Elmore Leonard: Mr. Paradise

Last night he'd made a run with Sergeant Jackie Michaels, forty-three, to the Prentiss Hotel on Cass. "Home to hookers, winos and crackheads," Jackie said. "My neighborhood, Frank, when I was growing up. I might even know the complainant." In some ways Jackie reminded him of Maureen. They'd been rookies together working out of the Tenth, the black girl and the white girl close friends, both from the street; nothing surprised either one.

The complainant at the Prentiss Hotel was Tammi Marie Mello, W/F/49, lying on the stairway landing between the fifth and sixth floors. Apparent cause of death, the evidence tech said, a single gunshot wound to the back. "Yeah, I remember her from when I was a little girl," Jackie said. "Tammi Mello, been selling that big ass of hers all her life." They followed a trail of blood up the stairs and along the hall to 607 where a uniform stood by the open door, Jackie Michaels saying to Delsa, "Do you thank God like I do they're stupid? Or stoned or lazy or generally fucked up?" The occupant of 607, Leroy Marvin Woody, B/M/63, unemployed bus driver, sitting by himself hunched over, a nearly full half-gallon of Five O'Clock gin next to him, ashtray full of cigarette butts, blood on the front of his white T-shirt, seemed in a nod. He didn't respond to Jackie saying, "What'd you kill that woman for, Uncle? She make you mad? Say something mean and you lost your temper? Look at me, Mr. Woody. Tell me what you did with the gun."

In the morning, after the call from Harris at the scene of the triple, Delsa had his coffee and got ready for work.

The car they gave him to use was a dark blue Chevy Lumina with 115,000 miles on it and a Service Engine Soon light that was always on. He parked on Gratiot, a block from 1300 Beaubien, Detroit Police Headquarters for the past eighty years, the worn-out nine-story building hemmed in by high-rise wings of the Wayne County jail, the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice and, a few blocks south against the sky, the Greektown Casino.

Most of Homicide was on five.

Delsa walked past Seven's squad room to the end of the hall and the office of his boss, Homicide Inspector Wendell Robinson, a cool guy, twenty-eight years with the Detroit Police. Wendell was up on the triple, he'd stopped by the scene on his way in.

"Frank, it's over by Tiger Stadium, that famous old ballpark of no use to anybody." Wendell had hung up his trench coat and now stood by his desk, still wearing his Kangol cap, this one beige. Wendell had been wearing those soft Kangols as long as he'd been here, longer than Samuel L. Jackson had been wearing his backwards. He said, "Right across a parking lot's a White Castle. You can smell those beautiful sliders with the onions fried on 'em, seven in the morning. How we doing?"

Delsa wanted to remind Wendell that he needed people. With Seven's regular lieutenant in Iraq working for army intelligence, two on furlough, one home with her new baby, his executive sergeant, Vinnie, gone to Memphis to question a witness, Squad Seven was down to three: Delsa, Richard Harris and Jackie Michaels.

But Wendell wanted to hear about the shooting out on East Eight Mile at Yakity Yak's two nights ago.

"Where are we, Frank?"

"I've got a guy housed at the Seventh," Delsa said, "Jerome Juwan Jackson, also known as Three-J. He's twenty, a weedman on and off, went down a few times in his youth, wears Tommy Hilfiger colors with his cargo pants hanging off his ass."

"I know him," Wendell said, "without ever having seen him."

"Yeah, but Jerome aspires to be ghetto fabulous and I'm helping him make it."

"He give up anybody?"

"Let me tell it," Delsa said. "Jerome and his half-brother Curtis they call Squeak? They're at Yakity's to see the bouncer. They want to hire a couple of strippers for a party they're having and the bouncer can arrange it."

"Get 'em some white chicks," Wendell said. He took off his Kangol, sailed it like a Frisbee at the coat tree and missed.

"Jerome calls them titty bitches. He said he had to be honest with me, he was smoking blunts and sipping Remy all day, so that evening wasn't clear in his mind what happened."

"You ask him did he want to be a witness to this gig or a defendant?"

"I did," Delsa said. "See, Harris'd already had Squeak in the pink room. Squeak claims he didn't know the shooter, but Jerome did, and now Jerome's looking over his shoulder."

Wendell said, "Tell me who he gave up."

"Tyrell Lewis, T-Dogg. Deals weed and blow, set up his girlfriend in a hair salon with crack money. That night at Yakity Yak's he's giving her a hard time about something. They're in the parking lot and he's got her against a blue Neon, yelling at her, getting rough. A guy comes out of the bar, five-five, one-fifty, has his dreads in a ponytail. The guy's all hair and he's stoned. Comes to the lot and says to Tyrell, 'Get your bitch off the car.'"

"It's his car," Wendell said.

"No, we had that wrong. Tyrell stops abusing his girlfriend and pulls a nine out of his jacket. The little guy with the dreads pulls his nine, levels down on Tyrell and says, 'I got one too, motherfucker.'"

Wendell said, "And got killed for showing off."

"You want to let me tell it?" Delsa said. "Another guy comes out of the club and starts yelling at the two gunfighters, calling 'em punks. 'You nothing but punks playing with guns.' Tyrell says, 'You think this is a game, huh,' and shoots the guy five times. Jerome says, 'Yeah, 'cause he punked him out in front of his baby's mama.'"

"Another one popped for nothing," Wendell said. "You pick up the little fella with the hair?"

"Nobody knows him or ever saw him before."

"Gets a man killed and takes off. You say it wasn't even his car, this blue Neon."

Delsa said, "You know whose it is?"

"You may as well tell me."

"My witness, Jerome."

Wendell sat down at his desk without taking his eyes from Delsa. "You're looking at a way to use it."

"I wrote up two witness statements. In one of 'em it's Jerome who says to Tyrell, 'Get your bitch off my car, motherfucker.'"

"What about the little fella with the hair?"

"He's gone. I don't mention him in this version. Then I have Jerome say in the statement, 'He pulled a nine and I pulled mine.' When I read the page back to Jerome I stopped there and said, 'Man, that sounds like rap, "He pulled a nine and I pulled mine." Who'd you get that from, Ja Rule, Dr. Dre?' Jerome says no, he must've thought it up as he told what happened."

"He knows he didn't say it," Wendell said. "Does he know you know he didn't?"

"He doesn't care," Delsa said, "he sees himself with a new image. In the statement he names Tyrell as the shooter and tells what he did after that. Got in his car, went home and smoked a blunt. I asked him to read the statement and if the information's correct sign each page."

"Looking him in the eye," Wendell said.

"He signed them."

"I bet he did, and pretty soon he'll believe it. Tells everybody on the block what he did and becomes a street legend. Stood up to a gangbanger and pulled on him. You pick up Tyrell?"

"Jerome says he works half days at the Mack Avenue Diner in Grosse Pointe Woods. We'll pay a courtesy call to the police, stop in the diner for breakfast, Violent Crimes outside and scoop him up."

"Jerome'll testify in court?"

"I don't want him to. The prosecutor can use Jerome to offer Tyrell second degree, the best he can do. Tyrell will get something like six to fifteen and do the whole bit, 'cause he'll fuck up inside. I want the word to get around Jerome refused to testify. Stood up to Tyrell, dissed him to his face, but will not disrespect him in the man's court. Be a traitor to his kind by helping to send Tyrell down."

"You sound like an old-time Black Panther," Wendell said. "What's this 'his kind'?"