from his glass of imported beer.

  “I meant dessert. That I’m serving in my home theater.”

  The Asian housekeeper came to the doorway to announce that dinner was served. She looked far more composed than she had the other morning, in the demure livery of a mature maid-servant and a slight scent of tarragon; in addition to performing as Rankin’s majordoma, it appeared she ran the kitchen as well. They adjourned to the dining room.

  Whatever language challenges faced the housekeeper (whose English was still better than Valentino’s Chinese—or was it Korean? A platoon of European actors pretending to be Asian detectives had hindered his ability to distinguish between the nationalities), she was more than equal to that posed by the culinary art. The salmon was moist but flaky, with a most delicate flavor, and each of the several side dishes would have qualified as an entree in any restaurant in southern California. The wine their host had selected, a product of his own vineyard in the Napa Valley, accompanied them all to perfection. When the woman brought out the last course, sweetened ices topped with a dollop of cognac, the table applauded her. She flushed deeply and withdrew with a slight bow.

  Throughout the meal, Rankin asked his guests questions about their work that demonstrated more than polite interest and unusual knowledge.

  “Those television programs about criminal technicians are claptrap, I know,” he told Harriet. “One of my companies works closely with the police departments of several major municipalities, tailoring computer equipment to their needs. If the screenwriters concentrated on pure science and left the cop-show clichés to the actors playing actual cops, they’d be more entertaining and certainly more accurate. Which search method do you prefer, spiral or grid?”

  She touched her napkin to her lips. “Neither. I start at the corners of the room and work my way toward the center.”

  “Wherever did you get that idea?”

  “From my father.”

  “Was he a criminalist?”

  “He was an academic. But that’s the way he assembled jigsaw puzzles, and he never left one unfinished.”

  Rankin laughed. Then he turned to Valentino. “My buyers keep me supplied with films restored for DVD distribution. I’ve seen the comparisons with the damaged stock; the difference is night and day. Just how do you reclaim what no longer exists?”

  “My specialty is finding footage, not restoring it,” Valentino said. “But the technicians have been patient enough to let me watch as long as I keep my mouth shut and don’t touch anything. Once they’ve struck off a safety print from silver nitrate, they transfer it to a high-definition master tape. They can’t do anything to make up for a missing section of more than a few frames, apart from inserting a ‘scene missing’ card, which is an admission of failure on my part as a scrounger, but they can perform a frame-by-frame improvement process by sampling the frames surrounding one that’s been compromised by dirt and blemishes. The space between is only a blip in time, too fast for the naked eye to encompass. In effect, the techies borrow elements of dark and light from the better frames and apply them to the scratched and stained ones to obtain a match.”

  “It sounds like Photoshop.”

  “Times a hundred. It’s much more tedious to watch than it is to hear about. Three or four reels with moderate damage can run up two hundred hours in the lab. But when the proper pains are taken the end product is smooth and undectable. It’s called the Lazarus Technique.”

  “Splendid! No wonder you and Ms. Johansen wound up together. Your work is almost identical.”

  “Not quite,” she said. “Val’s goes up on marquees and in millions of home theaters. Mine goes into evidence files and graveyards.”

  This allusion caused Rankin’s smile to collapse. He leaned forward from his place at the head of the table, looking at Valentino. “I can’t thank you enough for your support these past few days. My own business manager suggested I keep my picture off the cover of the quarterly report, to avoid frightening away investors with my black reputation. You’re one of the few who didn’t cheer my fall from grace, and you resisted pressure to blab to the media the circumstances of that ghastly letter. Giving you Andrea’s print of How Not to Dress is a small enough gesture—”

  Valentino came upright in his chair, interrupting him. Deliberately he kept his gaze from Harriet’s. He knew she was sending him silent signals to lay off.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but I can’t let you finish that thought without asking one question.”

  His host sat back slightly, drawing his brows together. But he nodded.

  “Mr. Rankin, when was the last time you visited Stockholm?”

  11

  MATTHEW RANKIN STUDIED his wineglass as intently as if it were made of fortune tellers’ crystal. “I don’t remember mentioning to you I’d ever been to Stockholm.”

  “You didn’t. Lieutenant Padilla saw it stamped in your passport. He’s jealous of people who dress better than he does and can afford to travel beyond Long Beach.”

  “You don’t know that,” Harriet said. “Don’t be a snob.”

  “The question’s a non sequitur,” Rankin said, “but I assume you’ll explain. It would have been autumn of last year. I attended a reception there for a researcher friend who was sharing the Nobel Prize with another fellow. He used to work for me, developing software. His name—”

  “That’s not necessary, sir. I’m not going to check up on you, although the police probably will. They’re bound to make the same connection I did. Did you by any chance visit the Swedish Military Archives while you were there?”

  “No. I’d hoped to—Andrea would’ve insisted I pay my respects to Greta by looking at her letters—but I had to cut my trip short to put out a fire in the department-store end of my operation. It’s not the sort of thing you can do from near the Arctic Circle.”

  “Did Roger Akers accompany you on that trip?”

  “Of course. That was his function as my assistant, to see to the mundane details. I’m too old and travel has become too much of an ordeal to waste time arguing with hotel clerks over what constitutes a king-size bed in Sweden.”

  “Do you know if Akers went to the archives?”

  “He did not. That was a personal mission. There’d have been no point in sending him in my place.”

  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 preter-naturally long eyelashes casting shadows on her high cheekbones, Garbo slunk through a breakneck four reels, gathering 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?”