The Horses of the Night (3 page)

“You're looking well,” said DeVere.

I imagined that I probably did look good to him, for someone dressed in non-DeVere clothing. I thanked him, and returned the compliment.

“Don't be angry with me, Stratton. I want you to understand.”

I waited.

“I admire your work. Your designs are always tasteful. Elegant. Impressive—as works of art.”

I waited, knowing almost to the word what was coming. But I could not disguise from myself my bitterness. This was the most important landscape design project in eighty years. Golden Gate Park was being redesigned, and competition for the prize included the best talent from fifteen different countries. This was the project of a lifetime. I had dropped by the Palace of Fine Arts several days ago, to see the work on exhibit. My work, under even the most harsh eye, would seem the most humane, the most plausible—the most beautiful.

“I have always felt that you were wasting your time trying to make a name as a designer,” said DeVere.

I did not speak.

“Despite my heavy criticism of the ethereal quality of your work—its overprettiness—your plans came in second.”

He was not telling me this to allay my frustration. He was saying it in a way that told me that he personally had campaigned against me.

His father had been an artichoke grower in Castroville, not an impoverished man, but a man who made money sitting in a pickup watching the bland seasons of the Monterey coast, and supervising as workers harvested the edible thistles. It was well known that DeVere never discussed his family.

“Naturally, the decision is entirely out of my hands,” I said, my voice even, certain that if someone had observed me he would have had no clue regarding my real feelings. “If you thought my ideas were implausible …”

“If you think you can go to the jury and persuade them, forget about it. Blake agrees with me.”

This information hit hard. DeVere must have read my feelings, because he added, “Blake had to admit that once again your work simply did not seem practical.”

I had always been able to count on Blake. I could not keep a certain stiffness out of my voice. “I have always appreciated his opinion.”

“Your kind, Stratton, your type of person …” He let his voice trail off. “You have no business trying to make your way in a career like this.”

“I should content myself with activities that don't matter to anyone.”

He smiled. His long-dead father had bequeathed to him the wrinkles and creases of a range rider. “You should enjoy a gentleman's pursuits. And leave the creation of the real world to others.”

“People like yourself.”

He acknowledged my words with a half nod, toying with his reading glasses. “I know how the world works.”

I let a moment, and his remark, pass. “Peterson won, didn't he?”

Again, DeVere gave me that famous smile, the manly grin that sold everything from leather jackets to fountain pens. “Peterson's plans are plausible.”

“I've always admired his work,” I said, truthfully. And saw just a trace of disappointment in DeVere's eyes. He had hoped for an outburst, although he should have known better. “He's a good choice.”

“A gentleman knows how to lose gracefully,” said DeVere, perhaps intending to mock me.

“My father felt that you would go far,” I said.

“Further proof of his good judgment.”

“And I have been amazed at your success. Everything you turn to manages to transform itself—”

“To gold.” He ran his hands over his gray-streaked dark hair. He stood, but stayed behind the desk, as at a battle station. He flicked a switch and asked his secretary to send in Mr. Peterson.

Peterson was a man I saw only occasionally, at a reception, an art opening, or sketching the same sort of building I enjoyed, one of the pre-Earthquake Victorians off Van Ness. He was a lean, athletic man, more comfortable in jeans than the slacks and tie he now wore. The tie was a DeVere, earthy splashes of grays and browns.

He had been told already. “I'm sorry,” Peterson said, through the blush of victory, and his plain distaste for DeVere. He was one of those unnaturally youthful men, anywhere from thirty to forty, with a young man's self-assurance, and a tennis player's build. Looking into each other's eyes, we understood something, unified by our dislike for the third man in the room.

There was something else in his eyes, a wariness, an unease. I assumed that he found this meeting awkward, even unethical. It was obvious that no jury had reached this decision. The decision was DeVere's.

I was managing my famous poise even now, my good manners, and my well-known lack of hard feelings, carrying me to the door. When I looked back at DeVere I looked at the son of a man who knew irrigation and frostburn. This hard man in his elegant, self-designed suit, resented me, and saw me as an embodiment of all that he himself could never possess.

