Stranger in Paradise js-7

by Robert B. Parker

  Crow shrugged.

  “No point being a warrior if you can’t find a war,” he said.

  Jesse stared at him.

  “Warrior?” Jesse said.

  “I am a full-blooded Apache warrior,” Crow said.

  Jesse looked at him for a sign that he was joking. There was no sign.

  “And warriors don’t go to war against women and girls,” Jesse said.

  “No,” Crow said, “they don’t.”

  “That’s why you let those women hostages go, ten years ago,” Jesse said, “off the boat.”

  “I like women,” Crow said.

  “If the money had been on shore with Macklin,” Jesse said, “would you still have let them go?”

  Crow smiled.

  “Can’t go back and do it different,” Crow said.

  Jesse nodded. Crow was silent again.

  “So how come you decided to look for the Francisco women here?” Jesse said.

  “Francisco said he thought they’d be here.”

  “He say why?”

  “Nope.”

  “You ask?”

  “Nope.”

  “So how’d you find them?” Jesse said.

  “Kid charged a big TV set for her boyfriend on one of those satellite credit cards, you know, bill goes to Daddy. Daddy calls me and I run it down. Thing was too big to carry. It was delivered to a gang house in Marshport.”

  “So you went there,” Jesse said.

  “Yep.”

  “Alone.”

  “Yep.”

  “How’d you get them to tell you where she was?”

  “I had to shoot one of them,” Crow said. “Their bad man, guy named Puerco.”

  “Pig,” Jesse said.

  “You speak Spanish?”

  “Used to work in L.A.,” Jesse said. “Had some time in Boyle Heights. Self-defense?”

  “Of course.”

  “What gang?” Jesse said.

  “Never mentioned their name.”

  “Where were they?” Jesse said.

  “Dump at the end of an alley called Horn Street. Twelve-A Horn Street.”

  “Horn Street Boys,” Jesse said.

  “You know the gangs in Marshport?”

  “Like to keep up,” Jesse said.

  Molly came into the office.

  “The women are asking for a lawyer,” she said.

  Crow studied her.

  “Tell them that they can go after they talk with one more cop,” Jesse said.

  “Who?”

  “Who’s on the desk?”

  “Peter Perkins,” Molly said.

  “Okay,” Jesse said. “Send Suit out front. Tell Peter to ask them anything he can think of.”

  “Peter doesn’t know the case,” Molly said. “He doesn’t even know their names.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “We don’t get them a lawyer when they ask, any case we bring into court gets tossed.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Jesse said. “We’re not bringing a case against them.”

  “We’re just stalling,” Crow said, “until we figure out what to do.”

  Molly turned and looked straight at Crow.

  “We?” Molly said.

  Crow smiled at her.

  “So to speak,” he said.

  Molly smiled back, and turned and left. Crow watched her go. Jesse was pretty sure she was swinging her hips more than she normally did.

  Jesse said, “What do you want out of all this, Crow?”

  “I want these two broads to be okay, and have that be my doing.”

  “Because?”

  “I told you,” Crow said, “I like women.”

  “Or you don’t,” Jesse said.

  “Don’t?”

  “Because they aren’t worthy opponents,” Jesse said.

  Crow shrugged.

  “What do you think of the men in their lives?” Jesse said.

  “Don’t like them. Don’t like Francisco. Don’t like the gangbanger.”

  “Because?”

  “Because the gangbanger’s a punk,” Crow said. “And Francisco is a liar.”

  “You ever wonder why he hired somebody like you to find his daughter?”

  “I figured he might want somebody killed along the way.”

  “And you were willing.”

  “I was willing to take his money and see what developed,” Crow said. “I’m not willing to kill a couple women.”

  “For the moment,” Jesse said.

  Crow shrugged.

  “’Course, the daughter could turn out to be some sort of hole card for you,” Jesse said.

  “Could,” Crow said.

  “You think the mother would abandon her daughter?” Jesse said.

  “They do sometimes,” Crow said.

