probably would have cost a fortune to bring it up to code.”
Cars were passing us, drivers giving him dirty looks, but Keene paid not one bit of attention. He was so preoccupied with looking up at buildings, for a time I worried that he would rear-end somebody. But he seemed to have this style of driving down to a science, and I began to relax and enjoy the show. He pointed out building after building, some new, some remodeled; some for Roland Hill, some for other developers; a favorite here or there, a story behind each one.
“Do you remember what it was like before?” he asked, when the tour seemed to be over.
“Yes. The skyline was lower, and many of the buildings were getting run-down, but-”
“Run-down! Twenty-five years ago, downtown Las Piernas was a pukehole! It was the three Ds-dirty, dangerous, and dying.”
I didn’t argue. He was right, but still…
“You miss the old buildings,” he said, reading my mind. Or maybe my obstinate look.
“Not all of them, but yes, there was a charm and beauty to them that I just don’t find in the BLP building-no offense.”
“None taken. I’m with you.”
“What?”
“I just build them the way they tell me to build them. Unless I’m the owner, there’s only so much say a construction man has over a project. Don’t get me wrong-I take pride in my work-every nail and brick of it. But would I have destroyed the Gergans Building? Never.”
He was referring to a beautiful old building that had been near the shore. The Gergans was one of the battles preservationists in Las Piernas had lost. I had been in it once or twice before it was torn down, seen the carved woodwork and marble, the loving detail work that had graced every corner of it. To some it was probably made in a cluttered style and hopelessly busy; to me, it seemed to say “I’m filled with visual pleasures and surprises. You could work within me day after day, and still you would find something new to see and discover.” The photos, all that remained of it, never would do it justice.
“If you’re trying to tell me there are no easy answers-”
“Oh,” he said, “you know that already.”
“Then why the tour?”
“Bear with me. Bear with me.”
I hoped I could. I was fairly sure I knew where he was driving now, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to see the Angelus again.
But we were about a block away from the old hotel when Keene pulled his Mercedes over to a curb and stopped the car. He looked down the filthy street and asked, “What do you see here?”
“Nothing too lovely,” I admitted, looking at the decaying, boarded-up buildings that lined the block.
“A long row of shitholes, is what you mean.”
“Maybe if the people who lived here a few years ago had been allowed to stay, it wouldn’t be like this. Maybe it wouldn’t have become a place where only rats could survive.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t picture them having the kind of bucks it would take to paint one of these places, let alone do the earthquake work.”
“Well, if they’d had the kind of bucks the city gave to Hill and Associates, if someone could have taught them how to bamboozle limited partners out of ready cash, if Ben Watterson had loaned money to them on a handshake and at a big discount, hell, who knows what they could have done to the place?”
His mouth flattened into a tight line, but then he sighed and said, “You could be right. Who am I to say? Maybe this neighborhood wouldn’t have gone into the crapper like it did-or, I should say, could have crawled out of the crapper it had already become. But you’ll forgive me if I say I don’t think it would have been so simple to save it, either.”
“No,” I admitted. “We started out saying there weren’t easy answers, right?”
“Right. Well. Let me tell you what else I see here-”
“We could call your vision ‘economic opportunities,’” I interrupted, “and fight over whose opportunity, or we could settle for ‘convention center.’”
He looked surprised, then started laughing. “Shit. Are you the kind of person who calls up the birthday girl and says, ‘I can’t make it to your surprise party?’”
“No,” I said, smiling, “I just enjoy pissing off rich, sober sons of bitches.”
“God, you’re good at it,” he said, wiping tears from his eyes. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he looked over at me again his expression was grim. “Well, no use taking up more time. I just bought a building that looks like a damned church. It’s as good as any place to make a confession.”
He started the car again and pushed the automatic door locks.
33
UNLOCK THE DOORS,” I said as we turned a corner. “Unlock them now.”
“Why?” he said, glancing over at me. I reached for the button on my side, hit it. The door unlocked. No problem. I was still staring at the button, wondering why I had expected it to remain locked, when Keene pulled the car over to a curb.
“Here we are,” he said. “You’re right. Probably silly for such a short trip-probably silly not to walk. But you mentioned rats and there are lots of two-legged ones around here. You wouldn’t believe the character my security man kicked out of here earlier. I told the guard we’d be coming back here, and he promised to run off any other weirdos. The place should be safe enough now.”
We were at the Angelus.
It looked different. The sagging fence had been replaced, as had the broken windows on the bottom floor. I glanced up and heard him say, “We started on the lower floors. The window your friend broke hasn’t been replaced yet.”
“I’ll pay for it,” I said.
“Don’t be silly. I wasn’t dropping hints.”
“You’ve done a lot in two or three days,” I said. “When I was here on Sunday, it looked different.”
“When the police called and told me what had happened here, I had my kids do some work.”
“So you knew? You knew when I called you on Monday?”
“No! They called up my kids-the police called my son-and-Wait. Let me back up a minute.”
He exhaled, long and slow.
“The building is owned by my company. It’s a family business in every sense of the word. I’ve got five boys and two girls.”
“I didn’t know you had so many children.”
“Yep, seven. One of the girls and one of the boys didn’t give a damn about the business, which is fine, and they’re happy doing other things. But the others-they run the business here in town.”
“While you stay in Fallbrook?”
“I’m down there most of the time. So Monday morning, the kids get a call from the police. Later, my youngest son lets me know about it, but I don’t get the details.”
“What did he tell you?”
“‘Dad,’” he mimicked, holding his thumb and little finger to his face like a phone, “‘the police called to say a homeless guy climbed up to the upper floors of the Sad Angels Hotel-’”
“Sad Angels?”
“That’s what my kids call the hotel. Anyway, he called to say this bum climbed up and had himself a heart attack.” He went back to his imaginary phone. “‘Poor guy was in there dead for days, Dad. Some women were looking for him and found him-one of ’em broke a window so she could call the police.’”
“And did the police ask any questions?”
“Yeah, they asked him if we gave permission to a transient to sleep in the Sad Angels. He told them no, which was the truth. Then he called me to ask if I wanted him to start the work on the place, get it cleaned up.”
