“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 we Russians also say, ‘God keeps her safe who keeps herself safe.’”
Isaac Bell reckoned he might have opened a chink in her armor. Nonetheless, he would wire a second inquiry to Grady Forrer:
WHO PAYS THE BILLS FOR
IMPERIAL FILM???
After lunch they got down to business, with Bell acting his part as a Dagget, Staples & Hitchcock insurance executive anxious to invest in the movies. Bearing in mind the outright rejection by Pirate King Tarses, he opened with Marion’s fierce defense. “Without pictures that talk, the screen shrinks drama, tragedy, comedy, and farce to pantomime.”
“But the screen is democracy,” said Viorets, “if not socialism. We are reproducing the rich man’s tragedies, comedies, and farces in pantomime that men on the street can afford.”
“Clyde has invented a way to do it with words and music instead of pantomime,” said Isaac Bell.
Irina nodded. “I heard that your insurance firm was investing in Clyde’s Talking Pictures machine. That’s really why I was intrigued when Mr. Griffith telephoned.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“From moving picture people you were shopping it to in New Jersey.”
“Then you heard that my firm seeks manufacturers who are up to taking superior pictures with the same photography and finish as the French.”
Irina Viorets reached across the table and placed a pretty hand on Bell’s arm. “I promise you, Mr. Bell, Imperial will out-French the French — let me show you,” she said, and took him on a tour of the Imperial Building that left Bell with no doubt that Irina Viorets was in command of a going concern.
She showed him the laboratories and machine, repair, and carpentry shops that Griffith had raved about. He saw printing and perforating instruments in the darkrooms, properties and wardrobe rooms of costumes for hundreds of soldiers, police, and cowboys, and rows of flats in the scenic department painted black and white. On the fourth floor was a soundproof recording room, like Edison’s, the walls padded, the floor corked tile, with an array of acoustic horns to capture sound.
She took him outside. In a vacant lot on the south side of the building, a mock street facing toward the sun could be made to look like New York, or London, or medieval Paris.
Next to the building was a life net. Ordinarily held by firemen to catch people jumping from a burning house, this one was permanently fixed. “For catching actors,” Irina laughed, pointing at the building’s parapet a hundred feet off the ground. “Just outside of camera range.”
Bell quoted Clyde Lynds: “Providing thrills dear to the heart of the exhibitor.”
They went back indoors and rode the elevator ten stories to the roof. Irina said, “The best photoplays of the future will be those that are created inside the film studio.”
The picture-taking studio had room for several cinematograph studio stages with glass ceilings to capture natural light. At one edge of the roof stood a stone wall that could serve as a precipice or a building. Bell leaned over and looked down. The life net winked back at him, no bigger than a dime.
“I have one more thing to show you.” She took him down to the eighth floor to a gleaming camera and projector machine shop, with a laboratory attached.
“Everything is up-to-date. Would you like to use our facility, Isaac?”
“Will your Artists Syndicate allow it?”
“I will deal with the Artists Syndicate. You and Clyde will deal with me.”
“Done,” said Isaac Bell. “With one proviso. My firm will staff Lynds’s workshop with mechanicians.”
“If you like, though we already have the best in Los Angeles.”
“And we will provide our own guards.”
“Whatever for? This building is a fortress.”
“So I noticed. Nonetheless, my directors are conservative. They will demand that we do everything possible to protect Lynds’s invention.”
“Perhaps you could convince them that the building is safe.”
“My directors remember what happened on the Mauretania. Professor Beiderbecke was killed. And the machine was destroyed in a fire. You can imagine why they insist that we protect our investment.”
“I understand,” she said reluctantly.
“I hope this wouldn’t cause trouble with the Artists Syndicate.”
“I told you. I will contend with the syndicate. Let us shake hands on our deal.”
On his way back to Van Dorn headquarters, Isaac Bell rented a house big enough for Clyde Lynds to share with Lipsher and two more bruisers from Protective Services.
Irina Viorets locked the door to her office in the Imperial Film Manufacturing Building and lifted a leather-bound copy of the novel War and Peace from her bookcase, causing the case to slide open on a private stairway. She climbed two flights to a suite hidden on the ninth floor. Its windows were heavily draped, making it cool and dark. To a northern European, it offered welcome refuge from the Los Angeles heat and sunlight.
The man waiting for her report sat behind his desk with his face in shadow.