I pulled the towel over my leg where it had fallen to the side.

– Still want to go home with me?

She kept looking at the stars.

– Well, Im not really in much of a position to criticize you for thinking bad things about me right now, am I?

I put that in my top ten of Most Loaded Questions Ever and ignored it.

She ignored me ignoring it, and moved on.

– You promise to teach me a few more constellations?

– Sure.

She shrugged.

– Then I still want to go home with you.

I put my hand on the door.

– Soledad.

– Hm?

– The reason we didnt have the truck, the almonds, why we had to get all tricky and, you know, all that crazy shit. That was because Customs was seizing all your dads property. So, stuff is probably gonna. You know.

She put her hand to the glass.

– Yeah. I know. Jaime told me outside the inn.

She tapped the glass.

– Is that one?

I looked.

– No. But.

I took her finger and traced a circle on the glass.

– All those, those are Vela. The Sails.

– Huh.

I got out.

– Ill be back in a few minutes.

She didnt look.

– OK.

I swung the door back and forth a little, the hinge creaking.

– Soledad, I thought maybe you had killed him yourself. Killed your dad.

She drew her finger around the circle Id traced.

– You were close enough on that one.

I closed the door and went up to see L.L.

The house smelled like mold and whiskey.

Piled books squeezed the entryway, leaving just clearance enough to open the door and scrape through. Bindings and pages swollen and dotted with rot from the damp canyon air, the stacks teetered and listed, propped up by more books. Shelves lined the walls. Shelves that were little more than more stacks of books broken by the occasional strata of a pine plank used to create stability. The fireplace, long out of use, vomited books. The couch rested on a pedestal of them. Looking into the kitchen, I could see that the doors had been removed from the cabinets to allow more room for the spines of oversized editions to jut out. If I opened the fridge, I had little doubt Id have found paperbacks wedged into the crisper, first editions of Mailer growing ice crystals in the freezer. The only thing to challenge the rule of books were the empty bottles lining window ledges, mounded in the sink, overflowing from liquor store delivery cartons.

I picked my way through the heaps, noticing, above the books’ high watermark on the walls, the occasional slightly less dingy patch of paint where L.L. had once hung posters from his halcyon years. Five Easy Pieces signed by Jack. An original lobby card from The Thin Man. An Alfred Hitchcock silhouette, also signed. A photo of himself and Mom, when the novelty of Hollywood could still hold her wandering attention, flanked by Francis Ford and Eleanor Coppola at the Afocalyfse Now opening night after-party

But over the mantel, on the wall that had been entirely rebuilt following the fire, there was no mark to show where there had once been a picture taken by Mom: L.L. reclining on a lounge chair, a wineglass in one hand, pen in the other, marking up a script propped on his knees, a sleeping baby in his lap. And beyond him, mugging and holding his own child over his head like a trophy, Chevs dad, a cigarette between his lips, sideburns to his jawline, his wife beside him in a purple Mexican housedress, brushing long gold hair.

I walked past the absent photo and out onto the deck where it had been taken.

Ringed with wood vegetable crates filled with more waterlogged books, by the light of several candles pressed into a mass of melted wax that flowed over a rusting tin-top table and dripped to the planks below, L.L. dozed with an open copy of Tom Jones on his stomach.

– L.L.

He lurched, came awake with a phlegmy cough.

– Nguh. Hm.

He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes without turning.

– Moneys in the jar, Raj. Leave it anywhere.

He put the glasses back on and started to crane his head around, the book slipping from his belly and onto the deck.

– Could you maybe take out a few of the empties for me?

He saw me. Cleared his throat. Looked at the book hed dropped.

– Id make a clichй comment about the prodigal, but it wouldnt really apply, would it?

He reached for the book, missed it, and his shoulder jostled the table, sending the candle flames jittering and the various glasses and empty bottles clinking.

I bent and picked up the book and held it out to him.

– Here.

He took it.

– Thank you.

He found his place and scanned the page.

– Thought you were the delivery boy.

– Late for deliveries.

He looked at his watch.

– Suppose it is.

I nudged a box of full bottles by the table.

– Looks like he was here earlier.

L.L. pulled his glasses low on his nose and looked at me over the rims.

– Is that someone I know casting judgments about? Is that, wait, allow me to cup my ear.

He cupped his hand to his ear and angled his head at me.

– Is that perhaps the voice of my absent wife speaking to me through her son?

He removed his hand.

– A prodigious bit of ventriloquism for her to accomplish from her far northern climes. Perhaps, if I speak distinctly, I can send a message back to her via the same medium.

He put his hand to the side of his mouth.

– Althea, dear bitch, get out of the boys head, hes sufficiently fucked up now, we need neither of us endure in the effort.

He wiped his brow.

– There. With luck that will transmit to her and she will desist in dispensing her opinions about how I live my life, through my own flesh and blood. However misbegotten said flesh and blood may be.

He took a full bottle of Seagrams from the carton and held it to the light.

– Drink?

I shook my head.

– No thanks.

He shrugged, picked up a glass, sloshed the dregs at its bottom over the edge of the deck into the toyon, chaparral, coast oak and walnut growing up from the hillside, and poured himself a double.

– Ill have one for the both of us.

I moved some books from another chair and took a seat.

– Was there any doubt?

He saluted me with the glass.

– In your mind? Apparently none.

He downed the whiskey.

– But I generally dont drink alone.

I looked back into the dark house, the moonlight glinting off all the empty bottles.

– Been having a lot of company, have you?

He swung his arm in an arc, indicating his massed library.

– My oldest friends. My enduring companions. Those that stand by me.

I picked at the wax on the table.

– And experiencing the delights of Renaissance technology, as well, I see.

He topped off his glass, sipped this time.

– The electric bills. They send them, God knows theyre here somewhere, I just never quite find the time to deal with them.

I looked up at the sky, remembered that same sky projected inside the Griffith Observatory planetarium, how the stars would swim and race down the horizon as the view shifted, season by season, between the hemispheres. L.L. providing commentary, whispering in my ear.

– You could always get someone to take care of that shit for you.

– I have an ex-wife, my boy, I dont need another.

– I was thinking more in the way of an assistant. Or a business manager.

Didnt you used to have one?

He opened his book, turned a page, ignored the implication that he might once have been in the kind of business that would require a manager.

– L.L.

– Yes, I attend.

– Has it ever occurred to you, all these books, the alcohol, open flames?