Keeper of the Keys (21 page)

Martin stared at him as if observing a meteor landing in a field. “When we started out, we were such good friends. I wanted you to be brilliant. I supported your brilliance.”

“We’re still in business,” Ray pointed out. “We’ve had good press.”

“This man’s my friend, too. I want him happy.”

“He will be happy. He’ll adjust. Give him time. Give him the opportunity to look at these designs, and put your own heart behind them.”

“You mean, let him pour another million bucks into a design he hates?”

“Talk him into it, Martin, like you’ve talked people into things they didn’t want to do your whole life!”

“I see now why Leigh ran, if that’s what she did,” Martin said. “Talking to you is like talking to a rock.”

“Damn you, Martin.”

Martin sighed and took one more flip through the plans. “Antoniou wants a family gathering space, curving, welcoming spaces. Light in spirit, but warm and friendly. Rooms to remind him of his past, of a white house hanging over the Mediterranean Sea, with soft seating where his immense family can drink retsina and recall warmer days.”

Ray pointed at the ocean. A wave, suitably dramatic, rushed up the shoreline and flew through the rock-sculpted air. They both watched and listened, waiting for it to quiet. “What about the plush sofas, wall-hangings, curving half-walls? Are you looking at the whole thing? And please. This isn’t the Mediterranean. We’re talking the Pacific Ocean at Laguna,” Ray said. “What’s grand in architecture is how an old story gets told a new way, in a new language. I can promise him a warm home, a showplace, a gathering place for his family.”

“You loved Kahn for a while, Wright, then I. M. Pei. That house in Agoura? You channeled Neutra, building all in glass. Those people ended up having to put mini blinds on all the windows. I mean, come on. They had neighbors twenty feet away on each side.”

“Martin, my ideas have changed over time. I was a young kid, and overstepped sometimes. I finally know what I’m doing. Why can’t you trust me?”

“Why can’t we give Antoniou what he wants? A California dream? A home for his family that recalls his roots?”

Ray thought about that. “Los Angeles has a shallow past. Most of the people living here, and that includes Achilles Antoniou, have no ownership over the land, the climate, nothing. They don’t know what fits their new neighborhood because there is no neighborhood. Everyone around here arrived five minutes ago. Our job is to give the client a home that’s right for this setting. Something with roots they can’t possibly feel, a place that goes beyond their dead past.”

“Minimalism with fresh horseshit scattered around to gussy it up,” Martin said. He grabbed the plans, rolled them up, and stuck a thick rubber band around them. “Don’t show these to Antoniou.”

“I guess that means you won’t be watching my back, Martin.”

“Get us plans that meet our client’s requirements. And oh, when that happens, run them by me.”

Ray thought, he’s sitting on such unstable ground there, on that rock that shifts when he moves suddenly. He could easily go over the edge, die, topple over in a tragic accident.

He experienced the event in his mind. Martin, beaky nose buried in the plans, hand reaching toward his briefcase, unnerved by something Ray had said or done, rising, stumbling, tumbling.

He imagined Martin falling way the hell down, dashing his head against the boulders in the ocean cove below.

Ray, shocked, would stand, then run for his car up above where he had left his mobile phone.

Well, okay, he had his mobile phone in his pocket, but nobody else knew that. He would climb up the hill, maybe even intentionally step into the poison oak he knew well to avoid. Distraught, he would say after, explaining the inflamed rash on his legs and arms. Too distraught to worry about such an unimportant outcome. Then he had trouble finding his keys. Who wouldn’t under the circumstances, his oldest friend lying still, bloodied, upon the rocks so far below?

Martin spoke, interrupting Ray’s latest homicidal fantasy. “In fact,” Martin said slowly, “given that Antoniou was my client to start with, and I brought him to you, I insist that I see another set of plans based on our discussion today before either one of us speaks to our client again.”

“I always appreciate your input, Martin, you jackass.” Ray stood up and dusted off his pants.

Martin snorted. “Sure. Just so we’re clear that what I say goes.” He stuffed Ray’s plans into his briefcase in a last-ditch effort to show who was in charge and started up the hill.

Ray followed. Martin seemed to know the best route, where the sand didn’t shift too much, and the rocks stayed lodged in the hillside. He kept looking behind him as if he could read Ray’s mind.

