O utside, climbing into his car, Ray felt his mother’s eyes on him from behind her curtains. Even though she had demanded it, he imagined she must have hated his relinquishing the keys. This left her alone. Accelerating, backing out, heading in to work, Ray thought, you couldn’t feel good about that, being entirely alone. She was definitely ill-he should march in there and have it out and make her go with him-but there was Antoniou.
He decided to check on her by phone right after the meeting. He would pretend nothing had happened. She’d like that. She’d be feeling sorry by then.
“Did you call?” Kat’s voice on the cell phone. He was approaching the big cloverleaf that led toward the beach communities. “I want to know how it went with Rappaport.”
Kat must have heard his groan over the phone. “What’s happened?”
“I haven’t seen Rappaport yet. A couple more hours. I talked to him on the phone-”
“This can’t wait! It’s been more than twenty-four hours since we turned up that shirt! I’m going to call the police myself.”
“I’m on my way. No need.” That calmed her.
“Did something else happen?”
“I drove to Whittier to check on my mother. She poured herself two glasses of wine at eleven in the morning, and she kicked me out. Not to mention what she did last night at my house.”
“Tell me,” Kat said.
He told her.
“We’re all disintegrating.”
“Ah yes, Inspector Clouseau. That’s it, undoubtedly.”
Kat seemed to ponder on the other end of the line, unfazed by his sarcasm. “Does she like Leigh?”
“I think so. What has that got to do with anything?”
“You don’t know for sure?”
“I thought she did.”
“Did she love her, though? Maybe she’s suffering, too, because she’s worried.”
“I can’t understand this thing with the liquor. It’s not like her.”
“Leave her alone today,” Kat advised.
“But what if she falls? She’s all alone.”
“Jesus, Ray. Maybe you’re suffocating her with your dependency.”
“She’s the one who depends on me.”
“Really?”
“I have to go.”
“Wait. Listen, I got an idea. I want to go and talk to Mr. Hubbel again. Leigh’s father. But not with Mrs. Hubbel around. It’s all I know to do, Ray. I’m going to Whittier right after work.”
“What’s he going to tell you?”
“I don’t know. But he’s her father. Maybe he’ll remember something. Wanna come with me?”
“I can’t think about it right now.”
“Okay. Do what you have to do.”
Achilles Antoniou arrived promptly at one p.m., bursting through the conference room door without introduction. He looked hungover but his tan had deepened and the jeans and deck shoes were so new and so covered with fancy logos, he was still an ad for the good life after fifty.
“Where’s Martin?” was his question.
Martin had left the office at noon after another argument, so Ray just said, “Martin’s late. Let’s get started.”
Antoniou reared back as if attacked. “I need to see Martin.”
Ray tried hard not to react to the contempt in his voice. “Come on over and sit down, my friend. Have some coffee. You came to me originally because you thought I had something. You thought I understood what you wanted.”
Antoniou shuffled from foot to foot. He allowed himself to be led to the couch and took the excellent coffee.
“Let’s chat a little,” Ray said. “Drink some coffee. I’m sure Martin will be here any minute. I’ve been looking forward to showing you the playroom. The plans are right here on the table and we can look at them in a minute. I added some great new touches last night. I’m working hard for your approval, Achilles. That’s some boat you have, by the way. It’s got those clean modern lines, you know?”
“It’s a nice boat.”
“I admit I was surprised when you came back with Martin and asked for a specific design, nothing like what we discussed. I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of Martin, Achilles, but the whole Greek Mediterranean thing-save it for Greece, you know? The style is so out of it here in L.A. Spielberg’s doing modern. Weinstein’s doing modern. You know what Niarchos’s son is doing with his new place in Bel Air, Achilles?”
“Modern?”
“That’s it. You’re smart to know that. I’m here to save you from a serious mistake. Big money down the tubes. I’ve got a set of plans here that are gonna knock the socks off the Spielbergs and Niarchoses. Make them raze their own places and start over. They’re gonna be shit-jealous, Achilles.
“You have the opportunity on that site to make something beautiful for you and your family, something that’s going to be famous for its beauty. Why not open yourself up to the potential of the site? You’ll need a bigger gathering space. Welcome the ocean spray and a lot of movers and shakers onto your new, expansive, gorgeous deck. Hey, come on over here.” He gestured toward the rosewood conference table. “I know you’re gonna be pleased once you really look at these plans. I don’t know anybody more open-minded than you are. Even Spielberg, he’s gonna be a step behind you now.”
