Kirdy’s bitter tone made Valentino suspect he’d hacked out a Mommie Dearest documentary out of old home movies. The town was full of spoiled industry brats looking to cash in on celebrated dead relatives. He decided to get rid of this one. “I tried to acquire your uncle’s student film for the university. He turned me down. That was our only meeting.”
“Do you still want it?”
He’d started to close the door. Upon a moment’s reflection, he held it for Kirdy to enter. He tried to keep his eyes off the package as the visitor looked around the room, cluttered with film cans, videotapes, and books on cinema history. “I thought you were the big muckety-muck.” He sounded disappointed.
“The little muckety-mucks don’t get offices. Is that the film?”
“Uh-huh. I found it when I was sorting through some of my mother’s things. I’m selling the house. I figured out what it was five minutes after I started watching it on the old family projector. He must have left it with her for safekeeping.”
“He didn’t give it to her?”
“He might have. I couldn’t find anything about it in Mom’s old letters. He never wrote to either of us. Anyway, it’s the same thing. She wound up with it.”
“Maybe not the same. Ring died intestate. The Internal Revenue Service seized his assets for back taxes as soon as he was declared legally dead. Unless it can be proven that he no longer owned the film at the time his boat sank, the government might have a prior claim.”
Kirdy scratched his sunburned chin. “I guess it would be different if he were alive.”
“Death complicates things.”
“Some things. Others it simplifies. I suppose a thing like this needs special care.”
“Quite a bit. That old silver-nitrate stock has a tendency to self-destruct.”
Kirdy placed the package on Valentino’s desk. “Why don’t you put it in a safe place until the lawyers finish hassling it out? If there’s anything left you can make me an offer.”
“I’ll give you a receipt.” Valentino opened a drawer. He hoped Justin Ring’s nephew didn’t notice how badly his hand was shaking.
“Not necessary.” Kirdy opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
“Wait! You haven’t told me where I can get in touch with you.”
“I know where you are.” He looked back. “Are you going to watch the film?”
“I screen everything that comes through this office.”
“It’ll hook you. It hooked me, and I don’t like movies much. Do you know what it’s about?”
“No.”
“It’s the story of an artist who fakes his own death.”
For a long time after Kirdy left, Valentino stood staring at the bundle on his desk. He wondered if he’d been made the victim of a con. Two or three times a year someone tried to sell him information on the whereabouts of von Stroheim’s Greed or the scrapped footage from All Quiet on the Western Front, and he’d developed a sixth sense for phony tips that spoiled his appetite. So he skipped lunch and took the package to the screening room.
The film, which ran just under forty minutes, suffered from most of the problems associated with an amateur effort, but showed definite signs of a genius in the making. Some of the angles and dolly shots were far ahead of their time, and the uneven pacing foreshadowed the notorious Ring assonance. The story, about a Gaugin-type impressionist painter who stages his false suicide by appearing to leap into an active volcano and thus creates a demand for his work, was compelling, given Justin Ring’s own supposed death four decades later, Valentino found himself paying more attention to the plot than to the directorial technique. If, however, the film was a forgery, the telltale traces of oxidation were nearly impossible to manufacture without the assistance of time. He concluded the film was genuine.
The blank screen filled with possibilities. Justin Ring’s age and difficult reputation had deprived him of his livelihood. A string of bad marriages, a succession of disastrous cinematic ventures, and tax woes had backed him into a corner he had sought to escape from temporarily by sailing around the world. Then, like the dues ex machine endings he delighted in working into his films, a sudden storm and the Great Barrier Reef had conspired to free him from all his worldly obligations. If like his fictional painter, he had rigged his disappearance, his stubborn refusal to allow his student project—his blueprint—out of his hands was explained. It was conceivable that he had destroyed every print in his possession while forgetting all about the one he had placed in his sister’s safekeeping sometime back.
Valentino rewound the reels and returned them to their cans. These were automatic actions and unshackled his mind to think.
