House of Smoke (42 page)

“What’s our next move?” Browne asks, bringing the conversation back to basics.

“To announce our gift and the plan. They go hand in hand. The donation is our leverage, of course, so we’ll announce that first, probably on site …”

“That’s a nice touch.”

“Thank you.” Hopkins continues: “Then I’ll drop the drilling component on them a few weeks later. It’ll be pretty damn hard to say no to someone who’s just handed you a check for eighty million. That’s twenty-five million more than David Packard gave the Monterey Aquarium.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Browne comments coolly. “When do you contemplate doing this?”

“As soon as you give me the final okay, so we can move forward with our agenda. I’d like to go public at the next monthly Board of Supervisors meeting, which is in three weeks. So the grant should be made next week, if possible.”

Browne nods, digesting this. “We have a board meeting this coming Tuesday. I’ll get authorization for the grant then,” he says, casually. “They’ve been briefed already.”

Browne is going to tell the dozen members of his board, all big-timer players in their own rights, that they’ll be spending a fortune of company money on something they won’t get any direct benefit from, and he’s talking about it like it’s nothing more than getting permission to buy a keg of Coors for the company picnic. It must be nice to have that kind of power, Hopkins thinks. Someday, after this and a couple more successful projects like it, he’ll be in that position.

“Should there be a formal news conference when we give them the money?” Browne asks.

“Sure, but not high profile. I don’t think anyone from Rainier should be visible down there now except me,” he cautions. “I’ll work with Mrs. Sparks on the handling of it. She likes to stage-manage her affairs.”

There’s a double-entendre there, but his boss doesn’t know it, nor is he going to. Sleeping with a business partner can be ruinous, even if the partner is as irresistible as Miranda Sparks. He’d had to, though. As if Miranda had put a gun to his head. She’d wanted it, stronger than he did. She had been the instigator, the predator. They’re on a more equal footing now, but he has no delusions that the relationship is at her pleasure. Once this is all concluded, he doubts she’ll continue seeing him, which will be too bad—he’s never known a woman like her.

“John Wilkerson,” Browne ruminates, his mind having changed course. “This Miranda Sparks—she’s a very beautiful woman, isn’t she? She certainly looks good on television.”

“Yes, she’s a stunner.”

“I wonder if dear old John managed to sleep with her,” Browne muses.

“I don’t think she’s that kind of woman,” Hopkins says with a perfectly straight face.

A week and a half has gone by. Cecil’s been the only visitor, at her request. She’s been transferred out of ICU to a private room.

The hospital room door slowly opens. Laura Sparks’s head appears like a white rag of surrender on a stick.

The television set is on, the volume set to a low drone. Kate is propped up on her pillows, watching a daytime soap; she doesn’t know what it is or what it’s about. Something bland and undemanding to help her get through the slow passage of the day.

“May I come in?” Laura asks, her voice tremulous with nerves.

“Sure.” Kate’s head swings slowly towards the door. She reaches her hand across the sheet and clicks off the TV.

Laura crosses to the foot of the bed, sits on the edge of the plastic chair. If she had a napkin in her hands she’d be shredding it, Kate observes.

“My God!” Laura exclaims as she gets a good look at Kate’s face. “I didn’t realize how bad it was. Oh, God.” She almost breaks down.

“Believe it or not, I am getting better.”

“That’s good. I’m glad.” She bites her lip. “Oh God, I’m so sorry!” she cries out suddenly.

Kate knew this would come, and she knew how she would respond. “Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.”

“I got you involved. You didn’t want to come.”

“I’m a big girl. I’m responsible for what I do. Nobody made me do anything I didn’t want to.”

“Still …”

It hangs in the air, like a heavy, humid smoke: Laura’s need to apologize and be absolved, Kate’s having to do it. So it can be over, completely and irrevocably finished.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Kate reassures her again.

Laura swallows. “Thank you.”

Laura tells Kate she had run two miles, halfway down Mission Canyon, naked, bleeding, crying, running without stopping until she got to the Botanical Gardens and had hysterically told her story to one of the park attendants who lived there, whose cottage door she had pounded on. The attendant, a calm old pro, had wrapped her in blankets and called 911. By the time the police arrived at the site the only thing left were the bodies.

