Deep in the spidering shadows as the sun fell to the ocean, they headed through the mucky fields. He tried to keep the car in view—so easy to get lost when everything looked the same. The derricks, some with little cabins attached, were densely packed, almost rubbing against each other. Underfoot, the earth was black, as was what little sand they could see, which once must have been white but now was dark and coated with gobs of tar. Cal felt Lizzie’s hand squeeze into his. The sound of pumping drowned out all else, and the smell of oil overpowered any scent of the sea. It puzzled him that each pump, each hole in the ground, would require its own giant steel framework; that the oil lagoon hiding beneath the sand could not be tapped by a single derrick or maybe a few rather than the dozens he saw. Only greed could explain it, the lust to get richer faster.
Why would Uncle Eddie, who already had everything, want more? Yes, oil to keep motors running was necessary, but why here? Why destroy miles of natural beauty, turning the sand black, rendering foul and useless white beach and blue ocean, not to mention the languid lagoons built by Abbot Kinney? Surely there were places to find oil without so much destruction. He felt Lizzie squeeze tighter.
“Hey, you kids!” shouted a man emerging from one of the cabins. “What the hell are you doing in here? Can’t you read the signs? Get out!”
Startled, Cal turned to see a hardhat closing in on them. Stifling a desire to shout, “these girls own this land,” he pulled Lizzie and turned back toward the car. Suddenly Maggie, quick as a cat, bolted away toward the nearest derrick. She was five rungs up the steel ladder before he reacted, and the hardhat, who’d stopped, began screaming. Maggie was like a spider flying up on its web. The Hardhat clumped toward the derrick but already knew he could never catch her.
“Get her down from there, boy!” he called. Other hardhats emerged from the cabin.
“Maggie, come down,” Cal shouted, knowing it was futile. She’d already reached the first metal platform.
The man grabbed him hard by the shoulder. “Get her down from there!”
“I’m trying.” He pushed the hand away. “Maggie, you know you can do it,” he shouted. “It’s not worth it! Come back down!”
“Mag . . . gie!” Lizzie was shouting, “Mag . . . gie!”
She’d already clamored halfway to the first catwalk, nimble despite her riding boots. The derrick looked to be five stories. Cal knew she would not stop. She never did.
“Better go after her, Bobby,” one of the men said.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said Cal. “She’ll come down when she’s ready.”
“Let’s hope she don’t come down head first,” said a worker.
“Don’t worry.”
“Call the fire department,” said someone.
“The hell with that—I’ll call the police,” said Bobby, turning back.
He didn’t want to do it; didn’t want to tell the men that the girls were Eddie Mull’s daughters, heiresses of the land they were supposedly trespassing. The girls would hate it and so would he. But the police were a worse option.
“Hold on there,” Cal called to Bobby, who seemed in charge. “Let’s talk.”
With Lizzie leaning in making her mental notes, Cal explained who they were, all of them Mulls. “You go back inside, and I’ll get her down. We won’t come back. I promise you that. Better that way. Better for everyone.”
They listened. They would be blamed as much as the children and had more to lose.
♦ ♦ ♦
“How was riding today?” Nelly asked at dinner.
“Good,” said Maggie. “We came home through Venice.” She was smiling, and Cal wondered if she was going to blab.
Eddie had mixed Old Fashioneds instead of Manhattans because Nelly liked the sweeter taste, and they’d brought them to the table. “Wanted to see the wells, huh? Might as well get to know them. All that oil will be yours someday.”
“If there’s any left,” said Cal.
Frowning, Eddie stared at the boy. “Long time before those wells run dry.”
“I’d like the beach better without them,” said Lizzie. “They’re ugly.”
“Maybe so, little one,” said Eddie, “but that car you run around in wouldn’t go far without them. And don’t forget Uncle Willie’s new church. That’s going to cost a bundle.” He looked at Lizzie. “See all the good things we can do with oil.”
“You hadn’t mentioned building a church for Willie,” said Nelly.
“You’re the first to know.”
“Can we afford it?”
Eddie laughed. “Not much we can’t afford anymore.”
The Roscomare Road house was close to the apex of the Bel Air hills, a sprawling single level rancho that looked west over hills and canyons toward the ocean between Santa Monica and Malibu. Eddie owned five acres, which reached to the bottom of the canyon, and he’d fenced it off to keep the critters away. When wire fencing didn’t work he replaced it with chain link, which was better but not by much. The critters had been there before the place called Bel Air and had no intention of relocating. Raccoons and skunks were a nuisance but not as much as coyotes, which came up looking for any cats foolish enough to go prowling.
“Dad said Henry Callender was going to pay for the new church, calls it a temple,” said Cal, digging into a beef enchilada.
They were five at table for enchiladas and side dishes ordered from Castillo’s on Wilshire by Lupe, the housekeeper/cook. They all liked Mexican food, which was growing more popular as newcomers from the East overcame their prejudices. Willie sometimes joined them Thursdays, but phoned earlier to say he had too much to do. The success of the Church of the New Gospel had enabled him to move from the former grocery off Wilshire into a larger, former Lutheran church, on Beverly Boulevard.