Justin Ring’s first film had to be preserved. It was in the best interest of posterity that the work be done by the experts at UCLA. As long as Ring was legally dead, the only way to proceed without fear of repercussions was to notify the Internal Revenue Service, which would likely attach both reels and store them in some uninsulated barn of a government warehouse where they would deteriorate from humidity and neglect.
Tough decision.
Yeah, right.
Back in his office, he placed the reels in the vault and spent an hour pawing through old filmscripts, yellowed memos, and forgotten actors’ faces pickled in ancient publicity stills until he found the composition book containing his notes for the time he had visited Ring’s house. Twenty minutes more to decipher his fugitive personal shorthand, then he flipped on his intercom.
“Ruth, I need you to find a telephone listing for a fellow named Ki. He was Justin Ring’s houseman eight years ago.”
“Ki, Kay Eye?” Ruth’s vocal cords had been destroyed by cigarettes when Sam Goldwyn was a pup.
“I think so.”
“First name or last?”
“I have no idea.”
“Well, what city?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you know?”
“He’s Asian. Chinese or Korean, I think. He was old when I met him. I’m not even sure if he’s still alive.”
“And they call you the detective.” She clicked off.
With nothing more to be done, he clamped Sherlock Holmes back onto the Movieola and resumed his viewing; but his attention wandered and he found himself wondering what Holmes would have done with the Justin Ring thing.
Ruth buzzed him five minutes before quitting time.
“Fortunately,” she said, “there’s only one domestic placement service the cream of Hollywood trusts with its precious tchotchkes. Unfortunately, they destroy their employment records after five years. Fortunately, a Korean-American named Ki Wan, seventy-four, worked opening doors and bottles of Perrier for Barbra Streisand year before last.”
“Which house?”
“The Art Deco. What sort of bonus do I get for all this gumshoe labor?”
“A brand new pair of Nikes.”
“Keep ’em. I’ve worn heels for fifty years. Can’t walk in anything else.” She gave him Ki Wan’s telephone number.
The house was a small stucco box with a faded red tile roof, identical to its neighbors in Tarzana’s original housing tract. Valentino found the old Korean, who lived alone, the precise opposite of the inscrutable Oriental of story and film: His guttered face became animated when he spoke of his grandchildren, whose pictures crowded the mantel above the false fireplace in the tiny parlor, and he was not satisfied until his guest agreed to drink something, even the humble glass of ice water he eventually brought. Apart from a pronounced rounding of his back and shoulders, Ki appeared not to have aged in eight years.
The veil dropped into place when Valentino mentioned Mr. Cortez.
“Know no such name.” Seated in the wicker chair opposite his guest with his gnarled hands on his knees, he resembled an ivory idol in a Fu Manchu film.
“It might take some remembering,” Valentino said. “You brought Mr. Ring a telephone near the end of my visit. He was quick to take it when you said the caller was
Mr. Cortez.”
“Know no such name.”
Ki’s expression was as final as a closing credit. Valentino sighed and stood. He held out one of his cards. “Please call me if anything comes back. The university will pay for reliable information.”
Ki started to take the card. His eyes went to the line reading “Film Detective.” His hand recoiled as if from a snake.
“No take.” He clamped his knees.
Valentino started to put the card on the low tea table between the chairs.
“No. Leave. Go, please.”
The old man’s face, “scrutable” once more, was distorted with fear. Valentino returned the card to his wallet, thanked him for his hospitality, and left.
He used the cellular telephone in his car to make an appointment with Sergeant Zuma at Los Angeles City Hall.
Pete Zuma was a handsome Chicano, sleek-haired and careful in his dress, who had turned down a role in a feature motion picture to continue his career with the L.A.P.D. The role had gone to Al Pacino and Puma was content to limit his show business involvement to an occasional consultancy. Valentino had met him at Zoetrope, showing Harvey Keitel how to operate a Belgian semiautomatic pistol. They had several interests in common, including the love of movies, but this was the first time the film detective had ever consulted the police detective on a matter involving Zuma’s specialty.
