Loren D. Estleman - Valentino 03 - Alive! (15 page)

“Steampunk.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I guess it’s better than sprockethead.” Valentino swept up the ramp and entered Interstate 5 heading south to San Diego.

14

THE GROTTO WASN’T
as seedy as Valentino had expected. Located directly on San Diego Bay with a dock in back where boaters could put in to replenish their stock of refreshments, it had a faux stone façade, a bar and restaurant on the first level, a second story reserved (according to a sign) for private parties, and a rounded tunnel-like entrance with waterfalls on either side bathed in colored lights.
Tawdry
was the word that came to mind.

Before they went in, Jason Stickley asked Valentino if he should leave his top hat behind and remove the padlock and chain hanging around his neck. Valentino considered, then shook his head. “The more attention we attract going inside, the better chance we have of coming back out.”

The boy’s smile was sickly. Here in actual enemy territory, they both found it difficult to laugh their adventure off as melodrama.

“You can stay in the car if you like,” Valentino said. “I wouldn’t go in myself if it weren’t for that damn film.”

“I’m fine, sir. Just a little stage fright.”

“We’re both being silly. It’s people who know too much who get hurt, and we know less than nothing.”

Passing between the ever-cycling waterfalls, he wondered who was waiting at the other end: a mug from Central Casting with a blue chin and a lethal bulge under one arm? Even the most tattered cliché from the bottom half of a double bill made sense in those surroundings. Out under the last rusty glow of the sun, the Pacific rolled on and on over bones that had never been found, weighted down with cement, and those same waves lapped conveniently at the back door.

“Valentino.” Not a question this time, uttered in the same cold flat tone he’d heard on the telephone.

Standing just outside the end of the tunnel, Big Tony Grundage’s son was smaller than he appeared in photographs and on the TV news, a dark, compact presence with narrow, serious features, dressed in the West Coast business uniform of sportcoat, black T-shirt, casual slacks, and glistening loafers. He was clean-shaven, with splinters of gray in his two-hundred-dollar haircut. His eyes were wolflike, brown and slanting. He didn’t offer to shake hands.

“Yes. This is Jason Stickley, my assistant.”

Belatedly, Jason swept off his hat, holding it in front of him at waist level as if to deflect bullets. Mike Grundage didn’t look at him. “You didn’t say you’d bring company.”

“You didn’t say I couldn’t. It’s a long drive, and I have to go back tonight. He can spell me at the wheel.” He’d had this explanation ready.

“If you trust him. You’ve met Horace.”

Valentino was enormously relieved to recognize the attorney, whom he hadn’t seen in the dim light until that moment. Respectable lawyers made it a point not to be present when their clients committed transgressions such as homicide. Lysander, carefully dressed as ever, shook his hand without smiling.

“These days I don’t say a word, public or private, without him in the room. Let’s go upstairs.”

Grundage led the way through a room crowded with customers dining and drinking, towing a banner of silence through the buzzing conversation. Everyone appeared to recognize him, and to be curious about who was with him. What was that line about gangsters in
Goodfellas
? “Movie stars with muscle.”

At the top of a carpeted staircase flanked by underwater photography on the walls, the atmosphere changed. This was where the private parties took place, in a large quiet room with long cloth-covered tables and comfortable-looking chairs. Lysander, bringing up the rear, paused to snap a velvet rope into a ring, with a sign reading INVITED GUESTS ONLY across the landing. Valentino wondered what other menial tasks the officer of the court performed for his notorious client. His unease returned.

The big room was unoccupied. They passed through it and into a curtained alcove, sealed off by the attorney once again when he twitched loose two ties, allowing the curtains to fall together. The room was just large enough to contain a small covered table, laid out sumptuously for a meal, and three chairs. “Please, Horace.” Grundage nodded toward a fourth chair in a corner, which Lysander dutifully moved to the table.

“I ordered,” said Grundage when they sat down. “There’s Chicken Cordon Bleu for all of us. I always make sure there’s enough for seconds.”

Valentino said, “Thank you. I’m not sure we’re hungry.”

“You don’t break bread with thugs, that it?”

