by David Khalaf
The doorbell rang at half past ten, and Paulette threw down her issue of Hollywood Screen Life to answer it. Her mood brightened considerably: Chaplin had sent a courier to deliver the latest line of dresses from Bullock’s.
Paulette plopped down on the living room carpet, unboxing outfits like her own personal Christmas morning. Gray realized Chaplin may have given him an unintended gift as well: a way out.
“I could help you, if you like,” Gray said.
“You?” she said. “What would you know about dresses?”
“I like dames, and dames wear dresses.”
She sniffed at that idea.
“I’ll make you drinks while you get decked out,” Gray said. “I can make a Sidecar, a Bloody Mary, even a Grasshopper.”
Paulette looked at him as if he had made an indecent proposal.
“It’s not even noon,” she said.
Gray shrugged.
That never stopped Farrell.
Paulette scooped up her dresses and headed upstairs.
“Go to the study and find a dictionary to read.”
Gray needed to get out of the house without Paulette knowing; he had promised Chaplin he wouldn’t leave. In the study, Gray found Chaplin’s address book. He flipped through the pages and placed a call to Panchito.
“Bueno,” Panchito said on the other end of the line.
“Chito? It’s Gray.”
“You shoulda seen what I did yesterday!” Panchito said. “I blew these two pachucos right out of the restaurant!”
“I need you to call me at Mr. Chaplin’s house.”
“Why?”
“I need to distract Paulette.”
“Where are you going?” Panchito asked. “Tell me. I want to go.”
“Sorry, pally, this is my gig.”
“Then no dice, pally.”
Gray tried to think of someone else he could call. Anyone. But there wasn’t a single person.
“Fine,” Gray said. “Call me back and I’ll tell you.”
They hung up, and two minutes later the phone began to buzz. Gray let it ring three or four times before picking it up.
“The observatory in an hour,” he said, then hung up.
There was a soft pattering from above, which grew louder as Paulette scurried down the stairs. She appeared in the door of the study, draped in a new dress and holding another.
“Did you answer that? Who was it?”
“Some guy wanted to talk to you,” Gray said. “Luis Moyer?”
“Louis Mayer?”
“Yeah, that’s the one,” Gray said. “He wanted to meet with you right away. I told him you was busy.”
“Busy?”
“Don’t you remember? You’re babysitting. And I’m the baby.”
Paulette tugged at her hair on the sides. She bit her fingernails. She did everything but gouge her own eyes out.
“It’s a role,” she said. “I know it! He has a role picked out just for me. I’ve got to get down to MGM. I’ve got to get dressed.”
She looked down her outfit.
“I have nothing to wear!”
She bounded up the stairs like the bunny she was.
Go where you can walk among the stars.
Gray stood outside Griffith Observatory, overlooking the city. Unlike Beverly Hills, with its fortress-style shrubs that selfishly hid the view, Griffith Park offered its city panorama generously.
To the east, City Hall towered over the smaller buildings of Downtown like a watchful brother. Far out to the west, big gray clouds were forming over a hazy strip of ocean. It looked as if the spell of December heat would soon be over.
“Sorry to spoil your Ovaltine, but it’s not up here.”
Panchito was lining up rocks of increasing size on the cement balcony.
They had already walked through the observatory, inspecting the Foucault pendulum, the Tesla coil, and a map of the solar system. Nothing had caught Gray’s eye. Had his mother hidden it somewhere in one of the exhibits?
“It’s gotta be here.”
“This location makes no sense,” Panchito said. “If Mrs. Pickford had hidden the Eye here, she’d have to drive across town to get it every time she wanted to use it.”
He used his courage to thrust a small stone over the ledge onto the hillside below.
“I threw the guy across the alley,” Panchito said. “Like twenty feet in the air!”
“Mm.”
In the center of the grounds leading up to the observatory was a monument about thirty feet tall, a white pillar with life-sized statues carved around the base. Gray approached the structure. The names of the people were carved at the feet of each figure in the monument.
