Alone

by Loren D. Estleman

  “I did some research on my own,” Harriet called through the opening. “Did you know Greta Garbo checked into hotels using the name Harriet Brown?”

  “I’d heard that.”

  “So we share a name, and that’s how I attracted your interest. You want to sleep with Garbo.”

  “I honestly never made the connection until just now, when I saw you in that turban. I thought someone had colorized The Painted Veil.”

  “A towel isn’t a turban. You didn’t answer my question.”

  “You didn’t ask one.”

  She sighed. “Do you want to sleep with Garbo?”

  He touched his moustache to make sure it hadn’t slipped off plumb. “Rita Hayworth once said the problem with her love life was men went to bed with Gilda and woke up with Rita Hayworth.”

  “Remind me who Gilda was.”

  “Her sexiest role. Her point was she couldn’t possibly hope to fulfill their expectations.”

  “So I’m a letdown.”

  “I didn’t say that. Are you trying to pick a fight?”

  “I was teasing. Why are you such a grouch? I thought the idea tonight was to have fun.”

  “Forgive me.” He meant it. “That damn theater is eating my lunch.”

  “Don’t be so quick to condemn it. We met there, don’t forget.”

  Which was true. It might not have been the first romance that began in a theater, but the circumstances were unusual. He’d plunged into the purchase on a whim, then discovered he’d bought the scene of a forty-year-old murder. That had brought him to the attention of the Los Angeles Police Department and its crew of criminalists, including Harriet.

  He said, “I’ll try to keep that in mind. It may spare you the unpleasantness of lifting my fingerprints off the throat of a bureaucrat.”

  “What on earth happened today?”

  “Let’s not spoil the night with construction talk, all right?”

  “Deal. Anyway, it’s out of character for John Gilbert.”

  “Ramon Novarro.”

  “Sorry. I thought it was Gilbert with the uniform and the funny moustache.”

  “It was. Also Conrad Nagel and Melvyn Douglas and Fredric March.”

  “No wonder she vanted to be alone.”

  He looked at his watch. They were getting a late start, but such things seemed less important since he’d met Harriet. He sat on the sofa, turned on the TV, and found The Scarlet Empress on TCM. Marlene Dietrich, the poor man’s Garbo—until she’d blossomed—spent half the movie as wide-eyed as Shirley Temple, then assassinated her demented husband, Czar of all the Russias, and became Catherine the Great overnight. She put on a dazzling uniform and was galloping a white stallion up the wooden steps of the Kremlin when Harriet coughed to get Valentino’s attention. He switched off the set, turned his head—and dropped the remote on the floor.

  “What’s the matter? Did I overpluck?”

  She stood outside the bedroom door in a daring filigreed gown glittering with crystals that left bare her shoulders and all of her midriff but her navel, concealed by a V-shaped sling connecting the brassiere to the clinging, low-slung skirt. A fantastic bejeweled headdress covered her hair and framed her oval face, the high cheekbones accentuated with highlights and shadow. Her lips made a delicate bow, and with her brows plucked ruthlessly into pencil-thin arches and extensions on her lashes, she was a full-color reproduction of Garbo in Mata Hari. The heels of her open-toed silver pumps added three inches to her height.

  “Say something,” she said. “You look like Jimmy Stewart in that Hitchcock thing.”

  “Vertigo. Except you look more like Greta than Kim Novak looked like Kim Novak.” He rose. “If they don’t hand you first prize the minute you step inside the door, the fix had better be in.”

  She stuck out her tongue, cracking the facade. “I have an unfair advantage. Not all the contestants date a guy who knows a guy who knows the wardrobe mistress at Universal.”

  It was a reproduction of the original costume, made for a Garbo biopic that had been shelved on the advice of the studio’s lawyers. She’d still been alive then, and determined to block any production that would bring more reporters to her doorstep with camping equipment.

  “I wouldn’t feel too guilty,” he said. “Most of the contestants can afford personal designers. But they wasted their money.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She pointed a finger. “Just remember you’re going to bed with Harriet Johansen. If you’re lucky.”

  He offered his arm. “Ms. Brown?”

  “Mr. Novarro.” She took it.

  He helped her on with her wrap at the door and opened it.

  She stepped through. “He was gay, you know.”

  “You did do research.” He drew the door shut behind them.

  **

  The smooth stone front of the Beverly Hills mansion was bathed in colored lights. Guests were still drifting in, and despite the presence of an army of parking attendants dressed in special comic-opera livery for the occasion, Valentino and Harriet waited several moments before one of them arrived to open their doors and take the wheel. The sinuous strains and brawny thump of an old-fashioned tango spilled out from inside.

  A maid took Harriet’s wrap in the foyer. They went into the ballroom, where a number of dancers, some with skill, danced to the music of the string quartet. Others mingled and chatted in line at the open bar.

  Harriet turned to Valentino. “Now that we’ve made our entrance, I have to leave you alone for a while.”

