P. Parrish - The Little Death

The snorting of pugs made them both look to the archway. Margery came in, her Pucci caftan a floating rainbow cloud.

“I just got off the phone with Harvey,” she said. “You would not believe what that man is charging me for all this.”

Reggie looked away, embarrassed.

“He got the charges dropped against Reggie,” Louis said.

Margery grimaced. “Okay, he hit on all sixes, but he still cost me some heavy sugar. Lawyers… the world would spin so much better without them.”

“Can’t say I disagree with that,” Louis said. He rose. “Well, I have to get going.”

Margery stared at him. “Going? Going where?”

“It’s time for me to go home.”

“Is Marvin going with you?”

Louis nodded.

“But I thought he was canoodling with that lovely bartender at Ta-boo?”

Louis had ceased to wonder how word got around the island so fast. “Marvin’s leaving, too.”

Margery let out a big sigh and looked down at Reggie. “Well, say your goodbyes, dear. I’m going to walk him out.”

Reggie looked up at Louis. “How can I thank you?” he said softly.

“Just be happy, Reg.”

Reggie nodded.

“Let’s ankle, Louis,” Margery said.

Louis followed Margery out of the loggia and into the hallway. The pugs followed them outdoors. Louis watched them as they rolled and snorted in the grass. Louis spotted Franklin over by the coral fountain, ladling out leaves with a small aquarium net. A van pulled up to the mansion across the street and dislodged a crew of three women in uniforms who disappeared behind a servants’ entrance gate. Two brown-faced Hispanic men in long-sleeved shirts and wide-brimmed hats were perched on ladders, trimming the twelve-foot hedges.

Margery was watching the blue swells rolling in from the Atlantic. She pulled in a deep breath and closed her eyes.

“Things are changing,” she said softly.

Louis was quiet.

“When I got here, there were rules, and everyone knew how to act,” she said. “But now… the world is too much with us on our little island.”

She turned to Louis. “I was reading the papers today,” she said. “About Mark Durand and everything. But there was nothing about Emilio.” She paused. “Did you ever find out what happened to him?”

Louis didn’t feel like going into any of it now, but he knew Margery would find out everything eventually. “He was murdered,” he said.

Margery looked back toward the ocean. “He was a nice boy,” she said softly. “I had this little fantasy about him.”

She sensed Louis staring at her but kept her eyes on the ocean. “Not like you might think. It’s just that, well, I couldn’t have any babies, you see, and my Lou did so want a son.”

She was quiet for a long time before she turned back to Louis. “Didn’t you tell me that Emilio had a family?”

Louis nodded. “He has a sister in Immokalee.”

“A sister. What is her name?”

“Rosa. Rosa Díaz.”

Margery hesitated, then dug into the pocket of her caftan. She came out with her pink leather checkbook. “Oh, futz, do you have a pen, dear?”

Louis padded his jacket and produced a Bic.

“Turn around, love.”

Louis did as instructed, and Margery used his back to write. She ripped out a check, and he turned back around.

“Give this to her, would you?” Margery said.

Louis looked at the check. It was for $50,000.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said.

“Of course I don’t, ducky. But it makes me feel good.”

She dug into her caftan again and pulled out a second check. “This is for you.”

Louis unfolded the check. It was for $250,000.

“Margery, this is too much,” he said.

“Half is for Marvin, you foolish boy,” Margery said.

Louis folded the check and put it in his pocket. “Margery, you’re a right gee,” he said.

She grabbed him and planted a huge kiss on his lips.

When she pulled back, her red slash of a mouth was a smudged smile. “Now you’re on the trolley, Lou-EE.”

When Louis got back to Reggie’s house, he found Mel in the living room packing up the pigpen. Mel had scrounged up some file boxes and already had them labeled with the victims’ names and the contents.

Keys still in his hand, Louis stood in the middle of the room watching Mel as he stuffed reports into manila envelopes. Mel finally noticed him.

“What’s wrong?” Mel asked.

“Do me a favor,” Louis said. “Before we drop this stuff off with Major Cryer, make copies for us.”

“I already did.”

Louis just stared at him.

“I know you,” Mel said. “If Kavanagh croaks, I know you aren’t going to let that bitch go free.”

“Kavanagh’s going to live,” Louis said.

“Is he talking?”

Louis shook his head. “Carolyn Osborn bought him off.”

Mel rose to his feet. “When? How?”

“This morning.”

“He admitted it outright?”

Louis shook his head. “No, but there was an orchid in the room. I asked the cop on my way out why he let anyone in there, and he told me the only person who went in was a redheaded delivery guy.”

“Greg.”

“Right.”

Mel looked around at his boxes, then back at Louis. “Well, hell, maybe Kavanagh looked at it like this,” he said. “He could put Carolyn Osborn in jail and go back to being a poor guy with an ugly scar, or he could keep quiet and be a rich guy with an ugly scar.”

“I get that,” Louis said. “But I’m not going to let this drop.” He looked at Mel. “Thanks for making the copies.”

Mel tossed the envelope into a box and gestured to the sliding glass doors that looked out over the beach. “Andrew stopped by to bid us farewell,” he said. “Better go tell him the news. He’s outside with Queenie.”

“Queenie?”

“His dog.”

Louis looked out the window. Against a blended blue backdrop of ocean and sky, Louis saw Swann. He was wearing baggy denim shorts, a lemon-yellow T-shirt, and, on his thigh, a thick white bandage that contrasted sharply with his tan. Queenie was an Irish setter, the same dog Louis had seen in a picture on Swann’s desk.

“Give him this for me,” Mel said.

Mel was holding a comic book. The cover showed a Frankenstein face looming over a puffed-chest Superman. The title was Escape from Bizarro World .

“I don’t think he’ll appreciate the joke,” Louis said.

“Yes, he will,” Mel said.

Louis took the comic book and walked out to the beach. Queenie was in full gallop after a stick, Swann watching her with pride. Queenie snagged the stick and started back to them, her body lithe and graceful as she bounded across the beach. In the slanting afternoon sun, her copper fur shone like wavy silk threads against the canvas of white sand.

“She’s a beautiful animal,” Louis said.

Swann heaved the stick again and faced Louis. “Yeah. I fell in love with her the first time I saw her.”

“Where’d you get her?”

“She found me,” Swann said. “I was sitting in a park reading, and she just wandered up. No tag, no collar. I put ads in the paper, but when no one claimed her, I kept her.”

Louis nodded and looked at the two crutches in the sand, then at the second bandage on Swann’s left shoulder.

“You’re crazy to be up on that leg so soon,” Louis said.

“I know, but I wanted to come over and say goodbye to you and Mel.”

Queenie came back and dropped the stick at Swann’s feet, then started a dance around his legs. Swann gave her another throw and looked at Louis. His eyes paused for a second at the thin scar on Louis’s cheek.

“So, when do we arrest the senator?” Swann asked.