Philip Kerr: Gridiron

Mitch located Allen Grabel's telephone number on his computer card file, but when he called him up he got the answering machine.

'Allen? This is Mitch, calling you at ten o'clock. I just heard about what happened last night, and well — I want to find out if you really meant it. And even if you did mean it, I wanted to see if you could be persuaded to change your mind. We can't afford to lose someone with your talent. I know Richardson can be an asshole. But he's still a pretty talented guy and sometimes talent can be difficult to be around. So, er… maybe you could give me a call when you receive this message.'

Mitch glanced at his watch. There was just enough time to familiarize himself with what the computer held on file about feng shui in the hope that he might find a solution to the problem Jenny Bao had thrown at him; and seeing Kay Killen walking along the studio gallery he waved to her. As drawings manager Kay's function revolved around the computer and the Intergraph design system, which made her the guardian of the database for the whole job and indispensable to Mitch for any number of reasons.

'Kay,' he said, 'could I have your help for a minute, please?'

'So what's the problem this time?' grumbled Richardson when Mitch brought up the subjects of Jenny Bao's concern at the project meeting.

'You know, I sometimes think these Kung Fu assholes dream these fucking things up to justify their fees.'

'Well, that sounds a familiar story,' murmured Marty Birnbaum, the management partner, adjusting his bow-tie with fastidious care. For Mitch, whose father, a journalist on a small town newspaper, had worn a bow-tie all his life, bow-ties were the meretricious accoutrements of all frauds and liars, and it was yet another reason to dislike the overweight and, he thought, supercilious Birnbaum.

They were all seated around Richardson's democratically round white wood table: Mitchell Bryan; Ray Richardson; Joan Richardson; Tony Levine; Marty Birnbaum; Willis Ellery, the mechanical engineer; Aidan Kenny, the BMS engineer; David Arnon, from Elmo Sergo Ltd, the structural engineers; Helen Hussey, the site agent; and Kay Killen. Mitch sat next to Kay, whose long legs were pointed towards him.

'It's the tree,' explained Mitch. 'Or, rather, where it's planted.'

Everyone groaned.

'Jesus Christ, Mitch,' said David Arnon, 'this may be the smartest building I've ever built, but it's also the dumbest fucking client. He employs one of the world's leading architects and then gets his fucking Chinese witch doctor to scrutinize just about everything he does.'

Mitch did not protest. He knew that Ray Richardson already had his suspicions about him and Jenny, and he had no wish to draw attention to himself by defending her.

'Has this stupid bitch any idea of what it took to get the tree through the roof of that building? It's not exactly the kind of thing you can just pick up and move somewhere else.'

'Take it easy, David,' said Mitch. 'We have to work with this stupid bitch as you call her.'

Arnon slapped his thigh and stood up. Mitch knew that he did it to create an effect, because at six foot five Arnon was the tallest, and possibly the most handsome, man in the room. He was a long wiry streak of a man, with narrow, impossibly horizontal shoulders that seemed to have been tied on to his tent-pole of a body, and a box-shaped head with a closely cut tan-coloured beard. He looked like a former basketball player, which was exactly what he was. Arnon had played Guard as a junior for Duke University, and had been Atlantic Coast player of the year as a senior, until a knee injury had forced him to quit the game for good.

'Take it easy?' said Arnon. 'You're not the one… Whose shitty idea was it to stick a lousy tree that size in there anyway?'

'Actually, it was my shitty idea,' said Joan Richardson.

Arnon shrugged an apology in her direction and sat down again. Mitch smiled to himself, half-enjoying the effect his announcement had produced. He could easily understand David Arnon's concern. It was not every day that a client wanted you to plant a three-hundred-foothigh dicotyledon from the Brazilian rain forest in the middle of his new building's atrium. Arnon had needed the biggest crane in California to lower the outsized evergreen, apparently a South American record, through the roof of the building, a task that had brought the Hollywood Freeway to a halt and closed Hope Street for a whole weekend.

'Relax, will you?' said Mitch. 'She's talking about the way it's planted, not where.'

'That makes a difference?' said Arnon.

'Jenny Bao — '

'Bow wow wow,' growled Arnon. 'Fucking dog woman.'

'- told me that it was bad feng shui to plant a large tree on an island in a pond, since the tree in the rectangular pond becomes a Chinese character meaning confinement and trouble.' He handed round some photocopies of a drawing which Jenny had made of the Chinese kun character.

Richardson regarded the sign with contempt.

'You know,' he said, 'I seem to remember her telling me about how it was good practice to make a rectangular pond because it resembles some other character meaning a mouth and symbolizing — what was it now? — oh yes, people and prosperity. Kay, I want you to look that up in the computer call report. Maybe we can screw this bitch for good.'

Mitch shook his head.

'You're talking about the kou character. But with the mu sign for a tree in the middle, the kou sign becomes a kun . You see what I mean? Jenny was kind of adamant about that, Ray. She won't sign off the feng shui certificate until we've changed it.'

'Change it? How?' said Levine.

'Well, I've had some thoughts on this,' said Mitch. 'We could build another pond, a round pond, inside the square one. That way the circle represents heaven and the square earth.'

'I don't believe we're having this conversation,' said Richardson. 'The smartest building in LA and we're talking voodoo stuff. Next thing we know we're going to have to sacrifice a cockerel and pour its blood on the front door.'

He sighed and ran a hand through his closely cropped grey hair.

'I'm sorry, Mitch. What the hell, I think your idea sounds like a good one.'

'Actually, I already put the idea to her and she seems to quite like it.'

'Well done, pal,' said Richardson. 'Get it drawn up, will you? You hear that everyone? Mitch is the kind of guy we want round here. He gets things done. Next item.'

'We're not finished here yet, I'm afraid,' said Mitch. 'Jenny Bao also has a problem with the fourth floor. Four is the Chinese word for death. Something like that, anyway.'

'Maybe she's right,' said Richardson. 'Because four is the number of bullets I'm going to fire into that bitch's fucking head. Then I'm going to tear off each of her limbs and stick them up her four inch — '

'Fucking A,' whooped Aidan Kenny. Levine guffawed loudly.

'Couldn't you just leave a space where the fourth floor used to be?' smiled Helen Hussey. 'You know, miss it out altogether. Just let the fifth floor float on top of the third?'

'Do you have a solution, Mitch?' asked Joan.

'I'm afraid not this time.'

'How about this?' said Aidan Kenny. 'The fourth floor is where we have the computer suite. That's the main computer room, the electronicmail centre, the document image processing room, the tape-drive room, the multimedia library with a secure store, and the control bridge as well as the various service corridors. So why don't we just call it something like the data centre? Then it goes like this: Second Floor, Third Floor, Data Centre, Fifth Floor, Ladies' Underwear, Soft Furnishings…'

'That's not a bad idea, Aid,' said Richardson. 'What do you think, Mitch? Will Mme Blavatsky buy it?'