16

B
ack in his office, Ray worked on sketches he had made of Achilles Antoniou’s secret playroom. Go medieval in that basement. Underground, seen by a select few, the big, exotic room would not affect the exterior or core design at all, so Ray didn’t feel any kind of call for a design aesthetic. The fruit cellar on Bright Street flashed through his mind, the single bulb that dangled in its center. He pondered lighting—spooky uplights?

Bare bulbs, like Picasso’s
Guernica.
What was Antoniou going to do down there, put in a purple bed or a rack?

Denise came into Ray’s office, youthfully enthusiastic, wanting to talk color and furniture. She had tortured her short hair with rubber bands and she wore a leather vest; in the cold office, she could. She looked out the glass walls toward the reception area. “One thing. I’ve been thinking. You need a backup plan.”

“Too late for that. I’m committed.”

“It would be no trouble to quickie-revise some existing drawings that would satisfy him for the moment. Let things calm down between you and Martin.”

She let that notion twist for a moment, then said, “Pretend to go along, then whittle away at Martin and Mr. Antoniou.”

“Finally, a tempting suggestion.” He opened and closed a few drawers. “Now where do I keep that big sharp Exacto of mine? Good for whittling when all else fails.”

“Ha, ha,” she said. “You work them, together and separately, until the client’s ready to take that extra step forward. You’ve done it before.”

He sighed.

“Nowhere is it written that good architects must be uncompromising.”

“
Et tu,
Denise?”

“I’m on your side, Ray.” She gave him a half smile, then frowned, gazing beyond him out into the hall. “Uh-oh.”

“What is it?”

“He’s here.”

In the conference room, the streaked rosewood surface of the table cold to the touch, Ray sat, plans spread out in front of him. At the head of the long table, Antoniou reposed, no other word for it. His big eyelids had sunk over his brown eyes, like windows with shady awnings pulled down over the bright parts. Martin sat directly across from Ray.

“We’ve been talking these last few minutes,” Martin said, without preamble.

Ray nodded, looking toward Antoniou, whose sunken head sunk lower.

Not a good sign.

“Achilles has already told you that your basic design, while no doubt brilliant, is not really what he has in mind.”

Ray wondered about the basement, but another peek at Antoniou told him the truth. The client’s hooded eyes rose to meet his momentarily, blazing. He was reminding Ray to protect his secrets.

Did that mean he might still go with Ray’s ideas? Was there wiggle room? Or had Martin bent his ear?

Martin pulled out a sheaf of photographs of the inspirational Greek island. “As per our earlier conversation,” and he went on for quite a while, the gist of the lecture being: here’s Santorini; ain’t it beautiful, and this is what Antoniou insists upon.

“Simple blocks, stacked. Curved, plastered. Bright white.”

Ray felt his pulse beating in his neck. He wondered if they could see it. He struggled to control an impulse to leap up, grab Martin by his neck, and strangle him until his pasty face turned black.

Antoniou, looking at Martin, nodded. Anyone this guy hired could come up with an adequate basement for Antoniou’s purposes. Antoniou didn’t need Ray. He didn’t need this firm. He had the money.

But Ray could let it be known. Around town. Dungeons and Dragons at the Antoniou palace.

He pressed his mechanical pencil against a blank page in front of him. The tip broke off. He realized he had been clicking it while Martin spoke. It lay in a gray line, like a fallen cigarette ash.

This beautiful design was the one good thing he had going in his life now. Without Leigh. Without the belief in himself as a good man.

Going, going—

To gain time, Ray repeated, “Santorini.” Should he reproduce another ancient place with soul in a new place where it wouldn’t belong, where it would look like a hangnail on a beautiful hillside, swollen, burning white, ugly, obtrusive?

“We need a new set of plans, Ray, ones that reflect Antoniou’s original concept. And we need them soon. Joey Zaremski promises he can help.”

Oh, yes, another jab from Martin. Martin had worked out how to keep the commission within the firm, initially selling the client on Ray’s brilliance, with the sly idea of substituting one of Ray’s smart protégés if Ray didn’t pan out. Ray had hired Joey when Joey first got out of Cal Poly, a probational graduate with no awards, nothing to his name, not even rich parents who could hire him to build a statement house he could show to prospective employers. Ray had studied his designs, loved them, and taught him everything he knew. He believed Joey had no notion of Martin’s underhanded wrangling. He trusted Joey.

