Bel-Air Dead

53

Manolo got out the Bentley, and the four of them piled in, Stone driving.

“I have the terrible feeling that we are about to witness bad history,” Arrington said. “Like standing on an Oahu hilltop and watching Pearl Harbor get bombed.”

“I have exactly the same feeling,” Stone said. “Dino, are you still all up about this?”

“My bones tell me it’s going to be a good day,” Dino said.

“Well, if it turns out not to be, we’re going to stand you against a wall and shoot you.”

Everybody laughed a nervous laugh.

They drove down into Beverly Hills and on toward the Centurion lot. They passed an empty bus going the other way with a banner stretching from one end to the other, saying SAVE CENTURION STUDIOS

“It seems we have support from somebody,” Stone said. “I wonder who?”

“Movie lovers,” Dino replied.

As they approached the main gate to the studio, they saw police cars with lights flashing, and a couple of hundred people were gathered, many carrying homemade signs exhorting shareholders to vote with the studio. There were two television vans parked near the gate with satellite dishes pointed skyward, and reporters and cameras attached to them by long cables.

“I hadn’t expected this,” Arrington said from the front passenger seat.

“Neither had I,” Stone said.

“How the hell did they even know about this meeting?” Dino asked.

“I suppose it must have been in the papers,” Mike said, “but I swear, this looks like something put together by a publicist or a political campaign manager.”

A young woman with big hair rapped on Arrington’s window with a microphone, shouting her name.

Arrington pressed the button and the window slid down. The previous silence was replaced by disorderly chanting. “Yes?” she said to the reporter.

“Mrs. Calder,” the reporter said, “how would your husband feel about this meeting today, if he were here?”

“He would be totally opposed to voting for the sale, as am I, and I will be voting all the shares he accumulated over his lifetime against the sale.” She raised the window.

Stone finally got the car to the guard at the gate. “Mrs. Calder’s car,” he said, and was rewarded with a security pass placed on the dashboard. He drove on. “That was a very good statement to the press, Arrington,” he said. “Have you been rehearsing?”

“Rick asked me to have something ready to say,” she replied. “I’m glad you liked it.”

“The studio should hire you as its spokesperson,” he said. “Which way is stage four?”

“Straight ahead, then right, then left,” Arrington said. “I used to pick up Vance after work when he was shooting there.”

Stone followed directions until he saw a large sign proclaiming the stage number. Perhaps a better identifier of the stage was the large group of golf carts parked along the road between the stages, indicating that most of the people attending the meeting worked on the lot. There were only two cars parked on the road, the Rolls belonging to Mrs. Charles Grosvenor and the Bentley Mulsanne of Terrence Prince. Stone parked near them.

“Let’s not go in right away,” Arrington said. “I’m sure they’ve reserved seats for us, so let’s make an entrance.”

“Fine by me,” Stone said. “Dino, Mike, you want to make an entrance?”

“Sure,” Mike replied.

“Damn straight,” Dino said. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

More golf carts arrived and were parked carelessly along the road.

“I wonder how they find their own carts when they come back?” Arrington asked. “They’re all identical.”

“Then it doesn’t matter which one they take, does it?” Stone pointed out.

“I guess not.”

Others arrived on foot and made their way through the large door, which was propped open. There was an unlighted red bulb above the door with a sign saying DO NOT ENTER WHEN RED LIGHT IS LIT.

“It’s oddly quiet,” Mike said.

“Soundstages are soundproof,” Arrington explained. “After that door is closed, a freight train could pass, and you wouldn’t hear it from inside.” She sighed. “Vance’s funeral was held on this stage,” she said. “The studio didn’t have an auditorium big enough.”

Stone remembered the elaborate service in a cathedral set on the stage, complete with stained glass windows and a boys’ choir. He also remembered that, because of a packing malfunction, he had been wearing a suit owned by the corpse. “How many shareholders are there?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” Arrington replied. “Forty or fifty, I think.”

“Then why are they holding the meeting in a building big enough for a Busby Berkeley dance number?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Rick must have his reasons.”

No one had arrived for a minute or two. “Are you ready for your entrance?” he asked, checking his watch. It was ten minutes past two.

“Why not?” Arrington replied.

Dino jumped out and held the door for her. They formed a very short column of twos and entered the soundstage.

Stone had expected to see the audience at once, but instead, a broad, carpeted path led toward the interior, and on either side were larger-than-life blowups of stills from Centurion Studios over the past decades. It was impossible to walk quickly by them; they continually stopped and commented on this photo or that.

There were several with Centurion’s biggest pre-Vance star, Clete Barrow, who had died at Dunkirk, in World War II, and a dozen or more were of Vance Calder, in various costumes: business suit, western gear, on horseback, driving a vintage racing car, and one in the rigging of a pirate ship, with a sword in his teeth. They made their way slowly down the path, turned a couple of corners, and emerged into a dimly lit, cavernous space.

Suddenly, a spotlight came on and found Arrington, and from the darkness beyond, a roar of shouting and applause welcomed her. She stopped and waved, as if she had just walked onto a stage. It struck Stone that the noise was being made by more than forty or fifty people, but when the lights came up a bit, that was as many as he saw.

Stone, Mike, and Dino followed in Arrington’s wake as she proceeded down the center aisle, where Rick Barron awaited to seat her party in the fourth row.

Stone spotted Jim Long, in a wheelchair, seated next to Mrs. Charles Grosvenor, in the first row left. Seated across the aisle from them was Terry Prince, his back to Stone.

Rick walked up a couple of steps to a raised platform and took a seat in an arced row of a dozen people, presumably the Centurion board of directors.

Lined up across the edge of the platform were larger replicas of the Oscar, several dozen of them.

Stone was impressed.