“What do you mean?”
“Reggie Kent. Why do you care what happens to a guy like that?”
“A guy like what?”
Louis was silent. A hot current started up his neck.
“Gay,” Mel said. “You can’t even say it, for crissake.”
“That’s not-”
“And you’re wondering how I even know a guy like that.”
The way Mel had drawn out the last two words made Louis fall silent again. Mel took a long drag on his cigarette.
“I met Reggie about fifteen years ago, when I was a sergeant with Miami PD,” Mel said. “One of my guys called me on an assault. It was Thanksgiving, and the only reason I was working that night was because I switched with a guy who wanted the day off to be with his family. When I got there, I saw Reggie sitting on the curb, all beat up. The uniform pulled me aside and said the two guys who attacked him were in a bar across the street. The uniform wanted my permission to no-action it.”
Mel blew out a long stream of smoke. “The uniform said it wasn’t worth the paperwork to go arrest them.”
“What did you do?” Louis asked.
“I told the uniforms to leave,” Mel said. “Kent said he didn’t have anyone he could call, so I drove him to Jackson Memorial.”
Mel tossed the cigarette to the sand and ground out the butt with his heel.
“I went back to check up on him the next day,” he said. “Turned out he had a concussion. Almost lost an eye. He was in the hospital for a week. I went back and saw him a couple of times. The nurse told me he never had any visitors. No family, either.”
Louis watched as Mel worked his jaw. It was the same agitated gesture he had done back at the sheriff’s office, just before he told Barberry to “knock off that shit.”
“So, you and Kent,” Louis began. “You became friends?”
Mel shook his head. “Nah. But at Christmas, he sent me a fruit basket at the station.”
Louis smiled.
Mel smiled, too. “Yeah, I took some shit for that.”
“But you never saw him?”
“Nope. But every year, he sent a Christmas card to the station.”
“How’d he find you after you quit?” Louis asked.
“Beats me. Somebody at the station probably told him I had hired on with Fort Myers PD. My home number’s in the phone book.” Mel took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “I was shocked as hell when he called me. Our paths crossed once a long time ago. That’s all.”
The sun was setting, great streaks of red. Louis wanted to start back so they wouldn’t be caught out there when the dark came. But Mel had pulled out the Zippo and another Kool. The lighter flared and snapped closed with a sharp clink. Mel’s face was lost in the dusk.
Again, the question came to Louis: What were they doing here? What was he doing here? Swann and even Barberry looked down their noses at him because he didn’t have a badge. But he was used to that. He was even used to being the only black guy in a town of whites. What he wasn’t used to was feeling like some kind of insect because he wasn’t wearing the right jacket.
Face it, Kincaid, this isn’t about Reggie Kent. It’s about you not feeling like you fit in.
“I know you don’t want to take this case,” Mel said.
Louis looked at him. Mel was a silhouette, the tip of his cigarette glowing.
“I’m just not sure there’s a case here, Mel,” Louis said. “I’m not sure we can be any good to this Kent guy.”
“Is it because he’s gay? That’s not like you to-”
“No,” Louis said. “That’s not it.”
“What’s bothering you, then?”
“Nothing. Nothing’s bothering me.”
Mel took a long drag on the cigarette. “Something’s eating at you, Rocky. It’s been going on for a while now. You aren’t a barrel of laughs even in the best of times, but lately-”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You know what I mean.” Mel’s cigarette glowed in the dark. “Is it Joe?”
Louis was glad Mel couldn’t see his face. Truth was, it was Joe, in part. He hadn’t seen her in months, and they had barely talked on the phone since Thanksgiving. He loved her, but he had the feeling now that they were drifting, and he wasn’t sure anymore it was toward each other.
“All right,” Mel said. “You don’t have to tell me.”
They were quiet for a long time. A cricket started up nearby. Louis could barely make out the yellow crime tape now.
“I want to try to help Reggie,” Mel said. “And you know I can’t do this alone anymore.”
Louis heard the catch in Mel’s voice, knew how hard it was for him to admit that.
“Let’s give it a day, all right?” Mel said. “See how far we get.”
Louis shut his eyes. No vibration. No feeling. No sense of what had happened in this strange place. His intuition was telling him only to get out of there.
“Let’s go,” Louis said. “You better take my arm.”
Mel put a hand on Louis’s sleeve, and Louis led him out of the darkness.
Chapter Six
Louis voted for the Motel 8 in West Palm Beach. But Mel overruled him on grounds that if they intended to infiltrate Bizarro World, they had to be in the thick of it. A call to Reggie led them to the Brazilian Court, a couple of blocks off Worth Avenue. But when Louis discovered the rooms started at $250 a night, they retreated to Ta-boo to regroup. Yuba the bartender suggested they try a place nearby called the Palm Beach Historic Inn.
The small hotel had one double left, a Spartan but immaculate room with twin beds. It was $85 a night, but it was right next door to the police station. There was the bonus of a cozy little bar in the lobby.
That’s where Louis left Mel around ten-thirty, with the last of the Burger King takeout and a second snifter of Rémy Martin. Feeling too restless to go back upstairs and watch the grainy TV, Louis set out on the deserted streets.
He found his way back to Worth Avenue, nearly empty now of cars and people. Drawn by the salty smell, he headed toward the beach, down a long block and under the watchful eyes of the mannequins in Neiman Marcus’s windows. Alone on a bench at the beach, he found himself under new scrutiny, from a Palm Beach PD car that sat at the curb behind him for a full fifteen minutes before it finally pulled away. Louis was certain the cop behind the wheel had called in and someone had told him there was a black dude in town but he was okay.
After twenty minutes, he started back. The last thing he wanted was to listen to Mel snore, so he kept going down Worth Avenue.
The shops were closed, but most of the window lights were still on, some illuminating little velvet cushions imprinted with the outlines of the jewels that had been locked away in safes at closing time. The only sparkle now came from Christmas decorations.
A giant Christmas tree had sprouted in the intersection in front of Tiffany’s, decorated with huge gold and white balls. The small palms lining the avenue had been strung with white lights and lit from beneath by aqua spotlights that made the trees look weirdly fake.
Louis paused. Christmas already?
He walked on. Three years in Florida, and it still took him by surprise. There was no set signal, no warning from the weather, that the holidays were coming. It always left him mildly depressed.
Joe was suddenly there in his head. And their conversation when she had called to wish him happy birthday last month.
Why don’t you come up to Michigan for Christmas?
I don’t know, Joe.
Don’t you miss it?
She had been talking about the snow and all of the seasonal stuff. But he had heard: Don’t you miss me?
Of course he missed her.
He paused in front of a flower shop, looking at a pay phone. It was past midnight, but he was sure she’d be up. She had never been the kind to go to sleep early, even when she was exhausted.
He used his phone card to dial long-distance to northern Michigan. Surprisingly, there was no answer at her cottage. He hesitated, then tried the sheriff’s office.