Mr. Paradise

by Elmore Leonard

“That’s up to Montez. You know where he’s at?”

  “He don’t tell me and I don’t ask.”

  Carl said, “This boy here’s Jerome. He’s helping us out.” And said, “Listen, we’ll use your car we go anywhere. That okay with you, Chief?”

  Lloyd said, “Use it all you want.”

  Sounding helpful, and Jerome looked at him.

  Art came in the back door.

  He said to Lloyd, “Is Montez a faggot? He’s got that place dolled up like a woman did it. No colors like you see on sports teams. You know what I mean? They’re queer colors. Carl, like Connie—all those colors going on in your house.” Looking at Lloyd again, “Where’s Montez at, Chief?”

  Lloyd said, “How’d you know I was called that?”

  “All colored guys are, aren’t they? Being polite?”

  “You mean politically correct,” Carl said.

  “Yeah, being like equals.”

  “He don’t know when he’s coming back or where he is,” Carl said. “You ready for a drink?” He turned to Lloyd. “Chief, why don’t you have one with us?”

  Jerome began sorting through all he’d just heard.

  •

  Avern sat looking across his clean desk at Montez in black leather today, the coat open enough to show his gold chains against his black T-shirt. He wore gold studs on his earlobes, something Anthony Paradiso never allowed, Anthony puzzled why any man would want to look like a girl.

  “I’ve got some not so good news,” Avern said, “that could turn into some news you’re gonna like.”

  Montez said, “So you have to give me the not so good news first?”

  “That’s right,” Avern said, his hands folded on his clean desk. “Carl Fontana called last night. Both of their houses, his and Krupa’s, are under police surveillance, Detroit and Hamtramck.”

  Montez sat in his black leather and sunglasses staring at him, waiting, showing he was cool. Good.

  “It doesn’t surprise me,” Avern said, “the cops are aware of them. But I’m sure it’s not for Paradiso, and I’ll tell you why. Every gun they used on a contract went in the river, and I witnessed it. I took a risk going with them, but it was that important to me. But, they stay busy. They’ve pulled a few home invasions between contracts, and they could’ve left prints, especially Art. I told Carl he and his buddy ought to split up, get out of the state for a while, go to Florida and take it easy.”

  Montez said, “What’s the good news?”

  “They go down for home invasion, you won’t have to pay them. Of course you’d still owe me.”

  “Wait now,” Montez said. “If they go down …” and looked at the etching on the wall behind Avern, the white guys in robes and half-ass wigs that was supposed to be funny—Montez seeing the situation and Avern as one of the wiggy characters before looking at him again.

  “They get picked up for busting into homes—”

  “You have nothing to worry about.”

  “But they get brought up on the Paradiso gig—”

  “How? If there no witnesses?”

  Montez said, “Kelly saw them.”

  Now he tells me, Avern thought, maintaining his pose, hands folded in front of him. He said, “From where?”

  “Upstairs, where you can look down.”

  “They’re in the foyer?”

  “Yeah, they leaving.”

  “I can see it,” Avern said, “I’ve been to parties there when Tony’s wife was alive. Look straight ahead, there’s the living room. Look up, there’s the second floor. But looking down from up there? I wouldn’t recognize my own wife—and not because she’s always changing her hairdo. That’s the only time Kelly saw them?”

  “What she told me.”

  Avern shook his head. “I’m not gonna worry about her.”

  “I am,” Montez said, “there’s any possibility she can I.D. them. Lemme point something out to you. They get charged for doing Paradiso and Chloe and go down, you think they going without me? And you? Man, you they lawyer, isn’t that what you do? Play Let’s Make a Deal? But who you gonna give up to help the boys out, me and you or just me? Then who’s left, Avern, for me to give up? Outside of you?”

  Avern gave Montez his condescending smile, letting him know he didn’t know shit about what he was getting into, and said, “You trying the case now? You have Kelly Barr on the stand? But did she pick Carl and Art out of a lineup as the two she saw in a foyer from upstairs? Twenty feet above them, looking down at the tops of their heads? My man, give me a break. There’s no way in the world she could positively identify them.”

