Elmore Leonard - Mr. Paradise

"Is this Virginia?"

The woman said, "Yes, it is," in a tiny voice.

"Can you help me out, Virginia? Tell me where I can get in touch with Art?"

"Who is this calling, please?"

"I'm in his lawyer's office," Jackie said. "Will Art be back soon?"

"I have no way of knowing," Virginia said. "I'm sorry."

Jackie told her she'd try again later and said to Harris, behind the wheel of the Lumina, and Delsa in back, "The Blessed Virgin must belong to her. She sounds like a timid little thing."

"Live with a man shoots people," Harris said, "I would be, too." He turned his head toward Delsa. "How long you want to wait?"

"We're here," Delsa said, "we might as well hang for a while."

"Art could be in the house," Jackie said. "Carl, too."

"Let's wait and see if anything happens," Delsa said. He got out his cell to call Kelly, anxious to hear her voice.

She said, "I've been trying to get you."

"I felt my phone vibrate, but couldn't answer. We're on a stakeout, looking for the shooters."

"You know who they are?"

"We're pretty sure. How'd you do?"

He didn't care if Jackie and Harris listened.

"I told you it was a fitting? At Saks. They've already shown the collection a few times, so they have to make adjustments, make sure they have all the buttons and the zippers work. We have to try on shoes and boots-they bring dozens of eights, nines and tens. I'm usually a nine." Kelly talking fast. "A rep for the collection was there, and thirty girls for twenty spots, all from Detroit. Sometimes, if the rep wants a certain type, like a predominant hair color, he might bring a girl or two from New York. It's Chanel's Fall Collection. They decide who wears what for about eighty different looks coming down the runway-and that's in just twenty-five minutes-so most of the girls will have four changes. I'll have five tomorrow."

Delsa said, "Yeah?"

"You know why?"

"Why?"

"I look great in Chanel."

"Is that right?"

"My favorite that I wear in the show, I think of as kind of a biker look, a nubby burgundy suit that barely covers my butt, silver chains around my neck and my hips and these cool velvety boots. My Harley look, I think it'll stop the show. They'll start with suits and dresses, get the audience sitting up, and then swing into activewear, ski and apres-ski this year. They'll show little black dresses for the cocktail look, and finish big with evening wear, opulent dresses. That's four or five segments, with different lighting and music for different moods."

"Do you walk funny?"

"Do the crossover? That keeps you walking straight, but I just walk. I hear the beat and I'm on it, I just try to act natural. If you're in the audience I'll find you and give you a smile. People will look around at you, wondering who you are, if you're my lover."

He said, "Yeah, right."

And heard Jackie say to Harris, "You hear him, the conversationalist?"

"I'll call you later."

She said, "I'm going out tonight."

It stopped him. He didn't know what to say.

"I've got a date. But if your pants vibrate, Frank, pick up. I might have to call you."

For the next ten or fifteen minutes he wondered what she meant- she might have to call him. He had always pictured her alone. He had to stop and realize she knew people, she had friends, a life he knew very little about. He wondered if she meant she had a real date, some guy had called her, asked her to go out. Not the guy she'd called a mama's boy who left his clothes lying around. He wondered if she had lived with him. He could ask her if she was a prostitute, but not if she had lived with the guy who left his clothes lying around. Why would she need him if she was on a date with someone she knew? No, what she said was, "I might have to call you."

His phone rang. It was Jerome.

"I'm waiting to be picked up. We going to Pontiac, gonna check out a place Tenisha's mom told us he might be at. I get close enough and see Orlando's there, I'll call you. I been trying two hours to get hold of you, man."

Delsa said, "Who's we?"

"I didn't tell you? Shit, I got two policemen working with me case it gets rough on the street. They say they been away, on vacation. Come back, they waiting to be put to work. Couple of middle-aged detectives, out of shape."

"They show you their badges?"

"Didn't have to. They got cop written all over 'em. Know what I'm saying? The way they dress, the way they talk. But, man, they ask a question they get an answer. The one puts his piece in Jo-Jo's face?"

Delsa stopped him. "These guys are armed? What kind of guns?"

"Nines, like Berettas. The one ask this dude Jo-Jo where's Orlando at? The dude say he don't know and the one busts a cap next to the dude's ear, bam, the dude screams but can't hear hisself."

"They're not cops," Delsa said. "Jerome, these guys're gonna get you in trouble. Get away from them."

"Jo-Jo say he thinks Orlando went to Mississippi, someplace down there. Was Tenisha's mama gave us the dude. The woman is hot for her age, man, going on to be forty. I feel myself starting to crave her panties."

"Jerome," Delsa said, "they're not cops, they sound like bounty hunters, using you to get next to the reward."

Jerome said, "I know that. I wondered did you."

"Give me their names," Delsa said, "what they look like, what kind of car they drive and I'll have them picked up: Jerome?"

He was gone.

Sofar this boy THREE-J wasn't doing them much good. He took them out to Pontiac, way past the GMC Truck plant to an old rundown property where they used to have pit bull fights and all they did was shoot a dog.

Art did. The man holding it on a leash. Art pointed his gun at the pit bull and asked the old colored man with gray hair, was Orlando hiding out here? The man said, "Don't shoot my dog." And Art shot it. The dog's name was Sonny. Art said, "I shot him 'cause you didn't answer my question." Carl said, "Couldn't you think of a better name for a vicious fighting dog?" The man said that was its name.

The old man turned out to be Orlando's granddaddy. Art asked him where Orlando was. Art said he'd count to three and the old man said, "He's staying in Detroit on Pingree, 700 Pingree between Second and Third. Now get outta here."

Art said he almost blew him away to teach him a lesson.

Three-J didn't say much. Carl was sure he didn't believe they were cops and didn't care. Art told him their names. It meant Art would shoot him before they were through and they'd put in for the reward. It didn't bother Carl, he didn't see Three-J as much of an asset. Three-J liked Tenisha's mama and she wasn't bad. Carl asked Art, surprised he hadn't asked him before, if he'd ever fucked a colored girl. Art said, "Sure, haven't you? Don't tell me you never had any colored poon." So they talked about different colored girls they'd had until Jerome said wait, was these regular bitches or ho's? It turned out they were whores. Three-J asked what was a ho like, since he never had one. Carl saw the boy thinking he was smarter than they were. If he didn't care they weren't cops but carried guns, he knew they'd try to get rid of him once they found Orlando. He didn't say much, no, but the colored boy was ready, keeping his eyes open, wasn't he?

They were coming back now in the Tahoe, on Woodward out in Oakland County, twenty miles from downtown Detroit.

Art said, "There's an OPEN HOUSE sign. Carl? The next right."

These two white guys were cuckoo.

They turned down a street of fairly new homes, big ones with lawns and young trees, down to a house that was open for inspection. Art took the OPEN sign hanging from the regular FOR SALE sign in the yard and brought it inside with them and handed it to the real estate man in his suit and tie grinning at them, the man saying, "Well, thank you. How did you know I was just about to close?"