Alone

by Loren D. Estleman

  For the first time, however, progress was visible. Someone who knew his way around solvents had stripped the rescued Pegasus statue of its coat of many colors without apparent damage to the frail skin, and the mythical beast bore once again its close fraternal resemblance to the creature on the other side of the grand staircase. The brass rods intended to close the unacceptable gap between the original ballustrades had been delivered and lay in a glittering stack, half attired in the brown paper and tough plastic bands that had bound them. Painters had begun the meticulous business of dissolving and scraping layers of grime, pigeon filth, and cheap varnish from the frieze of fantastic characters from legend that continued around the base of the entablature that supported the coffered ceiling, and the coffers themselves were reclaiming their reddish copper sheen from the verdigris that had dulled them for fifty years. (Valentino reveled in the new vocabulary he’d acquired from listening closely to his contractor.)

  The Oracle displayed signs of emerging from the primordial muck, and its owner began to believe he might live to see the evolution through to the end.

  Unfortunately, Dwight Spink was no follower of Darwin.

  Valentino climbed carefully the short flight of spongey wooden steps to the stage where live acts had once been performed before the curtains parted behind them to expose the screen. His footsteps reverberated in the rafters, redolent with the smells of decaying wood, mildewed canvas, and old hemp drying and unraveling in the desert air. Suddenly, timbers groaned and a creature dropped with a thud to the stage, dusting its palms. It was Spink, shaped like a lightbulb, in his uniform of black polyester, streaked now with dust, wearing a construction helmet over his naked crown. He looked like Alice the Goon from Popeye and preambled his greeting with that ragged two-note cello stroke that never quite cleared his throat of its British bile.

  “Mold,” he said. “Black, and quite advanced. You’ll have to delay construction until it can be removed.”

  Valentino peered up into the flies. “It looks like tar from here. Every time the place changed hands it found the next level of poverty. Someone smeared on fresh tar to stop a leak and save the cost of repairing the roof.”

  “It’s mold. A severe respiratory hazard. It will void your insurance if you don’t bring in a licensed professional to neutralize it.”

  “Did you take a sample for analysis?”

  “No. I know mold when I see it.”

  “I think I’ll take a sample and have it examined.”

  “That’s your privilege. I’ve made my decision.”

  “I can appeal it.”

  “There is nothing to prevent you from submitting your case to the system, but the resolution will take months, and the authorities tend to find for the official who made the call in the first place. Meanwhile, construction is suspended.”

  “How much does mold removal cost?”

  “I can’t say. That isn’t my area.” The inspector cleared his throat. “I understand you’ve had the original pipe organ removed for restoration.”

  “I have. Does live music violate any of the zoning ordinances?”

  “Not the music itself, only the volume. Naturally, the question of whether the neighborhood peace is disturbed can only be answered when the owner of a local residence or business files a complaint. A crew would then be dispatched with equipment to measure decibel levels. Acceptable amounts are lowered exponentially during evening hours, when I assume the theater will be drawing much of its audience. Should the noise level exceed the minimum, a court order may be issued demanding the offending instrument be made to conform or be silenced.”

  “I’m sure the musician can be persuaded to comply. But is that even a matter for a building inspector to consider?”

  “Not directly. However, I’m concerned about cracks in the foundation. As things stand they can be repaired, but repeated vibration from the organ, compounded by the inevitability of shifting in the tectonic plates beneath the City of Los Angeles— You’re aware of this phenomenon?”

  “Earthquakes,” Valentino said.

  “Just so. The combination could over time compromise the integrity of the infrastructure, in which case condemnation would almost certainly follow. That decision would depend to a great degree upon the inspector’s notes made during construction.”

  “I’ve put down a deposit on the organ project. If I thought it would be no more than a prop, I’d have left it inoperable. These are more than just serious financial considerations, Mr. Spink. We’re discussing my ruination.”

  “Safety demands a high price, Mr. Valentino.” The inspector took off his hard hat, dabbed with a handkerchief at his scalp, which looked as dry as papyrus, and replaced the helmet. “I should point out that these are worst-case scenarios, which can be prevented at a cost within your budget, if they’re implemented early enough. A stitch in time.”

  The lunch hour was over. A power saw was whining in the lobby and someone was hammering on a sheet of tin, but the noise receded from Valentino’s notice. “What are you suggesting?

  “A favorable report from my office at this point in the construction would repel any suspicions farther down the line. I’m a reasonable man, whatever else you may think of me.”

  “How reasonable?”

  The cello scraped in Spink’s throat once, twice. He glanced around, leaned close, went up on the balls of his feet, and whispered hoarsely in Valentino’s ear.

  Valentino felt himself pale. “That’s a substantial amount. What guarantee can you give me our agreement will be honored?”