  Montez looked like he was thinking about it before he said, “You sure?”

  “Take my word.”

  Montez said, “I’m gonna ask her. She says no, she didn’t see ‘em good, we all still friends. She says yeah, she can pick ‘em out, then you tell me what should become of her.”

  Montez left and Avern brought a framed photo of his wife Lois, in color—taken in the backyard, bright green leaves behind her—from a desk drawer and placed it to one side on the clean surface. Lois was never on the desk when he was dealing with criminals and ex-cons. Sometimes he would smile at her carefree expression and wish he could tell her he was an agent for a couple of hit men who specialized in drug dealers. “Honey, I’m using felons to stop the traffic of controlled substances. Like Batman, they’re caped crusaders.” What would she say? “You charge ten or fifteen percent?” Tell her twenty off the top, get her to laugh. It would be great if she could have fun with it. No, Lois would say, “Avern,” in her cool way, “you’re looking at mandatory life.” She’d say it knowing she was wrong to make the point, knowing he could trade down to eight to fifteen, something around there. See? He couldn’t tell Lois. He couldn’t tell anybody, and it was a hell of a story.

  •

  Delsa arrived at Avern Cohn Associates a little later.

  He knew Sheila, Avern’s assistant, from being deposed here, answering Avern’s questions that went on forever. He said to her, “You watching the job market?”

  This went back to when he first met Sheila Ryan and he’d kid her about Avern getting disbarred. Sheila was forty with streaked blond hair, divorced, good-looking, a downtown girl. She said, “They’ll never get Avern, he’s too slippery. He’s an eel with a human brain.”

  “I’ll bet you five bucks,” Delsa said, “he’s up for arraignment within a week. Make it ten.”

  “After you leave,” Sheila said, “you want me to tell him how confident you are, willing to risk ten bucks?”

  Sheila had been another possibility, along with Eleanor. But not anymore. He said, “Make it twenty.”

  She said, “Make it dinner.”

  And he said something she didn’t hear, went in and sat down opposite Avern at his desk, a phone and a photograph on the clean surface.

  “You don’t have any work?”

  “All I need is the back of an envelope,” Avern said, “outside the courtroom or in a holding cell. I’m glad you condemned that ninth-floor lockup. My God, it stunk up there. Tell me what I can do for you.”

  Delsa said, “If you represented Fontana and Krupa—”

  “You telling me you have them?”

  “I’m asking if you represented them for the willful murder of Anthony Paradiso and Chloe Robinette …”

  Delsa paused.

  Avern waited now.

  “And you were to represent Montez Taylor for hiring these goons to kill his boss, so he could go after the money Chloe was getting, since Montez wasn’t getting shit …”

  Delsa paused again.

  Avern said, “What’s the question?”

  “If you represented Fontana and Krupa, and also Montez, who do you give up? Whoever’s arraigned first gets to make the deal?”

  “That’s your question?”

  “What if we get ‘em all at the same time?”

  “Tell me what you’ve got on this Carl and Art.”

  “You first,” Del
sa said. “What can you give me to save your own ass? That’s my question.”

  There wasn’t any more Delsa would tell him or anything Avern was ready to discuss or deny. Delsa left and Avern looked at his wife’s picture, still on the clean desk.

  He said, “Lois, you try to use a little ingenuity in your practice … you never know what might happen.”

  26

  MONTEZ WAS SITTING IN THE LEXUS WITH A KID named Ricky, fourteen, tall with big hands, Baggies hanging on him. They were parked across the street from Kelly’s building and Montez was showing Ricky signed pictures of Kelly in panties and thongs.

  “You know what a small world it is?” Montez said. “I’m thinking of how I can show you Kelly so you know what she looks like, and I remember this girl Emily works at the Rattlesnake. I’d see her when I felt like some white pussy. Know what I’m saying? Something different, change my luck. I remember Emily collects autographs of celebrities come in the Snake. She ask can she shoot them with her Polaroid. They most all say yeah, smile at her and sign the picture. Now here’s Kelly living a few blocks from the Snake. I’m thinking she must go there sometimes. So I call my friend Emily this morning, ask her does she know Kelly Barr. Emily says she’s got more pictures of Kelly than anybody as Kelly’s her favorite celebrity. She even got the latest pictures of her signed just the other day. So I go over and borrow her Victoria’s Secret,” Montez said, “so you know what she looks like she comes out of the building.”

