Missing Reels (29 page)

“But why did he have it in the first place? Your friend Fred said hardly anyone bothered to save screen tests.” He picked up the paper bag and shot it like a free throw toward the garbage can, where it bounced off the mounds of trash already stuffed there. “If that’s the case, then tell me. Who would hang on to Miriam’s test?” He waited as her chest began to flare red. “Go on, who?”

“Emil,” she admitted.

“Good hypothesis. Logical, even.” He walked to the trash can, picked up their bag and balanced it on top, then walked back and straddled the fountain edge. His look was the one that meant, don’t mind me, I said something brilliant, I’ll give you a moment to digest. But he lasted only seconds before he said, “And you’ll have noticed something else.” What was there to say, except, you were smarter than I was? She wasn’t saying that. “Come on now.”

“That was smart,” she ventured.

He made a beckoning gesture. “Out with it. Concede the point.”

“That was helpful.”

“Bloody—” He swung a leg back over the edge and put his face right up in hers, causing her to crane back. “It’s the
romantic
explanation, isn’t it.” He pulled back and folded his hands. “Yet it didn’t occur to
you
, did it, Little Miss Let’s-drag-Matthew-to-a-Kay-Francis-double-feature.”

The rush of happiness was so strong she thought it might hurl her square at him. But she said only, “You liked
One Way Passage
. You know you did.”

“It made more sense than
Mandalay
. And that’s only because
Mandalay
made no sense at all. Watch it, there’s still—” She had already scooted down and snaked her arm through his. In crowded places, especially near NYU, he found an excuse not to do things like that; in movie theaters he never dropped an arm around her shoulders. This time he held still and pointed. “Your coat is going to smell like pickle.”

“It’s due for a cleaning anyway.” He rubbed his thumb near her hairline, probably to get rid of a smudge. “Let’s talk about something else,” she said.

“My god, do you think that’s wise? Shouldn’t you wean off gradually?”

“Nope. Cold turkey.” They stared at each other. “I forgot to tell you. Last week, I was listening to Bartok.”

They stayed up late that night, listening to the third and fourth quartets. He tried to explain something called a Fibonacci sequence. He played something for strings, percussion, and something else, and she kept up a stream of what she thought were positive comments, starting with “bracing” and progressing to “unique” and “daring,” until after midnight he announced, “That’s enough faking it for one night,” and they went to bed.

The next morning she slipped into the living room and fished Fred’s card out of her wallet. Kelly picked up the phone and told her Fred was in the lab.

“May I leave a message?” Evidently Kelly didn’t remember her. She spelled her name three times.

“And it’s pronounced Kine-wen?”

“Yes.”

“Wow. That’s different. Can I tell Fred what this is regarding?”

“Oh …” She paused. She hadn’t thought about that. “Just tying some things up.”

“Like a package?”

Probably a joke, but Ceinwen had concluded that the Brody was the nosiest place in Manhattan. “No, like conversational loose ends.”

She turned to hang up and found herself looking straight at Matthew, who was in his underwear and leaning against the bedroom door jamb.

“I do love American slang,” he said. “All that nuance. What does ‘cold turkey’ mean to a Yank?”

“Means I’m from Mississippi, so don’t call me a Yank,” she said. “Do you want to get breakfast before I go to the library? I’ve only got a few hours before work.”

He went into the bathroom to shave, which took him twice as long as it took her to put on a full face of makeup, including liquid eyeliner and three coats of mascara. She hadn’t told him everything, not by a long shot. She’d combed through the monograph and come up with some studio names. Benjamin Rosber, second in command under Frank Gregory, not listed in the credits but mentioned in passing. Rex Garland, who’d done some uncredited script work.

Best of all, Lucile Pierrepoint, “Gregory’s devoted personal secretary,” whom Gundlach described as “legendary for her efficiency.” Now that sounded like someone who might show up to sort through a dead director’s personal effects. Trouble was, women got married and changed their names. So she’d been thrilled to find an article in Beverly Hills magazine, about a dinner the Women’s League had given in 1980 for its oldest members. It named “the former Lucile Pierrepoint” and said she’d worked at Civitas. Her name was now Miller, and Ceinwen had groaned at the number of potential hits in the Greater Los Angeles phone book. Even the Beverly Hills phone book had about a dozen L. Millers, and she figured part of the appeal of Beverly Hills would be having an unlisted number.