Her mother had picked her up and taken her home. She stayed at her parents’ house for a week until she got the guts up to move back to her own place. She hadn’t been much help to the police at all, either, except to tell them about the girl who had called her. The girl hasn’t been found.

“I’ve decided to take your advice,” she says after this recitation. “I’m going to let it go.”

“Good,” Kate says, lying back on her pillows, exhausted from this brief but intense exchange. She has no patience with this spoiled, protected rich girl. You can go now, she tells Laura silently. You have been blessed and forgiven. Go with God. But go.

“You’re tired,” Laura says, reading the signs properly. “I should go.”

Kate nods yes.

Laura stands. “I’m leaving town for a few weeks. I’m going to Rome, to stay with some friends. Mother and I agreed I needed to get away for a while, until this blows over. I’m leaving tomorrow,” she adds in a tone that carries self-guilt with it.

“That’s a good idea,” Kate agrees. Rome. Why didn’t she think of that herself?

“Will you be okay?” Laura asks solicitously. She’s itching to cut and run but she doesn’t want to appear impolite. “Is there anything you need?”

“No.”

“Well …” Laura lingers a moment at the door. “I’ll call you as soon as I’m back.”

“Fine. Great.”

“You were right. It’s over. I should have listened to you. You wouldn’t be …” She turns away, unable to look Kate in the eye as the full extent of her complicity suddenly comes clear to her.

“Yes.” She’s tired. Really tired.

Laura blinks. “Bye,” she finally manages to choke out. The door shuts silently. Kate closes her eyes.

It’s always big news when a spokesman from one of the oil companies calls a press conference in Santa Barbara. It usually means they want something to be changed, and for people in the community, particularly those in the environmental movement, it can only be change for the worse. That’s a given.

This press conference has an element of intrigue, because a new player is being introduced. According to the release put out by the local office of Rainier Oil, someone named Blake Hopkins is to be introduced to the community as the new manager of the company’s office here, the main office on the central coast. And along with this introduction there is going to be a surprise announcement of a new undertaking by his company.

An additional point of interest: the announcement is going to take place on the beach north of town, near the section of the Sparks property which was donated to the university and The Friends Of The Sea to establish their school of oceanography.

The beach is crowded: important environmental players, all five county supervisors, the local press. Standing slightly to the side are Miranda, Dorothy, and Frederick Sparks. Miranda looks especially fetching in a short-skirted dress that shows a lot of cleavage. Not many women around can dress like this without looking cheap; she’s one of the few.

Marty Pachinko sidles up to her. “So what’s going on here?” he wheedles, trying not to look at her protruding breasts.

“Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies,” she answers, smiling brightly. “You’ll find out, soon enough.”

“Don’t be so suspicious all the time, Marty,” Dorothy chides him. “Everybody has their good side.”

“I’ll believe that about an oil company when I see it.”

“Keep your eyes open, then,” Miranda says, turning her back on him.

Everyone seems to be in place. Miranda steps forward to the microphone. “Something nice is going to happen here today. Something very nice. So without further ado, I’m going to let Mr. Hopkins have the floor.”

She steps aside for Hopkins, smiling as he slides past her.

He nods to her, nothing more, then glances at Frederick, who’s blissfully checking out the situation. Poor bastard, Hopkins thinks. She’s a great lady, but I sure wouldn’t want to be married to her. What the hell; what you don’t know can’t hurt you, he guesses.

“This is an unusual place and an unusual way to introduce myself,” he begins. “My name is Blake Hopkins, and I’m the new project manager for Rainier Oil. I’ll be officially moving down here next month from San Francisco, where I’ve been working at company headquarters, so if anyone knows of a nice rental, preferably on the beach, please let me know. I love the beach here, it’s one of my favorites.”

He smiles, easily.

