Valentino Will Die Page 2

  “Oh, bullcrap, Marty,” Bianca said. “You know that no one can ‘control the narrative’ in this town.”

  “I don’t want to do it,” Rudy said. “I love Bianca, but not like that.”

  Levinson shrugged. “Look, the rumors are going to fly whether you play along or not. ‘LaBelle and Valentino together at last,’ and all that. I’m just offering you the chance to have something to say about it.”

  “I’d like to think about it,” Bianca said, and Rudy nodded his agreement.

  Levinson rounded his desk and sat down. “Okay by me. Go home. Talk to your agents and get back with me by Friday. In the meantime, after the movie wraps, I’ve set up an interview with the two of you with Jimmy Quirk, the editor over at Photoplay, so you’d better decide how you’re going to play this before then.”

  It was well after dark when they left the studio in Rudy’s specially made Isotta Fraschini town car, but word had gone around that they were shooting on the lot, so a knot of dedicated fans was standing vigil outside the studio gates. Due to the late hour, only about thirty people were blocking the road, so Rudy told his chauffeur, Frank, to pause at the gate while he and Bianca signed autographs and exchanged a few smiles and handshakes through the car windows. Neither of them got out. They had both had their share of alarming encounters with overexcited admirers.

  ~ A night of respite from the glare of the spotlight ~

  Frank drove them from the United Artists lot on the edge of Los Angeles to Beverly Hills, then followed a serpentine road nearly to the top of San Ysidro Canyon and Bianca’s ten-acre estate, Orange Garden. They passed through the tall iron gates and made their way down a winding dirt road for nearly a quarter mile before turning onto the palm-lined drive leading to the California Mission–style mansion. Frank pulled up before the massive entryway, where the stars were met at the door by Norah, Bianca’s loyal but snippy maid, and by Bianca’s weirdly mixed-breed little dog, Jack Dempsey, who looked like he could be part prairie dog and part something else. Maybe a mongoose. Or a wig. Rudy scooped up the overjoyed pup and tucked him under an arm. Valentino was a dog lover, and he and Jack had always gotten along well. Norah took their wraps and their drink orders—a dirty martini for the lady of the house and, on Bianca’s orders, ginger tea for Rudy.

  Norah brought the drinks to Bianca and Rudy in the sleek white, gold, and black living room. Bianca had added a large painting over the fireplace since the last time Rudy had visited—a bright portrait of a woman in a red sweater against a backdrop of snow-covered mountains. Rudy was enthralled. “A new painting! How beautiful. Che bella.”

  Bianca’s eyes followed his gaze. “Ah. I’ve owned it for a while, but I just brought it out again. I like it.”

  Rudy laughed. “She is lovely. Robusto, no?”

  Bianca treated him to the briefest flash of her heart-stopping grin. “Robust! She is, isn’t she? That was painted by my friend Tamara de Lempicka. I met her last year when I did the movie Apache Dancer in Paris. She took me to a wonderful show of decorative arts, the Exposition Internationale des Arts Decoratifs et Industriels Modernes. It was the most exciting thing—I went every day that I wasn’t shooting and spent a boxcar full of money on art, I’m afraid.”

  “Ah, Paris. I would love to go back. And such art. I love the new art. I’ve read of this show. I wish I had seen it.”

  Bianca’s usual cool expression gave way to one of unstudied delight as she remembered. “Oh, it was fantastic, a whole new way of seeing. Everything was so simple and clean and straightforward. I loved everything about it, the lines, the colors. It made me feel hopeful.”

  “Hopeful,” Rudy repeated, not understanding.

  She glanced at him. “There’s something desperate about the times, don’t you think? All this gaiety, it’s not real. Cynical. Desperate.” She folded her arms. “Since the war.”

  Rudy shrugged. “I feel the same. But I thought it was only me.”

  “Hardly.” Bianca sat down on the long white couch and crossed her legs. In her daily life Bianca LaBelle liked to wear trousers and boots, no makeup, a colorful scarf around her cropped sable curls, like she was going on a six-month safari. Somehow wearing trousers made the actress’s lithe, long-legged form look even more feminine. She gestured for Rudy to join her. Instead he continued to wander around the room with the happy pooch under his arm, examining the accoutrements.

