Blood and Oranges by James Goldsborough (latest books to read txt) 📗

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