The Lillian Byrd Crime Series

by Elizabeth Sims

  I wondered whether he and Hesper had made friends. She was like a hologram—there, then not there, then somewhere in the distance. I felt like shooting the breeze with her, but she went out on errands.

  I got out my mandolin and played a few tunes into the canyon, testing the acoustics. They were pretty good. I’d played for Genie the night before, and she liked it. She got up and danced to the music, moving so sexily that my fingers trembled.

  Peaches would stay to dinner, I thought, but he left after a couple of hours, driving down the canyon in his rented Altima. He and Genie would meet in Rancho Mirage the next afternoon to play a practice round.

  That night something jolted me awake. Something had happened—a vibration, an earthquake? Only a noise? Whatever it was, it brought me fully awake, nerves tingling.

  I listened.

  Genie was breathing slowly and regularly, curled next to me. I realized that what had awakened me was one of Todd’s thumps. It’s amazing how loud they were.

  Then I heard another one. A second later, I heard a sound like static, like something brushing against the wall just outside the bedroom door. I grunted in surprise. There was a sharp rustle, then footsteps.

  I sprang naked out of bed and rushed into the hallway. There was a night-light out there; Todd hunkered in its greenish glow. At the far end of the hallway, I saw a plant teeter and fall over—one of the plants I’d moved to block in Todd. I ran down to the foyer, hearing the front door bang open. I reached it and paused there, flailing my hand on the nearby switch plate, searching for an exterior light and not finding one.

  The door was in the deep shadow of a patch of cedar trees. There were no streetlights in this neighborhood anyway. I stepped into the night toward the street, looking everywhere, seeing only blackness. I thought I heard a rustle to my left, where a dense hedge blocked the next house.

  “Hey!” I called. I stood there uncertainly, the concrete of the walkway gritty beneath my bare feet, the cool night breeze slipping around my body. I listened for a car door, an engine, anything. The night was still.

  I went back inside and found my way to the other end of the house. I opened doors and flipped light switches until I found Hesper’s bedroom.

  She was snoring, spread-eagled on her back, no covers on. For pajamas she was wearing a yellow T-shirt that said WEST COVINA DEMOLITION VOLLEYBALL. Between her legs a huge bush of hair rose up like a mountain.

  She sat, blinked at the light, saw me standing there with no clothes on, and said, “Is there something you need, Ms Byrd?” I saw that she had one of those nose strips on, like football players wear.

  “I’ll explain later,” I said, backing out.

  I woke up Genie, told her what happened, and reached for the telephone. She was taking little whooshing breaths and rubbing her forehead. “Ohh, ohh. Rats, rats, rats. Wait. What are you doing?”

  “Calling the police.”

  “Don’t.”

  “Why not? You’re not awake yet. Listen. There’s somebody out there, maybe not far. Somebody was in this house, Genie.”

  Very quickly she grabbed the receiver out of my hand. She was awake all right. “No police,” she said.

  We got dressed and went into the kitchen. The clock on the microwave said 2:54. Hesper appeared and began preparing cappuccinos. Nothing appeared to be missing. I scouted around and found that a small sliding window in the laundry room had been jimmied open and the screen removed. I closed and latched it.

  Hesper, who had added a pair of black bicycle shorts to her ensemble, produced a flashlight; I took it and went outside. I could see faint marks in the dirt beneath the window, like the edge of a smooth shoe, and there was a smudge on the stucco wall where a shoe or dirty hand had rubbed.

  “Here’s why no cops,” said Genie when I reported back. “First of all, whoever it was is long gone. What would the cops do anyway?”

  Hesper and I made automatic Yeah, cops faces.

  “Second, I’m out of here tomorrow for tournament week. Third, I just want to forget all about this. I don’t want to dwell on it. I have to prepare for the tournament. I don’t need this. I don’t want to think about this anymore.”

  “Hesper,” I said, “this is your main home, right? How do you feel about not reporting it?”

  She shrugged.

