Alive!

by Loren D. Estleman

  This time Lysander remained sitting. Valentino consigned himself to more butter-soft leather in front of the great mass of obsidian.

  “What you and I discuss can never leave this office.” The lawyer’s hands were clasped on the glistening surface separating host from guest. Valentino kept his own hands off it, knowing he’d leave a wet mark. “I made that promise in return for permission to breach attorney-client privilege. I can go no further until you agree to that.”

  “If it’s a criminal matter, I’m bound to report it. I have no such privilege.”

  “So far as my client and I are aware, it involves nothing illegal.”

  “If that’s the case, I agree.”

  An index finger detached itself from the others and pointed toward the ceiling. “If word of the conversation gets out, I face disbarment. That’s nothing compared with the firestorm of litigation you will face from my partners. It will follow you for years, drain all your resources, and plunge you so deep in debt your heirs will never be able to repay it.”

  “I’m already there, Mr. Lysander. I’m rebuilding a theater.”

  “You’ll lose it and everything you’ve invested in it. In the end you’ll wish you and Hunter had never met.

  He was used to that feeling; but he nodded.

  The finger rejoined its mates. “Hunter’s business was with Elizabeth Grundage, not Mike.”

  “His wife?”

  “His stepmother. Tony, her late husband, controlled the stagehands’ and projectionists’ unions in Hollywood during the so-called Golden Age of the 1930s. They worked on the sets of All Quiet on the Western Front, The Wizard of Oz, Frankenstein—”

  “Frankenstein?” He thought of that suitcase full of books.

  “Yes. Of course, that was long before I was born, but my firm represented the family when Tony was too old and ill in mind and body to look after his financial interests, and counseled Elizabeth when his will was in probate.”

  “She must be ninety.”

  “Far from it. Tony remarried late in life, after Mike’s mother died. The family has continued to retain me all these years.”

  “What business could Craig have had with a gangster’s widow?”

  “Quite apart from the slur on Tony’s memory, I resent your characterizing Elizabeth in that way. She’s a grand lady, not a cheap gun moll.”

  For the second time in the meeting, upset showed on the smooth face of the officer of the court. It could be artifice; Valentino gave him the benefit of the doubt. “I’m sorry.”

  Lysander nodded, apparently mollified. “I was bound by the seal of my profession to divulge none of this to the police, even when it involved Hunter.”

  “You admit he called you?”

  “I state it, in strictest confidence, and only because Mrs. Grundage gave me leave to do so. He approached her last week with a transaction. When he found out later I’d advised Elizabeth not to become involved, he called me to complain. He became abusive, threatening. He was drunk. I hung up on him.”

  “This was Friday night?”

  “Yes.”

  “What was the transaction?”

  “I can’t discuss details. She refused to allow me to, and as her attorney I agree with the decision. She’s suffered enough at the hands of authority and the media through no fault of her own. These latest troubles involving Mike have tried her sorely. She’s entitled to her privacy.”

  “Any transaction with the victim of a homicide is evidence that’s being withheld from the police.”

  “But there was no transaction. She turned him down.”

  “All the more reason to come forward with the details. She can’t possibly be held accountable—unless she told her son and he reacted in gangsterish fashion.”

  “Have you had any training in law?”

  “Not unless you count helping restore three Perry Mason movies starring Warren William.”

  “Even if Mr. Grundage confessed to me that he had conspired to commit a murder-—which I assure you he has not—I could not pass the information along without his permission.” Lysander glanced at a platinum Rolex strapped to the underside of his wrist. “I can give you no more time. If you were consulting me professionally, I would send you a bill for two hundred dollars for the amount I’ve given you already.”

  Valentino kept his seat. “Why did you agree to see me at all?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder.”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “I must ask you to leave.”

  The archivist stood. “Craig Hunter developed a sudden interest in Universal horror films shortly before his death, Frankenstein among them. You told me his father had a direct connection with that production. All that, together with how Craig died, convinces me Mike Grundage is involved. He’s a pretty slick character, from what I’ve heard and read. I think if he’s as determined as you are to protect his stepmother from harassment, he wouldn’t be dumb enough to break Craig’s arms and point suspicion directly at himself. I think you may be thinking the same thing, and that’s why you hoped I might be able to help.”

  “And what makes you think I’d look for it from an amateur like you?”

  “In law, yes; but I’m an expert in what you called ‘the so-called Golden Age of the 1930s.’ I’m pretty sure now you offered to meet with me because of what I do for a living, but you’re too tied up in legal red tape to come out and ask for my advice. Maybe after you’ve conferred with both Elizabeth and Mike, you’ll be in a position to come clean with me. If you’re convinced your client is innocent, and if you can convince me far enough to establish reasonable doubt, please call.”

  “It’s worse than that, I’m afraid.”

