Frames (24 page)

“Your battery’s dead.”

“You’d think they’d know more,” Broadhead muttered.

Valentino approached a familiar figure reading a tattered script by the rain-streaked window, a slender man in his sixties in slacks and a pullover sweater with a silk scarf knotted around his throat. He’d played a juvenile well into his forties, and nothing since he’d begun to show his age. He smiled when he recognized Valentino and shook his hand without getting up.

“How are you?” asked the visitor.

“If you’d asked me last week, I’d have had to say not so good.” He slapped the script. “They’re remaking the first thing I ever got credit for, over at Fox. This time they want me to read for the character’s grandfather. Rob Reiner’s directing.”

“Congratulations.”

“There might be a nomination in it. Look at Gloria Stuart.”

Valentino introduced Broadhead and Fanta. They chatted, wished him luck, and drifted away as he returned to his lines.

“That’s cool,” Fanta said.

Valentino said, “Don’t believe everything you hear under this roof. There’s usually a man behind the curtain.”

Broadhead said, “Did you see how old that script was?”

“It’s probably the same one he had when he was seventeen.”

“You mean he dreamed up the audition? That’s whack.”

“Oh, some assistant at Fox might have made a courtesy call, but that’s probably the end of it,” Valentino said. “His last chance for a comeback blew up when some sleaze journalist outed him on the set of
The Edge of Night.
The blacklist never really went away; it just changes its targets with the fashion.”

“But it’s okay to be gay now,” she said.

“It wasn’t then. In the end all they remember is you’re some kind of damaged goods.”

“But no other business in the world treats its veterans so well,” said Broadhead.

“I said it didn’t shoot them. Everyone’s afraid of losing the job he’s got.”

Kym Trujillo joined them, carrying file folders as usual. She acknowledged Valentino’s introductions with a preoccupied air.

“You usually call,” she said.

“I meant to, but I lost my cell phone.”

She noticed the slicker. “Are you expecting a hurricane?”

“I may be coming down with a cold.”

“Where’s your straw hat?” She pointed at the cane with the corner of a folder.

“I threw my back out.”

She freed a hand to reach down and turn the paper tag so she could read it.

“I threw it out at Universal,” he said.

“You’re just falling apart, aren’t you? Should I get a room ready?”

“I take back what I said before,” Broadhead said. “I’m not your only friend.”

“Is Warren Pegler in his room?” Valentino asked.

“I saw his nurse going into the break room. I’ll check. It’s not as if I have a department to run or anything like that.” She strode out the door.

“Attractive woman,” Broadhead said.

“Tough customer,” said Fanta. “What did you say her name was?”

“Greer Garson!”

This was one of the game players huddled in front of the TV.

“It’s Shelley Winters, you moron,” said the other. “Don’t you know the difference between Mrs. Miniver and Lolita?”

“Shelley Winters wasn’t Lolita. That was Sandra Dee.”

“Sandra Dee was Gidget.”

“Then who in thunder was Lolita?”

“Search me, but it sure wasn’t Greer Garson.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

“Did too.”

“Didn’t.”

Broadhead said, “I’d swear I was at a meeting of the university faculty.”

“You haven’t been to one in years,” Valentino said.

“I wonder why,” Fanta said.

Kym returned, worry lines on her forehead. “He’s in the solarium, with an attendant. He’s not having a good day. I wish you’d called. In his condition he’s easily agitated.”

“A little agitation might do him some good,” Broadhead suggested. “Increase the blood flow to his brain.”

She asked him if he was a medical doctor.

He shook his head. “History and Humanities. I can prescribe a course of study, but that’s all.”

“Alzheimer’s is different from simple senility,” she said. “Accelerated circulation can trigger paranoia, even violence. I’m not his physician, so I can’t forbid you to see him if he himself doesn’t object, but I don’t think a visit would do you or him any good in this mood.”

Valentino said, “There’s a time factor involved. I don’t mean to be cold-blooded, but at his age I don’t know how many other chances we’ll have to get answers to the questions we need to ask. Primary sources are crucial.”

Her expression was unreadable, which he regarded as a bad sign.

“Unfortunately—fortunately, for you—his doctor is in Cedars of Lebanon this afternoon, attending a patient from this facility. If he were present, I doubt he’d let you see Warren. But our policy is to respect the resident’s wishes in the absence of medical opinion. I’ll take you to him, but I need to ask him if he’ll see you. If he says no, that’s it.”

Valentino started to thank her.

“Thank the patients’ bill of rights. This is the first time I’ve known you to put your job ahead of respect for your sources.”

“This is the first time it’s been this important.”

She made a slashing gesture with her free hand, severing the discussion. He hoped that was all she’d severed. She turned and broke into a trot. The three followed.

“Ben-Hur!”

“The Ten Commandments,
you jerk. You can’t even keep your Testaments straight.”

On his way past the two old character actors, Broadhead stopped to snatch the remote out of the hand holding it, pointed it at the plasma screen, and pushed a button. The screen went black. He smacked the remote down on the coffee table. “Isn’t there a game of checkers going on in the park?”

The pale, seamed, half-remembered faces stared up at him with injury and indignation.

“It’s raining,” one said.

In the hallway, Valentino asked Broadhead what he thought he’d accomplished.

“Nothing. I saw myself in ten years.”

Fanta said, “I know the pictures they were talking about.”

“Forget them,” Broadhead said. “Erase them from your memory. Consider it a step back from the graveyard. The only thing a girl your age should know about is who’s in Air Supply.”

“Air Supply was my mother’s favorite.”

He groaned mortally.

