Alone (9 page)

Ruth was at her desk in the common area. She never was not at her desk except when she slept, if she slept. Valentino held the opinion that she did all her resting in a coffin in one of the abandoned heating tunnels beneath the building.

At a distance of twenty feet, she was a well-groomed brunette of thirty-five, fashionable in her dress but not accustomed to smile unless something amused her. At half that distance she was a gargoyle of sixty or older, weatherproofed by a dozen coats of brittle lacquer that would shatter the second her lips moved more than a centimeter above or below a straight line. No one ever got closer than that. Until quitting time, when she hoisted herself onto her muscular calves, shouldered her enormous Gucci bag, and clickety-clicked out on stiletto heels, she directed all of Valentino’s and Broadhead’s telephone calls and processed all their letters and e-mails in a blur of fingers that no camera, film or digital, could fix in space. “Half hummingbird, half grizzly, that’s our Ruth,” Broadhead had said, the first time Valentino came to him with a complaint about her attitude. “I understand her maiden name was Less.”

“Where’d you get that?”

“Billy Wilder. She did some temp work for him after Harry Cohn died and before she came to work here. He also said, ‘I fled Hitler for
this?’”

Now Valentino found her waiting to pounce when he got off the elevator.

“A cop was here for you.”
With handcuffs,
her tone seemed to imply. “He left this.”

He took the card she’d thrust at him. It bore the etching of a police shield and the name
Lieutenant Ray Z. Padilla.

“I wonder what the Z stands for?” he asked.

“Maybe he wrote it on the other side.”

He intercepted her granite gaze. “Is it really necessary I turn it over to find out?”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I stopped reading your personal correspondence two years ago. I got a bigger thrill out of Rin-Tin-Tin’s.”

“Rin-Tin-Tin got fan mail?”

“Bitches, all of them.”

He turned the card over and read:

EITHER CALL ME OR TURN ON YOUR FUCKING CELL.

P.

Padilla’s hand was as jagged as his personality. Valentino checked his phone, saw it was indeed turned off, and made the correction. It rang.

“Where are you?” Padilla said.

“At the office.”

“Stick. I’m on my way.”

“Lieutenant?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s the Z stand for?”

“Xylophone.”

The cell went dead. He turned it off and touched his right eye. It was tender. He asked Ruth if he could trouble her for some ice.

“The nearest machine is in the student center. I can’t leave my post. Been brawling?”

“I got punched out by a reporter.”

“What are you, dyslexic? That’s supposed to be the other way around.”

He went into the bathroom he shared with Broadhead and Ruth—if she ever used it—and assessed the damage in the mirror above the sink. A crescent of white showed between the swollen lids; the skin around the socket was turning the color of the eggplant in Broadhead’s margaritas. He folded his handkerchief, wet it with cold water, and held it to the bruise. He could feel the heat drying the fabric. He let the tap run longer and wetted the handkerchief again, but it was already warm when he got to his office.

He cleared a pile of musty movie magazines off his chair and dropped into it, leaning back and propping the damp cloth in place. It was the Monday of Mondays in a week that promised nothing but.

At least the throbbing kept him from dozing off. He’d gotten a little more sleep Sunday night, but not enough to catch up with what he’d lost Saturday. He’d awakened at 4:40 to see a blade of light under his door and gone out to find Broadhead asleep in his armchair with a Japanese quiz show playing on TV with the sound off. Broadhead, the world’s foremost authority on the history and theory of film, showed little interest in the subject in private, preferring reality television to the timeless gems of world cinema. Valentino suspected that connecting with nonfictitious characters in credible situations helped the professor put in perspective the time he’d spent in a foreign prison charged with espionage. Broadhead maintained he’d been innocently engaged on a search for the 1912 version of
Quo Vadis?;
but his reluctance to discuss details caused his friend some doubt.

Valentino had made the mistake of turning off the set. This had stirred Broadhead, who had insisted upon making espresso for them both. He’d drunk three cups to his guest’s one, regaling him with off-color anecdotes of the personal lives of the great European directors, told to him in confidence by the directors themselves. His guest had been too enthralled to interrupt him; when he’d finally packed it in, shortly after six, the caffeine in his system had stood all his cells on edge. The beeping of his alarm clock had come as a relief.

Broadhead, of course, had left the house by then. Valentino had made a note to ask him if he ever got to work early enough to catch Ruth combing her native Transylvanian soil out of her hair.

His intercom razzed. His instincts told him it had been going on for some time. He took away the handkerchief, which was dry as parchment, and looked at the toggle, working up the courage to press it. Padilla had undoubtedly returned to grill him further about Rankin, and he’d be more difficult to put off than the media.

He pressed the toggle. “Yes, Ruth.”

“I was about to come banging on your door. What do you do in there all alone?”

“Movie stuff. You wouldn’t understand.” He was just frazzled enough not to care if she was offended. Whatever she lacked in motion picture scholarship she more than made up for in industry gossip. She’d known Rock Hudson’s secret before Rock Hudson had, and possessed all the dope on Mel Gibson’s DUIL bust before the sheriff in Malibu read the report.

She didn’t rise to the bait, shaming him with her uncharacteristic restraint. “Someone to see you.”

“Lieutenant Padilla?”

“A salesman.”

He frowned. “Send him away. Don’t you screen visitors anymore?”

“He has an administration pass.”

That stalled him. Before he could respond, his door was opening.

“Mr. Valentino? Red Ollinger, Midnite Magic Theater Systems.” The visitor stuck out his card.

