Alone (18 page)

“Metropolis
is in the subbasement of the Polytechnic Institute in Berlin?”

“Lay off geekhood for one minute. I’m being hypothetical.
Metropolis
is fine as is, and Loch Ness is pretty enough without a monster to mess up the surface. You must resign yourself to the plum lying on the ground as opposed to the riper specimen that may or may not reside on a branch near the top of the tree. Chances are it’ll taste like my Aunt Ernestine’s pudding, which sent half my family to the emergency room on Christmas Eve nineteen-forty-nine.”

“How old
are
you?”

“Old enough for Social Security, but too young to ask my pharmacist for Viagra without blushing. And how is
your
prostate?”

Valentino ignored it as a rhetorical question. “The fruit analogy confuses me. If what you’re saying is a new digital projector is the best we can hope for, that’s light-years better than a reduction. I can put you on to the most persistent salesman I’ve ever met, by the name of Red Ollinger.”

“Sounds like the name of a pirate.”

“Oh, he’s on record as opposed to piracy.” Valentino gave him a brief summary of his two encounters with the representative of Midnite Magic Theater Systems.

Broadhead’s pipe had proven too bitter even for him. He laid it in an ashtray fashioned from a lower human jaw he’d smuggled from the Roman catacombs. “I’ve been reading too much ancient history. Society has always celebrated the Henry Anklemires of the world while submitting the Galileos to censure. But at his most brilliant, the sage of the Renaissance never managed to get the goods on Shylock. Have you considered the awesome power of the weapon this cretin Ollinger has offered to place at your disposal?”

Valentino, who was by no means the scholar his friend pretended to consider him, took several moments translating his language into practical terms.

“That’s diabolical,” he said at last.

“You’re at a serious cultural disadvantage,” Broadhead said. “You lack the benefit of a lifetime in the City of Angels.”

**

CHAPTER

17

THE ATMOSPHERE IS one of forced gaiety, enshrouded in a time of global bereavement. Rudolph Valentino, the Italian meteor, has finished his supernal ascent in death at age thirty-one; the phosphorescent glow was still visible above the train bearing his body from the pandemonium of its lying-in-state in New York City to its final resting place in Hollywood, with grief-stricken women all along the route threatening to throw themselves beneath the wheels. On this day after the national event of the funeral, John Gilbert and Greta Garbo are to wed.

The affair has been planned along the lines of a sneak preview, with few aware that the ceremony uniting director King Vidor and actress Eleanor Boardman will be a double event; Garbo’s relentless pursuit of privacy has drawn Gilbert into a conspiracy of silence.

Gilbert, excitable by nature, is strung tighter than usual. He arrives at Marion Davies lavish Beverly Hills mansion just before 6:30 P.M., still in Bohemian costume from the set of
La Boheme
and Lillian Gish’s arms, and borrows one of Miss Davies’ ninety rooms to change into evening dress. When he emerges, Garbo has not yet arrived. She is, as usual, tardy.

The stars of the advertised attraction are gracious. Vidor and Miss Boardman stall for time by calling for another session of photographs and another round of champagne for the quests. The Great Lover’s classic features display little of the spirit of the occasion in the pictures in which he appears. The guests grow restless. Some are inebriated, Gilbert, included. He snatches stemware off passing trays and deposits the empties on the next.

The minister clears his throat and whispers to Vidor; he has another appointment. A glance passes between the two prospective bridegrooms. Gilbert jerks a nod.

Immediately after the ceremony, Gilbert withdraws to a guest bathroom, where Louis B. Mayer, the mercurial chief of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, is drying his hands on a monogrammed towel. Mayer smiles and claps a hand on the actor’s shoulder. “Cheer up, Jack. Why marry her at all? Sleep with her and forget it.”

Gilbert snatches Mayer by the lapels and shoves. Mayer falls backward, striking his head on the tiles, his wire-rimmed spectacles flying.

Drawn by the noise, guests help the studio chief to his feet. They restrain him from charging the actor, and the actor from finishing the job on Mayer.

“You’re finished, Gilbert!” Mayer’s voice is shrill.

