Mr. Paradise

by Elmore Leonard

  “That’s all?”

  “I hung up on him.”

  “That’s why you’re still a witness, I don’t have him yet. Or the two guys. We’ve got the prints of one of them on the same vodka bottle with Montez’. It could put them together at the house—if you’ll testify that’s what the old man was drinking, the Christiania. And I’d like you to look at the two guys in a lineup. If you can put them at the scene that night, they’re done. We’ll pick ‘em up if they ever come home. Carl’s wife Connie says he stays with Art a lot of the time. Art lives in Hamtramck with Virginia Novak. We checked, they’re not married, but have a statue of the Virgin Mary in the front yard holding a birdbath. I’m hoping it was Art’s idea. I didn’t tell you their names, did I? Art Krupa and Carl Fontana. They could’ve met at Jackson, they were both there at the same time. They come out and for the past year and a half they’ve been shooting drug dealers, and then Paradiso.”

  “And Chloe,” Kelly said.

  “And Chloe. Montez hired them to do the old man. But how did he find out about them? Look at it another way. How did they get the contracts to take out the drug dealers? These two guys wouldn’t ordinarily have much to do with African-Americans. It’s like they have someone who arranges the hits. Like a manager.”

  “Or an agent,” Kelly said. “Have you ever heard of that?”

  Delsa shook his head. “No.”

  “You want to spend the night?”

  “Yeah, if I can take a shower first.”

  She said, “We can do that.”

  24

  THE COUNTER GIRL TOLD DELSA IT HAPPENED during the break time, going on eleven, between the Egg McMuffins and the Big Macs, “The three dudes come in—I look at the one and think I know him. Yeah, it’s Big Baby, still with the puffy cheeks. He lived down the street from us on Edison. I’m about to call to him, Hey, Big Baby, and surprise him ‘cause he won’t remember me from living on Edison. But then I see all three dudes pulling guns, Big Baby taking a sawed-off shotgun from outta his clothes, the two dudes with nines they hold sideways—know what I’m saying?—like they can shoot these guns any way they want. The one dude goes to the back, the other dude has his gun on Mr. Crowley by the french fry station, telling him he wants the money he knows is put somewhere. Big Baby tells us in front—they’s three of us—get down on the floor and don’t move. Right then the one yelling at Mr. Crowley, the manager, shoots him and Big Baby says, ‘What you shoot him for?’ like he can’t believe it. But see, he only shot him in the leg, up here, and the dude shot him is still yelling for the money. See, then Big Baby gets me up from the floor account he’s swearing, he can’t open the fuckin register. I open it and he say to me open the other two while he’s cleaning out the first one. Right then they’s two shots and I see Mr. Crowley fall by the carry-out window and I see the dude aim his nine at Mr. Crowley lying on the floor and shoot him two more times. Now the three dudes are yelling at each other, ‘What you shoot him for?’ ‘You didn’t have to shoot him.’ The dude that killed him saying he wouldn’t give him the fuckin money, and saying they got to get out of here. Big Baby and the other dude follow the first dude out and get in a ‘96 Grand Marquis that’s a dark color, but I didn’t see the license good.”

  Delsa was listening but thinking of last night, looking through scenes in his head, stepping into the shower and Kelly turning to him, water streaming over her naked body, her perfect breasts, her navel, Kelly smiling at him and laughing out loud as he said, “Heil Hitler,” and to the counter girl, “Do you know Big Baby’s real name?”

  She said, “No, I only heard people speak of him as Big Baby, but I never knew why.”

  Delsa, seeing Kelly on the bed in lamplight, her arms reaching for him, said, “You didn’t know the other two?”

  She said, “No, I didn’t,” and said, “I told you I lived on Edison? The house was on the corner of Rosa Parks Boulevard and my name is Rosa account of I was named for her? I thought I would live there the rest of my life. But what happen when I was twelve, my daddy lost his job at Wonder Bread and we were evicted for not paying the rent.”

  Delsa said, “That’s a shame,” remembering them in bed barely dry after the hurried shower but not caring.

