aren’t up to code.”
In the stairwell he thought he smelled stale popcorn and the residue of thousands of Lucky Strikes and nickel cigars. It was probably dry rot, or possibly phantom Fink sneaking a snack and a smoke. Valentino had to turn sideways to avoid brushing the walls and soiling his shirt.
The booth was actually a spacious loft, with a square opening overlooking the remains of the screen. He remembered that The Oracle had been one of the last L.A. theaters to show 3-D movies during the brief heyday of Bwana Devil and Dial M for Murder. That process had required twin Bell & Howell projectors, each the size of a VW Beetle. They’d have needed plenty of room, but not this much. He could have put all the furniture in his apartment into this space.
Anita seemed to sense the source of his curiosity. She pointed. “There used to be a wall there. On the other side was a sort of lumber room where they stored posters and props. I probably don’t have to tell you they had live shows during the Depression, to entice people who wouldn’t normally spend money on a ticket. In the sixties this was a hippie commune.” Her voice dropped to a whisper on the last two words, as if she were referring to a colony of lepers. “There’s a bathroom through that door, which the projectionist used. It’s a comfortable bachelor arrangement. Is there a Mrs. Valentino?”
He wondered if she was hitting on him, then discarded the thought as embarrassingly narcissistic. In any case a romantic relationship with someone who thought Moulin Rouge was fabulous was doomed.
“I barely have time for a private life, much less marriage. What’s in there?” He pointed to a shallow alcove whose back wall curved to follow the shoulder of the roof.
“Just some cans, the flat kind they put film in. They’re empty.”
He felt a flash of disappointment. He’d once found two hundred feet of Theda Bara’s Cleopatra being used to demonstrate a toy projector in a junk shop in Oklahoma City, and on first glance that place had held far less promise than this. “Is it all right if I look?”
“Be careful. The floor’s in bad shape.”
The enclosure was six feet wide and four deep. Stepping inside, he felt with his feet for the joists beneath the curling plywood.
“It was plastered over too,” she said, “probably to conserve heat.”
The air was stale but dry and cool. There was no light fixture. He peered through the dimness, groping at built-in wire racks holding jumbles of film cans that made a tinny empty noise when he moved them, a melancholy sound. He placed a hand against the cantilevered back wall to support himself and reached down to tug at the first in a row of cans standing on edge on the bottom rack.
Something thumped inside.
**
CHAPTER
2
“THE NAME IS Valentino.”
“Yeah, right.” The attendant in the campus garage, gray-haired and wearing bifocals, was old enough to assign some meaning to the name. “You look a little like him, at that.”
Sadly, that was true. His light olive coloring, clean profile, and the glossy black hair that he could control only by brushing straight back from his forehead were a coincidence that caused him grief on a regular basis. In college he’d been known as Sheik, a nickname he’d likely still be suffering under if the new generation were aware there had even been a silent cinema, let alone a star who shared his name.
He stuck his driver’s license outside his window. “Look it up on your list.”
The attendant took the card and ran a thick finger down the sheet on the clipboard hanging inside the booth. He grunted and handed back the license. “Next time don’t forget your parking pass.”
“Thanks.”
“And bring your camel.”
His office was a crawl space in a building that had once been part of the university’s power plant, and a reliquary of film books and piles of
In the stairwell he thought he smelled stale popcorn and the residue of thousands of Lucky Strikes and nickel cigars. It was probably dry rot, or possibly phantom Fink sneaking a snack and a smoke. Valentino had to turn sideways to avoid brushing the walls and soiling his shirt.
The booth was actually a spacious loft, with a square opening overlooking the remains of the screen. He remembered that The Oracle had been one of the last L.A. theaters to show 3-D movies during the brief heyday of Bwana Devil and Dial M for Murder. That process had required twin Bell & Howell projectors, each the size of a VW Beetle. They’d have needed plenty of room, but not this much. He could have put all the furniture in his apartment into this space.
Anita seemed to sense the source of his curiosity. She pointed. “There used to be a wall there. On the other side was a sort of lumber room where they stored posters and props. I probably don’t have to tell you they had live shows during the Depression, to entice people who wouldn’t normally spend money on a ticket. In the sixties this was a hippie commune.” Her voice dropped to a whisper on the last two words, as if she were referring to a colony of lepers. “There’s a bathroom through that door, which the projectionist used. It’s a comfortable bachelor arrangement. Is there a Mrs. Valentino?”
He wondered if she was hitting on him, then discarded the thought as embarrassingly narcissistic. In any case a romantic relationship with someone who thought Moulin Rouge was fabulous was doomed.
“I barely have time for a private life, much less marriage. What’s in there?” He pointed to a shallow alcove whose back wall curved to follow the shoulder of the roof.
“Just some cans, the flat kind they put film in. They’re empty.”
He felt a flash of disappointment. He’d once found two hundred feet of Theda Bara’s Cleopatra being used to demonstrate a toy projector in a junk shop in Oklahoma City, and on first glance that place had held far less promise than this. “Is it all right if I look?”
“Be careful. The floor’s in bad shape.”
The enclosure was six feet wide and four deep. Stepping inside, he felt with his feet for the joists beneath the curling plywood.
“It was plastered over too,” she said, “probably to conserve heat.”
The air was stale but dry and cool. There was no light fixture. He peered through the dimness, groping at built-in wire racks holding jumbles of film cans that made a tinny empty noise when he moved them, a melancholy sound. He placed a hand against the cantilevered back wall to support himself and reached down to tug at the first in a row of cans standing on edge on the bottom rack.
Something thumped inside.
**
CHAPTER
2
“THE NAME IS Valentino.”
“Yeah, right.” The attendant in the campus garage, gray-haired and wearing bifocals, was old enough to assign some meaning to the name. “You look a little like him, at that.”
Sadly, that was true. His light olive coloring, clean profile, and the glossy black hair that he could control only by brushing straight back from his forehead were a coincidence that caused him grief on a regular basis. In college he’d been known as Sheik, a nickname he’d likely still be suffering under if the new generation were aware there had even been a silent cinema, let alone a star who shared his name.
He stuck his driver’s license outside his window. “Look it up on your list.”
The attendant took the card and ran a thick finger down the sheet on the clipboard hanging inside the booth. He grunted and handed back the license. “Next time don’t forget your parking pass.”
“Thanks.”
“And bring your camel.”
His office was a crawl space in a building that had once been part of the university’s power plant, and a reliquary of film books and piles of
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