The Lillian Byrd Crime Series

by Elizabeth Sims

  “I have to go find Todd,” I said to Truby.

  “I’ll find Todd, Starmate. Relax.”

  “No! He might not come to you. I have to go and call him. He can’t be far from that spot. He knows my voice, I’m sure he’s waiting for me.” I sat up. “I’m really fine. See?”

  “Oh, Lillian.”

  “We’re going. Let’s go. Think they take credit cards here?”

  “I’ve paid for it.”

  _____

  When we walked onto the course at Mission Hills, the shadows were long and deep, and tournament week was over.

  The grandstands were deserted, the trash baskets were full, the flagsticks had been gathered, and the course was going to rest overnight before the food stands and toilets and souvenir tents were taken away.

  It was striking how still the place was, how fatigued the course appeared. The very air felt spent, burned up. I could almost smell the brimstone. The blistering heat of the day was dissipating into the evening sky.

  It was peaceful.

  One of the tournament directors sat perched on the railing of the footbridge to the eighteenth green, drinking a glass of red wine. She looked at me with a dazed expression.

  “I’m here to find my rabbit,” I said.

  “Whatever,” she said.

  “Who won?”

  She told me, and I thanked her.

  There was no trace of the disaster on the fairway. The acid had soaked right down; Dengel’s blood had soaked right down.

  Truby followed me quietly as I searched for Todd.

  I went in the direction he’d gone, softly calling his name. I skirted clumps of greenery and little rocky places. He was hiding, resting, maybe eating. I was worried that he’d eat something bad for him. I was disgusted with myself to the bone for having put him through such trauma—and such risk.

  I knew I’d find him, though. I saw tracks going straight through one of the bunkers on seventeen, and I followed their trajectory to some shrubs near a house off the fairway.

  “Todd.”

  He bumped out to meet me, and I sat down on the ground and petted him and held him. He looked fine.

  “Man, I’m an idiot,” I murmured.

  “You’re always an idiot when you’re in love,” Truby reminded me. “I’ve told you and told you. Wait here.”

  It was the most beautiful evening the desert could possibly offer. Oh, it was a soft, relaxed evening. The air was like a warm bath, and the breeze was shifting and dying as night came on.

  Truby returned, walking over the cropped championship grass, carrying two glasses of wine, a bag of peanuts, and a carrot stick.

  “I don’t know if it’s any good, but it’s red,” she said, hunkering in the soft grass. We were in a little hollow, the three of us, comfortable together, looking out at the blackening palm trees and the grass.

  We drank our wine and ate the peanuts. Todd gobbled up the carrot stick, then rubbed his chin on Truby’s shoes.

  “Well,” I said.

  “That was rather a day,” she said.

  We laughed, God help us, and we began to talk. We talked as the stars appeared and the night covered us with its velvet. It was good to sit and talk with my friend in the dark, as we used to do whenever the power company cut us off back in our apartment on Prentis Street.

  We talked for a long time.

  Finally she said, “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m going to go and talk to her.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then we’ll see.”

  We watched the stars.

  Truby asked, “Do you know any constellations besides the Big Dipper?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither.”

  “You saved me from becoming the Phantom of the Opera’s little sister. Is there a Phantom of the Opera constellation?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  I reached out for her arm. “Anyway, thank you.”

  “Mention it again and I’ll throw Diet Pepsi on you.”

  “Anything but that.”

  I said, “So, my dear,” after we’d sat quiet for another while, “you had a breakthrough last night.”

  “I sure did.”

  “Tell me,” I prompted.

  “She was a babe, Lillian.”

  “Yeah?”

  Truby rocked on her haunches. “And she was experienced.”

  “Oh, boy.”

  “We really meshed, you know?”

  “Awright!”

  “And she couldn’t make me come.”

  I inclined my head for more.

  “Well?” said Truby.

  “Well what?” I said. “Sometimes that happens. First time and all. First date. Jeepers, Trube.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “What do you mean, what do I mean? Did you get her to come?”

