Blood and Oranges

by James O. Goldsborough

  The office was halfway down the drab second-floor corridor. His escort buzzed and the door opened electronically. Inside was a different world from the prisonlike corridors, elegant, obtrusively expensive. It was like the sultans who disguised the entrances to the harems: the pleasures inside are for only the initiated. The reception room was furnished in leafy plants and designer furniture. Oils in the Flemish style and sumi-e black ink drawings were hung. Two young male secretaries in white shirts looked up, one of them nodding and announcing his arrival over the intercom to the room behind, which was shut off by two closed mahogany doors alongside a large, easily visible brass plate with the words:

  ROBINSON A. MORTON

  Vice President

  The door opened electronically, and for the first time since entering the building Cal saw sunlight, though filtered through darkened windows. Behind an impressive desk, mahogany like the doors, his godson greeted him and bid him be seated. He did not rise. There would be no forced bonhomie.

  Neither man was given to chitchat, so they simply stared. Though he did not regard himself as a supplicant, there was no doubt about who would be first to speak in this silent duel. “How is Dominique?” Cal tried as opener.

  “She is well. Thank you for your interest.”

  “Your letter came as a shock.”

  “The letter or the signature?”

  “The signature, of course. How did it happen?”

  “An opportunity to run one of the most powerful corporations in the world—how could I say, no?”

  “With Howard Hughes still alive?”

  “Is he?”

  “You mean . . .?”

  “Think of John Galt.”

  Silly, sophomoric, maddening, but he’d not come for a discussion of Randian dystopia. “The Sierra Club is not in the same league with Summa,” he began, “nor is the Mull Foundation. Our interest is the land. If Summa is now the legal owner of the land, what we’d like is recognition that Summa will respect its founder’s wishes as expressed in the letter.”

  Robby smiled. “What makes you think that Howard Hughes is Summa’s founder?”

  “What?”

  “We accept the letter as authentic. The problem is that it is also irrelevant.”

  Already Cal had learned more than he expected. If Hughes was dead, certainly the news would have come out, even if his minders sought to suppress it. That meant he was alive and quite possibly in disaccord with Summa.

  “That will be for a court to decide if we go to trial. I’m hoping to settle this out of court.”

  “Settle what? You have no standing. We own the land. Hughes is out of the picture.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “That’s for you to find out.”

  Cal had not expected it to be easy. “No court will allow you to build that monstrosity on protected land. So why get the courts involved at all? We can settle this between us.”

  “What? A little side deal? If that’s all you’ve come for, you’re wasting my time.”

  “You want to go to court?”

  “There are important principles in play here, my friend. We’re lawyers, aren’t we? That’s what we do.”

  “Principles such as . . . ?”

  “Such as preventing outside interference with a property owner’s disposition of his land—known, legally, as I’m sure you know, as a taking.”

  “Oh come off it, Robby, you know perfectly well you can’t do whatever you want with that land. I’ve seen the drawings. You don’t have a chance in hell of winning approval for that.”

  “Approval. What are you talking about? It is our land!”

  A calm man, Cal’s temperature was rising. It was not like he was arguing lawyer to lawyer, that had never been hard. But this was Lizzie’s son, his own godson. He’d been there at the christening. What could motivate him to set himself up against his own family? It had to be more than just thralldom of a passing pseudo-philosophy. We all grow out of our sophomoric impulses. There was something personal in it. But why?

  “Sorry, it’s not so simple. You thought you won at Sea Ranch, didn’t you? You won the case and the result was that the people passed the California Coastal Act. There will be no Sea Ranches in Playa del Rey. I guarantee it. You are setting yourself against federal, state, and local law—and against the will of the people.”

  Robby stood up. “I don’t have time to argue these pathetic points with you. It is our land. End of story. We have a vision for it. We will find a judge who agrees with us. You mention the people. We intend to build a city on our property—a people’s city, just like Sea Ranch is a people’s community. The architect is Fred Goering, the best in the world after the Finn, who is dead, and the Chinaman, whom we couldn’t get. Goering did the Revlin in Madrid and the Bonhoeffer in Berlin, near the old Bauhaus. No one is going to tamper with his inspiration.”