Local legend explained that DeVere had friends in organized crime. A fashion critic for CNN had vanished after criticizing one of his spring lines as “a cross between the Easter Bunny and the Great Pumpkin.” There were rumors of beatings, of iron-fisted retaliation against labor unions.

Well, at least I have
important
enemies, I told myself. None of those wimpy, powerless enemies for Stratton Fields.

I hurried down the hall, barely noticing the paintings on the wall, DeVere's trademark charcoal grays, adobe browns.

Anna Wick was in the downstairs lobby, fussing with a cordovan briefcase. “I was so sorry when Mr. DeVere told me last weekend,” she said. “You've worked so hard, so many years.” Her smile displayed her white teeth. She was good looking as a fine car can be, assembled by expensive craftsmen.

I could not utter a word.

“I say hello to your brother now and then at the race track. I'm pretty sure I'll see him at Santa Anita this weekend. You and your brother are remarkable people. Mr. DeVere wants to humiliate you.” She said the last phrase as though delivering pleasant tidings.

I understood. She was not being cruel. She was one of those people who like to see the distress of others in order to learn something. She was curious. She had heard so much about me, about my family. How was I going to react?

I gave her a smile, and something changed in her eyes, in her manner. She parted her lips and was about to say something.

Outside, the bustle of the Financial District surrounded me, briefcases and dark suits in a hurry. I found myself searching for a phone before I caught myself. Nona was out of town, at a convention, trying to raise money for a new ward for her patients.

I could not help leaning against a wall for a moment, pedestrians whisking past me.

I had never had a chance.

I had means at my disposal. I could have an attorney look into the competition, or raise a question or two when I next saw the mayor. But as capable as I was, DeVere was more powerful—his name was sunlight. My name was illustrious, even aristocratic. But it lacked power. It was a name from another era, an era of quiet voices and candlelight.

As I hurried up Montgomery Street my feelings shifted from frustration to anger. I could almost forgive DeVere. The man was more a creature of ambition than a human being. But Peterson. He could have declined the award on the spot. The man
knew
my plans were better. And Blake. How could I ever forgive Blake?

That afternoon I called to see how my mother was. Another restless night, the nurse said. She tried to stab an orderly with a little piece of plastic cup, “one of our water glasses she had sharpened especially.”

4

Barry Montague, my personal physician and sometime tennis partner, took my arm as I entered the Montgomery Street bar. “Congratulations, Stratton,” he said.

“Thanks, Barry. For what?”

“Your plans. Your entry for the Golden Gate Park competition. Everyone's talking about it. They
have
to give you the prize.”

I was about to tell Barry the truth, but he had such an open, sincere smile that I couldn't bring myself to crush his enthusiasm. “I'm glad you liked my work,” I said.

“
Liked
it. Mr. Modest. The worst sort of conceit. We ought to take up tennis again. I'm getting a little out of shape.”

I looked at Barry closely, and I realized that he looked tired. He had gained weight, and his eyes were hidden in shadows that had never been there before. His voice was hoarse, and he smiled as though in apology for his appearance. “I've been putting off having a medical checkup of my own,” he said. “There've been a record number of murders in the Bay Area this year. And you know what that means.”

I had visited the emergency room with state senators to urge them to increase spending. I had seen blood on the green linoleum, the scarlet smearing, leaving the imprint of footsteps. No matter how soon someone mopped it up, the sight of it always stayed, the memory of it and the insight: What keeps us alive is so much red ink.

To be one of Barry's friends was to feel honored. To be liked by Barry was to be endorsed by someone who knew virtue and good humor. It worried me to see him like this. “You need a vacation,” I said.

Barry laughed and agreed. “Or a little more tennis. I have to be at the medical center about five minutes ago. I'm lecturing on a subject Nona suggested. Responses to pain in the cerebral cortex.”

“I would have thought the brain is pretty well mapped by now.”

“We take a natural interest in it. Man's best friend.”