  He’d turned to leave, but the defeat in Lysander’s tone made him turn back. The attorney looked less plump and pink, like a neon bulb that had sprung a leak, losing precious gas.

  “There’s a third connection,” he said, “one the police aren’t aware of yet, but they’ll find out once they finish tracing Mike’s financial interests.”

  “You mean the legitimate ones.” He could kick himself for alienating his source this close to an agreement; but the lawyer was preoccupied.

  “He owns the Grotto, the bar where Hunter’s body was found. Thank you, Mr. Valentino. I very much hope we can meet again—without the legal red tape, as you put it.”

  **

  CHAPTER

  8

  HE DIDN’T FEEL like going home—or rather, to The Oracle; his concept of home didn’t include carpenters and plasterers and mad Russians drifting in and out at will. He went back to the office, where there was always work to be found, a new lead on London After Midnight to be followed up or a crisis in the lab to attend to that would distract him from an unsatisfactory day of sleuthing. Before, he was vexed by how much he didn’t know; after his session with Horace Lysander, what he thought he’d known he didn’t know now. The case against Mike Grundage had appeared to be open and shut, with only the why left unanswered. Now he seemed an unlikely suspect at best.

  And what did Frankenstein, a sensational novel written in 1816 and adapted even more sensationally to the screen in 1931, have to do with a murder committed in the twenty-first century?

  Ruth was on the phone, assuring someone that he had indeed called the university power plant, but that it wasn’t a power plant now (and mores the pity, was her attitude). Valentino swept past her station, grateful to be spared another soul-destroying exchange, and opened his office door to find a woman seated behind his desk.

  Their gazes locked for less than a second before he drew the door shut and confronted Ruth, who was putting down the receiver. “What’s Teddie Goodman doing in my office?”

  “She said she was a friend. I told her you might not be back, but she said she’d wait awhile. I told her to go on in.”

  “You let in a complete stranger?”

  “I had to. There’s no place to sit
out here, and I can’t work with people skulking about.”

  He wasn’t even sure what work that was. He hadn’t dictated a letter in weeks and Kyle Broadhead was entirely self-contained inside his monk’s cell with his pre-Columbian computer. “What if she turned out to be a thief?”

  “Thieves don’t dress that well. They wear striped convict shirts and little black masks.”

  He turned back to his door to trade one headache for another.

  “That was rude even for you,” Teddie Goodman said when he was inside. “The social graces are lost on you ivy league types. I’m glad I dropped out.”

  He’d never quite been able to place her accent. At times she sounded like a bad imitation of Bette Davis in Jezebel, at others like Yosemite Sam. At the moment it was Bette, but neither dialect matched her insistence that she was a close relative of Theda Bara’s, the Ohio beauty queen-cum-mysterious woman from the Middle East, here to snatch men’s souls on the silent screen. She did bear a passing resemblance to the old-time vamp, a razor-thin mannequin with black-black hair swept back from her sharp features and bladelike nails, today painted deep red to match her lipstick and swath of scarlet spiraling up diagonally from the hip of her black sheath dress and over the opposite shoulder. Her salary as Mark David Turkus’ personal hatchetwoman at Supernova International allowed her to wear the latest fashions from Beverly Hills and Paris, and to wear them only once before turning them over to some less fortunate wealthy woman. At the moment she was using Valentino’s desk as a vanity table, touching up her jet-trail eyebrows with the aid of a black pencil and a compact mirror with a mother-of-pearl case.

  “Your inferiority complex is showing, Teddie. You can go back and finish your education any time you want. Even your so-called great-great-grandmother got her diploma before she went into pictures.”

  “I never said she was my great-great-grandmother. An aunt, maybe, or a cousin. That was the family talk. I never took the trouble to look it up.”

  “Of course not. If you did and the Turk found out you’re a fraud, he might not like you anymore.”

  “I’m just not interested in the past. I’m no moldy fig like you and that old crotch across the hall. Gary Cooper or Tom Arnold, they’re all the same to me, as long as I can make a buck.” She snapped shut the case and returned it and the pencil to a red alligator clutch bag. He could picture her catching the gator with her bare hands and dyeing the hide with its blood.

  He took the seat he’d cleared off for Sergeant Gill and crossed his ankles on a pile of press clippings on the desk. “To what do I owe this invasion of my privacy?”

  “The Maltese Falcon chair showed up on Sotheby’s online catalogue this morning. What’s up your sleeve?”

  “Not a thing. Did you think I’d try to ring in anything but the real McCoy on the appraisers?”

  “Oh, I’m satisfied it’s genuine. Boy Scouts don’t run scams. Movie nerd that you are, you’d never part with that chair unless you needed to finance something better. What is it, foreign or American? Silent or talkie? We can strike a deal if you come clean, split the theatrical and distribution rights. I’ll find out what it is anyway, but if I have to go to that trouble I’ll cut you off at the ankles.”

