September, 1956 / Los Feliz, California
I first met Mallory Walker high in the hills above Silverlake, at one of
those parties where Luis Barragan announced his continued existence to the
world. It was during the Labor Day weekend, and Luis, such a figure,
almost a legend in architecture, was pretty much at his wit’s end, in
danger of sliding off the map. He was in his late fifties by then, maybe
sixty, and it was years since he’d designed a building. He still lived
large, considering he was a man for whom so much had gone wrong. But,
then, in life, as in architecture, Luis had a reckless disregard for
convention and the niceties. And luck never quite left him.
“Good of you to show your face,” he said, reeking of gin and sweat and
about half a gallon of lemony eau de cologne. He was rumpled, with hair
flowing like milk out of his ears and from the open neck of his blue silk
shirt. “Come in here,” he said, dragging me into the kitchen, where it was
quiet and a tray of filled martini glasses stood on the counter, waiting
for the help to take them out. Beer dripped from a chubby keg on the
breakfast-nook table and a fly buzzed, drowning in the dregs of a tequila
sunrise. “I dreamed about you last night, Maurice. You were lying dead in
the desert.”
“I’m touched, really I am,” I said. “But you should worry about yourself.”
“Don’t I know it,” Luis said with a deadpan, almost dazed expression. He
was big, a belligerent man with multiple chins, eyes set far apart, and
scars on his forehead, and his face puckered as he reached for a glass and
saw the fly dying there. He thrust this glass aside and took instead one
of the martinis, draining it in three long, slow gulps. He shut his eyes
and swayed like a tree about to topple. “Oh, God!” he announced with
drama.
“How much do you need? Five grand, ten?”
His eyes popped open again. “Jesus, Maurice! How long is it since we’ve
seen each other?”
“It’s been a while.”
“More than four years.”
“Really? I’d no idea it was so long.”
“After all we’ve been through together …”
Sometimes Luis had a voice like a phone ringing. He could give you the
idea that once he got going he’d never stop. This was one of those times.
Righteous indignation warmed him to his task.
“After all the trouble we’ve known, all the ups and downs, all the water
under the bridge, and I finally decide to call you, and you offer me …
money.”
With me he couldn’t pretend. He was almost beaten and he was afraid. Sure,
he’d swallowed his pride and invited me to the party. That meant
something, but I enjoyed seeing him on the hook. “I thought you liked
money, Luis,” I said. “I do.”
“I need work,” he said. “There – I’ve said it. I’ll design a fucking
toilet if I have to. Anything.”
Luis had mentored me in our chosen profession. He’d been my partner, my
friend, and, later, the rival I left behind, at least in terms of wealth
and the acclaim of the wider world, and I knew no other terms. My wife had
turned up her nose when she heard about the party, and my solo attendance
more than hinted at condescension. But I liked Luis, and not only because
he reminded me of struggles I’d overcome. He was exuberant, alive, and he
had a childlike enthusiasm in spite of everything. Though often angry, he
was never jaded. Besides, he and I understood one another. People don’t
know much about the private lives of architects. We’re not like actors or
politicians, but we have our feuds, our traumas. Believe me. We’re in the
tough position of trying to be artists and practical men at the same time.
This particular juggling act had left Luis with his balls all over the
floor. Practical was something he knew about but couldn’t quite bring
himself to achieve. Once, years before, when I’d started working for him,
I’d asked for the single most important advice he thought he could give a
young architect. “Marry money,” he’d said, maybe meaning it, maybe not.
I’d gone ahead, allying myself with several millions of dollars and the
daughter of a U.S. senator.
“Where’s Jennifer?” I asked, referring to his wife, the third of his wives
that I knew about. She was a designer herself, a good one, and the
daughter of impoverished New York bohemians, folks with an eye for the
good art they couldn’t afford.
“Out of town.”
He caught the question in my raised eyebrow.
“Back tomorrow,” he said. “Or the day after. Soon, anyway.”
“And the kids?” Luis hailed from Peru, originally. His children tended to
be dotted throughout the Americas, like features on a map.
“With her.”
“How convenient,” I said, wondering what Luis had going on, already
guessing at the answer.
We walked through the high, narrow hallway into the living room, a wide
and airy sunken space that flowed through sliding doors onto a patio of
dazzling tile. The room was filled with Luis’s nice things, his pictures
and his sculptures, but the atmosphere was of neglect and I wondered how
long his wife had been out of the picture. One leg was gone from the
chrome-and-black-leather sofa; a couple of Luis’s guests perched there
nonetheless, whispering as they sipped their cocktails, like determined
revelers on a ship going down. Another fellow, dressed in black, with a
beret cocked to one side, stood at the fireplace, eyeing Luis’s family
photos in their frames of ornate and tarnished silver. Perhaps he was
thinking of stealing them. And through the sliding doors I heard the
hubbub of jazz and saw the rest of the revelers, the shadowy figures
gathered around the pool’s late-afternoon dazzle …
(Continues…)
Excerpted from The Devil’s Wind
by Richard Rayner Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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HarperCollins
ISBN: 0-06-621292-8
