Mr. Paradise A Novel Read Free Page B

each page.”
    “Looking him in the eye,” Wendell said.
    “He signed them.”
    “I bet he did, and pretty soon he’ll believe it. Tells everybody on the block what he did and becomes a street legend. Stood up to a gangbanger and pulled on him. You pick up Tyrell?”
    “Jerome says he works half days at the Mack Avenue Dinerin Grosse Pointe Woods. We’ll pay a courtesy call to the police, stop in the diner for breakfast, Violent Crimes outside and scoop him up.”
    “Jerome’ll testify in court?”
    “I don’t want him to. The prosecutor can use Jerome to offer Tyrell second degree, the best he can do. Tyrell will get something like six to fifteen and do the whole bit, ’cause he’ll fuck up inside. I want the word to get around Jerome refused to testify. Stood up to Tyrell, dissed him to his face, but will not disrespect him in the man’s court. Be a traitor to his kind by helping to send Tyrell down.”
    “You sound like an old-time Black Panther,” Wendell said. “What’s this ‘his kind’?”
    “Assholes,” Delsa said, “the kind we bring in here every day and lie to each other, asking questions and taking statements.”
    “What you’re doing with Jerome,” Wendell said. “Setting him up to be an informant, huh? Does he know it?”
    “Not yet. I’ll pick him up later on, bring him here for another talk. See where he stands on ratting out people he knows.”
    “What’s his incentive?”
    “Tell him there’s money in it.”
    “It could work once or twice,” Wendell said.
    “The one last night,” Delsa said, “the hotel on Cass, the guy couldn’t explain the blood on the carpeting. Jackie asked him how he got blood on his shirt and he said, ‘Oh, Tammi hugged me and she has a tendency to bleed.’ Tammi’s the complainant. He shot her for taking twenty-eight bucks off the dresser. The man’s son, and a guy he sells crack with in thelobby, came up to get rid of the body. They got partway down the stairs and left her.”
    “Too much like work,” Wendell said.
    “I guess.”
    “What else? The guy sitting in his car on St. Antoine.”
    “Talking to his wife on the phone,” Delsa said. “She hears three shots. We’ve got no witnesses, nobody to focus on. And we’re still looking for two white guys going around shooting black drug dealers. They should stick out like they’re wearing signs, but we’re not getting anywhere.”
    “The guy out by Woodmere,” Wendell said, “back of the cemetery. What’s a man thinking, he shoots another man thirteen times?”
    Delsa said, “What’re any of them thinking.”

THREE
    EARLY EVENING MONTEZ TAYLOR WAS IN the man’s brown Lexus leaving downtown Detroit by way of East Jefferson. His phone rang. Montez brought it out of his tan cashmere topcoat, muted gold tie against dark gray underneath, and said, “Montez.” Always Montez, because it always could be Mr. Paradise.
    It was Lloyd.
    Meaning the man had told Lloyd to call and have him pick up something like booze, cigars, porno movies. Montez didn’t wait to hear what it was, he wanted to talk and said, “I’m at the office checking on that little girl’s new there, Kim? Tony Jr. comes along with his big ass, wants to know what I’m doing. I said picking up his daddy’s junk mail. He tells me soon as the old man’s gone I am too. I said, ‘What about my benefits, my bonus, my Blue Cross?’ Junior says, ‘You got to be kidding.’ “
    Lloyd said, “Like you didn’t know they gonna throw your ass out in the street.”

    “Hey, I was fuckin with him. What’s the man doing?”
    “Watching his show, Wheel of Fortune . He wants you to pick up some of those Virginia Slim 120’s, the real long ones. The girlfriend’s coming this evening.”
    Montez said, “Wait now.” Stared at taillights running away from him in the dark, realized he was slowing down, and punched the gas pedal to catch up. Lloyd was mistaken, getting old. “You’re thinking of last night she was coming.