“Smell?”
“Like film. Old film—this isn’t science fiction—but not like vinegar.”
“Stage one?”
“Very early. More and more I think the old stuff’s reputation is undeserved. They’ve dug it out of landfills after ninety years with the footage on the outside of the reels shot to hell but the inside ready to show to the public. I’d like to see safety stock make that claim. I’ll crawl out on an academic limb and predict the basement reels are in as good a shape or better.”
Valentino hesitated, half afraid to ask the question. “Is it Greed?”
Broadhead winked. “Possess thy soul in patience, my son. Lights!” He flipped the switch on the projector with a flourish. The screen glowed.
Valentino hastened to switch off the lights and sat down in the nearest chair. He watched the old familiar countdown, the numerals and characters jumping a little because of broken sprocket holes, from ten to one with a nearly unbearable mixture of anticipation and impatience laced with apprehension; it wouldn’t be out of character for his friend and tormentor to work him up to a fever pitch only to bring him crashing down with a Three Stooges short borrowed from the part of the archives that was available to every freshman.
The first image demolished that fear—and held him in thrall until the end of the reel. It was the golden-tinted Art Deco emblem, with reclining lion and sconces, announcing “A Metro Goldwyn Picture,” from that brief moment in time before Louis B. Mayer had added his name to the company that began with the merger of his studio with Samuel Goldwyn’s while Greed was in production. The sound era would replace the static image with an actual lion, turning its head toward the audience and roaring defiance at competitors and all other forms of entertainment. Many of the happiest hours in Valentino’s life had started with a glimpse of that noble beast, its maned visage encircled by a banner with the company motto: ARS GRATIA ARTIS (“Art for Art’s Sake”). Next came “Louis B. Mayer presents an Erich von Stroheim Production”; then, in great black capitals outlined in yellow upon a field of gold nuggets sinisterly sparkling:
GREED
He applauded explosively. He couldn’t help himself. A glance back over his shoulder revealed Broadhead’s round rumpled face set in a mask of supreme self-satisfaction, a clump of hair fallen over one eye, his unlit pipe in his mouth in the light escaping through the louvers in the projector. The professor never sat down while showing a film, but stood in a wrestler’s crouch for hours at a time, muscles tensed, ready to shut down the power the instant the machinery faltered; one jammed frame was all it took to start a fire.
Valentino had seen the picture before, in both the 133-minute truncated version released in 1925 and the four-hour restoration produced by Rick Schmidlin in 2000, using hundreds of stills and dialogue cards to provide some semblance of the original narrative; Valentino and Broadhead had contributed many of the photographs, acquired from estate auctions, overlooked library files, and junk shops whose owners had no idea of their significance. Von Stroheim’s own continuity script, found among his effects after his death in 1957, had been used to interpret their meaning and establish their order. But the result, for Valentino at least, had been a disappointment.
It was neither von Stroheim’s fault nor Schmidlin’s, nor that of anyone else involved at either end. The photographic team of Ben F. Reynolds and William H. Daniels was superb, the San Francisco and Death Valley locations were vivid, and the performances of leading players Zasu Pitts and Gibson Gowland reached beyond the screen and across eight decades to wrench the most jaded modern heart. It was a meticulous and sensitive reconstruction. But movies were meant to move. Nearly two hours of period snapshots inserted in long sections among the surviving action footage, with title cards to explain and connect, did less to reveal genius than it did to reduce the director’s version to a stultifying evening spent in front of an undiverting historical documentary on PBS.
But this movie deleted every pixel of that unsatisfactory experience from his memory.
Based on Frank Norris’ turn-of-the-century novel McTeague, the film lingered over every line and nuance of the book to trace the descent of a dim-witted but good-natured brute into resentment, obsession, and double murder. Fallen upon hard times after marrying the woman of his dreams, the loutish dentist is at first elated by his bride’s lottery windfall, then puzzled by her miserly refusal to spend a penny of it to improve their lot. As bafflement deteriorates into rage, the sin of avarice turns deadly on several levels, dooming husband, wife, and best friend and ending in an irony as bleak as the desert where it takes place.
