by Mara Purl
As always, Kevin had taken literally what was intended literarily. Jack retorted less audibly than usual. “Yes, well, you wouldn’t know what was wrong with the girl if she sent it to you in writing.”
“What d’you say?”
Jack’s life was full of miscommunications. In the case of Kevin, he cultivated them. It was a game he enjoyed playing, an indulgence he allowed himself, taking advantage of what the young man missed, and ultimately—he knew somewhere in the recesses of his mind—a means of placing blame, should he ever need to do so. Having chosen to be the big fish in the little pond, he’d found no worthy partner in this small town against whom to sharpen his wit, except for Samantha, and she… well, she wasn’t the worthy opponent she fancied herself to be.
Someday, he knew, he might regret his word games for some reason, might get caught or embarrassed, but even then he was sure he’d talk his way out of it before Kevin realized what had happened. He tried it now.
“That girl, that friend of yours who works for Samantha Hugo at the Environmental Planning Commission? I need you to contact her.”
“Oh, you mean Su—“
Jack cut him off. “I don’t want to know her name. Just keep tabs on her. Get her to tell you details of this investigation of theirs. I don’t want any surprises.”
Kevin Ransom looked at Jack’s eyes. “Well, okay, but I’m not sure what you mean by keeping tabs.” Kevin liked Susan Winslow. He thought of her long black hair and cute short skirts. She wasn’t the easiest person to talk to. But he didn’t like the idea of invading her privacy, nor of deceiving her in any way.
Kevin watched Jack wince as he took a sip of his hot coffee, then explain, “It means you be sure to let me know the moment Samantha re-opens the investigation, because I have a little something prepared for the press.”
“What’s that?” asked Kevin dutifully.
“Oh, just a little marriage we used to have.” Jack wiped the coffee from his mustache, but Kevin thought he was also trying to conceal a smirk.
“No kidding? You used to be married to Samantha?” I didn’t mean to say that so loud.
Just then, Sally appeared with their food. “Well, here we are—eggs, toast, and for you some muffins. And how about a warm-up on those coffees?”
Jack Sawyer looked daggers at Kevin. To Sally, he barked, “Yes, yes, thanks, and that’s all.”
He issued it like an order, which Sally didn’t seem to have heard. “Let’s see, how about some marmalade?”
“I said that’d be all for now, Sally.” He could feel tension creasing the corners of his mouth.
“Right! Well, I’m right here if you need me.” Sally hummed again as she hurried off to handle the next customer.
Digging into his eggs and biscuits voraciously, Jack allowed the first few bites to take the edge off his hunger. Calmer now, he remembered to admonish his over-eager employee. “Kevin, I expect you to keep that quiet about Samantha.”
“Oh, okay.” Kevin was ever so slowly dribbling honey onto one side of his biscuit. “So it’s a surprise?”
Jack couldn’t stand to watch the deliberate slowness of Kevin’s work with the honey, and at his employee’s comment he choked down a laugh with a morsel of bacon. He washed down his last bite with a swallow of coffee. Once again wiping his mustache, he said “Yes, you could say that.”
He began to smile at the prospect of damaging that reputation Samantha held so dear. The thought of getting back at Samantha so poetically is delicious. “In any case,” Jack continued, enjoying the way the words felt in his mouth almost as much as he enjoyed Sally’s home cooking, “it’ll be common knowledge soon enough.”
By the time Jack reached the Sawyer Construction Company he’d had his breakfast and was ready to tackle the day—a day he figured was likely to start with battling Samantha.
Most of the company’s actual work was on-site, but it did maintain offices in town—a three-room suite in the Plaza building, which had an elevated courtyard facing Main Street and employee parking slots at the rear of the building. Jack pulled his truck into his spot. There’s Kevin’s truck. How did he manage to beat me here again? Jack marched across the courtyard and into the outer office without so much as a glance in either direction. Kevin must be in the kitchenette making coffee.
