Possessions (41 page)

Hiding a smile, Claude said, “It sounds like you think someone framed you.”

“Bright fellow, got it in one.” Bruce took a piece of cake. “Sis warned me not to talk; sounds like she talked to you.”

“Claude is my lawyer,” Leslie said coolly. “Yours, too, if things get rough, so be polite.”

“I'm a gentleman, sis, you know that. Why a lawyer?”

“Because everything pointed to Data Processing or store security—or both—and either one meant me. Rumors were flying and I was on the verge of being forced out—until Claude threatened to sue everyone including the mannequins if they broke my contract. Then my president piped up that he really believes in me, and nothing would be done until we have a storewide inventory after the June sale. So I'm being left alone. At least until July.”

“Most important,” Claude put in, “the thefts have stopped.”

“Since when?” Bruce demanded.

“Since the day someone brought your notes to Leslie.”

“Ah ha! You see, when they aimed the finger at me they had to stop their evil doings . . . what's wrong, sis?”

“You don't seem to understand. The thefts stopped at the same time you stopped working there.”

Bruce gaped at her, his eyebrows moving as if on a spring. He looked from Claude to Leslie. “What half-assed son of a bitch would believe that?”

“My fellow vice-presidents,” Leslie said, thinking: And I nearly did, until Katherine talked to me about things like loyalty and trust.

“Christ, sis,” Bruce sputtered. “I did good work there, doesn't my record count, how can they look at everything I've done for them and think—”

“Cut it out,” Claude snapped. “Everything points to you, and running off to Los Angeles didn't help. What are you going to do about it?”

“Tough lawyer, sis.” Bruce sighed deeply. “Well, I see it's
up to me. I have figured out that the villain is Dick Volpe, my boss, head of the department, and I'm the only one who can check it by going through his programs because I cracked his password one day when I was bored—”

“Password?” Claude asked.

“We each have our own, like a code, that lets us work on our own programs; you can type all day and get nothing on the screen if you don't know the password—supposed to keep out spies and such—”

“But you figured out Volpe's.”

“I'm smarter than your average spy; so sis, how's about you give me your master key and I'll take a look around my old office.” He held out his hand.

“Bruce, you're out of your mind. I can't give keys to non-employees. I can't even
take
you into Data Processing.”

Claude coughed. “If you'll excuse me . . . back in a minute.”

After a bewildered pause, Leslie burst out laughing. “You know where it is.” As he went upstairs, she stood. “OK, let's go. Seems Claude trusts you and thinks you ought to take a look around but he doesn't want to know we're violating company policy. He'll wait for us here. Come on, damn it! How long do you think he can stay in the bathroom?”

“Forty seconds, if he pees normally. How come he knew where it was?”

“He's been there before.”

“How often?”

“Often enough to keep a spare shaver in the cabinet. Are you being protective, Bruce?”

“Hell, no, I'm being approving—best choice in a long time—tough and cool and think of all that free legal advice.” He kissed her loudly. “Good for you, sis.”

“Hey,” she protested. “Nothing's settled.”

“Good vibes, though. OK, all is well; let's go solve this thing.”

*  *  *

With no children to keep him company in the morning, Ross began arriving at the office earlier each day. He liked the cool morning quiet of the streets as he drove down the hill from his house, everything hushed and still, like a painting about to burst into life. Only the joggers were out, their shoes slapping
the pavement. As they passed, Ross returned their exuberant greetings with a wave of his hand, sharing with them that private moment suspended in sunlight above the fog that obliterated the Golden Gate Bridge and the skyline of San Francisco. Others slept, but they savored the morning.

Driving down the hill, Ross followed the boundary of the university campus with its smooth, sloping lawns and earth-tone buildings. Above it all rose the slender Campanile Tower, a white beacon visible for miles. In the afternoons, when Ross reversed the trip and the tower came into view, it beckoned, telling him he was almost home.

