Mr. Paradise

by Elmore Leonard

  “You’re gonna have this case closed,” Delsa said, “any minute now.”

  Eleanor said, “While you’re still working on Kelly.”

  “I’m making progress.”

  “I’ll bet you are.”

  “She’s afraid of Montez. Kelly tells me a little bit at a time. I’m writing up a supplemental statement.”

  “She’s teasing you, Frank.”

  “She thinks she’s smarter than I am.”

  “She probably is. Did you give her that business, she’s a witness and you have to keep your distance?”

  “I tell her there’s nothing more serious than a homicide.”

  “Yeah, but you wouldn’t mind fooling around. I know you, Frank. How come you haven’t called me?”

  Giving him the look now, the one she’d been giving him since Maureen’s funeral.

  “You wore me out that time.”

  The Saturday he’d gone to Eleanor’s for dinner and didn’t get home until Sunday evening.

  “Frank, I’m not looking to get married again, I just want to have some fun. Anyway,” Eleanor said, “while you’re hanging out with Kelly Barr I’m looking for two white guys who shoot people. I got three off CaseTrax. The first one a black male thirty-seven having lunch at Baby Sister’s Kitchen.”

  “Ray Jacks,” Delsa said, “last November.”

  “Two white guys come in. The waitress, according to the PCR, said they were middle-aged and looked like workingmen. They ask Ray if he’s Ray Jacks. He says, ‘What can I do for you?’ They blast him, and hit his bodyguard on the way out.”

  “It was Four’s case,” Delsa said. “I remember thinking it ought to be easy, two white hitters in this town?”

  “Another one, Squad Six got,” Eleanor said, “was last summer. Columbus Fletcher, black male forty-two, was at his hangout, the Brass Key on Livernois, a strip club. A boy comes in and tells Columbus somebody hit his car in the parking lot, put a big ding in the rear end. Columbus runs out, the two guys are waiting and shoot him four times. White guys who look like workingmen.” Eleanor said, “You remember that one?”

  “Columbus Fletcher? I remember all of them.”

  “But you haven’t looked them up.”

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing?”

  She told him about a black male forty-one, Andre Perry, who opened the front door of his home on Bethune, behind the Fisher Building, to two white guys who asked his name. He told them and they shot him. Andre’s wife described them as middle-aged and “ordinary-looking.”

  Eleanor said, “You remember Andre?”

  Delsa nodded.

  “He was a drug dealer. All of them were, except Mr. Paradise”

  Delsa nodded again.

  “The last one and the oldest, I got from Cold Case. It was the year before last. Sahir Nasiriyah, a Chaldean, ran a BP station on West Grand just off the Jeffries. He sold gas and oil, sandwiches, potato chips, pop, toys, weed and cocaine. Two guys walk in pulling ski masks over their face, ask if he’s Sahir, shoot him and rob the place. The Chaldean’s son, George, making subs, assumed they were black guys, until one of them cleaned out his register with, quote, ‘the hands of an older white guy who had worked with those hands all his life.’ George said they were of average height, nothing unusual about them or their clothes. If they’re the same guys,” Eleanor said, “this was the only time they wore masks or robbed the place.”

  “But what did all of them,” Delsa said, “have in common? They asked the guy his name before they shot him. Made sure they had the right one each time. They were hits. Somebody paid these two guys.”

  Eleanor was nodding. “And used the same guns only twice. There were no other matches. The Smith and the Sig.”

  Delsa said, “That takes us back to Kenny. There was something I wanted to know. You said the guy who bought the Smith phoned Kenny—”

  “I’ve been waiting for you to ask. Kenny has Caller ID and we have a warrant to search his place. All the notes, everything is in Fatboy’s case file.” Eleanor said, “You want to know who called him three weeks ago?”

  “I wouldn’t mind,” Delsa said.

  He liked the way she was doing it, watching her leaf through her papers. She lifted out a sheet of names and phone numbers and handed it to him saying, “All the ones checked are buddies and girlfriends.”