  “I know,” Jesse said. “But often they don’t. Maybe we let them go, what happens. Kid isn’t going to leave the boyfriend. Mother isn’t going to leave the kid. Boyfriend’s not going anywhere. Most gang kids never leave the neighborhood until they go to jail.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So they stay right here while I figure out what to do about a couple things,” Jesse said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like how to help them, and what the hell you’re up to.”

  “What if she moves in with him?” Crow said.

  “We know where she is,” Jesse said.

  “Not much of a life on Horn Street,” Crow said.

  “Not much of a life on Sewall Street, either,” Jesse said.

  “There’s bad and there’s worse,” Crow said.

  “Won’t be forever,” Jesse said. “Once I get it figured out, we’ll go take her away from Horn Street.”

  “And if she won’t come?” Crow said.

  “We make her.”

  “Man, you are cold,” Crow said.

  “Keep it in mind,” Jesse said.

  “How come you’re going along with any of this?” Crow said.

  “Girl’s a mess,” Jesse said. “Her old man is in the rackets in South Florida…”

  “Her old man is the rackets in South Florida,” Crow said.

  “…and her mother’s a drunk,” Jesse continued. “Kid needs help. And you seem like you might give her some.”

  Crow nodded.

  “Okay,” Crow said.

  “Let’s be clear,” Jesse said. “I don’t trust you.”

  “Be crazy if you did,” Crow said.

  “I don’t believe this is pure concern for the Francisco girls,” Jesse said.

  Crow shrugged.

  “Don’t matter too much what you believe,” Crow said. “Thing you can trust, though. I keep my word.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “And you keep yours,” Crow said.

  “You think?”

  “I know you, Stone, just like you know me. We been listening to the same music for a long time.”

  “And we know all the lyrics?” Jesse said.

  “All the ones that matter,” Crow said.

  27.

  Jesse invited Nina Pinero to lunch.

  “In Marshport?” she said. “You don’t eat lunch in Marshport. I’ll come to you.”

  They met at the Gray Gull. The weather was pleasant, so they sat outside on the little balcony over the water.

  “Want a drink?” Jesse said when they were seated.

  “No, if I do I’ll have to go take a nap, and I haven’t got time.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “You have one if you want,” Nina said.

  “No,” Jesse said. “I haven’t got time, either.”

  They ordered iced tea. Nina looked out over the harbor. Across the water, the Paradise Yacht Club was visible.

  “Long way from Marshport,” she said.

  “Pretty far from L.A., too,” Jesse said.

  “That where you’re from?”

  “It’s where I worked before I came here,” Jesse said.

  “Cop?”

  “Yes.”


  “Why’d you leave?” Nina said.

  “They fired me for drinking.”

  “Ah,” Nina said. “Another good reason not to drink at lunch.”

  Jesse nodded.

  “What do you know about Latino gangs in Marshport,” Jesse said.

  “A lot. It’s part of my job.”

  “What exactly is your job?” Jesse said.

  “Do-gooder,” she said. “Like you.”

  “I just do this for the perks,” Jesse said.

  “Perks?”

  “Yeah, I can park where I want and I get to carry a gun.”

  Nina smiled.

  “That’s why you rode the bus with the kids and walked them into school,” she said.

  “Did you see my gun?” Jesse said.

  Nina laughed this time.

  “Okay, what do you want to know about the gangs?” she said.

  “Just one,” Jesse said. “Horn Street.”

  “Oh, my,” Nina said. “The Horn Street Boys. That’s Esteban Carty.”

  “Tell me about them.”

  “Twelve, fifteen kids, hang out in an abandoned garage down at the end of Horn Street. Actually, small world, one of them has a little brother at the Crowne estate project. Esteban is the, I don’t know what to call him exactly, the driving force in the gang, I guess. His enforcer is a man name Puerco. Pig or Hog in English, and the name tells you mostly what you need to know. He is a fearsome psychopath. Even the cops are afraid of Puerco.”

  Jesse smiled.

  “What?” Nina said.

  “They don’t have to be scared of him anymore,” Jesse said.

