Hispanic maids supplied by the caterers carry trays of food among the all-white guests. Swan-shaped linen napkins bear place cards. “That white-leafed oak tree on the front lawn would have been here when the Spanish missions were built,” the wife says, “wouldn’t you agree?”
“Without doubt. Oaks live for six hundred years. Two hundred to grow, two hundred to live, two hundred to die.”
Smoke sees Luisa enter the lavish room, accepting a kiss on both cheeks from her stepfather. What do I want from you, Luisa Rey? A female guest of Luisa’s age hugs her. “Luisa! It’s been three or four years!” Close-up, the guest’s charm is cattish and prying. “But is it true you’re not married yet?”
“I certainly am not” is Luisa’s crisp reply. “Are you?”
Smoke senses she senses his gaze, refocuses his attention on the wife and agrees that, yes, there are redwoods not sixty minutes from here that were mature when Nebuchadnezzar was on his throne. Judith Rey stands on a footstool brought specially for the purpose and taps a silver spoon on a bottle of pink champagne until everyone is listening. “Ladies, gentlemen, and young people,” she declaims, “I am told dinner is served! But before we all begin, I’d like to say a few words about the wonderful work done by the Buenas Yerbas Cancer Society, and how they’ll use the moneys from our fund-raiser you are so generously supporting today.”
Bill Smoke amuses a pair of children by producing a shiny gold Krugerrand from thin air. What I want from you, Luisa, is a killing of perfect intimacy. For a moment Bill Smoke wonders at the powers inside us that are not us.
49
The maids have cleared the dessert course, the air is pungent with coffee fumes, and an overfed Sunday drowsiness settles on the dining room. The eldest guests find nooks to snooze in. Luisa’s stepfather rounds up a group of contemporaries to see his collection of 1950s cars, the wives and mothers conduct maneuvers of allusion, the schoolchildren go outside to bicker in the leafy sunshine and around the pool. The Henderson triplets dominate the discourse at the matchmaking table. Each is as blue-eyed and gilded as his brothers, and Luisa doesn’t distinguish among them. “What would I do,” says one triplet, “if I was president? First, I’d aim to win the Cold War, not just aim not to lose it.”
Another takes over. “I wouldn’t kowtow to Arabs whose ancestors parked camels on lucky patches of sand . . .”
“. . . or to red gooks. I’d establish—I’m not afraid to say it—our country’s rightful—corporate—empire. Because if we don’t do it . . .”
“. . . the Japs’ll steal the march. The corporation is the future. We need to let business run the country and establish a true meritocracy.”
“Not choked by welfare, unions, ‘affirmative action’ for amputee transvestite colored homeless arachnophobes . . .”
“A meritocracy of acumen. A culture that is not ashamed to acknowledge that wealth attracts power . . .”
“. . . and that the wealthmakers—us—are rewarded. When a man aspires to power, I ask one simple question: ‘Does he think like a businessman?’ ”
Luisa rolls her napkin into a compact ball. “I ask three simple questions. How did he get that power? How is he using it? And how can it be taken off the sonofabitch?”
50
Judith Rey finds Luisa watching an afternoon news report in her husband’s den. “ ‘Bull dyke,’ I heard Anton Henderson say, and if it wasn’t about you, Cookie, I don’t know—it’s not funny! Your . . . rebellion issues are getting worse. You complain about being lonely so I introduce you to nice young men, and you ‘bull-dyke’ them in your Spyglass voice.”
“When did I ever complain about being lonely?”
“Boys like the Hendersons don’t grow on trees, you know.”
“Aphids grow on trees.”
There is a knock on the door, and Bill Smoke peers in. “Mrs. Rey? Sorry to intrude, but I have to leave soon. Hand on heart, today was the most welcoming, best-organized fund-raiser I’ve ever attended.”
Judith Rey’s hand flutters to her ear. “Most kind of you to say so . . .”
“Herman Howitt, junior partner at Musgrove Wyeland, up from the Malibu office. I didn’t get the chance to introduce myself before that superb dinner—I was the last-minute booking this morning. My father passed away over ten years ago—God bless his soul, cancer—I don’t know how my mother and I would have gotten through it without the society’s help. When Olly mentioned your fund-raiser, just out of the blue, I had to call to see if I could replace any last-minute cancellations.”
“We’re very glad you did, and welcome to Buenas Yerbas.” A little short, assesses Judith Rey, but muscular, well-salaried and probably on Luisa’s side of thirty-five. Junior partner sounds promising. “I hope Mrs. Howitt can join you next time?”
Bill Smoke a.k.a. Herman Howitt does a mousy smile. “I’m sorry to say, the only Mrs. Howitt is my ma. So far.”
“Now is that a fact,” responds Judith Rey.
He peers at Luisa, who is not paying attention. “I admired your daughter’s principled stand downstairs. So many of our generation seem to lack a moral compass nowadays.”
“I so agree. The sixties threw out the baby with the bathwater. Luisa’s departed father and myself separated some years ago, but we always aimed to instill a sense of right and wrong in our daughter. Luisa! Will you tear yourself away from the television set for just a moment, please, dear? Herman will be thinking—Luisa? Cookie, what is it?”
The anchorman intones: “Police confirmed the twelve killed on a Learjet accident over the Allegheny Mountains this morning included Seaboard Power CEO Alberto Grimaldi, America’s highest-paid executive. Preliminary reports from FAA investigators suggest an explosion triggered by a defect in the fuel system. Wreckage is strewn over several square miles . . .”
“Luisa, Cookie?” Judith Rey kneels by her daughter, who stares aghast at pictures of twisted airplane pieces on a mountainside.
“How . . . appalling!” Bill Smoke savors a complex dish, all of whose ingredients even he, the chef, can’t list. “Did you know any of those poor souls, Miss Rey?”
51
Monday morning. The Spyglass newsroom swarms with rumors. One has it the magazine is bust; another, that Kenneth P. Ogilvy, its owner, will auction it off; the bank is giving a fresh transfusion; the bank is pulling the plug. Luisa hasn’t informed anyone that she survived a murder attempt twenty-four hours ago. She doesn’t want to involve her mother or Grelsch, and except for her bruising, it is all increasingly unreal.
Luisa does feel grief over the death of Isaac Sachs, a man she hardly knew. She is also afraid but focuses on work. Her father told her how war photographers refer to an immunity from fear bestowed by the camera lens; this morning it makes perfect sense. If Bill Smoke knew about Isaac Sachs’s defection, his death makes sense—but who wanted Alberto Grimaldi taken down at the same time? The staff writers gravitate into Dom Grelsch’s office as usual for the ten o’clock meeting. Ten-fifteen comes around.
“Grelsch wasn’t this late even when his first wife gave birth,” says Nancy O’Hagan, polishing her nails. “Ogilvy’s got him screwed into an instrument of torture.”