Loren D. Estleman - Valentino 03 - Alive! (22 page)

He’d thought to bring along a flashlight, which became essential as he passed along the first public corridor beyond sight of the front windows and saw only pitch blackness at the end. He switched it on and poked the beam about. The faces of long-dead movie stars seemed to stir in the unsteady shaft, their expressions to change from earnest to malevolent as shadows crawled. Ghosts disturbed in the middle of the night were never friendly.

Although he hadn’t been told where to go in the building, he didn’t wander, nor did he call for guidance. For one thing, he was afraid his throat wouldn’t work, as happened in bad dreams when he tried to cry out; for another, he didn’t want to take the chance of being overheard by some strolling insomniac outside and prompting a call to the police. Too late, he thought of the unlocked door and the possibility of an officer on his rounds discovering it and going in to investigate, but no power on earth could persuade him to retrace his steps. He couldn’t afford to squander whatever courage he had left turning back around and re-entering that corridor.

It struck him odd that a law-abiding citizen should spend as much time worrying about the police as a common felon engaged in his work. Was it a kind of madness? The hoarders’ obsession that he alone could be trusted to protect something of value from destruction? Or had he spent too many thousands of hours in artificially darkened rooms watching melodramatic characters conducting themselves as no sane person would in the real world? Both explanations indicated an unsound mind.

He did not wander. He knew where the meeting place was.

The way led him past Indiana Jones and Mr. Chips,
How Green Was My Valley
and
Star Wars
. Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara fled the burning of Atlanta (with the bulbs in the electric flames switched off),
Easy Rider
s’ Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda bent over their choppers, James Dean looked sullen, Marlene Dietrich straddled a wooden chair in black lingerie and top hat. The figures were exquisite likenesses rendered in minute and lifelike detail, unlike the bland-faced mannequins one saw in roadside attractions got up in iconic costumes to suggest the originals; here, Garbo’s silken lashes appeared poised to flutter, Bogart’s scarred lip to curl away from his often-imitated snarl, Mel Gibson’s brow to wrinkle and his head to twitch. The artisans responsible had been brought in from all over the world, and if their commissions were reflected in the admission price, they were well worth it. As a matter of fact, Valentino found $8.95 more than reasonable for an experience that would last far longer than most movies that cost ten dollars to see and took ten minutes to forget. The place was a permanent fixture in a landscape constantly in flux, like Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the two-story-tall wooden letters sprawled across the hills that had given the community its name, along with a culture and an attitude that for better or worse was known throughout the globe.

He came around Johnny Weissmuller in his loincloth wrestling a giant gorilla and descended the broad flight of steps that led to the Chamber of Horrors.

Here all the lights were on. The place was below street level and there were no windows to betray activity inside. He snapped off the flashlight and slid it into the briefcase containing the two reels of film in their cans.

“It’s alive! Alive! Alive!”

The maniacal cry echoed around the block-and-plaster walls, startling Valentino, who nearly dropped the case. Belatedly he recognized the voice of Colin Clive from the
Frankenstein
soundtrack. The fragment was followed a moment later by a bestial howl, then the somber voice of Maria Ouspenskaya in her Slavic gypsy accent: “Even a man who is pure in heart, and says his prayers by night, may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms and the autumn moon is bright.” Then came brash Robert Armstrong: “It wasn’t the planes. It was beauty killed the beast.”

Someone knew he was there. Whoever it was had activated the sound system that piped memorable lines from classic horror movies into the chamber. Claude Rains had just begun his curtain speech about meddling in things man should leave alone when he was cut off. A flat, nasty chuckle reached the newcomer’s ears as if the man responsible was standing next to him. Pudge Pollard laughed the way he spoke.

He was aware suddenly of movement among the figures in a tableau he’d just passed, a stirring in the corner of his eye and a rustle of clothing. He turned that way, and his blood slid to his heels as Boris Karloff shrugged loose of his rotted wrappings and stepped from his sarcophagus. It was the set of the tomb from the opening scene of
The Mummy,
the 1932 original, and Im-ho-tep was coming to life after three thousand years just as he had in the film.