Jack saw the blinking light on the office answering machine. Sure enough, this must be the message Samantha’d promised would greet him at the office. He hit the Play button and ground his teeth while he listened.
Nothing grated on him more than her voice—unless it was her tone. She’d advise him? He walked into his private office and closed the door. Using the added charge of annoyance for fuel, he dialed her number.
She answered on the first ring. “It’s Jack, Samantha.” Giving her no time to get a word in, he continued, “I figured you’d call. Had time to digest your morning grapefruit yet? Or was it prunes? I forget.” There are certain advantages to having lived with the woman.
“I’m not going to let you ruin a perfectly good morning,” she snapped. “And by the way, I’m not about to let you ruin another perfectly good hill either.”
“Oh, really?” countered Jack. “And who do you think makes the decisions at this company?”
“Well, if it were me, you’d adhere to the Environmental Planning Commission’s rules.”
It was just like her to start spouting rules. That was one of our problems in the first place.
“You know, Jack, you act as though Sawyer Construction enjoys some sort of exemption. That’s not how it works.”
As far as Jack was concerned, it was all very simple. He’d come to terms with it years ago. In the battle of idealism versus practicality, there was no question which had won. If people don’t have jobs—and houses to live in—nothing else really matters. “If you knew the slightest thing about how business works,” he yelled, “you wouldn’t try to implement these rules—which only serve to block badly needed pieces of development, much desired by the community at large.”
Kevin Ransom, sitting at his desk in the main office, couldn’t help but hear the argument taking place behind his boss’s closed door—especially as Jack’s voice continued to rise. Well, I’m only getting his side of the conversation. But why does he have to shout at her?
Torn between a desire to flee the premises thereby avoiding the unpleasant—and private—argument, and staying at his post, Kevin found himself too distracted to get any real work done. He considered turning on the office radio to mask the sound, but then thought that might only annoy Jack further.
Before Jack’s arrival, there’d been a message on the office machine from one of the workers currently hired-on at the Clarke House. Burt Ostwald, or “Mole Guy”—as he and the others referred to him—was taking a sick day. He’d left a long story about having forgotten his backpack at the job site, returning for it, getting a flat tire and having to walk home. During the night, he’d caught a chill and planned to stay in bed for the day.
Kevin had his own theory about Burt. Having heard enough rumors about the man’s propensity to drink, Kevin figured that after his long walk home he’d knocked back a few, and now suffered from a hangover. Either way, Kevin figured Jack didn’t need to hear about it—not in his present mood.
I guess I could finish up the forms from that last job. Paperwork was one of his least favorite aspects of working at Sawyer Construction. But because he found it difficult, it did promise to keep him too occupied to tune in any further to Jack’s latest spat with Samantha. He grabbed a stack of forms and began filling them out.
Jack Sawyer’s chair squeaked as he swivelled to face out the window, still spattered from last year’s rainy season. With half an ear, he continued to listen as Samantha droned on.
“Development is one thing, Jack. Ravaging the land is something else. I warned you to put a hold on this until our environmental impact study was complete.”
“And I warned you what would happen if you ever tried to interfere with my busines
s again. Let me see if I can shed a little light on rules for you. The rule, you said, was that no one was to know about us. You moved to Milford-Haven seven years ago, and I’ve obeyed your rule all this time, despite—”
“Despite what, Jack?”
His fist hit the well-worn desk. “Despite the fact that you continue to do everything you can to interfere with my business, every time I turn around!”
“My goal isn’t to interfere with your business. I’m simply doing my job. Why do you insist on taking this personally?”
“Personally? There’s nothing more personal to me than my business, and you’d understand that if you’d ever stuck with anything long enough to actually let it grow into something.”
“That was uncalled-for, Jack, and I resent it.”
He heard something—the merest suggestion—in her voice: filled with righteous indignation at the surface, it resonated with a deeper note that quavered with hurt. I hate being able to read her so well after all this time. But then again, it’s something I can use.
