“DO YOU THINK I should report what happened to the police?”
In the passenger’s seat, Broadhead frowned at the windshield. After the close call with the town car he’d changed his mind about walking back to the office. “I can’t advise you there. You’re the one who almost wound up a hood ornament.”
“It could have been an accident. What did the man say that was really suspicious?”
“You’re right. This old-time mob angle is turning us into nervous Nellies.”
“On the other hand, what does ‘I won’t next time’ mean? What’s the population of L.A., anyway?”
“Three and a half million, give or take a dress extra.”
“So what are the odds there’ll be a next time?”
“Good point. It was a veiled threat.”
“But if it was deliberate, he could have clipped me anyway. All he had to do was bump up over the curb. I’ve done that by accident, turning a sharp corner.”
“Me, too. He was just shook up and said the first thing that came to mind.”
“Still, the way he said it. In a monotone, like a hoodlum in a B movie.”
“Now that you mention it. Better report it.”
“They’d laugh me out of the station, and they’d be right. These things happen a hundred times a day. Nobody in southern California goes anywhere except on wheels, and the speed limit’s a joke.”
“Yup. Just forget it.”
“Thanks, Kyle. Talking with you always clears my head.”
“What I’m here for.”
Dusk wasn’t just gathering; it was coming in on the gallop. The shadows cast by the Sierras pushed hard toward the Valley under a low ceiling built of coastal fog and auto exhaust. Homeward-bound traffic clogged every major artery and most of the minors, but Valentino swam against the current. He dropped Broadhead off to collect his own car and went back to his office in the old power plant, to return the dubbed M to the secure storage vault next to the lab and to think about his next move.
He hadn’t been fooled by Kyle’s performance in the car. The wily old lecturer had used that Socratic ploy hundreds of times in his class, leading a skeptical student around in tight circles until he came to reject his own pet theory as ludicrous. In this case, the object had been both to prevent Valentino from paralyzing himself with panic and to keep him on his guard. How often had the old pedagogue said it? “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean someone isn’t out to get you.” The trick was to shelve one’s fear until he could confirm the reason for it and act on what he’d learned.
However, Valentino had withheld something from his mentor that might have changed the object of the lesson; had Broadhead seen Bleak Street, he might have noticed what he had.
He’d glimpsed the face in the open car window for less than two seconds, but everything about it—the shape, the coloring, the set of the features—bore so close a resemblance to the young Van Oliver that he might have been his double.
Of course, it was just fantasy, fueled by shock; which was why he hadn’t bothered to share the observation. A crime from the past, a dangerous woman, and now a seeming resurrection from the grave: This whole adventure was veering too close to the plot of a noir film to be anything but illusion.
Ruth, a fixture as always, looked up from the memorandum on her desk; she was crossing out entire passages in red pencil, like a teacher grading a term paper. It might have been written by Broadhead or anyone else in the department who shared her services. Nobody connected had ever summoned up the courage to challenge her right to edit their communications. She pointed the stiletto blade of her pencil toward the door of his office.
“Visitor.”
“And you just let him in?”
“This is a public-funded institution of learning, not Area Fifty-one. Do you think anyone could smuggle so much as a stolen paper clip past me? Also it isn’t a him.” She stuck out a business card.
He took it. An impressionistic pen-and-ink sketch in the corner limned a gaunt vulpine torso and face with baleful eyes, brows that soared like raven’s wings, and neon-red lips: Theda Bara, silent star of Cleopatra and many other man-eating roles during the early silent period (all gone now, an entire career lost to attrition and neglect): the first femme fatale. She was touted as the daughter of a Middle Eastern potentate, her name an anagram of “Arab Death.” In truth she’d been born Theodosia Goodman in Ohio. The Hollywood propaganda machine hit the ground running as early as 1917.
To the right of the drawing and below, engraved in shiny black letters, was a legend, followed by several contact numbers:
TEDDIE GOODMAN
CHIEF CONSULTANT
SUPERNOVA INTERNATIONAL
No, it wasn’t the legendary Theda, although in person it was an easy assumption. Valentino suspected the name was an alias, adopted to catch the eye of her employer, Mark David Turkus, billionaire founder of Supernova, UCLA’s fiercest competitor in the business of locating, restoring, preserving, and marketing lost cinematic treasures. Valentino suspected further that she’d taken the idea from his own name, coincidentally the same as another legendary silent star’s. He could prove his identity from his birth certificate, but not having seen hers, he could only speculate based on her long record of manipulation and underhanded practices. She could give lessons to Theda’s predatory dames in the arts of bribery, subterfuge, and seduction.
“Teddie,” he greeted, pulling his office door shut behind him. “How nice of you to show up without the bother of a satanic rite.”
She was sitting behind his desk, her pencil arms spread and her white hands braced palms down on the top, forming an indestructible triangle. Today she had on a sleeveless dress of some shimmering green metallic material that fit her as tightly as the skin of a snake; it looked as if she’d need a can opener to get out of it. She wore her enameled black hair smoothed straight back from her high pale forehead, and her jet-trail eyebrows drew a V (for vampire) above a long straight nose and scarlet slash of mouth.
“Not funny,” she said.