It was an illusion, caused by frayed nerves and the atmospheric lighting. The man was emerging from behind the coffin, not from inside, and he wore a contemporary sportcoat a size too large for him, presumably to conceal his gun when it was in its holster. It was in his hand, and although Valentino had never seen the man before and didn’t recognize his sunken cheeks and prison pallor, he knew the moment he spoke that he was Dickey Wirtz, Pollard’s wheezy-voiced confederate.

“Gave you the willies, huh? Same stunt I used to scare the pants off my ninety-year-old grandmother.”

Wirtz stepped down from the platform. “You’re the movie nut. You know what’s next.”

Valentino set the briefcase on the floor and stood with his arms out from his sides while the man patted him down with one hand, holding the gun pointed at him but out of easy reach. The hand went inside his slash pocket and came out with the cell phone. Wirtz saw it was turned on with the line open, frowned, and put it to his ear. “Hello?”

Valentino read on his face the moment Jason hung up. There was no mistaking that voice for the archivist’s. The sickly pale face grew dark. The hand holding the gun swept up so quickly Valentino had no time to brace himself. A white light burst in the side of his head. He stumbled, but caught his balance. Something warm and wet trickled down from his temple. The jagged gunsight had broken the skin.

“Pudge said no cops!”

The flat voice called out. In that echoing place there was no telling from which direction it came. “What?”

“He’s bugged!”

“Wired?”

“Cell.” He told him the rest.

A vile curse, without inflection. “Shoo him down here.”

Valentino turned back down the corridor without waiting to be ordered. He stiffened for another blow, but it didn’t come. Instead he heard a wheezy grunt. The small effort of stooping to pick up the briefcase would tax that damaged throat and his respiratory function. Something prodded Valentino’s kidney—Wirtz’s favorite spot for persuasion, it seemed—and he started forward with the man’s feet scraping the floor behind.

They passed the scene of
Alien
’s bloody birth, George Romero’s zombies, the shower scene from
Psycho
. Now he heard snatches of conversation, too low to follow, punctuated at unpredictable intervals by hissing pops like short bursts of steam escaping a leaky valve. After a few more yards a bored mechanical voice, vaguely female, said, “Seven-fourteen, what’s your twenty?” Another pop. Then: “Sherman and Sepulveda.” A male voice, just as mechanical.

The police band. Valentino felt a fear he had never known watching the movies that had inspired the exhibits. He hadn’t once thought the killers might have brought along a scanner. They would know the police were on their way long before rescue arrived.

He stopped. They had entered a series of tableaus devoted to the horror films of Roger Corman. Figures—he couldn’t tell how many—stood in the shadow of the wall enclosing
The Masque of the Red Death
. The fact that they were not on a platform told him they weren’t made of wax.

Something moved in the shadow and Pudge Pollard came out into the light, gripping a handgun similar to his partner’s. In his other hand he held the handle of a portable radio receiver, which was silent now between transmissions. Even L.A. had its quiet nights.

“Dumb move, pal,” Pollard said. “Amateur’s mistake. Who’d you call?”

He saw no advantage in lying. “A friend. We have fifteen minutes before he calls the police.”

“We’ll know when he does.” Pollard set the scanner on the edge of the platform. “Okay, Dickey. Check out the case.”

Wirtz moved back into his line of sight, stuck his gun into his underarm holster, and rummaged around inside the briefcase until he brought out one of the flat cans. He held it out to Pollard, who took it but barely glanced at it. “Okay, guy,” said the flat voice. “You know what to look for.”

The shadow shifted again and J. Arthur Greenwood came forward. Valentino froze, as motionless as Vincent Price in his scarlet robe. The aged collector looked distinctly uncomfortable among cinematic displays that did not belong to him.

22

THE RETIRED PUBLISHER
of
Horrorwood
wore a mohair suit tailored to his burly frame and a Tyrolean hat perched at an angle whose gaiety did not extend to his expression. His black-tinted hair and pencil moustache looked even more artificial against the gray of his face. He looked nervous, and not at all as a connoisseur of fantasy memorabilia should look when he was within arm’s reach of the gem of any modern collection.

