Alone (2 page)

“. . . Harriet think?” Broadhead was saying.

The hallucination faded. Plaster dust settled over leprous patches of linoleum, drop cloths blurred the outlines of the plugged fountain and shattered glass snack counter, pigeon filth frosted the reliefs on the walls. Chalky clouds swirled slowly in the sunlight slanting through holes in stained glass.

“What did you say?” Valentino asked.

“I said, ‘What does Harriet think?’ She’s a forensic pathologist. Does she bring DNA home to spin in a dish in the kitchen?”

“I should call her. We’re going to a thing tonight.” He looked around. “Where is everyone? The place was crawling with workers this morning.”

“This was how it was when we got here. Ask your contractor.”

“I would if I could get him on his cell.”

“He’s probably in Athens, cribbing bits off the Parthenon. Maybe this will explain something. One of the jocks found it taped to the door.” Broadhead took a small rectangle out of a sweater pocket and handed it to him.

It was a business card. Valentino read the message scribbled in blue ink on the back first: “Call me. D.S.”

He turned it over to look at the printing:

DWIGHT SPINK

LOS ANGELES COUNTY BUILDING INSPECTOR

“What do you think it is?” he asked.

Broadhead puffed on his pipe, thickening the haze. “It can’t be good. Government functionaries are like mice. If you don’t see or hear them, you can pretend they don’t exist.”

Valentino could never get a cellular signal on the ground floor of The Oracle; there was either too much lead in the paint or the walls were too thick for modern microwaves to penetrate. He went into the auditorium, where more drop cloths hammocked the rows of seats and carpeting had been torn up in strips to expose dry rot in the floorboards, swung open a panel that looked like part of the wall, and climbed a set of steep narrow musty-smelling steps to the old projection booth. He’d furnished it with all the essentials of a bachelor living arrangement; his lease had run out on his apartment in Century City and all his money was tied up in the renovation. When his phone informed him he had service he sat on the sofa bed and dialed the number on the business card.

“Yes?” It sounded more like a challenge than a question.

“Dwight Spink, please.”

“Speaking.” This time Valentino heard a British accent. He introduced himself. Then: “Yes, the theater. I sent the crew away. You have a serious problem, Mr. Valentino.”

He waited, hearing his heart beating between his ears.

Spink cleared his throat in two notes, like a cellist dragging his bow back and forth across the strings. “Perhaps you’re not aware that the State of California requires a separate hazardous material license for laborers engaged to remove asbestos.”

“I was told all the necessary permits had been obtained.”

“We’re not discussing permits. Laborers who handle asbestos must be bonded and licensed as a matter of public safety and to minimize the risk of litigation.”

“Did you ask them if they were licensed?”

“That isn’t how it’s done. When I asked to see a license, none of the men present was able to comply.”

“Were any of them actually removing asbestos at the time?”

“The law makes no provisions for the odds of an inspector actually conducting an inspection when the removal is in process. Absent the certainty that an unregistered laborer would not attempt the job after I left, I ordered everyone to leave lest they all be exposed to a dangerous carcinogen.”

“Isn’t that the same as arresting someone because he might commit a crime?”

“No, sir, it isn’t.”

“I think you should be discussing this with my contractor.”

“I attempted to reach Mr. Kalishnikov, but was told he was unavailable. Since public safety was involved, I took the initiative.”

“I’ll have him get in touch with you. I’m sure this can be resolved with a single conversation.”

The cello rasped. It sounded like the opening to the theme from
Jaws.
“During my inspection I noted also that someone has been living on the premises. That neighborhood is zoned commercial, not residential.”

“I understand it’s zoned for both.”

“There is some question as to precisely where one ends and the other begins. In any case I cannot allow the present situation to continue until the zoning board has voted and a certificate of residency is issued. Until then the person who has been living there must find outside accommodations.”

“Is there anything else, Mr. Spink?”

“As a matter of fact there is. The staircase leading to the projection booth is not up to code. The treads are too narrow, the risers are too high, and the ventilation is inadequate. These things violate OSHA, the fire code, and the Clean Air Act. The stairs must come down.”

“Then how am I—how will the workers get up to the booth?”

“Not being in the construction business, I wouldn’t know. Whatever solution your contractor comes up with must comply. These regulations were drafted for our safety, Mr. Valentino. Yours and mine.” Spink cleared his throat. “It’s Friday afternoon. I will conduct another inspection Monday. If at that time the proper license is presented and the nonconforming passage to the booth and the unauthorized apartment there has been sealed off to my satisfaction, the construction may resume.”

“How am I supposed to seal it off without any workers?”

“It’s a simple job for a rough carpenter. We can assume he won’t be messing around with asbestos.”

“I haven’t budgeted a carpenter until next month. Do you have any idea how much this has cost me so far?”

“It’s a fair-market state,” Spink said. “You pay for what you get.”

When the line was clear, Valentino tried Leo Kalishnikov again. The flamboyant contractor, who specialized in designing and building high-end home theaters and had taken on The Oracle as a personal challenge, was out of the office, and his cell phone went straight to voice mail. Valentino left an urgent message and went downstairs.

Kyle Broadhead was alone in the lobby. “I sent the defensive line home. I’m giving the clumsy one extra credit so he doesn’t sue you over those mashed fingers.” He read Valentino’s expression. “That bad. I was right about mice, wasn’t I?”

“I’m beginning to smell a rat.”

**

CHAPTER

2

“I WANT TO be alone,” Harriet said.

“Vant,” said Valentino.

“I
said
want.”

“You did.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s ‘I
vant
to be alone.’ Your accent needs work.”

She squinted. “Did we or did we not watch
Grand Hotel
just last week? You said it was research.”

