Chasing Clay (The DeWitt Agency Files Book 3)

by Lance Charnes

  When I’m not architecting, I run to head off one disaster after another. Missing cabinets and fixtures. Subs coming late or not getting the work done. Materials delayed or unavailable. Royce (who looks like a surfer dude who decided to put on my dad’s tool belt and Carhartts instead of board shorts) coming to me once every couple hours to say, “Guess what we found,” which is never anything good. We have five days left to transform the house from a wreck to a showplace, but by Friday night the interior looks so hopeless that I consider jumping off the back patio.

  Crates have dribbled in from Boutelle’s pals ever since Tuesday. Some are usable. One joker sent me a copy of Van Gogh’s Starry Night, which I kicked back. Not even Bandineau or Savannah will buy that Hoskins has one of the most famous paintings in the world on his wall. His collection’s growing verrrrrry slooooowly. Too slowly.

  The LACMA director Bandineau wants to meet doesn’t want to meet with him. Allyson’s jet is available, then not. The original cars I specified for Hoskins’ garage can’t be rented. On top of everything, I’m working with Olivia on casting and producing the show that happens on this set. We talk every two or three hours.

  It doesn’t help that I have to take off half a day on Monday for my in-person interview with Len. The office is in Inglewood, convenient to the airport but inconvenient to Bel Air. I tell him, “I’m helping a guy build a house,” which is almost true. The minutes tick by extra fast.

  I’d asked Royce to find me a dog. A jobsite without a dufus dog feels empty. The one he rented from one of the workers is named Feo, Spanish for “ugly,” which is kinda harsh. He’s what happens when a black Lab and a Rottweiler get wasted and sneak off into the bushes. When he’s not flopped on my feet at my makeshift desk in the garage, he follows me around, panting. I swear I’m still alive only because Feo turns those big chocolate eyes on me now and then and lets me know that it’s going to be all right.

  The furniture trucks start rolling into the forecourt at nine sharp Monday morning.

  I had the luxury of putting my air cushion on brand-new berber carpet last night. It felt great after a 140-mile round-trip to Riverside through rush-hour traffic to bring back something more precious than anything else I’ll put in this place.

  The construction’s about ninety-five percent done, though the punch list I haul around on my phone has eighty-one items on it by lunchtime. The landscapers are planting the last of the new foliage all around the house. Royce tries to deconflict the work crews and the movers while I play traffic cop, pointing each piece of furniture in the right direction.

  Except a third of the furniture is still missing. I get on the phone with Olivia for the third time this morning and try to straighten it out. We’re both utterly exhausted; she’s worked on this as much as I have, just from several thousand miles away. There are lots of gaps in the conversation as one or the other of us drifts off.

  She says she’ll do her best to get the rest of the furniture. I know she will. But with two days left before Savannah arrives, I can’t beat the feeling that this isn’t going to work.

  Tuesday morning. The schedule says I’m supposed to move in today. I already pretty much moved in days ago. The brand-new washer churns a load of clothes I’ve worn over the past week.

  I didn’t sleep. I wrangled the night crew, shelved books in Hoskins’ office, knocked almost thirty things off the punch list, hung a couple paintings, installed a lock on the office door, and started propping the house. Bedroom four is stuffed with bags and boxes that arrived until ten last night, dropped by five different prop houses, FedEx, UPS, a couple TaskRabbit people, and Gelson’s grocery delivery. I’m in great shape to be an extra on The Walking Dead.

  But… I make myself a latte on the brand-new Miele coffeemaker sitting on the brand-new granite countertop in Hoskins’ brand-new kitchen. It tastes incredible. As I stand on the patio next to the pool—now full, slowly warming up—it feels like I might actually pull this off.

  I’d better.

  Savannah arrives in twenty-four hours.

  Chapter 18

  44 DAYS LEFT

  The white Cessna Citation’s engines stop whining when the jet settles into its parking place outside Atlantic Aviation at Santa Monica Airport. A ground-crew dude in blue overalls chocks the wheels, while another one waits by the nose with a clipboard.