  Cal laughed. “Howard Roark. My way or I’ll blow it up.”

  “Cal, I am impressed. You’ve read The Fountainhead!”

  “Maggie says the drawings look like East Berlin.”

  Robby laughed. “I admire Aunt Maggie. Howard Hughes admires her as well, I hear. Tell me, what did she do for Howard at the Flamingo to get that letter you keep bringing up? Or had she done it before? You wouldn’t want that to come out in court, would you?”

  Cal stood up to face him. “Good God, Robby, what has happened to you?”

  “Don’t lose it, Cal. You’re a better lawyer than that. I’m giving you a taste of what will come out if you try to stop us. Playa Vista will spread to Playa del Rey, right down to the beaches. That is Fred’s vision. The ocean must be part of it.”

  He had to get out, had to breathe again. “Summa doesn’t own that land. What exactly do you have against preserving a piece of pristine coastal land in this cemented-over city? You want everything to look like Romaine Street? You don’t think people are going to need open spaces more than ever in the future, access to beaches and the ocean, a chance to wander in the wetlands to get away from life on the freeways? You think preserving that is somehow an interference with your private property rights? And you expect some judge to agree?”

  “Let’s put it this way: Summa doesn’t own that land yet. We’re working on it.”

  “You’ll never get it.”

  He smiled. “I’ll let you in on a little secret. Do you know who has signed on to be the anchor at Playa Vista, to be the industrial hub of our new community? You’ve heard of Wonderworld? Trevor Bonfeld, founder of Wonderworld, the boy genius of Hollywood, has joined us. We’re planning a press conference in a few days. Imagine that. Wonderworld will be the centerpiece of our new city. Just like Hollywood was the centerpiece of old Los Angeles. Get out of the way, Cal, before you are run over.”

  Chapter 47

  It wasn’t easy to find him. He’d vacated the house in Brentwood without a word and without a forwarding address. Lizzie had come home from work one evening, and Joe announced, “he’s gone, packed his suitcase and decamped.” They assumed he’d moved in with Dominique, and if they didn’t know a thing about Dominique, including her last name, it wasn’t for lack of trying. He’d been as mysterious about her as about the job he’d taken. They’d seen Dominique exactly once, at Didi’s graduation party, and Cal was the only one who’d had a chance to talk to her. The only communication they’d had from Robby since his departure was the letter from Summa, purportedly written by Howard Hughes.

  Lizzie hadn’t worked at the Times for three decades without knowing her way around the city. She wouldn’t go through Summa, so she went through the post office. Robby had filed a forwarding address from Brentwood, and after a few calls she had it. Curiously, his house was not only close to Uncle Willie’s second church on Beverly, it was also just off San Vicente—the Los Angeles San Vicente, not the Brentwood one—the house itself on a street called Dorring
ton, a name not that different from Brentwood’s Barrington. Funny coincidences that she was sure didn’t mean a thing. Aside from his curiosity about Eddie Mull and his estate, Robby had never shown the slightest interest in family history.

  Unannounced, she arrived early on a Wednesday evening. Robby was a creature of routine, and there was a good chance of finding him home. It was a pretty little street of Spanish stuccos not that far off the Strip but quiet and neighborly under spreading Ficus trees. She parked in front, walked up and rang. She’d hoped that Dominique would be out, but it was Dominique who opened the door. Surprised, she stood a moment speechless, then smiled and welcomed her. “Mrs. Morton, it’s been so long.”

  Lizzie put her hand out. “Hello, Dominique. And please call me Lizzie. I was hoping Robby might be home.”

  A screen door at the rear opened, and she saw him looking in. He stood at the door a moment, advanced, blinking behind his horn-rims. “Mother, anything wrong?”