Checking his watch one more time, Antoniou stepped in closer, intrigued. He studied the plans.
“I know you were impressed by what you’ve read about me, Achilles, but I’m going to tell you something. I had a revelation recently about what a home is, and we have a chance here to make it happen in a way that’s going to explode people’s ideas, not just about architecture, but about life.”
“That’s a big promise, Ray,” Antoniou said.
“Something entirely new. Your dream house, a template for the next movement in architecture. The whole world’s gonna want to see it. Movie stars, the works.”
That got him. He leaned down, studying the plans beside Ray.
“But where are the walls?” he said urgently. “Where is the line between the kitchen and the entertainment area?”
“Fluidity, you see? Walls that move wherever you need them to move, not just the inside ones, but many of the outside ones. They raise, they lower. They cuddle up to make a big space cozy for a few people. They expand space infinitely. Slate decks off each floor. Imagine waves crashing below, that salty air. This place will flow out of the landscape and the landscape will flow into it. This home will change and grow along with you and your family in the most unimaginably creative ways.”
Ray went into a place he loved, an imaginary place. Antoniou followed along.
Ray had Antoniou’s signature on the new drawings by one-fifty-five, and ushered the client out the door.
At two sharp, Martin was back from lunch.
“You got Suzanne to lie.” Martin was furious. “You said the meeting was at two, you bastard. You spent the time selling him on your insane notions.”
“No, Martin. I spent the time explaining insanely beautiful possibilities to him. Believe me, he left happy.”
“Garbage. You finessed him.”
“Like you finessed him? In my opinion, I straightened him out.”
“He’s our biggest client!” Martin, by now bursting blood vessels in his face, shouted. “I didn’t finesse him, I tried to do what he wanted. Why, oh, why can’t you give him what he wants?”
“He wants special. He wants unique. I’ll give him that and I will make this firm famous beyond anything you ever dreamed.”
“You’re an egomaniac, Ray! You want to ruin us?”
“All you care about is the money. Art doesn’t enter into it. You think so small, Martin. So puny. You cheat on your wife and family. You’ve forgotten what it means to be honest and true. You’ve forgotten what it means to be a man, or a creative professional.”
“It’s about Leigh!” Martin shouted.
“Don’t even speak her name! You want to take this outside?”
“And have you pound on me again?”
“Then let’s discuss this.”
Martin tried to fight him with words, but Ray, sure of himself for the first time in a long time, refused to engage. Martin hated him and his ideas; he hated Martin and his ideas.
The clarity of this notion burst on them both at the same time.
“I guess we’ve come to a parting of the ways, Martin,” Ray said, after more futile discussion.
“What? Is that what you’re leading up to? You’re leaving? You’re nothing without me. You need me to sell your so-called visionary bullcrap to an unsuspecting public!”
“Actually, I explained to Antoniou that this might be in the works, but he was so excited about my ideas by then, well, he didn’t care, Martin. He really wants me to design this house, and I regret that you didn’t have enough faith in me to back me when I most needed backing.”
Maybe Martin would have a regret or two himself, Ray thought after Martin had banged the door shut on his way out, and Ray began packing boxes, pinging and panging here and there about the things he had to leave behind. He took three trips out of his office, all the while stalking past Martin, who stood, frowning, hands in his pockets. Suzanne had already spread the news; staffers came and went, some just checking it out, some wishing him well. But Martin stayed the whole time.
“You make quite the statement, Ray,” was all he said.
Ray lugged boxes out, understanding that Martin felt nervous about the contents of the boxes, but also understanding he could not figure out how to interrupt this process without risking another pop on that cleft chin of his.
The final box stuffed into the trunk of his car, the bagged shirt and peanut shells now sitting on the passenger seat beside him like an accusation, he twisted the key. The car roared to life.
Pounding at the window.
What the hell?
He let the window down.
“Oh, honey. Don’t think you’re leaving without me.” Denise was smiling like the brave little creative professional she was. “Give me a second to go steal some pertinent drawings and files. I’m going where you’re going.”
“I have no plan.”
“It’s okay. I’ll help you with that.” Denise came back in five minutes, finished filling up the trunk of the Boxster, leaned in the window again, pulled out a business card, eyed it like someone paying attention, then said, “New name.”
“What?”
“ Bell Jackson.”
