Stranger in Paradise js-7
Page 11
“She might be in danger,” Jesse said.
“Explain that to her, let her decide.”
“I don’t want her in danger,” Jesse said.
“Jesse,” Molly said, and paused, and then went on, “that would be for her to decide, I think.”
Jesse didn’t say anything. Molly and he each drank some coffee. The sun was hitting them both in the eyes through the east window of the room. Jesse got up and pulled the shade and came back and sat down and looked at Molly.
“I think you’re probably right,” he said.
44.
Four men wearing flowered shirts flew up from Miami on Delta. They picked up a Cadillac Escalade from a rental agency, drove to a motel on Marshport Road, and registered, two in a room. A half-hour after they arrived, an Asian man came to the door of one of the rooms with a big shopping bag that said Cathay Gardens on it.
One of the men from Miami opened the door. He was tall and straight and had salt-and-pepper hair.
“Mr. Romero?” said the man with the Cathay Gardens bag.
“Yes.”
The delivery man held out the bag. Romero took it, gave him a hundred-dollar bill, and closed the door. Romero’s roommate was a squat bald man named Larson.
“What did we get?” Larson said.
Romero took the bag to the bed and opened it. He took out some cartons of Chinese food, four semiautomatic pistols, and four boxes of ammunition. Romero checked. All the guns were loaded. Larson opened one of the cartons.
“May as well eat the food,” he said.
At 4:40 in the afternoon, the four men from Miami parked the Escalade at the head of Horn Street and got out. Parked a half-block away, on the corner of Nelson Boulevard, Crow watched them go down the alley. He smiled.
Didn’t take long, he thought.
At 12A Horn Street, Romero knocked on the door. Esteban answered.
“You Carty?” Romero said.
“Yes.”
“So where’s the girl?” Romero said.
“You from Mr. Francisco?” Esteban said.
Romero nodded.
“He wants to know about the girl,” Romero said.
Esteban jerked his head and stepped aside and the four men went in. There were half a dozen Horn Street Boys inside. The four men from Miami ignored them.
“I was just about to bring her over there,” Esteban said.
“Over where?”
“To Florida,” Esteban said. “And she run off.”
“Where’d she go?”
“I don’t know. Paradise, maybe,” Esteban said. “That’s where she lived with her old lady.”
“Next town,” Romero said.
“Yeah,” Esteban said. “I didn’t think she’d run off.”
“But she did,” Romero said.
“I did a good job on the old lady, didn’t I?” Esteban said.
“And you got paid,” Romero said. “Now we want the girl.”
“I can take you over there,” Esteban said. “Show you where she lived with her old lady.”
Romero nodded.
“How about a guy named Cromartie, calls himself Crow?” Romero said.
“That sonovabitch,” Esteban said.
“He in Paradise, too, you think?”
“Yeah, man,” Esteban said. “He’s there. Maybe got the girl, too. Okay with me you take the girl. But not Crow. I want him for myself.”
Romero smiled.
“You think you can handle him?” Romero said.
“He killed one of us,” Esteban said. “You kill a Horn Street Boy, you got to kill them all.”
Romero shrugged.
“I don’t care who kills him as long as somebody does. Mr. Francisco wants him dead.”
“He pay somebody to do it?” Esteban said.
“You think we’re up here for the hell of it?” Romero said.
“Maybe I get there first, I get the ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand,” Romero said.
“That’s what I got for the old lady,” Esteban said.
Romero nodded.
“That’s what I was going to get for the girl,” Esteban said. “Maybe still will, I get there first.”
“Twenty grand,” Romero said. “Set for life.”
“You gotta problem with that?” Esteban said.
“I got a problem,” Romero said, “you’ll be the first to know.”
“I got a right to that money,” Esteban said.
Romero looked at him for a moment, then he shook his head and turned and went out. The other three men from Miami followed him.
45.
