The Little Death

by PJ Parrish

  Even in the dim light, Louis could see the red creep into Reggie’s face. Louis pulled out his wallet and tossed a twenty onto the bar. “Bring us two Heinekens and the gimlet,” he said.

  The bartender nodded and left.

  Reggie was staring at something beyond Louis’s shoulder. Louis turned and saw two women looking at Reggie and whispering.

  The bartender brought the drinks and eyed the twenty. “That’s fifty-six dollars, sir.”

  “What?” Louis said.

  Mel laughed.

  Louis dug out two more twenties. “Keep the change.”

  The woman took the bills and left.

  “Nice tip,” Mel said.

  “It’s all I had,” Louis said.

  Mel took a drink of beer. “All right, Reggie, why don’t you tell us exactly what is going on?”

  Reggie was still staring at the two women, and when his eyes came back to Mel, they were moist. “Let’s move to a table,” he said.

  They picked up their drinks and followed Reggie from the bar. He paused at the latticed entrance to the dining room, then veered right into an alcove. When they were seated, Reggie took a thin blue pack of Gauloises from his jacket and lit a cigarette. He nodded toward the other room.

  “That used to be my table, that one by the fireplace,” he said. “They’re trying to slowly kill me. Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?”

  Mel looked at Louis. “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Everyone,” Reggie said. “This whole town.”

  “Why don’t we start at the beginning?” Mel said.

  Reggie took a big drink of the gimlet. “Well, it’s like I told you on the phone. Four days ago, they found Mark’s body out in the fields, and then they just showed up at my door and told me I had to come into the police station to answer some questions.” He paused, shutting his eyes. “I had to go to that place and identify him. He… had no head. But he had this birthmark on his chest and—”

  Mel interrupted him. “This Mark guy was a friend of yours?”

  Reggie managed a nod.

  “A good friend?” Mel asked.

  Reggie picked up his glass and drained it. “Not really. I only knew him for a year, I guess.”

  “So why were the police so interested in talking to you?” Louis asked.

  Reggie took a moment to meet Louis’s eyes. “We were kind of in business together.”

  “What kind of business?”

  Reggie looked to Mel.

  “You have to tell to us, Reggie,” Mel said.

  Reggie blew out a long stream of cigarette smoke. “I’m a walker.”

  “What, like a dog walker?” Louis asked.

  “Dog? Oh, good Lord, no,” Reggie said. “A walker is… well, an escort of sorts.” Reggie saw the look on Louis’s face and held up a hand. “Not what you are thinking, I assure you. It’s rather hard to explain.”

  Louis and Mel exchanged looks.

  “Suppose you try,” Mel said. “You know, like we’re in fifth grade?”

  Reggie looked to the dining room. “See that woman sitting by the fireplace? That blonde in the chartreuse Chanel suit?”

  Louis and Mel swiveled to look. Louis focused on a woman in green with cotton-candy hair. Her face had the same taut look as Reggie’s, and had the lighting been kinder, she might have been mistaken for being in her fifties. But her neck and hands betrayed her as somewhere past seventy.

  “That’s Rusty Newsome,” Reggie said. “I was supposed to escort her to the Heart Ball on Saturday. Her husband, Chick, never goes to anything, so I always take her.” He met Louis’s eyes. “That’s what I do. I take women to dinner or charity balls or the club. I pay attention to them if their husbands are too bored… or too dead.”

  “You make a living at this?” Louis asked.

  Reggie gave him a small smile. “There’s a lot of clubs in this town and a lot of widows in each club.”

  “They pay you?” Louis asked.

  Reggie tilted his chin up. “Sometimes they give me a little cash. Sometimes they give me little gifts. It’s not just about the money, you see. It’s about having a door into a life I could not really afford on my own.”

  Mel took a long drink from his beer. “I always thought you were a hustler, Reggie.”

  Reggie looked wounded. “Some might see it that way. But there are good hustlers, and there are bad hustlers. A bad hustler is always trying to get something out of someone. I am always trying to give these women something. I am the first to admit I have no real talents or ambition. But I am a wonderful listener, I know about wine and food, and I am very good at bridge. I know how to make a lonely woman feel happy.”

