Butterfly (58 page)

She had just spent an afternoon of fantastic sex with “Thomas” at Butterfly and was

feeling quite high. Today’s few hours had been like all their other times together—an hour

or two of intellectual argument followed by vigorous, skyrockets lovemaking. She won-

dered if she was becoming addicted to it.

Now, if only, she thought in frustration as she guided her Corvette up the winding

drive of the star’s residence, she could figure out how to work such an arrangement into

her real life. For the rest of her life.

When she pulled around the back of the immense Tudor mansion, she braked to a

quick stop and couldn’t believe her eyes. The tile and coping guys were in the process of

leaving—and they hadn’t done the work yet!

Flying out of her car without even bothering to close the door, she flagged down the

truck that was heading toward her.

“Hey! What are you doing?” she said to the driver. “What’s
that
all about?” She swept

her arm in the direction of the mounds of tiles and bricks, stacked next to the excavation.

“You tell me, Trudie. You called us too soon. The steel hasn’t even been laid yet.”

“What!”

She marched over to the big messy hole in the ground and, with her hands on her

hips, looked down. There was water in the bottom, and nothing, absolutely nothing had

been done on this pool in a week.

Bill.

He was supposed to have laid in the steel and plumbing six days ago. She was really

going to give it to him this time.

She reached her office in minutes, flying down out of the hills with her blond hair

whipping about her head. She barely let the car roll to a stop before she was out and burst-

ing through the front door. Cathy, her assistant, looked up from her typewriter, startled.

“Get butt-head Bill on the phone for me!” Trudie said as she strode to her desk. “I’ve

had it with him. Totally had it!”

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She lit a cigarette and paced.

Trudie’s glass-front office was very small, with just enough room for two desks and a

fridge. She didn’t need a lot of space, all of her work was conducted in backyards.

TruePools faced Little Santa Monica Boulevard, wedged in between an antique store and

a café that served espresso and Cajun kebabs; the sign on her window was done in the

same blue-green color as her eyes—a single arched wave with the lettering of TruePools

cascading down the crest.

“His office says he’s out on a job,” Cathy said.

“Right. But not on one of
my
jobs, I’ll bet. Tell them he had better get his ass in—”

“I’ve already told them. They’re going to call him and tell him to stop in here on his

way to the next job.”

Trudie smoked three more cigarettes. She couldn’t recall ever being this angry. She

knew why he was doing this. It was to get back at her for the beer-can incident two

months ago. For shouting at him in front of the other guys for not putting in three return

lines. He knew how important the Coldwater Canyon contract was to her. This was his

way of showing her who had the upper hand.

Well, she wasn’t going to stand for it. This time he was going to pay, royally. Damnit,

he had totally spoiled the beautiful high she had left Butterfly with.

When Bill came through the glass door and started to say, “Hi, True, what’s the

prob—” she flew at him.

“Why hasn’t the steel been laid in the Coldwater job! That goddamn pool has been sitting

for a week! My pools don’t sit for a week, Bill! This is the second time you’ve screwed up!”

He stared at her. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play innocent with me! You just tell me why that steel wasn’t laid a week ago

like you said it would be.”

He shrugged, clearly confused. “You know as well as I do that it takes at least a week

to drain a water table.”

Now it was her turn to stare. “To drain a
what?”

“Sanderson hit a water table. Didn’t you know?”

She blinked at him. Then she looked at Cathy. “Have we heard from Sanderson?”

“Not a word.”

“Get him for me.”

While her assistant was dialing the phone Trudie lit another cigarette and leaned

against her desk, tapping her foot. She wouldn’t look at Bill. Couldn’t look at him.

Finally: “Hi, Mr. Sanderson. This is Cathy at TruePools, could you hold the line for—”

But Trudie was snatching it from Cathy and saying, “Joe? What’s this about a water

table on the Coldwater Canyon job?”

She listened, her free hand playing nervously with an ear ring.

“So why didn’t you tell me!” she shouted into the phone. “No, I didn’t get your mes-

sage! You know I have a thirty-day completion contract on that pool!” She paused. “No,

you
listen to
me.
When you hit a water table on one of my pools, you tell me about it! I

don’t want to have to hear about it from the tile-and-coping guys! Now listen, I don’t care

if you
did
leave a message on my machine. You don’t just go around assuming that I get

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Kathryn Harvey

the message. You tell me in person, you understand? So help me, Joe, if you’ve cost me

this contract, I’ll see that you end up excavating kids’ sandboxes. Now get out there and

see that that pool is drained by tomorrow. Bill will be there first thing in the morning

with his crew. And Joe? No messages this time.”

“Unbelievable!” she breathed as she hung up.

Then she looked at Bill.

“Oops,” she said.

“Yeah,
oops.”

“I’m sorry, Bill. I mean it. I feel about two inches tall—”

“Listen honey, I don’t know what your problem is but I’d like you to get off my back!”

She stared at him.

“You walk around with a goddamn chip on your shoulder, and I’m telling you right

now”—he jabbed the air with his finger—“whatever it is you’re trying to prove, prove it

with someone else, not me!”

When he turned to stalk out, she said, “Hey, wait a minute! I said I was sorry.”