Jesse sat in his living room with Amber and Jenn. Jesse had scotch. Jenn had a glass of wine. Amber was drinking coffee. She was wearing the same clothes she’d come to the jail in, and the same tear-streaked eye makeup.
“I can drink booze,” Amber said.
“Not with me,” Jesse said.
Amber was looking around the condo.
“How long I gotta stay here?” she said.
“You don’t have to stay here at all,” Jesse said. “You can leave right now…but where you gonna go?”
“I could find someone to stay with,” Amber said.
“You have someone to stay with,” Jesse said.
“You?”
“Me.”
“Why’s she here,” Amber said.
“Jenn and I used to be married,” Jesse said. “She’s come to help me with you.”
“Why do you need help with me?” Amber said.
“Because you’re a fourteen-year-old girl and there needs to be a woman here, too,” Jesse said.
“Oh, man, are you drab.”
“Drab,” Jesse said.
“Who cares about who stays with who. Man, try being free, you know? Jesus.”
“Jenn is a television reporter,” Jesse said. “She’s doing this in hopes of a story.”
“Story about what,” Amber said.
“About you,” Jenn said. “And your parents. And the Horn Street Boys. And maybe the Crown estates project…like that.”
“What the hell kind of story is that?” Amber said.
“We’ll see,” Jenn said. “I had some vacation time coming and the station gave me a couple weeks to see if there was a story.”
“So am I gonna be on TV?” Amber said.
“We’ll see,” Jenn said.
“I don’t want to go to my father,” Amber said.
“Okay,” Jesse said.
“And I don’t want to go back to Esteban, the lying fuck.”
“Okay there, too,” Jesse said. “I’ve been talking to a friend who’s a lawyer, and she’s going to put me in touch with specialists in child custody and placement.”
“Child custody? I’m not in fucking child custody,” Amber said.
“Officer Molly Crane will be with you and Jenn much of the day,” Jesse said to Amber. “I will be with you most of the rest of the time. Occasionally, one of the other cops may fill in. There will always be a police officer with you.”
“So my old man won’t get me,” she said. “Or Esteban.”
“Or anyone else,” Jesse said.
“What about Crow?” Amber said.
“What about him?”
“Is he gonna be around?”
“Crow pretty much does what he wants to,” Jesse said. “If I see him, I’ll ask him.”
“So what am I supposed to do all day while you’re all watching me?”
“What would you like to do?” Jesse said.
“I don’t know.”
“There’s a start,” Jesse said. “How about taking a shower?”
“Here?”
“Yes.”
“I got no clean clothes,” Amber said.
“Tomorrow you and Jenn and Molly can go buy some. Meanwhile, you can wear one of my shirts for a nightie.”
“What should I do with my other clothes?”
“We could burn them in the fireplace,” Jesse said.
“Another thing we have to consider,” Jesse said. “Jenn will be in my bedroom. Amber will be in the guest room. I will be on the couch. There is one bathroom.”
“So?” Amber said.
“So keep it in mind,” Jesse said.
“How come you and her don’t sleep together?” Amber said.
“Too drab,” Jesse said.
46.
Suitcase Simpson came into Jesse’s office and closed the door and sat down in a chair facing Jesse. His face was red, and he seemed to be looking steadily at the top of Jesse’s desk.
Jesse waited.
Suit didn’t say anything.
Jesse waited.
“I’m having sex with an older woman,” Suit said.
“Miriam Fiedler,” Jesse said.
Suit raised his eyes.
“How’d you know that?” he said.
Jesse shrugged.
“I’m the chief of police,” Jesse said.
“Molly told you,” Suit said.
“No,” Jesse said. “She didn’t.”
Suit looked back at the desktop.
“Suit,” Jesse said. “Mostly, I don’t care what you do with your dick when you’re off duty.”
“I know,” Suit said.
“So?”
“So she’s asking me a bunch of questions,” Suit said.
“About?”
