Round Rock - Michelle Huneven [125]
“She’s certainly rich enough for him now—if Red left her as much as I think he did.” Billie cocked an eyebrow at Lewis. “She do okay, or were there prenupts?”
“I don’t know,” Lewis said, confused. “I’m sure Red was generous to her.”
“Or were you planning to move back in?” She winked.
“No, no …” He had to turn away. The fountain sang its weak tune, counterpoint to the machete’s juicy whacks. How had he ever considered this woman even remotely attractive?
She moved closer. “Tell me something, Lewis. Does Libby seem smarter to you now that she’s rich? Is her mind—how did you put it?—lively enough for you?”
“Ow,” he said, and briefly faced her. “I did say those things, didn’t I? What a jerk, eh?”
Billie shrugged lightly, as if to say, Hey, we’re all jerks, so what?
Heartened by this concession, Lewis said, “If you’d just tell her why you aren’t speaking to her. That’s what drives her crazy: not knowing what she did.”
“Oh, she knows.”
“I don’t think so,” said Lewis.
Billie’s black shoes had a spade-shaped opening at the toe, from which peeped wine-red nails.
“Okay. I’ll tell you what. You tell her I’ll come back around once she gets rid of David Ibañez.”
“David Ibañez?” Lewis couldn’t make sense of this information. The man chopping aloe stood and brushed off his knees. He had laid the aloe branches on a burlap sack, which he now dragged by one corner to the rear of the garden. “What do you care about him?”
Billie fingered her forehead, as if locating a headache. “Tell me, Lewis, do you think Red would be so happy to see Libby consorting with a Mexican gigolo?”
He laughed involuntarily. “Libby’s eight months pregnant. Her husband just died. She’s not ‘consorting’ with anybody.”
“Oh, don’t be naive. This started long before Red died.”
The man with the aloe trimmings was going through a door in the garden wall. Lewis wanted to call out to him, to retain some link to the reasonable human world. Would you come witness this, please?
Lewis said, “I better go.”
“Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?” Billie, chuckling, trotted after him as he retraced his steps through the garden and house. At the front door, Lewis stopped. He had no idea how to open it. Fear and disgust sang in his limbs. Billie glided up next to him, brushing his arm, lingering. “Believe me, Libby’s just fine without me,” she confided.
“I know that,” he said, taking in a noseful of her dense, expensive scent. “She doesn’t.”
Billie chuckled, approving his retort, then slowly slid the flat, wrought-iron hasp aside. Lewis sprang, gasping, from the house.
Yet Billie followed. Lewis opened the car door, and she was at his elbow. He turned. She crossed her arms over her chest, flattening her breasts. “I just wish you’d seen Libby when she first came here. She was married to that worthless architect. A rich kid. You know the story, right?”
Lewis shook his head.
“Mr. Daw had been disinherited in college for selling drugs. So he found Libby and married her. She worked three jobs, sent him through school. He won some big award right out of the gate. Young Architect of the Year. His work hit the magazines, his parents reclaimed him. I’m talking old, rotten Savannah money. He didn’t need Libby anymore, so he stashed her up here, found himself an actress, hid all his assets. Hid ’em so well that during the divorce, it looked as if Libby would have to pay him alimony. She felt lucky to get the land—and that’s all she got. The land and that death-trap trailer. She couldn’t finance a doghouse when he was done with her.”
Billie gazed up at the trees. “I found her out in the groves bawling her head off. We took her home, gave her dinner here. Took her to movies, restaurants. Dad tried to give her money to build herself a home, enjoy some independence. First close friend I’d had since college.”
Billie nudged his arm. “No offense, Studly, but I had Red picked out for her long before you came along. She needed somebody stable, devoted. Somebody who liked her and wasn’t afraid to show it.”
Lewis, he told himself, just keep your ears the hell open.