“Whoah.”
“Think I’ve lost my appetite, here.…”
When they’re done eating, Sandy takes over the controls and turns them back toward home. It’s late, he’s got another full day tomorrow.
They track down the Newport Freeway, on the underlevel, the adscreens hanging from the underside of the upper level, flashing over them is a colorful subliminal parade of words, images, images, words. BUY! NEW! LOOK! NOW! SPECTAC! They slump back in their seats, watch the lights streak in the car windows.
No one speaks. It’s late, they’re tired. There’s a feeling in the car that is somehow… elegiac. They’ve just performed one of their rituals, an old, central ritual that seems to have been a part of their lives always. How many nights have they cruised autopia and talked, and eaten a meal, and looked at the world? A thousand? Two thousand? This is how they were friends together. And yet this night it feels, somehow, as if this may have been the last time they will perform this particular ritual. Nothing lasts forever. Centrifugal forces are tugging on all their lives, on their collective life; they feel it, they know that the time is coming when this long childhood of their life will have to end. Nothing lasts forever. And this feeling lies as heavy in the car as the smell of French fries.…
Sandy punches a button and his window slides down. “An eyedropper for the road?”
After they enter SCP’s parking garage and Abe and Tash have walked off to their cars, Sandy gestures Jim back to him. Scratching his head sleepily, he says, “Jim, have you seen much of Arthur lately?”
“Oh, a little. Once since we got back, I guess.”
Sandy considers what line of questioning would be best. “Do you know if he’s involved in anything, you know, anything more serious than those posters he puts up?”
Jim blushes. “Well, you know. I’m not really sure.…”
So Arthur is involved. And Jim knows about it. Meaning that Jim may be involved, too. Possibly. Probably. It’s hard for Sandy to imagine Jim taking part in sabotage actions against local industrial plants, but who can say? He is one to follow an idea.
And now it’s Sandy’s turn to consider how much he can say. Jim is one of his best friends, no doubt about it, but Bob Tompkins is a major business partner, and by extension he has to be careful of Raymond’s interests too. It’s a delicate question, and he’s tired. There doesn’t seem to be any pressing hurry in the matter; and it would be better, actually, if he had more of substance to tell Jim, if he decides to speak to him. He’s certain now that Arthur Bastanchury is working for Raymond, and pretty sure that Jim is working with Arthur. The question is, does Raymond work for anyone? That’s the important thing, and until he learns more about it there’s no use in upsetting Jim, he judges. Truth is, he’s too tired to think about it much right now.
He pats Jim’s arm. “Arthur should be careful,” he says wearily, and turns to go to the elevator. “And you too,” he says over his shoulder, catching a surprised look on Jim’s face. He gets in the elevator. Three A.M. If he gets up at seven, he can reach his dad before lunch in Miami.
54
Jim gets several days in a row at the office of First American Title Insurance and Real Estate Company, which is good for his bank account if not for his disposition. On one of these days Humphrey comes in grinning triumphantly. “We’re doing it, Jimbo. We’re building the Pourva Tower. Ambank approved the loan package, and the last papers were signed today. All we have to do is reconfirm the other financiers within the next few days, so it’s just a matter of doing the computer work quickly, before anyone cools off.”
“Humphrey, you still don’t have any occupants for this building.”
“Well, we’ve got all those interested parties. Besides, it doesn’t matter! We’ll get them when the building is there!”
“Humphrey! What’s the occupancy rate for new office buildings in OC? Twenty percent?”
“I don’t know, something like that. But it’s bound to change, so much business is moving in here.”
“I don’t see why you say that. The place is saturated.”
“No way, Jim. There’s no such thing.”
“Aggh…” Nothing he can say to that. “I still think it’s stupid.”
“Listen, Jim, the rule is, when you have the money and you have the land, you build! It’s not easy getting the two together at the same time. As you know from how this one’s gone. But we’ve done it! Besides, this one will do well—we’ll even be able to advertise that it has a filtered view of the ocean.”
“Filtered by the whole bulk of the Santa Ana Mountains, eh Hump?”
“No! You can see down over Robinson Rancho, a little bit of it anyway.”
“Yeah, yeah. Build another empty tower.”
“Don’t worry about that, Jim. Our only problem is to make sure everything moves along as fast as possible.”
Jim goes home from his clerking in a foul mood. The phone rings and he grabs it up. “What!”
“Hello, Jim?”
“Ah, Hana! Hey, how are you?”
“Something wrong?”
“No, no, I always answer the phone like that after a day at the office. Sorry.”
She laughs. “You’d better come up here for dinner then.”
“You bet! What should I bring?”
And so an hour later he’s tracking into the hills, out the Garden Grove Freeway, across to Irvine Park and the Santiago Freeway, and then up narrow, deep Modjeska Canyon. Hana lives beyond the Tucker Bird Sanctuary, up a narrow side canyon, in a converted garage at the end of a gravel drive, in a grove of big old eucalyptus trees. The main house is a small whitewashed colonial-style cottage; its general modesty doesn’t hide the fact of the secluded, wooded yard, the exclusiveness of it all. Hana’s landlord is rich. And Hana?
Her garage has been turned into a painter’s studio, mostly. The main room fills most of the place, and it’s stacked with canvases and materials like her studio at Trabuco J.C. Kitchen and bathroom have been partitioned off in one corner, and a bedroom not much bigger than the bathroom is in the other corner. “I like it,” Jim says. “It reminds me of my place, only nicer.” Hana laughs. “You don’t have any of your paintings up.”
“God no. I like to be able to relax. I mean, imagine sitting around looking at your mistakes all the time.”
“Hmm. They all have mistakes?”
“Sure.”
She’s staring past him at the floor, throwing her sentences out casually. Attack of shyness, it seems. Jim follows her into the kitchen, and helps her take hamburgers out to a hibachi on the gravel drive.
They barbecue the meat and eat the hamburgers out on the driveway, sitting in low lawn chairs. They talk about the coming semester and their classes. About Hana’s painting. Jim’s work at the office. It’s very relaxed, though Hana’s eyes look anywhere but at Jim.
After dinner they sit and look up at the sky. There are even some stars. The eucalyptus leaves click together like plastic coins. It’s a warm evening, there’s a touch of Santa Ana wind blowing, even.
Hana suggests a walk up the canyon. They take the dinner materials inside, and then walk up the narrow, dark road.
“Do you know much about the Modjeskas?” Hana asks as they walk.
“A little. Helen Modjeska was a Polish actress. Her real name was something longer, and very Polish. She married a count, and their salon in Warsaw was very fashionable. The salon members got the idea of starting a utopia in southern California. This was in the 1870s. And they did it! The colony was down near Anaheim, which was also a utopian project started by a group of Germans. The Modjeskas’ thing fell apart when none of them wanted to do farm work, and the Modjeskas moved to San Francisco, where she took up acting again. She became very famous there, and the count was her business manager, and they did well. Then in the late 1880s they returned, and bought the place up here. They called it Arden.”