“You, the department, the Crown estate deal,” Suit said.
“Like what?”
“Were you a good cop,” Suit said. “Did I think you’d ever take a bribe? Did you have a relationship with Nina Pinero? Was it true you were fired in L.A.? What’s going on with you and Jenn? She wanted to know anything I knew about the murder. Did I think there was any Hispanic involvement?”
“Concerned citizen,” Jesse said.
“I figured you should know.”
Jesse nodded.
“She is very committed to this problem,” he said.
“She is,” Suit said.
“Why?” Jesse said.
“Real-estate values?”
Jesse shrugged.
“Maybe,” he said. “Seems awful important to her.”
“You think there might be something more?”
“Maybe,” Jesse said. “How’s she compare to Mrs. Hathaway?”
Suit reddened again.
“Come on, Jesse.”
“No kiss-and-tell?” Jesse said.
“Or whatever,” Suit said.
“Good boy,” Jesse said.
“Miriam says so, too,” Suit said. “Want me to break it off?”
Jesse shook his head.
“I’d like you to stay with it,” Jesse said.
Suit grinned.
“Undercover, so to speak,” he said.
“So to speak,” Jesse said. “See what else you can learn.”
Suit grinned again.
“Tough dirty work…” Suit said.
Jesse nodded.
“But somebody’s got to do it,” he said.
47.
Romero was driving. Esteban was beside him. Two men from Miami were in the backseat, and Larson was way back in the third seat.
“Cromartie lives someplace called Strawberry Cove,” Romero said.
“In Paradise?” Esteban said.
“Yeah. You know where that is?”
Esteban shook his head. Romero shrugged and reached his hand back over the seat. One of the men from Miami opened a briefcase and took out a sheet of paper. Romero looked at it.
“Off Breaker Avenue,” he said to Esteban. “You know where that is?”
“No,” Esteban said. “How you guys know this?”
“We checked,” Romero said. “You think we just jumped on a plane and come up here to mill around?”
“But how did you check?” Esteban said. “Ain’t it a long way?”
“The town paper prints a summary of the week’s real-estate transactions every Thursday.”
“You can get the Paradise paper over there?” Esteban said.
“We got people to do it for us,” Romero said.
He punched the navigation system that came with the car, and in a moment the directions came up. Esteban stared at it.
“How far you been from Horn Street, kid?” Romero asked.
“I ain’t no kid,” Esteban said. “I’m twenty years old, man.”
“How far you been?”
“Got no reason to go far,” Esteban said. “Got all I need right there. Got my boys. Got pussy, beer, wheeze. Nobody fucks with us. Got no reason to leave.”
“Ever kill anybody, Esteban?” Romero said.
“Hey, man, I just scragged the old lady a little while ago, you know that.”
“Ever kill anybody who could kill you?” Romero said.
“Shit, man, what are you saying? I kill anybody needs to be killed, man. I ain’t scared.”
“You recognize Cromartie if you see him?”
“I’ll recognize the cocksucker.”
“Good,” Romero said. “You see him, you tell me.”
“You gonna kill him?”
“Yes,” Romero said. “We are.”
“You don’t know what he looks like?” Esteban said.
“I do,” Romero said.
“I can show you where little hot pants lives, too,” Esteban said.
“Name’s Amber,” Romero said. “I don’t think Mr. Francisco would like it to have you call her ‘hot pants.’”
“Fuck him,” Esteban said. “I say what I want.”
Romero nodded.
“I don’t much like it, either,” Romero said.
“So fuck you, too,” Esteban said. “You think I’m scared of you?”
From the backseat one of the men from Miami caught Romero’s eye in the rearview mirror and made a shooting gesture with his forefinger and thumb at Esteban. Romero shook his head.
“Well,” Romero said to Esteban, “you probably know what you’re talking about.”
“You got that right, man,” Esteban said. “Hot…Pants! You want to see where she lives?”