  They stood there like adversaries, across the room at ten paces, Dominique looking on. In the brief moment Lizzie had with her before the screen door opened, she’d looked closely, remembering back to the one time she’d seen the girl at Bel Air, just before being called away for the horrible week in Watts. Even in simple skirt and sweater, she was stunning, with long dark hair put up in back and a figure that reminded her of Maggie. She had a reserve about her, a vulnerability that Lizzie suspected appealed to Robby as much as her appearance.

  “Nothing wrong, Robby. I was hoping we might find a few moments to talk.”

  He hesitated, then said, “Sure, come out into the yard.”

  “Would you like something to drink Mrs. Morton”

  Lizzie touched the girl’s arm. “I’m fine, honey, thank you.”

  She crossed to the screen door, which Robby held open, and they went into the garden. Dominique did not follow.

  She’d been into dozens of houses like this over the years, houses she’d come to think of as old Los Angeles, though few went back further than the twenties. They lined both sides of streets like Dorrington with their white stucco facades and red tile roofs, all one-story, usually with two windows onto the street. There’d be a postage-stamp lawn and sometimes a hedge or picket fence in front for those who liked privacy. The back yards were never much, big enough to toss a ball around and hang the laundry. Rear hedges or wooden fences separated one row of houses from houses the next street over. Robby’s backyard consisted of untended grass and a fruitless apricot tree that needed trimming. A redwood table and chairs where he’d been working sat in the mottled shade of the tree. The house was clearly rented.

  “Have a seat, Mother. What’s this all about?”

  The Mulls were never big on outward displays of affection. Maggie had come back from France kissing people on both cheeks, but it hadn’t lasted. Lizzie always assumed it was the Presbyterian way, something careful about it, unsure, never demonstrative, even in church. Even Uncle Willie, despite his preacherly gifts, had not been a kisser. An occasional hug, yes, when they were children, but that was it.

  “It’s about us,” she said.

  She waited a moment, watching him shift in his chair, obviously uncomfortable. Late twenties, hair receding slightly, Joe’s myopic look behind horn-rims, physically unexceptional, socially difficult but mentally at the top of every class. She wondered why she felt so awkward in his company. The grass underfoot wasn’t all that different from the grass in Brentwood where she’d crawled around with him when he was a toddler. Those were good times. She remembered him sitting under the bitter orange tree, sucking on that sour sap. He would make faces but go right on eating, unphased. She didn’t see enough of him then, she understood that now, but had loved him as much as if she had. It went by so fast. And they sent him off to school as parents have been doing forever. What was so wrong with any of that?

  “Dominique is lovely,” she said, drifting. “I’d forgotten.”

  He took off his glasses, and she recognized Joe’s myopic look. “You didn’t come here to talk about Dominique. How did you find me, anyway?”

  She ignored the question. “Robby, we don’t want this quarrel to end up in court. We don’t want to be suing each other. You don’t want that either, do you?”

  “That’s the same thing Cal said. You didn’t come barging in down here just to repeat what he said, I hope. Waste of time.”

  She ignored the barging in. “I didn’t know you’d seen Cal.”

  “He came to Romaine Street. Don’t you two talk?”

  “All right,” she said, straightening up. “We won’t talk about that. Let’s talk about us.”

  “Nothing to say.”

  “But there is, you know. This wall of hostility you’ve put up against everyone: Can’t we do something about it?”

  He started to respond and stopped. He turned to look around the yard, and she wondered if he had the same thoughts she’d had earlier about Brentwood. Probably not. He’d never been nostalgic as a child.

  “You’re wrong,” he said. “The only hostility I feel is—toward you.”

  It stung, but didn’t surprise. She felt the same way toward him and wondered about it—which is why she’d come: to see if there was a way out.

  “Why?”

  A little laugh escaped him, and he fidgeted in the chair. “Do we really want to go there?”

  “You’re going to say I wasn’t a very good mother.”

