“You shouldn’t get used to it,” Louis said.
Reggie had been looking out at the ocean again and turned back. “What?”
“You should never get used to people treating you like shit because you’re maybe a little-”
Reggie smiled. “Queer?”
“I was going to say different.”
They were quiet again. A phone was ringing somewhere deep in the house. Louis and Reggie both looked at the mute extension phone, but neither made a move to pick it up.
Louis saw a shadow pass over Reggie’s bruised face and wondered again what he had endured in jail. A part of him didn’t want to know, no matter how much he figured Reggie might need to talk about it.
“I was in jail once,” Louis said.
Reggie looked at him in surprise.
“Eight years ago, I had to go back to the town where I was born in Mississippi,” Louis said.
“You’re from Mississippi?”
Louis nodded. “Some shit happened there, and I ended up in jail. One of the guards put a noose around my neck and tried to hang me.”
“Good Lord,” Reggie whispered.
“Yeah, he was a real piece of work.”
They were quiet again.
“Do you think about it a lot?” Reggie asked.
Louis hesitated. “It left a scar around my neck, but it’s faded a lot. Now I only think about it every time I shave.”
Reggie gave a wry smile and stroked the pug.
“You’ll be okay, Reg,” Louis said.
He gave Louis a long look and heaved a big sigh. “That’s not my real name, you know.”
Louis nodded. “Andrew told me you changed it.”
“Ronald Barnabas Kaczmarek, that’s my real name. How can a person be taken seriously with a name like that?”
“Sounds like a perfectly good name to me.”
“Not in this town.”
The pug jumped off the lounge and trotted off. Reggie picked up the Shiny Sheet and held it out to Louis. “It’s all here, you know, every sordid detail. Tink Lyons’s funeral is today. The jackals are having a field day picking at the carcasses.”
“Why don’t you leave?” Louis said.
Reggie folded up the Shiny Sheet and set it on the table. “Where would I go? Back to Buffalo? Please.”
Louis was quiet.
“I know this is a horrible place in many ways,” Reggie said. “But it is also quite lovely, and it is my home. There’s no way you’ll ever understand, but I feel safe here. I don’t think I can survive anywhere else anymore.”
Louis understood perfectly. With Margery at his side, Reggie Kent would resume his place on the island. His phone would ring again. His ladies would embrace him again. He would return to the ballet, to caviar on his patio, and to his coveted table by the fireplace in Ta-boo.
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.”
Chapter Forty-four
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.”