Clyde said to Isaac Bell, “Imperial sounds up-to-date.”
“Could you arrange an appointment, Mr. Griffith?”
“I’ll do better than arrange an appointment. I’ll tell them I’ll make the first picture with sound as soon as you’ve perfected it. That ought to get their attention.”
“Don’t you have a contract with Biograph?”
Griffith placed his right hand over his heart. “I promise that I will break my contract with Biograph in a flash for a chance to direct moving pictures that can truly make the sound of human voices. But it’s up to you, Mr. Bell, to sell them the machine, and you, Mr. Lynds, to perfect it. I’ll telephone Imperial right away.”
“Before you phone,” said Bell. “May I do you a kindness in return?”
“What did you have in mind?”
“I notice you carry a six-shooter.”
“Old habit from before Biograph joined the Trust,” Griffith grinned, joking, with a theatrical wink, “Haven’t shot an Edison thug in years.”
“May I see it?”
“Sure.” Griffith tugged the revolver from his waistband.
Bell opened the cylinder, counted six cartridges, and removed one. “Gents I know who carry a six-gun in their waistband make a habit of leaving the hammer on an empty chamber. At least so long as they intend to father children.”
Isaac Bell left Clyde Lynds in the care of the Los Angeles Van Dorn field office and went alone to his appointment at Imperial Film, intending to get a clear-eyed look at what had fallen into their laps. He found a brand-new, ten-story red sandstone building with a glass penthouse that towered over a newly surveyed block of lots for sale. The neighborhood looked destined to become the next center of the up-and-coming city, and the substantial modern headquarters seemed proof that the independent movie factory had deep enough Wall Street pockets to defy Edison’s Patents Trust.
Motorcycle messengers with sidecars full were rushing reels of film in and out of Imperial’s first-floor film exchange. The exchange was plastered with “No Smoking Allowed” signs, which none of the cyclists distributing highly flammable reels to exhibitors were obeying. The building directory listed offices and lofts on the upper floors housing laboratories, machine and repair shops, properties and costume wardrobes, and a main studio containing Stage 1 and Stage 2 in the glass penthouse.
The entire second floor was devoted to the factory’s own moving picture theater — the Imperial. Newspaper reviews posted in the lobby called it a “Movie Palace,” and while absorbing the details of the building and the people coming and going, Bell read of gleaming gilt cherubs in a “finely appointed place that will draw the more wealthy classes who do not patronize moving picture shows except on ‘slumming’ exhibitions.”
The doormen patrolling the lobby were harder-cased than he would expect to find wearing uniforms as lavishly gilded as Captain Turner’s. That a bruiser corps was considered a wise precaution for an independent a full three thousand miles from New Jersey spoke volumes about the power of the Edison Trust. One of the doormen watching Bell read the reviews swaggered over to investigate.
Bell said, “It says here that ladies who come downtown on shopping expeditions spend an hour in the Imperial.”
“And bring their friends next time. What can we do for you, mister?”
“I have an appointment with the managing director.”
“Seventh floor, sir.”
The elevator operators were unusually young and fit. On the seventh floor a male receptionist, who looked like he had learned his trade in a football flying wedge, led him through a locked door to a secretary who ushered him into a large office, curtained against the blazing sun. To Isaac Bell’s surprise, the managing director who rose smiling from her desk was Marion’s beautiful, dark-eyed Russian friend Irina Viorets.
She was dressed in a stylish suit, with a long skirt and jacket that hugged her closely, and she had collected her beautiful hair high in the back as the women directors did to allow them to peer through the lens of the camera.
“You look surprised, Isaac,” she greeted him with a warm laugh. “I assure you, no one is more surprised than I.”
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.”