“Sorry to bother you, Stew,” I said when he’d unlocked the rear door to his house. He was wearing a tan warm-up outfit and Ugg slide-ins, and I guessed he’d had his nightly workout and was hoping to settle down in front of the TV. Or in his case, with a book in his hand.
“What’s up, Billy? You’re frowning like a man who’s been staring too long at the sun. Come on in.”
I followed him into his living room, where he’d built a pretty good fire in the hearth.
“Get comfortable,” he said, indicating the couch facing the warmth. Judging by the bottle of Rémy Martin XO and the snifter beside a stuffed chair, I’d interrupted him from a little flame dreaming.
By the time it took me to sink into the couch’s soft leather with a sigh, he’d found a snifter for me and was moistening it with the cognac. “You’re a little late for dinner,” he said, handing me the snifter. “I eat early. Helps with the acid reflux. God, old age is fun.”
“You by yourself here, Stew?”
“Nobody else.” He made a little grunting noise as he dropped onto the chair. “Dani’s having dinner with her mom.”
“Roger’s not here?” I wanted to make absolutely sure.
“That jackass was here earlier. I guess I was a little premature in thinkin’ the romance was over. But he left hours ago.” He cocked his head and frowned. “Why do you ask?”
“Somebody broke into the villa this afternoon and left a dead rat in the oven.”
“A rat?”
“Set to broil.”
“Fucking unbelievable. You think it was Roger?”
I shrugged. “You say he was here at the Sands. You saw how much he likes me. And frankly, I don’t know anybody else crazy enough to bust into somebody’s house with a dead rat. I don’t even know where you’d find a rat.”
“That part’s easy. They’re runnin’ wild out here. But Jesus, Billy. If Roger is that twisted, I sure as hell don’t want him anywhere near Dani.”
“That’s the main reason I’m here,” I said.
And I told him everything I knew about the murder of Tiffany Arden, Roger’s former girlfriend.
He leapt from the chair and stood towering over me. “Goddamn it, Billy. You sure took your own sweet time to clue me in about this.”
“I’m sorry, Stew. But the fact is, no charges have ever been brought against Roger. And the only thing I know for sure is that his alibi was bogus.”
“Well, excuse me if I’m behaving like an overprotective father,” Stew said, “but if your silence had given Charbonnet the chance to harm Dani, I’d have gone after him with a gun and then come looking for you.”
“Well, as long as I’m here,” I said, getting up, facing him. “Take your best shot.”
He glared at me, teeth clenched so tightly his jaw muscles knotted. Then he shook his head and walked away. “Let yourself out, Billy. I’ve got things to take care of.”
He climbed the stairs quickly, putting as much distance between us as he could.
That was me, making friends wherever I went.
At the villa, Fitz was carrying two guitar cases toward the open front door. “April’s looking for you,” he said without pausing. “I think she’s in the game room with Des.”
She was.
“Where’d you run off to, Billy?” April asked. She was draped across a sofa with several typewritten pages on her lap. Des was sitting at a felt-lined poker table, patiently constructing a house of cards.
“Took a walk along the beach,” I said.
“Vida’s trying to reach you. Said you weren’t answering your phone.”
“I left it in the coach house. She say what she wanted?”
She smiled. “Not a midnight booty call, I’m afraid.”
“Then who cares.”
“Des is going to be filming stunts at the La Brea Tar Pits tomorrow at ten …”
“Can you bloody believe it?” Des said. “Ten o’clock. In the morning.”
“… and Vida would like you there, too,” April continued. “Something to do with a segment on Wake Up, America!”
The Tar Pits! Where Pleistocene critters once paused to drink the water resting on top of asphalt oozing up from the earth and remained trapped in the sticky goo until thousands of years later, when finally freed by archaeologists in fossil form.
“I guess I should call her,” I said.
“You won’t be waking her,” April said. “It sounded like she was in a club.”
“Good for her,” I said.
Fitz joined us with the news that he’d fit everything into the Hummer and was ready to roll. April and I walked them to the pea-green monstrosity.
“Billy, me lad, you’ll be stayin’ in the guesthouse?” Des asked.
“I’ll see how it goes,” I said.
“Well, enjoy.” He opened the passenger door, grabbed hold of the roof, and swung himself in. “But watch yer back, mate.”
“Later, Billy,” Fitz said, and hopped up and into the Hummer.
The engine turned over. The iron gate swung open. And they were gone.
“If Des refuses to use the rat as an excuse, Crockaby Realty is going to squeeze Max like a ripe orange,” April said, as if the idea amused her. “You going to be okay by yourself? I can have a bodyguard here within the hour.”
“There are security guards, and the alarm system works,” I said. “You just have to turn it on.”
She nodded. “Well, Billy, it’s been a very … unusual evening.” She opened the door to the Camry and, just as she was about to get in, added, “If you need to reach Des, he’s at the Bev Wilshire, registered under the name of—”
“Daniel Knight Lewis,” I said.
She smiled, got into the car. It started up and rolled off without a sound. Those sneaky little hybrids. Road ninjas. Definitely not pedestrian-friendly.
I was mentally nattering. Not a good sign. Nerves. Just going on like a … Shut up!
I waited for the gate to automatically close and lock, then went back into the villa and searched for the alarm system’s instruction brochure. I found it stuck behind the main keypad to the right of the front door. Since it explained how to cancel an alarm, this was probably not the smartest place to keep it.
Making sure the front door was secure, I carried the instruction brochure and the half-full bottle of Jameson back to my little undefiled guesthouse, where I looked in every room and closet to make sure no homicidal chef lay lurking. After checking the window locks, I flipped through the brochure, learned how to bypass the motion sensor in the guesthouse, and, using the keypad in my little enclave, did precisely that before arming the rest of the system.
A little red light indicated all was secure. As comforting as that was, I still had a creepy feeling of uncertainty that I hadn’t experienced since those childhood nights just after my father’s death, when, even with my mother in the next room, the house had felt empty and threatening.
I exchanged my grown-up clothes for my jammies and got into bed with the Walter Mosley thriller and the bottle of Jameson, my substitutes for the teddy bear named Mr. Happy who’d helped me chase away the goblins and ghosties of the night all those years ago.