The Little Death

Chapter Thirty-one

Byrne Kavanagh’s apartment was at the end of an L-shaped building of pink stucco and blue doors. A rusty piece of tin mounted on the roof still tagged the place as the Breezy Palms Motor Court, but a newer and bigger sign near the driveway read CORONADO EFFICIENCIES-RENT BY WEEK OR MONTH.

Louis had the passenger door open before Swann put the BMW in park. When they stepped from the car, Louis unsnapped the holster on his belt and chambered a round in his Glock. He caught Swann looking at him.

Swann hadn’t said much on the ride over to West Palm Beach, but Louis knew what he was feeling. He had just been fired. He had no gun, no badge, no legal authority to be here.

“You don’t happen to have any plastic gloves in the car, do you?” Louis asked.

“Gloves?”

“Yeah,” Louis said. “If Kavanagh doesn’t answer, we’re going in.”

Swann went to his trunk. Louis looked up at the sky. It was only a little after six P.M., but it felt much later. Storm clouds were curling in from the west, billows of black and gray, made freakier by the lasers of lightning deep within.

Swann returned with two pairs of latex gloves. Louis couldn’t help but notice that they were top-of-the-line, dusted on the inside with talc to make them easy to slip on.

Louis led Swann to apartment twelve and knocked on the door. They had stopped at the Lyons home before coming out to West Palm, hoping to grill Dickie on last night’s altercation with Kavanagh, but there had been no answer. Mel had stayed back in Palm Beach, his assignment to keep trying to contact Dickie or Tink.

Their job was to find Kavanagh. Maybe to get some answers about how this prostitution ring ran and what had happened to the other three men. Even more important, they had to make sure Kavanagh himself wasn’t going to become victim number four.

Louis knocked again. No answer.

Swann went to the window. The drapes were drawn, so he cupped his hands to peer through the slit between the panels.

“I can’t see much, but I don’t think there’s anyone in there,” Swann said.

Louis pounded on the door. “Kavanagh! You in there?” he yelled.

Nothing.

“Andrew, you know how to jimmy a lock?” Louis asked.

“Sure, don’t you?”

Louis didn’t answer him, not wanting to admit he’d never gotten the hang of it. Swann dug into his pockets, and while he worked the lock with a Swiss Army knife, Louis scanned the parking lot. There were six cars, a van with a flat, and a pickup with a bed full of junk. Across the street was a liquor store and a café. Light traffic, no pedestrians, and no police cars.

The lock snapped, and Louis drew his Glock and looked back at Swann, indicating that he wanted to go in first. He didn’t expect a confrontation, but there was always a chance that Kavanagh was hunkered down inside with his own weapon, so spooked he would shoot at anything that came through his door.

Louis eased the door open and stepped quickly inside. The room was gray with shadows, but he could see what he needed to see: bed, dresser, desk, nightstand. In the back of the efficiency was an exposed kitchenette. The bathroom door was wide open.

“It’s clear, Andrew,” Louis said.

Swann stepped in, closed the door, and hit the light switch.

If someone was paying Byrne Kavanagh good money for sex, he sure wasn’t spending it on his living arrangements. The place was a classic cheap Florida rental: white walls, ugly green shag, tropical-print bedspread, and plastic bamboo lamp. Clothes were strewn near the bathroom door and across the bed.

A small cry broke the silence.

Both of them spun to the bed. At first, Louis saw only a heap of clothes; then the small orange and white ball of fur took shape. A kitten, looking at him the way his own cat did each time he walked in the door: relief that its human was home and food was on its way.

The kitten jumped off the bed, and Louis saw what it had been sleeping on-a dirty white shirt with red smears.

Louis held the shirt up so Swann could see it. The spatter across the torn front was definitely blood. The lapel said EMPORIO ARMANI. It was a good guess that this was the same shirt Kavanagh had worn last night.

“Well, we know he made it home,” Louis said.

Swann nodded, holding up a pair of jeans he’d found on the floor. The knees were grass-stained, the thighs dotted with blood. Swann tossed the jeans onto the bed and turned toward the desk.

“Hold on a minute, Andrew.”

Searching someone’s correspondence was always a good way to learn more about them, but in this case, Louis wanted Swann to wait. It was important that they know what happened last night.

“Let’s take a minute and walk through this like Kavanagh would have,” Louis said. “I like to keep things linear.”

Swann looked confused but nodded.

“Okay, Kavanagh was dropped off at the Circle K, a long way from here,” Louis said. “Either he took a cab or hitched a ride. He probably didn’t get home until after three A.M.”

“Right.”

Louis motioned to the bed. “So, he stripped off his clothes here and headed to the john.”

Swann moved to the bathroom door and reached in to turn on the light. Louis stepped up next to him.

The room was a mess. Dried blood in the white basin, smears on the faucet handles, and perfect crimson fingerprints on the edge of the mirror where Kavanagh had opened the medicine cabinet.

The floor was littered with crumpled red tissues, bloody towels, and a bottle of aspirin, its contents scattered across the floor like beads from a broken necklace.

“Damn,” Swann whispered.

“What’s the matter?” Louis asked.

“Gavin should have done more,” Swann said softly. “You don’t just drop somebody who’s hurting like this on the other side of the bridge and drive away.”

The image of a police officer dumping a bloody Kavanagh on the street brought Mel’s story to mind, the one he had told Louis about Reggie sitting on a curb in Miami, beaten and left by cops to find his own way home.

“Forget it,” Louis said. “Nothing you can do about that now.”