  The front door swings down, becoming a set of four steps. Savannah ducks out the doorway a few moments later, looks around, sees me, and waves.

  It’s showtime.

  I’ve got a day to sell Savannah on Hoskins’ life so she’ll help get Bandineau onboard. If she doesn’t buy it, Bandineau may decide that Hoskins isn’t worth hooking into his Nam Ton scheme. Worse yet, I could turn Savannah against me completely. Then bye-bye to that early termination Uncle Sam is waving at me.

  I take Savannah’s smallish roller bag from her a few paces from the plane. “I thought you only wear black or white.”

  “That’s when I’m working.” She’s in a vivid aqua safari-style shirtdress that skims the tops of her knees. Button front, patch pockets, a wide matching fabric belt, short sleeves fastened with button straps. The blue sets off her eyes.

  I lead her toward the car. “Was the Tonga Room work, then?” That heart-stopping white dress she wore that night fills my mental movie screen.

  “Of course not. I just wanted to get your attention.”

  “It worked. Good flight?”

  “It was fine. But I like Bombardiers better than Citations.”

  So much for impressing her. I heft her suitcase into the trunk, then reach for the black laptop bag slung over her shoulder. She’s too zoomed in on the car to notice.

  “Is this… your car?” Her entire face lights up. “It’s so cute!”

  It’s a 1969 Alfa Romeo 1750 Spider Veloce, the big brother to the one Dustin Hoffman drove in The Graduate. Racing red, of course; the only acceptable color for an Alfa. The top’s down. “It’s one of mine. I hope you don’t mind getting your hair messed up.”

  She pulls a hairbrush from her rainbow-striped MCM Patricia hobo bag and aims it at me with an impish smile. “Careful—I have a brush, and I know how to use it.”

  If I can pull it off, I’d like her to be sold on Hoskins’ world before we even pull into his driveway. The weather’s cooperating: a chrome-blue sky, an onshore breeze, mid-seventies at ten in the morning. Once we get above Wilshire and enter Brentwood on Bundy, the streets are lined with tall palm trees, increasingly large homes, and lush front yards.

  I open up the Alfa once we enter the hills off Sunset. Not that it goes all that fast or handles all that well, but on the curvy little streets, it feels like we’re clocking a hundred. Savannah buries her fingertips in the armrest and squeaks a couple times, but there’s a big fat grin on her face. That’s exactly what I want to see.

  The garage-door opener does absolutely nothing when I roll into the forecourt. Of course; it worked when I left. I slap it against my thigh and try it again, but nada. I feel Savannah’s eyes on me. “Forgot to change the batteries.”

  Her fingertips hide her smile. “It’s okay. At least it’s not raining.”

  Great start.

  The eight-foot coffered front doors, now repainted Chinese red, make a big statement. The living room makes even more of one. Savannah says “Oh, geez” as she takes it all in.

  The morning light streams through the back windows to glow off the now-polished pale-gray terrazzo floors. White exposed rafters stretch overhead through the glass to the vaulted roof’s eaves. The reupholstered curved bar sweeps to the left toward the firepit’s copper vent hood, now shiny enough to shave in.

  She steps into the room and runs her fingertips along the back of one of the contemporary sofas flanking the vintage Noguchi coffee table. “I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this isn’t it.” Her tone’s ambiguous enough to worry me. She reaches the 1960s Rocket floor lamp at the end of the couch, pauses, t
hen fiddles with something on the frame. “What’s this? I hope it’s not a price tag, not with this many numbers on it.”

  I park Savannah’s roller bag next to the sofa and peer at what’s between her thumb and forefinger: a little white tag attached to a string. Shit. The lamp’s from a prop house; I must’ve missed the tag when I set up the room at two this morning. “Aw, hell. The shop must’ve left that on. It just came back yesterday from being refinished. Here, I’ll take care of it.”

  She lets me pluck the thing from her fingers, then slow-walks to the back windows, taking a good look around as she goes. What else will she find?

  Of course, the string’s tangled and the tag doesn’t want to come off. Ten minutes into this and already I’m paranoid and clumsy. “Is it good or bad that you didn’t expect this?”