  “Something happened to Puerco?”

  “He got killed a few days ago,” Jesse said.

  “Puerco?”

  “Yep.”

  “God,” Nina said, “I’d like to see the man who could kill Puerco.”

  “Anybody can kill anybody,” Jesse said. “It’s just a matter of what you’re willing to do.”

  “You ever kill anyone?” Nina said.

  “Yes.”

  They were quiet for a moment.

  Then Nina said, “Esteban Carty has been on his own since he was little. I don’t know what he had for family. Maybe none, ever. He’s like a feral child grown up.”

  “So he’s probably not bound by societal convention,” Jesse said.

  “Oh, God, no,” Nina said. “That’s what the gang is for.”

  “Any thoughts on what kind of boyfriend he’d make for a fourteen-year-old girl?” Jesse said.

  She shook her head.

  “Outside my purview,” she said. “I’m neither a shrink nor a fourteen-year-old girl.”

  “But you’re female and you know something about Esteban,” Jesse said. “Puts you two up on me.”

  “I believe that one of the rules of the Horn Street Boys is that girlfriends have sex with everyone in the gang,” Nina said. “All for one and one for all.”

  “Great for building camaraderie,” Jesse said.

  28.

  They were naked together on the bare mattress of a rusted daybed against the wall opposite the big-screen TV in the garage at the foot of Horn Street.

  “Esteban,” Amber said, “what if somebody comes in?”

  “Who’s gonna come in ’cept Horn Street Boys?” Esteban said.

  “But they’ll see us.”

  “Won’t be seeing nothing they ain’t seen,” Esteban said.

  “I know,” she said. “I’m just kind of not used to doing it like this, you know, like out in the open?”

  “You moved in here. You’re one of us now,” Esteban said, and pressed on.

  When it was over, she said, “I bet you’ve done a lot of girls on this couch.”

  “A lot,” Esteban said.

  “Anyone as hot as me?” she said.

  “No, no, baby, you’re the hottest.”

  There was no sound of Spanish in his voice. She wished there were. It would be more romantic. She wasn’t sure he even spoke Spanish beyond a few phrases.

  “So who’s this dude, shot Puerco?” Esteban said.

  “Wilson Cromartie,” she said. “He calls himself Crow and he says he’s an Apache Indian.”

  “I don’t give a fuck he’s a martian, you know? What’s he want with you?”

  “My daddy hired him to bring me home.”

  “Your daddy?”

  “Yes,” Amber said. “Daddy hired this guy to find me and my old lady, and kill the old lady, and bring me home.”

  “What’s your daddy’s name?”

  “Louis Francisco,” Amber said.

  “That your real name?” Esteban said.

  “Yes. Amber. Is that a sappy name? Amber Francisco.”

  “Yeah. Where’s Daddy live?”

  “Miami,” Amber said. “He’s very rich.”

  Esteban nodded.

  “What’s he do?”

  “I don’t know. He’s in a bunch of businesses.”

  “You like him?” Esteban said.

  “Hell, no,” Amber said. “He’s in on all kinds of shady shit, you know? And he sends me to the fucking convent school. You know? Nuns. Jesus!”

  Esteban nodded.

  “And he wants your old lady killed?”

  “Yeah.”

  A couple of Horn Street Boys came into the garage. Amber rolled over onto her stomach. Neither of them paid any attention to her. They got beer from the refrigerator, sat down on a couple of rickety lawn chairs, picked up the remote from the floor, and turned on a soap opera. Amber hated soap operas. Her mother used to watch them in the big, empty house and drink beer until she fell asleep on the couch. Amber wished they’d shut it off. She wished she had her clothes on. She wished things were different.

  “I think I should talk to your old man,” Esteban said.

  29.

  Crow was sitting under the small pavilion at Paradise Beach, talking on his cell phone. The day was eighty-five and clear. The tide was in. The ocean covered most of the beach, and the waves rolled in quietly, without animosity.

