Mr. Paradise

"You can't wait till tonight?"

"We'll take another one. We can take all the showers we want, Frank."

"I'm coming to the show."

"I'll look for you, the only guy in a suit."

"I'm sorry I can't take you."

"Even if you have to miss the show, you'll come by later?"

He said, "I can't wait to see you."

She said, "I can't either, I'm dying."

"You know I forgot to pick up Chloe's license?"

"And the stock papers. They're right here."

"Why don't you put them in your bag? Give them to me tonight and I'll know I have them. Did Montez call, or stop by?"

"He didn't and I'm surprised."

"Keep your eyes open."

"Don't worry."

"He'll know by now we've identified the two guys. I told his lawyer, who's also the lawyer for the two guys, or was. I think he's in the middle of it, the lawyer, and I'm hoping he's started to think about making a deal, for himself."

"What if he doesn't?"

"It'll take a little longer."

Kelly said, "Well: maybe I should tell you what I'll be wearing tonight, so you'll know me."

He said, "I'll know you."

Montez left the car in the driveway, so he didn't see Carl and Art, and Lloyd and some gangbanger kid he'd never seen before, until he was through the swing door and in the kitchen.

This big kitchen, the commercial range and refrigerator, the long worktable in the middle of the room, another round table in the alcove of windows where Carl and Art were sitting with drinks. A bottle of Club on the worktable, an ice tray open, where Lloyd was slicing a leftover beef roast and the young gangbanger he'd never seen before, wearing a reddish do-rag that showed some style, was opening a loaf of bread, Lloyd saying to the kid as Montez walked in, "Wash your hands first."

Montez said, "Before anybody says anything," raising his hands to hold off whatever he thought might be coming, "let me tell you what Avern said to me just a little while ago. One, there is no way their witness, Kelly Barr, can identify you," wanting to call them "assholes," but keeping it simple. "And two, Avern thinks you should leave town, go to Florida or someplace, get lost in a crowd of people." He said, "Now let me tell you what I think, being closer to the situation," and paused looking at Lloyd. "Who's this gangbanger, your grandson come to visit? Y'all best get out of here."

Lloyd waved the carving knife toward Carl and Art at the breakfast table. "Your friends say they hungry. Want something to eat."

Art said to Montez, "You want to tell us what you think, go ahead. Or save it till Lloyd makes us some sandwiches. That boy there is Three-J. He's with us, so don't fuck with him."

"Wait a minute," Montez said. "You two are hiding out? Here?"

"We was at a Ramada last night," Carl said. "I could see staying at motels wasn't go

Montez knew they were dumb, but not this dumb. How could they believe: "You think I gave you up? Tell me how I can do that without giving myself up? Was me hired you. You think they go

Art said to Carl, "Co

Montez said, "You gave it to Co

Art said to Carl, "The fuck you take it for?"

"You said there's some vodka for Co

"You're crazy, I never fuckin said that."

"I was there," Montez said to Art. "You told him to take the bottle, and he did. And Kelly can say yeah, that's the bottle the old man was drinking from. Before you shot him and she sees you two leaving the house. You want to hear her tell about it in court?"

Lloyd listened to them getting to it as he carved the leftover roast beef he'd served last night to his friend Serita Reese. She was somewhere in her fifties, worked in the Blue Cross office and wore big pearl earrings with her satin dress, always satin when she went out. Last evening an aqua color. Lloyd called her his Satin Doll. He asked Serita did she want to go to Puerto Rico. "Oh, would I." But wouldn't dare leave her job at Blue Cross. He asked Jackie Michaels did she want to go. She was hipper than Serita, younger, and said, "You mean it?" He said why would he ask her if he didn't mean it? "An old broad like me?" Fishing. He told Jackie Michaels she stirred him, got him thinking about living with a woman again. The only reason he hadn't jumped her, he had trouble working up intimate feelings about a woman on the police. Jackie Michaels said, "But you're thirty years older than I am."

He said, "Who told you that?"

Last night he and Serita were having their coffee and Remy, chocolate sauce on raspberry sorbet, and Allegra, the old man's granddaughter, stopped by from the funeral home with her husband, the one sold bull come, to show him the old paintings in the foyer. She kept apologizing for interrupting their evening till Serita, good at talking to white people, invited them to sit down and have some dessert. It was all right, but you had to talk on their level and laugh at things that weren't fu

Jerome turned from washing his hands at the sink and started making ugly sandwiches with the meat hanging out. Lloyd said, "Here," and took over the job. He said to Jerome, aside, "Listen to some of the Dumbest Criminals I Have Ever Known, and learn something."

All three of them sitting now at the round table by the windows.

The cheap phone inside Montez' leather coat came on playing "How High the Moon" and he brought it out and walked through the swing door into the pantry saying, "Ricky?: Yeah? Tell me." He came back after a few minutes and sat down at the table again with Carl and Art.

"She's in a fashion show tonight at the Detroit Institute of Arts. I told you about my man Ricky, fourteen years old? Sweet boy, can talk about fashion. He got that for me wiping off her windshield and made a buck."

Art said, "That's all you pay the kid?"

"What Kelly gave him. I owe Ricky another twenty's all. She told him she be home about nine-thirty. We get over there around nine, wait till she gets out of the car: I think as she's crossing the street to her building we roll up and snatch her, put her in the Tahoe."

Carl said, "We use your car."

"Man, you got more room."

"You got a trunk, don't you?" Carl said. "The Tahoe stays in the garage."

Art said, "We go

Montez said, "If that's how you want to do it. You the pros."

"Well, shit," Art said. "She gets back, walk up to her car and pop her."

"She has to disappear," Montez said. "Like she left town and didn't tell nobody."

"Take her out'n the woods?"

"I was thinking bring her back here," Montez said, "till we work out what to do with her. You know you could stick her head in a plastic bag. That way there won't be no blood."

Art said, "Shit, drop her in the river."

"You have a boat?"

"Off the Belle Isle bridge. Weight her down."

Carl said to Montez, "You ever kill anybody?"

Montez said, "I'm go

Art said, "I think he's cherry, never done it in his life."