The Triggerman Dance

East of the lake, inland, lie soft foothills of oak and sage, grasslands, and Interstate 5, which marks the edge of the property. From a frontage road used mostly by surfers and the Marines of nearby Camp Pendleton, a private asphalt ribbon lined with date palms winds west toward the house and outbuildings, the lake, and groves. There is a gate near the frontage road—just out of sight around the first bend—which is manned round-the- clock by Liberty Ridge Security, a team of five men supervised by Vann Holt's ubiquitous protector, hunting companion, drinking buddy and personal assistant, Lane Fargo.

To the west is the Pacific. The property line ends almost half a mile before the beach, which is fine with Vann Holt because beach access in California is nearly impossible to restrict anymore, and because a long, narrow, brackish slough runs parallel with the coast on the western edge of Liberty Ridge, making electric fences, guarded gates or even routine security patrols all but unneccessary. In light moments he jokes about stocking the slough with crocodiles. It would be nice to have a beach, but when a strong south swell powers up from Mexico and Holt wants to surf, he and Valerie and Fargo just drive to the dirt parking patch like everyone else, then paddle out and fight for the waves. As a boy he'd belonged to a private surf club there, but privacy in current day Orange County—Holt once pointed out to a client visiting from South Africa—has gone the way of the mastodon, the full-service gas station and apartheid.

The compound itself is built around what Holt calls the Big House—a little joke on himself, a retired Federal crime buster. This house is made primarily of restored adobe over cinderblock and steel I-beam. This expensive combination of materials makes for very good insulation against heat and cold, and of course provides the Big House's old-time California Mission flavor. Holt often points out to guests that it is bulletproof, apropos of little but his desire to raise eyebrows. It is an imposing structure with three stories that seem to just wander on forever once you're inside. Holt designed the remodel himself, which captures the Mission ambience but has contemporary touches such as oversized double-paned windows and twelve-foot ceilings that gather plenty of sunlight. Some of the rooms are furnished with genuine Mission-era appointments, others feature pale gray walls hung with the somewhat sentimental plein-air landscapes of the early twentieth century that Holt admires.

There is a separate residence for Lane Fargo. Fargo's home is actually a portion of the restored orange-packing house that sits between the Big House and the lake. It has the functional tin facing and cavernous interior of the original. Holt has kept great deal of the old packing equipment in tact: the convey and hoppers, the processing tables, the two roll-up doors large enough for a truck to drive through. But Fargo keeps the doors locked and the windows shut on all but the hottest days, giving the old plant an air of rusty malignity. The dogs kill an occasional rat along the decking that runs around the perimeter of the packing house.

There is one more home for the two other members of Holt's inner-inner circle: Laura and Thurmond Messinger. This is the adobe church that has stood on the grounds since 1853, topped by a wooden cross to tell travelers they would be treated with Christian respect here. Holt gutted the old interior when moved onto Liberty Ridge, in keeping with his desire to provide the Messingers with a convenient place to live, and with his profoundly bitter loss of faith in the church after the shooting of his wife and son. Much remains of the old religious ambience inside. Because, as Holt discovered, a church is always mainly a church no matter what you do to it. This is fine with Laura Messinger, a Catholic, and Thurmond, a lapsed Presbyterian.