  “I’m not going to kill your wife, Louis,” Crow said. “And I’m not going to bring your daughter down to Miami.”

  “You sonovabitch, Crow,” Louis Francisco said at the other end of the connection. “I paid you a lot of money.”

  “To find them,” Crow said. “I found them.”

  “You want to survive this, Crow, you do what I told you.”

  “Nope.”

  “If I have to come up there, by God…”

  “Probably ought to,” Crow said.

  “Then I will,” Louis Francisco said. “And I won’t be coming alone.”

  The outrage was gone from his voice, Crow noticed. He seemed calm now. He was doing business he understood.

  “I’ll be here,” Crow said, and turned off the cell phone.

  He sat for a time looking at the ocean. He liked the ocean. There were young women on the narrow beach, in small bathing suits. He liked them, too. He stood and walked along the top of the beach and onto the causeway that led to Paradise Neck. He stopped halfway across, leaning on the wall, looking at the ocean, breathing in the clean smell of it. It would take Francisco a couple days to organize his invasion. He wondered what the cop would do with that. Stone was a cop, and this was a small town. But Stone wasn’t a small-town cop. It interested Crow, how far Jesse would go. Crow was pretty sure Jesse would stick when it came down to it, that Crow could count on him. And he knew that Jesse’s cops were loyal to him. The big kid, Suitcase, looked like he could handle himself. And Crow loved the feisty little female cop.

  He turned and rested his back against the seawall and looked in at Paradise Harbor. Might be time to call on Marcy Campbell, too. She was good-looking, and, he was pretty sure, she was ready. He smiled. Women forgave him a lot. He watched the harbor-master’s boat moving about among the tall pleasure boats riding their mooring, sails stowed, people having lunch on the afterdeck. He looked at his watch. Maybe h
e should have lunch. Daisy Dyke’s? No, that would be iced tea. At the Gray Gull, he could have a couple of drinks with his lunch and then go home and take a nap. He straightened and flexed his shoulders a little to loosen them, and began to walk back to the beach where his car was parked. He felt really good.

  Maybe he was going to have his war.

  30.

  They were all there in the garage. Twelve Horn Street Boys, plus Esteban Carty. Amber sat on the floor in the corner with her arms wrapped around her knees. Listening while Esteban spoke.

  “Okay,” he said to the Boys, “we got a contract.”

  The boys seemed pleased.

  “Guy gonna give us ten grand to off a broad in Paradise.”

  The boys responded.

  “Ten grand?”

  “A broad?”

  “Muthafuck, man, how easy is that?”

  “Easy,” Esteban said.

  One of the boys said something in Spanish.

  “Knock it off,” Esteban said. “We speak English.”

  Amber wondered randomly if that was some sort of self-improvement rule, or was it because Esteban didn’t speak much Spanish. She shrugged mentally. The Horn Street Boys had a lot of rules.

  “And here’s a gas,” Esteban said. “Guy paying us is Alice’s father.”

  Everyone looked at Amber. She giggled. It was nice that Esteban told them.

  “Who’s the broad?” one of the boys said.

  “Are you ready for this?” Esteban said.

  Amber could see he was excited. She felt excited, too. He pointed at her like a referee calling a foul.

  “Alice’s momma,” he said.

  Everyone looked at her again. Amber giggled again. One of the boys started clapping, and the others joined in. Amber giggled some more, and hid her face.

  “Bye-bye, Momma,” Esteban said.

  And the boys took up the chant.

  “Bye-bye, Momma! Bye-bye, Momma! Bye-bye, Momma.”

  They clapped in rhythm to it and Amber, sitting on the floor, with her face in her hands and her knees up, began to rock back and forth to the chant. After a while she joined in.

  “Bye-bye, Momma! Bye-bye, Momma! Bye-bye, Momma!”

  31.

  “So,” Jesse said. “Where were we?”

  “I think you know,” Dix said.

  “We were wondering aloud…no, I was wondering aloud…what Jenn’s career meant to her.”

  Dix nodded.

  “I think my last question was, Do you think her career means redemption to her?”