Valentino found his voice at last. “
You?
”

Greenwood shook his head, and went on shaking it as if he suffered from palsy. It moved like the safety plug on a pressure cooker coming to full steam.

Pollard chuckled again. “Get real, pal. He almost wet himself when we dropped in on him. He’s just here to get a look at the goods.” He extended the can to Greenwood without taking his eyes or his gun off the archivist.

“One moment, please.” The octogenarian’s head stopped shaking. He tucked his cane under one arm, drew a pair of surgical gloves from one of the flap pockets of his coat, and wriggled his fingers into them.

Wirtz snorted. “Pansy.”

Greenwood paid him no attention. His nerves appeared to have settled as he went through the familiar process of authentication. When he had the can in hand he fumbled with the seam, but got it open finally and removed the reel from inside. He set the can on the floor, puffing as he straightened, unspooled two feet of film, and held it up so the overhead light shone through the frames. His breathing quickened; Valentino knew that sensation. At length he rerolled the film and nodded.

“Okay. Let’s have the other, Dickey.”

A new voice came from the shadows. “That won’t be necessary. I know a bit about these people. They’d rather forego an item than break up a set. Thank you, Mr. Greenwood.”

The collector hesitated in the midst of returning the reel to its container. “You won’t forget our agreement.”

“You’ll be the sole bidder. Just remember your part of it.”

“Of course, although it’s a shame I can’t show it off.”

“After the grand jury’s no longer in session and things settle down, you may show it to whomever you like.”

“I hope I live that long.”

“You won’t if you don’t hold up your end.”

Distractedly, Valentino watched Greenwood return the can to Pollard, who had to tug a little to free it from his hand, and walk up the corridor toward the entrance, his cane and handmade shoes tapping the floor hastily (undoubtedly it was the only time he’d moved that fast away from an acquisition). The voice in shadow was maddeningly familiar, but the archivist had met so many new people in the course of this affair he failed to place it in the crowd. Mike Grundage? No, and that astonished him. If he’d come here knowing nothing else, he’d been sure of whom he was coming to meet.

The scanner crackled. Time stood still, but it was a routine report of a minor accident. Incredibly, it seemed, only a fraction of the fifteen minutes had elapsed.

“I wish you could follow orders as well as you follow a trail,” said the voice. “Still, we’re almost finished here.” As he spoke, he came out into the light. Horace Lysander, Mike Grundage’s attorney, had dressed for the occasion, in a dark suit over a midnight-blue shirt with tie to match.

Valentino’s breath caught. Then he nodded. “It makes sense. You knew Craig Hunter had stolen the film, and that I was the only likely person he’d entrust it to for safekeeping. That’s what he called me about the night he was killed, to tell me to expect it. He knew Grundage wouldn’t touch him as long as the film was somewhere his gorillas couldn’t lay hands on it.”

“He was always safe from Mike. My clients aren’t such dumb clucks they’d risk being charged with murder in the middle of a racketeering investigation. Hunter thought he was meeting with Mike, to get him to bid against Greenwood for something that already belonged to his family. That’s what I wanted him to think, when he called me from his ex-wife’s home. I didn’t hang up on him; but you’ve guessed that by now.”

Another transmission came over the air: a two-man team of officers breaking for lunch.

“Are you saying Grundage knows nothing about tonight?”

“He knows almost nothing, period. He directed me to handle Hunter as I saw fit. I suppose he meant legally, but I sent Pollard and Wirtz to meet Hunter at the Grotto instead. He must have spotted them for what they were while they were waiting for the crowd to thin out, and that’s when he called you.”

“You admit you hired these goons to beat Craig to death and break his arms so you could pin it on your client.”

“Elizabeth Grundage was my client long before Mike was. She still is. I’d do anything to protect her privacy and spare her the kind of attention that comes with dredging up her late husband’s dirty dealings.”

“How would framing her son for murder manage that?”

“She’s had very little to do with him for years. Without that film as evidence, the press will never connect her with the case.” A bitter smile passed across his well-fed countenance. “I’m afraid I underestimated Hunter when I advised Elizabeth against doing business with him. He sealed his own fate when he went so far as to steal the film. I had no choice but to bring in the professionals.”