If Miller had been “devoted,” she must have liked the man, figured Ceinwen. So last week she had spent hours composing a letter to what she hoped was a still-living Mrs. Miller, emphasizing that her ever-mutating project included a revisionist view of Frank Gregory as one heck of a swell guy. She enclosed that letter inside another to the Women’s League of Beverly Hills, and that one was even harder to write. The Women’s League of Yazoo City wouldn’t have forwarded a letter for Ceinwen if she’d covered the envelope in gold leaf. They were all the same, women who had once been debutantes and the girls who were about to be, the girls who whispered about her clothes when she walked by and rolled their eyes or giggled every time she spoke up in class. The Women’s League was supposedly all about “service,” but so far as Ceinwen could tell, service meant standing around in a hoop skirt and twirling a parasol at the entrance to a historic site, drawling, “Welcome to Yazoo City!”

She pretended Granana was standing over her shoulder and wrote the most elaborately polite letter of her life, her script so careful she had a hand cramp for the rest of the day.

She was proud of the whole scheme, and she wanted to tell Matthew. She wanted him to realize she was smart. As smart in her way as, say, a doctor of economics. But it seemed he kept confusing “smart” with “obsessive.”

At least the Vermont collector was a good lead. She hoped Fred called her back soon.

She got dressed and decided to buy a newspaper on the way to the coffee shop. They could talk about Iran-Contra. And maybe Kay Francis.

S
HE HATED THE WAY THE LIBRARY
’
S LIGHTS SEEMED HARSHER AS SOON
as the sun began to go down. The fluorescent bulbs turned her copy of the monograph greenish-gray. Plus, her notes made it look as though it had spent six weeks with the world’s most psychopathic copy editor.

She’d called or written to everybody she could locate—everybody, that meant, except Norman Stallings, Miriam’s friend on the set. Gundlach said his last known movie credit was from 1942. After that, nothing. She had been working her way back from the current year, she was sitting there with the Reader’s Guide for 1942, and she hadn’t found a single Norman Stallings that fit for all those years, although she had a good bead on Norman Stallings, chief executive officer of A&R Shipping, and Norman Stallings, author of
King of All Britain
, about Athelstan the Glorious.

She could either start on newspaper archives—she glanced to where she knew the
New York Times
indexes were shelved—or she could give up on Norman. She could try Edward Kenny’s daughter, but that wasn’t going to be pleasant. And surely a good daughter wouldn’t have left Daddy’s movies laying around.

She slammed the Reader’s Guide to Periodical Literature shut and an old man cleared his throat and glared at her. She knew he was right, but she glared back in true New York fashion. Some detective she was, spending all her time in the library or writing letters and making phone calls. No response from Lucile Miller, messages ignored by the nursing home where Rex Garland lived. People always got back to Philip Marlowe. Even when Dick Powell was playing him. And that was another thing. Ten days had gone by after she called Fred, she’d left another message, and now it had been five days more. What was going on? Didn’t he like her?

She put her head down on the book. No, that wasn’t the problem, she was sure of it. He didn’t like Matthew, but he’d been fine with her. They’d had lunch, after all. He was probably just busy. Or maybe he didn’t get the messages, although the Brody seemed like the kind of place that never lost messages.

Fred, though. Fred definitely could have lost a message. Two messages, even.

Maybe she should just show up. Doorstepping, Matthew called it.

She bet Fred worked late. If she hopped on the subway and went up to the Brody, she might get there in time to catch him on the way out. It was a lot harder to ignore somebody who was standing there in the lobby. Even if he couldn’t talk, maybe she could get him to make plans. If he wasn’t there she could tape a note on the door, although in that neighborhood the locals might think a flapping piece of paper on a townhouse was bad for property values.

It was too dark to see her watch when she arrived at the Brody and rang the buzzer. There was no response, but she could see lights. She buzzed again, waited, then again, leaning hard. The door clicked and she pushed it open. The receptionist wasn’t at the desk; instead Isabel, wearing a slim black cocktail dress, sheer black stockings, and red heels, was standing in front of it. She was carrying a massive, full-length, shimmering-black fur coat over her arm, and the other hand cupped a tiny gold purse studded with red gems.

“We’re closed for the night,” she said. “I realize our hours aren’t posted, but given that it’s past seven …”

“Is Fred still here?”

“… and we’re open by appointment only—did you say Fred? Creighton?”