“I did and we did.”

“She said, ‘I want to be alone.’ She pronounced the
w,
I heard it. I even had you go back and play it again to be sure.”

“Beside the point. When Greta Garbo says ‘want,’ the world hears ‘vant.’ Garbo didn’t have to prove she was Garbo. You do. Perception is everything.”

“I don’t have to prove I’m Garbo to win a silly contest.”

“Look, if you don’t want to play, don’t. I thought it would be fun.”

“Okay, don’t get your moustache in a wad. I mean
vad.
Hang on while I go slip into something less comfortable.”

She left him standing in her living room and went into the bedroom, leaving the door open a few inches. Harriet Johansen had answered her door wearing a fluffy robe and pink mules with a towel wound around her head; with her face freshly scrubbed she looked like a sloe-eyed little girl with ideas. Valentino wore an imperial Russian uniform: scarlet tunic with gold frogs, white riding breeches, and black stovepipe boots. A thin Ramon Novarro moustache clung to his upper lip, stuck there with spirit gum. He felt like an idiot who’d never had an idea in his life. What had he been thinking?

“I did some research on my own,” Harriet called through the opening. “Did you know Greta Garbo checked into hotels using the name Harriet Brown?”

“I’d heard that.”

“So we share a name, and that’s how I attracted your interest. You want to sleep with Garbo.”

“I honestly never made the connection until just now, when I saw you in that turban. I thought someone had colorized
The Painted Veil.”

“A
towel isn’t a turban. You didn’t answer my question.”

“You didn’t ask one.”

She sighed. “Do you want to sleep with Garbo?”

He touched his moustache to make sure it hadn’t slipped off plumb. “Rita Hayworth once said the problem with her love life was men went to bed with Gilda and woke up with Rita Hayworth.”

“Remind me who Gilda was.”                           

“Her sexiest role. Her point was she couldn’t possibly hope to fulfill their expectations.”

“So I’m a letdown.”

“I didn’t say that. Are you trying to pick a fight?”

“I was teasing. Why are you such a grouch? I thought the idea tonight was to have fun.”

“Forgive me.” He meant it. “That damn theater is eating my lunch.”

“Don’t be so quick to condemn it. We met there, don’t forget.”

Which was true. It might not have been the first romance that began in a theater, but the circumstances were unusual. He’d plunged into the purchase on a whim, then discovered he’d bought the scene of a forty-year-old murder. That had brought him to the attention of the Los Angeles Police Department and its crew of criminalists, including Harriet.

He said, “I’ll try to keep that in mind. It may spare you the unpleasantness of lifting my fingerprints off the throat of a bureaucrat.”

“What on earth happened today?”

“Let’s not spoil the night with construction talk, all right?”

“Deal. Anyway, it’s out of character for John Gilbert.”

“Ramon Novarro.”

“Sorry. I thought it was Gilbert with the uniform and the funny moustache.”

“It was. Also Conrad Nagel and Melvyn Douglas and Fredric March.”

“No wonder she
vanted
to be alone.”

He looked at his watch. They were getting a late start, but such things seemed less important since he’d met Harriet. He sat on the sofa, turned on the TV, and found
The Scarlet Empress
on TCM. Marlene Dietrich, the poor man’s Garbo—until she’d blossomed—spent half the movie as wide-eyed as Shirley Temple, then assassinated her demented husband, Czar of all the Russias, and became Catherine the Great overnight. She put on a dazzling uniform and was galloping a white stallion up the wooden steps of the Kremlin when Harriet coughed to get Valentino’s attention. He switched off the set, turned his head—and dropped the remote on the floor.

“What’s the matter? Did I overpluck?”

She stood outside the bedroom door in a daring filigreed gown glittering with crystals that left bare her shoulders and all of her midriff but her navel, concealed by a V-shaped sling connecting the brassiere to the clinging, low-slung skirt. A fantastic bejeweled headdress covered her hair and framed her oval face, the high cheekbones accentuated with highlights and shadow. Her lips made a delicate bow, and with her brows plucked ruthlessly into pencil-thin arches and extensions on her lashes, she was a full-color reproduction of Garbo in
Mata Hari.
The heels of her open-toed silver pumps added three inches to her height.

“Say something,” she said. “You look like Jimmy Stewart in that Hitchcock thing.”

“Vertigo.
Except you look more like Greta than Kim Novak looked like Kim Novak.” He rose. “If they don’t hand you first prize the minute you step inside the door, the fix had better be in.”

She stuck out her tongue, cracking the facade. “I have an unfair advantage. Not all the contestants date a guy who knows a guy who knows the wardrobe mistress at Universal.”

It was a reproduction of the original costume, made for a Garbo biopic that had been shelved on the advice of the studio’s lawyers. She’d still been alive then, and determined to block any production that would bring more reporters to her doorstep with camping equipment.

“I wouldn’t feel too guilty,” he said. “Most of the contestants can afford personal designers. But they wasted their money.”

“Seriously?”

“Uh-huh.”

She pointed a finger. “Just remember you’re going to bed with Harriet Johansen. If you’re lucky.”

He offered his arm. “Ms. Brown?”

“Mr. Novarro.” She took it.

He helped her on with her wrap at the door and opened it.

She stepped through. “He was gay, you know.”

“You
did
do research.” He drew the door shut behind them.

**

The smooth stone front of the Beverly Hills mansion was bathed in colored lights. Guests were still drifting in, and despite the presence of an army of parking attendants dressed in special comic-opera livery for the occasion, Valentino and Harriet waited several moments before one of them arrived to open their doors and take the wheel. The sinuous strains and brawny thump of an old-fashioned tango spilled out from inside.