Frames

by Loren D. Estleman

  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 main 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 blackmailing, 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?”

  The silence was complete. Even Todd and Broadhead had stopped talking and were watching them, motionless. They’d overheard.

  Fanta shuddered. Valentino couldn’t tell if it was real or if her drama teacher had grossly underestimated her talent, In that same slow, heavy speech she said, “His head’s cracked open. What should we do?”

  She’d lost the gamble. The eyes changed again, glittered lucidly. He seemed to be returning to the present. Then they clouded again.

  “Gerda!”

  The shout jarred the listeners. It was loud enough to carry all through the building. Pegler braced his hands on the arms of the wheelchair and raised himself from the seat, turning his head to call over his shoulder. “Gerda! You didn’t finish that wall yet, did you? You forgot the reels in the storeroom. Come and get them.”

  In a minute or so they would be up to their necks in personnel. Everyone leaned forward, straining for what came next.

  Pegler appeared to be listening to something, a voice dead to everyone but him. His arms went slack. He slumped back into the chair with his chin on his chest, a man much older than just ninety-eight. “No, leave the bricks up.” His voice bleated weakly. “We’ll just plaster it over. Von Stroheim’s dying. We won’t be getting any more money out of him. We’ll just go ahead and sell the place.”

  “I am not dead yet.”

  The part of Valentino that was Valentino was chilled by the voice that broke the stillness; it might have belonged to von Stroheim’s ghost and not himself. He wasn’t in control of it. Valentino held up a hand to stop the stampede of rescuers at the entrance to the room, Kym Trujillo at its head. Von Stroheim lowered it and gripped the arms of his chair as if it were the throne of Austria. All eyes were upon him.

  “What did you mean when you said I put your life in danger?”

  The thin old face stared back. It seemed to have been carved from petrified wood. Then it bent in the middle, making a smile as sharp as a lance. “Still smoking, Erich?” he asked.

  **

  CHAPTER

  24

  THE INTERVIEW SETUP at police headquarters bore a certain resemblance to the layout of a psychiatrist’s office, which seemed appropriate, given its location in downtown Los Angeles.

  The waiting area was less comfortable, consisting of a row of hard chairs in a hallway, and in place of the usual outdated magazines the reading material was restricted to a display of posters on the glass wall opposite promoting safety; but the exit from interrogation was separate from the entrance, so that once a subject was called inside, he was not seen again by his fellows except on the other side of the glass on the way to the elevator. Valentino suspected that in the present case the arrangement had less to do with polite discretion than with preventing interviewees from comparing their stories.

  He sat there for what seemed hours and probably was; no clock was visible and he’d left his wristwatch in a pocket of his street clothes in the name of consistency of character. He was too tired to speculate with his neighbors. Kyle Broadhead and then Todd the attendant and then Fanta and finally Kym Trujillo were collected and escorted around the corner by an officer in uniform, to reappear briefly twenty or thirty minutes later, making their escape behind glass. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the order, like scenes shot out of context. Valentino was left alone. The air-conditioning in the hallway was inadequate, and although he’d shed the uncomfortable tweed jacket and hung it over the back of his chair, he was clammy with sweat and itched in patches big and small. His right eye kept twitching—payback from the muscles for subjecting them to a monocle, of all things. Peering through the thick prescription lens had given him a pounding headache. His back hurt and his neck was stiff. He wondered how von Stroheim had put up with it for seventy-one years. It seemed to explain his disposition.

  Sergeant Clifford was letting him steep. He regarded that as just punishment. Sitting there marooned, he projected the events of the past week onto the glass wall in front of him and found himself picking holes in the plot. None of the motivations made sense, the characters kept second-guessing one another, and the hero appeared ridiculous. If he’d been in a theater, he’d have walked out soon after the opening credits.

  “May I join you, or will you be brooding alone this evening?

  He looked up at Kym Trujillo, standing beside his chair with her hands in the pockets of a short silvery all-weather coat. Rain was still falling, or had been anyway the last time he’d seen the outdoors. He started to get up.

  “Stay put. If you came to the Country Home looking like that, I’d order oxygen.”

  “How’d you make it back here?” he asked. “I saw you bolting for freedom a little while ago.”

  “I shook my tail and doubled back. Actually, they don’t care what happens to you after you leave the place. They don’t even offer you a ride home after they bring you here in the backseat of a squad car. I drove. Should I hang around?”

  “You might have to wait one to three years. Whatever the going rate is for obstruction of justice.”

  She sat down in the chair next to him. “You caught a murderer. That should count for something.”

  “I browbeat a confession out of an old man in a wheelchair.”

  “I’ve been in elder care five years,” she said. “The woman I replaced was there when poor Johnny Weismuller started wandering into the other residents’ rooms, giving the Tarzan yell. He won five gold medals in two Olympics, broke the world speed swimming record twice, and made twenty-seven movies, but at the home h
e’s remembered as a pathetic old pest. It’s easy to forget what they were when you see them as they are. Warren Pegler is an old man in a wheelchair who bludgeoned a man to death in the prime of his life. Also he’s a blackmailer.”

  “Can we not talk about that?” he asked. “I betrayed your trust.”

  “I’ll be a while forgiving you for that. Was it worth all the fuss?”

  “I’ve been telling myself all along it was. Sitting here these last few hours, I’m not so sure. Kyle Broadhead says I can sell Greed to UCLA for fifty thousand. I’ve been wondering if that’s what I went to all the fuss for, and all this high-minded talk of saving a great work of art is so much hooey. Maybe von Stroheim was right. Maybe it all comes down to greed in the end.”

  She was quiet for a minute.

  “Maybe you’re thinking too much about the end and not enough about the beginning,” she said then. “Go back to the first time you visited that projection booth and read the labels on those cans. How’d you feel?”

  “My palms got sweaty and my heart rate shot to two hundred.”

  “Was it like winning the lottery?”

  “I’ve never won the lottery. I’ve never played.”

  “Well, was it like coming into unexpected money?”

  “No. It was like what Hillary said when he climbed Everest. He couldn’t wait to see the expression on the face of the leader of the expedition when he came back down. I couldn’t wait to tell Kyle.”

  “That doesn’t sound like the reaction of someone who just found the shortcut to Easy Street.”

  “It can’t be as simple as that.”

  “Most things are, until you start picking at them. Why do you think they left us cooling our heels out here in the hallway?

  “So von Stroheim was wrong, and Greed’s a fraud.”

  “It’s a movie. If movies were real, there’d be no reason to go to them.” She yawned; he realized then she’d been up as long as he. “All I know is, someone who never played the lottery isn’t in it for the money.”