  “All this decor is certainly not like the house I grew up in,” Bianca said. “My mother’s house…well, she didn’t exactly decorate. My mother’s house grew like a mushroom. It’s quite wonderful, really. Everything in the house has a purpose. Nothing goes to waste. Most of my friends here in California are very wasteful.”

  He nodded at a side table, at a small bronze statue of a demure naked girl sitting on a rock with her knees drawn up under her chin. “And what is the purpose of this, then?”

  He was teasing her, and she knew it. She smiled. “To gladden the eye. What could be more useful than that?”

  “And who is this?” He reached past the naked girl and picked up a photograph of a woman with her dark hair swept up into a messy bun and a don’t-mess-with-me look in her dark eyes. There was a familiar cast to her features.

  “That’s my mother,” Bianca said.

  Rudy couldn’t tell by her inflection how Bianca felt about that. “Is she still living?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “Do you miss her?”

  “I do. I miss my whole family. I see them when I can, but it isn’t enough.”

  He sighed. “My mamma is no longer alive, nor my papa. I still weep when I think of my gentle mamma. How I miss her.”

  “Do you still have family in Italy?”

  “My sister, Maria, lives in Milan. My brother, Alberto, and his wife and son are to come to America in a few weeks and stay with me at Falcon Lair for a while. I hope the house is in a fit state by the time they arrive. You have family still in Oklahoma?”

  She laughed. “Do I ever. Besides my parents, I have seven sisters and two brothers and more nieces and nephews than you can count. On rare occasions, one or another will come and visit me here in California.”

  “Do you ever go back?”

  “I do, whenever I can sneak in without making a fuss, which is seldom. ” Her cheeks reddened. “After the way I hurt my parents, I was pretty nervous the first time I went home. A few years ago, now.”

  “You, hurt someone? I cannot imagine.”

  “I ran away from home without a word. I was just a stupid kid. I told you about that, didn’t I? It nearly killed my mother. A couple of my sisters are still sore at me. But when I finally did try to make amends…” She looked away. “…I thought I’d have to beg forgiveness, but my folks were swell. My mother wouldn’t let me out of her sight and stuffed me with food like a foie gras goose. Talk about the prodigal returning. They killed the fatted calf.”

  “What is a fatted calf, and why did they kill the poor creature?”

  Bianca’s gaze returned to Rudy’s face and she smiled. “What’s the matter with you, Rudy? Haven’t you ever read a Bible?”

  “Of course. I was raised a good Catholic. I know the story of the prodigal son, but we do not have a fatted calf in Italian.”

  “Oh, I guess not. ‘Fatted calf’ is just how they said ‘a nice piece of veal’ in the King James Bible. I was raised a good Protestant. I can’t say it took, and I can’t say I feel bad about that. But I can quote you chapter and verse with the best of them. I keep in touch with my family, but I seldom go back to Oklahoma anymore. I’d rather pay for them to come visit me. You know how it is. I can’t go anywhere without fending off a mob, and I don’t like doing that to my parents. They don’t like it, either. Besides, it’s too painful.”

  Rudy knew only too well. “I, too, went home to Italy three years ago, with Natacha. I had not been home for ten years. No
one knew who I was, so people in the villages we passed through were more interested in my automobile than in me. I was happy to see my sister and brother, but it was a hard trip. It made me sad. Nothing had changed. Everything was the same. Except me.” He set the frame back on the table. “You look like your mamma. She is beautiful. Formidabile.”

  That made Bianca chuckle. “She’s formidable indeed.”

  Rudy picked up another photo, a small, gap-toothed boy with a big grin and a mop of dark curls. “And who is this bambino?”

  Bianca stood up. “Put down the dog and stop fingering my stuff, Rudy, and let’s go into the kitchen and get you something to eat.”

  The mention of food reminded Rudy of his earlier discomfort, and he put a hand on his flat stomach. “I do not think I can eat.”

  “I think you’d better. An empty stomach is no good for an ulcer. I’ll make something that will soothe that ache, and we can talk about Marty’s proposal.”

  Rudy smiled. If there was anything he enjoyed, it was being fussed over.