After all, it was her fault their marriage had failed, and he saw no reason to let bygones be bygones. Having brought home his point, Jack inhaled, poised to deliver another blow. “Don’t forget that your precious job is a political appointment.”
Jack waited to see what she’d say next, but she fell silent. I got to her—again. He shifted his weight back in his chair—allowing it to squeak long and loud—and lifted his feet, crossing his workboots on the desk. He heard her take a deep breath.
“All right, Jack. What do you want?”
Now he spoke quietly, almost pleasantly. “I want you to stop the investigation of that land. I want this shopping center to be unencumbered and unobstructed.” It was the old argument. They’d had it dozens of times before, on scores of proposed projects.
“You know I can’t promise that, Jack. It’s out of my hands.”
“Fine. It’ll soon be out of my hands too.”
“Wh… what will soon—” Sam sputtered.
He cut her off. “What will soon be out of my hands is exactly when the town of Milford-Haven finds out you’re the former Mrs. Jack Sawyer.” He started to laugh and decided the laughing felt better than anything had in a long time.
“Jack, what could you possibly stand to gain by doing this?”
She’s grasping at straws. Jack could barely talk now through the laughter. “More to the point, what could you stand to lose?” His laugh was hard enough, now, that it began to turn into his chronic cough. Not even that deterred him, nor diminished his delight.
“Jack! Jack!”
He hung up with a satisfying click. It’s about time I had a victory over Samantha. I’ll make a call to that reporter later today.
He stared a long moment out the mud-streaked windows. I wonder how much Kevin overheard? “Kevin!” The shout irritated his throat started up his cough. After a moment, Jack’s door opened.
“Yes sir, Mr. Sawyer?”
The young man stood there, fresh-faced and innocent-looking, tall and strong as a tree, and about as simple-minded. Nothing shows on his face—no judgment, no conniving. But is he really that pure? He’s always so hard to read.
“Get someone in here to clean these windows. They’re filthy.”
Chapter 3
Zack Calvin heaved a sigh of relief. The dense Los Angeles traffic began to thin as he drove through the northern suburbs heading up the coast. Before his Mercedes 500 SL gathered speed, he pressed the retraction control that lifted the car’s canvas top and folded it automatically into the storage area behind the rear seat.
Though the L.A. traffic had been enervating, he grinned now at the prospect of taking the rest of the week off, feeling an almost guilty pleasure at relishing his sense of escape.
Next weekend, he’d be home in Santa Barbara enjoying his usual diversions: racquetball and a few beers with the guys; dinner and a movie with Cynthia. She’s fun, unless she’s planning to drag me to some party. I’ll cross that bridge if and when. But this whole week—except for that one meeting in Morro Bay—I’m my own man. No corporate schedule, no social calendar. For once, nothing’s expected of me. So I’m not stopping at home. I’ve always wanted to go farther up the coast, just to see what’s there.
He’d earned his time off: no vacation all year; one crammed week after another; and a jam-packed month. Dad was the one who suggested this getaway. I didn’t realize how much I needed it.
He thought back to his busy morning. His first meeting had been at seven a.m. in El Segundo—a hundred miles south of Santa Barbara, just below Los Angeles. Before leaving home, he’d made sure his hard-hat and heavy boots were tucked in his trunk. Turns out I didn’t need them today. But he never knew when he might have to prowl around a rig, a drilling site or even a construction area. Since there was no point in driving through Tuesday morning rush hour traffic, Zack had left home at five a.m., exiting the well-oiled gates of Calma while it was still dark.
He was taking a day away from his normal duties at Calvin Oil to meet some business contacts. Normally, his two pals from Unocal would’ve met him half way, but big things were brewing at their firm, and today they had to be sure to arrive at their desks by eight o’clock.
Friends since grad school, they’d confided that their employer Unocal Corporation would probably divest its West Coast gasoline retailing empire—nearly half the company. News would hit the press next month, but they wanted him to know now.
