Reggie seemed to feel Louis’s eyes on him and he reached for a pair of sunglasses and slipped them on.
“What happened?” Louis asked.
“Well, things were good at first,” Reggie said. “He was starting to get some requests for functions. As I watched him blossom, I took great solace in the idea that, if nothing else, I saved him from the awful life he had before.”
Louis couldn’t see Reggie’s eyes behind the sunglasses but he could tell the man was having trouble not breaking down.
“But after a few months I knew something was wrong,” Reggie said. “Mark started drinking heavily and disappearing for days at a time. He was moody and restless, like he was looking for something that he couldn’t find here on the island. God knows what that was. There isn’t anything you can’t get here.”
“Did you talk to him about it?”
Reggie nodded. “One night I got a call from Rusty Newsome. Mark didn’t show up to take her to a party. When he finally came home the next day I asked him what was wrong. He wouldn’t talk about it. And he wouldn’t call Rusty to apologize. It was so embarrassing.”
“That was it? He broke one date?” Louis asked.
Reggie shook his head. “There were others. And he just kept pulling further away from me. I was desperate to keep him, so I started smothering him, nagging him about where he was and who he was seeing. I started buying him all these gifts. For his birthday, I gave him a beautiful monogrammed robe from Kassatly’s. I found it the next day wadded up in the bottom of his closet.”
Reggie fell quiet. The silence was broken by the screech of wild parrots taking flight from a palm tree, streaks of acid green against the vivid blue sky.
“Tell us about the fight at Testa’s,” Mel said. “What started it?”
Reggie took another drink. The ice cubes tinkled against the crystal as he set the glass down. “I found a Patek Philippe in Mark’s bedroom,” he said.
“What’s that?” Louis asked.
“A watch,” Mel said.
“Not just a watch,” Reggie said. “It was a brand-new Calibre anniversary model made just this year. I could only imagine the price.”
“So what? You said you got gifts as a walker,” Louis said.
“Not like that,” Reggie said. “God, even low-end Pateks are twenty grand.”
“Did you ask him about it?”
“I was afraid to tell him because he’d know I had been snooping in his room. So I asked him to meet me at Testa’s for dinner. I was hoping that in a public setting, Mark would be civil and calm.”
“How did he explain the watch?”
“Well, when he showed up I could tell he had been drinking.” Reggie shook his head slowly. “When I showed him the watch, he got very angry. He grabbed it and put it on, saying he had worked hard for it.”
“He was prostituting again?” Louis asked.
Reggie looked miserable. “That’s what I thought, so I asked him. But then he told me that he wasn’t even gay.”
“What?” Louis said.
Reggie put up a hand. “I know, it sounds crazy. He told me he was really straight and only did it to make some easy money. Like I said, he was obsessed with money.”
Louis’s mind churned with questions-all of them too delicate and, hell, maybe too stupid-to ask someone like Reggie. But he had to admit that he didn’t understand a man like Mark Durand. Either you were straight or you weren’t, and if Mark was straight, Louis couldn’t imagine any amount of money that would entice him into a man’s bed.
“So, where did he get the watch?” Louis asked.
Reggie closed his eyes.
“Mr. Kent,” Louis pressed. “You have to tell us.”
“I kept asking him,” Reggie said softly. “Finally, he just exploded and said that he was-pardon my language, these are his words, not mine-that he was ‘fucking some of hottest bitches on the island’ and making more money than he ever thought possible. He said one of them gave him the watch.”
“He swung back to the ladies?” Louis asked.
“Not just any ladies,” Reggie said sharply. “My ladies. My friends.”
Louis sat back in the chair. “You sound angry.”
“I am angry!”
“Why, because he betrayed you?”
Reggie wrenched off his sunglasses. “He betrayed the profession! Don’t you get that?”
Louis just stared at him.
Reggie suddenly rose. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment.” And he disappeared into the house.
Louis heard the tinkle of ice and looked over at Mel. “What the hell is his problem?” Louis said.
“He’s angry,” Mel said, and took a sip of the lemonade.
“I’d say that’s a pretty good motive,” Louis said. “Durand led him on.”
Mel slowly set the tumbler down and sat forward, resting his long hands on his knees. “Forget about the personal shit for a moment,” he said. “Reggie took this guy under his wing and trained him in a profession. Now, we might think it’s a pretty weird profession, but to Reggie it’s a noble calling. And it wasn’t supposed to include sex.”
Louis shook his head.
“Think of it this way,” Mel went on. “How would you feel if you were a cop-”
“I was a cop once, Mel.”
“I know, I know. Okay, you’re a cop, and you have to train a rookie. But the rookie disregards the rules, screws up protocol, has no respect for the badge, and is generally an asshole. How would you feel?”
“It’s not the same thing, Mel.”
“It is to Reggie.”
At that moment, Reggie reappeared. His face was red, like he had scrubbed it hard. He had a fresh tumbler of lemonade. He sat down in his chair, spotted his sunglasses on the patio floor, and scooped them up. He put them on and tilted his chin up toward Louis.
“What else do you need to know?” he said calmly.
“The police report said you and Durand got physical outside the restaurant,” Louis said. “What happened exactly? And don’t leave out any details.”
Reggie drew in deep breath. “I told Mark I didn’t care what he did to me, but I was not going to let him get away with trashing my reputation. He told me to go fuck myself and left. I followed him out.”
“And what happened?”
Reggie was silent.
“What did you say to him, Mr. Kent?” Louis asked.
“I wish you’d call me Reggie.”
“What did you say to him?”
Reggie glanced at Mel before he spoke. “I told him that all I had to do was whisper in the right ear, and he’d be dead in this town.”
“Dead?”
“I didn’t mean it literally,” Reggie said. “I meant that he would be a pariah. No more lunches, parties, or pretty watches. I told him that with one word from me, he would be escorted off the island and dropped off at the nearest Greyhound station.”
“Why did the cops come?” Mel asked.
Reggie looked miserable. “We argued, and he pushed me. So I pushed him back. I didn’t mean it, but I was so angry. I wasn’t trying to hurt him, but he was so drunk he just fell. He hit his hand on the sidewalk and broke the watch’s crystal. He lost it, just lost it, screaming at me about the watch and calling me ugly names.”
Louis remembered a detail from the police report. “There were people seated outside who heard you.”
“I suppose,” Reggie muttered. “And then the police came.”
“What did they do?” Louis asked.
Reggie shrugged. “They just told us to behave ourselves, and they left.”
“What happened to Durand?”
“I don’t know,” Reggie said. “The last I saw him, he was walking up Royal Poinciana.”
Louis glanced at Mel, who was spreading caviar on the last toast point. He wondered if Mel was thinking the same thing he was-that when Detective Barberry heard this whole story, he would be even more convinced of Kent’s guilt. If that was possible.
“We’re going to need the names of these women Durand was with,” Louis said.
“I don’t know who they are,” Reggie said. He gave an indignant tip of his chin. “Ironically, I would have been the first to know this sort of thing before. Gossip is currency in this town. But now-”