The auteur’s dream had been, like poor old Max Fink’s, grandiose and doomed. He had started out with fifty reels—eight hours of flickering celluloid—and edited them down to a feature that was still eighty minutes longer than The Birth of a Nation. Von Stroheim had hoped that people would come to see the first two hours, adjourn for dinner, then come back for the rest. The idea was decades ahead of its time; too early for the studio brass. It was the beginning of the end for him as a director. Soon he was supporting himself as an actor, playing a succession of Prussians and Nazis for audiences to hiss at until his swan song, as the loyal butler and ex-husband of Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, the role for which he was best remembered. Ironically, the character was a former great director reduced to menial servitude.
Valentino had room service on Viacom and ordered a movie on Pay-Per-View, but lost interest after twenty minutes: There were no drunken-brute dentists, no Death Valley confrontations, no ZaSu Pitts. He left a wake-up call for six o’clock—his plane was at eight—and went to bed.
“Herr Valentino, you haff had your rest, ja?”
He started awake, he thought. A swatch of moonlight lay on the carpet like a gauntlet flung through a gap in the curtains covering the window. A dark figure stood in the shadows to one side with feet spread thirty inches apart.
Valentino’s heart bumped. He couldn’t speak. Had he double-locked the door? He remembered putting on the chain.
“You vill safe mein Kind, ja? I am counting on you.”
The intruder’s Teutonic accent was as hard to follow as his German. Valentino had the wild thought that his room had been broken into by a neo-Nazi skinhead. “What do you want?” he asked hoarsely. “My wallet’s on the bureau. Take it and go.”
A bitter laugh escaped the shape in the shadows. “Vot do I vant vit your money? I spent more than you earn in a month on one dinner at the Trocadero. I vant mein Kind.”
The Trocadero hadn’t existed for fifty years. Mein Kind? He tried to remember his high school German. My child. “I think you’ve mistaken me for someone else.” That sounded weirdly comical, even to him.
“Du lieber Gott.” The stranger stamped his feet twice, propelling himself sideways into the shaft of cold light.
Valentino’s breath caught. The man was decked out head-to-toe in the uniform of an imperial Austrian officer. A visored cap perched at an arrogant angle above his shaved temples, his white tunic was buttoned tightly to his throat and sparkled with medals, and riding breeches were stuffed into the tops of gleaming black knee-length boots. In one hand he held a pair of gloves, in the other a leather riding crop, its thong handle resting against his shoulder. A monocle glittered in one eye. He was the living image of Erich von Stroheim in Foolish Wives.
The archivist’s shock gave way to annoyance. He was the victim of a prank. Kyle Broadhead had gotten some actor friend to put on a costume and frighten him out of a night’s sleep. Greed had turned out to be a wild goose chase and this was his way of getting back at Valentino for the waste of his time.
“Tell Kyle you accomplished your mission,” he said. “What did he do, promise you a part in Mel Brooks’s next—”
“Silence!” The riding crop whistled through the air and struck one of the shining boots with a report like a pistol shot. The crop pointed at him. “You vill safe mein Kind!”
Valentino forced himself to meet the iron gaze. It seemed to him that the eye not covered by the monocle was moist.
Something burred. “Von Stroheim” looked up as if hearing an air-raid siren, then vanished. The shaft of moonlight was empty.
The burring continued in bursts, with brief silences between. Valentino stirred from under the covers and lifted the receiver off the telephone on the nightstand. His “Hello” was hoarse.
“You need to get out of San Francisco. You’re starting to sound like a foghorn.”
“Kyle?”
“Did I wake you?”
“No big deal. I was having a stupid dream.” Only as he said it did he realize it was a dream. He switched on the lamp, dispelling the last wisp of phantasm from the room. “What’s in the cans, the director’s cut of Showgirls?”
“Nope. I only risked a peek, but I think it’s the bonanza. I’m calling from the Oracle on my cell. We might have the full eight hours here. And something else we didn’t count on.”