“Be easier to take her to Miami,” Romero said, “if we kill Crow first.”
“Sure,” Romero said, and turned left onto Breaker Avenue.
The men in the Escalade had no expectation of being followed, so it was easy enough for Crow to keep them in sight. When they took the turn onto Breaker Avenue, Crow smiled. He knew where they were going. When the Escalade parked in front of his condo, Crow drove on past them and turned left, away from the water, onto a side street a hundred yards up the road, and parked.
It was a condo neighborhood. No kids. Everyone working. The stillness was palpable. Crow got out of the car, walked to the corner of the street, leaned on a tall blue mail-deposit box, and looked back down toward his condo. The five men from the Escalade had gotten out and were standing on the small lawn in front of the four-unit building. Crow’s unit was first floor left. The men spread out as they walked toward the door. Each had a handgun out, holding it inconspicuously down. Pros, Crow thought. Not scared of much. Don’t care if somebody sees them. Nobody home in the neighborhood anyway.
The squat man with the bald head rang Crow’s doorbell. The men waited. The bald man rang again. Then he looked at the tall man with the graying hair. The tall man said something and the bald man stepped back and kicked the door. It gave but not enough. He kicked it again and they were in.
Crow went back to his car, opened the trunk, selected a bolt-action Ruger rifle, and left the trunk ajar. He didn’t check the load. He knew it was loaded. His weapons were always loaded. Crow saw no point to empty guns. Carrying the Ruger, Crow went back to the mailbox and rested the rifle on top of it. There were a couple of late-summer butterflies drifting about. And a dragonfly. Nothing else moved. In perhaps three minutes, the men filed out of Crow’s broken front door. Their handguns were no longer visible. T
hey headed for the Escalade.
Carefully, Crow rested his front elbow on the mailbox and sighted the Ruger in on the bald man. One’s as good as another, Crow thought. Except Romero. Romero was the stud. If he killed Romero the rest of them would go home. He took a breath, let it out, took up the trigger slack, and shot the bald man in the center of his chest. Then he went to his car, put the rifle into the trunk, latched the trunk, got in the front seat, and drove away. Besides, Crow said to himself, he had the ugliest shirt.
In front of the condo the men were crouched behind the Escalade. They had their guns out.
“Anyone see where it came from?” Romero said.
No one had. After a moment, Romero stood and walked to where Larson lay. He squatted and put his hand on Larson’s neck. Then he stood and walked back to the Escalade.
“Let’s go,” he said.
They got in and drove away, leaving Larson quiet on the front lawn.
48.
They were all in the squad room, except Molly, who was with Amber, and Arthur, who was on the desk. There was coffee, and an open box of donuts. Jesse sat at the far end of the conference table.
“We’re all on call now, all the time, until this thing shakes out,” Jesse said. “I’ll try to get you enough sleep. But if I can’t, I can’t.”
No one spoke.
“Here’s what we know,” Jesse said. “The vic is a guy named Rico Larson. His driver’s license says he lives in Miami. He was carrying a Glock nine when he was killed by one bullet from a .350 rifle. The shot probably came from about a hundred yards down the road and across the street. He was shot in front of a condominium town house rented by Wilson Cromartie.”
Suitcase Simpson reached across the table for a donut.
“Crow,” he said.
Jesse nodded.
“Everybody in that neighborhood works during the day,” Jesse said. “No one saw anything. No one heard a shot.”
“We got a theory of the crime?” Peter Perkins asked.
“Guy in Miami,” Jesse said, “his wife ran away, took his daughter with her. Guy in Miami—name’s Francisco—hired Crow to find them. So Crow found them…here. Daughter’s got a boyfriend in Marshport, gang kid named Esteban Carty. Crow calls up Francisco, says, ‘I found them, what do I do now?’ Francisco says, ‘Kill the mother, bring back the daughter.’ Crow says, ‘No.’ This much I get from Crow, and it’s probably true.”