  “Is sex part of this walker deal?” Louis asked.

  Reggie’s eyes shot to him. “Never. The women I know are not interested in sex.”

  Louis shook his head slowly. “Mr. Kent, I do a lot of work for wives whose husbands are cheating on them. Every time I find a guy’s been charging escorts to his Visa, he claims he just did it for the pleasure of the lady’s company.”

  “This is different,” Reggie said, reddening. “What a walker offers is friendship. And sometimes a friendship is more intimate than a marriage. But it never, ever involves sex. We are not gigolos.”

  He picked up his glass and downed the last of the gimlet. Louis was hoping he wouldn’t order another one.

  “Your friend—what’s his name again?” Louis asked.

  “Mark,” Reggie said softly. “Mark Durand.”

  “You said he was a walker, too?” Louis asked.

  Reggie nodded slowly. “He was just starting out as one, and I was sort of introducing him around, helping him get connected. He would have been a great walker.”

  “But he turned up headless in a cow pasture,” Mel said.

  Reggie nodded and looked at his empty glass with longing. Louis wondered if Mel had a credit card.

  “How many times have the cops questioned you?” Louis asked.

  “Three times,” Reggie said with a sigh. “It was in the Shiny Sheet. They even used my picture. Awful, just awful.”

  “Why?” Louis asked.

  “Why what?”

  “Cops don’t question someone three times without good reason. Why do you think they’re after you?”

  Reggie was silent.

  “Talk to us, Reggie,” Mel said.

  “I was with Mark the night before his body was found,” Reggie said. “We had a dinner at Testa’s and…” Another big sigh. “We had a fight. Everyone saw it.”

  “About what?” Mel asked.

  “What does it matter now?”

  “It matters,” Mel said.

  “Mark had been staying at my place, and he told me he wanted to get his own apartment,” Reggie said. “I told him he should stay with me for a while longer.”

  “That’s it?”

  Reggie nodded.

  “You two weren’t—?”

  Reggie stared at Mel. “Together? Oh no, no. Mark was quite a bit younger than me. No, there was nothing between us. We were just friends.”

  Mel drained his beer, set the glass down, and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. “Don’t lie to us, Reggie.”

  “I’m not. Like I said, it was just a business arrangement. I was trying to help him. But Mark insisted he was ready to go out on his own and I knew he wasn’t ready. This town will eat you alive, and I didn’t want that to happen to him.”

  Mel was silent. Louis waited, watching the two men, wondering what the history was between them. Mel hadn’t told him much about Reggie Kent, just that he had known him back in Miami. He wondered how the hell Mel had ever hooked up with a piss-elegant guy like this.

  Reggie leaned forward. “You’ve got to help me, Mel. Please. I don’t have anyone else to turn to.”

  Louis was afraid the guy was going to cry.

  “They’ve hung me out to dry,” Reggie said. “Even the police are against me.”

  “They’re cops, Reggie, t
hey’re supposed to be,” Mel said.

  Reggie shook his head vigorously. “No, you don’t understand. The police are here to protect us. When that horrible detective from West Palm Beach came here to question me, Lieutenant Swann came with him. They are my friends.”

  He picked up the pack of Gauloises, but when he pulled out a cigarette, his hand was shaking so badly he dropped it. Mel caught it before it rolled off the table. Mel looked at Louis, then back at Reggie. “So what do you want us to do?”

  “Find out who killed Mark,” Reggie said.

  “Just like that?” Mel said.

  “I told you, Mel, I have money. I can pay you. And your friend of course.”

  Louis was quiet. There was something about this guy he didn’t like. His desperation was genuine enough, but something was slightly off. He was sure the guy was lying about something. Or, at the very least, leaving something out of the story.

  “Please, Mel,” Reggie said.

  Mel held out the cigarette to Reggie. “Look, let us go have a little chat with your Lieutenant Swann and we’ll get back to you.”

  Reggie looked to Louis, who nodded.

  Reggie took the cigarette and grasped Mel’s hand. “Thank you, thank you.”

  “Easy,” Mel said.