“They’re all astronomers or something,” Gray said, looking up at nameplates by their feet. “Hipparchus, Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and…”
He pointed to a carving of a man with long hair and a small nose.
“Isaac Newton!”
Gray began climbing up onto the monument, looking in the nooks and crannies of the carving of Newton.
Panchito thrust the largest stone over the edge and walked over.
“Listen to me,” Panchito said. “The observatory has only been open four years. Mrs. Pickford has had the Eye a lot longer than that. Why don’t you just tell me the clue you have so I can help?”
Gray ignored him and continued to search around the monument. There was nothing he could find; no hidden compartment, no box stuffed into a hidden corner.
“Fine,” Panchito said. “Obviously you don’t need my help. You don’t need anyone’s help.”
It had to be there. If it wasn’t, Gray was at a complete loss of where else to look. He would fail Pickford, and let down Chaplin and Fairbanks.
Above the statues, the monument was smooth cement that tapered to a point. At the top was a copper sphere, with rings around it like Jupiter. The sphere looked like it could be hollow.
“I do need your help,” Gray said.
“Really? How?”
Gray pointed to the top of the monument.
“I need you to push me up there.”
Panchito kicked the grass.
“I told you it’s not here!”
“So you can’t do it then?” Gray asked. “Because you was just bragging about it a minute ago.”
“I can do it,” Panchito said.
Gray was already five feet up the monument, so Panchito gave in and crouched below him.
“Do you need to be afraid of something?” Gray asked.
“Your big head falling on me should be fear enough.”
Panchito held out his hands and focused. Gray felt himself thrust skyward, as if launched by a catapult. He overshot the copper sphere and was headed upward toward nothing. His momentum slowed until he felt a split second of weightlessness.
“Chito!”
Just as quickly, he was plummeting back toward the Earth. He grasped at the sphere on the way down and caught it with one hand. It stopped him only momentarily before he felt it snap off the top of the monument.
Gray was plummeting toward the ground when time suddenly seemed to slow. It was as if he were falling in slow motion. He cocked his head to the side and looked down. He was falling in slow motion. Panchito was below him, lowering him in a controlled manner. In the last couple of feet, Panchito slipped out of the way and let him fall onto the grass.
“Thanks,” Gray said.
He sat up and, after catching his breath, looked at the sphere he was still clutching. It was solid cement, plated with copper. There was no way the Eye could be hidden in it.
“You happy?” Panchito said. “I told you.”
Gray sat back against the monument. He had no idea where to go next. How many more days would pass with Pickford in captivity until he could figure it out—if he could figure it out at all? A private detective worked alone, but he couldn’t solve this by himself. He had to ask for help.
“Go where you can walk among the stars,” Gra
y said.
“What?” Panchito asked.
“That’s what Mrs. Pickford told me, right before she was captured.”
Panchito bit at his nails a moment. His mouth scrunched to one side. Suddenly, his face bloomed into realization.
“I know!”
He looked around until he saw a pair of tourists facing away from them, taking a photo of the view. The woman had left her bag on a bench nearby. Panchito bounded over to it and snagged a folded paper sticking out. He ran back.
“You should have known this in a second,” Panchito said. “You’ve seen it often enough.”
He showed Gray the paper. It was one of the Hollywood Starland maps. Panchito unfolded it and pointed to a building at the center of the map. It was Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the place where celebrities left their handprints and shoe prints in cement.
“Where else can you walk among the stars?” Panchito asked.
Gray looked at the building. He knew then why the building in the photo he had seen in Pickford’s library looked so familiar. It hadn’t been taken in China. The answer had been in his pocket the entire time.
“You’re right,” Gray said. “We’re searching in the wrong place.”
