Keeper of the Keys

by Perri O'shaughnessy

  “Aw, I hate this aesthetics over function crap.” He landed in the entryway, and stood close to Ray, who had gotten up and opened the front door.

  “You satisfied?” Ray said.

  “You kidding? Where is my daughter?”

  “She hasn’t called you?”

  “Not since Friday. Her mother’s upset. She was supposed to go shopping with her Saturday. Aren’t you listening to your phone messages? You two have a fight?”

  The unwelcome memory of Leigh’s last night at home assaulted Ray. “An argument, yes. Look, I don’t know where she is, okay? She’s gone.”

  “She left? When? Did she take her car?”

  Ray answered the questions. Hubbel never let him lower his eyes, look away. Yes, she took the car, took her purse, packed a bag. No, she didn’t say where she was-she was very-he thought she’d come back after clearing her head for a while-no calls. No, no calls, no e-mails, no notes.

  “Why wouldn’t she call us?” Hubbel said, thinking out loud. “She knows-she knows-”

  “It’s just the weekend. I’m sure we’ll hear from her tomorrow. Come on, Jim, she’s an adult and it’s really late and I have to work in the morning.”

  “You should have let us know. I’ve seen some things I can’t even talk about in my business, Ray. You hear? I don’t let people I love go off the radar for days. I’m going to call some people, some hospitals.”

  “If you talk to her, tell her-”

  “Tell her what?”

  “To get in touch.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this. I don’t like the lame way you’re talking. It’s like you’ve given up on ever seeing her again. She comes back, she calls, you tell her to call her mother.” Hubbel stood very close to him at the doorway, his big hard stomach pressed against Ray. “If I find out you harmed a hair on her head-well, I’ll kill you.”

  4

  M onday morning before work, Kat listened to two messages from Jacki. Nothing from Leigh yet. Well, it was only eight-thirty. Still, she had always been an early bird.

  She punched in some numbers.

  “Leigh Jackson Designs,” a girlish voice chirped.

  “Hello. I’m trying to reach Leigh.”

  “She’s not in yet. Can I leave her a message?”

  “Hmm. This is an old friend, Kat Tinsley. She might remember me. I mean, in case she’s there and just busy. She might want to talk to me.”

  “She’s not here. What’s your number?”

  “I need to talk to her right away.”

  “Are you interested in custom furnishings?”

  “No, but I do need to talk to her.”

  “She’ll get back to you when she can.”

  “When might that be?”

  The receptionist sighed. “When she can.”

  Frustrated, Kat left her number again. With no time to call Jacki, Kat rushed to her office in Santa Monica.

  She had a Superior Court appearance, then two houses to evaluate, one in Topanga, the other in Long Beach. In both cases, a divorce was imminent. Distraught parties awaited her report as to value. She needed to be scrupulously fair or she would be challenged or impeached in court.

  As she scurried through the traffic, feeling the heat already working to melt her windshield, she wondered what it would be like to have owned a property in Topanga for many years and to have watched that property’s value skyrocket. As a child, she had visited a friend who lived in the canyon, and what she remembered was her friend’s mom chasing a rattlesnake up the street with a rake, trying to cut off its head. The family used to drive to a roadside spring and fill their bottles with pure water every Saturday.

  How times had changed. The decrepit cottages had morphed into estates. The estates had transmogrified into feudal fiefdoms. Topanga had become très chic, as close as you could get to L.A. without having to play L.A. games. And Leigh’s house was a work of art. Leigh’s mother had money, Kat recalled. She had grown up in the big house in Whittier across from Kat’s little house. It wouldn’t seem strange to her.

  Tinsley Enterprises in Santa Monica wasn’t a long way from Hermosa Beach, it just felt that way because of the daily life-risking commute. Kat pulled into the small parking lot next to the office on Santa Monica Boulevard, pleased to get a spot so easily for a change, picked up her things, and ran up the two flights of stairs to the office, where the receptionist greeted her with a cup of coffee, half milk, just the way she liked it.

