The Sixteen Burdens (18 page)

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-F
IVE

G
RAY
DIDN
’
T
KNOW
what kind of actress Paulette Goddard was, but her pouty face was Oscar gold. Her lips puckered as if she had just eaten a lemon wedge. As if she had swallowed an entire lemon grove.

Despite her huffs and puffs, Chaplin had assigned her to babysitting duty again, with strict instructions not to let Gray leave the house. With as stern a voice as he was capable, Chaplin told Gray to stay home while he drove to Crystal Lake to check out reports of squatters in vacant cabins. Fairbanks was checking out another lead in the San Fernando Valley.

Paulette reclined stiffly on the living room couch across from Gray, rolling her eyes at him so often he began to wonder if she weren’t being possessed.

Gray sat in an upholstered chair, sitting uncomfortably upright. He stared out the window at the bright blue ripples in the oval-shaped pool outside, but in his mind he saw only the dark, dispassionate eyes of Howard Hughes.

The one forged of darkness is evil.

Farrell had called him diseased. Hughes now said he was something even worse. Something so dangerous it had to be destroyed. Maybe that was the true reason Pickford had hidden him away—not because he was special but because he was an aberration, something the others would try to kill when they discovered what he was. If that was true, Gray owed his mother doubly.

If life had taught him anything, it was that debts were cages, and favors were leashes. Better to fall off a cliff than accept an outstretched hand. Gray would do what he could to see Pickford home safely, and then…then he would get as far away from the rest of them as possible so that he couldn’t do them any harm.

The doorbell rang at half past ten, and Paulette threw down her issue of
Hollywood Screen Life
to answer it. Her mood brightened considerably: Chaplin had sent a courier to deliver the latest line of dresses from Bullock’s.

Paulette plopped down on the living room carpet, unboxing outfits like her own personal Christmas morning. Gray realized Chaplin may have given him an unintended gift as well: a way out.

“I could help you, if you like,” Gray said.

“You?” she said. “What would you know about dresses?”

“I like dames, and dames wear dresses.”

She sniffed at that idea.

“I’ll make you drinks while you get decked out,” Gray said. “I can make a Sidecar, a Bloody Mary, even a Grasshopper.”

Paulette looked at him as if he had made an indecent proposal.

“It’s not even noon,” she said.

Gray shrugged.

That never stopped Farrell.

Paulette scooped up her dresses and headed upstairs.

“Go to the study and find a dictionary to read.”

Gray needed to get out of the house without Paulette knowing; he had promised Chaplin he wouldn’t leave. In the study, Gray found Chaplin’s address book. He flipped through the pages and placed a call to Panchito.

“
Bueno
,” Panchito said on the other end of the line.

“Chito? It’s Gray.”

“You shoulda seen what I did yesterday!” Panchito said. “I blew these two
pachucos
right out of the restaurant!”

“I need you to call me at Mr. Chaplin’s house.”

“Why?”

“I need to distract Paulette.”

“Where are you going?” Panchito asked. “Tell me. I want to go.”

“Sorry, pally, this is my gig.”

“Then no dice,
pally
.”

Gray tried to think of someone else he could call.
Anyone
. But there wasn’t a single person.

“Fine,” Gray said. “Call me back and I’ll tell you.”

They hung up, and two minutes later the phone began to buzz. Gray let it ring three or four times before picking it up.

“The observatory in an hour,” he said, then hung up.

There was a soft pattering from above, which grew louder as Paulette scurried down the stairs. She appeared in the door of the study, draped in a new dress and holding another.

“Did you answer that? Who was it?”

“Some guy wanted to talk to you,” Gray said. “Luis Moyer?”

“
Louis Mayer
?”

“Yeah, that’s the one,” Gray said. “He wanted to meet with you right away. I told him you was busy.”

“
Busy
?”

“Don’t you remember? You’re babysitting. And I’m the baby.”

Paulette tugged at her hair on the sides. She bit her fingernails. She did everything but gouge her own eyes out.

“It’s a role,” she said. “I know it! He has a role picked out just for me. I’ve got to get down to MGM. I’ve got to get dressed.”

She looked down her outfit.

“I have nothing to wear!”

She bounded up the stairs like the bunny she was.

Go where you can walk among the stars.

Gray stood outside Griffith Observatory, overlooking the city. Unlike Beverly Hills, with its fortress-style shrubs that selfishly hid the view, Griffith Park offered its city panorama generously.

To the east, City Hall towered over the smaller buildings of Downtown like a watchful brother. Far out to the west, big gray clouds were forming over a hazy strip of ocean. It looked as if the spell of December heat would soon be over.

“Sorry to spoil your Ovaltine, but it’s not up here.”

Panchito was lining up rocks of increasing size on the cement balcony.

They had already walked through the observatory, inspecting the Foucault pendulum, the Tesla coil, and a map of the solar system. Nothing had caught Gray’s eye. Had his mother hidden it somewhere in one of the exhibits?

“It’s gotta be here.”

“This location makes no sense,” Panchito said. “If Mrs. Pickford had hidden the Eye here, she’d have to drive across town to get it every time she wanted to use it.”

He used his courage to thrust a small stone over the ledge onto the hillside below.

“I threw the guy across the alley,” Panchito said. “Like twenty feet in the air!”

“Mm.”