“Not meant to be.” He hiked a hip onto the corner of the desk and rested a hand on his thigh. It was never bad policy to affect a casual attitude in her presence. The room temperature always seemed to drop ten degrees when she walked in. “It’s been a while. The Augustine murder case, wasn’t it?”
“As you know full well. If it hadn’t been for me, there’d be four fresh plots in Forest Lawn. While the rest of you eggheads were running this way and that, splicing useless clues like it was one of your precious movies, I got the drop on the worst mass-killer in this state since Charles Manson.” Films to her were commodities only.
“No argument; but what have you done lately?”
Twin streaks of crimson appeared on the polished-pearl skin that covered her cheekbones, to fade as quickly as desert blossoms after a rain. Teddie Goodman’s goat could be gotten, but never for long. She pointed a bare shoulder at the file cabinet where he’d stashed M. “Congratulations. Where’s the rest of it?”
“Someplace with a better lock. Seems to me the last time you went snooping among my stuff, a couple of apes threw you down a flight of stairs. Most predators learn from their mistakes.”
“Mark wanted to take you to court for that. You know he’d win; even if the university stood behind you, he’d have buried it under a pile of Tiffany-class lawyers. I told him if he did that, you’d just get fired. It’d take us a week to find out who replaced you and a month to figure out his working method, whereas with you still on the job all I had to do was follow you around until I found out what you were after, then sprint past you to the finish. He’d seen me do it often enough.”
“I tripped you up a couple of times,” he said. “Anyway, what’s past is past. What’s brought you slumming around the halls of academe this time?”
“How far are you along on putting Bleak Street into circulation?”
He slid off the desk, to avoid falling, and cleared a heap of yellowed press releases off the other chair in the office in order to sit down. This gave him time to recover. “Who’s your pipeline into the LAPD?” There was no use denying anything where Teddie was concerned. She never struck until she was sure of her information.
“What makes you think I have one?”
“Only a few people know I have anything to do with the film. I’m sure of the ones I’ve known for years, and the most recent is an unlikely informant based on his health and living arrangements. That leaves the police, who I asked for the files on the Van Oliver disappearance. They run a tight ship, but it’s been known to spring leaks.”
Her expression didn’t change; but then it would take a jackhammer to crack her features. “If you repeat that in front of witnesses, I’ll sue you for slander. Any tank-town shyster could win that one. I asked you a question.”
“Give it up, Teddie. It’s a donation, acquired legally by its former owner, and it’s in a secure facility even your high-tech skeleton keys can’t crack. Tell the Turk he’s barking up the wrong tree this time.”
“How it was acquired remains to be seen; but it wouldn’t matter.”
“And why is that?”
“Because possession and ownership are two different things when it comes to intellectual property. Say you have a letter addressed personally to you by Brad Pitt. You can sell that letter to someone else, but you can’t publish its contents without the permission of the copyright owner; Brad Pitt, in this hypothesis. You can’t release Bleak Street for public viewing and charge a fee unless the owner of the copyright agrees.”
“RKO ceased to exist sixty years ago. Who could the owner be?” But he had the sinking sensation that he knew the answer.
When Teddie Goodman smiled, he could hear the hissing of a fuse. “Must I say it?”
He didn’t reply.
She rolled a polished shoulder. “Supernova International bought out the entire RKO library last month, as well as all properties belonging to the studio’s successors, Desilu and Lorimar: Everything from Cimarron to ‘Who shot J.R.?’ The minute you open Bleak Street anywhere, you and your employers will be up to your neck in subpoenas. But I like you, Valentino, and so does Mark. We have no interest in exposing you to public humiliation.”
From her lap she drew a clutch purse made of glistening black leather trimmed with the same metallic green fabric as her dress and opened the clasp. It was just large enough to contain the No. 10 envelope she placed on Valentino’s side of the desk. This bore the embossed return address of the District Court of the County of Los Angeles.
“This is a judicial order restraining you from engaging in any public exhibition of the property known as Bleak Street until such time as you can show cause in court how such exhibition would not infringe upon the rights of the owner of the said intellectual property. The formal language is more involved, but I’ll leave the whereases and hereinafters for you to work out in private.” She snapped the purse shut.
Valentino didn’t pick up the envelope. “You’re devious, but I’ve never known you to lie. If you say that’s what this is, I’m sure it’s genuine.”
“I like you too.”
“Hear me out. With us in possession of the film and Supernova in control of the copyright, I’m sure we can work out a deal that’s beneficial to us both. There might even be a substantial corporate tax benefit involved. I’m sure Mr. Turkus’ attorneys will be able to work out the details.”
She pursed her lips, collapsing her cheeks so that they appeared even more cadaverous than usual.
“We can come to a deal, but I doubt you’d like it.”
“I’m listening.” He braced himself. He knew this was going to be bad. Later he would have to admit that he never dreamed just how bad.
“It’s my employer’s intention,” she said, “to see that Bleak Street is never released. In order to guarantee that, he’s prepared to invest as much of his resources as are necessary to buy all existing prints and negatives of the property and then destroy them.”
Valentino stared. Her face gave no indication that she was joking. In fact he knew from long association that Teddie Goodman was incapable of either expressing humor or appreciating it.
She smiled for the second time in one visit, breaking a precedent. “I forgot to congratulate you on The Oracle’s grand opening. How soon can Mark and I buy tickets?”