  Fourteen-year-old Ricky said these were fine-looking bitches in here. He wouldn’t mind having him some of ‘em.

  “Her car’s over here in the lot,” Montez said, “the black VW. See it? She come out and heads for the car, you get over there, start wiping off her windshield. There’s a hand towel on the backseat here. You a talker, dog, turn on the personality. See can you find out where she’s going and when she’s coming back.”

  Ricky said, “What if she walks someplace?”

  “Follow her.”

  “What if she don’t come out?”

  “She still at home by dark, call and tell me.”

  “I could be hanging here all day?”

  “As long as it takes,” Montez said. “Look at all the cars around here. Open one up and sit in it till she comes. You have my number—right?”

  “I got it somewhere.”

  Montez said, “Ricky, don’t lose that number. I want to hear from you, man.”

  This was earlier in the day, before Montez got the call from Avern and went to see him.

  •

  It was noon by the time Delsa was ready to leave the McDonald’s on West Chicago. They had put out a BOLO on Gregory Coleman, also known as Big Baby, be on the lookout for this kid with a sawed-off shotgun and his buddies in a dark-colored Grand Marquis.

  Now he called Kelly.

  “What time will you leave?”

  “By one-thirty the latest. I’m about to get in the shower.”

  “You can’t wait till tonight?”

  “We’ll take another one. We can take all the showers we want, Frank.”

  “I’m coming to the show.”

  “I’ll look for you, the only guy in a suit.”

  “I’m sorry I can’t take you.”

  “Even if you have to miss the show, you’ll come by later?”

  He said, “I can’t wait to see you.”

  She said, “I can’t either, I’m dying.”

  “You know I forgot to pick up Chloe’s license?”

  “And the stock papers. They’re right here.”

  “Why don’t you put them in your bag? Give them to me tonight and I’ll know I have them. Did Montez call, or stop by?”

  “He didn’t and I’m surprised.”

  “Keep your eyes open.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  “He’ll know by now we’ve identified the two guys. I told his lawyer, who’s also the lawyer for the two guys, or was. I think he’s in the middle of it, the lawyer, and I’m hoping he’s started to think about making a deal, for himself.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “It’ll take a little longer.”

  Kelly said, “Well … maybe I should tell you what I’ll be wearing tonight, so you’ll know me.”

  He said, “I’ll know you.”

  •

  Montez left the car in the driveway, so he didn’t see Carl and Art, and Lloyd and some gangbanger kid he’d never seen before, until he was through the swing door and in the kitchen.

  This big kitchen, the commercial range and refrigerator, the long worktable in the middle of the room, another round table in the alcove of windows where Carl and Art were sitting with drinks. A bottle of Club on the worktable, an ice tray open, where Lloyd was slicing a leftover beef roast and the young gangbanger he’d never seen before, wearing a reddish do-rag that showed some style, was opening a loaf of bread, Lloyd saying to the kid as Montez walked in, “Wash your hands first.”

  Montez said, “Before anybody says anything,” raising his hands to hold off whatever he thought might be coming, “let me tell you what Avern said to me just a little while ago. One, there is no way their witness, Kelly Barr, can identify you,” wanting to call them “assholes,” but keeping it simple. “And two, Avern thinks you should leave town, go to Florida or someplace, get lost in a crowd of people.” He said, “Now let me tell you what I think, being closer to the situation,” and paused looking at Lloyd. “Who’s this gangbanger, your grandson come to visit? Y’all best get out of here.”

  Lloyd waved the carving knife toward Carl and Art at the breakfast table. “Your friends say they hungry. Want something to eat.”

  Art said to Montez, “You want to tell us what you think, go ahead. Or save it till Lloyd makes us some sandwiches. That boy there is Three-J. He’s with us, so don’t fuck with him.”