I am counting on you, von Stroheim had said. Valentino regretted ordering prawn from downstairs. “What?”
“A skeleton.”
Valentino had taken a cab to LAX on his way out. Broadhead met him with the hybrid electric car he drove whenever he felt like irritating the department head, a conservative sourpuss who leased SUVs that increased in size in direct proportion to the amount of fuel they consumed. Valentino wedged his bag into the backseat and folded himself into the passenger’s side in front.
“How were the trailers?” Broadhead spoke above the ticking of the motor.
“A little foxed. Nothing serious. What kind of skeleton?”
“Human, I’m pretty sure. I’m not an anthropologist. It was crammed under the seat.”
“What seat?”
“That bench in the vault. It made a hollow sound when I laid one of my cases on it. I groped around until I found the edge of the lid. I may be the first person to discover that extra bit of storage space since the place was built. Or the second. Someone had to have put the skeleton in there.”
“Cases?”
“My invention. Aluminum carriers, with vacuum pumps to seal them airtight. Prevents oxidation while the film’s in transport. I should apply for a patent. It’d mean a cool twelve bucks in royalties annually, film preservation being the growth industry it is.” He puffed on his burning pipe, filling the vehicle with noxious gases.
“How long do you think the skeleton’s been in there?”
“Forty years, anyway. I called your realtor. To satisfy my curiosity about the film, not the bones. The vault was plastered over when they bought the theater in 1961. Plaster started falling a month ago and they tore the rest down. They had to have a key made for the vault. No one knew it was there.”
“Did you call the police?”
“It seemed wise. I took the liberty of moving Greed to the university first. Care to see it?”
“Do you think the police will let me in?”
The professor looked over at him. “I meant Greed.”
Broadhead, who had a class to teach, left Valentino at the Oracle and ticked away. A woman named Sergeant Franks allowed the new owner into the secured area. She was tall enough to have played basketball in college, and not long ago. She stooped to shake Valentino’s hand on the landing outside the projection booth. “I see the resemblance,” she said. “Grandson?”
“No relation. You seem young to know Valentino at all.”
“I thought he was a fashion designer until my lieutenant set me right.” She brushed a dangling shard of plaster away from her teased-out hair. “You sure bought yourself a wreck. Planning to raze and develop?”
“Actually, I hope to restore it.” Valentino gave her a card.
“ ‘Film detective.’ That’s a bureau I never saw downtown.”
“It’s a jazzy name for a procurer. I’m a preservationist.”
“Theaters?”
“Movies. This started out as a search for a new house with a better screening room.”
“Well, I bet it’s bigger. Did you know a corpse came with the place?” Franks smiled girlishly. But her eyes were sharp.
“If I had, I’d have tried to bargain down the price.”
“Mm-hm. I understand you were out of town when it turned up.”
“I had a business appointment.”
The sergeant consulted a notebook with a red cover. “A Professor Broadhead called it in. Interesting man. Said you asked him to come in and poke around?”
“He’s an expert on old film stock. There were some specimens in the vault. They can be volatile. I d
idn’t want to touch them until after he’d had a chance to inspect them.”
“Volatile like explosive?”
“If exposed to flame. In this case I should have said fragile. Before the nineteen fifties, when safety stock was introduced, motion-picture film contained silver nitrate. It deteriorates rapidly if not properly stored, just as silver corrodes. Half of all films made before nineteen fifty have been lost for that reason; ninety percent before nineteen twenty. All we retain of Theda Bara, for instance, are a few dozen production stills. Her career has vanished.”
Franks wrote something in her notebook, possibly Theda Bara. “This stuff valuable?”
“To film history. It doesn’t compare to, say, a Rembrandt painting. Colleges and film societies can’t afford to pay as much as a syndicate of Japanese tycoons.” Valentino smiled. Did she suspect him of a forty-year-old murder? If it was murder.
“Mm-hm. Man who’s seen as many pictures as you, I guess you’re not squeamish.”