Eddie Mannix, manager of MGM, turns Gilbert aside as Mayer storms out, a sycophant hurrying after him with his spectacles. “Go home, Jack,” Mannix says. “I’ll smooth things over with L.B.”

Gilbert, calming, flashes his famous grin. “Don’t grovel on my behalf. I just signed a contract for a million dollars. What can he do to me?”

**

“You’ve gone beyond obsession into psychosis,” Harriet said. “You aren’t even the star of your own dreams anymore.”

Valentino said, “It isn’t even history, it’s Hollywood hokum. We only have Eleanor Boardman’s word the scuffle even took place, or that Garbo and Gilbert were to be married that day. There’s no wedding license on file.”

They were in line at Starbucks, a drive-by date arranged in deference to their crowded schedules; he had a pile of facts and figures to prepare for Broadhead’s appearance at the budget meeting, and crime in Los Angeles wasn’t taking any holidays while she caught up with her caseload.

She said, “I always heard Mayer doctored Gilbert’s voice on his first talkie to make him sound ridiculous, and that’s what ended his career.”

“They disliked each other from the start, but Mayer was too frugal to throw away a million bucks for spite. There was nothing wrong with Gilbert’s voice, in person or otherwise. The problem was he was still acting for the silent camera. He came off like a ham. He was fine opposite Garbo in
Queen Christina
three years later, and he should’ve won on Oscar for
The Captain Hates the Sea.
He drank himself to death at thirty-six.”

“So why dream about him now?”

“Search me.” He was sorry he’d told her. He’d awakened in the middle of the night, the images still so vivid it had taken a minute to convince himself he hadn’t been one of the wedding guests. He’d thought the dream amusing enough to share, but he’d forgotten that Harriet analyzed things for a living. “There’s no work at the office and I’m useless at the theater. Maybe I’m fixated on failure.”

“I’m glad you admit it. I think you should stay away from the Oracle for a few weeks and let Kalishnikov look after the details.”

“I’ll consider the advice.” He hadn’t told her about his assignation with Dwight Spink; her opinion of submitting to extortion was on record. “How come it took so long to release the truth about the fake Garbo letter to the press?”

“Why are you changing the subject?”

“You were right. I need to stop thinking about the Oracle.”

“I don’t believe you, but I’m tired of hearing about it. We wanted to be sure the letter was fake before we gave Beverly Hills the green light. After we established the similarity in penmanship, we borrowed a consultant from the USC English Department to do a computer analysis of the writing style. Everyone has his own, whether he’s conscious of it or not: habitual turns of phrase, idiosyncratic punctuation, vocabulary. By programming in a broad sampling of the author’s correspondence, an expert can match points of individuality the same way we match fingerprints. That’s how they exposed the hack journalist who wrote that dumb political novel several years ago.”

“I remember. It’s also how Elizabethan scholars hope to prove who wrote Shakespeare. Why Southern Cal? UCLA has an English Department.”

“My suggestion.” She asked the barista for a jumbo latte. “My team captain thinks we’ve got one too many connections to UCLA as it is, and I like this job.”

“Oh.”

She paid for her order. “Anyway, after comparing it to the samples from Stockholm, the consultant’s one hundred percent sure Garbo didn’t write the letter. There were language mistakes no Swede would make, and as to the rest there was too little Garbo and too much of someone who was trying too hard to sound like Garbo. Case closed.”

“But if—oh, sorry.” He realized the young man behind the counter was waiting and asked for the special. “If Akers’ Swedish was so bad, I’m surprised Rankin didn’t suspect the letter. He said he’d picked up quite a bit from listening to his wife and her mother.”

“I didn’t spot it myself, but I’m second-generation American. My father would have. The mistakes were only obvious to someone who was fluent; the consultant confirmed them with a colleague from the Foreign Languages Department. Whoever wrote the letter knew enough to get by, although it might have sounded pidgin to a Swede. It was as good as it needed to be for its intended target.”

“As long as that target wasn’t the LAPD.”