The first reel, of course, didn’t go that far, or even very far past the first plot point: the hulking dentist yielding to temptation and stealing a kiss from his pretty patient as she lies sedated in his chair—definitely an ick moment for moviegoers of the 1920s as well as today’s, but presented with a subtle compassion that encouraged pity rather than revulsion. Von Stroheim’s glacial pace, with slow camera pans and long close-ups of twitching faces, promised to take as much of his viewers’ time as if they had sat down and read the book from beginning to end. Everything about the approach was alien, yet hypnotic, like watching a rather shabby flower opening its petals in stop-motion. It gave the subject beauty.
The tailpiece flapped through the gate, the screen went blank. Valentino was still staring at it, transfixed by the ghosts that still inhabited it, when he realized Broadhead was talking. For a man who shared his protégé’s love for moving pictures, the older man seemed physically incapable of allowing the fantasy to fade before he charged ahead with his observations and opinions.
“… no reason to call Thalberg a philistine for crying editor,” he was saying. “The crazy Austrian expected audiences to catch the first four hours early in the evening, break for dinner, then come back and watch the rest until the milkmen came out. They put in ten hours on the job six days a week, and they weren’t about to spend all Saturday night watching other people get more and more miserable and then go to church a few hours later.”
Valentino rubbed his eyes. “They might have. The thing is we’ll never know. They hated the version MGM released, said it was sordid. But that was the studio’s film, not his. If they had the chance to see this version, his career might have gone the right way.”
“Some say it did. He held up production on Merry Go Round for days waiting for authentic Austrian Army underwear to arrive from Europe, and not a thread of it showed onscreen. By the time Gloria Swanson got him canned from Queen Kelly, he was already on his way out. If Greed were shown his way and made millions, he’d still have wound up playing Kraut heavies for lesser directors. Never underestimate the ability of a mad genius to crap himself in public.”
“So we’ve done it. Found Greed.” Valentino leaned sideways in his chair, feeling charged with energy and drained of emotion at the same time. “What’s next?”
Broadhead turned off the projector. The fans circulating cool air inside spun to a halt. “First, we get as much of it transferred as we can before the cops raid the joint.” He swung open the magazine and removed the full reel. “I gave the techie who helped me unwrap reel one a hundred bucks to print up reel two. I’d have gone in order, but then I wouldn’t have been able to show you the beginning, and I know how you feel about coming in after the credits. By the way, you owe me a hundred dollars.”
“Why me?”
“It’s your property, Rockefeller. Before the Oracle is through with you, you’re going to be hemorrhaging money like Cleopatra. You might as well get used to it now.” He placed the reel in its can. “What did Anklemire say?”
Valentino had decided emphatically not to mention that Anklemire had suggested solving the case for the police; Broadhead’s opinion of the man in Information Services was low enough as it was. “He said I should butter up Sergeant Clifford with a personal tour of our operation.”
“Interesting. Who’d have thought the little troll could make so much sense?”
“He also said I should call her first instead of waiting for her to make the first move, as if I were courting her. I don’t think his sensitivity training took.”
“I didn’t say he’d know why he made sense,” Broadhead said. “He’s a Neanderthal savant. All these new scientific weapons in the war on crime have turned the cop with the flattest feet on the beat into a techno-nerd. If she sees firsthand what we’re trying to do, the expense involved, she might be sympathetic. And he’s right about approaching her. If she has to come fetch what she wants, you’ll have to dig yourself out of a hole just to bargain with her on level ground.”
“In that case, we’d better get back.” Valentino stood.
“Leave the ‘we’ to the little piggy. As soon as I get this back in cold storage, I’m going home to sleep. I haven’t pulled an all-nighter since Orson Welles kept me up drinking Paul Maisson and kvetching about what RKO did to The Magnificent Ambersons.”