Barry grabbed a rolled-up newspaper from the bar. “Do you realize that your girlfriend is a genius? I mean a literal, actual genius?”

“She always impresses me,” I said. Talking about her made her seem all-too absent. For a moment, though, I could feel her lips on mine.

“She studied with a man named Valfort,” Barry was saying. “Pioneered brain mapping, refined hypnotherapy. One of those guys who's so advanced he's weird. The story is that he helped Nona Lyle a lot with personal stuff, theoretical stuff. That's not my field, really. But I hear that Nona has the finest medical mind in North America, and she chose to work in psychiatry so she could help sick kids.”

Dying children, I nearly corrected him, but I knew that Barry was at ease with a kind of euphemism, his style of talk both boyish and intellectual, as though an inner censor kept this complex man from expressing complicated thoughts.

He gave me a tap with his newspaper. “Take good care of her,” he said, and he was gone.

Peterson leaned against the bar, and he spent perhaps a moment longer examining his sweet vermouth than it required.

“I can't agree,” I was saying. I was trying to reassure him. “Your work has that solid look. The look of reality.” I said the last word with just a touch of irony. The truth was, Peterson's work had looked like weak copies of my own.

Peterson shook his head, smiling, but there was a ruefulness to his expression that I didn't entirely understand. “When I saw your work in the exhibit a few days ago I knew that I didn't have a chance.”

“You'll make a name for yourself. Children will run across the open spaces you designed for them.” I had a vague glimpse of myself in the polished mahogany of the counter, a tall man, lean, with tie loosened, jacket unbuttoned, my face in the indistinct gleam little more than a blur.

“I can't do what you do,” Peterson was saying. “When you design a landscape you realize—this is how the world should look.”

I thanked him for his kind words. This was all proper and professional, two men of talent sharing the late afternoon. There was an unsettling undercurrent, however, which was unexpressed, something that troubled Peterson deeply.

He looked away from me, leaning against the counter, running his finger over a bead of water. “You don't sound bitter.”

“I am,” I said, but in a way that denied the words.

“I don't blame you.”

Peterson leaned like a man about to deliver bad news, or a confession. “You forgot about DeVere.”

“I thought that this time …”

“There would be justice,” said Peterson, completing my thought. Peterson paused, and gave his twist of lemon a poke with a forefinger. “I should refuse the prize,” he said abruptly.

I let him continue, suddenly hopeful.

“It won't be actually awarded for a few weeks,” he said. “I have plenty of time to turn it down, and the prize will be yours.”

“Why would you do that?” I asked.

Peterson did not respond at once. He motioned with his head, and we stepped to a table well out of the way. The bar was filling up with architects and accountants. The lounge was a study in the sort of lighting Rembrandt would have adored, and each of the scattered couples looked both weary and aglow.

But Peterson did not look youthful just now. Something kept him from speaking. At last, he said, “Anyone could understand why he hates you.”

I chuckled. “Isn't that a little strong? People don't hate each other anymore. They feel competitive. They feel a rivalry. Hatred is out of style.”

“He's invented his own reputation—and everyone believes him. Designs sportscars for Nissan. Airports for Zurich, Singapore. Practically dictates to the city of San Francisco what architects they should hire and what color the mayor's suits should be. He's thinking of letting R.J. Reynolds put his name on a brand of cigarettes. He and Renman have lunch with the president. And he takes the trouble to see you as a threat.”

“Yes, it's a little hard to understand,” I said, with a dry laugh.

“Not really. You have taste. You have a name. And people like you.”

I gave a half-embarrassed chuckle.

“But it's true. You're naturally, by birth, what DeVere would love to be. His background isn't all that glamorous. Didn't he change his name—?”

“Vernon. Tyron Vernon.” I felt a little protective of DeVere for a moment. Everything about him was artificial, and therefore something like a work of art. Ty DeVere was a name with spin, I had to admit. And didn't most Americans remake themselves in one way or another, changing names, dwellings, spouses, working hard to shed the past? “His background was agricultural.”