  Kat and Jacki’s dad, Gus Tinsley, had opened this real estate appraisal firm in the seventies and muddled along for decades until he died suddenly, still young, not long after divorcing their mother. Kat had first gotten involved in the business during summers starting in high school, following her dad around and watching, with astonishment, as cheap fixer-uppers ascended into properties worth millions.

  She continued to work for his successor, Micky Gowecki, finally passed the test to become an appraiser, and now felt confident in her work. She knew the market, the psychology, and the loopy, blustering desire and greed that drove people to question her judgment, and she was good on the witness stand in disputed cases. Her work had swiftly become almost unassailable, and she was earning a rep for fairness.

  She spent the late morning in court wearing her credibility togs: fake diamond studs, fake diamond solitaire at her neck, black silk suit that nipped snugly at the waist, making her look thinner. Up on the chopping block today, a house in La Habra, an utterly basic, roofed dwelling.

  People who didn’t have much often fought the most brutally to hold on to what they had.

  The soon-to-be-ex-husband started off with some dignity. He answered his own attorney’s questions calmly. Then his soon-to-beex-wife’s attorney, a female, picked away at him. The man appeared to be choking, the way he worked the tie at his throat. His face fluctuated between pasty and blotched as the emotions ratcheted up. He had a right to that house! He grew up there! His father built it! He had happy memories galore! This greedy witch would fix it up and flip it, destroying a family legacy!

  The ex-wife took the stand. She still lived in the house. He had left her, cheated on her, broken her heart, and she couldn’t see why she should have to move. Why should he be rewarded for being such an asshole? He hated the house and complained constantly about it. He’d sell it for a bundle and make a huge profit.

  Kat took the stand, trying to remain objective, answering questions about square footage, coverage, comps. This house had lovely landscaping, which added an extra thirty grand to its value.

  She explained how she had arrived at her valuation, describing the number of bedrooms, legally only two, not three, since one had no closet, the state of the paint and rugs, poor, the repairs necessary to bring the property up to snuff. She testified that having only one bathroom cut into value, showed pictures of the street that revealed a run-down, undesirable ambiance.

  By the time she was done, not a single person in the courtroom liked her.

  On the way to the house in Long Beach, she called the Jackson house. When a machine answered, she hung up without leaving a message, a little nervous about her mood and what she might unleash if she let her mouth start up.

  What would she blurt? “Hi, Leigh? It’s me, Kat. Let’s meet up and see a movie and hang out together like we used to do a hundred years ago, when my brother was alive and we were younger and hadn’t done reprehensible things.”

  She called Leigh’s business number again. “Sorry to bug you but-I’m Leigh’s old friend-”

  “Oh, yes, you again,” said Leigh’s receptionist, suddenly not sounding so certain, suddenly young. “I’m sorry. Leigh hasn’t been in.”

  “Is she sick?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken with her. In fact, I don’t know what to do. I’m stuck here with no boss, you know? It’s strange. And the really strange part is-” She stopped.

  Maybe she had thought twice about unloading her troubles on a stranger.

  “Tell me.” K
at used her most authoritative voice.

  And the younger woman caved. “She never misses a day, unless she tells me. See, on Friday, she left early for a funeral or something-she was upset and said she wouldn’t be back, so she asked me to come in yesterday.”

  “On a Sunday?”

  “We had some work to make up and she said she’d pay me double! She never showed up. Now here it is Monday, and she doesn’t come in and I can’t reach her. No one answers her mobile phone. This is weird. And I’m due a check today. I need my money for rent. What should I do?” the receptionist asked.

  “Have you spoken with her husband?”

  “I finally called him at work. He sounded mad and said he didn’t know where she was. I don’t even know if I should come in tomorrow. I mean, I don’t run this place. She’s my boss. She’s supposed to tell me what to do.”

  It was strange, Leigh not showing up for work and not calling. “You should continue to come to work until you hear either from Leigh or her husband,” Kat advised, again slipping into her older, wiser persona.

  “We have clients calling, wanting to know how the work is going. I don’t know what to say.”