Broadhead was gray with exhaustion. Valentino asked if he could get home all right.
“I drive better when I’m asleep. If you don’t stop mothering me, I’ll call Immigration on your construction crew.”
“Thanks, Kyle.”
“Oh. Call Fanta and bring her up to speed. Her number’s in my Rolodex.”
When Valentino returned to his office, Ruth flagged him down with a fistful of telephone messages. Three of them were from Sergeant Clifford.
**
CHAPTER
8
HE DUMPED THE messages on his desk, slumped into his chair, and stirred the little scraps morosely with the eraser end of a pencil. They were written in Ruth’s spiky hand on peach-colored sticky notes with a sun beaming in the corners; he figured the pad was a gift from someone who didn’t know her very well and she was too thrifty to throw it out. Reporters had called from KLBA, the Times, the Post, and something called the Prong. Evidently the media had traced The Oracle to its new owner. He puzzled over a request for information from someone named Fresca until he realized it was actually Fanta who had called. Three others read simply, “Call Sgt. Clifford,” with her number at the precinct.
He sighed. It wasn’t the first time he’d let a movie get in the way of important business.
Still, he stalled; there seemed no reason not to now. He got Ruth on the intercom. “What on earth is the Prong?”
“He said it was the student organ at Berkeley.” She sounded even flintier over the speaker than she did in person. “I didn’t like the way he said ‘organ.’ He sounded like one of those rappers. They say ‘yo’ a lot, like pirates.”
“I thought the Barb was the student paper there.”
“That’s what I thought. He said it was reactionary, so he started his own. What’s this about the Oracle and a skeleton?”
He filled her in, and closed his eyes awaiting the reaction. This was almost as bad as the chewout he had coming from Clifford. But Ruth surprised him.
“Beautiful theater,” she said. “My first husband proposed to me there while Errol Flynn was wooing Olivia de Havilland in Captain Blood. It was a revival,” she added, “on a double bill with The Sea Hawk. I’m not as old as some people seem to think.”
“Maybe I’ll run them both again in your honor when I reopen. I may need the income to handle the mortgage.”
“I wonder if that skeleton was there that night.”
“I doubt it. If the police expert was right, it was placed there long after the house stopped showing big-ticket films.” He hesitated; an opinion was something one never sought from Ruth. She gave them out like gum. “Was I mistaken to buy it?”
“Someone had to. I’m glad it was you. The last thing this town needs is another gym.”
He thanked her, hung up, drummed his fingers on the desk, lifted the receiver from his telephone, and dialed.
“I was about to send a squad car,” Clifford said when he’d identified himself. “I talked to Anita Sarawak this morning.”
“Anita who?”
“Your realtor. She said there were a lot of film cans in the room by the projection booth when she showed you the place yesterday morning. We found only a few when we went through it. They were empty.”
Valentino said nothing, avoiding a trap. He’d had experience with reluctant informants, old-time film people’s personal servants and the like, and knew the power of silence. Some people would say anything to fill it.
“Our CSI team found steel shavings on that empty shelf in the basement that match the ones I had a couple of uniforms bring back from upstairs. I’m asking you again what you took away from my crime scene.”
“Is it a crime scene?”
“It is until I say it isn’t. If I have to ask the question a third time, it’ll be downtown.”
He took a deep breath and told her about Greed. He’d barely begun to explain the circumstances of its filming when she interrupted. “I’ll send someone to pick it up. You’ll get a receipt, and you can reclaim it when my investigation is finished. You might have to wait longer if there’s anyone alive to bring to trial.”
“It’s a priceless historical artifact. It needs to be stored in a stable environment.” He made his lecture on the fragility of silver nitrate brief. “Sergeant, why don’t you come down and visit our facility? I think you’ll find it instructive from a professional—”
“How long does it take to knock off a copy on this safety film?”
