Louis finished the wine in one gulp and looked out over the water. For a second, he thought about telling Mel about Sam. A part of him felt bad because she was married. But that wasn’t what was really bothering him. It was the fact that with one act of sex with a stranger, he was admitting it was over with Joe. She had been the one who opened the door to the possibility. But last night, he had been the one who shut it.
Mel was his friend. He wanted to talk to him, but he couldn’t, because Mel and Joe had once had their own relationship, and he wasn’t sure whose side Mel would take.
“Speaking of swans,” Mel said. “He’s going to be a problem, you know.”
Louis turned back, glad for something to take his mind off Joe. “He’s just a guard dog.”
“Yeah, but he’s like that cockroach dog that tried to take me out yesterday. It may be small, but you don’t want to get between it and its master.”
It started to drizzle. In a rush of taffeta and tittering, the women were ushered inside by their men. Louis and Mel followed, staking out a corner by the front door in the suddenly packed lobby. There was nothing to do but stand there and take in the crowd. It was the same mix he had seen at Ta-boo: blondes with pneumatic cleavage squired by old men with gleaming teeth and clots of brittle matrons wearing golf-ball-size jewels.
There was an odd desperation to the laughter and chatter. Louis watched as everyone went through a weird choreography of kisses-quick pecks on the lips, full-court mouth presses, European air kisses, double air kisses moving from cheek to cheek. Louis had the feeling that behind each kind of kiss, you could somehow read a person’s status.
A flash of red hair caught Louis’s eye. He strained to see, and then, suddenly, the crowd parted for a moment, and there she was.
Sam-lovely Sam with no last name-standing near the bar. Her hair was twisted up on her head, her shoulders white against her emerald gown.
She was talking to a guy with dark slicked-back hair and a tangerine tan. It was the guy Louis had seen her with at Ta-boo, the one she had sent on his way with a kiss to the cheek.
The guy took a drink of champagne and leaned in to hear something Sam said. But all the while, his eyes, with the hard sheen of his onyx cuff links, wandered around the room.
Louis stared at Sam, willing her to turn.
Finally, she did. Their eyes met. Louis gave a discreet nod and a smile.
Sam turned away. She said something to the man. He put a hand at the small of her back and led her away.
Louis felt a hot flush travel up the back of his neck. Well, fuck you, too, lady.
“What’s the matter with you?”
Mel’s voice didn’t register for a second. Finally, Louis turned to Mel. “Nothing.”
The lights dimmed, and a soft bell sounded. The ushers were trying to herd people inside the theater, but no one seemed interested in moving. A sudden crack of thunder drew gasps. Beyond the double doors, rain began to pound down, and the awning billowed and flapped in the wind.
Mel pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his sweating head. “Where the hell is Reggie?” he said.
On cue, Louis spotted Reggie’s pink face in the crowd. He had a white-haired woman in gray on his arm.
Reggie’s face was shiny with sweat, but he was smiling broadly as he drew up before them.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “may I present Margery Leigh Cooper Laroche.”
The woman was more than six feet tall, stick thin, and straight-backed, wearing a severe gown of gray satin set off with long strands of gray, white, and black pearls. There was no way to tell exactly how old she was, but Louis was guessing somewhere north of seventy. Whatever her age, she had been a beauty in her day. Her sharply chiseled face was accented by a slashing red mouth and deep-set gray eyes heavily outlined in black. As she slowly raised a bony hand, Louis thought of one of the majestic blue herons he often saw prowling the beach in front of his cottage.
“Hello,” she said.
If she hadn’t been so stunning, Louis would have thought she was a man, her voice was that deep. Shit, the way things were here in Bizarro World, maybe she was.
Mel stepped forward to take her hand. He didn’t shake it, just held it gently like a medieval courtier. “Ma’am,” he said with a smile.
“You’re Mr. Landeta.” She smiled. “Thank you for being such a good friend to Reggie.”
Reggie blew out a breath that lifted his wispy blond hair.
Margery Laroche focused on Louis, extending her hand. “And you must be Mr. Kincaid.”
Louis held her hand the way Mel had. Her eyes bored into his. Over Margery Laroche’s shoulder, he saw people staring and whispering.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea,” Reggie said softly to Margery. “I don’t want to put you in a bad-”
“Ishkabibble!” Margery Laroche said.
The lights dimmed again, and the bell sounded. The ushers once again tried to move the crowd, this time with raised voices, like teachers admonishing children to take their seats.
“We should go in,” Reggie said.
Margery Laroche was still staring at Louis, still holding his hand. The crowd eddied around them, the whispers rising.
Margery Laroche finally let go of Louis’s hand. “Fucking Philistines,” she murmured.
Mel laughed. Reggie turned beet red.
The lights dimmed again. The bell pealed. Finally, the crowd was thinning out.
Margery Laroche’s hard gray eyes went from Mel to Louis. “I’m not going to let these high-hatters destroy Reggie,” she said. “What can I do to help?”
Louis looked to Reggie. He was staring at the floor, no longer trusting himself to speak.
“Just tell us the truth,” Louis said.
Margery’s large red mouth tipped in a wry smile. “The truth,” she said. “Quel interesting. Be at my place tomorrow at ten. We’ll do breakfast.”
She turned sharply and started away. Reggie mouthed a quick “Thank you” to Louis and Mel and hurried to catch up.
“What do you think?” Mel asked
Louis watched Margery Leigh Cooper Laroche disappear into the darkness of the theater. “I think that woman knows where all the bodies are buried.”
Chapter Nine
Last night’s rain had lingered, turning the morning as dark as dusk. Louis kept one eye on the curbside street signs and the other on his rearview mirror looking for cops. He hadn’t had a chance to get the Mustang’s broken taillight fixed yet.
Worse, Mel wasn’t along to help. He had begged off the breakfast meeting with Margery Leigh Cooper Laroche because of a blinding headache. Louis was worried, because the headaches, a symptom of Mel’s eye problems, seemed to be coming more frequently.
Margery’s home was “on the third El” off South Ocean Boulevard, Reggie had said. Louis spotted a curb sign: El Bravo Way. He slowed. The next one was El Brillo Way.
Another block, and there was El Vedado. Three Els. He swung a right.
Reggie claimed he didn’t know the house number. “I’ve never had reason to mail anything to her,” he said, adding that it was “the big pink house on the right. You can’t miss it.”
It was a three-story monster of a Spanish villa. And as Louis leaned forward to peer through the sweep of the wipers, he realized the property extended the width of the island from the ocean to the Intracoastal.
Louis turned into the broad circular drive, killed the engine, and jogged through the rain to the massive door under the portico. There was no doorbell, just a tiny security camera tucked into a corner above the door. He stared up at it and finally, feeling ridiculous, gave a small wave.
A few moments later, with a loud click, the door swung open. A small, stoop-shouldered old man in black stood aside to let Louis in. “Mrs. Laroche is waiting for you, sir,” he said in a hoarse, British-accented whisper.
Louis followed the shuffling fellow through a drafty entrance hall of high arches and marble and down a long corridor of polished tiles and mirrors. It was very warm and moist, like there was no air-conditioning. Huge palms in blue ceramic pots sat motionless in the still air. The place looked like an ancient Spanish castle, and Louis’s mind clicked back to the Palm Beach Life magazine he had thumbed through last night back at the hotel when he couldn’t sleep. There was an article on an architect named Addison Mizner, who had single-handedly left his imprint on Palm Beach back in the twenties-everything from Worth Avenue’s little alleyways to oceanfront mansions.