  Delsa looked at the list in sunlight coming through the dirty window, forty-seven degrees out, a high of fifty expected by this afternoon, spring beginning to show itself.

  “Who’s the one with the question mark, Connie Fontana?”

  “Some woman. I called her. I said, ‘Hi, is this Connie? I’m calling for Kenny, returning your call.’ Connie says, ‘Carl isn’t home,’ and hangs up on me.”

  Delsa said, “Carl Fontana.”

  “You know who he is?”

  Delsa said, “No, but I bet he’s on LEIN,” and smiled at Eleanor. “You did all this in two days?”

  She said, “Why, is it supposed to be hard?”

  •

  He dialed Kelly’s number as soon as Eleanor was out the door. This time Kelly’s voice said, “Leave a message.” He asked her to call him, he still needed that driver’s license.

  Richard Harris came in saying, “Montez has a checking account at Comerica, the one on East Jefferson. This morning he closed out his deposit box. I just missed him. I went to the house, he wasn’t there. Lloyd was packing, putting clothes in boxes, didn’t know where Montez was.” Harris said, “We need Lloyd?”

  “Jackie says he’s clean. She might go to Puerto Rico with him.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “It’s what she said.”

  “Who you running off with, Kelly Barr?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Dreaming,” Harris said.

  Eleanor Marsh came back with a LEIN printout for Carl Fontana, his home address and phone number. “It’s the one I called,” Eleanor said. “You want me to follow up?”

  Delsa looked at the sheet. County time for assault, sixty days, ninety days, several warnings for Domestic Disturbance; forty-two months state time in Jackson for Man One with a deer rifle. Released almost two years ago. Time enough to get ready to shoot black drug dealers and Mr. Paradiso.

  He said to Eleanor, “No, what I’d like you to do, find out who represented him on the manslaughter.”

  She surprised him. She said, “Why?”

  And he had to stop and think.

  He said, “I don’t know, but I’m curious.” He said, “Would you find that out for me, please?” and handed her Fontana’s printout.

  Eleanor left and a few minutes later Manny Reyes, with Violent Crimes, came in. Manny spent a few minutes talking to Harris, and brought Harris with him when he stepped over to see Delsa, Manny saying, “Hey, is nice out, I think winter’s over, man.”

  Saying, “You right about the triple at Orlando’s. The guy chainsawed is called Zorro, all three of them with the Cash Flow Posse. Orlando’s girlfriend Tenisha tole you it was a Mexican came to the motel that night? It was a guy from a different posse called Dorados. They want to put Cash Flow out of business but, man, that wasn’ the way to do it.”

  Manny saying, “I spoke to Chino, the boss of the guys that were killed. I tole him, ‘You don’t want to do nothing dumb, man. There’re boosters driving around watching you.’ He says don’t worry about it, is taken care of. See, I already talked to some of his guys at different places in the neighborhood drinking. Nobody wants to tell me anything, they scared of Chino. This guy I went to Holy Redeemer with is shaking his head and drinking, man, getting drunk. So when the place closes I say, ‘Lemme take you home.’ I get the guy in the car, start asking him questions about Chino, what he’s up to. He tells me Chino took two guys from the Dorados, this small posse that wants to get bigger? Has the two guys held down with their heads sticking out over the curb, face up looking at Chino, as he asks the first one who it was cut up Zorro and killed his
three guys. The guy says he doesn’t know. Chino stomps down on the guy’s face with his foot, once. The guy telling me says you hear this crack. The other guy said the Dorados made Orlando do it, saying they’d give him a good price on the weed. Orlando didn’t want to, but they made him.”

  Delsa said, “What happened to this guy, who told him?”

  “Chino stomped on his face.”

  “They’re both dead?”

  Manny shrugged. “They’re disappeared.”

  Harris said, “No body, no case.”

  Manny said, “I talk to Chino again. I said, ‘Man, you don’t want to go after Orlando.’ He said what he tole me before, ‘Is already taken care of.’”

  “Meaning …?” Harris said.

  “He has somebody to take out Orlando.”

  “Hired somebody?” Delsa said.

