Swimming to Catalina

44

Betty started slowly, reluctantly. “I guess it was a couple of weeks ago, maybe a little more. Vance came into work, and he was nervous. Vance is never nervous. He has this glacial calm about him; I think it’s one of the things that makes him come over so well on screen. The only other actor I’ve ever seen with that kind of calm was Alan Ladd.”

Stone didn’t interrupt.

“But he was nervous that day-anxious, angry, nearly shaking with it. I’d never seen anything like it from him. I didn’t ask what was wrong; I knew he’d never tell me. Instead, I just watched and waited, to see if I could figure it out. He made a lot of phone calls that morning, and he dialed them himself, instead of asking me to get somebody on the line, as he usually did. Some of the calls were in-studio; I could tell that because the studio lines are separate from the outside lines. And then he did something odd: he asked me to get his Centurion stock certificates from the big safe.

“We have two safes in the office-a small fire safe that’s mostly for important documents and computer disks, and then the big safe that’s half as tall as I am. He keeps cash in there, along with some gold bars and some treasury bills. I think there’s a part of Vance that’s deeply insecure, that’s always ready to bolt. I think he has this fantasy of packing a briefcase, getting on a plane, and disappearing. Maybe it’s something in his past, I don’t know.

“Anyway, he asked me to get the Centurion certificates. Vance owns about twelve percent of the studio, and Lou Regenstein owns around thirty percent, so between them they can pretty much control the business.”

“How much of the studio do David Sturmack and Ippolito own?” Stone asked. It was the first time he had spoken since she began.

“They each own ten or eleven percent.”

“Not enough to take control, then?”

“I’m not so sure about that. I think somebody has been quietly buying shares. The stock isn’t all that widely held, and I think some of the smaller shareholders have been selling.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I think that’s why Vance wanted to see his certificates. He’s like that; he likes to touch and feel the things he owns. I’m not sure they’re real to him otherwise. I had the feeling he was thinking of selling them.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He wouldn’t. Not ever.”

“Go on.”

“Then Lou Regenstein came into the office, and he was looking very grim. He and Vance were in Vance’s office with the door closed for more than an hour. Vance hardly ever closes his office door, not the one that opens into my office. Then they left the office and went somewhere together, and Vance didn’t come back until late in the afternoon. When he did come back, he did something very strange: he told me to take the Centurion shares to the bank-not Safe Harbor, where he does all his banking, but to the bank that’s right outside the studio gates-and he told me to rent a large safe deposit box in my name and to put the shares in it and not to bring the key back to the office.”

“How much room did the share certificates take up in a large box?”

“Hardly any; I found that odd.”

“Did you ever give the key to Vance?”

“No, I still have it; it’s in my own deposit box at Safe Harbor.”

“Did he ever ask you to put anything else in the box?”

“No, but I had the feeling he was going to, otherwise he’d never have had me get a large box.”

“What else happened?”

“Nothing else that day. Oh, he asked me to get Arrington a plane reservation for Virginia-to Washington National, actually-and to deliver the ticket to the house that evening. And I did that.

“The next morning, Billy O’Hara came to Vance’s office, stayed nearly an hour, then Lou Regenstein joined them and they were there most of the morning. Billy is head of security for the studio.”

“Is it unusual for Vance to see O’Hara?”

“Very. The only other time I ever saw him in the office was right after he took the security job. Lou brought him around and introduced him to us.”

“What does studio security consist of?”

“Well, the usual-guards at the gates, studio passes, guard patrols, that sort of thing. In the old days-this isn’t quite so true nowadays-the security people were in charge of protecting stars and contract players from trouble-drunk driving charges, rape, wife beating, that sort of thing. These days, stars are independents and there aren’t any contract players to speak of.”

“Did you get the impression that O’Hara was there to get Vance out of some kind of trouble?”

“It was the first thing I thought of. Vance obviously had a problem.”

“Did he ever confide in you?”