  “No.”

  “Well, don’t feel bad.”

  “It wasn’t easy, Lillian!”

  I laughed. “Nothing worth learning ever is.”

  “I thought it’d be like, you know...”

  “You thought it’d be automatic? Like, just start messing with each others’ vulvas and watch the fireworks?”

  “Well...yeah! I thought it was supposed to be beautiful and smashing, and satisfying and wonderful!”

  “Oh, Truby.”

  “Her body was gorgeous, and it was exciting, but somehow the experience fell short. It was a lot harder to come than I expected.” She shook her head in the dark. “I guess I had a preconception about it.”

  “I can’t believe it. I could have disabused you of that in a second. My God. Didn’t you ever listen to me when I talked about my affairs?”

  “Yes, but...”

  We sighed together. Beneath my hand, Todd sat between us quietly.

  Truby said, “Why didn’t you tell me about technique?”

  “You didn’t ask! I thought you wanted discover the joys of lesbian sex all by yourself.”

  “Shit.”

  “Truby. Look. I sense your experiment has come to an end. You’re not really into women, are you?”

  “Don’t hate me.”

  “Shut up. Come on, hon, if you were a lesbian at heart, the orgasm-on-the-first-night thing wouldn’t matter.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “You wanted to find something out, and you did. It’s irrelevant to me who you sleep with.”

  “I might not sleep with anybody for a long, long time.”

  “Get a rabbit. They’re warm and—”

  “Lillian.”

  I shut up.

  Truby said, “Now I have a sense of what Theo went through. You know, what it was like for him.”

  “Well, it’s not that hard. Never mind. Think you’ll try to get him back?”

  “Oh, God, no.”

  “I always thought he was a little prissy.”

  “You never met him!”

  “He sounded prissy.”

  She paused. “Well, he was.”

  We looked at the stars a while longer. The moon was coming up, what was left of it.

  I was able to make out the face of my watch. “It’s getting late,” I said.

  “You going over there?”

  “Yeah, I’ll walk over.”

  “What if she’s not there?”

  “She’ll be there.”

  32

  It was past eleven when I clambered over the patio bushes, Todd under my arm, and walked into the house on the sixteenth fairway. The lights were on and Genie was alone, sitting in the largest leather chair in the living room, her feet up on a hassock, a mug of coffee in her hand. She was wearing her blue kimono and a comfortable smile.

  “Meredith and everybody just left,” she said.

  To be accurate, she wasn’t alone, not really alone at all; the championship trophy was there with her. A tall, classic loving cup, it gleamed from its place at the center of the coffee table. No, no, it didn’t merely gleam; there in the fin
e lamplight in that fine room it shone; it took light and did something splendid with it, amplified it, as expertly wrought silver does. Genie’s name was now engraved on it a second time. The trophy was keeping her excellent company.

  With tenderness and joy in her voice, she said, “Come here. Are you all right now?”

  “I’m going to fix Todd up first,” I said, walking through the room.

  “There’s fresh coffee,” she said, still smiling. “Hello, Todd!”

  After I’d seen to his food and water and newspapers, I poured myself some coffee. Used glasses and hors d’oeuvre dishes had been stacked around the sink. I returned to the living room.

  “Would you be a dear,” Genie asked, extending her mug to me, “and fill me up?”

  I took a seat on the couch and stretched out my legs.

  “Lillian?” her smile faltered. “Do you see that over there?”

  “Yes. Congratulations.”

  “You know, Meredith was worried about you, but I wasn’t. Not in the slightest. I knew you’d be just fine—and Todd, too. I knew everything would be fine.”

  She rose, and stepping carefully around the coffee table, came to the couch. “Let me see you.” She eased down into the cushions. “Oh, you’ve got stitches! But you’re as lovely as ever to me.” She tried to nestle in for a kiss, but I nudged her away.

  “Not yet,” I said. “Genie—”

  “You’re tired, aren’t you? But did you hear—oh, did you hear about it?”

