Alone

by Loren D. Estleman

  Rankin assured him he would. The doctor left, followed by the man who’d helped Valentino carry in Rankin. He wore a tight morning coat over a waistcoat and checked trousers and had wound a silk stock around his neck in a fair approximation of Robert Taylor’s costume in Camilla. Valentino had considered the man’s tall, wistful escort Harriet’s only serious competitor for the prize.

  Roger Akers, Rankin’s personal assistant, entered moments later. He was a lean, high-shouldered, narrow-faced man of forty, a tightly wrapped, nervous type whom the archivist had dealt with occasionally in his exchanges with his employer. The man went straight to the sofa without a glance toward the archivist.

  “I came as soon as I heard,” Akers said.

  “I’m sure you did. Did you finish those letters?” The old man sat up and buttoned his shirt. He hadn’t completely recovered from his shock; his fingers slipped on the gold studs.

  “Of course not. They said you’d collapsed.”

  “Well, I didn’t die, so you’re still employed. Help yourself to a drink, since you’re here, but I expect those letters here on my desk in the morning.”

  “You know I don’t drink. Have I ever failed to finish an assignment?”

  “You’ve never been one to overlook a detail—or an opportunity. Now, please leave. I’ve something to discuss with this gentleman.”

  Spots of color the size of quarters glowed high on Akers’ otherwise sallow cheeks, but he turned and left without comment. Thirties dance music drifted in from the ballroom, sealed off by the closing of the door.

  “That was fairly unpleasant,” Valentino said.

  Rankin stood and refastened his tie before an antique mirror. Heavy vintage furniture anchored the room, lightened slightly by a computer with a plasma screen glowing on the massive carved desk. “His concern for my health was real. If I die, that man will have to live on an assistant’s salary.”

  Although his curiosity was aroused, Valentino conquered the urge to pry into his host’s affairs. He himself had formed an instant antipathy toward Akers. There was something of Uriah Heep in his demeanor; he only acknowledged Valentino’s presence when there was business to conduct, and his attitude toward Rankin veered between toadying and contempt. Why he kept the man on was a mystery.

  Rankin made no effort to dispel it. “Your stunning date,” he said, fussing with the bow. “Did you say she’s a police officer?”

  “Not technically. She’s a forensics technician. She collects and analyzes evidence, but she doesn’t arrest or interrogate people, like on TV. Those things are someone else’s specialty. She doesn’t have a badge and isn’t allowed to carry a gun.”

  “Nevertheless I assume she’s required to report unlawful activity.”

  “Well, we all are, strictly speaking. But her career depends on it.” Now he was keen. The atmosphere in the room had changed drastically since the assistant had come and gone.

  The tycoon adjusted his cuffs, tugged at his lapels, and smoothed the snowy hair at his temples with the heels of his hands. There were now no signs of earlier disturbance. “Are you free tomorrow morning?”

  A memory flashed through his mind of his contractor’s advice to erect a sheet of plywood across the entrance to the nonconforming stairs in The Oracle.

  “Yes. I’m off Saturdays.”

  “Can you come back here at ten, without Miss Johansen, and without telling her of the appointment? I don’t want to place you in the position of having to duck awkward questions.”

  Valentino hesitated. “Something tells me this has nothing to do with my job description.”

  “It can, if you agree to my terms. You pose as a detective, which suggests to me you have a talent for investigation. I know you’ve been instrumental in bringing many lost films to light. How would you like to exercise your gift and incidentally add Greta Garbo’s first appearance on screen to that list? Immediately, I mean. Not after I expire and my will finishes crawling through probate.”

  “I like the part about getting How Not to Dress for UCLA. The other part sounds illegal.”

  “I want to dig up something on Roger Akers. Something embarrassing, preferably criminal, but certainly of an intimidating nature.”

  “That is illegal.”

  “Only if you break the law to obtain it. What use I make of it isn’t your concern.”

  “It is if there’s blackmail involved. That makes me an accessory.”

  Rankin’s smile was chilly; he was now Melvyn Douglas to the life. “There was only one blackmailer in this room, and he’s left. I intend to use the information to stop him before he cleans me out and leaves nothing for my heirs.”

  **

  “You’re awfully quiet,” Harriet said. “Are you upset that that fella in the Lord Fauntleroy getup beat you out for Best Leading Man Look-Alike?”

  “Robert Taylor,” Valentino corrected. “Armand Duval, to be precise, and the answer is no. His Camille had me worried for a while, but obviously I had nothing to fret about.”

  They were at her door. She lifted her prize—a nearly priceless period majollica vase fashioned into a full-length likeness of the actress—admired it, then lowered it to fix him with her Mata Hari-like gaze, fully primed to wring secrets from the unwary masculine gender.

  “If he wants to adopt you, don’t let him. What would you do with a string of department stores in this day and age?”

  “He’s kept his going a decade longer than most. Anyway, my birth parents might object.”

