P. Parrish - The Little Death

“Come again?” Mel asked.

“Not Our Class, Dear. Tucker Osborn would never associate with someone like Lyons.”

Louis’s head was fogged with alcohol. He needed some fresh air. And he was worried about Swann. He rose and went out onto the patio. Swann was nowhere to be seen. The sun was almost gone, leaving a reflecting wash of pale pink over the ocean. Louis rubbed his face, and when he looked back toward the water, he spotted Swann down on the beach.

Louis went down the stone steps and across the lawn. At the road, he had to wait for a gap in the slow but steady stream of cars clogging South Ocean Boulevard. Bentleys, Rollses, Jags, and sleek Italian exotics. He was wondering who had died when he remembered that Margery had said there was a big event at Mar-a-Lago just down the road. Whenever Trump wasn’t in town, he rented the place out to whoever could fork over big bucks, NOCD or not.

Louis crossed the road and went down onto the sand. Swann saw him coming.

“Hey, Louis.”

“You okay?”

“I feel like I need to puke.”

“Go ahead.”

“Not allowed. If you even fart too loud in this town, you get a ticket.”

“Andrew, you’re the one who gives out the tickets.”

“Not right now.”

Swann walked to the water’s edge, squatted, and splashed water on his face. When he stood up, his pink polo shirt was soaked, and his hair was spiked up.

“You’re not much of a drinker, are you?” Louis asked.

Swann looked at him. “I’ve had my moments,” he said. “When I was twenty-four, I drove my car off a fishing wharf and almost killed myself.”

“Were you drunk?”

Swann nodded. “Blood alcohol of one-point-nine.”

“Jesus.”

“It gets worse,” Swann said. “The car was a Florida state cruiser, I was on the job, and it was intentional.”

Louis took a step back, looking at Swann with new respect. Not that driving a ten-thousand-dollar cruiser into the ocean merited a reward, but it was so ballsy that it deserved some level of guy admiration.

“They fire you?” Louis asked.

Swann nodded. “My father, the esteemed Major Marshall Weston Swann, did it himself, in front of six other commanders. Guess he just decided that enough was enough.”

“What do you mean?”

“The car was the last of a whole bunch of fuckups. I didn’t show up in court half the time, slept with a woman I arrested, failed a drug test-”

“What for?”

“Cocaine,” Swann said.

“Christ, Andrew.”

Swann didn’t answer. He lowered himself to the sand; Louis sat down beside him. It was quiet for a long time, just the sound of the waves rolling in at their feet.

“I always thought I wanted to be a cop,” Swann said softly. “My mom died when I was three, and my dad raised me and my sisters. I was… in charge of the household, and every night when he came home, we had this ritual where I had to pass inspection.”

“Lot of responsibility,” Louis said.

Swann shrugged. “You know what I remember most? Standing at his bedroom door, watching him take his uniform off. He’d unpin each medal and lay them in a row on the dresser. His badge was always last. He put it on a folded handkerchief next to my mother’s picture.”

Swann wiped his eyes.

“From the time I was nine, I attended every ceremony,” he said. “Every police picnic, every funeral. I couldn’t wait until it was me standing in front of that mirror. But when I got to the academy, I hated it.”

“Everyone hates it,” Louis said.

But Swann wasn’t listening. “Freakin’ hours of memorizing meaningless statutes,” he said. “That stupid us-against-them mentality and that zombielike loyalty to complete fuckin’ strangers just because they wore the same fuckin’ uniform.”

“Andrew, take a breath.”

Swann lowered his head into his hands.

“Why didn’t you just quit?” Louis asked.

“It took me a while to figure that one out,” Swann said. “It was easier for me to get my ass fired than it was to tell my father that I hated doing the one thing he loved.”

Swann blinked. “I left Tallahassee three hours after he fired me. For the next two years, I just bounced around the beaches trying to figure out what I wanted to do.”

“How’d you end up here?”

Swann took a moment to answer. “Being a cop was the only thing I knew how to do,” he said. “And I realized that I still wanted that badge back on my chest.”

“You’re not making any sense, Andrew.”

“It… shit, this sounds corny as hell, but it gave me a sense of purpose and self-respect that nothing else ever could.”

“Even here in Palm Beach?”

Swann sighed deeply. “Even here.”

“How the hell did you get hired with your record?”

“My father sanitized my file,” Swann said. “So, all Palm Beach saw was an average police officer who’d resigned for personal reasons.”

Swann closed his eyes and leaned forward, elbows on knees. Louis had the thought that if the guy understood what a gift his father had given him, he didn’t seem ready to acknowledge it. But then he remembered that Swann had asked his father to expedite that computer search that turned up Paul Wyeth. Had they repaired the relationship?

“Andrew,” Louis said, “let me ask you something.”

“What?”

“Would you consider calling your father and asking him to intervene with the prosecutor on Kent’s behalf?”

Swann shook his head slowly, not looking up. “I haven’t talked to my father in eight years.”

“You said he helped you locate Wyeth.”

“No, I said I threw his name around to get someone to help me find Wyeth. Dad was never involved. And I don’t want him to be.”

“Not even to get a shot at getting Kent out of jail?”

Swann just shook his head slowly.

Louis decided to let it go. Maybe he could bring it up again when Swann wasn’t feeling so raw.

“You know, you shouldn’t let what Margery said bother you,” Louis said.

“Remember when you told me I wasn’t part of their world?” Swann let out a tired breath. “I thought you were just being an asshole. But you were right. These people don’t even see us.”

Swann lay back on the sand and closed his eyes. Now it was Louis’s turn to be quiet. Sam was suddenly there in his head. Margery had dismissed her as someone who dwelled on the same lower rung as Dickie Lyons. She was an outsider here, just as he himself was. But her snub of him still stung.

“Andrew, you awake?” Louis said.

“No.”

“You know the name Samantha Norris?”

“Sexy Sam. Everyone knows Sexy Sam.”

Louis was glad it was dark.

“What do you know about her?” Louis asked.

“Why do you want to know about her?”

“She was someone I met… the night Margery dragged us to the ballet. I thought she was interesting. Just wanted to know more about her.”

Swann propped himself up on his elbows. “She’s a climber,” he said.

“Climber?”

“Yeah, she started out working as a home-care nurse for Hap Norris after he had his first heart attack,” he said. “Then one night the starter wife, Bunny, caught them doing some physical therapy in the Jacuzzi, and all hell broke loose.”

Louis was quiet, remembering what Margery had said about a sordid divorce.

“Happens all the time here,” Swann said. “One minute they’re pushing a wheelchair, and the next they’re wearing diamonds.”

Louis looked out over the dark ocean. Other questions were burning in his brain, but he was afraid Swann would hear something in his voice that went beyond idle curiosity.

“Yeah, but in the end, it was Sam who got the short end of the stick,” he said.