Mo’s weathered appearance suggested the last decade had not been gentle. He was simultaneously young and old. And Clay knew the telltale signs from the addicts he’d encountered in rehab: Hollow eyes, skin the color of a bad pear, the exaggerated gesturing. Guillermo was using—meth, and whatever else he could get his hands on. More, with the Christian cross tattooed on his neck, it was likely he’d taken a serious stab at redemption and failed.
Savy seemed to sense Clay’s judgment and stiffened. Not so much in embarrassment of her brother, but out of shame for him. “Anyway,” she said, “I heard what my douchebag of a bassist did at the store yesterday, and I want to apologize. Fiasco has a bug up his ass for people with more brainpower than him—which is basically everyone.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Clay said, though he was relieved that Savy also considered Fiasco Joe a Cocksuckers’ Club official member.
“The invitation’s still on,” Savy told him. “To jam. If you still want.”
“Great.” Clay shoved his fists into his pockets to keep from pumping them in excitement. “And since you’re here, how about I show you around?”
Mo snickered and clapped Clay on the back like they were already friends. “Thanks for taking the hint, my man.” He started up the driveway ahead of everyone. “Let’s go see the house that rock built.”
Clay gave them the same tour that Vanessa had given him. Proving her merit as a Throne fan, Savy correctly identified each of the rooms as Rocco Boyle had known them. At the master suite, Clay knocked and poked his head in. His father was nowhere to be found, so he ushered his guests inside and they stood over Peter’s Moroccan throw rug in reverent silence. “Based on the police photos, Deidre’s body was here,” Clay said.
The autopsy report had noted multiple carpet burns to her knees and elbows and concluded that Boyle’s girlfriend had crawled, in a heroin-induced stupor, up the front stairs and down the long hall to the bedroom. And what had all that effort been for? To call 9-1-1? To climb into bed? Maybe she just didn’t want to die sprawled on a cold floor. In the end, maybe all anyone wanted was a little dignity before they went. The thought filled Clay with a sudden sadness and he turned from the spot, fearing Savy would see the change in his eyes.
The boy, Mickey, asked if he could take pictures, and Clay told him, “The owners enforce a strict no-picture policy—I’m kidding, go ahead.”
Mo angled his brother this way and that, failing to note the irony in one addict paying such close attention to another’s demise. “Enough,” Savy said at last, and they followed Clay out to the back yard, which had been the site of many of Throne’s private shows and—even if Boyle had been over his wild days by the time he arrived in Burbank—a few legendary parties too.
“Cristina Scabbia once swam here,” Clay told them on the pool deck. “So did all of the Chili Peppers.”
“Cristina Scabbia, oh man,” Mo said, palming his crotch, “bottle some of that water for me.”
Savy rolled her eyes and flicked her brother’s ear. It was a sibling thing, automatic, as was Mo’s instinct to grab her belt and sling her into the pool. Savy took an off-balance step toward the water, then set her feet wider and shrugged him off. Hands held out like someone moving through a mosh pit of drunken brutes, she circled her brother, and her whole body swung into the punch she delivered to his thigh. It happened so quickly that Clay wouldn’t have believed he’d seen it, if not for Mo’s dramatic hobbling. “Dead-leg,” he explained, limping off. “No one’s better at them than my puta sis.”
Savy took neither pride nor offense, just gathered the dangling hairs that had come loose in the struggle, her bracelets Slinkying along her arms as she retied her ponytail. She was grace and thrash in a perfect two-part harmony. A Simon and Garfunkel hit set to a punk-rock backbeat. “Save your pics for the Generator,” she told Mickey. Then caught herself. “If we’re going into the Generator.”
“What’s the Generator?” Clay asked, straight-faced. For a moment, he thought Savy would dead-leg him too—and would that make him wary of her or just more helplessly enamored?—before she smirked back.
At the door, Clay turned full-fledged tour guide, spewing out everything he knew—the music Boyle had recorded here, the musicians (Eddie Vedder, Neko Case, what’s-his-name from Tool) who’d jammed here, the good times before his end. “Boyle said his creativity flowed here like power out of a generator. He swore he’d never record another album anywhere else.”
Clay could feel the weight of Savy’s attention. At the height of his monologue, he also spotted his father, back on the deck. Peter made no attempt to interrupt, but Clay read his body language easily enough.
Inside, the Generator was quiet and bright, the sun alive in the windows; an entirely different space than the previous night, and the events of those hours felt suddenly implausible. Clay’s guests moved tentatively, as if treading over sacred ground. “It hasn’t changed much,” Mickey observed.
“With one exception.” Mo gestured at the ceiling, where the naked bulb that had been Clay’s nocturnal companion dangled.
“His weight tore the chandelier loose after a few hours,” Savy said quietly.
Mo gave a nod, his attention already moving on. Clay followed his eyes and cringed inwardly. The Rickenbacker was in the open, leaning against the wall. He’d forgotten to hide it. “Woah,” Mo said, “isn’t that a Boyle guitar? That come with the house too?”
You have no idea, man.
Clay offered the vaguest of shrugs, feeling self-conscious again. A real-deal Rocco Boyle Rick—just another jewel he’d been handed in life. Clay scooped the guitar up before Mo could and delivered it into Savy’s arms. “You play hard,” she said, of the scratches
