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

The blond boy had stopped to listen and was grinning. He was carrying something. Then he was gone again. A young woman in the audience had the microphone.

“Your niece, Didi Heyward, was my sorority sister at UCLA. We were Tri Delts. I came to the graduation party your mother gave for her in Bel Air. Such a sad story, so tragic, such a beautiful girl. Do you blame Archie Zug for what happened to Didi?”

Blame? She glanced toward Maggie. She wouldn’t get into that. “We tried to help Didi. Maybe none of us tried hard enough but there’s a limit to what you can do when someone is self-destructive. It’s up to them. Didi left behind a beautiful boy, Eric Van Swerigen, being raised by her husband Kenny and his parents. Eric has a bright future.”

A trim young man in crimson sweater with gold USC letters took the microphone. He cleared his throat and fiddled with the microphone until it cracked and the library girl told him to stop. Self-conscious but determined.

“I wanted to ask about your father, Ms. Mull, a man who’s long interested me. I’ve done some research on Eddie Mull for my thesis.” He paused. “I’m not sure how to put this: Your life, and your sister’s life, were so different from his, so strangely different, almost like you set out to undo what he did; or do the opposite, yin and yang. Am I right about that? What’s your view of your father a half century later?”

She smiled, brushed back a strand of hair, closed the book on the stand in front of her so she could see only the cover, a brilliant gold, green and blue panorama of the city of the angels nestled in the valley under the beautiful mountains. She read the title:

THE MULLS:

A 20th Century history of Los Angeles.

She ran her hand over the smooth dust jacket. “Eddie Mull was a character right out of Ayn Rand: He succeeded, and it cost him his life, a life that had been, let’s be honest, ruthless and selfish, just as Rand likes it. He had few friends and mostly ignored his family. He ran roughshod over people. When he died, he left a fortune, which the Mull Foundation is now using for many good causes, none better than to defeat Summa, a company now run, in an ugly twist of fate, by Eddie’s grandson.”

“But did you defeat Summa?” cried a man in the front row. “I’ve been down there. I’ve seen Playa Vista.”

“Playa Vista is an abomination,” she said, “full of darkness and gloom. This is not the sunny place of mountains and beaches and marshes where I grew up. Howard Hughes would be appalled to see what they did to his land. I suspect Playa Vista will be torn down some day and the earth restored, like San Francisco did with the Embarcadero Freeway. Playa Vista will be recognized as a dreadful mistake, like my father’s oil wells.”

She drank thirstily. Her eyes had begun to hurt. Something in the air.

“But here’s the thing: Playa Vista got the Hughes airfield, but that’s all it got. Loyola Marymount University has the misfortune to look down on Playa Vista under its cliffs, but if it lifts its eyes just a bit it sees beyond to the marshes and the wildlife, to the beach and the ocean, all as they should be, all as nature made them, free of oil derricks. And it sees Marina del Rey, which shows how man can imitate nature when he tries, instead of destroying it. Eddie Mull did one good thing: He left enough money so his family could undo all the bad he had done. We balanced the ledger.”

At the side, she saw Kenny slip into the room, Doctor Kenny, the gentle English major Nelly thought was not quite good enough for Didi, had arrived from the hospital. Beside him was Dominique, each holding a child by the hand, Kenny with Eric, Dominique with little Maggie. The children waved, and she smiled back.

“Did we defeat Summa? It is a fair question. Yes, they got the airfield, but they owned property down to the beach and north to Ballona. That’s why they called it Playa Vista, which means ‘view of the beach.’ But they have no view of the beach and never will have. That was our victory.”

“How is Los Angeles better today from what it would have been without the Mulls?” asked an elderly gentleman with wispy white hair. “Can you sum the story up in a few words? We’re not here just for the wine and cheese, you know.”

She took a deep breath while people chuckled and glanced toward the wine and the cheese tables. “A few words, you say. How about this? It is a story of water, oil, land, money, religion, newspapers, aviation, movies, construction, destruction, corruption, murder, birth, death, love, defeat, and victory.” She found herself laughing and coughing. “Everything but an earthquake. What else can possibly happen? Surely, there’s nothing left.”

But there was. The air was growing heavier, and she noticed people with their hands up suddenly bringing them down and nervously looking around. Handkerchiefs were coming out. Suddenly, the shrill sound of an alarm brought people to their feet.

“That’s the fire system,” announced the librarian calmly into the microphone. “I’m afraid we’ll have to leave the building. Nothing serious, I hope. Please take your belongings and follow me out through the rotunda and down the stairs.”

Lizzie waved toward Maggie, Cal, and the others as she grabbed the phone from the desk near the podium. The air was smoky. She would call the newspaper and report a fire. Instincts die hard.

“Who is this calling please?” said a voice on Metro desk.

“My name is Elizabeth Mull. I’m at the central library and I want to report a fire. I don’t know how serious it is,” she paused to listen, “but I can already hear the trucks. Maybe you hear them, too.”

“Hold on,