Mr. Paradise

by Elmore Leonard

  “Bouncing his shit,” Harris said.

  “On the way back they stop on the bridge and Reggie chucks the piece over the side. Jerome says he knows the exact spot where Reggie was standing.”

  Jackie said, “How you get him to tell you all that?”

  “We let him deal some weed, keep him out of court,” Delsa said, “and he tells us things.” Delsa turned from Jackie, at her desk, to Harris across the aisle. “I asked him if he knew Orlando, both of them dealing weed. He says he’s heard the name.”

  “He’ll see the man’s burnt-up house,” Harris said, “he watches any TV.”

  “What about Orlando’s girlfriend?”

  “I did what you said, got next to the neighbor lady, Rosella Munson. She told me Tenisha and her mother were close, she’d probably run to her mama’s house, and that’s where I found her. The mother doesn’t care for Orlando. She told Tenisha, answer my questions or she’d take a stick to her.”

  Jackie asked how old Tenisha was.

  “Twenty,” Harris said. “She and her mother are at Northland all day yesterday, shopping. The mother says she took her home around five. Tenisha goes in the house, Orlando’s mopping the floor in the dining room with Pine Sol and bleach, using so much, Tenisha said, it burned her eyes.”

  “She didn’t ask,” Jackie said, “what he was cleaning up, did she?”

  “Said she couldn’t remember if she did or not.”

  Jackie said, “You know this Orlando’s never touched a mop before in his life.”

  “She goes next door,” Harris said, “to get away from the fumes, the smell, and sits down with Rosella to watch a movie on TV. After while she hears a car, looks out the window and sees two friends of Orlando’s standing by a black SUV. Orlando comes out with some trash bags—they’re full of something but she doesn’t know what—and puts them in the back end. Now Orlando drives off in the SUV, by himself. The two guys—one of ‘em she remembers as Jo-Jo—tell her to go on back next door. Stay there till they come get her. Tenisha says this is her house, she can do what she wants. She goes upstairs and comes back down with her coloring book and crayons. Frank, they were hers.”

  Delsa said, “You never know.”

  “There’s a part here,” Harris said, “we didn’t learn about till a few hours ago. Orlando and Jo-Jo, that afternoon, went to Sterling Auto Sales and took the SUV out for a test drive—be right back. Okay, later on Orlando drives off with the trash bags. He’s on Michigan Avenue westbound, a radio car from the Fourth flashes him to pull over. Orlando takes off, runs a red light, turns a corner, sideswipes a couple of cars and jumps out, abandons ship. They look for him but it’s dark now and he gets away. They look in the SUV, Ford Explorer, find like a hundred pounds of grass in three of the bags, bloody clothes in another, and a Chinese AK-47. Sterling Auto Sales had reported the SUV stolen.”

  “If he used the AK on the Mexicans,” Delsa said. “Now he has to dump it.”

  “That’s how it looks,” Harris said. “And stash the weed at his mother’s, like they do. Hundred pounds, Jackie. How long would that last you?”

  “That was white-boy Glenn’s habit, not mine. I’m done with him. My evenings off, I’m out at Sportree’s sipping Bombay, looking to bring a tall black dude into my life. Little Glenn was fun, but he made me nervous.”

  “I’m not done,” Harris said. “Orlando comes home in a taxi and now he’s tripped out, can’t sit still. He says, ‘My prints are all over that shit. My fuckin life is done.’ This is good. Jo-Jo says to him, ‘So you didn’t get the gasoline and the fuckin chain saw like you suppose to.’ They get in an argument, Orlando wanting to know how he’s gonna get the gasoline and the fuckin chain saw with cops on his ass. The taxi’s still there, the driver a friend of theirs, so Jo-Jo takes it and comes back with, Tenisha says, ‘the things they needed.’”

  Delsa said, “They talk about the guys in the basement? Who they are? What happened?”

  “No mention of ‘em. Orlando puts Tenisha in the cab and tells the driver, take her to the Parkside Motel on West Warren. They called and reserved two rooms.”

  Jackie said, “Did she put up any kind of fuss? Or just went along with whatever?”