  He laughed in relief. Teddie Goodman always operated on the principle that she knew more than you did, whoever you were. He’d been afraid she’d come to gloat over having sniped him out of some acquisition he’d been working on for months or years. To reveal ignorance was a desperate sign. Maybe his shot in the dark had hit something after all, and her honeymoon with Turkus was over.

  “Go ahead and bray, you hyena. I don’t make threats just to hear myself talk.”

  He stopped laughing, but not because she’d ceased to amuse him. “Someday, Teddie, you’ll snarl yourself in your own web. Not everyone’s as devious as you. I’ve got bills to pay. I’m sure your spies have kept you posted on what’s going on in West Hollywood.”

  “That white elephant? Why don’t you just sell your blood?”

  “I only had five quarts to spare.”

  “On the level?” She fixed him with eyes the color of teak, only without the warmth.

  “I swear it on your great-great-grandmother’s grave. Or your cousin’s. Whatever. It’s the truth. Not that it’s your business.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He was exhausted suddenly. The exchange had made him forget for a moment his friend’s murder, but it all came rushing back into the void that existed between him and the creature seated behind his desk.

  They really were polar opposites: He saw money only as a means to the end of preserving film culture, while she rescued lost films only to finance her extravagant lifestyle. If he started condemning people for that, he wouldn’t have forged the professional relationships he needed to continue his crusade. She suspected such altruism and held it in contempt. But she was very good at what she did, maybe the best in the business. Theodosia Burr Goodman was the bizarro Valentino.

  “Believe what you want, Teddie. Can I call you a cab, or did you park your broom in the garage?”

  “That’s sexist, and lame besides.” She stood, holding her bag. She wasn’t as tall as she looked. He’d heard she’d come to town looking for work as a model at the height of the heroin chic craze, but had lacked two inches of the fashion industry standard. If only she’d had those two inches, Valentino thought; if only Major League Baseball had signed Fidel Castro to a pitching staff when he’d tried out. He told her he hoped the Turk enjoyed his chair.

  “He doesn’t enjoy anything, once he has it. We’ve got a lot in common.” At the door she paused, then looked back at him with the expression of the malicious screen vamp she tried so hard to resemble. “Will you be seeing Lorna Hunter soon, or should I give her your regards?”

  His reaction cheered her visibly on the way out.

  For a horrible moment he thought (and chastised himself for sinking to Teddies suspicious level) that he’d been betrayed. But he’d confided his mission only to Broadhead, and Kyle was Fort Knox when it came to keeping a secret under lock and key. He looked at his telephone. He couldn’t remember if he’d used it after he’d called Lorna to ask if he could come by that morning.

  He settled the question by pressing the redial button.

  “This is Lorna Hunter. I can’t come to the phone, but I’m sure you know what to do.” The recording sounded heartbreakingly chipper.

  “Lorna, it’s Valentino.”

  She picked up. “Val?” Her tone was alert, not fogged with alcohol now. He wasn’t as relieved as he’d have been under other circumstances. He should have known his evil twin would think to do the same thing he had in search of answers.

  He asked Lorna if someone had tried to call her recently.

  “The phone’s been ringing all day: reporters, calling about Craig. I don’t have caller ID, so I’ve been letting the machine do all the work. Someone called a little while ago and hung up without leaving a message. Do you know who it was?”

  He told her about Teddie. “She can’t be trusted. She thinks I’m working on some kind of deal, and no one’s better at wheedling out information. The police might consider what I’m doing interfering in their investigation. She’d use it as leverage against me. I don’t care so much about that, but I don’t want you involved.”

  “But what would she have to gain? There’s no deal.”

  “She’d never believe that. She thinks everyone has an angle. It would be best if you avoided contact.”

  “I’m a past master at that, especially lately. But maybe you should let it drop. If you got in trouble over me, I’d never forgive myself.”

  “I’d be a worse friend than I’ve been if I let myself be scared off. If you hear my voice on the machine, pick up. I’ll only call if I know something or to make sure you’re all right.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I almost never know what I’m doing
until I’ve done it. It’s in my job description.”

  “You’re a good friend, Val. Don’t tell yourself any different.”

  He wished she hadn’t said that. After they finished talking, he realized some of the anxiety he’d been feeling came very close to excitement. Under all the grief and regret he’d begun to feel the thrill of the chase. Damn her, Teddie was right. He was working on some kind of deal, and for some reason it involved Frankenstein.

  **

  The Oracle was all his, thanks to union regulations demanding time-and-a-half for overtime. He made sure all the outside doors were locked and entered the projection booth, only to be reminded that he wasn’t alone at all. He was sharing quarters with werewolves, mad scientists, and the walking dead, sprawled across the sofa bed like unwelcome guests. Craig Hunter’s portable library leered, hinted, nudged, and cajoled, but did not explain.