The Devil's Wind [antikvár]

/SEPTEMBER 2,1956 / LOS FELIZ, CALIFORNIAfirst 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