“There are a lot of changes happening in the oil business. Hopefully, changes for the better. Ways to improve on what it is that we as a multinational corporation have to do: to keep our company profitable, to make sure this country has an adequate supply of domestic oil, and also, perhaps most importantly for you folks here today, to constantly develop new technologies so we can mitigate the impact of oil production on the environment. What we are looking to do at Rainier Oil is to continually decrease the threats to the environment from what is an essential industry, not only in this country’s interest, but for the entire world.”

“This joker’s a better spin doctor than James Carville,” Marty Pachinko stage-whispers out of the side of his mouth to the woman standing next to him, another committed environmentalist and ally.

“In the near future I hope to address some of those issues,” Hopkins continues. “Today, I have something different I want to say. Something about which there will be, I would hope, no controversy.”

He turns and faces the Sparks family. “We applaud your generosity in granting a portion of this property to the university to build a world-class oceanography teaching facility here. It’s the type of wonderful philanthropy to one’s community that civic-minded people should, but rarely, do.”

“Thank you,” Miranda answers.

“Oil companies can be civic-minded, too,” Hopkins says. “I know that sounds strange to some of you, but it’s true.”

He stares out into the crowd. A majority of those here today take that exact position.

He loves it. He loves to come into a situation and turn people’s perceptions upside down.

“I’m here today to make a gift on behalf of the Rainier Oil Corporation. I am speaking for our board chairman, MacAllister Browne, whose idea this is. This project is something he feels strongly about, on a personal level.”

He pauses briefly. Everyone is waiting for the punch line.

“Rainier Oil is going to underwrite the construction of this facility,” Hopkins announces, his voice low, even, virtually emotionless.

There is a moment before what he’s said sinks in: then it hits them. The crowd is stunned, particularly the environmentalists, with Marty Pachinko, their spokesman, being the most astounded.

For a few seconds Marty is speechless; then he finds voice. “What’s your agenda?” he shouts out. “The real one, not the hidden one!”

“To improve the environment, the same as yours,” Hopkins answers.

“If you really want to improve the environment, pull your oil rigs out of our channel!” Pachinko fires back.

Miranda comes out of the blocks like she’s been shot out of a cannon.

“For godsakes, Marty, what is wrong with you?” she cries out to him, her voice trembling with indignation. “This company wants to give us a multi-million-dollar check to do something worthwhile. What is it, if an oil company wants to give us money it’s no good?”

“It’s blood money,” he answers hotly. “That’s why.” Even before the words are out he wishes he had kept his mouth shut. This could have been done a better way, less public. All of a sudden Rainier Oil is the good guy, and he’s the heavy?

“It is not blood money,” Miranda answers him, her voice aggrieved. “We don’t like what the oil companies have done here on the coast, either, but that’s history. This gift is now, and we’re taking it,” she states defiantly.

“Yeah, well, look how they got it,” Pachinko answers lamely.

Hopkins regains control. “We don’t apologize for what we do,” he says calmly. “Oil makes the world go round. We donate money to good causes,” he adds. “This is a good cause.” He pauses. “I’m sure this gesture comes as a shock to you,” Hopkins says, with the slightest touch of a smile. “You must have reacted without really hearing what I was saying; a common mistake people like you make about people like me,” he adds, his smile broadening a bit.

Pachinko starts to answer; then he catches himself. This isn’t a winning situation. He should shut up, for now at least.

“However,” Hopkins continues, “to answer your earlier challenge: we are, in fact, developing a plan that will eventually enable us to pull our rigs out of the channel.”

Pachinko can’t believe his ears. “What’s the catch?” he stammers.

Hopkins looks at him, still smiling enigmatically. “The catch. There’s always a catch, isn’t there?” Then he turns serious. “We have a
plan
. A p
lan,
not a
catch
. Not some gimmick, or something dirty and underhanded. An idea, a concept, a philosophy. A plan. Which we will propose to this county when we have all the answers to the questions we’re currently raising amongst ourselves.” He turns to Miranda. “Please take this gift,” he asks her.

“We will,” she assures him.

The following day Miranda is swarmed by reporters from every newspaper, magazine, television, and radio station from Los Angeles to San Francisco. They all ask the same two questions:

Q: “Why is Rainier Oil doing this?”