“I still flinch when Lon Chaney’s mask comes off in The Phantom of the Opera.”
“That one I know. I saw the road show when it played L.A. Come in and take a look. Maybe you can give us a positive ID, ha-ha.”
A photographer tripped his flash just as Valentino entered the oversize booth behind the sergeant. The timing, as if on cue for the first take of a criminal investigation scene, made him feel as if he’d stepped onto a live set. He had the sensation that the man with the camera, the uniformed officer scribbling in his report book, the pair of technicians mixing and applying their powders, the woman in the green smock bent over something inside the open vault, had all been running their lines and primping only a moment before.
“Ms. Johansen, a minute?” Franks said.
The woman in the smock sat back. She wore a cuplike mask over her nose and mouth. When she took it off, Valentino was struck by the perfection of her features. She was a shorthaired blonde with elliptical blue eyes, clear and unflawed. Her nose was straight and she had a generous mouth that looked as if it might contain a smile as bright as a klieg. She wasn’t smiling.
“A minute is an hour,” she said. “What’s so important? Oh, hello.” She noticed Valentino and moderated her scowl.
“Hello. I didn’t know bacteria was a problem.”
“What? Oh, the mask. I’m allergic to dust.” She sneezed.
Franks said, “Mr. Valentino owns the building. Harriet Johansen. She’s with the criminal-science division.”
“Forgive me for not shaking hands.” She held up a miniature whiskbroom in a rubber glove.
He looked past her. A drop cord clipped to one of the racks inside the vault shed halogen light into the low bench, whose top was tipped back to expose the recessed interior. In that moment he realized he’d never seen a human skeleton “in person,” and was mildly surprised to learn that it didn’t look much different from those he’d seen in movies. The leering skull and hooplike ribs wore a fine coat of gray dust. He should have been horrified. Many thousands of feet of Universal and Hammer shockers had desensitized him to this basic symbol of mortality. There was a musty odor that reminded him of old magazines.
“He was a little dude,” Harriet Johansen said. “Couple of inches taller and he’d have had to be folded.”
“How do you know it was a he?” Valentino asked.
“Shape of the pelvis. Also I caught him looking down my blouse when I bent over.”
He grinned. “Was it murder?”
“Tell you when I finish dusting, maybe. If there was bone trauma, a skull fracture, or a blade or a bullet nicked a rib, yes. Without that, or a loose slug somewhere in the box, all we’ve got is improper disposal of a body.” She sneezed again. “Excuse me.”
“Gesundheit. Was he naked?”
“No sign of even the remnants of clothing. That indicates homicide. Attempt to foil identification. Did you do it?”
“I have an alibi. They walled off the room before I was born.”
Franks said, “Who told you that?”
“Kyle Broadhead called the realty company.” He knew he’d made a mistake even before he finished speaking.
“Inquisitive type, isn’t he?” The sergeant’s tone was flat.
He straightened from his crouch, as if his back were sore. He was stalling. “He wanted to know how long the films had been in the vault.”
“I’d like a look at those films.”
“Actually, it’s only one. Forty or fifty reels. And it has to stay in a stable environment. I don’t think the police evidence room qualifies.”
“It’s evidence in a homicide. I can get a warrant.”
“You don’t even know if it is a homicide.” Valentino exhaled. “I’ll try to arrange a screening. It takes time. A new negative has to be struck from the original, and a positive made from that onto safety stock. The film is almost eighty years old. Running it through a projector would destroy it.”
Franks snatched a ribbon of cobweb away from her face. “I’ll give you three days.”
Johansen sneezed. Valentino and Franks said, “Gesundheit.”
“You need to have new cards made.” Broadhead ran a pipe cleaner through the barrel of his pipe. “You’ve got detective on the brain.”
Valentino said, “You know and I know we can’t transfer eight hours of vintage celluloid in three days. If the case isn’t wrapped up before then, we can say goodbye to Greed for the second and last time.”
“If the police haven’t been able to solve the case in forty years, what makes you think you and I can?”