Amazing how we adjust, he thought, parking his car and taking the stairs to his office. A year ago I wouldn't have believed I could do it. A year ago, he realized, he had been in Vancouver, meeting Katherine Fraser. Her life had been crumbling; his had been under control. He wondered if she'd commemorated the year: not an anniversary, but a milestone of sorts. She might even have heard from Craig. Maybe he should call her, to find out. No; what difference would it make? If Craig showed up, they'd all hear about it. From Derek.

Sitting at his desk, he looked out the window at the Embarcadero. Few cars; empty sidewalks. Down the street, the stepped red brick buildings of Levi Plaza still slept; behind them, in his apartment on Lombard Street, Derek presumably slept. In Tiburon, Carrie and Jon were probably awake, perhaps making breakfast, since the cook didn't arrive until seven-thirty. Across town, Katherine might be awake by now, especially if Jennifer and Todd—

Damn it, why did he keep thinking of Katherine? Turning from the window he pulled out his Monday morning agenda. He probably wanted sympathy and thought she would understand him well enough to provide it. But he'd find sympathy elsewhere: on Sunday he and Tobias would be cooking a sumptuous farewell dinner for Victoria before she left for France. Considering how those two felt about Melanie, he'd find sympathy to spare.

He concentrated on his work until the members of his staff arrived and he gathered up his papers and strode down the hall to the conference room. It looked as if a tornado had blown through. Papers, charts, computer printouts, blueprints, sketches, pencils, and notepads covered the oval table and draped to the
floor; a few lay on the rolling table in the corner where an automatic coffee maker sputtered and gurgled as its carafe filled to the top. Twenty men and women stood about, chatting, holding styrofoam cups as they waited for the coffee. “Breakfast,” one of them announced, handing a box of Danish pastries to Ross. “I figured you'd be hungry, since you get here at the crack of dawn.”

“I am,” Ross said. “Thanks, Will.” He sat in the center of one side of the table and waited until the others were seated. “Let's start with the latest crises on BayBridge. Who goes first?”

“I'd better,” said one of them. “You won't believe this, but when the crews began gutting the Number Three warehouse yesterday they found a structural column fifteen feet from the southwest corner—a goddamn column through all ten floors, in the goddamn middle of what's going to be a goddamn living room!”

“Christ,”
someone whispered. “How the hell—?” someone else began. The rest sat in stunned silence.

Feeling his anger build, Ross got up to refill his cup, moving slowly and deliberately, keeping his face calm. He was supposed to be the steadying influence around there. But it wasn't always easy. You design a massive project, he thought; you put your best people on it; you get the approval of half a hundred committees, agencies, and everyone else who's interested; you get written up in the newspaper as innovative, bold, brilliant—and then you spend the next year or two putting out fires that no one could have foreseen.

He returned to his chair. “If it's a structural column,” he said quietly, “I'd guess it was added during construction, fifty years ago. Probably the warehouse began settling while they were working on it and they stuck in a support column and then forgot it. No one bothered to redraw the plans to show what they'd done. Any ideas on how to get around a concrete column in the middle of a living room?”

They began to bounce suggestions around the table as Ross listened.

“Make the living room smaller and hide it in the wall.”

“A twelve-foot room on that corner, with that view? You want your biggest room there!”

“So make it longer. What's wrong with a twelve-by
twenty-foot living room? If you take five feet from the east bedroom—”

“You just eliminated the east bedroom's closet.”

“Shit.”

After a while, Ross said, “How about going up?” They looked at him. “Multi-story apartments. If you can't have a modern loft, build a Victorian house. Two rooms wide, two or three stories high. Spiral staircases if we don't have room for conventional ones . . .”

They caught the idea, liked it, enthusiastically began embellishing it. Ross scheduled a meeting for later that week to work on final drawings. “Any more crises?”

No one spoke. No more fires, he thought. Until tomorrow. “I have one item before we go to other projects. Donna, I just got a copy of the engineering report on the Macklin Building. You've seen it?”

“Of course, Ross. I ordered it.”

