Elmore Leonard - Mr. Paradise

"Positive."

He asked if there was anything unusual about them. Kelly said she thought of them as workingmen, blue-collar. He asked about their baseball caps and she remembered the orange D and he said they were the caps the Tigers wore on the road. He told her to go to bed, he'd call her in the morning.

She said, "What if Montez calls during the night?"

"He won't, I'm gonna have him picked up." Delsa said, "Anything else you want to tell me?"

Not right now.

Kelly didn't say that. She said, "Not that I can think of," with a little shrug. She had decided there was more to think about here than just getting it over with. Montez would deny everything she told Frank. Her word against his. In a corner Montez might even say it was her idea. It was kind of cool to be in this with your eyes open, letting it happen. Maybe she should try acting, modeling with lines, hitting marks: Frank Delsa looked at you with those quiet eyes asking questions, and you answer, you know he's getting more out of it than what you're saying. She wondered when he first knew she wasn't Chloe. Before she fumbled the keys, probably in the bedroom. He listened, he paid attention: For the next two days she'd hold off saying anything more and see what happened next.

She loved his eyes.

Autopsy attendants were preparing four bodies this morning for pathology: Tony Paradiso, Chloe Robinette, and the two guys from Orlando's basement who'd been shot but not dismembered.

Delsa, hospital booties covering his shoes, watched the diener working on Mr. Paradise, snipping free the old man's rib cage with a long-handle pruner. Chloe's organs had been removed, weighed, tissue samples taken, the organs returned to her body in a plastic bag. Chloe was now being stitched back together, the section of skull refitted, her blond hair in place again. They had traced her to Montreal, to strip clubs in Windsor, a Web page on the Internet, this girl who'd made nine hundred dollars an hour lying naked on an autopsy table, a weak sun shining on her through the skylight.

She didn't show up on LEIN; neither did Kelly. Montez and Lloyd both had sheets. They'd pick at Lloyd, see about tying him in, but concentrate on Montez. Throw the two white guys at him. Get a copy of his 9-11 call.

He noticed a note on the board that said, handprinted, "Howard, you will be responsible for brain bucket cleanup Monday."

Richard Harris tapped on the glass partition of the observation room, Richard on the other side where you could watch autopsies from a distance and not become too grossed out. Delsa went out to him because Richard refused to come anywhere near an autopsy. He said, "We got an I.D. on the one was cut up. His name's Zorro, the fox, with the Cash Flow Posse."

"How'd you get it?"

"The man's family, his mom and daddy, they both in the business. Zorro didn't call when he was suppose to. You understand this was a dangerous man, knows this other posse wants him out of business. If he doesn't follow up and call by a certain time? He must be dead. They're out in the viewing room, the family. The M.E. photo guy's trying to shoot Zorro's face without it looking so burnt.

"And, Mr. Tony Jr.'s in the lobby bitching. Wants to know what all the fuckin Chicanos are doing in the room, the viewing room, where they show the complainant on that monitor. Tony wants to talk to you. I mean he's demanding to speak with you."

"What about Tyrell?" Delsa said. "You take him down?"

"Him and two of his crew with outstanding warrants, violated their probation. Yeah, I went in and ordered breakfast-give me time to check the place out, glance in the kitchen. Sit at the counter you can watch the activity, Tyrell in there frying eggs. I got him lined up, my phone nudges me. It's Manny outside with Violent Crimes. 'Is he there? What're you doing? We going in or not?' I told him soon as I finish my breakfast."

"Manny Reyes."

"Yeah. The way it went down, Manny comes in and we approach Tyrell in the kitchen. He sees us and runs out the back to a car, his baby's mama and his baby sitting in the front seat, like they waiting for him to get off work. Now he sees our guys, he snatches up the baby and runs around to the driver's side, using the child as a shield, his own baby girl. You hear what I'm saying? We ganged on him fast. After, Manny said, 'I learn something today. You can fit a Glock Forty up a guy's nose.'"