  “My mama and daddy’s living on LaSalle Gardens now. It’s nice there, they gentrified it. I live in Highland Park with my boyfriend Cedric, on Winona? He’s valet at the MGM Grand.”

  “Later on today,” Delsa said, handing her his card, “come down to police headquarters and we’ll write up your statement. But give me a call first, we might have to do it tomorrow. Is that okay, Rosa?”

  She said she guessed she could.

  Delsa looked at the manager on the floor thinking there would always be this kind of work. The middle of April the manager would be, what, the one hundredth homicide? About that. Business would pick up in the summer maybe enough to match last year’s four hundred homicides. Delsa had been at it eight years out of seventeen with the Detroit Police, started at the Seventh Precinct in radio cars, went to Violent Crimes and now Homicide. In less than eight more years he could retire on half pay. He’d be forty-five. Then what? Corporate security. He had taken prelaw at Wayne, kept putting off going to law school and now he didn’t care much for lawyers. What he knew was how to investigate a homicide, how to peel open a case and find out who was who, the ones lying to him and the ones telling him things he could use, until finally meeting the suspect and knowing he had him by the nuts, this arrogant guy who could not believe you’d ever take him down, and you present the evidence and watch his face, watch his fuck-you expression fade looking at twenty-five to life or life without parole. There was nothing like that moment. No guns, no need for them. Just that one time he’d fired his Glock intending to do great bodily harm if not to kill. Maybe he should’ve told the second guy to put it down, the guy with Maureen’s gun, but he didn’t and wasn’t sorry. He said to himself in the McDonald’s on West Chicago, This is what you do. Stick around and you’ll make inspector. The section was due for a white guy running the squads. But now he went back to cutting through scenes in his mind from last night to making love in the first light of morning. Now he was having breakfast in Kelly’s terrycloth robe that was tight on him but felt good. Each time she brought something to the table, the paper, the coffee, the toast, she would touch his face and kiss him on the mouth. He would watch her walk to the kitchen in a heavy wool sweater that covered her black panties and wool socks sagging around her legs and would wait to see her face coming back, looking at him.

  She said, “Do you know it’s Saturday? I have to be at the DIA at two for rehearsal, hair, makeup. We have dinner at five in a cozy room and the show, I think, is at seven. Five changes in twenty-five minutes and it’s over. Are you coming?”

  She was not like any cop’s wife he had ever known.

  “I’ll be there,” Delsa said.

  “You have a tux?”

  “They’ll let me in.”

  “I’ll have to drive,” Kelly said.

  “I could maybe drop you off at two.”

  “But what if something comes up and you can’t make the show?”

  He said, “Yeah, you’d better drive.”

  They were both at the table with the paper and their breakfast. He said, “You know I’m ten years older than you are?”

  She was biting into a piece of toast, looking at the front page of the paper. She said, “Good for you,” still looking at the paper.

  He said, “We’re on different schedules, aren’t we?”

  She put the paper down.

  “I lived with a call girl for two years,” Kelly said, “on quite different schedules. If we want to see each other, Frank, we’ll work it out.” She said, “Won’t we?”

  •

  There were evidence techs on the scene, Jackie Michaels talking to the help, and the death investigator from the Medical Examiner’s office, Val Trabucci, taking pictures. Delsa approached him and Val took a break. He said, “F
rank, this guy got out of bed this morning—if somebody told him he’d be dead before noon, he’d say they’re full of shit.”

  “You think about things like that?”

  “All the help here liked him, a nice young guy, married. But what’s his wife doing right now while he’s dead and she doesn’t know it? That’s what I think about.”

  There was a silence before Delsa said, “I’ve got a question for you. You ever hear of a couple of guys named Fontana and Krupa?”

  “Gene Krupa?”

  “This one’s Art.”

  Val said to the girl standing there watching, “Sweetheart, give me a big scoop of those fries, will you, please?” He said to Delsa, “Art Krupa. He shot a guy in a bar on Martin Luther King Day and copped to first-degree manslaughter.”