“So he mistook you for a real detective and it frightened him.” The sergeant, wearing a custom shirt and seventy-five-dollar tie, leaned back in his desk chair with his hands behind his head. “After you called I punched up Ki’s name on the computer. He’s clean, so it’s not the police he’s afraid of.”
Valentino admired a framed photograph of a three-year-old Pedro Zuma sitting on the lap of a long-forgotten Mexican movie star in a tight gaucho costume. He’d been star-struck almost as long as Valentino. “What did you get on Cortez?”
“See for yourself.” Zuma tore a long sheet off the printer on his credenza and gave it to him.
The sheer length of the arrest record made Valentino whistle. “How long has he been in San Quentin?”
“Never did a day. See that ‘N/C’ at the end of every entry? Means ‘no conviction.’ The cops in three countries have been trying to nail Refugio Cortez for fifteen years. He was a small-time Colombian druglord until he managed to elect a president there. The president was assassinated three years later, but by then he’d gone international.”
“What would a Colombian druglord be doing calling Justin Ring?”
“He was too big even then to be acting as a Hollywood connection. Maybe he’s a fan.”
“The way Ring jumped to take the call, you’d have thought he was the head of Paramount. Also Ring wouldn’t speak until I was out of earshot.”
“You said Ring’s boat went down near Australia?”
He nodded. “It’s a long way from Colombia.”
“Maybe so, but Cortez owns a shipping company there. He also has legitimate investments in New Zealand and the Solomons. A real Horatio Alger story, as told by Al Capone.”
“How did Cortez manage to elect a Colombian president?”
“The details vary. One story is he financed a propaganda film that made the candidate look like a combination of George Washington and Mother Theresa, but that’s fishy. Pompon-waving in that part of the world is a clumsy affair. It wouldn’t take in an ignorant peasant.”
“Who was in charge of making the film?”
“I can’t bring that up on my terminal. The department’s computer barely has room to store criminal records. It’s no crime to make a movie, although it ought to be in certain cases.”
The film detective thanked him for his help, made a date for lunch later in the week, and left.
Shortly after midnight, a frantic knocking at the front door of Valentino’s house woke him from a deep sleep of exhaustion and frustration. He threw on a shirt and trousers and went down in slippers. A young Hispanic in a sweatshirt, with his hair disheveled, stood on the other side of the peephole looking worried. Valentino opened the door on a flood of Spanish. The homeowner, who knew a little Spanish, told him to slow down.
On the second round he caught accidente and esposa. Haltingly, he asked the man if his wife was injured.
“Sí, daño.” The young man’s eyes swam with tears.
Valentino told him to remain calm and turned back inside to call as ambulance. Something hard prodded his right kidney.
“Is a gun, hermano,” the man hissed in his ear. “Come with me or I blow out your spine.”
He was hustled into a white stretch limo at the end of the driveway. The man sat next to him with his revolver resting in the crook of his arm, pointed at Valentino. The back the driver’s head was a mile away. They rode without conversation to the top of Mulholland, where a helicopter waited with its blades feathering. Valentino was prodded out of the car and into the seat behind the pilot. Next to the pilot sat a white-haired man wearing a headset. The man was monstrously fat—fatter even than Justin Ring—and had on sunglasses, which the film detective thought pretentious so long past dark. The fat man smiled across the back of his seat, tapping his headset. Valentino found another just like it on the seat beside him and put it on. By then they were airborne, swinging in a broad are over the panoply of light that was Los Angeles after sunset.
“Valentino.” The voice in his earphones was lightly accented. “Spanish or Italian?”
“Italian, on my father’s side.” Valentino spoke into his mouthpiece. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say yours is Cortez.”
“An unsecured loan from the great conquistador, I’m afraid. I have family back home that needs protecting. I apologize for our deception. I couldn’t be sure you would agree to a meeting.”
“Your man’s a talented actor.” He thought he could see the lights of the limousine carrying the young man back down toward the valley.