“Oh, Denise, no. I can’t offer anything like the benefits Martin’s got lined up, at least not yet.”
She didn’t care, she informed him. She would go where he went because, and he felt the first joy in a long time hearing this. Ray had a vision, he was the talent in the firm.
“My ideal is to be a full partner in two years. Martin would never let that happen. He’s so greedy, Ray. He wants to retire at fifty. Did you know that?”
“What’s that got to do with your promotion?”
“He has his own agenda, and I don’t fit it. Makes me sad for myself. He’s got two protégés, neither one of whom is me. I want to go where you’re going. What do you say, Jackson-Bell Associates? Now doesn’t that sound fine!”
He couldn’t help laughing.
She smiled, and two dimples popped out in her cheeks. “You might not like hearing this, but all these years with Martin have rubbed off on you. You’ve become quite the salesman these days. You sold me as well as Antoniou.”
He sent her home to draw up a business plan for Jackson-Bell Associates.
And he finally went to see Rappaport.
Kat had a house in Hacienda Heights to assess. She could make Whittier her last stop fairly easily.
After surveying the Hacienda Heights house, standard three bedroom but lacking that all-important second bath, she drove to Whittier, to Franklin Street. Whoever had bought their old house after their mother sold it had kept the paint on the house gray and white, just like it had been when she had lived in the place decades before. Strange. It had reverted to its true nature.
Across the street at the Hubbels’ Spanish-style mansion, the curtains were closed. No cars. No telling if they were around on this windless, eye-stinging hazy day. The green, anomalous yard made her think about the high desert past Idyllwild. Southern California was just a continuation of the Mexican Mojave, and the sooner they started living like the desert-dwellers they were, the later the basin would run out of water.
Kat sat in the Echo, parked on the curb of the wooden-frame house she had grown up in, across the street from the house Leigh had grown up in, sipping a Fresca, playing with her cell phone.
No one came in or out of her own old house for a while, then a boy aged maybe twelve blasted out the front door. He propped his skateboard against the thirties glass brick flanking the entryway, fiddling with a helmet. She prayed, since apparently his parents were unavailable to pray, that he did not plan to go down the steep hill. Surely, at ninety miles an hour toward the bottom, he would die when he hit the busy intersection below.
He finally got the strap attached, then headed up a side street toward the college. She let out a long relieved breath. Then she called Ray again, who did not answer.
Lights came on in her old house. Panicked parents? She wished she could reassure them. “Your son went up the hill, not down.” Instead, she called Ray one more time. This time, he answered.
“I’m in Whittier,” she said. “The house looks empty. Did you see Rappaport?”
“He’s got the shirt. I’m not sure what they think but I should get a lawyer,” he said. “I think they’re going to arrest me and it won’t be long. He thinks the shirt is important.”
Thinks she’s dead and I did it, was what Kat heard.
“He listened to everything I had to say about Idyllwild and the reservation. He taped it and said he’d be back in touch about it. He’s got your phone number and he wants to see you, too. And-”
“But what?”
“He showed me the bank video of the ATM withdrawal. He was very interested in seeing if I could identify Leigh. I saw a person hiding under a watch cap and sunglasses. I saw someone who was nobody or who was anybody.”
“Damn it! Was it Leigh or not? Could it have been her? Can’t you recognize your own wife? The way she moves? Her nose? You really couldn’t recognize her?”
“Could have been Leigh! Could be you!” he said. “It was just a feeling.”
“What?”
“That it was her.”
“You had a feeling it was her?”
“Just a movement-something. Like-I don’t know.”
Was he lying? “So what are the cops going to do?” she asked.
“He says Leigh’s been gone ten days and it’s a matter of concern and he is assigned to it. He’s going to see Leigh’s parents and go to Leigh’s office. It’s really starting now, Kat. And he asked me again if I knew where she is. What’s your plan right now?”
“I’m just sitting here. A fool on a hill. I don’t know where the Hubbels went.”
“Let’s see, it’s almost six. He walks his dog at Penn Park after he gets off duty. He’s done it for years. It’s a beagle. I’ll bet that’s where he is,” Ray said again. “He stays out there feeding the ducks and cooling off from his job until sunset. I’m coming out. Wait for me.”
“But you said-”
“I called my mother right before I called you and she picked up and then she hung up on me. So I know she’s physically okay. Let’s do this together. I need to have it out with him anyway.”