“Don’t you worry, Mr. Bell. Holian’s got the city clerks eating out of his hand. There isn’t a body buried in Los Angeles he couldn’t jab with a spade. They’ll do as he asks and do it with a smile.” Saunders rubbed his mustache, a pencil-thin affair that Texas Walt had likened, privately, to a “dance hall gal’s eyebrow,” and said, “It wouldn’t hurt if Holian could share a little wealth while he’s poking around.”

“Charge as much as he needs against the Talking Pictures account. Tell him I want layouts of the fourth floor, eighth floor, and penthouse—every room and every closet.”

35

ISAAC BELL RECEIVED A LONG, SPECULATIVE report from Grady Forrer by telegraph, which was a hundred times faster than mail but lacked the subtlety and precision of a letter and offered little opportunity for the give-and-take of a conversation by telephone. Clyde Lynds had claimed that his electrical microphone would one day spawn devices for amplifying feeble electrical currents for long-distance telephones to span the continent. That day could not come soon enough for Isaac Bell.

Back and forth he and Grady Forrer transmitted on the Van Dorn private wire. The upshot was that Grady had turned up the name of a private German merchant bank—Hamburg Bankhaus—which the Research department suspected of funneling money to Imperial Film.

POSITIVE?

REASONABLY.

KRIEG-IMPERIAL CONNECTIONS?

NOT YET.

KRIEG-HAMBURG BANKHAUS CONNECTIONS?

NONE YET.

Isaac Bell telephoned Andrew Rubenoff, filled him in on Research’s suspicions, and asked, “Is the Bank of Hamburg a real bank or a sham?”

“Where did you hear about Bank of Hamburg, if I may ask?”

“Van Dorn Research.”

“I am impressed,” Rubenoff answered. “I doff my hat to them. Hamburg Bankhaus is not widely known outside professional circles.”

“I’ll pass on the compliment. Is it real or a sham?”

“It’s real. They’re very active in German enterprises doing business in America. First among their enterprises, they’re the principal lender to the Leipzig Organ and Piano Company.”

“The piano shops?”

“You’ve seen them. Leipzig Organ has expanded hugely in America—opening all sorts of branches to sell parlor pianos. Funny you should ask, though.”

“Why is that?”

“I was just in one of their shops the other day trying to buy sheet music. But they were sold out of ‘Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life.’”

“It’s very popular.”

“When a music shop is sold out of a brand-new Victor Herbert song, something is terribly wrong with the shop.”

“Or the publisher.”

“The publisher will blame the shop, of course. Either for not ordering enough or not paying their bills. Though in this instance they may be right. The shop had a very poor selection. The most recent I could find was ‘I Love My Wife; But, Oh, You Kid!’ That’s been around so long the paper was turning yellow.”

“How were their pianos?”

“Decent enough, for uprights. Good German quality.”