Valentino glanced at the silhouette of an old-time crank-action movie camera on the pasteboard and put it down to shake the man’s insistent hand. Ollinger was built like a former fullback going to seed, with a spare tire spoiling the lines of his electric blue blazer and flecks of gray in his curly red hair. He was carrying a fine leather briefcase with gold latches and his initials stamped on the flap in the same precious metal.

“How’d you get past the guard in the lobby?” Valentino asked.

“Our parent firm does a lot of business with your department. I went to the administration building and they gave me a pass. I know you’re a busy man, so I won’t take more than a few minutes of your time. Have you made any decisions on the equipment you want installed in the Oracle?” He unlatched his case as he spoke.

“I’m not at that stage of—”

“Yes, I took the liberty of dropping by this morning. It’s a war zone now, but you’ll want to think about a power source and wiring before the walls go back up. Video and audio technology were still in the Stone Age the last time a first-run feature played there.” He spread open a brochure on the desk. “I can put you behind this baby for forty-five thousand dollars.”

Valentino stared at a full-color photo of a digital motion picture projector. It resembled the cockpit of an airliner: dials, stabilizers, touch-screen panels, and rows of chrome-plated and color-coded portals for plugging jacks into. It seemed naked and indecent without the oversize mouse-ear film magazines that had identified projectors since before the dawn of Hollywood.

He looked up. “What can you put me behind for forty-five hundred?”

Ollinger seemed unfazed. “For that, I can set you up with a sixty-inch plasma screen, a DVR, and a pretty good surround-sound system for a basement in the suburbs. You don’t want that.”

“I don’t?”

“You do not. I can let you have this projector and state-of-the-art audio that plays
and
records for sixty thousand flat. You can monitor the audience reaction while the feature’s playing and eliminate the need for preview cards. I’m talking audial
and
visual; the system works on the wire-cam principle, with multiple units, exclusive to the manufacturer. No one else has it.”

“The Oracle isn’t a first-run theater, Mr. Ollinger. The—”

“Red.”

“Red. The audience reaction is pretty much history.”

“This feature also discourages pirates from smuggling camcorders in by photographing them during the commission of the crime.”

“Taking pictures of people taking pictures of pictures.” Valentino thought of the girl on the Morton’s salt box, carrying a Morton’s salt box with a picture of a girl on it carrying a Morton’s salt box, ad infinitum. “Again, that’s not a concern for a revival house. Everything on the bill is already available on tape and disc and on the Internet.”

Ollinger’s glad-hand expression slipped. “That’s nuts. Why would they pay to see the same picture they can watch in the comfort of their own homes?”

“I’m banking they will, to help offset expenses on what started out as a glorified screening room to aid in my work. The Oracle will offer its patrons the experience of viewing time-honored classics remastered to provide the same effect they had when they premiered, in the shared environment in which they were intended to be seen. UCLA will do the remastering. Can your technology do the rest?”

“Why bother”? Any old theater can do that.”

“That’s the idea.” Valentino folded the business card inside the brochure and put it in a drawer. “I’m very busy today. I’ll look this over first chance I get. If I’m interested I’ll call you.”

The salesman wound himself back up. “I wouldn’t wait too long. The manufacturer’s introducing a new model next month, with three-D imaging. That’s why I can offer you this price. It’s going to fly out of the warehouse.”

“So what you’re flogging is the state of
this
month’s art. What’s the difference between it and the expiration date on bananas?” As soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t; challenging a huckster’s pitch was not the way to get rid of him.

Ollinger’s face became earnest. “Every item in our catalogue is backed by a lifetime warranty. Replacement components will always be available. Now, when can I arrange a demonstration?”

Ruth called on the intercom then. Valentino was never so happy to learn the police were at the door.

**

CHAPTER

9

PADILLA WAS WEARING the same orange sport coat (at least, Valentino hoped there were no others) atop a windowpane-plaid shirt of similar man-made material, but in deference to his chief of detectives had closed the collar with a bolo made of braided horsehair with a turquoise slide. He passed Red Ollinger on his way out, glanced around at the movie-related clutter, and shifted his unlit cigarette to the other side of his mouth.

“Looks like Ted Turner threw up in here.”

“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

“For starters you can tell me why you left Matthew Rankin’s little fainting spell out of our interview Saturday.”

“I forgot about it.”

“None of the people I interviewed who were at the party forgot.”

“His doctor was present. He examined Rankin and said it was nothing serious, so I didn’t think it was significant. You asked me about the shooting the next morning.”

“I also asked you if you’d noticed anything unusual about Rankin’s behavior recently. Falling on your face in the middle of a ballroom full of people qualifies in my book.”

“Well, it slipped my mind. I just don’t see what the incident had to do with what happened afterwards.”

“Why’d he faint?”

Valentino felt a pang of embarrassment. “When I tell you, I’m sure you’ll agree it was insignificant. He’d planned the party to observe the hundredth anniversary of Greta Garbo’s birth. As you know, Garbo and the late Mrs. Rankin were close friends.”

“They don’t get much closer. I read the letter.”

“I know, but—” He stopped himself; rallying his thoughts to defend the star’s reputation, he’d been about to point out the flaw that cast doubt on the letter, then realized he might get Harriet into trouble for sharing details of a criminal investigation with a Civilian. “All the women at the party came in costume as Garbo in her various movie roles. The lady I was escorting happened to bear a closer resemblance to her than any of the others. When Rankin saw her, it jarred him. It must have been almost as much of a shock as if his wife had returned from the grave.”

“Harriet Johansen.” Padilla had his notebook out. “She took first place in the look-alike contest. She’s a forensics tech with LAPD. Next time you feel like withholding information, bear in mind I’m a cop who does his homework.”

“I wasn’t withholding anything.”

“You and Johansen discuss the case?”