  “Well, I’m sure you understand the inconvenience of giving you a receipt. Upon delivery—of your assurances that the concerns I’ve mentioned will be addressed to my satisfaction—I will issue you a certificate of completion of inspection, approving all the work conducted on this site.” He held up a dusty finger. “There is one caveat: that you show it to no one until the building is ready for public occupancy. I will in the meantime make periodic visits, but they will be for appearances only, to be recorded in the log I submit to my superiors in the department. You’ll be in possession of the document you require in order to open your doors.”

  “When do you wish these assurances?”

  Spink consulted his Timex, as if it contained all the details of his schedule. “Nine o’clock Monday morning. The official purpose of my visit will be to ascertain that the mold issue has been resolved. You understand I have to file a report on today’s discovery, to justify the return visit on Monday.”

  “I’m meeting with the university administration then, to discuss the department budget. I can’t miss it. Can we reschedule?”

  “I’m inspecting an industrial park that’s going up in the Valley all this week, and most of next week an entertainment arcade in Pasadena; it has serious problems. The Oracle’s on the way, that’s why I could squeeze it in. We’re looking at a week from Friday otherwise, at the earliest.”

  “With construction stopped all that time.”

  “Yes.”

  Valentino exhaled. “I’ll make other arrangements for the meeting. Nine o’clock Monday morning.”

  The inspector smiled, exposing his rickrack bottom teeth. “I knew you for a rational man the moment I set eyes upon you.” He held out his hand.

  Valentino clenched his throat and took it.

  **

  The next day, Smith Oldfield in the UCLA legal department called him at his office. A former corporate attorney now semi-retired to a consultancy, the sexagenarian was avuncular and sly, in voice and appearance as deceptively harmless as an exploding cigar.

  “I’ve been on the phone all morning with representatives of Kirk Kerkorian,” he said. “I’m sure you know who he is.”

  “General Motors, Daimler-Chrysler, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Something tells me you didn’t discuss cars.”

  “MGM’s subsidiary branch is interested in issuing a two-disc DVD of a pair of Greta Garbo films previously unreleas
ed in that format, with a short feature called How Not to Dress included among the extras. I understand we own that property, thanks to you.”

  “How Not to Dress, yes. What are the others?”

  Paper rattled on Oldfield’s end. “Love and Two-Faced Woman. You’re familiar with them?”

  Valentino felt his nose wrinkling. “Anna Karenina with a happy ending, and a dumb comedy that ended her career. They’re scraping bottom. How did they find out we have How Not to Dress so quickly? The ink’s still wet on the catalogue entry.”

  “Kerkorian seems to have taken a special interest, and he is Kirk Kerkorian. Apparently Garbo continues to cast her spell from beyond the grave, with additional support from recent developments. In any case his people have made a generous offer for reproduction and distribution rights.”

  “They already own title to the others. How much will go to the Film Preservation Department?”

  “A portion, you can be certain.” The lawyer hastened on. “The reason I called you instead of the head of your department is they’re asking you to audition to record the commentary for How Not to Dress.”

  He laughed. “For God’s sake why? I’m not famous and I’m not a professional announcer.”

  “As to the second point, that’s why they want to audition you. As to the first, your face appeared on every local TV station and newspaper front page throughout the shooting affair, plus three seconds on CNN, which is more than the president got that day. In the absence of in-focus footage of Matthew Rankin prior to his arraignment, you were the celebrity of the hour, inextricably attached to the story.”

  “Hour is right. The parking attendant here on campus still doesn’t recognize me.”

  “These are entertainment people. Face time is face time. Are you interested? The honorarium is rather substantial for an amateur.”

  “Substantial as in how many zeroes?”

  Oldfield told him the amount. It wouldn’t begin to pay for improvements and delays inflicted by Dwight Spink, let alone the inspector’s bribe; but Valentino was in no position to decline remuneration of any kind. “Tell them I’m interested, if I can get in a plug for the department.”

  “I was confident you would be, although I was a bit concerned you might have developed a phobia involving microphones.”

  Valentino wasn’t surprised the story had spread throughout the campus. L.A. was a small town for all its sprawl, and the university was smaller still. The attorney spoke again before he could offer this piece of stale wisdom.

  “I’ll apprise Henry Anklemire of this situation. I’m sure he’ll want to exploit it.”

  “Tell him there’s no hurry.” He hadn’t considered the fact that any outside attention brought the eager little Information Services flack charging from cover. Although he had more patience with Anklemire than anyone else on staff—particularly Kyle Broadhead, who crossed against traffic whenever he saw him approaching—Valentino had never been able to spend even five minutes with him without feeling as if he’d gone ten rounds with a boxing kangaroo. On steroids.