“Who is Henry Callender?” asked Nelly.
Cal shot a look at his uncle, surprised he’d never mentioned Callender. “The man who found the oil, who showed Uncle Eddie where to drill.”
“That’s not the way it was,” snapped Eddie.
“Dad said you two are going fifty-fifty, that Callender was going to use his money to finance the temple.”
Annoyed, Eddie went to the sideboard to refresh his drink. “Henry Callender doesn’t have enough money to buy himself a new suit of clothes.”
“Eddie,” said Nelly, “who is he? I’ve never heard that name before.”
“One of Willie’s crazy Soldiers, that’s all. Said there might be oil on the Abbot Kinney land. I drilled and hit. End of story.”
Cal was staring at his uncle, trying to square the two stories. “He tells Dad he’s going to build a temple with his oil profits and you say he’s broke. I don’t get it.”
“He’s goofy,” said Eddie, louder now. “Obviously you never met him. A goofy old miner tetched from being out in the sun too long.” He glanced at his wife. “Damn good enchiladas, Nell. You need your drink freshened while I’m up?”
“Don’t mind if I do.”
“Speaking of the oil business,” said Eddie, trying to change the subject, “Cal—you decided yet what you’re going to study at USC?”
Cal gazed past his uncle, out the window and down toward the canyon. “Not sure yet.”
“Business administration, that’s the thing. They’ve opened a new business school down there. Asked me to give a few lectures.”
“I didn’t know that, honey,” said Nelly.
“What they really want is money. I told them to ask at the chamber. They’ll have someone. What do you think, Cal—about business school, I mean.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s a place for you in the company when you’re ready. But you gotta know numbers to run a business. I was running your grandma’s ranch long before she died. Learned everything I needed to set up down here.”
“A place for me in which co
mpany?”
Eddie laughed. “Any one you want.”
Cal knew of at least four: real estate, oil, construction, and bootlegging. He wasn’t supposed to know about the fourth, but knew from Nelly, who told him everything. The cases in the garage that said “toxic,” were toxic all right. Every kind of liquor, mostly from Canada, was being landed at Tijuana and Rosarito and smuggled up the coast on what was called the “Bootleg Highway.” Tecate, east of Tijuana, had built a distillery turning out 175 proof gin, with little of it going to the Mexicans, who preferred tequila.
“Uncle Eddie,” said Cal, uncomfortable, “do you owe Henry Callender money?”
Eddie stared hard at his nephew, a boy who wedded the dark good looks of the Mull men to the sandy hair and sunny disposition of his dead mother. Of course, he’d welcomed him into the family: Nelly and the girls loved him, and Willie wasn’t much of a father. But he’d begun to annoy his uncle, spending too much time with the girls, influencing them in ways he shouldn’t. The sooner he went off to college, the better. Why had he taken them to Venice without a word to anyone, brought Lizzie home criticizing the oil fields? Something strange about the boy. Scarlet fever? He still wore signs of it on his face. Once at dinner they’d heard a scratching at the screen and looked up to see four eyes staring in. Nelly screamed, and Eddie was ready to go for his .22. Cal stood up, strode out through the kitchen and they saw him pick up two raccoons as if they were puppies, not wild critters with teeth and claws and maybe rabies. Dropped them back in the canyon and came back with a story about how the poor things were lost. Crazy.
“Of course, he’s entitled to something, and I’m taking care of it. Now can we drop it?”
“I hope it’s not fifty-fifty,” said Nelly.
“Of course not!”
He finished off his second Old Fashioned. “Look, anyone can walk around saying, I bet there’s oil down there. Let’s drill. But it takes money to drill and risk coming up dry and going broke. Somebody told Ed Doheny to start digging on Alvarado because stuff was oozing up, but Doheny was the guy who got the loans and took the risks and when the oil came up got rich, not the guy who told him to start digging. That’s just the way it is.”
“Something not right about that,” said Cal.
“The real world, winners and losers.”
“Why do there have to be losers?” asked Cal.
“Dammit, Cal, it’s the way it is, accept it.”
“Eddie,” said Nelly, reproach in her voice.
“No, dammit. Creative destruction, it’s the way of the world. Winners and losers. Look at this city, look at Los Angeles, entirely built on water that was taken—call a spade a spade—stolen from the Owens Valley. They had to die so we could live. Even Willie will tell you there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s called the lesser evil. Right, Cal?”
“He could sue, couldn’t he?” said Cal.
“For God’s sake, Cal, drop it!”
Chapter 6
For months he’d stewed. Fifty-fifty, that was the deal. He’d been robbed, held up just as surely as if bandits had stopped the stage and walked off with his gold dust. He’d seen a lawyer, who asked to see the contract. Contract, what contract? He’d trusted Eddie because he trusted his brother. He’d gone to Mull Enterprises in Santa Monica and been turned away. He’d phoned and been hung up on. He’d written letters (unpublished) to the newspapers. Eventually, Eddie sent a check for five hundred dollars, finder’s fee he called it. As if he could be dismissed like someone who finds your dog. He needed to talk to Willie. Willie would help him.
