Danny's morning paper was neatly folded on the white leather seat, open to the real-estate section. The car was freshly polished, the stereo was whispering the morning news, the day was warm but not yet hot from the Santa Ana; and everything considered Danny Deere was in about as good a mood as was possible for a person like Danny Deere. But he knew what he would see as soon as he got out of his driveway. Halfway to the gate he found what he was looking for, an excuse to blow off steam. "Jesus, will you look at that?" he cried. "Joel! You run in the gatehouse and tell those kids they got to cut down their marijuana. You can see it from the road, for Christ's sake!"
"Okay, Danny." Joel de Lawrence stopped the car gently in front of the house occupied by Danny's peons. Although he was nearly seventy, he was sprightly as he hopped out and rang the doorbell. Danny Deere glowered for a moment at the teen-ager who came to the door but did not deign to listen to the exchange. He popped the paper open to the classifieds and began running down them with his thumb.
When Joel was back in the car, pressing the button that activated the gate, Danny ordered, "Don't take the freeway right away. I want to look at some houses."
"Okay, Danny." Joel de Lawrence knew why Danny didn't want to take the freeway. But he didn't say anything. He didn't even look at the great sprawling skeleton of steel that was going to be the biggest condominium in Southern California, and was also going to spoil Danny's view of the Pacific.
When Danny Deere was six years old he was famous. Between 1935 and 1942 he made fifteen movies, and every one of them made money for the studio, if not an awful lot for the kid star. When he got too pimply and awkward for kid roles he decided to become a millionaire and show them. He did. He persuaded his stepfather to put the money that was left into Los Angeles real estate. By the time he was thirty he had his million. By the time he was forty his ex-wives had most of it, but Danny had learned that you didn't have to actually own the real estate to get rich from it. He opened an office, and in the explosive market of the 70's he was Southern California's fastest-moving dealer.
When he drove downtown, which was only when he had to, Danny Deere stayed off the freeways as long as he could. His driver knew what to do. He took all the winding roads through the areas the developers had never been allowed to touch, passing the homes of the movie stars and oil sheiks and political exiles. Every big estate was an old acquaintance to Danny Deere, and he took note of every change he saw. This place's royal palms were looking yellow at the crowns. Damn shame, that was fifty thousand off the price, at least. That one was building something—what? A greenhouse around an indoor pool? He paid conscious attention for a moment. Interesting idea. The investment couldn't be more than sixty, sixty- five thousand at the most, and it might raise a one-seven house past the two million mark, if you found the right buyer. Not that all those one point sevens wouldn't go to two anyhow, sooner or later—two? In ten years, who knew? Maybe three million. Maybe anything you cared to mention. There were just so many square feet of land in California, and nowhere for prices to go but up.
Unless a smart operator could bend a little downturn into the curve.
The big Mercedes came to a decision point, and the driver turned around. "Danny? If you want to get to that place by ten AM, I better take the freeway now."
"So take the goddam freeway, Joel, do I have to drive the goddam car myself?" Danny wasn't angry at the old man. He always talked to him like that. He always talked to everybody who worked for him like that, but it gave him the most pleasure when it was Joel de Lawrence. For the twenty minutes that it took to run the Golden State Freeway to the Hollywood, and the Hollywood to the Santa Monica, and the Santa Monica to the Sixth Street exit Danny didn't bother looking out the window. He lay back on the doubly upholstered seat, thinking about his little plan, and the various other little plans that filled his days, and smiling quietly to himself.
He came to as they jolted off the freeway and made a sharp turn. For a moment he couldn't remember what he was doing way the hell downtown, so far from his office on Sunset Boulevard and even farther from the real action, and then he saw the public library on his right and the entrance to the hotel just ahead.
"Hot damn," he said, surprised.
"What did you say, Danny?" Joel half turned to listen, keeping his eyes on the traffic.
"Just pay attention to your goddam driving." But Danny wasn't angry; he was pleasantly astonished. There was a thin loop of marchers outside the hotel entrance, carrying placards.
"Drive right past," he ordered. "Slow. No, don't make a U-turn. Just keep driving, slow."
He peered at the signs and placards as they drifted past, scowling a little. Christ, they had everything in the world on them! Fluoridation Is Poison. Remember the Shah. But there were two or three that said things like California Is Doomed and Beware Jupiter. He sank back as they passed, then called to the driver, "Pull over. Let me out here."
"I can make a U-turn, Danny—"
"If I wanted you to make a goddam U-turn I'd tell you to make a goddam U-turn. Just let me out. Then swing around the block and wait for me at the Figueroa Street entrance. Then I'll tell you what to do next. "
"Sure thing, Danny." Deere hopped out at the intersection and trotted across Flower Street against the lights. There were no more than a dozen people in the picket line in front of the hotel, and they seemed to represent every shade of kookery in Southern California. A tall, skinny young man with a blond pigtail was having a desultory argument with the doorman. He wore a sandwich board which said 100 Days to Doom. Danny stood at the doorway for a moment, watching with interest, then pushed on inside.
The lobby of the hotel was spectacular at any time, with its brightly lighted elevators running up and down immense columns in the hundred-foot lobby and its pools and pods of lounge seats cantilevered out from the upper levels. With the ASF convention in the hotel, it was a madhouse. Every person he saw wore some kind of a badge, most just the plastic clip-ons with a name and an affiliation, but others marked Speaker or Staff or other, more cryptic designations, and all of them seemed to be in a hurry. They also all seemed to have programs, which Danny Deere did not. He saw a knot of people standing by a display counter and headed toward it, but it was not a registration desk. It was a glass case that contained a model of a new apartment condominium, six arcs of high- rise buildings that climbed a gentle green slope. It looked rather pretty in the model. Actually, it was one of the running sores that spoiled the course of Danny Deere's life—not least because he could not get a piece of selling it. He scowled and snapped his fingers at a hurrying bellman. "Where's the registration desk for this thing?" he demanded.
"Two flights up. You can take the escalator over there—" The man waved toward a string of moving lights across the lobby, and then did a double-take. "—Mr. Deere," he finished. Danny smiled and patted the bellman's arm before he headed through a sort of random cocktail lounge toward the moving stairs. Being recognized was never unpleasant. In his late teens, suffering the humiliation of watching his old films beginning their endless television reruns without getting a penny out of it, nobody had wanted to know him; he could stroll Sunset Boulevard without attracting any attention except from cruising johns. But since his real-estate career had blossomed, he was a familiar face again on TV commercials.
But as he reached the registration area the good feeling evaporated. There were long lines waiting to pick up the badges without which you couldn't get into any of the meetings, and Danny Deere was not a person to stand in line. He weighed the possibility of a bribe to one of the registrars, gave it up, and moved thoughtfully away.