But the young men obviously hadn’t – they looked barely older than twenty. Uneasy, Coltrane backed away, watching them mount the ramp and begin undraping blankets from the first layer of furniture.

His chest felt warm when he saw a glimmer of metal. He was suddenly looking at a chair. But he had never seen any furniture like it – so simple and yet so aesthetically pleasing. The chair’s legs and sides were composed of steel tubes, the gray hue of which was polished to a sheen. The seat and back had clean, straight lines, black suede over a padded reinforcing material. It invited being touched, which Coltrane almost did as one of the young men carried the chair past him at the bottom of the ramp. The second young man followed with another chair.

“Where do you want them?” the foreman asked, looking up from a clipboard.

“In the dining room.”

Coltrane led the way into the house. In the living room, the miniature Christmas tree and the sleeping bags were no longer in evidence. “The dining room’s to the left.”

“Nice house.”

“Thanks.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it.” The foreman turned to the young men. “Okay, put the chairs against the dining room wall so they won’t get in the way. Hold it. Those walls are…”

“Covered with strings of chromium beads,” Coltrane said.

“I definitely haven’t seen anything like that.”

And so it went, the young men unloading furniture while the foreman didn’t do anything but make check marks on his clipboard, then follow his helpers into the house to be certain that nothing was damaged.

Four more dining room chairs. Then the dining table itself: glass-topped, rectangular, with rounded corners, a steel frame supporting the glass top, and steel legs.

The foreman used a soft cloth to wipe smudges of dust from the glass top. “Not a scratch.” He looked at Coltrane for confirmation.

The living room furniture was framed by aluminum tubes that were coated a shiny black. The tubes were arranged horizontally, eight inches apart, forming low cages with high backs. The effect was vaguely industrial, a glorification of mechanization that had been prevalent back in the late twenties and early thirties, but the design was so harmonious that it felt liberating. Thick, wide cushions were set into the frames and against the backs. The material was red satin. Three chairs and an L-shaped sofa filled the living room. Glass-topped side tables, coffee tables, and wall tables filled more of the space, as did a chromium cabinet. So much glass and polished metal made the living room gleam.

Standing in a corner, telling the young men where he wanted them to set the pieces, Coltrane began to feel tugged toward the past. Oddly, though, the past seemed the present. The furniture had been designed so long ago that it seemed new and fresh.

“Mister, I’ve been hauling furniture half my life,” the foreman said. “I gotta tell you – this stuff is definitely different.”

“But do you like it?”

“What’s not to like? The junk I sometimes have to deliver… But this is solid. Look at the sweat on these kids’ faces from lifting all this metal. Nothing flimsy here. No danger of this stuff falling apart. Style. Reminds me of a real old movie I saw on cable the other night. It had furniture like this. I’m not a dress-up kind of guy, but being here makes me feel we ought to be wearing tuxedos and drinking martinis. Hey.” He turned to his helpers. “We’re supposed to be movers. Let’s get a move on.”

Coltrane turned to watch them go for more furniture, and he wasn’t prepared to find that Duncan Reynolds had come through the open front door.

Duncan looked more surprised than Coltrane was. In fact, he seemed startled. His usually florid face was pale, emphasizing the numerous colors on his sport coat. His mouth hung open.

“Duncan? What’s the matter? Are you all right?”

“I came to see your reaction when the furniture was…” Eyes wide, Duncan surveyed the living room. “To find out if you were satisfied with…” Shocked, he pointed toward the sofa, then the chairs, then the end tables. “How did…”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. That’s the problem. Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s just as I remember it. Exactly as I remember it. But that can’t… How could you possibly have…”

“What are you talking about?”

“The furniture’s in the same places where Randolph preferred it. Twenty-five years ago, a few months after I started working for him, the day he first showed me this house, the furniture was positioned exactly as it is now. Randolph told me it had been that way when he bought it, that he had never varied it, that he never wanted it to be varied. It never was. Until it was taken away to be auctioned. And now you’ve arranged it so it looks precisely as when I first saw it. I almost expect to see Randolph stroll upstairs from working in the darkroom. How did… How could you have known where to…”

“I had help from some photographs.”

Duncan’s mystification deepened.

“I’ve been doing research,” Coltrane said.

Duncan stepped nearer, anxious for an explanation.

“I figured a house designed by Lloyd Wright would have attracted attention when it was built. Yesterday I went to the library to see what I could learn about it. The reference librarian showed me a yearly subject index for every article that was published in every major magazine. So I started in 1931, when this house was built. I looked under Lloyd Wright’s name in the index, and I got a reference to him right away, an article about him in an architectural magazine that isn’t published anymore but was fairly trendy back in the thirties – Architectural Views. Excellent library that we have in L.A., the periodical department has every issue of that magazine on microfilm. So I had a look. Turns out this house received a lot of attention when it was built. The article had an analysis of Lloyd Wright’s design. It also had photographs: interiors as well as exteriors. Each room. Including the furniture.” Coltrane gestured toward the living room. “All I did was imitate the arrangement of the furniture as it was shown in the photographs.”

“You don’t suppose Randolph took the photographs?”

“That’s what I wondered,” Coltrane said. “But I didn’t have to look at each photograph for more than a second to decide that the images were so uncomposed and poorly lit that they couldn’t possibly be his work. I strained my eyes a little trying to read the fine print on the microfilm. The photo credit went to someone whose name I didn’t recognize.”

Duncan calmed himself. “For a moment, I thought you might have discovered some Randolph Packard photographs that no one knew about.”

“Wouldn’t that have been something if I had.”

“Coming through.” The overweight supervisor led the way for his two young assistants, who were carrying more black metal tubes. “I don’t know what this is, but I’m guessing it’s a bed frame.”

“King-size or regular?”

“When we get all these pieces assembled, I’m betting it’s a king.”

“Master bedroom. Top floor.”

“You heard the man,” the foreman said to his helpers.

The troop disappeared, trudging upward.

Duncan watched in a daze.

“Duncan?”

“Uh, what?” Duncan turned, blinking.

“The other day, you mentioned that Randolph owned an estate in Mexico.”

Duncan’s face didn’t change expression, but something in his eyes did, becoming wary.

“You said that Randolph used various shell corporations when he was buying property, so that no one would know the true buyer. You said Randolph bought this house that way – and a place in Mexico.”

“Now that I think about it, I suppose I did mention something about that.”

“I was wondering where the estate was.”

Duncan’s gaze remained guarded. “What makes you ask?”

“Just curious. Randolph had such a unique way of viewing things, I thought the hacienda might be as dramatic as this house. It might be worth going down to Mexico to have a look.”