  “I read both their sheets,” Delsa said. “I’m looking for something else.”

  Val was watching the girl lift the basket of french fries out of the hot oil. He had to swallow before he said, “Fontana shot a guy with a deer rifle, hunting out of season, and copped to Man One about the same time as Krupa. I remember I kept calling him Gene.”

  “It looks like they’re doing hits now.”

  “Paradiso and who else?”

  “Five dealers and one attempted.”

  “Carl and Art? Where they get the guys they hit?”

  “That’s what I’m looking at. I told Eleanor to find out who represented them, but she’s in court this morning.”

  Val said, “That Eleanor’s got a body on her, you know it?” He said, “You should’ve asked me. It was Avern Cohn got ‘em both reduced to manslaughter. It was using guns got ‘em the time.”

  “They could’ve met at Jackson.”

  “Or they came out and Avern put ‘em together.”

  “You ever hear of a hit man service?”

  “Not any that made it.”

  “A guy runs it and gets them the jobs?”

  Val said, “Uh-unh, but that could be Avern. He’d know anybody who wanted it done. But I’ll tell you, you aren’t gonna make a living in this town as a contract hitter, there too many amateurs who like to shoot people. The guy that shot this man came in knowing he was gonna kill somebody in here. He was nervous about it, but dying to see what it was like. The knuckleheads that robbed this place, what was their take, a couple hundred?”

  “What they got was one register.”

  “Offer them a grand to hit somebody you’d have a deal. All these assholes and their guns, man, their nines … No, you want to be a hit man in Detroit you’d have to have a sideline, like home invasions. Bust in and develop a personal relationship with the family. Beat the shit out of the guy and fuck his wife.” Val turned to the girl waiting to give him his fries. He said, “Excuse my language, we’re talking business here.”

  The girl said that would be a dollar sixty-one for the fries.

  Val said, “That’s all right, forget it. Your manager was alive he’d tell you it was okay.” He turned to Delsa with the fries, offering them.

  Delsa shook his head, but then caught the aroma and took a few.

  So did Val Trabucci saying, “But how did this Montez get hold of the two guys? They’re from different walks of life, you might say. Unless—”

  Delsa said, “Avern Cohn. He had Montez, lost him to Anthony Paradiso and got him back again. Wendell said, ‘Avern Cohn? I thought he’d been disbarred by now.’”

  Val said, “Well, shit, there you are, Avern’s their manager. What else you need while I’m here?”

  “Avern’s name keeps coming up,” Delsa said. “I’m thinking I ought to talk to him.”

  “I would.”

  “See if I can make him nervous.”

  “Scare the shit out of him,” Val said, “and see what he does.”

  “Let me ask you something else. I got a C.I. working his ass off for the twenty grand on Orlando.”

  “Who put it up?”

  “Harris says the sister of one of the dead Mexicans. I gave the reward sheet to my C.I. and he got excited. But now he’s got a couple of guys with him who say they’re cops, but didn’t know about the reward, they’re just back from their vacations.”

  “They’re not cops.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “They let this kid tag along?”

  “He says they’re working together on it.”

  Val shook his head. “They’re not cops.”

  Delsa said, “Here’s the thing. Manny Reyes talked to a guy named Chino who runs the posse the three guys were in. The one dismembered Harris said you put back together?”

  “Yeah, see if the parts matched.”

  “Manny warns Chino not to go after Orlando. Chino tells Manny it’s being taken care of, sounding to Manny like he took out a contract on Orlando. Then Jerome tells me about these two guys looking for Orlando for the twenty grand.”

  Val said, “And you’re on to two guys who shoot drug dealers.”

  “White guys. Jerome tells me about the guys he’s with and I picture white guys.”

  “Yeah …?”

  “But he never said they were white.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  Delsa was nodding. “The next time he calls.”

  If he calls.

  25

  LLOYD LOOKED THROUGH A ROSE-COLORED PANE in the door, the broken one below it finally replaced, and saw two figures on the stoop, one behind the other, but no red truck in the driveway. The mutts back. But then got a surprise when he opened the door. Was only one of the mutts, Art, and a black kid taller than Art. Lloyd said, “Montez ain’t here.”