In the center of the grounds leading up to the observatory was a monument about thirty feet tall, a white pillar with life-sized statues carved around the base. Gray approached the structure. The names of the people were carved at the feet of each figure in the monument.

“They’re all astronomers or something,” Gray said, looking up at nameplates by their feet. “Hipparchus, Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo Galilei, and…”

He pointed to a carving of a man with long hair and a small nose.

“Isaac Newton!”

Gray began climbing up onto the monument, looking in the nooks and crannies of the carving of Newton.

Panchito thrust the largest stone over the edge and walked over.

“Listen to me,” Panchito said. “The observatory has only been open four years. Mrs. Pickford has had the Eye a lot longer than that. Why don’t you just tell me the clue you have so I can help?”

Gray ignored him and continued to search around the monument. There was nothing he could find; no hidden compartment, no box stuffed into a hidden corner.

“Fine,” Panchito said. “Obviously you don’t need my help. You don’t need anyone’s help.”

It had to be there. If it wasn’t, Gray was at a complete loss of where else to look. He would fail Pickford, and let down Chaplin and Fairbanks.

Above the statues, the monument was smooth cement that tapered to a point. At the top was a copper sphere, with rings around it like Jupiter. The sphere looked like it could be hollow.

“I do need your help,” Gray said.

“Really? How?”

Gray pointed to the top of the monument.

“I need you to push me up there.”

Panchito kicked the grass.

“I told you it’s not here!”

“So you can’t do it then?” Gray asked. “Because you was just bragging about it a minute ago.”

“I can do it,” Panchito said.

Gray was already five feet up the monument, so Panchito gave in and crouched below him.

“Do you need to be afraid of something?” Gray asked.

“Your big head falling on me should be fear enough.”

Panchito held out his hands and focused. Gray felt himself thrust skyward, as if launched by a catapult. He overshot the copper sphere and was headed upward toward nothing. His momentum slowed until he felt a split second of weightlessness.

“Chito!”

Just as quickly, he was plummeting back toward the Earth. He grasped at the sphere on the way down and caught it with one hand. It stopped him only momentarily before he felt it snap off the top of the monument.

Gray was plummeting toward the ground when time suddenly seemed to slow. It was as if he were falling in slow motion. He cocked his head to the side and looked down. He
was
falling in slow motion. Panchito was below him, lowering him in a controlled manner. In the last couple of feet, Panchito slipped out of the way and let him fall onto the grass.

“Thanks,” Gray said.

He sat up and, after catching his breath, looked at the sphere he was still clutching. It was solid cement, plated with copper. There was no way the Eye could be hidden in it.

“You happy?” Panchito said. “I told you.”

Gray sat back against the monument. He had no idea where to go next. How many more days would pass with Pickford in captivity until he could figure it out—if he could figure it out at all? A private detective worked alone, but he couldn’t solve this by himself. He had to ask for help.

“Go where you can walk among the stars,” Gray said.

“What?” Panchito asked.

“That’s what Mrs. Pickford told me, right before she was captured.”

Panchito bit at his nails a moment. His mouth scrunched to one side. Suddenly, his face bloomed into realization.

“I know!”

He looked around until he saw a pair of tourists facing away from them, taking a photo of the view. The woman had left her bag on a bench nearby. Panchito bounded over to it and snagged a folded paper sticking out. He ran back.

“You should have known this in a second,” Panchito said. “You’ve seen it often enough.”

He showed Gray the paper. It was one of the Hollywood Starland maps. Panchito unfolded it and pointed to a building at the center of the map. It was Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the place where celebrities left their handprints and shoe prints in cement.

“Where else can you walk among the stars?” Panchito asked.

Gray looked at the building. He knew then why the building in the photo he had seen in Pickford’s library looked so familiar. It hadn’t been taken in China. The answer had been in his pocket the entire time.

“You’re right,” Gray said. “We’re searching in the wrong place.”

An hour later they were standing on the sidewalk outside of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, wooden sawhorses blocking their way in. A crew was scurrying around, setting up for the Hollywood premiere of
Gone With the Wind
. There were velvet ropes to set up and red carpets to roll out. Bleachers to build and spotlights to position. An army of men was setting up a tent over the walkway in the event of rain.

A small-framed man with frizzy gray hair and a boater hat was directing the action as if he were the conductor at an orchestra. Gray recognized him from the photo in Pickford’s library.

“That’s Sid Grauman,” Panchito said. “He runs the theater and is partial owner.”

“Who else owns it?”

“Mrs. Pickford and Mr. Fairbanks are both investors. They’ve gotten me in for free before.”

Gray felt an energy coming from the building that was difficult to describe.

“It’s in there, I’m sure.”

“Told you I could help,” Panchito said.

They started to duck under the barriers but were promptly stopped by Grauman.

“Sorry fellas, the theater is closed for the next few days. Private event tomorrow night. Big movie. Lots of VIPs. ”

“We gotta get in, sir,” Gray said. “I’m Mary Pickford’s…biggest fan.”

Grauman winked.

“She’s a classic, isn’t she? You know, this whole courtyard was her idea. When this place was being built, I was showing her around and stepped in some wet concrete. I started to get someone to clean it up, but Mary had an idea. She stepped into the concrete too and put her hands in it. That’s how the tradition of the celebrity footprints started.”

“Can’t we see inside?” Panchito said. “Just for a moment?”

“Sorry, we’ve got heavy equipment all over the place. It’s a safety hazard. Come by next week. Oh!”