  “I guess I’m surprised you’re living in someone else’s house.” She gazes at the nearby ridge and the cityscape beyond. “Every architect I’ve ever known designed his own house the minute he had a few dollars in the bank.”

  She’s right; it’s an architect’s rite of passage. The tag finally surrenders and lets me stuff it in my pocket. “Have you known a lot of architects?”

  “A few. I dated one once.” She glances at me when I pull up next to her. “Why this house? You’ve got enough money to live anyplace you want—”

  “Not quite. See that place on the ridge? The white shoebox? That went for $26 million last year.” Savannah’s eyes get big and round. “A lot of it is land value, but still, that’s sucker money. I don’t care if it has a helipad and a twelve-car garage.”

  She stares at the white shoebox for a few moments, then at me. “Okay, you can live almost anyplace you want to. Why here? What made you want it?”

  I expected her to have questions about the art, the cars, maybe the furniture. I never expected her to go off on the house. The thought of having to defend every single part of this place gives me hives. “I can’t live in a new house. They have no souls.”

  “I get that. So…?”

  When in doubt, go for the truth, or a flavor of it. “This place was a mess when I found it. The owners were going to rip it down and build one of those.” I wave toward the white shoebox. “I couldn’t let that happen. I fought hard to buy it. It has a soul—I needed to save it.”

  Savannah stares out the window. Her lips do complicated things. “Like what people do with puppies and kittens from the pound?”

  “Kind of. More expensive.” That makes her giggle. I’m relieved that’s all she does. “Come on, I’ll show you around.”

  I point out the two canvases in the living room—a faux Johan Barthold Jongkind harborscape, and a supposed Lovis Corinth view of a sunny Alpine town—and the three in the bedroom wing’s hallway. Savannah scans them carefully, arms folded, her mouth serious.

  She spends some time considering the peaceful pseudo-late-Isaac Levitan landscape in the dining room. “These are nice, but I don’t recognize the artists. I feel like I should.”

  Will she like anything? “No reason. This isn’t your specialty. The only two Asian artists I can name are Ai Wei Wei and Hiroshige. These guys, I know.”

  “But why haven’t I heard of them?”

  “Because the brand names have sucked all the air out of the market. You have to be richer than I am to afford a Monet or a Cézanne now. But there’s a lot of great Impressionists who haven’t been discovered or rediscovered yet. I went for those.”

  She chuckles. “Aha. When they do get rediscovered, you can cash in.”

  The straight line I’ve been waiting for. “If I feel like it. I didn’t get these because I was tired of buying stocks. I got these because I like them.”

  She turns back to the canvas, studies it for a while, then gives me a little smile. That feels like progress. “What smells so good?”

  Fresh paint? “That’s probably Gracie, making lunch. This way.”

  Of all the rooms in the house, I’m proudest of the kitchen, probably because it nearly killed me.

  Savannah says, “I don’t say this very often, but this floor is really fun.”

  It’s sunshine yellow Marmoleum with long multicolored streaks. It sets off the flat-faced contemporary walnut cabinets and the pale-gray granite countertops. The gold, green and red tesserae in the mosaic tile backsplash pick up the floor’s colors.

  We pause next to the island. “This is Gracie. She runs the place and takes care of me. Gracie?”

  Graciela is a middle-aged fireplug in a black maid’s dress, a salt-and-pepper pageboy, and brutally sensible shoes. She apparently is, or was, really a housekeeper. She turns from the cooktop. “Yes, mister?”

  “This is Savannah. She’ll be my guest today.”

  Gracie gives Savannah the once-over. Her mouth puckers. “Yes, mister.” She speaks perfectly good English with only a light accent, but she’d suggested that the less she says, the more people will pay attention.

  Savannah tries to melt her with a smile. “Whatever that is, it smells wonderful.”

  “Yes, miss.” It didn’t work.

  I stop Savannah in the office wing’s hallway, where two paintings are hanging. “Can you give me a hand with this? It just came back this morning from a cleaning. All you need to do is hold it and snap the hanger on it.”