  ~ The Sex Menace and the Ice Princess ~

  As Bianca bustled around her state-of-the-art kitchen and Rudy watched from his perch on a stool at the white marble island, they made small talk in French, which Rudy spoke like a native and Bianca was eager to practice. As soon as Grand Obsession wrapped, in a mere two weeks, Bianca would begin filming her next Bianca Dangereuse feature. After that, she planned to take a long-delayed vacation. No, she didn’t know where she was going yet. Maybe back to Paris. Maybe she would invite her mother to come to California for a few days.

  Rudy encouraged her to go to Europe. He had last been to France in ’23, and he was longing to return. But he had to go to New York soon for the premiere of the highly anticipated movie he had finished earlier in the summer, The Son of the Sheik. Afterward, he thought he would stay in the city for a while to visit friends.

  After twenty minutes of chatting about nothing much, Bianca set a bowl of steaming, garlicky cabbage soup in front of him and took a seat next to him.

  Rudy was highly skeptical. “I hope you are joking me. This smells like feet.”

  Bianca snorted a laugh. “Don’t be such a snob. Trust me, it will make you feel better.”

  He made a face and pushed it away. Bianca pushed it back. Rudy threw up his hands. “A glass of milk, cara. I drink a glass of milk for soothing my stomach.”

  “This is much better. You’re such a baby! Take a sip. It’s really quite tasty.”

  In truth, Rudy had no objection to either cabbage or garlic. He was something of an Italian cook and self-proclaimed connoisseur himself, and could make a mean verza stufata. But he did enjoy giving Bianca a hard time. He dipped out a spoonful of soup and took a tentative sip. A moment to savor. He raised his eyebrows and rocked his head from side to side. Not bad.

  Bianca got down to business as Rudy ate. “What do you think of Marty’s proposed publicity stunt? Our agents will push us to do it.”

  “I do not like it,” he said, between bites. “Why must we be lovers? Why can we not be what we are? The best of friends.”

  She propped her chin on a hand. “What, the ice princess spends weeks working with the great romancer of women and they don’t immediately fall into each other’s arms?”

  Rudy didn’t look at her as he took a moment to blow on his soup and consider his answer. “You are sarcastic, I think. I am exhausted of being a sex symbol, of being mobbed everywhere I go, of being called either a seducer or an effete ‘powder puff.’ This great lover image, this sex menace, it embarrasses me.”

  Bianca only half-believed that. “It’s made you very rich and very famous.”

  “Yes, but also it has made me very tired and cost me dearly. You like this ‘ice princess’ thing?”

  “I do, actually. I’d rather have that image than be thought of as a flapper or a party girl like Louise Brooks. It gives me an excuse to keep people at arm’s length if I want to. I admit it is a problem when some boob decides he’s the very guy to thaw my glacial heart.” She shrugged and admitted, “There are so many of them.”

  “And that is just what the studio wants me to be for you.”

  Bianca’s hand dropped to the countertop. “All right, then. When we talk to Jimmy Quirk, we’ll tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may.”

  “I am glad you see it my way, cara. And this soup, it does help. Miracolo!”

  “See? I told you.” She stood up. “It’s a beautiful night, darlin’. Come outside with me and let’s sit by the pool for a while before bed.”

  ~ That should have been the first thing you said! ~

  It was a beautiful California summer night indeed, clear and moonlit, still relatively warm after a hot day, though the temperature was dropping quickly. Bianca and Rudy strolled together around the grounds, through the small orange grove that gave the estate its name, and Bianca took the opportunity to show Rudy the vegetable garden near the house that she had planted and tended herself. It was burgeoning right now, and Rudy exclaimed over her beautiful crop of tomatoes and eggplants, vowing to make his famous spaghetti sauce for her if she would promise to give him some of her canned tomatoes. They visited Bianca’s small stable and said hello to her four riding horses. Both stars were expert riders and had spent many happy hours riding through the hills together. Bianca suggested a nighttime ride, but Rudy demurred, too weary at the moment.

  They wandered back toward the house and sat down next to one another on chaise lounges next to the pool.

  Rudy sank back and heaved a mighty sigh. “I am tired, cara. I will have to find my bed soon.”

  “Everything in your usual guest bedroom is ready when you are, hon. You know the way.” Bianca had just reclined, but now she popped back up into a sitting position. “Look at that moon. Que bella! As for me, it’s such a lovely, warm night that I think I’ll take a swim. Come on, Rudy.”

  “Sei pazza,” he said, amused.