  “That could be, sure, why not? There’s also that reward.”

  “You want to get some guys?” Delsa said. “We’re gonna need backup.”

  “Sure, where you going?”

  “See if we can pick up Carl Fontana.”

  20

  CARL ASKED FOR MONTEZ TAYLOR’S ROOM NUMBER. The clerk behind the sheet of bulletproof glass checked and said there didn’t seem to be no one of that name staying with them. Carl said to Art, “You hear that?”

  Art was facing the University Inn’s L-shaped area in front, Carl’s Tahoe and a few cars parked out there. Art turned saying, “Fuckin smoke.” The clerk, a black guy with size, asked if he was speaking to him. Art said, “No, Sambo, I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to my partner.”

  The two walked out, drove up Woodward Avenue to the river and over Jefferson east to the Paradiso residence on Iroquois. Carl pulled into the drive and stopped by the front doors.

  “They haven’t replaced the glass yet,” Art said. “Take ‘em five fuckin minutes.”

  “Maybe that color glass,” Carl said, “is hard to get and they have to order it. You know, that shade of pink.” He said, “You feel funny about going in there?”

  “In the house?” Art said. “I don’t feel one way or the other.”

  •

  Lloyd opened the door wearing the white dress shirt that was a couple of sizes too large, space showing around the collar. He knew right away who these two mutts were and it surprised him, the shooters coming back to the scene? He said, “Yes …?”

  The one he believed was Carl Fontana, the short one, said, “Where’s Montez?”

  “He could be in his room,” Lloyd said, “you want me to see?” Stepping aside and they came in. The other one, with the grayish hair slicked back, would be Art Krupa. Lloyd had known all kinds of guys like these two at Jackson, where they learned to be criminals if they weren’t already. Avern, drinking martinis, had told him about these two, his guinea and his polack; and Montez, drinking Rémy and doing lines, had told him their names. It was amazing what criminals talked about and then were surprised when they got busted.

  Carl Fontana said, “Yeah, get him,” and they followed Lloyd out to the kitchen where he used the wall phone to call. Lloyd saying to Montez, “They’s two gentlemen here to see you.”

  Montez said shit, and wanted to know if they were cops. Lloyd put his hand over the phone and said to Carl, “He wants to know are you the police.”

  “Tell him,” Carl said, “we’re the pissed-off guys he was supposed to meet, at the motel.”

  Lloyd said into the phone, “No, they the guys you was suppose to meet. Now they angry.” Lloyd heard Montez say shit, tell ‘em I’ll be right there. Lloyd replaced the phone on the wall saying, “He’s coming. He’s sorry he missed you, he fell asleep.” Lloyd frowning now, saying, “He’s taking it hard, what happened to Mr. Paradise. I ‘magine you saw it on the news?”

  Art Krupa said, “Where is he?” sounding impatient.

  “At his place, over the garage.”

  Art turned to the table in the alcove of windows that showed the garage in the backyard, three doors on it.

  Lloyd said, “It’s finally turning nice out, huh?”

  Carl said, “You know who we are?”

  “I guess you friends of Montez.”

  “And you’re a friend of Avern Cohn.”

  “The lawyer? Yeah, I know him.”

  “You took some falls he defended?”

  “A long time ago.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Jes some stickups.”

  “You ever shoot anybody?”

  Look at him sneaking up on it, dying to tell who he was. The man sounding like he had something in mind.

  Lloyd said, “No, I never had the opportunity. I guess there was nobody I wanted to shoot bad enough. Except one.”

  “But you did time.”

  “Nine years straight up.”

  Art, at the alcove of windows, said, “Is he coming or not, goddamn it.”

  Carl said, “Avern had you watching Montez, huh?”

  “Watching him?”

  “Telling Avern what he’s up to.”

  “Mr. Cohn told you that?”

  Art said, “Well, he’s finally decided to come,” and went over to open the door.

  Carl said to Lloyd, “I wouldn’t be surprised we aren’t both on the same side.”

