Kim Robinson: The Gold Coast

“Fine. I’m not denying there are problems to be solved, there always are, aren’t there? I just want them dealt with as soon as possible.” A bit of dictatorial irritation: “No more getting bogged down! No more excuses and delays! I’m tired of that kind of thing!”

McPherson leaves with his jaw clamped so hard that he can barely mumble his good-byes. Lemon can’t help but laugh, though there is a part of him that is genuinely angry as well. Arrogant bastard. It’s funny what it takes to get some men to give it their all.

Next comes Dan Houston, the last conference of Lemon’s day. They do this a lot. Dan is a completely different situation from McPherson: more limited technically, but infinitely better with people. He and Lemon have been friends since they both began working for Martin Marietta, years before. The same head-hunter lured them to LSR, bringing Lemon in at the higher position, a distance Lemon has only extended through the years. But Houston doesn’t begrudge it, he isn’t envious. Lemon can charm him. In fact, if Lemon were to come down hard on Dan it would only hurt his feelings, make him sullen and slow him down. It’s necessary to coddle him a bit, to pull rather than push. And the truth is, Lemon likes the man. Houston admires him, they have a good time together sailing, playing racketball, going out with their allies Dawn and Elsa. They’re friends.

So he sits down when Houston comes in, and they look out the window and critique the tacking of the boats clawing back from the south toward Newport. They laugh at some really bad luffs. Then Lemon asks him what the latest is with the Ball Lightning project. Houston starts bitching about it again.

It’s one of their three biggest contracts, and inwardly Lemon seethes; they can’t afford for it to get bogged down too much. But he nods sympathetically. “No one’s solved the dwell time problem,” he says, thinking aloud to himself. “The power requirements are just too much. The Air Force can’t expect magic.”

“The problem is, they thought we had it solved when they gave us the contract.”

“I know.” Of course he knows. Who better? It was Lemon who okayed the inclusion of those Huntsville test results. Dan can be kind of a fool.… “Listen, have you gotten McPherson’s input on this?”

“Well, I’ve asked him for it. He doesn’t like it much.”

“I know.” Lemon shakes his head. “But Dennis is kind of a prima donna.” Got to play this carefully, as Dan and McPherson are also friends. “A little bit, anyway. Get him to talk to your design team, and the programmers. See what he can suggest. He’ll be busy with a new proposal of his own, but I’ll tell him to take time for this. You can’t spend the whole of every day working on one project, after all.”

“No, that’s true. Lot of waiting to be done.” Dan sounds satisfied; he’d like the help. And McPherson has a certain flair for the technical problems, no doubt about it.

Not only that, but this way Lemon can begin to tie McPherson into the Ball Lightning program, and all its troubles. Lemon is just annoyed enough with McPherson to enjoy the idea of this move. He’ll really have the man under some screws, and who knows, McPherson might just troubleshoot Ball Lightning as well, even if he does dislike the program. Excellent.

They chat a bit longer, discussing in great detail the rigging of a ketch running down to Dana Point. Beautiful yacht. Then Lemon wants to go home. “I’m doing navarin du mouton tonight, and it’s a slow cooker.” Houston dismissed, Lemon’s off to his car in the executives’ lot. The Mercedes-Benz door slams with a heavy, satisfying clunk. He clicks in a CD of Schumann’s Rhenish Symphony, lights a cigar of Cuban tobacco lightly laced with a mild dose of MDMA, and tracks south on the coast highway toward Laguna Beach.

It’s been a good day, and they’ve needed one. LSR is a division of Argo AG/Blessman Enterprises, one of the world’s corporate giants; Lemon’s boss, Donald Hereford, president of LSR, is based in New York because he is also a vice-president at A/BE as well. Fascinating man, but he hasn’t been pleased with LSR’s record in the past year or two. News of this new superblack should take some heat off concerning the Ball Lightning problems and the recent string of lost bids. And that’s good. Lemon shifts over to the fast track, lets the Mercedes out.

He decides to dice two cloves of garlic rather than one into the navarin du mouton, and maybe throw in a basil leaf or two. It was a little bland the last time he made it. He hopes Elsa managed to find some good lamb. If she bothered to leave the house at all.

Dennis McPherson leaves LSR some time after Lemon and tracks home. Up Muddy Canyon Parkway past Signal Hill, through the Irvine condos to Jeffrey, turn left on Irvine, right on Eveningside, left on Morningside, up to the last house on the left, now a duplex; the McPhersons own the street half of the house, along with the carport and garage. As he tracks into the driveway and under the carport Dennis sees Jim’s shabby little Volvo out on the street. Here for another free meal. Dennis isn’t in the mood for any more irritants at the end of this long day, and he sighs.

He enters the house to find Jim and Lucy arguing over something, as usual. “But Mom, the World Bank only lends them money if they grow cash crops that the bank approves of, and so then they don’t do subsistence farming and they can’t feed themselves, and then the cash crops market disappears, and so they have to buy their food from the World Bank, or beg for it, and they end up owned by the bank!” “Well, I don’t know,” Lucy says, “don’t you think they’re just trying to help? It’s a generous thing to give.” “But Mom, don’t you see the principle of the thing?” “Well, I don’t know. The bank lends that money with hardly any interest at all—it really is almost like giving, don’t you think?” “Of course not!”

Dennis goes back to the bedroom to change clothes. He doesn’t even want to have the day’s debate clarified. Jim and Lucy argue like that constantly, Lucy from the Christian viewpoint and Jim from the pseudo-socialist, both mixing large matters of philosophy with questions of daily life, and making a mash of everything. Lord. It’s just theoretical for the two of them, like debaters going at it to keep in practice; just one more part of their constant talk. But Dennis hates arguments, to him they’re no more than verbal fights that can make you furious and upset you for days after. He gets his fill of that kind of thing at work.

They’re still at it when Dennis comes back out to read the daily news on the video wall. WAR IN BURMA SPILLS INTO BANGLADESH. “Stop that,” he says to them.

They eye each other, Jim amused, Lucy frustrated. “Dennis,” she complains, “we’re just talking.”

“Talk, then. No bickering.”

“But we weren’t!” Still, Lucy gives up on it and goes to prepare dinner, telling Jim about members of her church, with Jim asking highly informed questions about people he hasn’t seen in ten years. Dennis scans the news and turns the wall off; tomorrow the headlines’ll say the same thing, artfully altered to appear original. WAR SPILLS INTO (pick country)—

They sit down to dinner, Lucy says grace, they eat. Afterward Jim says, “Dad, um, sorry to mention it, but the old car is tending to shift lanes to the right whether I want it to or not. I’ve done what I could to check the program, but… I didn’t find anything.”

“The problem won’t be in the program.”

“Oh. Ah. Well, um… could you take a look at it?”

The visit is explained. Irritated, Dennis gets up and goes outside without a word. The thing is, he’s over a barrel; the freeways are in fact dangerous, and if he refuses to fix Jim’s car and tries to make him learn to do a little work of his own, then next thing he knows he’ll get a call from the CHP to tell him the fool’s car has failed and he’s dead inside, and then Dennis will have to wish that he’d done the damn repair. So he drives the thing into the garage and goes at it, unscrewing the box over the switcher mechanism by the light of a big lamp set next to him on the floor.