  “Tell them it’s in progress. There will be a slight, a very slight, delay. And you’ll get your check soon; don’t worry.”

  Relieved sigh. “Okay.”

  “Do you know Leigh’s husband?”

  “Not really.” A pause. “She brags about him sometimes, how successful he is, how smart. But she makes as much as he does. Sometimes more.”

  “Really?”

  “She’s not famous like him. She’s nobody as far as his world is concerned but she has a fabulous reputation around here. People adore her furniture. That’s what this town worships, quality. You wouldn’t believe some of her clients. Movie stars, directors, producers-”

  “So where is she, I wonder?”

  “If you talk to her, tell her Ashley is having a fit. I mean, I hope she’s okay, but damn. I can’t run this place alone, and I can’t work for nothing.”

  Ray worked at Wilshire Associates, an architectural firm, in an office he kept intentionally low-tech. Other than a laptop and a big flat-screen monitor he attached when needed, he spent most of his time at a large, north-facing drafting table that overlooked the tall shining glass windows with a view of West L.A., drawing freehand with soft, smeary charcoal pencils. The architectural offices, on the fifth floor of a building on the boulevard, featured one whole wall of windows almost two stories high. He and Martin Horner, as partners and senior architects, had the views. Associates and assorted other support rabble skulked on the darker backside of the floor, which, true to the classy image the firm enjoyed cultivating, also had windows, only smaller.

  Today he worked at his tilted table on the Antoniou mansion. Deadline for the preliminary drawings was only three days away, on Thursday. Achilles Antoniou, a restaurant owner originally from Athens, thought Ray was designing the Parthenon warmed over for his eight-bedroom spread in Laguna Cliffs, and Ray had started out with enough Doric columns to satisfy him, but this morning he had tossed the preliminary drawings and started over with a stunning modern structure that would give Antoniou the thing he was actually looking for, social cachet. Ray could talk him into the new design, he was sure.

  He had never done this before, ignored the client’s vague wishes. He had always teased them out and brought them to life before.

  Today he felt unable to do that. Everything else in his life had gone to hell. He did not want this project to go the same way. Antoniou would get what he needed, not what he thought he needed. And so would Ray.

  People knew better than to interrupt him when he was sketching, and Suzanne fielded his calls, so he spent most of the morning alone. At quarter to one, he put his pencil down. He would grab something from the vending machines, then take off. He checked the hallway. No one. Good.

  Too late, he spotted Martin, and Martin spotted him.

  “Hang on, Ray. I need to talk to you. I’ll just be a minute here.”

  Ray grunted and sat down in a chair at a messy desk. Meanwhile, Martin, continuing a process that had gone on for quite some time already judging by the client’s fatigued look, worked his charm by the overgrown acacia tree in the far corner, where the windows were high and the view awe-inspiring. “We create a vision for you, something supremely yours, something that says, hey, I’ve made it, and I get to make things look how I think they should look.”

  The potential client, a director with fashionably thick intellectual glasses and a beard, who was famously rich and image-conscious, nodded.

  “You want an indoor-outdoor pool, we provide it. The parties will never end.”

  The potential client took off his glasses and wiped them with a sparkling clean ironed handkerchief.

  That’s a no, Ray thought to himself, but not to worry. Martin was on top of it. “Or a Japanese garden with pines imported from Kyoto and nephrite boulders taken from the coastal waters off Big Sur. We can do that, too.”

  The beard moved as though the guy was preparing to smile. Bingo.

  “A teahouse,” Martin crooned. “Wabi-sabi walls, golden bamboo. Gravel walks. Ginkgos. Peace. A wonderful torii gate. We can build you that.”

  “I have always wanted to visit the temples at Kyoto.”

  “You could look for some very special addition to your garden there. Or look for tea-bowls. I know a dealer in the Ginza who has eighteenth-century bowls from a Zen monastery. I’ll call him. You are gonna impress the hell out of your neighbors. Not that you care about that.” Martin got a full nod there, wild enthusiasm from this cautious man.

