The house itself was palatial Spanish in style, with more than a hint of Hollywood fantasy in its genes. The stucco was a washed-out pink, the roof a washed-out red. There was a great deal of elaborate tilework at the front steps, and around the windows, the tiles themselves still bright blue and turquoise and white, the complex interplay of their patterns lending a touch of Moorish beauty to the facade. The front door looked as though it had been purloined from the set of a medieval epic; the kind of door Douglas Fairbanks Senior might have slammed and bolted shut to keep out an army of evil-doers. It would have sufficed too, in its enormity. Maxine had to push hard to open it; and when it finally swung wide it did so not with a gothic creak but with a deep rumble, as a system of counterweights hidden in the wall aided her labor.
“Very dramatic,” Todd remarked, playing it off. In truth, he was impressed by the scale of the place; by its scale and theatricality. But guileless enthusiasm he’d had shamed out of him long ago. It wasn’t cool to like anything too much, except yourself.
Maxine led the way through the turret, with its grandiose spiral staircase and its trompe l’oeil ceiling, into the house. The photographs she’d taken had come nowhere near doing the place justice. Even stripped of most of its furniture, as it was, and in need of repair, it was still nothing short of magnificent. There was everywhere evidence of master craftsmen at work: from the pegged wood floors to the elegantly carved ceiling panels; from the exquisite symmetry of the marble mantels to the filigree of the wrought iron handrails, only the best had been good enough for the man or woman who’d owned this place.
Marco had artlessly arranged a few items of Todd’s furniture in the living room, a little island of brittle modernity in the midst of something older and more mysterious. Todd made a mental note to give everything he owned away, and start again. In future, he was going to buy antiques.
They went through to the kitchen. It was built on the same heroic scale as everything else: ten cooks could have happily worked in it and not got in one another’s way.
“I know it’s all ridiculously old-fashioned,” Maxine said. “But it’ll do for a little while, won’t it?”
“It’ll do just fine,” Todd said, still surprised at how much the place pleased him. “What’s out back?”
“Oh the usual. A pool. Tennis courts. And a huge koi pond. Probably a polo field for all I know.”
“Any fish in the pond?”
“No. You want fish?”
“It’s no big deal.”
“I can get koi for you if you want them. Just say the word.”
“I know. But it’s not worth it. I’ll be here a month and gone.”
“So take them with you.”
“And where would I put them?”
“Okay,” Maxine shrugged. “No fish.” She went to the kitchen window and continued her description of the real estate. “The whole canyon belongs to the house, as far as I can see, but the gardens spread down the hill an acre and a half and all the way up to the top of the hill behind us. There’s a guest-house up there. Perhaps two. I didn’t go look: I figured you wouldn’t be having any visitors.”
“Does Jerry know anything about the history of the place?”
“I’m sure he does, but to be honest I didn’t ask.”
“What did you tell him about me?”
“I told him you had a stalker, and she was getting dangerous. You needed to get out of the Bel Air house for a while until the police had caught her. Frankly, I’m not sure he bought it. He’s got to have heard the rumors. I think we’d be best letting him in on what’s been happening — ”
“We’ve had this conversation once — ”
“Hear me out, will you? If we make him feel like he’s part of the conspiracy, he’ll stay quiet, just because he wants to please you. He’ll only get chatty if he thinks we kept him out because we didn’t trust him.”