Philip Kerr: Gridiron

'And so to this morning's topping-out ceremony. Traditionally we mark this occasion by throwing a branch of evergreen from the top storey. I'm often asked about the origins of this custom but the simple answer is that nobody really knows for sure what they are. I was once told by a professor of Ancient History that the ceremony probably dates from the time of the Egyptians, when human sacrifices were associated with the completion of a building; and the evergreen is a substitute for an era when the architect was rewarded for his services by being enclosed alive within the brickwork of his own building, or hurled from the top. I dare say there are some clients who still feel that way about their architects, but I think I am safe in saying that YK is not one of them.'

Richardson glanced in Mr Yu's direction and saw that the ageing billionaire was beaming politely.

'At least, I hope he isn't. Perhaps, ladies and gentlemen, I had better just throw out the branch before he changes his mind.'

The audience laughed politely once more.

'And, by the way; I think it says a lot about Mr Yu's son Jardine that he was sufficiently concerned about the safety of those demonstrators down below that he asked for them to be moved away from the front of the building until this ceremony was concluded. Thank you very much.'

The guests laughed again and as Richardson was now advancing to the edge of the roof bearing the branch of evergreen, they started to applaud. Many of them followed him to watch as he threw the branch to the piazza three hundred and fifty feet below.

Mitch checked that Joan was among them and then, catching David Arnon's eye again, he pushed two fingers into his mouth, as if he was trying to make himself vomit.

David Arnon grinned and leaned towards him.

'You know, Mitch,' he said, 'as a Jew I hate to say this, but maybe those Egyptians weren't so bad after all.'

The Richardsons left L'Orangerie, one of LA's most exclusive restaurants, in their chauffeur-driven, bullet-proof Bentley and turned west off La Cienaga on to Sunset.

'We'll be staying at the apartment tonight, Declan,' Ray Richardson told the driver. 'And I'll be in the studio all morning. I won't need you again until we drive to the airport at two.'

'Are you taking the Gulfstream, sir?' Declan's Irish accent was as thick as his neck, for he was also Richardson's bodyguard, as anyone seeing his Blackcat nightsight glasses, or the Ruger P90 automatic on the Bentley's front seat, might have guessed.

'No, I'm on a scheduled flight. To Berlin.'

'We'd better leave a little bit earlier than usual then, sir. The traffic was very bad on the San Diego Freeway today.'

'Thanks, Declan. Let's say one-thirty then.'

'Yes, sir.'

It was past midnight but there were still lights burning in the architechnologist's studio. Declan switched the diode on his Blackcat lenses from red to green to cope with the change in light conditions. You never knew what might come out of left field in the darkness. Not unless you were wearing a pair of wide-angle Blackcats.

'It looks as if they're still working,' said Richardson's wife, Joan.

'They better be,' growled Richardson. 'There was plenty to do when I left. Every time I tell one of those krauts to do something I get a hundred different reasons why it can't be done.'

Designed by Richardson himself and built at a cost of $21 million, the triangular-shaped glass structure that housed his studio occupied a site amid giant billboards and sun-bleached Hollywood glitz, resembling the prow of an expensive and ultra-modern motor yacht. Pointing east towards Hollywood, with opaque glass panels screening the northern elevation from the road, the Richardson building did not conform to any coherently Angeleno architectural approach — always assuming that the eclecticism that characterized most of LA's buildings could be called a style at all. Like Richardson's other buildings in LA, it seemed almost out of place. More European than American. Or something that had just landed from another world.

The design and architectural critics said that Richardson belonged to a Rationalist tradition, and certainly his buildings had machine metaphors aplenty. There were even echoes of the Constructivist fantasies of architects like Gropius, Le Corbusier and Stirling. But at the same time his work went beyond the merely utilitarian. It declared its allegiance to high technology and can-do capitalism.

'Germans,' muttered Richardson and shook his head with contempt.

'Yes, dear,' cooed Joan. 'But as soon as we've opened the Berlin office we can get rid of them.'

The Bentley pulled off the main road and drove round the back of the building to the underground parking lot.

There were seven storeys, six of them above ground. The practice's offices and double-height studio occupied the lower part of the building, with twelve private apartments on levels three to seven. The magnificently appointed penthouse was where the Richardsons stayed when they were working late or starting early, which they often did. Ray Richardson was nothing if not single-minded about his profession. But otherwise they lived in their spectacular house in Rustic Canyon. Also designed by Richardson, this ten-bedroom house enjoyed the rare distinction of having been praised for its beauty and elegance by no less a savage critic of modern architecture than Tom Wolfe, in the pages of Vanity Fair , and was home to the couple's extensive collection of contemporary art.

'We'd better stick our heads round the door and see what's being done in my name,' said Richardson. 'Just in case there are any fuck-ups.'

The couple swept up the dramatic granite-clad staircase like royalty, acknowledging the armed security guards on duty with stiff nods of the head. They paused at the edge of the huge, luminous studio, almost as if they expected to be announced. With only a vase of irises on the receptionist's desk to relieve the monochrome of this modern Angeleno Bauhaus, the Richardsons were suddenly the most colourful thing in it. Ninety metres long, with seventeen twelve-metre work benches set at right angles to the southern-facing glass wall that commanded a panoramic view of the city, Richardson and Associates was one of the most modern architects' studios anywhere in the world. And one of the busiest, too. Even now there were architects, designers, engineers, model-makers, computer experts and their various support teams working late in open-plan harmony. Many of them had been there for thirty-six hours without a break, and those who were relative newcomers to the studio paid little attention to the arrival of the sleekly suited principal and his wife. But those who knew Ray Richardson better looked up from their computer screens and take-out pizzas and realized that harmony was about to turn into fundamental discord.

Joan Richardson glanced around and shook her head in admiration at the sterling service that was being given to her husband. In her adoring brown Navajo eyes it seemed only his due. She was used to putting her husband first.

'Just look at this, darling,' she gushed. 'The creative energy. It's simply breathtaking. Twelve-thirty and they're still working. There's so much going on, it's like a beehive.'

Joan took off her wrap and hung it over her arm. She was wearing a cream linen sarong-style skirt with a matching shirt and tabard, a multilayered outfit that did a great deal to disguise her large behind. Joan was a good-looking woman, with a face not unlike one of Gauguin's Tahitian lovelies, but she was also a large one.

'Fabulous. Just fabulous. It makes you feel so proud to be a part of all this… all this energy.'

Ray Richardson grunted. His eyes searched the hard-edged, black, white and grey surfaces of the studio for Allen Grabel, who was working on both of the largest and most prestigious projects currently occupying the firm. With the Yu Corporation building nearing completion, it was the Kunstzentrum that was immediately preoccupying the firm's senior designer, not least because his principal was about to fly to Germany to present the detailed drawings to the Berlin city authorities.