An hour later they were standing on the sidewalk outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, wooden sawhorses blocking their way in. A crew was scurrying around, setting up for the Hollywood premiere of Gone With the Wind. There were velvet ropes to set up and red carpets to roll out. Bleachers to build and spotlights to position. An army of men was setting up a tent over the walkway in the event of rain.
A small-framed man with frizzy gray hair and a boater hat was directing the action as if he were the conductor at an orchestra. Gray recognized him from the photo in Pickford’s library.
“That’s Sid Grauman,” Panchito said. “He runs the theater and is partial owner.”
“Who else owns it?”
“Mrs. Pickford and Mr. Fairbanks are both investors. They’ve gotten me in for free before.”
Gray felt an energy coming from the building that was difficult to describe.
“It’s in there, I’m sure.”
“Told you I could help,” Panchito said.
They started to duck under the barriers but were promptly stopped by Grauman.
“Sorry fellas, the theater is closed for the next few days. Private event tomorrow night. Big movie. Lots of VIPs. ”
“We gotta get in, sir,” Gray said. “I’m Mary Pickford’s…biggest fan.”
Grauman winked.
“She’s a classic, isn’t she? You know, this whole courtyard was her idea. When this place was being built, I was showing her around and stepped in some wet concrete. I started to get someone to clean it up, but Mary had an idea. She stepped into the concrete too and put her hands in it. That’s how the tradition of the celebrity footprints started.”
“Can’t we see inside?” Panchito said. “Just for a moment?”
“Sorry, we’ve got heavy equipment all over the place. It’s a safety hazard. Come by next week. Oh!”
Grauman ran off to help a worker struggling to hold a crate of champagne.
“There’s security everywhere,” Panchito said. “We can’t wait until next week.”
Gray watched as a giant red carpet was unloaded off the back of a truck.
“I don’t think we’ll have to.”
CHAPTER
T WENTY-SIX
DARKO ATLAS STROLLED through the orange grove with his companion, their path dappled with golden rays of late-afternoon sun. It was an altogether pleasant walk, for Atlas if not his captive.
“How did you find us?” Atlas asked.
Douglas Fairbanks breathed in the fragrance of orange blossoms, which trees were still producing this late into the year. He tried to ignore Sugar’s knife pressing into the side of his throat.
“I simply inquired into your whereabouts,” Fairbanks said. “It’s all a matter of asking nicely. Is this really necessary?”
He gingerly touched the blade against his neck. Sugar stood behind him with plugs in her ears. Atlas had given her instructions to slit the actor’s throat at the slightest sign of trouble. He had heard rumors of what Fairbanks could do.
“Those men were well paid for their discretion,” Atlas said.
“What’s discretion in the midst of a friendly face? A warm demeanor? A heartfelt plea for help?”
There was no way Fairbanks could have happened upon their clearing in the middle of hundreds of acres of citrus trees. It would have taken at least three men to betray his trust for this visitor to find the way.
They couldn’t help it.
Dead men, nonetheless.
Up ahead was a rusted red pickup truck, its bed half full of rotting oranges. A black cloud of flies was buzzing around it.
“You’re very good, Mr. Fairbanks,” Atlas said. “Perhaps you could indulge me with a demonstration? Within reason, of course.”
“Of course,” Fairbanks said, looking around. “That rust bucket over there. If you’d be so kind, Mr. Atlas, would you pick it up for me?”
The words took on a musical quality. Atlas felt them ringing in his ears and a fog took over his mind. It wasn’t that he felt compelled do the actor’s bidding; it’s that he wanted to.
Atlas walked over to the truck, lifted the back half off the ground, then got under it and hoisted the entire vehicle over his head.
“What are you doing?” Sugar asked. She pressed the knife into Fairbanks’s throat.
“That will do, Mr. Atlas,” he choked out quickly. “You may set it down.”
Atlas threw the truck down in front of him and it rolled toward Fairbanks and Sugar. It landed upside down, and the front door popped open. A corpse fell out at Fairbanks’s feet, a man whose throat was slit halfway through to the back. Atlas remembered Sugar mentioning an uncooperative farmer she had encountered.
