HE BACKED THE DELAHAYE AROUND, slamming the rear fender against a tree. Gears skittered as he took the hills down from Edendale and through Silver Lake, dodging pedestrians, narrowly missing a farm truck at the junction with Alvarado. But there was one thing about where he was heading; he knew the way.
Palms flew overhead as he shot stoplights and overtook dallying drivers and raced south toward Culver City. There had been nightspots along these roads ten years ago—brazen as you like even at the height of Prohibition—with hat check girls and cigar girls and camera girls and girls who’d do pretty much whatever else you wanted. But the Green Mill and the Kings Tropical Inn and Fatty Arbuckle’s Plantation had all gone the same way as poor Fatty himself, and the hot places to be seen were along West Sunset. Or so he’d heard. Instead, he passed blimp fields and golf practice ranges and all the many building sites which endlessly swallowed up this city’s past and turned it into the all-consuming present. Then he hooked east toward the fringes of the Baldwin Hills, where a bent sign which no one had thought worth taking down or stealing still pointed in the direction of the old MGM Studios.
He parked the Delahaye off along a sidestreet of boarded-up shops which were seemingly awaiting redevelopment, like this whole area. The only billboard now beside the MGM lot was a realtor’s sign, and the long external expanse of once gleaming white wall was a territory across which the city’s many billposters, graffiti scrawlers and outdoor urinators had marked their identities.
That Grecian-pillared entrance remained, although the barrier had long gone, and rusted girders poked through where the plaster had fallen away. He looked around the familiar and yet desolate landscape beyond, trying to think what Barbara would have done. Most likely, she’d have phoned that number on the receipt for RTS Taxis from the library payphone, spoken to the guy in the office, then called for one of their cabs to take her here to ask the divers about what they remembered about their fares for last Wednesday. But her presence seemed as distant as that guy called Walter or Willy who’d once saluted him here. Taking the gun from his pocket, thumbing the safety off, he walked through the stretching shadows toward the giant rows of soundstages.
The gutters were falling. The concrete was weed-grown. Peering through gaps in boarded-up entrances, it was easy to imagine the residues of old get-rich-quick schemes, miracle cosmetics and pyramid-sale encyclopedias inside. Some of the buildings, victims of age and earthquake, had slumped into piles of rubble, asbestos and iron. A few bore business signs. Fine Antiques. Some business called Adbel Acoustics. Piles of teachests and rusted-out trucks.
Soundstage 1A was the biggest of them all, and looked to be more intact than most of the others, although its vast main doors were closed. The car parked out front—a black Mercury sedan—looked bizarrely out of place in this wasteland. It had a yellow For Hire light on its roof, and badged signs with a logo for RTS Taxis on its front doors. He gripped the Colt in both hands now with his finger hooked around the trigger. His heart was hammering.
He hunch-ran to the shadowed alley beside the soundstage in search of a side entrance. Which talkie had he shot here? Was it A Free Soul or The Secret Six? Which laughing starlet had he drawn into this very alley after the post-shoot party? He found a rusty sidedoor. There was no sign of a lock or bolt. It swung creakingly open when he gave it a shove.
Near darkness. If a setup called RTS Taxis really worked out of here, they did a good job of not showing it. He stood and waited. All he could hear was the thump of his heart. All he could see, as his swimming gaze slowly adjusted, was a stretch of deep woodland. Giant oaks canted their huge limbs. Some of them lay sideways. Others were fallen and torn. They gave off that once-familiar smell of dust and paint and canvas. He looked up and saw the dim gleam of chains, pulleys and lighting rigs overhead.
He moved on through changing landscapes. A stone dragon reared from Chinese hills. He passed Venetian gondolas, ornate gardens, primeval swamps. There were buildings within buildings. Signs for Makeup and Accounts. Long lines of beautiful frocks collapsed like cobwebs to the brush of his hands. The racks of uniforms were somewhat tougher, and gave off a smell of unlaundered sweat which he remembered from his own spear-carrier days. At their far end there was a mirror. Stacked against it were what he took for a moment to be shields. In fact, they were shields, but not of the kind which any cinematic soldier would carry into battle. Two bore the coat of arms of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Others were for a company called Orkin Pest Control. There were shields for the US Postal Service, shields for a variety of County Police Departments, shields for the Bell Telephone Company and shields for Gladmont Securities. All matched in size, and had the same small screwholes which would allow them to be fixed and removed from the sides of a car. Down beside them was what looked to be the blue dome of a police light. There was also an open toolbox with a screwdriver and a good quality hand drill. He was bending to look at it when he heard a faint phut and the back of his neck suddenly stung. Reaching around, his fingers encountered something stiff and glassy. He was trying to pull the thing out as his sense of where and who he was slid rapidly away.