“In bits and pieces. He told me that he wanted to get you out of town-I had to arrange that.” She smiled. “Of course, I wasn’t as anxious for you to leave as Vance was.”

“What other bits and pieces did he tell you?”

“He told me he was having problems with Ippolito and Sturmack, and that I was to be very solicitous of them on the phone and if they came to the studio. He was anxious that they not think he was being rude to them.”

“What else?”

“He told me that Arrington wouldn’t be back for a while, but to go on telling anyone who asked that she was visiting family in Virginia. He told me that he wanted to be a little more accessible to the press, which was unusual. Normally he doesn’t speak to anyone from the press. He doesn’t do interviews, he doesn’t do theTonight Show, he’s never even done Barbara Walters. It’s part of the Calder mystique, that he’s so inaccessible. I think he changed the policy, however slightly, so that he wouldn’t seem to be covering up anything. That’s why he had me invite that woman to the dinner party.”

“So Vance was setting things up to protect himself.”

“And Arrington. He was very worried that something would appear in the press that would jeopardize her.”

“When did you learn that Arrington wasn’t in Virginia?”

“Right before you got here. Vance told me that she hadn’t gone home, that they had had an argument and that she had just run off somewhere. That made his attitude about the press more understandable. If someone called to ask if they were apart he could deny it instead of just stonewalling and, by doing so, exciting more interest.”

“Makes sense. When did you learn that Arrington had been kidnapped?”

“I think I learned that from you.”

“But I didn’t know.”

“But you knew something was wrong, and I didn’t, at first. Part of it was your coming out here. I didn’t think Vance would want you here just to settle a domestic dispute.”

“Good guess.”

“So finally I went to Vance and said that it was obvious to me that something was very wrong and that I wanted to help. He actually broke down and cried, something I’d never thought I’d see him do. He said that Arrington was in danger and that I had to be very careful not to do or say anything that might make it worse. He was handling it, he said. He actually used the word ‘negotiating,’ so I thought she was being held for ransom. It occurred to me that the price of her release might be the Centurion shares, but that didn’t make a lot of sense.”

“No, it doesn’t, not in a kidnapping. If Ippolito and Sturmack have Arrington, then they obviously want a lot from Vance, probably more than the shares.”

“That makes sense to me,” Betty said. “I think that if Arrington’s safety depended on his surrendering the stock, he’d do it and try to get the stock back later.”

“Exactly. Now, what else does Vance have that Ippolito and Sturmack could want?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just can’t imagine what it could be.”

Stone thought about that. “Does Vance have a contract with Centurion, a long-term contract?”

“Not in the sense that the old studios had stars under exclusive contract. Vance’s deal with Centurion is as an independent producer; he brings projects to the studio-films that he doesn’t always star in-and they have the right of first refusal. If they don’t buy the project, he can take it elsewhere, as he has done in the past.”

“Maybe that’s not enough for Ippolito and Sturmack.”

“What?”

“Maybe they want more than the studio; maybe they want Vance.”

“They could never own Vance; he’s too big for that.”

“Maybe. Tell me, do you know where Ippolito keeps his yacht?”

“He has several yachts, I think.”

“I mean the big one,Contessa.”

“Oh, yes, I’ve been aboard her, as recently as last week, in fact.”

“To a dinner party that Vance was invited to but didn’t go?”

“Yes.”

“I was invited, too, but I didn’t make it.”

“That was when they tried to…”

“Yes, but back to the boat; where is it kept?”

“I know he has a berth at Marina Del Rey, but I think she spends most of the time on a mooring at Catalina. That’s where she was for the dinner party.”

“Who was at the party?”

“A lot of the same people who were at Vance’s party, the one you came to. And a lot of others, too.”

“How many in all?”

“Nearly a hundred, I should think. It’s a big yacht.”

“I wonder if Arrington’s aboard that yacht?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t think he would hide Arrington on the yacht, then invite a hundred people aboard, would you?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Why are you so interested in the yacht, then?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Stone said.