  It’s a Charles Camoin Fauvist landscape, one of only two authentic canvases in the house. Gianna, an Italian gallery assistant from my first project, gave it to me as thanks for giving her a happy ending (not that kind).

  Savannah and I pick it up from opposite ends. She takes a good look at the back, which has enough mileage to be a hundred-plus years old, because it is. It takes only a minute to click the snap-hook grippers to the hanging wire and level the canvas. With any luck, she’ll now assume all the other paintings are just as old as this one.

  We finally make it into Hoskins’ office. A worn yellow Turkish carpet with organic red and black shapes partly covers a red-based version of the kitchen linoleum. The desk—my favorite piece—is a Jean Royere streamline rattan executive desk; it looks like something a plantation manager would use in 1930s French Indochina. Fourteen boxes’ worth of my own art and architecture books fill the built-in shelves behind the desk.

  Savannah says, “So here’s where your pots went. I was worried you’d resold them.”

  “Man, you’re a cynic.” They’re in a vitrine next to the door. “I spend more time in here than out front. You notice there’s room for a couple more.”

  “I saw that. We’ll have to find some for you.” She drifts over to the canvas on the wall behind the conference table. “This is different. Very California. Who’s Laura Hogan?”

  “Mom.” It’s a very Californian plein air beach scene: a rocky cliff, a sweep of sand, tidepools, seaweed, foaming surf. It’s why I went to Riverside.

  Savannah stares at me. “Your mother is an artist?”

  Laura Hogan is Mom’s maiden name. If Savannah decides to look her up, she’ll find a few obscure websites about this art genre and Hoskins’ Wikipedia page. Mom never made it big—a couple shows, some sales—and her career mostly pre-dated the internet. If Savannah ever wants to look up Matt Friedrich’s mom, she’ll have to search for “Laura Friedrich.” There’s no reason in the world she’d do that. It’s a risk, but a small one compared to the others I’m taking.

  I edge beside her. “I watched her paint this. I was, I dunno, seven or eight, old enough to sit still for a while. It was fascinating, like seeing one of those old-school Polaroids develop. It’s the first piece of art I fell in love with.” A little catch slips into my voice. “She taught me how to look at art. How to see beauty.”

  I really did watch Mom paint a beach scene when I was a kid. That one sold decades ago, but this one’s the same idea. And yes, Mom’s art was the first I fell in love with.

  Savannah’s eyes survey me, then it. She finally says, “It’s good. Is she still working?”

 
; I shake my head. “She’s got bad arthritis in her hands. She can’t hold a brush properly anymore. It just breaks my heart that she can’t do something she loves.”

  Savannah reaches out to squeeze my hand. “That’s awful. I’m sorry.”

  We look into each other’s eyes. Hers are big and liquid and more than a little sad.

  Exactly what I wanted to see.

  Gracie’s a good cook. Lunch is chicken mole (my favorite) with cilantro rice and glazed plantains. Every bite makes either me or Savannah sigh.

  We face each other across the vintage Kittinger teak dining table at the end closest to the back windows. I have a great view of a wall receptacle missing a trim plate. (Grrrr…) Savannah tells me about her travels in Asia; I tell her adventures-in-architecture stories, though some are second-hand.

  When Gracie brought out the Ballast Point Sculpin IPA with lunch, Savannah skipped the glass and went straight for the bottle. This surprised the hell out of me—I didn’t think she was the drink-from-the-bottle kind. Now she leans back in her chair and finishes off her second twelve-ouncer. “You have a lovely home. I’m jealous.”

  Whew. She might help sell Bandineau on Hoskins after all. “After you told me about your rich parents, I figured you’d be disappointed.”

  “No, not at all. We had this huge house, but there were only three or four rooms I wanted to be in. The rest were… I don’t know, dead? Like the living room. No one went in there unless they had to. Mother had lots of parties there. Every room here is alive.” She lets out a contented sigh.

  “Want to see the view?”

  She beams. “I’d love to.”

  We stroll across the pebbled concrete pool apron to the decorative ironwork railing at the top of the slope. Savannah closes her eyes, leans her head back, and takes in a deep breath. “Mmmm. It smells so good here.”