While they’d munched bacon-and-eggs at a local diner, Zack had asked them why. His pals revealed that the retail unit accounted for 47 percent of the company’s 7.6 billion dollars in revenue for the first nine months of 1996, but generated only 16 percent of the company’s total operating profit. All three MBAs knew that wasn’t the right ratio. Besides, they explained, Unocal wanted to use the proceeds to look for oil overseas. That’s an interesting shift, he thought.
Over a final cup of coffee, the three friends talked briefly about the Exxon Valdez settlement—something else that would be hashed out in the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times once it was announced in another week or two. Exxon’s insurers would soon publicly agree to pay 480 million dollars to settle a portion of the claims against them. The insurance companies had already paid claims of 300 million.
True, the company had spilled 260,000 gallons of crude. But the environment would recover. What mattered now was that the company maintain its profitability. Without a strong economy, where would any of them be?
His next meeting took place two hours later in downtown L.A. and, fortunately, he’d only had to use two freeways to get there. Taking the nearby on-ramp, he’d started east on the 105. This road still looks brand new, he’d noted. They only built it, when … two or three years ago? The city had added the new segment to its maze of roadways, mostly to channel traffic to-and-from the busy LAX airport. Even during morning rush, he sped the next six miles, but soon down-shifted to a crawl as he approached the East L.A. Interchange, where several major freeways met. Every director who does a film based in Los Angeles shoots this from a helicopter—the engineering marvel, the icon of modern life in the West.
Zack looked around him at the other cars: the usual Fords and Toyotas, Chevies and Hondas—intermixed with Jags and Beamers, Audis and Cadillacs, Mercs and T-birds. No matter how high-performance the car, they were all traveling no faster than ten miles an hour at this point.
Forced to join the six-lane-wide flow of dense freeway traffic into the heart of the city, Zack took in the skyline. It’s not Manhattan, but it’s always more impressive than I remember. Finally passing the intertwined ribbons of concrete, he saw the distinctive circular towers of the Bonaventure Hotel, exited on Third Street and maneuvered through the labyrinth of one-way streets until he arrived at Atlantic Richfield Plaza and plunged into the skyscraper’s subterranean parking structure.
He’d be meeting with Marie Knowles, who just three months earlier had risen to Chief Financial Officer and E
xecutive Vice President of Arco. As such, she was one of the highest ranking women in American business, and for good reason—according to her vitae.
Before her promotion, she’d been president of the Long Beach-based division of the firm, Arco Transportation—already a major achievement in the male-dominated oil business. In April of this year, a pipeline carrying oil from the Texas gulf to an Oklahoma distribution terminal suddenly became blocked. Marie assembled a team and negotiated an arrangement to buy oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and have it delivered via an alternate pipeline until the blockage could be solved. The uninterrupted flow meant gasoline prices, unstable these days, didn’t spike. Her solution was touted throughout the industry as a brilliantly creative solution. Perhaps not surprisingly, she’d been promoted three months later.
Marie was an old friend of Zack’s dad. “She’s only forty-nine years old, son, and look where she is!” Dad doesn’t have a lot of female friends in the industry—especially ones who are happily married and have families. I know he thinks a lot of her. “Just pay her a courtesy call. She certainly deserves a congrats, and you never know when a contact like her could prove valuable.”
He remembered his dad’s descriptions of the former Arco headquarters, which they’d opened in 1971 after moving to L.A. from New York. The corporate suites were said to have been the most regal ever created in So Cal. That probably annoyed the bosses of the entertainment studios no end. Arco had built a pair of black-glass columns, and for the executive suites had created twenty-foot ceilings, dark-wood paneling, and a heliport on the roof.
Zack arrived at their new offices, and was greeted by a well-dressed assistant who offered him coffee, and a seat in the conference room that offered an excellent view of downtown in the foreground and the San Gabriel mountains as a backdrop.
A few moments later, in walked a handsome blond with chiseled features and a dazzling smile. Extending her hand, she asked, “How is Joseph these days?”
“Dad is doing well. He sends his regards.” Zack returned the firm handshake.