  Genie said, “And I don’t want Dewey worried with this.”

  “I understand,” said Hesper.

  So the prowler in the night would be our little secret.

  I picked up Todd and held him in my lap while we drank our cappuccinos. Genie motioned for Hesper to sit with us.

  “Well, Todd,” said Genie, bending to look him in the eye, “you’re the hero of the night, aren’t you?” She was trying to be casual, but I noticed her hands trembling.

  When we went back to bed, she said, “Play me some music, will you? Know any lullabies?”

  I got out my mandolin and slowly played “Green Grow the Rushes-O,” and “Lord of the Dance,” and a few other tunes, while she snuggled down beside me in bed. Her eyes flicked around anxiously, then, it seemed with great deliberateness, she willed her body and mind to relax, and she drifted into sleep. Her face in repose was beautiful and somber, I thought, like a medieval princess’s.

  I sat up a while, playing soft two-note chords.

  11

  I didn’t know what to think. This weird thing had gone down, and Genie wanted to pretend nothing had happened, but she was scared, very scared.

  I’d been feeling a growing protectiveness toward my lover, along the lines of “Wouldn’t it be fun to look after you.” But now it was more like “Goddamn it, I don’t want anybody bothering you.” It was real.

  When I saw dawn pinkening up the sky, I slipped out of bed, showered, and started to pull my stuff together, so Genie could quickly drop me off at Truby’s, then swing over to the highway to Palm Springs.

  She woke up looking glad of the day, then, remembering, she clouded over. While she was in the bathroom the phone rang. I didn’t answer it, and neither, I guess, did Hesper, as it rang ten times then stopped. Genie came out of the bathroom, toweling her hair and trailing a wake of warm Neutrogena smell. The phone rang again. She glanced at me, then casually went over and, turning away from me, picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  After a moment she made a half-sound, a truncated exhalation that caught in her throat. Her shoulders jumped up around her ears. She put the receiver back.

  I waited, trying to gauge her thoughts by her sleek naked back. With effort, she was breathing regularly. As I watched, she began to regain her usual easy control of her body: Her breaths moved from tight in her chest down to her belly, her shoulders slowly dropped.

  “What is it?” I said.

  She heaved a huge sigh, then turned to me. “Wrong number.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  “I don’t care whether you believe it.”

  “Genie.”

  All of a sudden her eyes welled up and her lips got tight. I went and sat down next to her, putting her robe, a blue silk kimono, around her shoulders, which started to tremble. She choked out something I couldn’t catch. I reached her a tissue and said gently, “Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  She looked at me miserably. “I can’t.”

  “How come?”

  “I just can’t.”

  “Who’s bothering you?”

  “I—I don’t know.” She looked down at the crumpled tissue. “I honestly don’t.”

  “Well, then—”

  “Look,” she said, sounding suddenly tough, then she stopped. She sat there thinking.

  I was outraged, absolutely livid, that someone was harassing her, right at the beginning of the most important tournament of the year. My heart was bursting with the desire to protect her. I didn’t let it show, though.

  “Are you afraid?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “I’m not convinced.”

  She leaned
close. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too.” You know how you just automatically say that?

  The fact was, I liked Genie a hell of a lot, I was in awe of her, and we sure clicked in the sack, but it was too early to know whether I really loved her. It was certainly too early to let myself start loving her deeply. She was this big superstar, and I was this little Larry Fortensky over here, and everybody knows how those things work out. On the other hand, maybe we could beat the odds.

  I pictured Genie Maychild and myself aboard an ocean liner, en route home from winning the women’s British Open, feeding each other oysters and throwing the shells out the porthole while “It Had to Be You” drifted in from an orchestra somewhere. I pictured Genie ramming laser-straight drives down the throats of the fairways at the Dinah while I walked outside the ropes, nodding, frowning, providing discreet encouragement. I pictured myself sitting at a camp table beneath a palm tree on a tropic isle, working on my important new book about clean energy or Baroque troubadour songs or the secret life of Eleanor Roosevelt, while Genie massaged my shoulders with her strong good hands and hummed softly.