  I didn’t reply.

  She took my arm and kissed the bandage, and stroked it gently. She turned her face up to mine. “I nearly holed out on my second shot. Oh, Lillian, you should have seen it. Coco and Lona and I insisted that we be allowed to finish, and Meredith leaned hard on the tournament people, she really did, and we played in, oh, maybe just half an hour after...after everything calmed down. Oh, my dear. You should have seen me. Well, I’ll get the tape from ABC.”

  Her eyes were hot glittering ingots. “Coco folded, she absolutely crumpled. Seeing my shot, she had to go for the green in two, and she put it in the water, and that was the end of her. Guess that’ll shut her up. Oh, you should’ve seen her face. She could barely bring herself to shake my hand.” She pumped her fist as I watched her, sipping my coffee.

  “I tapped in for my eagle, which I didn’t even need anymore because she bogeyed. I tapped in from eight inches. Now! How about a kiss?”

  She leaned in and I let her.

  “Hm. You are tired. I love your lips. I love-love-love your lips. Lillian, thank you for today. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I want to sweep you away somewhere for a—for everything! I’m taking next week off. Let’s go to—where would you like to go? Let’s go to New York and buy you a new wardrobe! How would you like that? I want to buy you some jewelry. Look at that poor little watch you’ve got. You can have anything you want! A car! Do you like that Jaguar? Let’s look for a house together. Let’s get a house in Florida—we’ll get a big one!—and one in Italy. Wouldn’t you like Italy? In the off season?”

  She breathed deeply, luxuriously. “I’m free. I feel so free; I feel so fresh. Like I could beat them all again! I can beat anybody, and I will beat anybody. With you in my life—maybe this sounds crazy, Lillian, but it’s not, it’s not!—with you in my life, I am invincible.”

  “Genie.”

  “Oh, if you could’ve been there. They cleared off—they cleared everything away, and we hit our shots, and I carried my own bag to the green. Look what I got!”

  She held out a crumpled, stained rag.

  “What’s that?”

  “Look, look, it’s yours!”

  Then it looked familiar. “Is that one of my handkerchiefs?”

  “Your friend had it, she was dabbing your face with it, and I took it from her and put it in my pocket.”

  “It must be the one I lent her the first night I came to town. She must have intended to give it back to me. And you wanted some of my blood to carry along with you?”

  “I felt you with me every step of the way. And it’s over, and I’m safe. Aren’t you going to ask if I took the jump?”

  It was a tradition, a screwy one, for the champion of the Dinah to dive, or wade, into the water hazard before receiving the trophy. I wouldn’t, boy. That water didn’t look any too clean to me, although they’d dyed it blue for TV. Golf course water never does look clean, because of the fertilizer runoff, plus most hazards aren’t part of a natural waterway, so the water is slow-moving to the point of stagnation. I’d overheard a marshal on seventeen say, “They had to use about three gallons of Aqua-Shade this year.”

  I sat silent.

  Genie said, “Well, I did! A nice belly flop, I did, and it felt great! I can look anywhere now, and see the future. It’s so beautiful. I’m the best ever—do you realize that? I’m going to set records no one will ever break. The history of golf belongs to me. The history of sports! No one will forget me.”

  “Aren’t you grateful to Coco Nash for smacking Dengel?”

  “What?”

  “Genie. Didn’t you see her break Dengel’s hand while I had him on the ground? She cracked him with her two-iron and broke the acid all over him.”

  “Oh. She did?”

  “You were being carried up the fairway by her security women. I would judge that precise hit on Dengel took something out of her. For all you know, she broke her own hand doing it, slamming her club into something like that. For all you know, she used up everything she had, defending you. I’m not surprised her second shot found the water.”

  “Well, who knows, right? You know, I have so much more to talk to you about.”

  “Yes, Genie, you do.”

  “Lillian.” She brushed my hair back from my eyes and peered in. “What’s wrong with you? Aren’t you happy? Aren’t you happy for me? For us?”

  “You know that Peaches died today.”

