a forty-volume encyclopedia of film around in our skulls.”
“What do you get from the bobble-head Popeye, memoirs of the early days at Fleischer Studios?”
“I didn’t ask you in here to discuss interior decorating. I bought a theater. The Oracle, in West Hollywood. And that’s not the biggest news.”
The professor removed a stack of original screenplays from a plastic scoop chair and stretched out in it, almost supine with his rumpled head resting on the back and his ankles crossed, unscrewing and screwing back together the pieces of the pipe he was no longer permitted to smoke on campus. With his eyelids at half-mast and his chin drawn into the loose flesh around his neck, he looked like every musty Russian pedagogue Oscar Homolka had ever played. “Best thing you can do for that mausoleum, the humanitarian thing, would be to smack it in the kisser with a wrecking ball.”
“I’m going to restore it.”
“Why?”
Valentino shook his head. “For someone who spends most of his time threshing around in the past, you’re incapable of nostalgia.”
“There’s a difference between preserving history and trying to apply CPR to a corpse. The Golden Age is always the one you missed, and you can no more bring it back than last year’s lapels. Your sentiment isn’t even firsthand. You’re what, thirty-five?”
“Thirty-three.”
“A sprout. You weren’t born when places like the Oracle stopped showing first-run features. Your generation grew up watching Indiana Jones in a concrete bunker at the end of the mall.”
“I have an old soul.”
“My inner child is older than your old soul. Also, you’ve forgotten where you live. You’ve no concept of the bureaucratic nightmare you’re about to enter. You can’t comply with one ordinance without violating three others.”
“I’m glad you didn’t mention the cost.”
“Not to mention the cost. But that’s your five-thousand-pound hog and you can slop it. Don’t ask me for a loan. I’m saving up for a funeral that will blow the doors off this town.” He clamped the pipe between his teeth and held up his hands, like a director framing a shot. “I can see the headline in the Mirror now: ‘Who the Hell Did He Think He Was?’”
“The Los Angeles Mirror folded years ago.”
“My point precisely. Leave the Jurassic to us fossils.”
“Anyway, I don’t need your money. I knocked a hole in my savings to put down a deposit, and I’ve got a four-oh-one K just sitting around drawing interest.”
“Drop in the ocean.”
“Will Rogers told Joel McCrea to bite the bullet and buy a ranch. He said they weren’t making any more real estate. McCrea died a millionaire many times over.”
“No danger of that in your case. The Big One could come tomorrow and dump us all in Davy Jones’s locker.”
“Just as long as my check clears first. I haven’t told you my big news.”
“Bigger than going broke on the scale of William Randolph Hearst?”
“Try Greed.”
Broadhead unclamped his pipe and pulled it apart. “This is the opposite of greed. It’s financial hara-kiri.”
“Not ‘greed,’ lowercase Roman. Think uppercase italics.”
“Greed?”
“Greed.”
“Greed as in Erich von Stroheim? Greed as in forty-two reels and eight to ten hours’ running time? Greed as in thirty of those reels sent straight to the incinerator by MGM in nineteen hundred and twenty-five? That Greed?”
“That Greed.” Valentino frowned. The word was starting to sound strange after so much repetition. “I take exception to the incinerator theory. There were enough cans on the rack to suggest at least four hours of footage. That’s twice as much as anyone’s seen in eighty years.”
“Bah!” said Broadhead, and he’d never sounded more like Oscar Homolka. “You need to spend less time in the processing lab. The acetate’s eating
“What do you get from the bobble-head Popeye, memoirs of the early days at Fleischer Studios?”
“I didn’t ask you in here to discuss interior decorating. I bought a theater. The Oracle, in West Hollywood. And that’s not the biggest news.”
The professor removed a stack of original screenplays from a plastic scoop chair and stretched out in it, almost supine with his rumpled head resting on the back and his ankles crossed, unscrewing and screwing back together the pieces of the pipe he was no longer permitted to smoke on campus. With his eyelids at half-mast and his chin drawn into the loose flesh around his neck, he looked like every musty Russian pedagogue Oscar Homolka had ever played. “Best thing you can do for that mausoleum, the humanitarian thing, would be to smack it in the kisser with a wrecking ball.”
“I’m going to restore it.”
“Why?”
Valentino shook his head. “For someone who spends most of his time threshing around in the past, you’re incapable of nostalgia.”
“There’s a difference between preserving history and trying to apply CPR to a corpse. The Golden Age is always the one you missed, and you can no more bring it back than last year’s lapels. Your sentiment isn’t even firsthand. You’re what, thirty-five?”
“Thirty-three.”
“A sprout. You weren’t born when places like the Oracle stopped showing first-run features. Your generation grew up watching Indiana Jones in a concrete bunker at the end of the mall.”
“I have an old soul.”
“My inner child is older than your old soul. Also, you’ve forgotten where you live. You’ve no concept of the bureaucratic nightmare you’re about to enter. You can’t comply with one ordinance without violating three others.”
“I’m glad you didn’t mention the cost.”
“Not to mention the cost. But that’s your five-thousand-pound hog and you can slop it. Don’t ask me for a loan. I’m saving up for a funeral that will blow the doors off this town.” He clamped the pipe between his teeth and held up his hands, like a director framing a shot. “I can see the headline in the Mirror now: ‘Who the Hell Did He Think He Was?’”
“The Los Angeles Mirror folded years ago.”
“My point precisely. Leave the Jurassic to us fossils.”
“Anyway, I don’t need your money. I knocked a hole in my savings to put down a deposit, and I’ve got a four-oh-one K just sitting around drawing interest.”
“Drop in the ocean.”
“Will Rogers told Joel McCrea to bite the bullet and buy a ranch. He said they weren’t making any more real estate. McCrea died a millionaire many times over.”
“No danger of that in your case. The Big One could come tomorrow and dump us all in Davy Jones’s locker.”
“Just as long as my check clears first. I haven’t told you my big news.”
“Bigger than going broke on the scale of William Randolph Hearst?”
“Try Greed.”
Broadhead unclamped his pipe and pulled it apart. “This is the opposite of greed. It’s financial hara-kiri.”
“Not ‘greed,’ lowercase Roman. Think uppercase italics.”
“Greed?”
“Greed.”
“Greed as in Erich von Stroheim? Greed as in forty-two reels and eight to ten hours’ running time? Greed as in thirty of those reels sent straight to the incinerator by MGM in nineteen hundred and twenty-five? That Greed?”
“That Greed.” Valentino frowned. The word was starting to sound strange after so much repetition. “I take exception to the incinerator theory. There were enough cans on the rack to suggest at least four hours of footage. That’s twice as much as anyone’s seen in eighty years.”
“Bah!” said Broadhead, and he’d never sounded more like Oscar Homolka. “You need to spend less time in the processing lab. The acetate’s eating
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