IT WAS AN oil painting in a Deco frame, a portrait of a stunningly beautiful woman, rendered by an artist of rare talent. Her cascade of raven hair caught the light in haloes as if she were standing directly across from Valentino. A naked shoulder was opalescent. The eyes—part defiant, part fragile—were a bewitching shade of hazel; they lacked only the addition of a green scarf to turn them to jade. The lips were full and exquisitely shaped. It was a face without flaws.
There wasn’t a sound in the room. Even Anklemire, far from the most sensitive soul in attendance, stood mute, his glass raised halfway to his lips and motionless.
“Laura.” The name came out in a whisper, as if Valentino had spoken in church.
“The same,” said Broadhead, “yet different. When Rouben Mamoulian was signed to direct, he commissioned his wife to paint this picture. Gene Tierney posed for it in person. But it isn’t the one everyone remembers from Laura. When Otto Preminger came on to replace Mamoulian, he rejected it. I gather it had something to do with her gaze set in the wrong direction; wrong, I suspect, because it wasn’t directed at Preminger. Anyway he had a studio photograph blown up and air-brushed to resemble a painting. That one’s unavailable, and if it were, it would be beyond most people’s means. This one is dear enough, but because it’s less well-known, the price was far more reasonable.”
“Even so, Kyle, you can’t possibly afford this.”
“Right you are. We ornaments of the university are vastly overrated and notoriously underpaid. But he can.”
Valentino turned to follow the direction of Broadhead’s pointing finger. From a corner he’d have sworn was deserted only moments earlier stepped an elegant-looking old man, with white hair fine as sugar combed back from his forehead, very brown skin, and eyes the color of mahogany. His thin build created an impression of height; in fact he was only slightly taller than Anklemire, but a creature from an entirely different species. His evening clothes were silk, the jacket and trousers midnight blue, the shirt snow-white, and his black patent leather shoes glistened like volcanic glass. He was ancient, but erect, and his smile was both genuine and modest.
“Señor Bozal!”
The smile broadened. “You remember me. Swell!”
Valentino took the slim brown hand that was offered him. Although the fingers were bony, his grip was firm and dry.
“How could I not? The party you threw to commemorate your gift to my department was almost as lavish as the donation itself. Wherever did you find a cache of George Hurrell’s studio stills no one had seen in eighty years?”
“No comment. An old mug like me needs his secrets.”
Ignacio Bozal’s habitual use of forties-era urban slang, so much in contrast with his Castilian accent, surprised and amused everyone who met him for the first time: He looked like a Spanish grandee and talked like a combination of Allen Jenkins and Broderick Crawford.
Twenty years before immigrating to the United States, he’d suddenly appeared in Acapulco with a bankroll big enough to buy and renovate a broken-down resort hotel and open for business just before the birth of the Mexican Riviera. His American investors accepted his claim that he’d been a silent partner in a gold mine somewhere in the Sierras; but then they’d profited too greatly from the association to press for specifics.
Valentino, whose department was so much richer for Bozal’s contributions, was similarly inclined.
“The minute I heard about this shindig, I decided to crash the gate. But I ain’t so rough around the edges I’d come empty-handed.” The old man gestured toward the painting.
“It’s too generous,” Valentino said. “I’ve done nothing to justify such a present.”
“Maybe not. But you will, if we can come to a deal.”
The old man’s gentle appearance was reassuring; it was his underworld vernacular that lent a sinister interpretation to the remark. On a soundstage, the camera operator would dolly in for a close-up of his enigmatic expression just before fading out.
Harriet, who had stopped at one glass of champagne and made free with the canapés, drove. Laura, cocooned in the sheet that had veiled her, rode in the back seat. The theaters were dark at that hour, and the streetlamps, spaced farther apart there than in the busier neighborhoods, illuminated Harriet’s profile in flickers.
“How old do you think Bozal is?” she said.
Valentino came out of a half-doze; he’d stopped at one canapé and made free with the champagne. “Based on what little is known of his history, my guess is he’s approaching the century mark, not that you’d know it to look at him.”
“How much do you know about his history?”
“I told you where he says he got his capital. Personally, it sounds a little too close to The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Did you notice the way he talks?”
“How could I miss it? It’s like Dick Tracy marinated in Cesar Romero.”
“When he came to this country, the TV airwaves were jammed with sports, soap operas, and old movies. He didn’t follow sports, and the soaps weren’t his cup of tea, so he learned his English from films Hollywood considered too old to re-release to theaters, so they dumped them on television. His preference happened to run to gangster movies. Anyway, that’s his story.”
“What’s yours?”
“I don’t have one, but any man who comes out of nowhere with a bundle is bound to attract rumors: He made his stake harboring Nazi war criminals in Brazil, or was a member of the Perón government in Argentina, where he looted the treasury.”
They entered West Hollywood, where the glow of the thousands of bulbs that illuminated the marquee of The Oracle were visible for blocks. After decades of darkness, it pleased him to come home to a dazzling display. Kyle Broadhead, less romantic, referred to it as “a human sacrifice to the gaping maw of Consolidated Edison.”
“You don’t think there’s any truth to the rumors, do you?” Harriet said.
“Of course not. In the absence of evidence, people will go to any lengths to provide a substitute; and they never gossip about the basic goodness of Man.”
She smiled. “I like that you believe that. So why do you like crime thrillers so much?”
“When I feel blue, I watch Fred Astaire dancing with Ginger Rogers. When I feel naughty, I watch Lawrence Tierney plotting a murder with Claire Trevor. The first cheers me up; the second keeps me from acting on my baser instincts.”
“‘Baloney,’ to quote Henry Anklemire. What’s this deal Bozal was talking about, in return for the painting? You were off in a corner together, whispering like a couple of heisters.”
He laughed, hiccupped; excused himself. “Two minutes with him and you sound like Bonnie Parker. He’s invited me to his house tomorrow morning.”
“That sounds like more of a favor for you than for him.”
“He was cagy about it, but from some broad hints he made I gather he’s come into a film that shouldn’t be screened except by someone who knows how to manage old stock. Of course he has a home theater, and of course it will make The Oracle look like an all-night grindhouse in San Diego.”
“Doubt that.”
“I wouldn’t rule anything out where Bozal is concerned. He’s one of the biggest private collectors in the business. If I play my cards right, I’ll pick up some tips on how he manages to find such treasures without the resources of a major university behind him.”
“Greedy. You’ve already got Laura.”
“Told you I have baser instincts.”
They pulled up in front of the Baroque/Italianate/ Byzantine pile of sandstone, with bulbs chasing up, down, and around the towering marquee: GRAND OPENING SOON, read the legend in foot-high letters.
“How are you feeling tonight?” Her brows were arched. “Blue or naughty?”
“Inebriated as a North American mammal of the weasel family.” He got out, stumbling, opened the back door, and leaned in to retrieve the portrait.
She alighted from her side. “You’d better let me carry that. You’re liable to trip and put your head through it, and then you’ll feel like Abbott and Costello.”