  “Wait a minute,” Montez said. “You two are hiding out? Here?”

  “We was at a Ramada last night,” Carl said. “I could see staying at motels wasn’t gonna work out. We want to talk to you anyway, so we thought, hell, come here. Art and I want to know did you make some kind of deal with them.”

  Montez knew they were dumb, but not this dumb. How could they believe … “You think I gave you up? Tell me how I can do that without giving myself up? Was me hired you. You think they gonna let me out on the street?” He said, “Listen to me. You swear your nines are clean, can’t be traced to some other deed, they’s only one way the police could get after you. Kelly Barr, man. She told me she didn’t see you good, but she must’ve and they showed her pictures. Saw you by the front door, Art with a nine—you’d of shot me you’d been paid. And Carl with the bottle of vodka.”

  Art said to Carl, “Connie told you they took the bottle, the same one? With your prints on it?”

  Montez said, “You gave it to Connie? Man, it’s got my prints on it, too. I poured the old man his drinks. Kelly Barr saw me doing it. Understand what I’m saying? And she saw you walk out of the house with the bottle.”

  Art said to Carl, “The fuck you take it for?”

  “You said there’s some vodka for Connie—in an ice bucket.”

  “You’re crazy, I never fuckin said that.”

  “I was there,” Montez said to Art. “You told him to take the bottle, and he did. And Kelly can say yeah, that’s the bottle the old man was drinking from. Before you shot him and she sees you two leaving the house. You want to hear her tell about it in court?”

  •

  Lloyd listened to them getting to it as he carved the leftover roast beef he’d served last night to his friend Serita Reese. She was somewhere in her fifties, worked in the Blue Cross office and wore big pearl earrings with her satin dress, always satin when she went out. Last evening an aqua color. Lloyd called her his Satin Doll. He asked Serita did she want to go to Puerto Rico. “Oh, would I.” But wouldn’t dare leave her job at Blue Cross. He asked Jackie Michaels did she want to go. She was hipper than Serita, younger, and said,
“You mean it?” He said why would he ask her if he didn’t mean it? “An old broad like me?” Fishing. He told Jackie Michaels she stirred him, got him thinking about living with a woman again. The only reason he hadn’t jumped her, he had trouble working up intimate feelings about a woman on the police. Jackie Michaels said, “But you’re thirty years older than I am.”

  He said, “Who told you that?”

  Last night he and Serita were having their coffee and Rémy, chocolate sauce on raspberry sorbet, and Allegra, the old man’s granddaughter, stopped by from the funeral home with her husband, the one sold bull come, to show him the old paintings in the foyer. She kept apologizing for interrupting their evening till Serita, good at talking to white people, invited them to sit down and have some dessert. It was all right, but you had to talk on their level and laugh at things that weren’t funny. Jesus, but he was tired of doing that.

  Jerome turned from washing his hands at the sink and started making ugly sandwiches with the meat hanging out. Lloyd said, “Here,” and took over the job. He said to Jerome, aside, “Listen to some of the Dumbest Criminals I Have Ever Known, and learn something.”

  All three of them sitting now at the round table by the windows.

  •

  The cheap phone inside Montez’ leather coat came on playing “How High the Moon” and he brought it out and walked through the swing door into the pantry saying, “Ricky? … Yeah? Tell me.” He came back after a few minutes and sat down at the table again with Carl and Art.

  “She’s in a fashion show tonight at the Detroit Institute of Arts. I told you about my man Ricky, fourteen years old? Sweet boy, can talk about fashion. He got that for me wiping off her windshield and made a buck.”

  Art said, “That’s all you pay the kid?”

  “What Kelly gave him. I owe Ricky another twenty’s all. She told him she be home about nine-thirty. We get over there around nine, wait till she gets out of the car … I think as she’s crossing the street to her building we roll up and snatch her, put her in the Tahoe.”

  Carl said, “We use your car.”

  “Man, you got more room.”

  “You got a trunk, don’t you?” Carl said. “The Tahoe stays in the garage.”