  “Not too long, I hope.”

  “There’s engineering involved. Next time, I wear the pants.”

  She stranded him among two or three dozen women dressed as Garbo in her various movie incarnations: disguised as a not-very-convincing young man in boots and jerkin from Queen Christina; hauntingly amnesiac in platinum-blonde hair and elegant evening wear from As You Desire Me; gung-ho Stalinist in severe suit and cloche hat from Ninotchka. A number of Camilles wisped about, perishing beautifully, and he counted no fewer than five Anna Christies and as many Mata Haris, although none as startling as Harriet Johansen wearing that outfit. He couldn’t believe he’d never noted the resemblance. Maybe he had, on some level, and that was what had compelled him to find out more about her.

  But he was satisfied that he hadn’t fallen for a phantom. Funny and outgoing, dedicated to her career but never letting it interfere with her social life, Harriet was as unlike that living sphinx as could be.

  When a waiter whose uniform was uncomfortably similar to his own offered him a tray loaded with stemware, Valentino thanked him and relieved him of two glasses of champagne, then retreated to a corner to observe his fellow guests from safe ground.

  There were fat Garbos, old Garbos, black Garbos, an Asian Garbo, and one or two Garbos wearing heavy powder over distinct five o’clock shadows. Their escorts looked only slightly less exotic. There was one very good Erich von Stroheim, several John Gilberts, and three Charles Boyers attempting to look Napoleonic in Conquest. Valentino didn’t spot any other Ramon Novarros, but the night was young and guests were still arriving. He’d have preferred to come as John Barrymore, but that would have been the wrong movie.

  The fancy-dress couples fluttered about, sipping from flutes and spilling champagne on the glittering parquet floor. The walls and columns were ornamented in a relentless Art Deco motif, with original and reproduced posters from Garbo’s most famous films and glossy black-and-white stills of that iconic face blown up ten times life size among the clamshells and stylized swans. The party had been planned to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the star’s birth.

  “Pardon me, old sport, but I think your britches are ringing.”

  A man bearing small resemblance to Clark Gable, but whose gravel-voiced impression was spot on, grinned and winked as he danced past in the arms of Garbo as Susan Lenox. Valentino realized then it was his cell he
was hearing and not one of the instruments playing on the bandstand. He set the champagne glasses on a cloth-covered table and took the phone from his pocket.

  “I have received your message,” Leo Kalishnikov said, in the broad Balkan accent he affected for customers. “What disaster has befallen?”

  Valentino turned away from the music and chatter and gave the contractor a quick summary of his conversation with the building inspector.

  “Ludicrous. We aren’t removing asbestos for two more weeks. What is this fellow’s name?”

  “Dwight Spink.”

  Kalishnikov said something in harsh Russian. “I know this man. He is a cossack. I’ll see that a man with the proper credentials is on the site Monday.”

  “What about sealing off the stairs to the projection booth?”

  “Nail a four-by-eight sheet of plywood over the entrance. You can manage this, yes?”

  “With help. I’m not exactly handy.”

  “I will apply to the zoning board for a variance so you can live on the premises. That takes time. You will have to make other arrangements meanwhile.”

  Valentino thanked him and flipped the phone shut. When he turned back to the dance floor, his host was approaching with a hand out.

  “Let me guess,” Matthew Rankin said. “Lieutenant Alexis Rosanoff.”

  Valentino grasped the hand. “On the nose. A dozen of these people might have identified the actor, but I doubt more than one or two could have named the character in the movie.”

  “I have Andrea to thank for that. She was a fan of Greta’s— G.G., she called her, all her friends did—for years before they connected, and continued to be one throughout her life. She dragged me to every revival theater showing her pictures on the West Coast. I sat through Flesh and the Devil nine times.” His throat worked. “They died the same day, you know.”

  Fifteen years had planed only a little of the pain from the widower’s tone. He was a trim, erect eighty in a beautifully cut tuxedo with flared 1930s lapels, white shirt, tie, and hair all of a piece and interrupted only by his aristocratic face with its carefully topped-off tan. He might have been an older version of the Melvyn Douglas who had played opposite Garbo three times.

  “Did you know Garbo well?”

  “I never met her. The friendship predated our marriage. They’d visit whenever Andrea made a buying trip to New York, and after Andrea retired they kept contact by mail. She burned the letters at Greta’s request, near the end. Some of her other so-called friends had begun to sell her letters at auction.”

  “Mrs. Rankin was a real friend. A single Garbo letter would bring a fortune on today’s market. I couldn’t begin to guess at the value of an entire correspondence.”

  Rankin’s brows carved a deep scowl line between them. “Ghouls. People will try to make a buck off anything these days. They aren’t content just to hound living celebrities into self-imposed house arrest to protect their privacy; now they’ve begun to prey on the dead ones as well.”

  Valentino, taken aback by the direction the conversation had taken, complimented him on the decor.