  “Says she was too scared to say anything.”

  Delsa said, “She bring her coloring book?”

  Harris was shaking his head. “What the girl did was fall asleep. Laid down on the bed and woke up to Orlando pounding on the door. His homies had the other room but came in to sit around and smoke dope. Here’s the good part. Orlando makes a phone call. Tenisha hears him say, ‘The three dudes are in the basement.’ Then he says something like, ‘All the stuff’s there.’ I think meaning the gasoline and the fuckin chain saw. She falls asleep again while Orlando’s watching TV. She wakes up, asks him why he doesn’t turn it off so they can get some sleep. He says, ‘I’m waiting to see if I’m on the news.’ I asked her what he meant by that. She says, ‘I guess about the dead guys, if they were found.’ I asked did she see them at any time. No.” Harris paused and said, “You like it so far? Wait. There’s one more part you gonna love.”

  Jackie’s phone rang.

  Delsa turned to her as she was saying, “Squad Seven, Sergeant Michaels.”

  Then back to Harris.

  Harris saying, “Four o’clock in the morning somebody’s knocking on the motel door. It wakes up Tenisha. She sees Orlando go over to the door, open it partway and now he’s talking to a guy she thought was a light-skin brother. She couldn’t see him good.”

  Delsa looked at Jackie, busy now making notes.

  Harris saying, “She can feel the cold, the door open. So she calls to Orlando, ‘Honey, I’m freezing to death.’ The guy Orlando’s talking to raises his head and says to her, ‘You cold? You look hot to me.’”

  Harris waited for Delsa still looking at Jackie.

  Jackie saying into the phone, “How many?”

  Harris said, “Frank, you hear what I said?”

  “The guy told her she looked hot.”

  Harris said, “Yeah, but from his voice she could tell the guy was Mexican.”

  Delsa eased into saying, “Is that right?” in his quiet way.

  Harris said, “What do you think?”

  But now Jackie was off the phone. She said, “We just got a big-time double.”

  “How big?” Delsa said, the Mexican in the motel doorway gone.

  “Anthony Paradiso, at his home on Iroquois, Indian Village, and a young woman.”

  Harris said, “Which Paradiso?”

  “The old man.”

  Harris said, “Damn. I was hoping it was his kid.” He looked at Delsa. “I bet you were too. You know who fat-ass Tony’s gonna say did it, some quick-draw cop. Some cowboy they sued on a wrongful death and it cost the city money.”

  Delsa was looking at Jackie. “Who’s the woman?”

  “They don’t have a name yet. Blond, mid-twenties, wearing a little pleated skirt. Response was from the Seventh, the OIC’s your old buddy Dermot Cleary.”

  “Where were they found?”

  “Didn’t say. Three others in the house when the shots were fired.”

  “They still there?”

  “Waiting for us,” Jackie said.

  7

  THEY PARKED ON THE STREET. THREE FIGURES now in dark coats leaving the car, Harris wearing a brown Borsalino, saying, “The advantage of the swing, Frank, you don’t get a backache, or rug burns when you have to do it on the floor.”

  They walked toward the house all lit up, the driveway full of cars, Jackie Michaels saying, “White-boy Glenn brought one of those home—you have to be a trapeze artist to get laid in it, believe me. Glenn fell out on his head and that was the end of the Love Swing.”

  They ducked under police tape and the dark sedans in the drive became radio cars and it was a crime scene.

  The sergeant from the Seventh Precinct, Dermot Cleary, Delsa’s partner his rookie year, was waiting near the entrance. He said, “
Two of ‘em for you, Frank. Anthony Paradiso—a shame it isn’t Tony Jr., the fuck, and a Kelly Barr, white female twenty-seven, resides on River Place off Franklin. They’re in the living room.”

  Delsa said, “And three witnesses?”

  Cleary, flipping open his notebook, stepped into the light above the double doors. Delsa saw one of the rose-colored panes of glass had been shattered.