“In this case, a month at least, working in shifts. It has to be done a frame at a time, and the length of—”
“You’ve got three days.”
“How do you know the film has anything to do with that skeleton?”
“How do you know it doesn’t? It’s two minutes past ten. If it isn’t in this precinct by three minutes past ten Friday morning, I’m sending that squad car: for you and Greed.”
He’d just hung up on the dial tone when Ruth buzzed him on the intercom. “You’ve got a call on line one. That Sergeant Clifford.”
“I just spoke to her.”
“She says she forgot something.”
Instructing him to punch line one was unnecessary. His department seldom received enough calls to activate the second line. He pushed the button and picked up. He had the childish hope she’d changed her mind.
She started talking before he could say hello. “Ever hear of a director named Castle?”
He ran a thumb through his mental file. “William Castle. He shot horror flicks on the cheap during the fifties and sixties. He used gimmicks to amp up the reaction: battery-charged seats during The Tingler to shock the audience, painted sheets on wires to send spooks flying over their heads during Thirteen Ghosts. Sometimes he hired actors to run up and down the aisles in hideous costumes. Early experimental theater.”
“That checks. Department computer shows him answering a public-nuisance complaint in nineteen fifty-eight for scaring an old lady half to death during a showing of something called The House on Haunted Hill, at the Oracle. Care to hear the particulars?”
He said yes. He felt a tingle, as if he were sitting in one of Bill Castle’s electrified seats.
“Seems a wire or something broke thirty minutes in and a certain object dropped into the old lady’s lap. She wet her pants and hollered cop. Guess what it was.”
“A human skeleton.”
“Maybe you’ve got a little detective in you after all. Well, this Castle is a skeleton himself now, so we can’t interview him. But if no dental records turn up suggesting otherwise, which is a crapshoot anyway after all this time, we may safely consider Mr. Bones an alumnus of some medical-school anatomy class and redirect our energies toward murders that took place in this century.”
“Then you won’t need the film.”
“We’ve got three days minus ten minutes to establish that. You’re on the clock.”
“What does Harriet Johansen say?”
“About what, the case or your perfect cheekbones? I’m not a dating service.”
&nbs
p; “She said I have perfect cheekbones?”
“DNA’s no good without a national database or a surviving relative to provide a match. That brings us back to finding the dentist who put in those fillings forty or fifty years ago, and since this one isn’t exactly a department priority, you’re going to surrender those reels before we turn up any X-rays.”
“What’s the hurry, if it’s not a priority?”
“Because I had to come to you. If you’d given up the information yesterday, I might have been in a mood to work something out.”
“I was in shock, Sergeant.” He almost added, and under peer pressure, but there was nothing to be gained by ratting out Kyle and Fanta. “I can have two reels for you by Friday, and the rest as they’re transferred. Please? I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.”
The line was silent. He was beginning to think she’d hung up when she came back on. “The answer’s no. But I will take you up on your invitation.”
“Invitation?”
“To tour your facility. Maybe it’ll give me an angle on this case I hadn’t considered.”
That was encouraging. With Kyle along, wearing the charm he assumed for cocktail party fund-raisers, he thought he might be able to bring the Big Red Dog to heel. “When would you like to come down?”
“Not me. Criminalist Johansen. You two seem to speak the same language. Wait for her call.”
This time the connection broke. He sat chewing the inside of a cheek. He thought of calling Broadhead for advice, but he decided not to disturb him; he was worried about the old fellow’s health after twenty-four hours without sleep. He picked up the phone to call Anklemire, then put it down without dialing; twenty minutes with that little fugitive from the Warner Brothers animation department were exhausting enough. Then his gaze fell to one of the message slips on his desk.
He got up suddenly and charged across the hall. Ruth glanced up from her computer. “What’s the matter, on the lam?”
“I left something in Dr. Broadhead’s office.”
Frames Page 6