  He had, of course, told her of their planned meeting, but had said nothing of the sinister terms. There was no sense in upsetting her, since he had no intention of conducting what amounted to an illicit private investigation into a stranger’s sordid past. But he had a movie buff’s desire to see what happened next. Matthew Rankin, the wily old CEO, had anticipated that.

  “Why the cloak-and-dagger? I thought our relationship was past the point where we kept secrets from each other.”

  “It’s university business, and a long way from a sure thing. I don’t want to jinx it.”

  “Banana oil. Is that something G.G. might say?”

  “By all accounts it would be saltier than that.” But he weakened before the silence of the sphinx. “You know I’ve been obsessed with that earliest Garbo footage for years. He’s invited me to a screening.” Which wasn’t a lie.

  “Has this something to do with what happened tonight?”

  “I think so. He’s eighty, after all. It may have come home to him that he doesn’t have much time to arrange his affairs. Where are you going to put your vase?”

  “You’ll find out the next time you try to change the subject.” Her eyes matched the pair in cold ceramic.

  “I’m sworn to secrecy.”

  “About a screening? What is it, a skin flick?”

  “A porno film starring Greta Garbo would be the find of the century, but I’d never show it in public for the same reasons I’m not going to betray Mr. Rankin’s confidence. Some things should be kept private.”

  “Starting now.” She went inside and pushed the door in his face.

  **

  He spent what would be his last night in The Oracle for a while, listening to the nearly human moans and sighs of an old building settling on its timbers. Exhaustion got the better of his thoughts sometime before sunrise. He awoke with the room full of dusty light. He wanted to call Harriet, but there was barely time to shower and shave at the YMCA, put on the California uniform of sport coat, T-shirt, jeans, and running shoes, and still make his meeting in Beverly Hills.

  The mansion wore a grim aspect under a heavy slice of late-morning smog. The housekeeper left him in a front parlor while she went to see if her master would receive him. It was a pleasant room, done in shades of cream and yellow, with a portrait above the fireplace of Garbo in late life, expertly rendered in pastels; a gift, most likely, from G.G. to her friend, Andrea Rankin. The hair was gray, the face lined,
but the expression was more peaceful than in any other likeness Valentino had seen.

  It cheered him, as did the setting, and he could scarcely bring himself to believe that he had come there on a mission he could only regard as immoral. True, Roger Akers wore an air of malignancy that wasn’t out of place for an extortionist, but if that was the case, what could he possibly have on a man as eminently respectable as Matthew Rankin that would move his victim to respond in kind?

  He was pacing the room, following this train of thought, when a chandelier-rattling scream stopped him in mid-step.

  He opened the door to the hallway just as the housekeeper came running down it, waving her arms as if to clear her path of obstacles. He stepped in front of her; they almost collided, but she stopped and stared up at him with her mouth working. She was an Asian of about fifty and her hands were coarse, but her features were fine and of a noble caste; he suspected she was one of the many who had come West in their youth bent on stardom, only to settle in the end for a steady job and a living wage.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He dead.” Her voice was strained. The scream had cracked it.

  “Mr. Rankin? Are you sure? Did you call nine-one-one?”

  “No Mr. Rankin. Mr. Akers.”

  **

  CHAPTER

  4

  “IS HE DEAD?”

  Valentino looked at the speaker. Matthew Rankin stood on the other side of the great carved desk in the study. The squat revolver smoking in his right hand clashed with his conservative gray suit.

  It was, perhaps, the first foolish question the department-store mogul had ever asked. His assistant, Roger Akers, lay on his back in front of the desk, spread-eagled, as if he’d been flattened by a sudden gale. The front of his suit coat was stained dark and a stain of the same color was spreading around him on the Persian rug. His eyes were open and glassy.

  “He was a maniac,” Rankin said. “He came at me with that.”

  He pointed at a green marble bust lying against a leg of the desk near Akers’ foot. It appeared to be a naturalistic representation of Garbo at the height of her beauty. An empty wooden pedestal stood beside the door. Valentino had not noticed either the night before, but he’d been too preoccupied with the fainting and its aftermath to inventory the contents of the room.

  The door stood open. The voice of the housekeeper, lapsing in and out of her native tongue as she jabbered to an emergency operator over a telephone, was distracting. Valentino closed the door and the room was silent.

  Rankin looked down at his hand, seemed to realize for the first time he was holding a gun, and dropped it on his desk with a clunk. Valentino knelt then and searched for Akers’ pulse, mainly for his host’s benefit. He had none, although his wrist was still warm. The stench of spent powder burned Valentino’s nostrils. He stood, shaking his head.

  Fortunately, Rankin’s big swivel chair was behind him, because his knees gave out then and he dropped into it. His face was ashen beneath the tan. “He wanted more money to keep quiet. I refused. He threatened to go public with what he knew. I told him to go ahead. You see, I was confident you’d come through for me and we’d stalemate him.