  There was little more work to be done that day, but he managed to stretch it into evening, when it was still too early to go back to the drab little room he’d booked at a residential hotel on Ventura. Harriet was working, and now that Broadhead had become determined to contribute to society, he was either away from his office immersed in mysterious research or not much company at all when he was available. Selfishly, Valentino missed the crusty but amiable dilettante devoted solely to the task of taking up tenured space until someone in Human Resources discovered how far he was past the age of mandatory retirement. The archivist found himself resenting Fanta for awakening his friend to his crepuscular potential.

  He excavated that day’s Variety from the wreckage that littered his desk and opened it to a filler piece informing him that a female impersonator working a popular club on Sunset had jettisoned all his other celebrity impressions in order to center his act around Greta Garbo. Garbo Speaks had sped to the top of the bill, and jaded Angelinos were amused to observe long lines of sophisticates, punks, and androgynous patrons in evening gowns, picture hats, and blue-smudged chins strung around the block waiting to get in. A postage stamp-size publicity mug of the ersatz G.G. showed a flattish face and heavily mascaraed eyes set as wide as a Pekingese dog’s, more Susan Sarandon than Swedish Sphinx.

  He flung aside the newspaper. Okay, so Law & Order wasn’t rock bottom; surely this was. But deep down he knew that while the sky was the limit, the earth was not, and that there were depths yet to be sounded, that only God’s poor clay could reach. Mae West, that anti-Garbo, would have loved it, even worked it into her Vegas act, in which she’d slunk, in her sixties, sequined from her celebrated bust to the platform soles that put the lie to her petite sixty inches of relentless pulchritude, on the arms of half a dozen Mr. Universe wannabes in loincloths and body oil.

  “I want to be let alone,” Garbo had said offscreen; not, as her character in Grand Hotel had said, “I want to be alone.” The difference was tangible. She had been no hermit in her later days, but rather a low-profile jet-setter who’d divided her time between her luxury flat in Manhattan, her favorite Paris haunts, and her beloved Sweden, socializing with her small circle of loyal friends, shopping for unique objets d’art in high-end antiques stores and open-air flea markets, wrapped in capes and floppy hats that cast her famous features in shadow, and sitting on the floor in her living room with great sheets of butcher paper designing rugs for the use of her friends and herself. She had not been Gloria Swanson’s Norma Desmond, festering away in her musty mansion, planning a comeback that would never come and autographing ancient publicity photos for nonexistent fans; fabulous offers had streamed in incessantly throughout middle and old age, and she had ignored them. It had been the unexpected, guilty pleasure of handfuls of New Yorkers and tourists to have experienced headwaiters point her out on the street. A young man, finding himself in an elevator with the legend, had made so bold as to ask her the time of day. He’d dined out for years on her reply: “You look to me like a young man who could afford a watch. I suggest you buy one.” Garbo actually spoke to me!

  She had spent her declining years in comfort: Her early real-estate investments in Beverly Hills, when acres were available for pennies on the dollar, had put her in possession of most of Rodeo Drive, where she had been Gucci’s landlady. But all the money on earth could not separate her from her past. She had died just in time, on the edge of an era that would witness marauding paparazzi hounding Princess Di literally to her death, subject the royal to indignity beyond her grave with tattletale memoirs and profitable interviews granted by her trusted butler and even her own brother, who would charge tourists for admission to her final resting place. Legions of stalkers—would-be rapists and murderers—would make living hells of the lives of John Lennon, George Harrison, even actors in forgettable TV sitcoms. Their own popularity had made prisoners of Elvis, the troubled and haunted Michael Jackson, and Hollywood’s A-list, cooped up in their bulletproof palaces with security goons and savage dogs patrolling the walled perimeters with the insatiable media clawing at the gates, helicopters turning their private airspace into a scene from Apocalypse Now. Garbo had died in the fullness of her years and fame, and not a moment too soon.

  Desperate for distraction, Valentino took a remote control from a drawer—shoving aside the brochure for Midnite Magic Theater Systems’ new spy toy, the latest assault on personal privacy—and switched on the thirteen-inch TV/VCR combo he now used almost exclusively to see what was on the air.

  It was a mistake. He caught Entertainment Tonight in the middle of its opening fanfare, with its collage of overexposed faces, breathless hyperbole, and Not Ready for Family Hour subject matter, followed by Mary Hart’s red-carpet headline splash:

  “ET exposes the GARBO HOAX!” (Cue graphics.) “We bring you the exclusive details behind the STUNNING police announcement that the infamous GARBO LETTER is a
FAKE!”

  At last, Valentino thought; but too late. Just late enough to inject insulin into a story that should never have been told to begin with.

  **