The vitriol of the response emboldened more than intimidated him. If this man was determined to behave according to type, there was little that would change his mind. The die was cast. “For someone who’s so careful about what he says, you jump to conclusions easily. A friend of mine was found murdered on these premises. It doesn’t do much for the appetite.”

Most of the room’s illumination came from an electric candle glimmering in a glass vessel on the table. It reflected off his host’s eyes in lupine fashion. “The ocean’s twenty feet from the kitchen, friend. If I wanted to ditch a stiff, I wouldn’t do it in my own toilet.”

“Mike.” Lysander’s sleek bald head moved infinitesimally from right to left. Grundage held up a hand, stopping him in mid-shake. All his attention was centered on Valentino, who said:

“I’m not accusing you. Frankly, I wouldn’t need much persuasion to decide you’re not responsible. That’s for the police to prove, one way or the other. Tonight I’m chiefly interested in what happened to the
Frankenstein
test.”

The wolfish eyes fixed him for all of twenty seconds, an eternity. “Well, we’ve got that much in common.”

Just then, as waiters will, one arrived with their meals, which he propped on a folding tray and set out before them, guests first, host last. A warm, tantalizing aroma issued forth the moment the covers were removed, setting Valentino’s stomach juices to riot. He realized he hadn’t eaten in hours, and that Grundage was truthful about one thing at least, that the Chicken Cordon Bleu served in The Grotto was second only to the original, if indeed it didn’t surpass it. Why did criminals and ruthless dictators dine better than the virtuous?

Grundage took the tall slender wine bottle from the waiter the moment it was uncorked. “California Riesling’s the best in the world; don’t believe anything the krauts tell you.” He tilted it toward Valentino’s glass.

The archivist covered it with his hand. “None for me, thanks.”

“Rummy?”

“I like to keep my wits about me. Jason’s underage.”

Jason, who had lifted his glass for pouring, colored and set it back down.

“Far be it from me to break the law.” Smiling for the first time—a tight-lipped turning up at the corners that warmed his personality not a jot—Grundage filled his glass to within a half inch of the rim and then Lysander’s. The attorney’s hand shook a little as he retrieved it. Valentino wondered if he was a rummy, to use his host’s term; worry increased.

“My old man was superstitious. I’m not. I don’t toast.” Grundage sipped from his glass and waved the waiter away. (Lysander, his guest noticed, took a healthier sample, replaced the glass on the table, and removed his fingers from the stem with what looked like reluctance.)

“My stepmother’s a good woman. She spent a lot of time trying to keep me away from my father’s business; but I’m his son, and that’s that. I don’t want her mixed up in this.”

“I can’t promise that.” Valentino picked up his fork. “Not until I know what
this
is. What did you mean about you and I having something in common? Don’t you know where the test is?”

“First, we eat. The old man told me you can’t conduct good business on an empty stomach.”

They dined virtually in silence, broken up only by the tink of silver on china and the strains of old standards performed by current artists on a sound system better than most restaurants’. The food was sumptuous to look at, cooked to a pleasing shade, the meat fork tender, the side dishes colorful, but the taste was lost on Valentino. Had he seen too many mob movies, or didn’t gangsters fatten their victims before sacrificing them? Jason, he saw, ate with apparent pleasure; the student union couldn’t compete with The Grotto’s kitchen, and thin people in general out-trenchered the rest of society.

Grundage pushed away the remnants of his dessert and snatched his napkin from his collar: the only vestige Valentino had noted of his plebian ancestry. Their waiter materialized instantly to clear his side of the table. When he departed: “What’s in it for you if you lay hands on this gizmo?”

His guest applied sparkling water to his dry mouth. “That was an excellent meal, Mr. Grundage. I can’t imagine why I’d never heard of this place.”

“I throw bums and food critics out of the joint. It’s crowded enough. We chew, we swallow, we shove it out the back door, then we think about the next meal and how do we get our mitts on it. So how do you?”

He’d decided he couldn’t do business with Mike Grundage by appealing to his interest in history. This was nothing new. He’d spent his share of time in the hot seat at budget meetings, making his case for the profit potential in film preservation apart from its historical responsibility. Gangsters and boards of directors responded only to the promise of a healthy bottom line.