He’d gone through that five hundred dollars in a month, always lived like that, hardtack and water while prospecting and steak and whiskey when he hit. He’d misjudged his man, and the first time was always the last. He was broke, moved to a fleabag on Vermont Avenue and even went up to Bel Air when he found out where Eddie lived. He took the Pacific Electric trolley out Wilshire and trudged up through Westwood to the gates on Sunset and kept climbing like he used to do in the mountains only in hills of Bel Air the gold wasn’t in lodes but in houses and swimming pools and three expensive cars in the garage. He’d stood out like a crow in a dovecote and wasn’t a mile up the hill when a cruising guard spotted him and ran him out with the warning that next time he’d run him in for trespassing.
He’d gone to Willie soon after the oil strike, explained that he’d become a rich man and intended to give it away. “The church I will build for you will be the most glorious house of God west of the Great Salt Lake, and must be superior to the Mormons for they are heretics. Find the site, Reverend. I will provide the money for the Temple of the Angels.”
Willie loved the name but was surprised by the offer. Eddie had said nothing about a partner, and when Willie phoned, told him to forget Callender, that he was taking care of things himself. Willie forgot about it and set himself to finding a property to build on. The Church of the New Gospel needed a permanent home, one grand enough for the congregation, which just went on growing. They’d begun Sunday evening services—called “shows”—to compete with the growing audience for Sunday night dramatic radio.
He found an empty square block in Echo Park, next to a pretty little lake with geese and swans ten minutes from downtown on the Pacific Electric’s Big Red cars, another ten minutes from growing Glendale. Conveniently, the sign on the property said: “Mull Real Estate.” Eddie not only was agent for the land but owned it. Mirabile dictu. Everything was coming together.
Callender finally got his man alone on a busy Sunday following morning services. Willie had finished preaching, baptisms, blessings and healing, made his goodbyes, dismissed the elders and staff and closed the front doors, believing the church was empty. Overworked, exhausted, he’d turned down lunch with the elders and retreated to his office for a nap on the couch before the staff returned to open the kitchen and begin preparations for the evening show. They were feeding people now. Sundays were nonstop.
He’d just closed his eyes when he heard the door creak.
“You gotta help me, Reverend.”
Startled, Willie sat up. “Oh, it’s you, Henry.”
“It’s about your brother.”
“Oh, dear.”
As always, he was dressed in the suit that needed pressing, the boots that needed polishing and carrying the hat that needed brushing. His mustache was longer, drooping more and giving his long, weathered face an even more lugubrious look. He wore his jacket over what looked like an undershirt and had knotted a red handkerchief around his neck. Willie had not seen him leave with rest of the congregation. He came in, shut the door and crossed to the chairs facing the pastor’s desk, moving a chair to the couch. The couch stood against a side wall behind a coffee table on which was posed the Spanish walnut chess set from Tesoro, the set once belonging to Grandpa Otto. A game was underway. Willie’s custom was to keep a running game going with himself.
Willie laid back down. He would let the man have his say. It was his job.
But Callender wasn’t talking. He was examining the board. Willie saw an intelligence in the man’s face he hadn’t noticed before. Despite the old clothes, there was something neat, almost prim about him, meticulous. His blue eyes and black mustache shone out from a closely shaven, weathered face. He liked Callender, liked him even before he’d struck oil. He was obviously a man of God, though he never put anything in the plate. Curious.
“Black’s move, I’d say. Knight to queen’s knight five.”
Willie sat up and looked from the man to the board. He had contemplated that move himself. Who would the old sourdough have played with out there in the hills? Or did he, too, play by himself? Some players could play the game in their head.
He looked back to Callender. “I’d gladly let you make that move, my friend, if I weren’t too tired to play right now.” He lay back down. He didn’t need to ask what his problem was. The Times had printe
d an article about a new evangelical church, the Temple of the Angels, to be built in Echo Park for the Rev. Mull and the Church of the New Gospel. To be built by the reverend’s brother, entrepreneur Eddie Mull. Willie had pinned it on the vestry bulletin board.
How did Eddie know about the name he’d wondered?
Callender was a good Soldier, as loyal to the Church of the New Gospel as anyone in the congregation. Despite the oil strike he still dressed and acted the same, diffidently, shyly, though Willie sensed the steel inside. God bless him, he thought. His heart was good and he was always ready to lend a hand—help in the commissary, help the infirm to their seats and afterward to buses and trolleys, sometimes even accompanying them home again. But why had Callender come to him? Cal had mentioned something about a quarrel with Eddie over oil profits. That certainly was not something Willie intended to get into.
He stared at the chessboard, wondering if black knight to queen’s knight five was the right move. Probably not, but it was intriguing.
“It just ain’t right, Reverend.”
“What isn’t right, Henry.”
“I was going to build the temple for you, Reverend. I reckon you remember I told you about that after I met your brother. I knew there was oil down there. I think I told you all about it at the time, didn’t I, Reverend? First time. Do you remember that?”
“I believe I do, Henry.”
“I also told your brother the first time I met him. I told him that when we hit I was going to build you the biggest church this town ever saw. Did he tell you that? We had a fifty-fifty agreement. Did he tell you that?”
Blood and Oranges Page 4