  Montez came in the kitchen wearing a heavy white designer turtleneck that came down over his butt, some of Montez’ new look, getting away from the business suit image. Came in and the first thing he said was, “Lloyd, leave us, man.”

  •

  That was the last thing he heard from the room. Montez shut the door and got ready to do his act. Lloyd believed nothing would happen. They wanted to be paid. Montez didn’t have it, but had the thing that could get it for him. Picked it up this morning, the stock certificate. Getting Kelly to sell it would be the trick.

  But what was Carl Fontana talking about, their being on the same side? He imagined Carl’s daddy had come up from Tennessee or someplace with all the ofays to work in a car factory and make a living. He had thought the kid who finked him out and got him the nine years was smart, but didn’t think Carl Fontana was. Oh yeah? He was smart enough to listen to Avern drinking martinis tell about the situation here. Avern had even said one time he hoped these two didn’t fuck up and make the Dumbest Criminals I Have Known list. He’d almost said to Avern, “What happens to you if they do, they get busted?” But he didn’t, because he didn’t think Avern had ever asked himself that. It made him wonder if maybe Avern ought to be on the Dumb list.

  Lloyd hung out in the pantry where they kept the good glasses and china, sixteen place settings he wouldn’t mind taking downtown to DuMouchelle’s and sell it off. What else? Not the paintings. Allegra liked the paintings and he liked Allegra. She said to him John wanted to move to California and make wine, but it was awful risky. He told her, “Honey, go with your husband.” Thinking, any man can make a bull come and then sell it, can do anything he wants.

  The door opened. Art came out and stood there staring at him. Lloyd heard Montez in the kitchen say, “You don’t worry about police coming by, stay as long as you want. I’ll put on some doo-wop for y’all.”

  Now the other one, Carl Fontana, put his hand on Art’s and got him going again. Montez came out and stopped next to Lloyd.

  “You hear any of that?”

  “Not a word.”

  “You never hear anything, you never talk about what you don’t hear, either, do you?”

  Lloyd said, “All you got on your plate, you want to worry about me?”

  21

  DELSA AND HARRIS PICKED UP A WARRANT AT Thirty-sixth District Court that would allow them to enter Carl Fontana’s residence, then waited for Jackie to come out of a pretrial exam. In the car Jackie couldn’t get over the defense lawyer describing Ardis Nichols, the defendant, as this sweet guy who loved Snowflake, the hooker who lived upstairs and had died of blunt-force injuries, hit repeatedly with a piece of pipe. “You know why I didn’t believe Ardis?” Jackie sai
d. “I’m talking to him in the basement where he lives. Has his TV, his medicine and shit on a little table by his bed, his clothes hanging from pipes. Ardis’s wearing a wife beater like Kid Rock. We’re talking, I notice a huge rat lying on the floor by the furnace. I say to Ardis, ‘Isn’t that a rat over there?’ He says no, it ain’t a rat. I say yes, it is, it’s a huge fuckin rat. He walks over and steps on the rat and you hear like air come out of it. See, what he might’ve meant was no, it wasn’t a live rat. But the man had lost his credibility with me saying no, it wasn’t a rat.”

  Delsa said, “Just having a rat in his room.”

  “That was enough,” Jackie said.

  “Is he going to trial?”

  “‘Less they agree on a deal.”

  “There you are,” Delsa said.

  They took the Fisher west—Manny Reyes and Violent Crimes behind them—and found the house on Cadet, a few blocks beyond Holy Redeemer, a frame house with green paint fading, eight steps to the porch, Manny and his guys going around back.

  The door opened and here was Connie Fontana in a housecoat in the afternoon, a big redheaded woman scowling at them, TV voices coming from the living room.

  Jackie said, “Mrs. Fontana …?” pausing in case it wasn’t. “Is your husband at home? We’d like to speak to him.”

  Connie said, “What about?”

  “It’s a police matter,” Delsa said. They all had badges showing. “Is Carl home?”

  The woman’s hair was big and, Delsa thought, involved. He couldn’t understand the reason for it. She shook her head and her hair seemed to sparkle.