“They didn’t know there was a case before today. Anyway, you found Quo Vadis? and that went back a lot further.”
“It took me thirty years.”
“You didn’t have me to help.”
“You’re an arrogant young fool.”
“And you’re a pompous old crotch. Where’s the film?”
“In the cooler, where else? I had to move Ivan the Terrible to make room for it. I hope Ivan gets along with Battleship Potemkin. They’re sharing a rack.” Broadhead pursed his lips Hitchcock fashion. “You know, it’s only a movie. Not worth prison time.”
“I haff to safe his Kind.”
“What?”
“That stupid dream. I can’t do it without you, Kyle.”
“You can’t do it with me.” He laid the pipe on his desk in two pieces. “Where do we start?”
“When Max Fink sold the Oracle.”
“That was in nineteen twenty-nine!”
Valentino looked at his watch. “You’re right. We’d better get started.”
They divvied up two of the four estates. Broadhead took Government, Valentino the Press. While the professor pored over the Los Angeles County property records at the Civic Center, the film detective visited the microfilm room in the library downtown and scrolled through ancient numbers of the L.A. Times. After a while he stopped mooning over the advertised premieres of films that no longer existed and confined his attention to the local news sections.
Four hours later, squinting against the glare of the 21st century, he met Broadhead in their downtown hangout, a micropub with four-sheets on the walls of W.C. Fields playing poker, Errol Flynn in tights, and Marilyn fluttering too close to the flame. Valentino was famished and ordered the Fatty Arbuckle Burger. Broadhead, parched and smelling of old plat books, drank a pitcher of stout.
“The theater changed hands three times between twenty-nine and thirtyseven,” Valentino said. “The last time was to a guy named—”
“Warren Pegler,” Broadhead finished. “He sold it in fifty-six to a film society. They showed Fellini to college students until they couldn’t afford to support the hobby. That’s when your realty firm bought it and rented it to hippies. They didn’t care if the toilets flushed.”
“The Times did a human-interest piece on Pegler when he took over. He was a double amputee, lost both legs in an accident in the developing lab at Metro, where he worked. Invested his compensation check
in Warner Brothers just before The Jazz Singer, pulled out of the stock market two months ahead of the twenty-nine crash.”
“Your reading was more interesting than mine.”
“Trade you places,” Valentino said.
“You mean you drink, I eat?” Broadhead refilled his glass from the pitcher.
“I mean I only read up to nineteen forty. I need you to check the papers from just before Pegler sold the Oracle until it changed hands again. The vault was already plastered over when the realty firm acquired it. Whoever did that must have known about the body inside.”
“Redecorating projects don’t always make the papers.”
“Disappearances usually do. Whoever was using that skeleton dropped out of sight suddenly. I’m assuming someone missed him and reported it to the police.”
“And what will you be doing while I’m working up an appetite looking for corpses in the Times?”
“Pegler interests me. Country records should tell me if he has any heirs. They might know something.”
“Why bother with the heirs? Talk to the man himself.”
“He’d be a hundred if he were alive,” Valentino said.
“Ninety-six.” The professor fished a spiral notebook out of an inside pocket. “Last January, a district judge ruled him incompetent to care for himself and committed him to a nursing home in San Diego. Here’s the address.”
A tasteful sign at the end of a broad composition driveway identified a low brick building surrounded by trees as the Autumn Leaf Elder Care Facility. Valentino parked in a small lot that still had plenty of room for visitors and tapped on an open door marked OFFICE inside the foyer. A young woman in a USC sweatshirt with her hair in a ponytail looked up from her desk. He introduced himself and said he was there to see Mr. Pegler.
“Warren.” She smiled. “Is your first name Eric?”
He hesitated. “No.”
“I’m sorry. Warren has his bad days. When he’s not entirely lucid, he keeps asking for someone named Eric. I thought it might be a family member. He never has visitors, so I assumed—” She shrugged. “Are you a relative?”
Valentino: Film Detective Page 11