  Her eyes shifted away, and she nodded.

  I said, “He died this morning.”

  “Seems like a week ago, doesn’t it?”

  I closed my eyes.

  “I’m going to, ah, set up a fund,” she said, “like a caddie scholarship, in his name.”

  “Are you going to go see his wife? And the baby?”

  “Uh...I don’t really know her.”

  Looking at her, I said, “Genie. You need to shut up and listen to me. Okay? I’m going to tell you a story. It’s a story that’s very important to me, and it’s important to you. It happened a long time ago. I don’t know how—I need to know how it ended. Then maybe we can go on together.”

  She stared hard at me, her mouth tight.

  “A girl and a boy are in love,” I began. “It’s puppy love at most, I guess. They fool around and she gets pregnant, only they’re so dumb they don’t know she’s pregnant. These two kids, they’re on their own. They’re trash; they’re nobodies that nobody gives a shit about. And they’ve found each other, and they think, Well, this is something. This is love. She thinks, My God, this boy loves me. She’s an overweight slob, her mother’s a drunk, her father’s a shit-ass, and she doesn’t give a damn about anything except being loved.”

  Genie’s eyes moved to the trophy. She looked at me again, and a veil came over her eyes. She eased away from me on the couch, her back against its fat leather arm.

  “Let’s see,” I went on, “the boy had a car. And that was their private place, the one place they had to themselves. And after a while she notices that her periods have stopped, and they’re having sex more often, and it occurs to them that they should have birth control. And she’s worried about this thing that’s moving around in her stomach. And the kindly country doctor says, ‘Honey, you’re going to have a baby. A baby!’”

  Genie’s face was blank, her eyes dull now; not even the shine of the trophy showed in them.

  I kept talking. “The kindly doctor is very concerned. ‘Would you like help giving this baby up for adoption?’ ‘Oh, no, thank you, Doctor. Yo
u won’t tell, will you?’ ‘No, child. But you must go home and tell your mother right away.’ ‘Oh, yes, I will.’ They’re confused, and they’re dumb, and maybe they don’t really believe a baby will come along after all. She ignores the pregnancy. And since everybody ignores her, nobody notices. She’s fat and unfriendly, and nobody notices that she’s gotten fatter and maybe a little unfriendlier. She wears—let’s see, she wears big sweatshirts to school. Big jeans and big floppy sweatshirts, and the baby kicks in the middle of the fall of the Romanovs and it kicks during calisthenics and it kicks while X squared plus Y squared is equaling Z squared. And she wonders what will happen.”

  Genie turned her face away from me and held herself rigidly against the arm of the couch.

  “They try to decide what to do. ‘Let’s not tell anyone yet. We can always tell, but we can never un-tell.’ Her mother yells at her for eating too much. When her stomach starts to hurt, he gets hold of his dad’s credit card, and they go to a motel. She gives birth there, with him running for more towels, scared shitless. It’s a bloody scene, but there is a baby, there in the middle of all that blood, and whoa, here comes the afterbirth—my God, what kind of a freak gives birth to something like that, so soon after a regular baby?”

  I could see I was nailing it all pretty well, so far.

  “Were you happy when the baby came?” I asked.

  Genie sat as motionless as her trophy. She murmured, “It hurt. It hurt so bad. I felt so bad.”

  “Was Dom happy? Dom was happy, wasn’t he?”

  “Dom...”

  I waited, then pressed on. “The next day, Genie, he goes out to buy some things.”

  “The baby needed milk. He went to buy milk for the baby.”

  “And when he comes back...” I waited again. “Look at me, Genie. Come on and look at me.”

  Genie turned her face to me, her eyes empty, and said, “When he comes back...”

  “Tell me, Genie, when he comes back, the baby is dead. Isn’t that right?”

  “The baby is dead.”

  “But it wasn’t born dead. It was born alive, wasn’t it?”

  “He was excited. He wanted to buy a stroller. He went out to buy milk and a stroller. I needed Kotex.”