  “Look,” she began again, “you’ve saved my life once, and your rabbit saved maybe all our lives. That’s twice, and so it’s very clear to me that you are powerful magic.”

  I smiled, hiding the fact that I thought so, too.

  She explained that she’d rented a house near the tournament course, and that Todd and I were to stay there with her through the week.

  “Us and who else?”

  She looked at me curiously. “Most golfers on the tour travel light. I hadn’t counted on meeting somebody like you. I hadn’t counted on any of this.”

  _____

  So I beat it out of L.A. with star athlete Genie Maychild, pausing only to phone Truby and arrange to meet her for lunch at the Howard Johnson’s in Palm Springs, where we were supposed to stay. I caught her as she was packing and wondering where the hell Todd and I were.

  It’s 130 miles from Los Angeles to Palm Springs, but it travels fast because you’re leaving Los Angeles. Roads out of L.A. always travel faster than roads in. After a while the lanes open up and you can get out from behind the semis and roll down the windows and breathe clean desert air. Cleaner, anyway.

  We drove through to Rancho Mirage and stopped at the house Genie had rented for the week, inside the Mission Hills complex. It was a low stucco place—the kind people these days call a villa—that on the outside didn’t look like much. But inside it was rich with wrought iron, mosaic tiles, and a host of peculiar statuary nooks. Comfort-wise, it was tricked out with everything you’d need to entertain a sultan, or whoever’s left of the Onassis clan.

  There was a very nice den-type room that I quickly rabbit-proofed. I set up Todd with some provisions and his newspapers and hung out with him for about an hour while Genie changed clothes and fussed over her equipment. The house was right on the tournament course. It was the sixteenth fairway lying there just beyond the patio, Genie told me. I looked out at the velvety golf course dotted with contestants and their caddies.

  I thought she’d run me over to the Hojo’s, but she drove straight to the clubhouse. Golf pros, caddies, and security guys bustled around, everybody looking fresh and eager. It was the beginning of tournament week and you could smell the optimism.

  “There’s Peaches,” said Genie. “You take the car after he gets my clubs out. I’ll get a courtesy car to take me home later. Or why don’t you and Truby come out to the course after lunch?”

  “Will do. You’ll be all right without me for a couple of hours?”

  She laughed a genuine, relaxed laugh. She felt safe and happy here, you could tell. She was about to greet the majestic Dinah Shore course again.

  The Howard Johnson’s was right on Palm Canyon Drive, the main thoroughfare of Palm Springs. When Genie and I passed through, I’d expected the main drag to be swankier, you know, like Beverly Hills, but the few fancy boutiques were squeezed in between T-shirt stores, travel agencies, and sandwich places. I think I saw a wig shop. Nothing against any of this, it’s just that I was thinking about all the movie stars that supposedly hung here. Later somebody told me the movie stars had gotten bored with Palm Springs and moved over to Palm Desert. It was strictly retirees for a while, and now gay guys who couldn’t afford San Francisco were buying up the vintage mid-century houses and redoing them.

  The Jaguar, an XJ sedan, drove beautifully. I’d heard that model of car has an unbelievably powerful engine, supercharged up to about 300 horsepower, but after about four minutes behind the wheel I believed it. Not lightning off the blocks, but smoothly responsive to the gas. A very rich, heavy car. This one was finished in a deep burgundy lacquer that was flawless. As big and comfortable as the car was, though, I could still feel every pebble in the road through the steering wheel. Genie and I had driven in with the windows down, letting the desert breeze cool us.

  A young lass on a Harley-Davidson pulled up next to me at a red light. The growling Harley was one of the big ones, and the woman was one of the small ones, but she was enough for that bike, all right. Every inch of her was drawn up straight in the saddle. Mirrored sunglasses, studded leather with lots of fringe, and great big black leather boots. Her arms were tanned to perfection. She gunned her motor and gave me a tough look. I smiled and showed my tongue, and she responded with the sweetest, hugest grin.