The sun’s access to the solarium was limited that day. The room was in effect a greenhouse, built of glass on a steel frame, with palms and ferns growing in profusion from terra-cotta pots and wicker and rattan all around. But the look that afternoon was film
gris.
The persistent rain bled viscuously down the panes, blurring the vista of cul-de-sacs and feral palms and third-generation Spanish Modern housing developments stacked one atop another to the scrub hills and the towering wooden letters of the fabled Hollywood sign staggered across them. It looked like the phoniest process shot from a film made entirely on a sound-stage in Cincinnati. Valentino, Broadhead, and Fanta hung back in the wide sliding-glass doorway while Kym conferred with a blocky attendant in casual dress and the man in the wheelchair at the far end of the room. The three were dwarfed by scenery that Valentino felt would shoot up onto a roller, flapping comically, the moment someone tugged on a cord.

They were alone in the room, despite abundant seating. A cheerful place when the sun shone, it now wore a sodden air of bleak introspection, with each drop that plunked from a leaky gutter measuring the passage of time like a tick from a clock.

The man in the wheelchair turned his head to look at the visitors. Valentino recognized the white hair and withered face. At that distance he couldn’t tell if the recognition was mutual. The old man turned back, raised a hand from the arm of the chair, and let it drop. Kym strode back their way, her spine as straight as in her days on the runway.

“Twenty minutes, with the attendant present,” she said. “If Warren becomes upset, he’ll shut you down.”

“We’ll be careful,” Valentino said.

She left without another word.

Broadhead stopped him before he could take a step inside. The professor reached down and jerked loose the wardrobe-department tag from his walking stick. “No reshoots on this set,” he said. “You’ve got to get it right on the first take.”

Valentino thrust the stick at him and held it until Broadhead took it. Then he fastened the snaps on the slicker to the neck, concealing completely what he wore beneath. “Let’s give honesty a chance. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try it your way.”

“I’ll distract the guard.” Broadhead spoke out of the side of his mouth.

“Let me.” Fanta wound an arm inside his, as she had once before with Valentino. “Lean on that cane, and follow my lead.”

The attendant was fortyish, powerfully built, with broad, honest features, a receding hairline, and a plastic badge on his shirt that said his name was Todd. His expression was polite but wary.

Fanta gave him her best coed’s smile. “Todd, I wonder if my grandfather and I can ask you a few questions about the Country Home. He’s considering moving in.” She patted Broadhead’s arm.

“You should talk to Ms. Trujillo.” Todd had a rough, burring voice, accustomed to intimidating belligerent patients. “I can’t show you around. I have to stay here with Warren.”

“Oh, we won’t have to leave the room. We just want the perspective of someone who spends most of his time with the residents. Grandpa’s particular. He produced
Dallas.”

“Masterpiece Theater,”
Broadhead corrected. “I became a father at a very young age. Most people think Frances is my daughter.”

“Well, I’ve been here a year. I guess I could fill you in.”

They drifted down the room, Broadhead supporting himself on the cane and Fanta’s arm, Todd stooping a little to talk and listen with his hands folded behind his back. Valentino smiled down at Warren Pegler. “Hello,” he said. “Do you remember me?”

Pegler looked up, squinting. “Erich, that you?”

**

CHAPTER

23

VALENTINO HESITATED. HE’D actually heard the
h
in Erich. The old man’s eyes, normally as sharp and bright as a bird’s, were smoky. He was wearing another crisp dress shirt, fresh trousers stitched neatly at the knees where his legs ended, but today he seemed shrunken inside his clothes. His complexion was as gray as the scene outside the glass.

Valentino was tempted. But he chose the high road.

“We met the other day. I asked you some things about the Oracle theater.”

“That money hole.” The eyes cleared. “The miserable place took everything I had.”

“You put a lot into it: widescreen technology, three-D projectors, new speakers for stereo. That must have cost a bundle. Did you take out a loan?”

“Stole it.”

Valentino’s face went numb.

“Tax man, building inspectors, my business manager—hell, even my employees. They stole the place right out from under me, just as if they’d used a gun.”

The visitor relaxed. He drew up a wicker armchair and sat on the edge facing Pegler. “I was curious about that. You said your business manager took your investments and disappeared into Nazi Germany.”

“He was a friend of Gerda’s family. They all came over on the same boat. But a Kraut’s a Kraut. He took my whole portfolio and gave it to Hitler for a good spot in the Party. Gerda’s half Swiss, that’s her saving grace.” He’d switched tenses again. The past seemed to move in and out of focus without warning.

“That must have been before the war ended in forty-five. You hung on to the theater another eleven years. How’d you pay for all those improvements?”

The old man stared at something above Valentino’s head, possibly old ghosts. “Pipe that, will you? This is the only place in the world where they need a big sign to tell them where they live.” He was looking at the Hollywood sign.

Valentino tried it again from a different angle. “Albert Spinoza. Did he work for you? He was a projectionist.”

“I’m sorry, son. Who’d you say you were?”

He sighed and told him his name.

“No, it isn’t. I’m not that far gone. He died way back when I was in physical therapy.”

“Tell me about the accident at Metro.”

“Some damn fool left a cigarette burning next to fresh film stock. When the flames hit the chemicals on the shelves, the darkroom went up and me with it. They had to cut me in half to save what didn’t burn.” He rubbed one of his stumps.

“You almost died in the fire. You would have, if Erich von Stroheim hadn’t been nearby.”

“That fraud.
Von
Stroheim, my aunt’s fanny. I bet he shoveled out the stables.”

“What about recreation?” Fanta was asking the attendant at the other end of the room. “I don’t want Grandpa just sitting around watching Nick at Nite like he does at home.”