Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [124]
Lewis tried to think of how Red would handle the situation. He phoned Doc Perrin, who listened closely, wheezing into the receiver.
“I don’t know if there’s anything I can actually do,” said Lewis. “I’m not even sure if it’s any of my business.”
“Jesus Christ, of course it’s none of your damn business,” Perrin said, then paused. “You prayed about it?”
“Sort of.”
“What’d God say?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, if you can’t figure out God’s will, sometimes it’s good to try the one thing you swore you’d never do. The thing that scares the holy hell out of you.”
THE DRIVE up to the Fitzgerald adobe was flanked by a particularly graceful type of eucalyptus, their trunks virtually bark-free, pink and naked as scalded flesh. Although he’d once fantasized that this historic rancho would be half his, via the state’s community property laws, Lewis had never seen the place: the massive, stuccoed structure sat high on a riverbank and looked more like a California mission than a private home. The roof was faded red tile matted with eucalyptus debris. Creeping fig and passion fruit vines overspread the walls. In places, stucco had fallen away, quaintly revealing the thick, crudely formed clay bricks. There was even a tower complete with rusty iron bell. Recessed windows and doors were sage green, and the front door was thick, dark wood bolted together with daunting iron straps, like the gate to an old castle or prison.
“Okay, God, you gotta stick by me,” Lewis muttered as he put the Fairlane into park, “because a wild fucking bitch lives here.”
Billie answered the door herself. Seeing him, her pupils constricted. “Hello, Lewis,” she said. In black slacks and a loose gray sweater, she appeared well groomed, wealthy, graciously middle-aged. Her spongy black hair, pinned in a twist, was white at the temples. Her lipstick was wine red. “So, you’re the ambassador.”
She turned and walked into the house, leaving the door open behind her. He followed her through a cool, dark entryway, where he saw himself—T-shirt, jeans, in need of a haircut—float through a mirror the size of a billboard, and out into a large interior garden.
The house that looked so massive from the outside was, in fact, mostly garden within. In the center, arched bronze dolphins held multiple tiers of a fountain in which water trickled a whispered music. The path was decomposed granite, raked clean. Round rocks bordered beds of exotic cacti and succulents and fragrant tropical flowers. A mature, wide-spreading California oak grew in one corner, and Billie walked into its shade. A movement further down the path caught Lewis’s eye: a man in gray work clothes was on his knees, cutting blades off an aloe plant with a machete.
“Libby doesn’t know I’m here,” Lewis said. “I came because I’m so worried about her.”
“Oh, I know. Terrible about Red.”
“She doesn’t understand why you haven’t come to see her.”
“No? Do you?”
“I know that when I’m in pain, I have a tendency to pull back, keep to myself, lick my wounds.”
“Please.” Billie snorted. Her lips curled. “Besides, Libby has more than enough friends to comfort her.”
“That’s not true. She needs you. You’re her closest friend.”
“Not really,” said Billie.
Lewis looked around. Billie’s garden had more round rocks than he’d seen in one place, all of them perfectly formed. Dozens cobbled the base of the oak and hundreds more lined the beds. Several huge rocks, three to four feet in diameter, slumbered among the cacti.
In the corner, the gardener worked steadily. Each juicy vegetal slice sounded like someone whacking through bunches of celery.
Billie gave a low chuckle. “Now that Red’s gone, she’ll probably marry Dave, don’t you think?”
“Dave who?” said Lewis. “I don’t know all