  Only after getting blasted by the air conditioning in the Hojo’s, which actually turned out to be a Denny’s attached to a Hojo’s motel, which was disappointing, did I realize how hot it was outside. I bet it was above ninety. The fabled dry heat of the desert. The climate inside the restaurant was a dry cold. I walked past a bus stand and smelled the bleach water for the wipe rags. Then I smelled a good hamburger and my mouth watered.

  The place was doing a fantastic business this lunchtime; dykes from all over the world were fortifying themselves for a week of golf-watching and parties.

  “Becky! I can’t believe you made it!”

  “Wouldn’t have missed it. Been coming since ’81.”

  “How’re you keeping your sweet self?”

  I don’t guess the place saw this much hugging in all the other fifty-one weeks of the year. An elderly couple watched knowingly. They wore normal retiree clothing—no Palm Springs logos—so they were locals. I nodded pleasantly to them as I looked for my friend.

  She was drinking a Coke at a table in the corner, away from the glare bouncing in from the windows.

  “Starmate,” I said.

  “Starmate. Sit.”

  It was good to see her intelligent, quick face again. “You go first,” I said.

  “What’s a dental dam?”

  “Oh, Lord. Where the rubber meets the road.” I explained about the little latex sheets and their varied uses.

  “I don’t get it,” she said, “I mean, why?”

  “To ward off disease, basically. I mean, lesbians can get AIDS and pass STDs back and forth.”

  “Have you ever used one?”

  “No. I’ll have a Coke, too,” I added to the waitress who’d stopped by. She was young and buff, with spiky hair and sleek black glasses, and she was getting rather special attention from her customers this day. I think she was having a pretty good shift.

  “Just a second,” Truby said to her. “Have you ever used a dental dam during sex?”

  “I would if you wanted me to.”

  Truby shook her head pensively. “I can’t imagine it.”

  I stopped laughing long enough to tell the waitress, whose name tag said Oh Miss, “Give us a few minutes, please. Trube, why don’t you back up a little bit? Did dental dams come up in a discussion with your amour? What’s her name, anyway?”

  “Yes. Lucy. She’s a little strange, but she really likes me.”

  “Do you really like her?”

  “Well, we’ve had these tremendously long talks, mostly wonderful. About all sorts of things. And she’s beautiful.”
<
br />   “She is, I do remember.”

  “I find myself staring at her breasts and going all dreamy.”

  “Have you masturbated while thinking of her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  “We’ve had dinner twice now, but—”

  “Did you tell her you’re experimenting?”

  “Oh, yes. I decided I had to be totally honest about this, even if it slows me down.”

  “I’m impressed. I expected you to lie.”

  “Lillian!”

  “Well, gosh, hon, you seemed so desperate. All’s fair in love and Roller Derby, anyway.”

  “She told me it didn’t matter to her that I’m inexperienced with women. I think if I were a kid, you know, really young, she might’ve gotten spooked.”

  “But you haven’t hit the sack yet?”

  “No!”

  “Well, what the hell did you talk about?”

  “It was so much fun to talk about what buttheads men are. It was like being with you. Turns out she’s had a boss who shoved his tongue down her throat, too. When we started talking about pop culture, though, I sort of lost my way. She talked about all these singers and comics I’ve never heard of, except for, like, Ellen. And movies. I never knew there were so many lesbo movies out there, and here I’m working in the film industry!” She took a pull of her Coke. “Then the subject of books came up, and she said she was a big mystery fan, so I started mentioning P.D. James and Minette Walters, and, oh, Patricia Highsmith, but she started talking about these totally different writers—”

  “Like who?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  “Katherine Forrest? Mary Wings?”

  “Yeah. Both of those, I think. Plus she’s wild about some Calico something. A series about a detective, that sounds like complete shit.”

  Ouch. “Ah, yes.” I said. “When cultures collide.”

  “I don’t feel they collided so much as just sort of blew right by each other.”