P. Parrish - The Little Death

He looked around for the gate that he had heard, and when he didn’t see one, he slipped through the rails and into the pen. The ground was mucky, and there was a smell in the air that seemed to grow stronger with every step.

Halfway across, Louis paused, struck with one of those weird feelings that he was being watched. He leveled the flashlight and made a slow turn, but he saw nothing but the cage of wood fencing.

“Andrew?” Louis called.

“Out here,” Swann said.

Louis saw him waving his flashlight, took a breath, and walked on. There was nothing in the lean-to and nothing on the ramp, ground, or rails to indicate that anyone had been here recently. He headed back to the Jeep.

Aubry was waiting for him, sitting in the driver’s seat with the door open and shaking rain from his hat.

“Where’s Andrew?” Louis asked.

Aubry gestured toward the darkness south of the pen. Swann’s light was a fading prick of white.

“Where’s he going?” Louis asked.

“Said he wanted to look at the stream,” Aubry said. “I tried to tell him that in this rain, his little stream was gonna be more like a lake, but he was intent on going anyway.”

“Christ,” Louis said. “I’ll be right back.”

He caught up with Swann on the muddy edge of a surging swamp. Swann had his rifle in one hand and was making slow sweeps of his flashlight with the other across the surface of the brown water. The hood of his coat had blown down, and his head was soaked.

Louis stopped about six feet behind him, on higher ground. “Andrew, get your ass back up here before you get eaten by a fucking alligator.”

Swann turned and trudged from the water. He pushed past Louis without saying a word or lifting his head.

“Andrew.”

Swann walked on.

Louis watched him for a few seconds, then looked back at the water. It was running fast to the south, carrying branches that floated downstream like gnarled brown fingers.

Louis pointed his flashlight downward. But even as the beam skated across the brown water, he knew that if Byrne Kavanagh was in there, they’d never find him tonight. At least, not the three of them alone.

Louis swung the flashlight over the brown water one last time, then headed back, using the beams of the Jeep’s headlights to find his way out of the darkness.

Sam eased off the gas as the sign for Clewiston came into view. The last thing she needed now was to be stopped for something as stupid as a speeding ticket. She had to be careful this time.

Not like that time five years ago, when, in her anger and impatience, she had sped through town in Hap’s big old silver Bentley. She had been lucky that night, lucky that no cop had stopped her; lucky, too, that Emilio had been so trusting.

Stupid boy…

Still, that was what had attracted her to him in the first place. He was beautiful, yes, but he wasn’t very smart, and that was what had led her to take him into her bed. He barely spoke English, but she didn’t want a man to talk. He didn’t want to stay and hold her, but she never wanted a man to linger after sex. He never asked about her life, but she didn’t want to have to tell him about her invalid husband. And best of all, he didn’t flinch when she asked him to put his hands tight around her neck during orgasm.

He never asked her for anything. So, she bought him an expensive gold crucifix to replace the cheap one he always wore. She had been angry when he told her he had given it to his sister. And when she bought him the second one and demanded that he always wear it during sex, she had enjoyed his embarrassment. He had been embarrassed, too, about the money when she offered it. But he always took it.

Stupid, stupid boy.

In the end, she was the one who was stupid. Getting giddy over martinis that day with Carolyn at Ta-boo, too impressed that she had been invited to sit at a coveted table by the fireplace, too needy that a woman like Carolyn would even have a drink with her. And then, brassy with booze, asking Carolyn if she had ever experienced “a little death” during sex. St. John Knitted-up Carolyn, whose husband-everyone knew it-had been cheating on her for years. Cautious, controlling Carolyn, who had never had the guts to take a lover of her own but had listened to Sam’s stories about Emilio with animal eyes.

She brought Emilio to the Osborn house that same night. Lots of wine, a dimly lit bedroom. But Emilio, when he realized he was expected to bed two women, had balked and bolted from the house.

Stupid boy. How dare he embarrass her like that in front of a woman like Carolyn Osborn?

When Emilio came to her the next night, saying he wanted out, she said she understood and offered to drive him home to Immokalee. But her anger built the farther west they drove, until finally, she steered the Bentley down a deserted road, and while seducing him one last time, she stabbed him. When he tried to run, she whipped him and, in a blind rage, cut off his head. She put the head in the trunk of the car.

Hands red with his blood, her body burning with a sexual rush, she drove back to the island, eased the Bentley into the huge old garage, and dead-bolted the door. The old car had stayed there for the last five years, untouched.

Sam turned left, heading south now through the narrow streets of the black neighborhood they called Harlem. Then the little houses fell away, and the lights of Clewiston dwindled to blurs in the rearview mirror. Now there was nothing but muddy pastureland, not even a rutted service road or trail. But she knew exactly where she was going.

She hunched over the wheel and peered up at the dark sky. The rain had stopped, and the last of the clouds were drifting east, leaving a pitch-black sky and a full moon.

Light. Yes. There would be light now. The cattle pen would be lit up like a stage.

She glanced over at Carolyn in the passenger seat, one hand braced against the dashboard, the other clutching the handgun. A striking image, Sam thought, Carolyn’s perfect red nails against the cold steel of her husband’s Luger.

Carolyn had begged her to keep this one simple, just find a deserted place in West Palm, put a bullet in Byrne’s head, and walk away. But that seemed so tame, so unimaginative. Why kill the boy if there was no pleasure to be derived from it?

“Sam, where are we going?”

Carolyn’s voice sounded funny, like she was straining to be heard through a static-jammed microphone. Sam knew what it was. This woman, this powerful woman, who had destroyed careers for the smallest political slight, who had sat across tables from world leaders, was not in charge. For once, she wasn’t the one in control, and taking away control, Sam knew, was like depriving Carolyn Osborn of air.

“I told you where we were going,” Sam hissed.

“This isn’t the same way we came before.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

A whimper came from the backseat. Sam glanced at the rearview mirror. It was too dark to see anything, so she fumbled for the switch to turn on the dome light. It was important to know what that loony bitch was doing every second.

Tink was cuddling a drowsy Byrne, stroking his hair and whispering nonsense.

“Tink, shut up,” Sam said.

“Leave her alone,” Carolyn said. “You know how she feels about him. Why did you even bring her?”

It was a good question. Tink had been a loose link in this chain, but Carolyn had always had a soft spot in her heart for the poor old thing.

Can’t we find a man for her?

Good God, Carolyn, who would want her?

We can pay someone, can’t we?

It was Carolyn who had the idea that they find a way to organize and hide their affairs. It had been easy to lure Bianca into the proposition by giving her a healthy percentage. It had been easy, too, to find other women on the island willing to pay for sex, but it always came back to the three of them-Sam, Carolyn, and Tink.