“Laying hands on that screen test means we can market it through theatrical distribution followed by DVD rentals and sales. An investment of, say, a hundred thousand dollars could yield half again that amount retail. Universities are businesses, too.” He watched the wolf-eyed face for some reaction. He’d severely undervalued the item under discussion in the interest of horse trading.

“Your friend Hunter offered my stepmother a quarter million.”

Valentino smiled despite himself. “Craig would’ve been hard pressed to come up with a tenth of that.”

“I’m just telling you what my stepmama done told me. You saying she’s a liar?”

Jason burped and giggled. Valentino, knowing incipient hysteria when he heard it, pressed his knee against the young man’s. The giggling stopped.

“I’m sure she’s a woman of integrity. I’m just telling
you
what I know about Craig.”

Grundage seemed mollified, on the subject of his stepmother. “What’s this thing worth really?”

“Do you have it?”

“What’s that got to do with what we’re talking about?” The proprietor of The Grotto showed irritation for the first time. Valentino wondered suddenly if he had money troubles. The grand jury investigation, and his obligations to Lysander’s legal firm, must have been a constant drain. The man was strapped for cash. That was something Valentino could relate to.

“Mr. Grundage, once I’m convinced you’re in possession of the property we’re discussing, we can move on to honest negotiation. Right now I can’t understand why you would be. Your father could have obtained it easily enough from a projectionist in the union he represented, but it seems to me he’d have sold it many years go. Why hoard it?”

“Because that’s what he did. My old man was a packrat. After he died I moved my stepmother out of that barn they lived in and set her up in a luxury condo. I threw out most of the crap he piled up and put the rest in storage. He probably forgot he even had the film.”

This sounded plausible. J. Arthur Greenwood had said almost the same thing about his own collection. “But how did Hunter find out about it?”

“This whole town’s a chatterbox, just like L.A. I had all the stuff we kept in Elizabeth’s name inventoried for insurance purposes. Somebody spilled his guts.”

“May I ask why she turned down Hunter’s offer?”

“Horace told her if a grifter was offering that much, she should hold out for a million.”

Valentino glanced at the attorney, but continued to address himself to Grundage. “He told me he advised her not to sell it on any terms, and that’s when Craig threatened him.”

“I told him to tell you that. He called me, not Elizabeth, when you were in his office. I figured you’d lose interest if he said no way. I’m tired of people coming around asking questions. Hunter did call Horace and called him all kinds of an S.O.B. Why would he get so sore if he was fronting for somebody, unless he planned to double-cross him and hold him up for more?”

“He was fronting for a man named Greenwood, a private collector. I talked to him.”

“So how high was this Greenwood prepared to go?”

“He hoped to get it for less than a million.”

“Which means it’s worth more.”

“Not much more, if it is. Things are bad all over.”

Grundage smiled his chilly smile. “This is starting to sound like a haggling session. Who you working for, Hunter’s big fish or yourself?”

“Neither. I got into this on his ex-wife’s behalf, to find out who killed him and why. When I learned the
Frankenstein
test was involved, I naturally became interested as a representative of the Film Preservation Department.”

“You saying there’s nothing in it for you?”

“A finder’s fee. I’ve got expenses.”

Lysander spoke up. “You have more than that, young man. That eyesore in West Hollywood is eating you alive.”

“I set Horace on you,” Grundage explained. “I like to know everything I can about a man before I set up a meet. What’s your fee?”

“The amount depends on the profit UCLA realizes from DVD rentals and sales, less the cost of transferring the film from silver-nitrate to safety stock and restoring it as closely as possible to its original condition, which is likely to be substantial.”

The racketeer made a yak-yak motion with one hand. “I didn’t bring you down here to ask how your business is run. What’s your offer?”

“Mike, we need to discuss this with Elizabeth before we commit to anything.”

“Relax, Counselor. Everybody knows you got the hots for her.”

“That’s an ugly way to put it.” Lysander’s face flushed deeply.

Jason hadn’t spoken since they’d entered the restaurant. Now he said, “You haven’t mentioned whether you had the film.”

Valentino glanced at him, surprised he’d broken his silence and by his own neglect in not pressing the question.