They returned to the main room and just stood there, staring at the bed. One side was heaped with clothes, and the other side was rumpled. Blanket pulled back, blood-streaked pillow bunched against the headboard.

“He slept here last night,” Louis said.

Swann sighed and took a long look around. “But if he was in such bad shape, why did he get up today and go anywhere?”

“Maybe he went to work,” Louis said.

“You saw that bathroom. Looks like he lost a quart of blood,” Swann said. “And if he was getting money from the women, why did he need to work?”

“Well, from the looks of this place, I’d say he hasn’t been in the sex business very long. Look through his desk and see what can you find.”

Swann started sorting through envelopes and papers. Louis opened the closet and sifted through the hanging clothes. A Sears sports coat. A pair of old Levi’s and a windbreaker. Three pastel Italian shirts, a pair of Sergio Valente jeans, and two more white Armani shirts like the bloody one on the bed. Dumped at the bottom was a pile of dirty shorts, T-shirts, sneakers, and sandals. But there was also one pair of soft black loafers. Louis picked one shoe up. Bruno Magli.

“He’s a yacht monkey,” Swann said.

“What?”

“I’m sorry,” Swann said. “That’s slang for those guys who crew on yachts. It looks like his last job was for a yacht brokerage called Seven Seas. Here’s his pay stub. This check is a few weeks old.”

Louis looked back at the bloody pillowcase. He wanted to believe Kavanagh had gone to work today, but he was having a real hard time with the idea that the kid had the strength to get out of bed, let alone spend eight hours swabbing down a yacht.

“Should we call Seven Seas?” Swann asked.

Louis looked around the room. “You see a phone, Andrew?”

Swann looked around, then started moving clothes and pillows. He found a cord and followed it to the space between the bed and the wall. He came up with an old rotary phone and a black answering machine. The machine’s red message light was blinking.

“Play it,” Louis said.

Swann set the answering machine on the bed and pushed the tab. A female voice squeaked from the box, telling Kavanagh he had one new message. A male voice followed.

“Yo, Byrne, buddy, this is the boss. Where the hell were you this morning? Hey, look, I don’t care that you’re taking a better job. But you promised you’d finish this last run to Bermuda for me before you quit. Anyway, give me a call if you want your final check.”

The message ended.

Louis suddenly remembered something he had seen outside. The pickup truck with the cluttered bed. “I’ll be right back,” he said.

The stuff in the back of the truck was boating equipment-heavy blue ropes, pulleys, cleaning equipment, a pair of old Top-Siders. Louis tried the driver’s-side door, surprised to find it unlocked. The registration was in the glove box. The truck belonged to Kavanagh.

Louis searched through the stuff in the cab, looking for anything to connect Kavanagh to Dickie, Tink, Carolyn Osborn, or any of the men who had been murdered. But all he found was an empty 7-Eleven cup, half a bag of chips, and a pair of flip-flops.

He went back inside. “Kavanagh’s truck is outside.”

“Maybe some friends picked him up and they went out for a few beers,” Swann offered.

Everything Swann was suggesting was logical. But something in his gut was telling him none of those things had happened. Kavanagh didn’t pick up his last pay check. His drawers were filled with clean clothes, and his toothbrush was in the bathroom, so he hadn’t left town.

Louis heard a cry and looked down.

The kitten looked up at him and trotted toward the kitchenette. Louis followed. The litter box in the corner held a couple days’ worth of poop, and the plastic food dish was licked dry. So was the water dish.

Damn.

Louis opened the cabinet over the sink, looking for some cat food. He spotted a box of Tender Vittles in the back. When he pulled out one of the bags of food, an envelope fell out.

It was letter-sized, a heavy cream-colored paper. Louis slipped a finger under the flap and opened it.

Money. A thin stack of bills. But all of them hundreds.

“Andrew!”

Swann came up to his side. “Jesus. How much is there?”

“Two thousand dollars,” Louis said.

“Payment from Tink Lyons?”

“Who knows?” Louis said. “Might be one night’s work or a week’s worth.”

Louis turned his attention to the envelope, hoping for initials or something, but there was nothing. He was about to slip the money back inside when he saw the embossing on the back flap. The Scotch tape had damaged part of the design, and he had to hold the envelope up to the light to define the pattern.

It was a three-petal stylized flower tied with a band. A fleur-de-lis. The same image glazed on the door of Bianca Lee’s flower shop.

“Get Mel on the phone,” Louis said. “Tell him to get his ass over to Bianca Lee’s flower shop and see if Kavanagh’s with her.”

“You think he’d go to her?” Swann asked.

Louis looked at the bloody shirt on the bed. “I don’t know,” he said. “But if she’s his new boss, I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where he went.”

While Swann made the phone call, Louis took another look around the room to make sure they hadn’t missed anything. Just in case Kavanagh had stashed more cash, he checked everything in the kitchenette, the bottoms of the desk drawers, the base of the lamp, and under the bed.

Swann hung up. “Mel says he’s getting Yuba to drive him over there right now. I told him we’d call back in about thirty minutes to see what he found out.”

Louis pushed to his feet. “Then let’s go.”

Swann pocketed the envelope, turned off the light, and followed Louis outside. It was raining now, big fat drops that hit the ground like small water balloons. Louis waited under the overhang while Swann fiddled with the doorknob to make sure it would lock again.

Suddenly, two gold eyes appeared in the window.

“Ah, shit,” Louis whispered.

“What’s the matter?”

“Don’t lock the door yet,” Louis said.

“Why?”

Louis headed back inside. “We have to take the cat,” he said. “I have a bad feeling Kavanagh might not be coming home tonight.”