Fairbanks kept the same smug expression on his face, even as he stepped casually away from the body.
“Thank you, Mr. Atlas. That’s all.”
The fog lifted. Sugar eased her grip. Atlas stared at the truck.
“You have a way with words.”
“What is charisma but an ability to inspire others to bend to your will?”
Atlas turned and led them back toward the camp.
“You charmed your way in, Mr. Fairbanks. Now let’s see if you can charm your way out.”
Fairbanks winked.
“I won’t need to charm you with a deal this good. I’ve come to give you the Eye.”
Atlas mopped his brow with an old jacket he used as a handkerchief. He had a sudden memory of Harry Houdini years ago in Montreal. The magician had thrown a gold chain across a stage. Atlas had chased it, thinking it was the Eye. But it was merely sleight of hand. A trick.
“You have the Eye then?”
Fairbanks flicked a piece of imaginary dirt from his well-manicured nails.
“Not in hand, but I have a good idea of how to get it.”
Atlas wasn’t surprised.
“What is that saying about birds and hands and bushes?”
“Before I acquire it, I want to make sure it’s worth my while. It may require a degree of…unpleasantness.”
“You’re going to have to steal it from someone. From Mary’s son?”
Fairbanks looked up in surprise.
We know more than you think, Mr. Charisma.
We think more than you know.
“Yes,” Fairbanks said. “From her son. He’s no one of consequence, but Chaplin seems to think Mary told him where the Eye was before you…escorted her away.”
So Charlie Chaplin’s in this too?
We should have known.
Atlas pulled a small orange from a tree and swallowed it whole like a raisin.
“Do you really think he’s no one of consequence? Or are you just saying that to protect him?”
Here Fairbanks looked genuinely dumbfounded. Atlas laughed, a deep, guttural l
augh that shook the leaves surrounding them.
“You don’t know! Whatever friends you’re working with clearly don’t trust you.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
Atlas had begun feeling stronger than ever since he had arrived in Los Angeles. He had chalked it up to good eating until the night he met Gray. That young man’s blood, there was something about it. Something that was affecting all of them. Sugar had never been so fast, and some of the old man’s hair seemed to be growing back.
He took the knife out of Sugar’s hand.
“Cut me,” he said to Fairbanks.
“Are you mad?”
“Go ahead.”
Fairbanks took the knife and Atlas held out his burly forearm. Gently, Fairbanks ran the knife across it.
“No,” Atlas said. “Saw at me. As hard as your manicured hands can manage.”
Fairbanks applied more pressure and grimaced as he cut across Atlas’s forearm. Nothing happened. He dug in even harder and tried again. The skin moved as normal, but it wouldn’t break.
“I’ve always been tough,” Atlas said. “Tougher than anyone. But that young man…he’s a source of great power. I’ve become invincible ever since I got here.”
“What ever do you mean?”
If it were a poker game, Fairbanks had unwittingly shown his hand.
“He’s a tool,” Atlas said. “Like the Eye. He is one of the Great Artifacts.”
“A living Artifact?” Fairbanks said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. I would have known.”
“The way he looked at me. I think he can see us. I think he can tell what we are.”
The poor actor’s face dropped as if suddenly realizing he had a losing hand on a big pot.
“Someone would have told me. We’re a team.”
“Not an equal team, it seems.”
Fairbanks slapped his hand against a tree trunk.
“Damn that Charlie!”
“Bring us the Eye,” Atlas said. “And the young man with it.”
“Absolutely not. The Eye is more than generous!”
Atlas played his trump card.
“You miss your days playing the hero on screen, don’t you?” he asked. “Bring both the Eye and Gray Studebaker, and we can repay you. With strength. With health. You could get decades more out of your career while your peers wither away. You and Mrs. Pickford could return to the way you were. America’s Hero and America’s Sweetheart.”