Bell took the hand she offered. “May I congratulate you on what must be the quickest immigrant success story in America? You have landed on your feet and then some.”
“Sheer luck. I bumped into an old friend who knew my work in Russia. He introduced me to a banker, who introduced me to a group of Wall Street men who had already jumped on the movie bandwagon and suddenly had this factory and no one to run it. I leaped at the chance. Moving pictures will all be made in California. The sun shines here every day.”
“Quite a leap,” Bell marveled, “from making pictures to running the entire factory.”
“Well,” she said, lowering her eyes modestly, “I had experience of business in Petersburg. But I don’t overrate my position here. The Wall Street bankers back in New York call the tune. I am merely the piper. Or, at best, the arranger. They burn the telegraph wires firing demands across the continent night and day. Where is your lovely bride? Taking pictures of Jersey scenery?”
“San Francisco, visiting her father.”
“What does she do next?”
“She’s contemplating her next move.”
“Perfect. We must get Marion to join us here, where she may take pictures of things more attractive than ‘Jersey scenery.’”
“I imagine she would like that. I certainly would.”
“In the meantime, come to lunch and tell me all about ‘Talking Pictures.’”
They rode the elevator down to a staff commissary feeding actors costumed as plutocrats, policemen, washerwomen, countesses, cowboys, and Indians. Many were grease-painted with purple lips, green skin, and orange hair to show up in the chartreuse glow of the Cooper-Hewitts. Irina sashayed among them, exchanging friendly waves and greetings, and into an exquisite private dining room that looked like it had been removed board by board from a London club and reassembled in the new building.
Bell asked, “Did Clyde mention anything about his Talking Pictures machine on the boat?”
“Just enough to make me think, when Mr. Griffith telephoned, that it could be exactly what my investors in the Artists Syndicate are looking for.”
ISAAC BELL ENJOYED A FLIRTATIOUS lunch with Irina Viorets while making it clear he was a one-woman man, and Marion was that one woman. But he had the strong impression that Irina’s smiles, flashing eyes, and light touches on his arm were more for show than intent.
“I meant to ask on the ship, how do you happen to speak such interesting English? Sometimes you sound almost like a native-born American.”
“Almost, but not quite. Though I’m improving. It is a wondrous language.”
“How did you learn it?”
“In Petersburg my father played the piano at the American embassy. I had many friends among the children.”
For some reason, thought Isaac Bell, that was a story he wanted Van Dorn Research to verify. In fact, there was something about this whole setup that rang a little false. Perhaps it was just the incredible speed with which Irina’s good fortune had unfolded, or perhaps the detective’s nemesis, coincidence. Or maybe it was simply a memory of Marion saying that Irina’s story about fleeing the Okhrana changed with each glass of wine, though there was no wine at this lunch, merely orange juice and water.
“When was that?”
“Let me think,” she said. “Oh, Isaac, it’s embarrassing how long ago that was. Bloody Nicholas hadn’t taken the throne.”
“Before, when was that, 1894?”
“Not too far before,” Irina said, her full lips parting in a warm smile. “Allow a woman a certain latitude with her age.”
“Forgive me,” Bell smiled back, satisfied that Grady Forrer—the brilliant head of Van Dorn Research, a large man in whose presence barroom brawls tended to peter out quickly and a hound dog of a tracker—would soon put the question to American embassy officers who had served in Russia when Czar Alexander III still reigned.
“Tell me, Irina, will you miss directing pictures now that you’re running the whole show?”
“Will I miss positioning the camera and waiting for the sun for hours so I may transfer full beauty to the negative? Yes, very much. Will I miss a banker who lent me the money to position the camera for hours telling me that it would be better if I positioned it there, instead of there? No! Not one bit. Now my only ‘boss’ is the Artists Syndicate, and they are three thousand miles away in New York.”
“Who are the investors in the Artists Syndicate?”
“The syndicate is closely held. I met none of them. I don’t even know their names.”
“Why do you suppose they are so secretive?”
“For two reasons,” she answered, with a laugh that did not conceal a certain discomfort, Bell thought. “They are probably respectable bankers who don’t want their wives, club brothers, and fellow progressive reformers to know with whom they rub shoulders. Don’t forget, motion picture manufacturers are thought to be either risqué or tainted by sinful nickelodeon profits or careers that started in carnival shows and low-class vaudeville. I am told that this is a uniquely American attitude, but I saw the same snobbishness in London.”
“And the second reason?”
“The second reason is what I suspect is the real reason: fear. As wealthy as they are, they are not as powerful as Thomas Edison. They’re afraid that if Edison interests learn who they are, the Trust will fight back by shutting them out of their other businesses, not only moving pictures.”
Bell eyed her closely. There was something about the Russian woman he liked—a sense of decency, he supposed, and her liveliness. And she certainly was easy on the eyes. But he wondered, would she ever question the nature of the investors backing her dream of being a boss? Or would her ambition still her doubts?
“We have a proverb,” he said. “‘She who sups with the devil should have a long spoon.’”
Irina Viorets laughed it off. “Russians have a proverb, too: ‘When the devil finds a lazy woman, he puts her to work.’ I admit to many flaws, but sloth is not among them. And I never forget that