“That’s him. I was walking past and thought I’d come say hey.”

“Hey?” Isabel’s eyes opened wide and her arm dropped so the coat almost brushed the floor.

“Yes ma’am. That’s Southern for ‘hi.’” Ceinwen wasn’t sure she’d seen sable before, but that coat looked better than mink. Wasn’t there a sable coat in
All About Eve
? The party scene, the coat’s on the bed, and Thelma Ritter holds it up—

“May I have your name?” Isabel slung the coat across the desk and set down the purse. Either Isabel didn’t remember her, or this was a way of putting her in her place.

“Ceinwen Reilly.”

She strode behind the desk, punched a button on the phone and waited. “Fred? Miss Ceinwen Reilly to see you … I have no idea … Is there time for that? … One moment.” Isabel punched another button and gave her the eye. Too bad Ceinwen’s houndstooth coat was covering up today’s dress. It was black, too, with brass beading around a deep neckline and more beads edging the peplum, and Ceinwen thought it was as nice as Isabel’s. “Fred says you can come up for just a minute. Do you have ID?”

Not again. “I don’t think so.”

Isabel turned back to the phone. “No can do Fred, she doesn’t have ID. You’ll have to come down. It’s time anyway.” She set down the phone with a firmly precise snap and slinked herself into the desk chair. Her dark red nails drummed silently on the arm. “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

The round settee was so far away that if she tried to sit there, she’d be calling to Isabel like a mother on the playground. Ceinwen tried to stand straighter. Why couldn’t they put a chair in front of the desk like normal places? This was like being brought to Conrad Veidt’s headquarters. Ve think ve haf seen you beefore, Meez Reilly. “I came here to see the Arnheim fragment.”

“I remember. You didn’t have ID then, either.”

“I guess,” said Ceinwen, “you could say I’m not that organized.”

“Neither is Fred.”

“He’s much more organized than I am.”

“That’s alarming,” said Isabel briskly. “I take it you have further questions about the fragment?”

“I have some matters of a personal nature to discuss,” said Ceinwen, in what she hoped was a real Bette Davis get-lost kind of voice. A door opened one flight up, and Fred careened down the stairs, slipped, collided with the banister, gave a small yelp, and continued. He had on dress shoes, Ceinwen noticed, leather oxfords. Also a pair of badly pressed navy pants and a white button-down. She wondered whether for Fred, this qualified as dressed to the nines.

“Hi, um, I’m, ah, sorry I didn’t return your call, it’s been, um, pretty crazy around here.” He was rubbing his elbow.

“You haven’t got much time.” That was Isabel, putting on her coat. Were they going out together? Fred’s stubble was slight. Signs were definitely pointing to an occasion.

“I’ll make it,” snapped Fred.

“I’m sorry,” said Ceinwen, “I didn’t realize you had to be somewhere. I don’t want to mess up your schedule.”

“No, um, it’s okay, we can walk out together.”

“Did you remember the jacket?” Isabel again.

“In the closet with my coat.”

“And the tie?” She flipped out the ends of her hair so they lay perfectly over the coat.

“In the jacket pocket.”

“Great idea. Wonder why Hermès doesn’t do that?” said Isabel, as she picked up her purse and walked around the desk. The fur was so long and lush it looked as though it was swallowing her feet-first.

“I rolled up the tie. The tie situation is under control, all right?”

Isabel paused and looked Fred up and down. He grabbed his elbow again. “The driver’s waiting around the corner. I’d drop you off, but it’s in the opposite direction.”

“There’s plenty of time. I’ll make it.”

“Don’t forget to set the alarm,” said Isabel, striding toward the door.

“Good night, Isabel,” he called after her, emphasizing the “night.” She waved her hand without turning around. Fred laced his fingers behind his head and let out a whoosh of breath when the door shut.

“I picked a bad time to drop by, didn’t I,” said Ceinwen.

“Nah, it’s okay. It’s just that I have to go to this meeting, and um … let me get my stuff.” He opened the door to the closet and Ceinwen followed, once more trying to peek in. He called to her from inside. “I’m, yeah, I’m going to the Bangville Police Society tonight, and they’ve got a dress code.” She wanted to follow him so she could see the inside of the closet, but it was dark and he had disappeared. The other door opened and Fred came out, just like Kelly had when she first came there. How did that work? She really wanted to know. He was wearing a jacket and carrying a black wool coat dotted with pills.