  Didn’t matter, they were coming in.

  Art, not looking at Lloyd or saying a word, came in past him. The kid slouching into the foyer, his clothes hanging on him, a red-patterned do-rag that wasn’t bad, the kid looking up at the high ceiling and the bannister along the second floor. Art was in the dining room now, about to shove through the swing door to the pantry. Like it was his house. The kid started after Art and Lloyd said, “Wait, I want to ask you something.”

  The kid looked around at him.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Three-J.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  He hesitated before saying, “Jerome Jackson.”

  “That’s only two Js.”

  “Jerome Juwan Jackson.”

  Lloyd said, “Jerome, what are you doing with this ofay motherfucker? Tell me what’s going on here.”

  Lloyd was cool, the way he said it, and Jerome was cool behind his shades, but showed some surprise the way he hesitated and stared at Lloyd.

  Jerome said, “Ask them, Uncle. They don’t tell me shit.”

  “I’m not your uncle, I’m Lloyd. They tell you who they are?”

  “They say they cops, but they ain’t. They looking for Orlando same as me, for the reward.”

  “But why they here?”

  “They need to hide out a while.”

  “From the police and they come here?”

  Lloyd smiled, shaking his head, Jerome staring at him.

  “Why you think that’s funny?”

  “You don’t know who these mangy cats are, do you?”

  “They contract hit men,” Jerome said. “They mean and they cuckoo, they kill nine people and a dog. I was you I wouldn’t fuck with them.”

  Lloyd said, “They killed a dog, huh?”

  “Art did, I saw him. Man says, ‘Don’t shoot my dog,’ and Art shoots it, a pit bull.”

  “That what you want to do, shoot dogs?”

  “You think I like being with them? I want the reward’s all. Man, twenty grand.”

  “What’d this Orlando do?”

  “Kill three Mexicans and cut one up. Was a drug thing, a disagreement.”

  “Yeah, I read about it,” Lloyd said. “Who’s putting up the money?”

  Jerome looked surprised.

  “The cops.”

  “You think they gonna pay t
wenty-K for a tip?”

  Jerome brought the reward notice from a pocket in his pants and handed it to Lloyd. Lloyd unfolded the sheet and read it.

  “Must be some Mexican putting it up, some relative of one of the deceased.” Lloyd handed the sheet back to Jerome and said, “Where’s Carl? Hiding the truck?”

  “Seeing can he put it in the garage.”

  “These guys strapped?”

  “Each have a nine stuck in their pants.”

  “How about you?”

  “I’m fixed.”

  “Where you keep it?”

  “Here.” Jerome patted his butt.

  “Must be a weapon with size, it’s pulling your pants off. You ever shoot anybody?”

  “Not yet I haven’t.”

  “You do any time?”

  “Thirty months federal.”

  “Possession, huh? Boy, I did a hundred and eight months straight up, no time off for being good. Was for armed robbery, no pussy narcotics. It means I’m in charge here. Understand? You don’t do nothing but what I tell you. Otherwise keep your mouth shut. Does that suit you?”

  Jerome shrugged.

  “Take off your glasses and look at me.”

  Jerome pulled off his shades and they stared at each other, Lloyd saying, “I asked does that suit you. I’m in charge in this house. That make sense to you?”

  “Yeah, but you don’t know who you fuckin with here.”

  “I know them better than you,” Lloyd said. “I never saw ‘em shoot a dog, but the other night I heard ‘em shoot Mr. Paradise and his girlfriend. Right there in the living room, they watching TV.”

  Jerome said, “Wait now. And they come here to hide?”

  “It’s what I’m saying.” Lloyd motioned to him. “Let’s go see what they up to.”

  •

  Carl put the Tahoe in the garage and came in with the carton of liquor from the open house. He said to Lloyd, “Art’s checking Montez’ place, see if he’s hiding under the bed. That your Toyota in the garage?”

  Lloyd said it was and asked, “How long you gonna be here?”