  Reggie nodded and sat back in the chair, running a hand across his sweaty face. His wide eyes were darting over the crowded room now. He waved at someone and tried a smile but it faded quickly and he dropped his hand.

  “I think I better go home,” he said softly. “There’s a nicely chilled bottle of Veuve Clicquot in my fridge. I think I shall go home and get shit-faced drunk.”

  He picked up his cigarettes, rose, and held out his hand. Mel shook it. Reggie turned to Louis. “Forgive my manners. I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Louis Kincaid.”

  Reggie smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Kincaid.”

  Louis gave him a nod. Reggie took one last long look around the dining room and walked unsteadily back through the bar and was gone.

  Louis turned to Mel, who smiled.

  “Welcome to Bizarro World,” Mel said.

  Chapter Three

  It was nearly two-thirty by the time they left Ta-boo. Louis had called Lieutenant Swann, who said that if they came right over, he’d have some time to talk to them. The Palm Beach police station was only a couple of blocks away, so they walked. The curbs were bumper-to-bumper with luxury cars, the sidewalks a mix of locals and tourists. It was easy to tell them apart. The locals were whippet-lean in sherbet-colored slacks and sheaths. The tourists trudged along in Nikes and fanny packs, Nikon necklaces hanging from their necks, ice-cream cones dripping on their hands.

  A tall woman was coming toward them. Louis’s first thought was of a banana. She was thin, dressed in a yellow pantsuit, with sunglasses the size of grapefruits. She was dragging a spidery black dog that was determined to stop at a ceramic trough labeled dog bar.

  Mel didn’t see the dog, and as the woman pulled at the leash, it cut across his shins. Mel groped for balance, and Louis grabbed his hand.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Stop it, Phoebe!”

  “Louis, help me out here, or I’m going to drop-kick the dog into the gutter,” Mel said.

  “You’re hurting Phoebe!” the woman yelled.

  Louis managed to free Mel, and with a tinkle of gold bangles the woman dragged the dog away.

  “You okay?” Louis asked Mel.

  Mel pushed his sunglasses up his nose and nodded. “Any more animals ahead?”

  “You’re clear.”

  They walked on. It was at moments like this that Louis considered asking Mel if he ever thought about getting a cane. But it wasn’t the kind of thing even a best friend could do—force a man like Mel, an ex-cop, to acknowledge he was only one cockroach dog away from falling flat on his face in public.

  They turned onto South County Road, passing more boutiques showing mannequins in fruit-colored capris and seascapes in heavy gilt frames. As they crossed onto a broad median dominated by a big fountain, Louis got his first look at the Palm Beach Police Department.

  It was Aspergum-orange, with three roofed peaks of Spanish tile and wrought-iron trim. Except for the showroom-shiny police cruiser at the curb, it could have passed for a small Italian villa.

  The station’s small circular lobby had the hushed, cool feel of a hotel. Louis recognized the small dome in the ceiling as a security camera. The uniform behind the information window offered them a practiced smile as his eyes traveled over Louis’s wrinkled khakis, blazer, and brown face.

  It was Mel he addressed. “Can I help you?” the cop asked.

  Mel just stared at the cop from behind his yellow-lens sunglasses. Louis stepped up to the window.

  “I’m a PI from Fort Myers,” Louis said, showing his ID card. “This is Mel Landeta, ex–Miami PD. We’re here to see Lieutenant Swann.”

  “Ah,” the cop said. “The lieutenant has been expecting you.”

  The cop picked up the phone, and less than a minute later the door to the back of the station opened and a man appeared.

  Louis was surprised that Lieutenant Swann was not in the standard blue uniform. He was wearing the same kind of street clothes as Louis, but his blazer was pressed, his khakis razor-creased, his loafers glossy, and his peach polo shirt didn’t look like it came from the sale bin at Sears. His skin tone, build, and cropped blond hair were those of a lifeguard, but the pillowed face gave him the look of a man who ate too much rich food. Still, he had a little cop in him; it was there in the cunning brown eyes.