Delsa had called Richard last night, still at the Paradise scene, told him the girl in the chair with the old man was Chloe, not Kelly, and to house Montez for questioning about the false I.D. Delsa said last night, "But don't tell him we know."

Today at the Medical Examiner's he said, "Pick up Montez when you're finished here and I'll see you up on five."

Richard said, "You gonna run into Tony in the lobby."

"How's he know I'm on the case?"

"Must keep track of you, man, since you beat him on that wrongful death. I remember I was with Violent Crimes at the time, everybody talking about it. What was it the man was asking, thirty million?"

Late November four years ago at Eastland with Maureen, ten past eight driving up and down aisles in the dark, headlights looking for a parking space-one close to Hudson's, before it became Marshall Field's. Maureen said, "There's one," but Delsa had to creep behind two lanky, slow-moving guys walking up the aisle.

They turned into the open space-scruffy-looking white guys, mid-twenties-maybe to cut through to the next aisle, the parking space facing this one also open, and Maureen said, " Move, will you?" Out loud but for her own benefit, Maureen not the most patient woman, high on energy, worked out with weights while Delsa watched television. She reached over and blew the horn at them.

As Delsa expected, the two guys turned and stared into the headlights-at that time a black Honda Accord with 94,000 miles on it-one of the guys calling to them, "You in a hurry?"

Delsa remembered Maureen saying, "What do you bet you get a LEIN hit on both of them." And telling her, "That's why I wish you hadn't blown the horn."

She said, "You know what they're doing, looking for a car to boost." Then reminded him that the Honda Accord was the most frequently stolen motor vehicle in the U.S.

Delsa remembered saying if they didn't get to Hudson's soon it would be closed. They were here to buy her dad a couple of sweaters, one for his birthday and one for Christmas, kill two birds.

But now the guys were coming toward the car, grungy jackets hanging open, caps on backwards, and that vacant stare that made them rockheads.

"'Night of the Living Dead,'" Maureen said. "Let's roll down the windows. I want to see what these assholes have to say."

Delsa had to agree, these guys could be dirty, looking for action. He released his seat belt, zipped open his jacket and reached inside to unhook the snap on his holster, the Glock resting against his right hip, part of him. Maureen's was in her handbag, open on her lap.

The guy who came up on Delsa's side laid his arms on the sill and hunched over to get in Delsa's face. He said, "You drive like a fuckin nigger."

Delsa didn't know what he meant and didn't ask. He said, "You're almost in serious trouble." He said, "Step away from the car," and shoved the door open in the next second, putting his shoulder into it, the top edge of the door frame hitting the guy in the face and he went down. Delsa was out of the car by the time he heard Maureen-"Frank, he's got my bag!"-and saw the other guy running with the brown leather shoulder bag through the open parking spots and across the next aisle to the rear end of a pickup truck, headlights on him as a car approached and went by. Now the one Delsa had flattened was up and running toward the pickup. He stopped in the next aisle, looked back and yelled, "You're fucked now, man." Delsa was out of the car and heard Maureen-"He's got my gun!"-but kept his eyes on the one who'd yelled, letting Delsa know it wasn't over. The guy was at the pickup cab now, the inside light coming on. Delsa pulled his Glock and racked the slide. The light in the cab went off as the door slammed and the guy was in the aisle again with a shotgun, pumping it with that ratchety sound as Delsa raised his Glock and took aim the way he was taught and shot the guy in the chest, sure of it, the shotgun going off at the sky as the guy dropped to the pavement. Delsa put the Glock on the other guy shoving his hand in Maureen's bag, the hand coming out of the bag with her. 40 caliber and shot him dead center and he went down. Delsa walked over with Maureen to stand looking at them as Maureen checked each one for a pulse. It was the first time he had fired his weapon at anyone. Maureen called 9-11 while he drove the Honda around to that aisle and put his headlights on the scene.