Elmore Leonard: Mr. Paradise

"You think it's why I mention the bong?"

"It's like that. You're telling me," Delsa said, "you have nothing to hide, I can believe anything you say. You ever been to Yakity Yak's?"

"'Yakety Yak, don't talk back'-big hit by the Coasters. No, I never been there. He give up the shooter?"

"He felt better when he did," Delsa said. "Tell me about Kelly. Where she's from:"

"I don't know."

"If she has a family."

"I don't know as that kind of girl has a family. I mean one she keeps in touch with. You know what I'm saying? Like she calls up and talks to her mama, tells her she's turning tricks? Yeah, I suppose she could have a family. She does, they the ones'd make the funeral arrangements, huh?"

"Next of kin comes to the Medical Examiner's office," Delsa said, "to make a positive I.D."

"You want them identified?" Montez said. "That's Mr. Paradise and that's little Kelly, and I'm positive."

"And we'll need the M.E.," Delsa said, "to tell us the cause of death."

Montez said, "You're fuckin with me now, aren't you? Both of 'em showing serious bullet holes?"

"You worked for a trial lawyer, you know what I'm talking about," Delsa said, almost finished with him. "You said both girls are hookers?"

"Call girls, high class. They go nine bills an hour, man, each."

"You and Chloe in bed when you heard the shots?"

"Getting to it."

"These the clothes you had on?"

"All evening."

"You were 'getting to it,'" Delsa said. "What's that mean, you unzipped your fly?"

"Means I was about to disrobe but was interrupted. Pistol shots, man, can change your plans."

"How's Chloe? You think she's okay now?"

"You want, I can check."

"I'm going up anyway," Delsa said, "I'll save you a trip."

First she heard a woman's voice coming from the hall.

"There's a girl in here."

The cop in uniform who came in moments later asked if she was all right. She didn't answer. He stood leaning over her in the chair she'd turned to the window, his traffic-cop face close, tobacco on his breath, his reflection above hers on the glass. He asked if she had seen what happened. She understood what he meant but said no. He said he didn't mean did she see it happen. She said yes, she saw them in the chair. She put her head down in the turned-up collar of her cinnamon coat. He asked if she had come with the other girl. She didn't answer. He asked her name. She didn't answer. He told her not to change her clothes or wash her face and hands. He told her to keep the light on and the door open. He left, but another uniformed cop, a black woman, remained in the hall.

She looked at her watch but couldn't read the time, the lamp behind her, on the other side of the bed.

If they got to the house a little before ten, came up here to fool with their makeup-her eyes still raccooned, her hair spiked-spent time talking, smoking a cigarette, neither of them in a hurry, it must've been close to eleven by the time they did the cheers, Lloyd served them another drink, and the old man tossed Montez' quarter in the air.

"Tails it is." He said to Montez, "You get Kelly for as long as you want. On me."

She told herself to take it easy, don't act stupid. Be cool, show some poise. Go up to the bedroom and get your coat. And as soon as he has his clothes off set him straight, you're not a hooker, and get out, leave the house. She finished her drink, started for the foyer and the old man's voice stopped her.

"Look how anxious she is. Go on, Montez, carry her upstairs and throw her on the bed." Kelly turned, a few strides from the hallway that led to the foyer, the old man laughing.

She saw Montez waiting to say something to him, the old man sipping his drink now. Montez said, "Sir, you mind if I have Chloe instead?"

Mr. Paradiso stared at him.

"I mean you're giving me either one anyway, on the flip of a coin." Montez shrugged like it was no big deal, "Could you make it Chloe, Mr. Paradise?"

Chloe said, "Hey, now wait a minute."

Mr. Paradiso said, "Jesus Christ, I try to treat you with respect, offer you a nine-hundred-dollar piece of tail-no, she doesn't suit you, you want the other one. I give Lloyd expensive clothes I don't want, he couldn't be more appreciative. 'Thank you, Mr. Paradise, thank you, sir.' But you're never satisfied, are you? You prefer to insult me, throw my gesture back in my face."

Montez said, "All right, if this is how you want it."

He came to her, Kelly surprised to see his face bland, without expression, but then was rough taking her by the arm to the foyer and up the staircase to the second floor, Kelly hurrying with him in her sneakers to stay on her feet. They came to the bedroom where she and Chloe had left their coats and Montez shoved her inside, the light still on in the bathroom. She turned to him saying, "I'm not going to bed with you, so don't even think about it."

He stood in the doorway, his back to her, looking down the hall.

She said, "Listen, it's nothing personal, okay?"

He didn't turn or say anything. He didn't move.

Kelly went in the bathroom, lit a cigarette, and finished the alexander she'd left. Chloe's, barely touched, was on the counter. She picked it up and drank it down, all of it, and saw her face, the exaggerated eyes and weird hair, looking at her from the mirror. She stepped back into the bedroom, Montez still at the door, and sat down on the side of the king-size bed, smoked her cigarette and used the ashtray on the night table. She turned on the lamp. The ashtray was from the Pierre in New York.

Now she stared at Montez' back in pinstripes wondering what he was up to, what he was thinking:

Why he hadn't jumped her by now.

Why he wanted Chloe instead of her.

She wasn't actually offended:

Chloe had bigger boobs and that could be all there was to it, Montez eyeing her for months: If he made the move she'd explain to him, look, I'm not what you think, I'm not a pro, all right? I have to be in love and we hardly know each other. Like that, keep talking. Tell him you had an African-American boyfriend once, a terrific guy, originally from the hood.

Montez hadn't moved from the door.

She said, "Tell me what you're doing."

He didn't answer.

She thought about washing her face, getting rid of the eye makeup, but didn't want to move. She said, "You're listening for something," and sat still, quiet, finished the cigarette, stubbed it out, lit another one:

And saw his shoulders jump at the hard, blunt sound of gunfire from downstairs-not like movie gunshots, but that's what the sound had to be, and heard it again, the sudden hard pops, and dropped her cigarette as she came off the bed and had to find the fucking Virginia Slim on the carpet and stub it out in the ashtray, and when she looked at the door again Montez was gone.

Kelly put on her coat. She picked up Chloe's from the bed and went out to the hall.

He was at the staircase railing where it came up and curved into the open area of the hall, looking down at the lighted foyer. Kelly brushed the wall as she moved toward him, Montez waiting: That's what it looked like, waiting for someone to appear. He called out, "Hey!" and it stopped her. He waited again.

Now he was running down the carpeted stairway.

Kelly moved along the wall to the stair rail, dropped to her hands and knees and looked down at the foyer, empty, through the marble balusters. She was directly over the short hallway to the living room. She could hear voices now but not what they were saying. Montez' voice and another one and another one, three different sounds in what could be an argument, two against one. She stood up to listen, draping Chloe's coat over the railing, and dropped down again pulling the coat with her.

Through the balusters now she watched two men in black raincoats and baseball caps cross the foyer to the front door. Now they turned to look back and stood there: both white, both about fifty-they looked short-nothing out of the ordinary about them, just guys, like workingmen. One held a gun, an automatic, the other a bottle of vodka by the neck, the one the old man had been drinking. The guy with the gun pointed it at the hallway and said, "Day after tomorrow, Smoke."