Mr. Paradise

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 ru

She said, "Do you know it's Saturday? I have to be at the DIA at two for rehearsal, hair, makeup. We have di

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, "Frank, 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 go

"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."