Elmore Leonard - Mr. Paradise

Montez thought he was a genius making Kelly pose as Chloe. He got the cops on him as a suspect and Fontana and Krupa pissed off enough to want to shoot him. Which could happen.

His phone rang with an annoying sound.

Montez said, "Whereabouts in Bloomfield Hills do you live?"

"You'd never find it," Avern said. "What's up?"

"I went to see this Kelly at her place? She says get the stock certificate and bring it to her and she'll take a look at it."

"That's the idea, isn't it?"

"I don't know can I trust her. She was real friendly though, sounding like she wanted to help me out."

"She didn't act scared?"

"Not as much."

See? This is what you were up against trying to do business with felons. They tended to be-not as nitwitty as the ones Leno ran into on the streets of Los Angeles, but dumb enough, prone to blow whatever they got into. Avern wanted with all his heart to believe Fontana and Krupa were the exceptions.

"I told you," Avern said, "your false I.D. of Chloe was a bad move, done in haste and it's got them looking at you. If you'd waited until you were in the clear and then went after Kelly, it wouldn't be that much different than dealing with Chloe. I told you from the beginning, how you get her to sign it over to you. The means you use, is strictly up to you. Where are you?"

"Coming up on Fourteen Mile."

"Turn around and go home," Avern said. "If you want, call me at the office tomorrow. But I'll tell you right now, I don't see how I can help you."

"Man, you the one got me into this."

"And you told me you could handle it," Avern said, "so handle it." He paused and said, "She was quite friendly, uh?"

"Loose, she'd been drinking cocktails."

"How friendly was she?"

"I tried to get her on the couch, she turned me down saying it wasn't a color thing, she had a boyfriend once was African-American. Said she just wasn't in the mood. We talked about things: But can I trust her?"

"That's something you'll have to decide," Avern said. "I'm going to bed."

He broke the connection but held on to the phone, wondering what his boys were doing. He'd have to let them know as soon as possible, once he decided how best to explain it, Montez might have to be taken out, so be ready. They'd holler, but there was nothing he could do about it. He'd rather tell Fontana, Carl a few points smarter than Art. But if he called him he knew he'd have to talk to that fucking Connie. He'd lose his patience and scream at her and she'd hang up on him. So he'd call Art, first thing in the morning.

Lloyd, wearing a starched white dress shirt hanging out of his pants, opened the front door and stood facing Jackie Michaels in her winter coat, her patterned red scarf, her hair combed out, no dreads this morning, Jackie looking at peace.

"Now what you want?"

Her gaze came up from the square of cardboard taped over the broken pane of glass to Lloyd. "You ever gonna get this fixed?"

"I had to find out who's paying for it," Lloyd said. He stared at Jackie another few moments. "I don't have to let you in, do I?"

"It's still considered a crime scene," Jackie said. "I can come in if I want, but I'm leaving it up to you."

"You have a different tone of voice this morning," Lloyd said. "Come on in and let's see if it works on me."

He brought Jackie through the dining room and pantry to the kitchen, bigger than her living room with a range made for a restaurant, every size pan hanging above the worktable, Lloyd telling her Mr. Tony Jr. was here just a while ago.

"Had his daughter with him, Allegra, nice polite girl. She stops and looks at those old paintings in the foyer. Say she wants to have somebody from DuMouchelle come and look at them. I asked her daddy who was paying to have the door fixed."

Jackie was looking at the bottle of Remy and the teapot and cups on the plain-wood worktable.

"He said to call somebody. I said, 'I know how to do that, but what do I pay 'em with?' I said, 'Your daddy always paid the tradespeople cash.' I said, 'Let me have some money till I'm gone to Puerto Rico.'"

"You have family there, uh?"

"Yes, I do, a flock of cousins still living. Tony Jr. takes out a wad-the man has on a three-thousand-dollar suit of clothes and carries a wad. He says how much did I want, a couple hundred? I told him a couple hundred don't get the toilet fixed. I said give me fifteen hundred. He give me a thousand. But try to get it out of his hand-"

"Hangs on to it," Jackie said, "while you're pulling on the bills. My daddy was like that."

"He still living?"

"No, he went early. He'd be your age now, about sixty?"

Lloyd smiled at her showing gold in his teeth. "You know how old I am, you been through my jacket a few times, haven't you? You wondering, could this seventy-one-year-old geezer play any part in this? I bet you think you know all about me, my scores, the falls I took-"

"Only to become, from what I hear," Jackie said, "the perfect nigga for around the house. You gonna pour the tea, or you want me to?"

"Go ahead," Lloyd said. "You want sugar in yours or just the cognac, the way 'Lizabeth Taylor use to take hers?"

"I love to learn things like that," Jackie said. "I'll go with Ms. Taylor."

"I'll tell you something else," Lloyd said. "I was only sixty, you'd of smelled my lust before we's through the dining room."

Jackie said, "Takes a little longer now?"

The second time they passed the house in Carl's Tahoe Carl said, "That's a cop car."

"Chevy Lumina," Art said, looking back as they headed up Iroquois. "It could be Lloyd's, couldn't it?"

"The help don't park in the drive," Carl said. "Cops are in there looking for clues, like we're gonna do now. Go on over to Orlando's, stick a finger up our butts and wonder what the hell we're looking for. But, shit, tell me what Avern said. He wants us to take Montez out?"

"He says we might have to. Montez gets his nuts in a crack he starts looking to make a deal."

"You ask him who pays for this one?"

"Avern says it's self-preservation. Keeps us from going back to D Block."

"Next time we talk to him," Carl said, "I'll let him know he's paying for it, twenty each to stay out of jail."

"Avern?"

"Yeah, Avern. Otherwise, we get caught we give him up. He has to know that."

"Same with the smoke this afternoon," Art said, "if he don't have the cash."

Carl said, "Yeah, if he shows up. He don't, we have to look for him. Shit, this deal is all work and no pay."

They were seated at the kitchen table now with their Elizabeth Taylor hot tea and smoking leftover Virginia Slims. Jackie said, "Tell me, Sugar, for the record, you a hostile witness or you want to help us out here?"

"Do I look hostile to you? I'm watching what happens," Lloyd said, "like I'm at the movies."

"You find it interesting, how it's going?"

"Let me say predictable."

"You'd of done it different?"

"Done what?"

"Figured out how to get Chloe's money?"

"That's what this is about? I thought it was a murder case, somebody shooting Mr. Paradise and his sweetie."

"You have a motive for that, too. You're in the old man's will."

"You getting tough with me again? Finish your tea."

"It just slipped out," Jackie said, "from habit."

"I figured from the time you was here before," Lloyd said, "you the one plays the mean cop, the one don't take any shit, huh?"

"Sometimes, yeah, I try to mess with their heads."

"That's a shame, ask a nice-looking woman to do that. Listen to me. If I'm in the man's will and he's up in his years, what's my hurry? I been living in a big, comfortable house. I got all kind of hand-me-down clothes I'm taking to Puerto Rico with me for my cousins. I got hand-me-down shoes looking good as new. Always had shoe trees in 'em."