  “He went into a rage. I tell you, I’ve seen men ruined, but I’ve never seen one react with such violence. I’ve kept this gun in the drawer for years, for my protection. I don’t even remember picking it up. He scooped up that bust and raised it above his head and I knew he meant to split open my skull with it.”

  Valentino studied the dead man’s face. It was twisted with anger or surprise.

  “Whatever he was using to blackmail you, it will have to come out now. It might work in your defense. What was it?”

  The desk’s top drawer was open; presumably, it was the one that had contained the revolver. Rankin nodded—a purely mechanical operation, disengaged from rational thought—and rummaged through its contents with shaking hands. At last he drew in a deep breath, let it out raggedly, and laid a sheet of paper on the desk.

  Valentino had to step over the corpse to retrieve it. A shudder racked him as he did so.

  It was a handwritten letter reproduced on ordinary copy paper. There was no date or signature and the text was written in a foreign language. He’d never seen Swedish, but he knew in a flash that was what it was. “Liebe Andrea,” read the salutation.

  “Someone I knew dropped a bundle at Christie’s on a rare Garbo inscription,” he said. “It looks like the same writing. Is this a letter to your wife?”

  “Can you read it?”

  “A word here and there, from my high school German, which is related, but I’ve forgotten most of what I learned. There appear to be some tender sentiments here.”

  “Andrea’s mother was Swedish. They spoke in that language when they didn’t want anyone eavesdropping; it was another bond between Andrea and Greta. I picked up a little over the years, by osmosis.” He drew another rattling breath. “It’s a love letter.”

  **

  Valentino chose his words carefully, but there was no way to ask the question without intruding. It was a grotesque enough conversation without the presence of a corpse. “Did they have a sexual relationship?”

  “Not that I ever suspected, but the letter’s explicit. Aren’t you shocked?”

  “Hardly, this late in the day. And lesbian rumors hounded Garbo her whole life. She didn’t conform to the demure image most people associated with femininity when she was young, and sometimes she was seen wearing slacks in public. Even her most conscientious biographers haven’t been able to track down any hard evidence. This would be—persuasive.” He’d almost said a smoking gun. “How did Akers get hold of it?”

  “Snooping, how else? He must have found it somewhere in the house. It had to have meant a lot to Andrea or she’d have burned it with the others. She wasn’t the type to overlook things. He gave me this copy: a souvenir, he said. I never saw the original. I assume he kept it in a safe place.”

  “We’re enlightened now. It wouldn’t be that big a scandal.”

  “It would be insufferable. My wife was a very private woman, much like Greta. If this had gotten out when she was alive, it would have killed her. I’m betraying her memory just by showing you the letter.” He sat up straight, the executive in charge for the first time since Valentino had come into the room. “Give it back. I’m going to destroy it.”

  Valentino drew the letter out of his reach. “If you did, you would stand trial for murder. It’s hard to make a case for self-defense without establishing a motive for mayhem on the part of the deceased.”

  “I don’t care about myself.” Rankin laid a hand on the revolver. “Give it back, I said.”

  “You won’t shoot me.”

  “I shot Roger.”

  “He was threatening you with a blunt instrument. All I have is a piece of paper. Anyway, it wouldn’t do any good. The police are bound to find the original when they go through Akers’ personal effects.”

  The stony facade cracked. The old man sat back, his face drained of color and life. As the first siren came within earshot, Valentino reached out and nudged the revolver to the far corner of the desk from Rankin.

  **

  Valentino’s only personal contact with the Beverly Hills Police Department had been to ask directions of an officer seated behind the wheel of a squad car. That encounter, and some movies he’d seen, had not prepared him for the detective lieutenant who arrived at Matthew Rankin’s house behind the uniformed police.

  Beverly Hills cops were polite. Ray Padilla had the manners of a derelict working Hollywood and Vine.

  Beverly Hills cops went by the book. Ray Padilla had never read a book in his life.

  Beverly Hills cops knew how to wear Armani and which gold clip went with which hundred-dollar tie. Ray Padilla wore pumpkin-colored polyester and a green bowling shirt.

  The man was cast against type.

  “Valentino, huh?” He made marks in a spir
al pad with a ballpoint pen with advertising on it.

  The archivist braced himself, but Padilla didn’t comment on the name. He needed a haircut, and the dead cigarette clamped between his teeth managed to observe the department’s on-duty smoking ban while violating its spirit. When he removed it, which was only to replace it with a fresh one from a pack of Kools, the filter tip looked as if a hamster had been at it.

  They were standing in the front parlor, which had lost much of its charm in the presence of a detective from Homicide. Others in his team were interviewing Rankin in a spare bedroom and the housekeeper in the kitchen, and technicians were at work in the study lifting prints and measuring blood patterns. The morgue crew waited in the foyer for the medical examiner to finish inspecting the body before they could remove it.