Bell gave Texas Walt the nod. Brooks hopped into a taxi. Walt eased into the Oldsmobile, and the Van Dorn driver trailed Brooks’s taxi away from the station. Balant, waiting by the streetcar track, hailed another taxi and tore after them.
“Mr. Bell. Mr. Bell.”
Bell recognized the out-of-breath Van Dorn messenger running up to him.
“Best to keep your voice low, son, while engaging a colleague on duty,” Bell cautioned, mildly. He took the messenger’s arm. “Walk along with me while we try to notice who took notice… What do you make of that fellow in the straw hat? Is he watching us?… Oh, there he goes with that lady kissing him. Otherwise, we’re clear. What’s the message?”
“Telephone Mr. Clyde Lynds soon as you can.”
Bell hurried inside the train station and telephoned the laboratory. Clyde Lynds sounded even more excited than the messenger. “Come see. I’ve synchronized sound and pictures.”
“I’ll be right there.”
But as Bell exited the station to race to the Imperial Building, he bumped into Texas Walt.
“What are you doing here? Did you lose Brooks?”
“Nope.”
“Where is he?”
“Stopped in Levy’s Café for supper. Balant’s watching him.”
“Cover him closely. I’ll be at the Imperial Building.”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Guess who he’s eating supper with?”
“Irina Viorets.”
“Nope. He’s eating with a fellow who’ll spot me in a second.”
“Who?”
“The feller who directed me in those Western dramas, the Pirate King himself, Jay Tarses.”
Bell shook his head in disbelief. “I figured Brooks would meet Irina first thing. And I hoped he would lead us to Semmler. What’s he doing with Tarses?”
“Balant took a table near ’em. We met up in the alley outside the facilities and Balant told me that Tarses mumbles too quiet to hear, but he heard Brooks jawing up a storm.”
“About Imperial?”
“No. J. P. Morgan is fixing to start a moving picture factory, and he wants Tarses to run it for him. Brooks is troweling it on thick about how much they need Tarses. Tarses is watching him like a snake. So it don’t sound to me like Brooks came to Los Angeles to visit Imperial. He’s come out here to grubstake a new outfit.”
“Maybe he’s meeting Irina tomorrow,” Bell said with little confidence.
“Hell, Isaac, why don’t I just walk in and ask him straight off?”
“I’ll do it. I know Brooks slightly, and I want to watch to see if he’s lying.”
“You want me to back you up?”
“I think between Balant and me,” Bell answered drily, “we can handle one back-East banker… Walt, would you do me a favor?”
“Shore, Isaac. What do you need?”
“Get an auto and park outside the house we took up on Bunker Hill.”
“Keep an eye on Marion?”
“I’d appreciate it.”
“You want me to go in the house?”
“No, she’s up so early, she’s probably sleeping by now. Just watch from outside.”
Bell hurried to Levy’s Café. Many of the tables were empty as the late second seating was finishing up. Boot heels clicking on the tile floor, he strode straight to the table where Tarses was listening to the Morgan banker with an expression of unconcealed suspicion. Bell pulled up a chair. Tarses looked up, remembering Bell but not quite sure why. Singleton Brooks, too, recognized Bell, and the banker turned out to have a very fine memory.
“Detective Bell. What are you doing here?”
“My question exactly,” said Isaac Bell. “Why are you dining with Mr. Tarses instead of Mademoiselle Irina Viorets?”
Jay Tarses’s face darkened, as if his suspicions had all been confirmed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were talking to Imperial, too?”
“I am not talking to Imperial. I told you, I came all the way out here specially to talk to you.”
“Oh, yeah? Then why are you meeting Irina Viorets, who happens to run Imperial?”
“I’m not,” Brooks protested. “I don’t know the woman.”
“You know who she is.”
“Of course I know who she is.”
Tarses looked at Isaac Bell. “Mr. Bell, what is it about moving pictures that rewards the worst and punishes the best?”
“What, sir, are you implying?” demanded Brooks.
Isaac Bell said, “Hold on, gentlemen, I owe you an apology. Answer one more question, Mr. Brooks, and I will be able to assure Mr. Tarses that you are on the level. Do you represent the Artists Syndicate?”
“I don’t even know what the Artists Syndicate is. And whatever it is I certainly don’t represent it.”
“And you don’t know Mademoiselle Viorets?”
“I know who she is. I do not recall ever meeting her.”
“You would,” said Tarses. “She’s a looker.”
“I am a married man,” Brooks said stiffly.
Bell stood up. “Further proof that he’s on the up and up, Mr. Tarses. Sorry to have interrupted your supper.”
“MRS. RENNEGAL,” MARION SAID TO her favorite Cooper-Hewitt operator. “We are supposed to be laying a scene on a pier beside a ship on a foggy night in the spooky glare of searchlights. This looks like a romantic candlelit dinner for two.”
“But Mrs. Bell,” said Rennegal, climbing wearily down the ladder from yet another adjustment of the Cooper-Hewitts hanging high in the flies over a stage decorated to depict the immigrants’ landing at Ellis Island, “Mr. Bitzer and Mr. Davidson keep complaining the searchlights overexpose their film.”
“That is why I sent Mr. Bitzer and Mr. Davidson out for a late supper—before I shot one of them—so you and I can try some other stunts to light this scene.” Davidson had joked that tossing spare actors off the roof carrying cameras to film their own fall in the general direction of the life net would be easier than faking a foggy night scene in the studio, while providing bigger thrills for the exhibitors.
“What if we painted the side of the ship a darker color?”
“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Bell. I can’t stay any later. My husband is working the graveyard shift, and there’s no one to stay with the baby.”
“Go. Thanks for staying as long as you could. I will figure it out.