“You ordered it. And it says the northeast corner has settled two inches.” She nodded again. “Damn it, I knew that already. You would have, too, if you'd gone to look at it. I don't need a consultant to tell me what I can see from the cracking pattern on the walls.” He was aware of the surprise on the faces around the table; he wasn't being the steadying influence they expected. But he was worried and didn't hide it. “The question isn't
if
it's settling; it's
why;
and if there's something wrong with the foundation, what should we do about it? Is that building in danger of collapse? Should we halt the renovation work until it's fixed? That's what I asked you to find out last December; what the hell are you waiting for? Where's the foundation engineer's report?”

“It hasn't been done,” Donna said defensively. “You said there was only one company you wanted to use, in Los Angeles, and they have more work than they know what to do with. I gave you a memo on this, Ross; it looks like they won't get to us until July. I did look at the building, and I tried to get the engineers here earlier, but they can't do it. If you want, I'll call someone else.”

“No, I remember now. I know you don't let things slide, Donna, and I know you wouldn't work on a building without inspecting it. I apologize.” He looked around the table, at faces that were sympathetic, even solicitous, and he knew they were
telling themselves he was tense because he and his wife had split and he was living alone, spending weekends with his kids . . . he needed understanding in this difficult time.

And probably they were right, he thought later, as he went back to his office; there was a lot going on at once. “Derek Hayward called,” his secretary said. “He'll be a few minutes late.” Ross nodded. Something else going on: why had his brother, who had never set foot in his office, made an appointment for this morning?

“Good job,” Derek said, looking around the renovated office as they shook hands. “How are you? Melanie is telling her friends you are devastated, callous, and obstreperous.”

Ross chuckled. “What does that mean?”

“No one knows. Probably not even Melanie. It may, however, have something to do with money.”

“It may indeed.” They smiled together and Ross felt a moment's regret that they were not close. They looked close, he knew; a stranger would have noted the physical likeness, the easy way they sat in their chairs, the smile they exchanged, the quick, almost intuitive way they sometimes communicated. Like good friends, Ross thought. But we aren't. We're only brothers. And there is nothing either of us likes about the other.

He made a fresh pot of coffee and they sat on the leather couch. Derek deliberated a moment, then asked amiably, “Who's controlling the BayBridge contracts?”

“A number of people.”

“But you're pulling the strings.”

“I'm not even trying to pull the strings. Your spy is giving you false information, Derek.”

“I don't need spies; I know everybody in this business.” The brief amiability was gone; his voice was metallic. “And from what I hear, the Hayward Corporation is getting the contract for a four-million-dollar parking lot and deck. Four million out of a three-hundred-million-dollar project.”

“That's not public knowledge.”

“I heard it.”

Ross was silent, wondering who was feeding Derek information. Someone in the contractor's office, or one of the developers.

Derek sat back. “It's true, then.”

“As far as I know.”

“You son of a bitch. Where did you learn to play like the big boys? You made yourself a nice little reputation since you moved here—you can't imagine how many people think they'll please me by praising my little brother to the skies—but you never played for stakes like these. And it went to your head. One of the biggest projects this city ever had, and you couldn't risk competition.
I should have been the contractor on that project.
But you kept me out of it.”

“You're wrong. I wanted you in.”

“Bullshit. You had the developers eating out of your hand; all you had to do was point in my direction.”

The first time in our lives, Ross thought, that I had any influence over something Derek wanted. “They chose the contractor on their own. I wanted you in as a subcontractor, to build the shopping mall. But I only made suggestions, none of the final decisions. You know everything else; you know that, too.”

“You're lying.”

“God damn it—!” Ross took a breath. “Use your common sense. Most of them never backed a project like this before. They didn't know how long it would take, or how much they'd have to spend, before we could begin. The day we got commitments for federal money they bought champagne; five years later, when we were still waiting for final approvals from federal and city agencies and community groups, and they'd spent twenty million dollars on land, feasibility studies, schematics, all the rest,
and we still hadn't dug the first hole,
they were too cautious even to buy beer. All of them were on edge, swearing this was going to be the cleanest project since cave dwellings; they didn't want any hitches. So how do you think they felt about giving a seventy-million-dollar contract for the mall to a corporation owned by the architect's family, with the architect on its board of directors?”