On the sidewalk, Harriet tore a notch out of her lid and drank. “I’m working this weekend, but I’ve got Monday off. Why don’t you play hooky and we’ll spend the day together, not talking about Greta Garbo and Matthew Rankin and the theater that ate Valentino?”

He hesitated. “I can’t.”

“Why not? You said things are slow at the office.”

“I’ve got a budget meeting Monday.”

“Damn. Between the rising crime rate and your gypsy life, we never see each other.”

She pecked him on the lips and took off through the crowd, in the opposite direction of where he was going. Watching her, he took too big a sip of coffee and burned his tongue.
Serves me right,
he thought, brushing at the stain on his shirt.

**

He spent the morning gathering papers and nursing the blister on his tongue. His filing system was similar to his eye for decor, and he found billing statements, ticket stubs, and other evidence that his department needed cash jammed into the backs of drawers, stuffed under the telephone standard, and anchoring cobwebs woven behind the credenza. When he was reasonably assured he’d assembled everything in intelligible order, he slid it into a ten-by-thirteen manila envelope, wrote
Kyle Broadhead
on the outside, shoveled the paper fallout into his wastebasket, and went out to give the material to Broadhead. Passing Ruth’s desk he remembered to stop and ask if he was in his office.

“He’s in the projection room, watching movies on university time.”

“That’s part of his job.”

“That’s not a job. Mopping floors is a job. Which reminds me: Leave your key. The cleaning crew’s coming in today.”

He put it on her desk. “Make sure they sweep behind the credenza. The spiders have built an entire condominium back there.”

“Nice to know someone’s working on this floor.”

He didn’t feel he had the moral authority to press the issue. Lying to Harriet had left him with a knot in his stomach. Hoping to loosen it with food, he gave Ruth the envelope to give to Broadhead and went to lunch at his and Broadhead’s favorite restaurant, a blatant tourist trap plastered with stills and posters and everything on the menu named after a dead star or director; but the prices were moderate and the food was good, even if the Hitchcock Loaf had been discontinued for lack of interest because the chef insisted patrons remain in suspense about what it contained. But the knot was Gordian, and not being able to stop thinking about his appointment with Spink did nothing for his appetite. He pushed away his plate and made a decision.

Back at the office, he found the cleaning crew had taken its standard lick and a swipe and moved on. He opened the top drawer of his desk, groped inside, pushed it shut, and opened all the others in turn. He looked in his wastebasket, but in that instance the crew had been thorough; it was empty. With a sinking feeling he got out the Yellow Pages and then the metropolitan directory and looked through the business section. The listing he needed wasn’t there.

He went back out to the reception desk. “Ruth, I think I accidentally threw away something important. Are the cleaners still here?”

“They just left.”

He cursed beneath his breath.

“I heard that.”

“Do they start here and work their way down to the ground floor, or is this their last stop?”

“How should I know? We don’t trade professional secrets.”

He went to the elevator, got out at every floor, quizzed receptionists, knocked at doors where the desks were unoccupied, and finished at ground level, where too late he realized he should have come straight there. He stepped outside just as a maintenance van rolled away. Standing in the middle of the paved drive he waved his arms, but the driver either didn’t look in his mirror or ignored him.

When he turned back toward the building, he saw a white-haired man in coveralls raking leaves on the little patch of grass. The half-grown maple tree planted there seemed hardly worth the effort. Valentino asked him if he knew where the trash was taken. The man stopped what he was doing, considered, then inclined the handle of his rake toward a Dumpster standing next to the building.

By the time he found what he was looking for, Valentino had a pretty clear idea of the dining habits of his fellow employees; it remained only to connect the faces he saw every day with the Chinese take-out cartons, chip bags, granola wrappers, salad containers, and barbecued spareribs gnawed to the bone. Other tastes were more difficult to pin down.
High Times, Forbes, Cosmopolitan,
and
Superstars of Wrestling
were all bunched together as if they’d come from the same floor, and apparently two people had decided simultaneously to rid themselves of a VOTE REPUBLICAN button and a Dixie Chicks CD. He thought he really ought to socialize more often with his neighbors.