  “I’m not crazy.” She pulled her boots off and stood up. “What could be more relaxing than floating your cares away?” She proceeded to strip off her trousers and shirt and dove into the pool clad only in her camiknickers. The full moon shimmered on the water and glistened off of Bianca’s bare shoulders as she began to swim, a strong, smooth crawl across the blue and white mosaic-tiled pool.

  Rudy stood up to watch her glide through the water. He sighed, moved by the fragrant night, the glint of moonlight, and the beautiful woman. He took off his shoes and sat on the edge of the pool to dangle his feet in the water. “It’s cold!”

  Bianca stopped swimming and turned over to float leisurely on her back. The silk camiknickers clung enticingly to her body. “It’s refreshing,” she corrected.

  “If Jimmy Quirk from Photoplay saw us now, he would believe in our affair, no matter what we tell him,” Rudy said.

  Bianca continued to float, her face turned up toward the full moon, her eyes closed. “He already does, no matter what we tell him.”

  After a long, relaxed moment of silence, Rudy said, “Why do you never love, cara?”

  The question made Bianca swallow a mouthful of water. “Who said I don’t?” she said, treading water after a few seconds of splashing and sputtering.

  “Do you?”

  “Of course I do, Rodolpho. What a question.”

  “Is it girls you like, cara?”

  Bianca was surprised by his question, but not offended. Hollywood was rife with lesbians, and rumor had it that Rudy himself was not strictly heterosexual. She didn’t know if the rumor was true. Neither one of them had ever tried to seduce the other. They had never discussed their sexual preferences at all. “Not that it’s any of your business,” she said, “but no, I’ve never been particularly attracted to other women. Sometimes I think my life would be easier if I were.”

  Rudy chuckled. “So you have a lover, yes?”
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  “Not at the moment, no. You?”

  “Not at the moment,” he admitted.

  “Pola told me not long ago that you two are about to become engaged.”

  Rudy shrugged. “Pola is wonderful. But she runs too hot for me, always exploding like Vesuvius. I like my peace.” He sighed. “I think perhaps I shall break it off soon. I need someone who is…less complicated.”

  Bianca had first met Pola Negri at Constance Talmadge’s house in Santa Monica and thought she was a lot of fun. Her English was hilariously twisted, and she had no inhibitions whatsoever. The blame for Natacha and Rudy’s breakup lay with both husband and wife, but Natacha was cruel to Rudy in the end, flaunting her affairs in his face. At first, Bianca thought Pola was a good distraction for Rudy after the divorce. Too much of a distraction, as it turned out. She was free-spirited to the point of anarchy, and jealous to boot, which did nothing for the peace of mind of an expansive, friendly, flirtatious man like Rudy.

  They eyed one another across the water, unsure of what to say next. Either of them could have had a dozen lovers of either sex in the blink of an eye.

  Bianca LaBelle was one careful young woman. Rudy had learned that early on. Valentino was impulsive, overly romantic, and every move he made was splashed all over the tabloids. Bianca did a good job of keeping any bad habits she might have well-hidden. Rudy suspected Bianca had learned the value of sobriety and self-control from her mentor, actor Mary Pickford, one of Hollywood’s most successful moguls of either sex. It was harder to take advantage of someone who had all her wits about her.

  Alma Bolding, a once-popular but now fading star who had given Bianca her first break in the movies, was a well-known user and drunk. Which is why her movie career was on the skids. But for some reason, the high life never quite took with Bianca, even considering the fact that her friend Alma was one of its foremost practitioners.

  Rudy had been present the first time Bianca had accompanied Alma on one of her weekends of debauchery at Hearst Castle, back in 1922. Bianca had spent the entire time fending off drunken glitterati of both genders and ended up locking the door to her suite at night. She had gained a reputation as a bluestocking after that. But Hearst’s mistress, Marion Davies, liked her, and so did newspaper czar Randolph Hearst himself. Bianca was kind, witty, not particularly judgmental, and up for an adventure, adept at sailing, riding, and lawn tennis, even if she did insist on staying sober and wasn’t interested in bed-hopping. Her perceived aloofness had made her a challenge for some of the more determined roués around town, so she never accepted an overnight invitation to anyone’s estate unless she could bring her large and sexually indeterminate guardian, Fee, with her.