  Calming, Rankin replied that the photos and posters had come from his late wife’s collection. But his guest knew the reason for the tirade. A former chemist with a hefty interest in technology, Rankin had computerized the department-store chain he’d inherited from his father-in-law and expanded into Europe. His strong executive presence, in company with his aristocratic wife, had made them public figures, with all the unwelcome attention that entailed. Since Andrea’s death, Rankin had retreated into virtual seclusion, emerging only for such events as this, in respect for her memory and his own interest in film.

  Enter Valentino. On behalf of the UCLA Film Preservation Department, he’d been privileged to accept generous donations from Rankin to update equipment and acquire rare prints of motion pictures long considered lost. He’d responded with alacrity to the invitation to attend the Garbo party with a guest.

  His motives weren’t entirely social. He picked up one of the glasses and sipped champagne, considering his approach. “How did Mrs. Rankin and Garbo become friends? She withdrew from society a long time ago.”

  The millionaire recovered his good humor. “They met in one of Andrea’s father’s stores. My dear girl was working there to prepare herself for an executive position. Greta was a salesgirl, you know, in Sweden; made her debut, in fact, in a promotional film for the store, How Not to Dress.”

  “That footage has been missing for many years.”

  “Your avarice is showing, young man. Everyone in your line of work knows that Greta made her a present of her own print: one former department-store clerk to another. Why didn’t you just come out and ask me if I still have it?”

  Valentino shrank from the directness of the old man’s gaze. “I’m sorry. My cards say Film Detective; ‘Archivist’ makes people’s eyes glaze over and they don’t hear my pitch. Sometimes I get to believing my own publicity and try to be slick. I won’t bother you about it again.”

  Rankin was silent for a moment. Then he laughed boomingly, drawing curious glances from some of his milling guests. “I was paraphrasing Andrea’s father. If I’d asked him straight out for her hand, he’d have had me evicted from his house as a gold digger. I’ve waited fifty years to turn someone on the spit the way he did me that day, just before he agreed. UCLA’s in my will. You’ll have those reels by and by.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Rankin. You don’t know what that means.”

  “A second disc on the DVD rerelease of The Temptress, no doubt, and a lot of hyperventilating on the part of a select group of cinema geeks. Apathy apart from that. Adam Sandler fans have done in old movies as surely as mall rats did in the department store. Call Roger. He’ll arrange a screening.”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  “It’s been stored under ideal conditions. I think you’ll be pleased. I—Good Lord!”

  Valentino put out a hand to steady his host, whose face had gone dead white beneath the tan. He appeared to be having a seizure. Then he realized that Rankin was staring at something behind him.

  He turned. Harriet was approaching. The legendary head shot of Greta Garbo, full face, in the identical Mata Hari headdress, hung on the wall behind her; she seemed to be coming straight out of the frame. When Valentino turned back smiling, Rankin was no longer standing before him. He lay on the floor, pale and unconscious, with a crowd beginning to gather around him.

  **

  CHAPTER

  3

  VALENTINO ENVIED THE doctor.

  The man was dressed as John Barrymore, in a double-breasted Grand Hotel-style blazer with a coat of arms embroidered on the handkerchief pocket. His silver temples and pencil moustache were genuine, but someone who knew a good bit about prosthetics had altered his nose to resemble the straight prominent beak of the Great Profile. Beside him, the archivist in his fussy uniform felt like a sophomore in a high school play.

  He was alone in Rankin’s private study with Rankin, the doctor, and another male volunteer who had helped him carry the tycoon in from the ballroom and stretch him out on the leather sofa. By the time the doctor had his dress shirt open the patient had come around, but the doctor insisted on listening to his heart.

  He smiled, removing the stethoscope from his ears. “Just a faint, I’d say. You might try a looser collar next time you play dress-up.”

  Valentino was comforted, both by the diagnosis and by the way the lamp next to the sofa showed traces of Just for Men in the doctor’s moustache. His wife, who’d been with him in the ballroom, had looked big-boned and awkward in a ballerina’s frilly tutu—although no less so than Garbo in that costume. Fortunately, she’d worn more becoming outfits in most of her scenes.

  “It wasn’t the collar.” Rankin’s eyes sought Valentino’s. He looked every year of his age, and still a little disoriented. “Who on earth was that woman? I thought it was the guest of honor back from th
e grave.”

  “Harriet Johansen, my date. She doesn’t look that way most of the time. She’s a criminal expert with the LAPD. I’m very sorry she gave you a start.”

  “Make sure she’s still here when we give out the prize for Best Look-Alike. Phyllis won’t mind, will she, Ned? I’d hate to lose my personal physician over a social gaffe.”

  “She has a sense of humor. I told her she looked like one of the dancing hippos in Fantasia. I’m still standing, as you see.” The doctor latched his bag and rose from the sofa. “Just to be sure, why not schedule an appointment? We won’t have nearly as much fun dressing for your funeral.”