“I’ll tell him you said so. So far the only work he’s been able to get is as an extra. Why are you asking all over town about Justin Ring?”
“I’ve only asked in two places.”
“That isn’t an answer. Julio.”
The pilot leaned over and opened the door. The air rushed in at Valentino. The helicopter went into a steep bank and he had to clutch his seat to keep from sliding out. There were no safety straps of any kind in the backseat. The helicopter banked the other way and the pilot yanked the door shut. Valentino’s heart bounded between his ear phones.
“Julio trained in the Persian Gulf,” Cortez said. “He can perform maneuvers with a helicopter that the aerodynamists insist are impossible. Your body will be found lying six inches deep in the pavement on. Santa Monica Boulevard. If you wish to avoid becoming one of Hollywood’s enduring mysteries, you need only tell me what your interest is in Justin Ring.”
“I want to acquire his student film for the UCLA archives.”
“Julio.”
The door popped open and the helicopter banked again, more steeply Valentino sank his nails into the seat’s slick vinyl surface. The bank went on forever. He started to slide.
“The truth, Mr. Valentino.”
“It is the truth! I swear it!” The wind skirled up inside the legs of his trousers.
“All right, Julio.”
The correcting bank slammed the door shut without the pilot’s help.
“Justin Ring is dead,” said Cortez.
“His nephew suspects otherwise.”
“Why?”
When Valentino hesitated, Cortez sighed and looked at Julio.
“No! Please don’t. Ring’s student film is about a man who rigs his own death and then goes into hiding. It made us both suspicious. For my part, a live Ring would be easier to negotiate with than a tangled estate.”
“What is the nephew’s name?”
“He doesn’t know anything.”
“I’m a busy man, Mr. Valentino. I don’t have time to show everyone in Southern California the view fro
m my airship. I merely want his name so I can verify what you’re saying. Once more, Julio.”
“Elmo Kirdy.”
The fat man swung his head around fast enough to dislodge his earphones. Then he began to laugh deeply and heartily, as only a man can who was born to a Latin culture. When at last he ran out of laughter: “Please forgive me, Mr. Valentino. As you Americans used to say in your wartime films, this trip was not necessary. Take us back, Julio.”
When they were on the ground with the rotors slowing, Cortez removed his headset. “Don’t be embarrassed by your fear, my friend. Ki Wan is old and difficult to frighten, but he was swift to call me after you spoke with him this evening.”
Valentino, recovering, laid down his own set. “I’m a Hollywood brat, Mr. Cortez. That means I’m a lot more easy to scare than I am to embarrass. May I give you one more piece of information you may already possess? Your expression will tell me if I’m right.”
The druglord raised a conciliatory hand.
Valentino spoke briefly. After a moment, Cortez grinned broad and bright. The film detective nodded and opened the door. “By the way,” he said, “your Sidney Greenstreet needs work.”
He walked all the way back to his house, slept peacefully until the alarm woke him, and went to the office. Elmo Kirdy called just before noon. Valentino told him he was prepared to make him an offer for Justin Ring’s student film. Kirdy agreed to a meeting in Valentino’s office in one hour.
He arrived on time, wearing brown corduroys with the ribs worn smooth at the knees and a blue sweatshirt reading HANG TEN FOR JESUS. His beautifully styled silver hair was in place and his face was flushed slightly, as if he’d spent all morning at the beach. Valentino stared.
“If there’s anything this town has more of than vain movie stars, it’s good plastic surgeons,” he said. “Yours could run for mayor.”
“Hey, man, this is all me. I take care of myself, you know?”
“You can drop the Brian Wilson act, Ring. Your cover’s blown.”
Kirdy hesitated. Then he grinned, his capped teeth blue-white against his caramel skin. “You are a detective,” he said. “The surgeon was in Argentina. He couldn’t leave because of some work he’d done on certain German emigrés after World War Two. I was his last case before he retired. He wanted to change me completely, but I insisted on maintaining a family resemblance. Maybe I should have tried to pass for a younger cousin instead.”
Valentino: Film Detective Page 5