  “Montez Taylor, black male thirty-three, lives on the premises.” Cleary looked up from his notes. “Dresses like a fuckin lawyer, pinstripe suit and tie. Says he’s Mr. Paradiso’s personal man. I said, ‘What’s that mean, you shine his shoes?’ Montez refers to the old man as Mr. Paradise. Been with him ten years. Also on the scene, a Lloyd Williams, black male seventy-one. Lloyd admits he’s a servant, the houseman, also lives on the premises. Says he was sound asleep, didn’t hear any gunshots.”

  “How many?”

  “Four. The old man and girl two each.”

  “The third witness?”

  “If you want to call her that, Chloe Robinette, white female twenty-seven. Same age, same address as Kelly Barr. They live together. This is according to Montez. I only saw Chloe for a minute. She’s in a bedroom upstairs, an officer with her.”

  “She tell you anything?”

  “Like pulling teeth. Montez says she’s in shock.”

  “Montez a doctor?”

  “He’s a talker, Frank. Montez sees it as a fucked-up home invasion. Says he scared the guy off before he could take anything.”

  “Where was he when the shots were fired?”

  “Upstairs with Chloe. Montez says they’re hookers, very high class. Nine bills an hour, if you can believe it.”

  Delsa looked at Jackie, at one time in Vice. “Kelly Barr and Chloe Robinette?”

  Jackie shook her head. “Too high class to be in the files.”

  “He hears the shots,” Delsa said, “runs out of the bedroom and sees this one-man home invader?”

  “Going out the door, a black guy,” Cleary said. “Frank, you can tell this Montez struts his shit. Only in this situation he has to act like he wants to help.”

  “He sound educated?”

  “Take off the pinstripe suit,” Cleary said, “he hangs on a corner. Not a big guy, middleweight, about your size.”

  “I thought the Village had a security patrol.”

  “They stopped by, see what was going on.”

  “Why this house?”

  “It was a hit,” Cleary said. “I don’t buy that one-man home invasion shit either. Not a house this big.”

  “We don’t know anything yet,” Delsa said. “We don’t know if the guy came in this way or smashed the glass on the way out. We don’t even know for sure the girls are hookers. Montez could have his own reason for saying it.”

  “Take a look at the broad in the chair,” Cleary said, “you’ll know.”

  •

  Delsa, buttoned up in dark navy, crossed the living room to view the dead, Jackie and Harris coming behind him. He motioned to a uniform in the arched entrance to the dining room. The officer came over. Delsa said to him, “That’s Montez?”

  “Yes sir, Montez Taylor.”

  A good-looking black guy sitting at the head of the dining room table smoking a cigarette, gray suit and gold tie on a dark shirt, legs crossed, his chair turned to watch the evidence techs working the living room. A woman’s handbag was on the table, away from him.

  Delsa asked the uniform if he knew what Montez was smoking. The uniform said no, he didn’t. Delsa said he’d lay five bucks it was a Newport. Harris said he’d take it. Delsa said to him, “Get a tech to bag the cigarette butt,” and now approached the chair facing the television set. A tech by the name of Alex was photographing the bodies. He stepped aside to give Homicide a close look at the old man and the girl:

  Their faces masked with dried blood from gunshot wounds centered on their foreheads, mouths slack, eyes closed. The wound in the girl’s chest had brought an eruption of blood over her bare breasts, her stomach, and stained the waist of her maize and blue pleated skirt, the hem folded up to show her sex, a dense patch of dark hair. The front of the old man’s warm-up jacket was stained black.

  Delsa said, “Their eyes were closed?”

  “Haven’t touched ‘em,” Alex said. “Had their heads back like that, not slumped over. I checked with Sergeant Cleary. They were looking right at it when they got popped.”

  “What’s that on her chest, a tattoo?”

  “Magic Marker. It looks like somebody drew a big M on her.”

  “The TV set was off?”

  “Yeah, I checked that, too. We’ll dust it good, the glasses, get elimination prints off the witnesses and test ‘em for gunshot residue.”

  “What about the wounds?”

  “The ones in the head are through and through, but I haven’t dug ‘em out of the chair yet. No casings on the floor.”

  “What about her skirt?”

  “That’s how it was. Like somebody folded up the hem to check out her pussy. The guys from the Seventh were commenting on it. You hardly ever see a mop like that on a young girl. They get their cooze waxed and it reminds you of Hitler.”