  Not a great architect, Martin was a great people-reader. Ray often watched client sessions with reverence. These people danced with Martin, and they danced to Martin’s music, however vulgar and jerky.

  “Look, I know you’ve interviewed a few other firms. That’s just smart business, and you’re a savvy guy; everybody knows that. An investment like this, of course you’ve got to be careful. But here’s what we can give you that they can’t.”

  Ray was dying to hear what that could be.

  “A chance to play God.”

  An eyebrow raised slightly.

  “A chance to create your personal universe. You are part of the creation, every step of the way.”

  The guy totally bought Martin’s horseshit. When Ray next passed the desk, Martin was shoveling paperwork toward the client, smooth-talking in between signatures, chuckling like a little kid.

  “How come he got born under the brightest lucky star?” Martin said after the new client left.

  “You’re doing okay, last time I looked.”

  “Yeah,” Martin said. “Thanks for waiting. I hate waiting and I know you do, too.”

  “No, it’s a rare privilege to get a close-up view of a sea lion devouring an otter. Nature at its most bestial.” Ray looked at his watch. “I’m in a rush. I have to run.”

  “What’s up?”

  “I have an appointment on the museum project in a few minutes.” In fact, the appointment wasn’t until the next morning, but he didn’t want to talk to Martin, didn’t want to spend time with him, didn’t want to deal with him. At some point, he was going to have to figure out what he did want to do to Martin. “One of the directors asked for another model on grounds that ours is white Styrofoam and looks it. Our competitor spent at least thirty grand on their model and it shows.”

  Martin shook his head. “I hate losing that competition, but that’s more money than we can front on spec. These people have no idea how much time, money, and expertise goes into building a model. Also, they have no imagination.”

  “Don’t worry, we can talk him out of it. Models are a thing of the past.” Funny thing to say, Ray thought, interrupting himself momentarily. “Wait until he gets a load of the computer renderings. I’m taking along the Parks project, too, just to shut the director up. Denise says the final presentation’s coming along well, although you know
Denise. She never panics until the last minute.”

  Denise Bell, one of the windowless-office denizens, took their models and made them look absolutely real by combining real photos with computer jazz. Then she created presentations that were more like mini-Hollywood films, including music, interviews, narration, and sound effects. Her talent brought them a lot of business.

  “We ought to start giving Denise bonuses on the big ones,” Ray went on.

  “Maybe,” Martin said, which was a surprising concession, since he never spent a dime he didn’t have to.

  “Okay. So I’m out of here.”

  “This will take just a second.”

  Conspicuously, Ray checked his watch, then gritted his teeth and sat down in the high-backed plush chair opposite. “Snap. Snap.”

  “I need to ask you something,” Martin said.

  Ray tapped his foot.

  Martin knocked the end of a drawer twice, then pulled it open. Inside, he had told Ray once, he hid problems and, sometimes, solutions.

  He pulled out a bottle of wine.

  “Hey, Martin, what the hell. Are you joking? It’s the middle of the day! And I told you-”

  “I promise this won’t slow you down. It keeps me creative,” Martin said. “Check this out. It’s lunch.” He poked his head around a door. “Suzanne’s gone. She always locks the outside door.” The clock had clicked one, and everyone had rushed right out the door by the time it clicked one o one. “It’s just you and me this fine warm afternoon.” He uncorked the wine, pulling two crystal glasses from the drawer.

  Ray shook his head. “No thanks. You’re an idiot, Martin.”

  “It’s medicinal.”

  “I don’t need medicine to feel creative, pal.”

  “Well, your loss. Still, I’m surprised.”

  “Why?”

  “Leigh likes it so much.” Martin poured his glass full and crossed his leg. “Glug glug,” he said, smiling, and let his handsome head with its thick brown hair fall a little back so Ray could see his Adam’s apple bobble as he swallowed. It reminded him of Leigh on the night that-

  It was then that Ray realized how much he hated Martin. The hate burst into full and complete existence, undeniable, hot. He could feel his face reddening. He couldn’t hide it.