Clive Cussler - The Thief

“Wasn’t it risky giving Edison your plans?”

Clyde laughed. “I gave him fake plans.”

“Did you really? That was slickly done,” said Bell. “I never tumbled.”

“I gave him notes for an acoustic microphone instead of the Professor’s electrical one, and I gave him drawings for a synchronization contraption similar to the Kinetophone you saw at the laboratory.”

“Similar? How do you know?”

“The Professor and I studied every cockamamie talker scheme in the world — French, Russian, German, British — plus every damned one Edison copied from someone else.”

Isaac Bell was fast coming to the conclusion that Clyde Lynds was shrewder than he had let on. “So you weren’t surprised by Edison’s move this afternoon.”

Clyde Lynds sighed and looked suddenly weary. “Not surprised, but I am disappointed. The Professor and I had hoped our superior machine would convince Edison to treat us like equals. So I’m going to have to go it alone.”

Isaac Bell smiled. “Not quite alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“My wife pulled some wires for you in case things didn’t work out with Edison. She’s lined it up for you to meet an independent called the Pirate King. He’s top dog among fellows who make movies outside the Edison Trust.”

“That’s mighty kind of her.”

“Better than kind. Marion’s rooting for you. She intends to make the first real talking picture.”

“Don’t interrupt moving picture people when the sun is shining,” Marion warned her husband. “They hate to waste the light.”

Isaac Bell searched the sky for a promising hint of haze as the ferry to the Fort Lee district of New Jersey crossed the Hudson River. A sultry southwest wind suggested that clouds were in the offing. With any luck, he told Clyde Lynds, the skies would darken by noon.

They rented a Ford auto at a general store with a gasoline pump in front and drove up the steep palisade. In the village of Fort Lee they passed motion picture factories sanctioned by the Edison Trust. Through the glass walls and roofs of barn-like structures, they could see arc lights hanging from the rafters and banks of Cooper-Hewitt mercury-vapor lamps to boost the sunlight. Substantial brick outbuildings housed scenery, property, and costume shops, offices, film-processing laboratories, machine shops to maintain the cameras, and dynamos to power the Cooper-Hewitts.

Bell kept driving, heading north on narrow roads along the top ridge of the Palisades. Following Marion’s directions, he located a turnoff in the middle of nowhere that took them west, deeper and deeper into the countryside. Finally, he pulled into a dairy farm barnyard, hidden from the road, where the independent Pirate King Jay Tarses was shooting outside pictures of a troupe of players costumed like Crusaders, Arabs, and Vestal Virgins.

A herd of horses was skittering nervously around a corral, spooked by camels that Tarses had gathered for his Arabs. From what Marion had told him, the camera operator draped over an enormously bulky Bianchi camera was actually cranking an Edison-patented camera concealed inside it.

Isaac Bell stopped the car at a distance to stay out of the picture. An assistant, one of several petite dark-haired girls hanging around Tarses, approached with trepidation.

“Don’t worry,” Bell told her. “We’re not Edison bulls. I’m Isaac Bell, and my wife, Marion, arranged for me and Mr. Clyde Lynds to visit Mr. Tarses.”

“Of course,” she exclaimed. “I’ll tell him you’re here.”

“Don’t interrupt the picture taking,” said Bell. “We’ll wait for the clouds.”

By half past one the sun had disappeared. As the players opened box lunches, the assistant led Bell and Lynds to Pirate King Jay Tarses, an unshaven fellow in a slouch hat, shirt-sleeves, and vest who was telling a bespectacled man with ink-stained fingers, “Twenty-five dollars is the most I pay for a scenario converted into a complete photoplay.”

“I think I deserve fifty.”

Tarses lighted a five-cent cigar. “If it makes a hit, we’ll send another check for the same sum.”

“But when I write a short story, the magazines pay two hundred dollars.”

“The people who watch my pictures don’t know how to read,” said Tarses, turning his back on the writer.

He cast an amiable smile at Isaac Bell. “Any husband of Marion is a friend of mine, Mr. Bell. She scored a headliner in her first picture. Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight was alive with human interest. What can I do for you?”

Bell began what Clyde Lynds called a “spiel.”

“I represent Dagget, Staples and Hitchcock of Hartford, Connecticut.”

“Unfortunately,” Tarses interrupted, “I’ve never had the pleasure of borrowing money from them, as they’re not the sort that consorts with my sort.”

“Your luck is about to improve. Dagget, Staples and Hitchcock is considering entering the moving picture business.”

“I am all ears,” said Tarses. Money talked in a business where it had to be borrowed daily, and a prosperous-looking insurance executive dressed in a bespoke suit and made-to-order boots was listened to.

“Our first step is to invest in Mr. Lynds’s Talking Pictures machine. We are looking for partners among moving picture folk, experienced manufacturers who are up to taking superior pictures with the same photography and finish as the French. Mr. Lynds will explain the technical details.”

Tarses’s response was to change the subject. “Is your wife still making those topical films for Whiteway?”

“You can bet she’ll make talking pictures when Mr. Lynds perfects his machine,” said Bell, and turned the spiel over to Lynds. It was up to Clyde to sell his scheme, and Bell had no doubt that he was a born salesman.

“Wait,” said Tarses “What do you want from me?”

“To start, Mr. Lynds needs a laboratory, chemists, machine shops, and moving picture mechanicians.”

Tarses glanced around the barnyard. A gesture with his cigar indicated horses, camels, and actors. “I don’t have any of that stuff.”

“You can get it in a flash,” Bell retorted. “My wife chose wisely, Mr. Tarses. You know all the moving picture folk in all the aspects of the business and manufacture. Plus, you’re a natural-born manager. Everyone in the motion picture business says that if you didn’t hate the Trust, you’d be ramrodding your own big outfit.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t get along with bosses.”

“When his machine is perfected, Mr. Lynds will need a movie manufacturer who knows the line from top to bottom to take charge. You’ll be your own boss, making the pictures and distributing.”

“But who needs Talking Pictures?”

Clyde was dumbstruck. He looked at Bell in disbelief. Hadn’t Krieg and the German Army made it painfully clear that they needed it?

“Who needs them?” shouted Clyde, suddenly red in the face and finding the words to denounce the absurd question. “The world needs them. Talking pictures will enable motion picture men to take pictures that are crackerjacks, full of snap and go, and energy and push. We’ll tell stories of original situations dear to the heart of the exchange men, who will know darned well that exhibitors will recognize great features for their audiences.”

Jay Tarses crossed his arms over his chest and stated flatly, “Talking pictures will never happen.”

“Give me one reason why.”

“I’ll give you four. One: Audiences are happy; they don’t want smart-aleck talk, they want pictures that move. Two: How will foreigners understand what the players are saying? Three: Who’s gonna pay for installing Talking Pictures machines in every theater? Exhibitors hate spending money. Four: Who would dare distribute Talking Pictures? If they’re any good, the Edison Trust will block them.”