“Look, honey, I don’t know what moron gave you a contractor’s license, because you

sure as hell don’t have any brains. I don’t appreciate getting called off jobs so you can scold

me like some schoolteacher with a burr up her ass. You keep up this kind of attitude and

there won’t be a subcontractor in the city who’ll work for you.”

“I’ve got guys begging to work for me!”

“Then why the hell do you hire me for your jobs? All I seem to do is make you mad.”

“Because you’re the best in the business, damnit!”

They glared at each other while the traffic whizzed by on Little Santa Monica. When

the phone rang, Cathy quickly picked it up and began talking quietly with a customer.

“Lord,” said Bill, shaking his head, “what is it with you broads who go into construction?”

“I’m not a broad. I also don’t like to be called ‘honey.’”

“Well, believe me, I don’t use the term out of endearment.”

“If I’m such a bitch to work for, why do you? There are plenty of other pool contrac-

tors in this town.”

“Yeah? Well, to quote a lady, you happen to be the best in the business.”

She turned away and searched for a pack of cigarettes on her desk. When she turned

back around, lighting up another Virginia Slims, she looked at the way Bill’s T-shirt was

stretched over his muscular arms and shoulders. She could tell he had just come off a job

because his boots were muddy and there was the fresh smell of Lava soap about him. Not

at all like her refined “Thomas,” who wore French cuffs and silk ties and never had dirt

under his fingernails.

“Look,” he said quietly, controlling his anger. “Next time one of your jobs gets messed

up, don’t jump to the conclusion that it was me, all right?”

She tossed her head back and blew smoke up to the ceiling.

“And another thing. I’ve lost over an hour today because of your little tantrum. On

someone else’s job. You owe me.”

“All I owe you is an apology, and you got one.”

He glared at her for a moment longer, then he threw up his hands and marched out.

Outside, Trudie heard the tires of his GMC 4x4 squeal as he roared away from the curb.

36

Washington, D.C.:1980

When Jonas Buchanan finally found Beverly’s mother, Beverly was at that moment in

Washington, D.C., testifying before a Senate investigative subcommittee.

The hearing was taking place because of legislation currently pending before Congress

that would greatly expand the definition of areas of land set aside under environmental

protection legislation. A land developer by the name of Webster wanted to turn some

Southern California coastal property into a new yacht harbor, and because of certain dis-

crepancies in the report from the Corps of Engineers, plus outcries of protest from

California environmentalist groups, and because Webster might qualify for matching fed-

eral funds for public recreation development, the marina project was being investigated at

top level.

Beverly had arrived in Washington the day before and had already turned in her report

to the committee. Now she sat in the hearing room waiting to be called to testify. All

morning others had traipsed before the seven senators on the high bench and representa-

tives of the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Earth First! and other preservationist groups. Now

Webster himself was at the witness table giving his testimony. While she listened and

waited her turn, Beverly kept looking at her watch.

As soon as she was through here she was going to fly to Santa Barbara, where Jonas

Buchanan was waiting to take her to her mother.

“Mr. Webster,” asked the senator from Wisconsin, “just how large a marina do you

propose to develop on this land?”

“A relatively small one, sir. As I state in my report, if I used all of my land it would

accommodate a two-thousand-slip marina, but as that would be harmful to the environ-

ment, I will be scaling it down to under a thousand slips.”

The hearing room was crowded, with television cameras, the press, and the public in

the gallery. Beverly wasn’t nervous about speaking before such a crowd; she had done it

many times over the years. She had in fact requested to be allowed to testify before this

Senate Subcommittee on the Environment, because they were investigating an issue that

involved one of her personal crusades—the preservation of California’s coastline.

“Now, Mr. Webster,” asked the senator from Wisconsin, “if you will not be develop-

ing all of the land for boat slips, what will the rest of it go for?”

“I would like to point out, Mr. Senator, that I own the land, have owned it for a good

many years, and am therefore personally concerned with its safe and nonharmful devel-

opment. To answer your question, sir, I will be giving up forty-five percent of my land to

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Kathryn Harvey

be set aside as a bird sanctuary, as I have outlined in detail in my environmental-impact

report. I have taken care to explore all possible future effects that would result from the

construction of the marina. I have consulted with scientists and ecologists, and in no way

will my project be detrimental to the local environment.”

Beverly looked at her watch again.

Because of Jonas’s phone call she had had to cancel the rest of her stay in Washington.

She was to have attended a ball that evening at the French embassy, and tomorrow she

would have met with representatives of the Children’s Lobby to establish a national clear-

inghouse and information and referral service regarding missing children. So she had

arranged to meet with all these people at their next regional meeting. Because she had to

leave. Jonas Buchanan had found her mother, at last….

When Mr. Webster was finished, gathering up his notes and looking self-satisfied,

Beverly was called to the witness table. She took a seat before a microphone as the press

photographed her and as one reporter was writing on his notepad: “…founder and sole

director of Highland Enterprises, a financial empire whose famous motto is
Dare…
, the

forty-two-year-old Miss Highland appeared confident and in control as she prepared to

bring evidence against Irving Webster of Multi-Development Corp…”

The hearing was being chaired by James Chandler, the junior senator from California,