  Harris said, “I heard that kind referred to as a Charlie Chaplin.”

  “That’ll work,” Alex said. “I’ve seen all kinds, even heart-shaped ones.”

  Jackie said, “I’m gonna leave this one alone.”

  Delsa turned to her. “Why don’t you check on Chloe? Find out if she’s a prostitute. Hey, first call the M.E.’s office, ask if they want to send a pathologist, we know the time and manner. They’ll send their death investigator and he can call the removal service. Okay?” He said to Harris, “Talk to the houseman, Lloyd Williams, and send Montez over.”

  Delsa looked at the girl again, Kelly, at her spiked blond hair, concentrating then to see her face beneath the blood and the makeup masking her eyes, trying to see her alive. He heard, “Detective,” and turned to see Montez Taylor coming in his gray pinstripes, a man who wanted you to notice him.

  “I been waiting for somebody to cover her up,” Montez said, “once they checked out her bush. Be the decent thing to do. Never mind how the girl made her living.”

  “You knew her pretty well?”

  “I think she only been here a few times.”

  “What about Chloe?”

  “Either one, they come by this evening to entertain Mr. Paradise, do their cheerleading routines. The man’s favorite thing, cute girls doing cheers?”

  “They’re cheerleaders?”

  “Only for the man. They do ones they make up like, ‘We the chicks from Mich-i-gan, nobody can fuck you like we can.’ I don’t know if that means doing it, or what they charge for doing it. Know what I’m saying? They high class, Mr. Paradise don’t invite skanky bitches to his home.”

  Montez stood with his hands hanging folded in front of him, a pose of respect.

  “You were upstairs with Chloe,” Delsa said.

  “That’s right, while the man watched a football game with Kelly. A video, some Michigan game. The man has all the ones they won. Or it could’ve been Chloe. As I say, either one. They like his girlfriends.”

  “Interchangeable,” Delsa said. “And he lets them fuck the help?”

  It got Montez to stare at him straight on, deadpan, before managing kind of a smile.

  “Would I be up there ‘less it was his idea?”

  “You ever mix it up, you and the boss and a girl or two?”

  “I ain’t even gonna answer that.”

  “What were you doing tonight, trading off?”

  Eye to eye Montez said, “The girls did their cheerleading number and Mr. Paradise sent me upstairs with Chloe. Said have a party on him.”

  “You ever take Kelly upstairs?”

  “I oblige the man whatever he wants.”

  “You ever had Kelly?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Are you in his will?”

 
; “That’s all, no more questions.”

  “Are you?”

  “That’s the man’s private business.”

  “It sounds to me,” Delsa said, “if he lets you fuck his girlfriends, you have a pretty good deal here. How much is he leaving you?”

  “I don’t know he’s leaving me anything.”

  “He ever talk about dying?”

  “His health? He’d kid about his old ticker with these young girls.”

  “He’s with Kelly and you’re with Chloe.”

  Montez hesitated. “That’s right.”

  “They’re watching TV together in the chair.”

  “How I last saw them.”

  “You’re upstairs with Chloe. Then what?”

  “Was what happened, this nigga busts in and shoots ‘em.”

  “This home invader.”

  “What else could he be?”

  “You heard the shots.”

  “Was four. Pow, pow, then quiet, then pow pow.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Ran out to the hall. I look over the rail to downstairs, he’s in the foyer. I yelled at him and he ran.”

  “What’d you yell?”

  “I said I had a gun and he went out the front.”

  “Did you?”

  “What, have a gun? No.”

  “Couldn’t he see you weren’t armed?”

  “He hardly looked. Glanced up at me and split.”

  “You have a gun?”

  “No.”

  “Is there one in the house?”

  “In the man’s room.”

  “Why didn’t you get it?”

  “I run out to the hall—I don’t know what’s going on. Did the shots come from outside? See, I’m thinking of Mr. Paradise downstairs with the girl, with Kelly. Is he all right? It couldn’t be her shooting, could it? She brought a gun?”

  “In her little cheerleader skirt,” Delsa said.