Philip Kerr - Gridiron

'I think so.'

'Willis? You're making a face. Do you have an objection?'

As the project's mechanical engineer it was Willis Ellery's job to plan the Yu Corporation building's complex system of piping, cables, elevator shafts and ductwork. He was a thick-set man, with white-blond hair and a moustache stained fawn at the edge of his upper lip from the many cigars he smoked outside the office. He cleared his throat and gave a little nod of the head, as if trying to butt his way into the conversation. Despite his obvious-looking strength he was the mildest mannered of men.

'Well, yes, I think maybe I do. What are we going to do about the elevators?' he said. 'The indicator panels in the cars all have number fours.'

Richardson shrugged impatiently.

'Get on to Otis, Willis, get them to make you some new ones. It ought to be easy enough to make an indicator panel with a letter D instead of a four.' He pointed to Kay Killen, who was call-reporting the meeting on her laptop. 'Make sure you memo all this to the client, Kay. The cost of making all these voodoo changes is going to be down to him, not us.'

'Er… well… might take a little time to organize that,' said Ellery. Richardson looked at Aidan Kenny with what passed for a twinkle in his eye.

'Aid? You're the one who has to spend most of his life on the fourth floor at the Yu Corp. What do you think? Are you willing to take the risk?

Do you feel lucky, punk?'

'I'm Irish, not Chinese,' laughed Kenny. 'Four's never been a problem for me. My dad used to say that the fortunate possessor of a four-leaf clover would have good luck in gambling, and that witchcraft would have no power over him.'

'All the same,' said Mitch, 'perhaps it would be better if you didn't mention it to Cheech and Chong.'

'Who the hell are they?' said Richardson.

'Bob Beech and Hideki Yojo,' Kenny explained. 'From the Yu Corporation. They've been installing their supercomputer and helping me to set up the building management systems. Actually they're my chaperones. They're there to make sure I don't screw around with their hardware.'

'Do you think their being there might count as a completion offering beneficial occupation?' joked David Arnon, knowing that under the existing articles of agreement, this would have allowed his company, Elmo Sergo, to quit the site.

Mitch smiled, knowing how badly Arnon wanted to finish the job and, more particularly, to get away from Ray Richardson.

'That reminds me, Mitch,' said Richardson. 'Have you put a date in my diary for the practical completion inspection yet?'

This was the stage in the completion of a building contract when the architect accepted the building as complete and ready for occupation.

'Not yet, Ray, no. We're still running checks on services and equipment prior to obtaining the temporary certificate of occupation.'

'Don't leave it too long. You know how my diary fills up.'

'Hey, I forgot to mention it,' said Kenny, 'but, talking about dates and diaries, today is Big Bang. Our computer links up with the computers at every one of our projects in America.'

'Aidan's quite correct to remind us,' said Ray Richardson. 'Our Big Bang's important. Soon most of our site inspections will be done on closed-circuit TV via the computer modem. That should save a lot of you bastards from having to get your $300 shoes dirty.'

'We may even have that available to us for the next project meeting,' said Kenny. 'Most of the BMS is already working.'

'Good work, Aid.'

'What about security?' inquired Tony Levine. 'Mitch says that some of those demonstrators came back.'

'How come?' asked Richardson. 'It's six months since they were last there.'

'There's not half as many as last time. Only a handful,' said Mitch.

'Students mostly. My guess is it's because the semester at UCLA just ended.'

'You know, if it becomes a problem, Mitch, you should give Morgan Phillips a ring at City Hall. Get him to do something about it. He owes me one.'

Mitch shrugged. 'I don't think it's going to be a problem,' he said.

'We've got security men to handle things. Not to mention the computer.'

'If you say so. OK, everyone,' said Richardson, 'that's it.' The meeting was over.

'Hey, Mitch,' said Kenny. 'You going downtown?'

'Any minute now.'

'Give me a lift to the Gridiron, will you? My car's in the repair shop.'

Mitch winced and glanced at Ray Richardson. It had been the LA Times's architecture critic, Sam Hall Kaplan, who had first dubbed the Yu Corporation building 'the Gridiron', because of the resemblance between its framework of parallel cross-braces and supports and an American football field. Mitch knew the nickname irritated Richardson.

'Aidan Kenny,' said Richardson sharply, 'I do not want to hear anyone calling the Yu Corporation building the Gridiron. It is the Yu building, or the Yu Corporation building, or even Number One Hope Street Piazza , and that is all. No one here should denigrate a Richardson building in such a way. Is that clear?'

Aware that it was no longer just Aidan Kenny who was listening, Ray Richardson raised his voice. 'That goes for everyone. Nobody refers to the Yu building as the Gridiron. This practice has won ninety-eight awards for outstanding architectural design and we're proud of our buildings. I may base my style of architecture in technology — I don't see how you can avoid that. But you can take it for granted that I believe the buildings are also beautiful. Beauty and technology are not as incompatible as some people would like us to believe. And anyone who thinks differently has no right to be working here. Don't mistake me on this. I'll fire anyone I hear using the word Gridiron. And the same applies to nicknames anyone might have for the Kunstzentrum in Berlin, the Yoyogi Park building in Tokyo, the Bunshaft Museum in Houston, the Thatcher building in London, or any other fucking building that we have anything to do with. I hope I've made myself clear.'

Aidan Kenny was still commenting on this reprimand as Mitch drove them east along Santa Monica Boulevard. Mitch was pleased to see that he had not taken it to heart. Kenny even seemed to regard the experience as amusing.

'The Yoyogi Park building,' he said. 'What do they call that one, then?

Sorry, how do they denigrate that one? Hell of a word that — denigrate. I had to look it up. It means bad-mouth.'

'There was a piece about it in Architectural Digest ,' Mitch explained.

' The Japan Times commissioned a Gallup poll about what people in Tokyo thought about it. Apparently they call it the ski jump.'

'The ski jump.' Kenny chuckled. 'I like that. It is kind of like a ski jump, isn't it? Ouch. I bet he loved that. And the Bunshaft?'

'That's a new one on me. Maybe he's seen something I haven't.'

'What gets up that sonofabitch? Maybe it's Joan. Maybe she straps one on and shoves it up his ass. She's man enough: that's what I call an Iron Lady. She could play defence for the Steelers.'

'Richardson's not the worst architect in LA, I'll say that for him. Not by a long way. Morphosis would win that prize, with Frank Gehry a close second. Ray may behave like a paranoid schizophrenic but at least his buildings don't look that way. Do you think some of those guys think that there's some kind of redemption in making buildings look as ugly as possible?'

'Hey, come on, Mitch,' chuckled Kenny. 'You know that "ugly" is not a word that has any meaning in architecture. There's avant-garde, there's very avant-garde and there's security-guard. You want your building to look fashionable these days, you make it look like a fucking state penitentiary.'

'That's good coming from the man who drives a Cadillac Protector.'