  “I’m Andrew Swann. Welcome to Palm Beach, gentlemen,” he said, extending a hand to both Louis and Mel. “Would you follow me, please?”

  They followed Swann down a hallway lined with portraits of gold-braided police officers and men in dark suits shaking hands. Swann’s office was flooded in sunlight from two tall windows. Beyond, Louis could see a small courtyard with stone benches set in a blaze of magenta bougainvillea hedges.

  “Can I get you some water?” Swann said.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Louis said.

  “Me, too,” Mel added.

  After Swann had left the office, Louis went to his glass-and-chrome desk. The spotless surface held a gold pen stand with Swann’s name engraved on the base, a white phone, a blank desk calendar, a framed photograph of a big red dog, and a stack of papers. They were the officers’ daily log sheets. Louis turned the top one so he could read the entries: lost dog in the vicinity of the public beach; bike stolen from Publix; elderly person ill in Bradley Park.

  “Where’s the ashtrays and dirty coffee cups?” Mel asked.

  “There aren’t any.”

  Louis positioned the log report back in its spot and turned to a bank of teak file cabinets recessed in the ivory walls. Above the cabinets on an otherwise bare wall, Swann had displayed his honors. There was a framed photo of Swann holding a trophy and clasped in a shoulder hug by a gray-haired man wearing the collar stars of a chief of police. Next to that was a walnut plaque for finishing first in a departmental training class on Beach Bicycle Patrol. Two certificates completed the display, the first one from the Optimist Club and the second an award for Departmental Officer of the Month.

  Louis stepped closer to read the small type. Last August, an off-duty Swann had commandeered a tourist’s air mattress and paddled out into the ocean to save Mrs. Clarence Wright’s Jack Russell terrier from drowning.

  The door opened. Swann stood there, holding three bottles of Evian. He noticed Louis looking at the certificate but didn’t say anything as he came forward and handed him a bottle.

  “So, did Mr. Kent hire you?” he asked as he gave the other bottle to Mel.

  “Not exactly,” Louis said. “It was just a preliminary interview. Kent’s afraid he’s going to be charged with this murder and asked us to work with the cops to make sure they don’t develop tunnel vision, if you get my drift.”

  Swann’s water bottle stopp
ed halfway to his mouth. “The case belongs to the county, Mr. Kincaid,” he said. “Our only involvement is to aid the sheriff’s office as needed and monitor the interview with Mr. Kent.”

  “They needed your department’s permission to interview a murder suspect?” Louis asked.

  Swann opened a drawer and retrieved a cork coaster for his bottle. It was stamped with the Palm Beach city seal.

  “It’s to their benefit to extend us the proper courtesy whenever their investigations bring them across the bridge,” Swann said. “To do otherwise wouldn’t get them very far in this town. We’re very sequestered here, if you get my drift.”

  Louis heard a soft crack and looked back at Mel, who had opened his Evian and was taking a long drink.

  “To prove my point, I will let you in on something,” Swann said. “We had already run your plate, driver’s license, and criminal sheet by the time you walked into Ta-boo.”

  “You doing a little racial profiling?” Mel asked.

  Swann looked quickly to Mel. “We don’t profile here. We do run the plates of every dirty old car with a cracked taillight that crosses the bridge.” Swann turned back to Louis. “Your Mustang qualifies on both counts.”

  Louis used the moment to take a swig from the bottle. He was beginning to understand why the sheriff’s office needed an intermediary, a local cop, to open doors in this place. He understood, too, that he and Mel weren’t going to get much information out of Swann, given his job as moat keeper. And it was probably a waste of time anyway. Mark Durand was murdered in the far western end of the county. His body was lying in the county morgue. Both places were miles and worlds away from here.

  For the second time today, he was beginning to wonder why he had agreed to come here. He had never liked working for the rich. They tended to treat him not as a rectifier of their problem but as a distasteful reminder that something ordinary and sordid had touched their lives. Maybe that was why he was always so broke. He’d rather help some poor slob get his kid back for a couple hundred than sit surveillance on some rich dude’s cheating child bride for five grand.

  But Mel had asked for his help, and he had relented out of friendship. Now he had to make an attempt, at least.