  “Oh, come on,” he snarled. “We’re beyond that. Maybe I wasn’t a very good son. Who knows? Who cares? Look, let’s lay our cards on the table. You remember that day in Brentwood when you told me what you and Aunt Maggie were doing with Grandpa Eddie’s estate? I asked if I shouldn’t have something to say about it, and you brushed me off. Got up and walked in the house. Do you remember that? I wonder if you do.” He leaned closer to her across the table.

  “Did you really expect that after that things could be normal between us? How much are we talking about—forty, fifty million, and it’s none of my business? I don’t think so.”

  She stared in disbelief. In all her self-reproach over countless missteps as a mother over countless years, never had she considered that money might be the root of the problem. Love, affection, involvement, those were the things she had thought about. Never her father’s estate. How naïve she’d been, how stupid! She sat stunned, embarrassed for him, angry at the venality of it, as if she was staring at the reincarnation of her father. She didn’t want to blurt out something she would regret, but wanted to set the record straight. “We are doing good things with that estate, Robby. Without your help.”

  “You have no right,” he said, the voice louder now. “It’s not just yours. I am family, too. Do you know what Eddie Mull would say about what you’re doing with his money—he would say you’re dishonoring his memory, spitting on his grave. That’s why I asked you about it back then. At least I could have used the estate in a way that honored him.”

  He stood up quickly, flushed, angry, staring hard at her. “And what about Grandma Nelly’s estate. She’s not going to leave anything to that stupid Didi, is she? That would be another insult to Eddie’s memory. I hear she’s had a stroke. Incompetent. You’re not manipulating her, I hope. I could sue over that, you know.”

  Awful. She got up to go. There was no salvaging this. If she’d known money was behind it she never would have come, never would have wasted so much emotion feeling guilty. He had freed her, expiated the guilt. She just hoped she could get away without exploding. She saw Dominique watching from inside. She eyed a path along the side of the house. She did not want to have to go back inside. “I’m sorry. I’m leaving. This hasn’t worked.”

  Scowling, he came up close to her. The vision of the little boy with the sour orange in his mouth came back to her. “Why did you come?” he demanded.

  Her chest felt tight. She caught her breath.
“Do you know, I had a dream that one day you would take over the foundation. Help us do all the good things we’re doing, atone for some of the evil done by my father.”

  “The first thing I would do at the foundation is liquidate it. You are the enemy, Mother, and the sad thing is you don’t even know it. You and your little old ladies in tennis shoes and purple hair are standing in the way of progress. Your father would be ashamed of you.”

  She shuddered, looked him in his blue eyes and hated what she saw. Could babies have gotten mixed up, switched at birth? No, he was too much like Eddie. He had become exactly what he wanted, free of inhibition, free of constraint, free of conscience, free to do what he wanted regardless of consequences. He hadn’t needed her help.

  “I was wrong to think you would help,” she said. “You’re worse than he was.”

  He slapped her face. “Eddie Mull was the only one of you worth anything.”

  She felt the sting, felt the tears, tears of pain, not emotion, she wasn’t a crier. She’d never been slapped before. She held her ground, stunned, infuriated, repressing an instinct to slap back, something she’d never done.

  The screen door to the house slammed, and Dominique ran out, shouting.

  Chapter 48

  “Rosie Roberts is here for your eleven o’clock,” said the voice on the intercom.

  Maggie went to the door to meet her visitor. Rosie Roberts had called reception a few days earlier with a message that she had information that would interest the Mull Foundation. She wouldn’t say more than that. She identified herself as president of something called the Ballona Club and, no, they were not seeking a grant.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” said the attractive fiftyish woman holding out her hand. She had thick, short, straw-colored hair and wore a mint silk blouse over beige flare pants. A gold wedding band was her only jewelry. Her skin was delicate white with tiny freckles. Simple and stylish, something un-Californian about her. Also something familiar. Maggie stared, searching her memory.