“Joey refuses to work without your involvement, Ray,” Martin said, as if reading his mind. “He considers you his primary influence, a kind of mentor. So here’s the deal. You do the design, no restrictions except doing what your client wants, working in concert with this young architect I know you respect. Any parts you don’t want to do, you have Joey handle.”

Now was his chance to launch into an impassioned sales job that would turn all this around. He could make them see. He could appeal to Antoniou’s snobbery, give him a diplomatic lesson in how run-of-the-mill his dreams were in Laguna. He could.

But he didn’t have the energy, and maybe he didn’t have the skill. The moment passed.

Martin stood up. Antoniou also stood.

“It’s gonna be fine,” he said to Martin, not looking at Ray. “Ray and I understand each other. We’re gonna get along great.”

Kat got off work at five and headed straight for her sister’s.

“Hand me the powder,” Jacki commanded, hand outstretched, leaning against the changing table. The baby wore no diaper.

“Go sit down. I’ll do that.”

“Third shelf down.”

Kat located the blue container and handed it to Jacki.

The baby boy lay on a paper diaper. After powdering the reasonably clean bottom, Jacki endeavored to pull up the middle section of the paper diaper and flip over the side pieces, so that the Velcro would grab. The baby fought, sobbing, face twisted up like a pretzel, tiny fists tight.

Jacki breathed deeply, then tackled the child again. This time, the baby did not roll over beyond the white padding. “Gotcha!” Jacki crowed, folding down the side of the diaper that would keep her out of trouble, at least for the immediate future. She picked up her newborn boy. “L’il animal,” Jacki mooed. Perspiration had turned her once shiny streaked bangs a dingy, greasy color. “L’il fella,” she went on, kissing first his toes, then his stomach, and finally his moist cheek.

She let Kat carry him into his bedroom and tucked him into his turquoise-linened crib.

After listening at the open door for a few minutes, Jacki closed the door. They sighed, then laughed, snickering at each other’s dishevelment. Kat straightened her shirt, now with a blob of vomit on the shoulder. Jacki smoothed her hair. She wore a robe and fluffy slippers and a walking cast on her foot, and was exactly two hours out of the hospital.

“Want a cup of tea or something? Beer?” Jacki asked in a whisper, as she tottered toward the kitchen.

“Hard choice.”

“Beer it is.” She opened the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle, and popped the top, handing it to Kat. “Too bad they accuse mothers who drink beer when they nurse of abuse these days. I could use one.”

“Best beer I’ve had in my entire life.”

“He’ll be up again in two hours and I’ll nurse him. I need to grab a nap in a minute.”

Kat set her beer down on a grease-speckled table she could not recall ever being speckled before. “I have a lot I need to talk to you about.”

“Did you hear something?” Jacki said, placing her finished bottle on the kitchen counter. “I could swear I heard something.”

“Leigh—”

“Beau’s crying,” Jacki said.

“Is that his name?”

“Beau Thomas Chavez.” Jacki opened the door to the baby’s room. “Dignified and historic; that’s our boy.”

Kat followed her sister into the twilit room. Two glass night-lights shaped like daisies poked through the dark-orange gloom.

Jacki pushed open the window curtains, letting in the last light of the day. “I should have nursed him longer before putting him down. His stomach is minuscule. Babies need to eat all the time.” She sat in a wooden rocking chair and pushed off from the floor like a person trying to have fun. She closed her eyes and pressed her back against the chair, supporting her child on a pillow. “Incredible, isn’t it. Owowow—”

Her eyes closed and she snored, head at an odd angle, her baby safely propped on pillows as he nursed. When he let go of the nipple with a tiny pop, she awoke instantly. She handed Beau off to Kat. “Wet again.”

Kat changed him. They put him down. He dozed for a few minutes, then awakened, his cries amazing considering the size of his voice box.

“Forgot to burp him,” Jacki said, patting his back while he rested against her shoulder. He burped and threw up, then went peacefully down to sleep.

For twenty minutes.

Etcetera.

“I have to go,” Kat said.

“No,” Jacki wailed. “Raoul’s due home in an hour. I’m a sweaty pig and there’s no food.”