Elmore Leonard - Mr. Paradise

They were both quiet now staring at the road, coming up on Eight Mile, the city limits.

Jerome said, "Now where we going?"

Neither one answered him.

The sound was Detroit hip-hop, a gritty energy that wrapped itself around Kelly walking into Alvin's, the crowd wall-to-wall waving, bobbing their heads in that funky way as if they were plugged in, wired to the hypnotic beats coming out of a white emcee called Hush, guys prowling the stage in wife beaters and sock hats delivering their message, in-your-face lyrics that got Kelly's attention. Big security hunks in black T-shirts faced the crowd looking mean, daring anybody to get out of line. The scene made her think of Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, from a poem in a schoolbook her dad had kept, Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom, but couldn't think of what the poem was called. She moved through the pack to stand behind two young guys at the bar in caps turned backwards, Kelly waiting for the bartender to see her. The young guy on her left pressed his chin against his shoulder and asked how she was doing. Kelly raised her voice to ask him what they were playing. He said, "'Get Down,' from Hush's album Roses and Razorblades." Kelly shrugged. "He's okay." The other guy put his chin on his shoulder and said, "You like to come here?" Kelly said, "I'm here, aren't I?" He asked if he could buy her a drink. Kelly said, "Scotch with a splash would be nice." The first guy turned on his stool to ask if she knew Hush's dad was a homicide cop. She said, "Really?" He told her the other emcee up there was Shane Capone, does the track with Hush on Detroit Players. And asked if she'd seen Bantam Rooster here. Kelly said one of the guys in that band worked at Car City Records, where she bought her tunes, but the only punk in her book was Iggy. The other guy at the bar handed Kelly her scotch. She thanked him. The first guy offered her his seat. Kelly thanked him too and that was the end of the bar conversation. She said, "I'm meeting someone," and left them, moving into the crowd.

She found Montez on the other side of the stage from the entrance, came up behind him, stuck her finger in the small of his back and said, "Stick 'em up." Montez came around and Kelly was looking at herself in his sunglasses.

He said, "Don't ever do that to me, girl." And said, "Why you want to meet here? Watch these white boys trying hard to be black."

She said, "Did you get it?"

"This morning soon as they opened the bank. It's a stock certificate."

Shouting at each other, frowning to hear in the heavy beat pumping out of the stack of woofers.

"For what?"

"I just told you, a stock certificate."

"What's the company?"

"Out in Texas, I think it's oil."

"How many shares?"

"Twenty thousand. It says it in statements the old man put in with the certificate."

She shook her head. "I didn't hear what you said."

"Come on," Montez said, taking her by the arm away from the stage to the wall along the side. "We can't talk in here. Let's go to your place. Hear some of those dirty girls doing their rap? Have us a beverage?"

Kelly saw one of the security guards, his back to the stage, watching them. A big white guy with a beard.

She said, "I worked all afternoon getting ready for a fashion show, I'm too tired to party. All I want to do is go home-" She stopped. "You brought it, didn't you?"

Montez, still holding her arm, put his free hand on his cashmere coat. "Got it right here."

"Let me have it," Kelly said. "I'll check it out and give you a call tomorrow."

Montez made a face, frowning, straining to hear over Hush.

Kelly leaned close to him. "I said I'll find out what it's worth and give you a call."

The bouncer, the security guy, was still watching them, staring hard.

Montez brought a manila envelope folded in half out of his coat. He held on to it as Kelly tried to take it from him, Kelly saying, "Just let me see what it is."

"I told you, I think it's a big oil company out in Texas. Has DRP in a fancy style on the folder."

She saw the security guy coming toward them and tugged at the envelope and gave Montez a shove and stepped back as the security guy caught Montez, took the envelope from him and gave it to Kelly, Montez trying to twist out of the guy's tattooed arms, yelling at him in the band racket, wanting to know what the fuck he was doing-Kelly pretty sure that's what he was saying.

She edged along in front of the stage past the pack waving, moving, Kelly moving toward the entrance on the other side, looking up at Hush in his sock hat, close enough to hear lyrics about sticking a condom in your ear to fuck what you heard, Kelly thinking it almost made sense, thinking that Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room would work in here, the first rap, and remembered part of another couple of lines from the poem, something about the crowd-that was it- gave a whoop and a call and danced the juba from wall to wall, and walked out of Alvin's.

A lot of the time she was restless. She liked to take chances and liked to bet on things and drive fast, run through red lights late at night on the way home. There was always a carton of Slims in the loft. She'd look at Chloe's pack on the coffee table and bet her ten bucks there were exactly ten cigarettes in it. Chloe said okay that time and shook out eleven. Kelly loved to drink cocktails, almost any kind, and talk, alexanders, Sazeracs, daiquiris in different flavors she had in the liquor cabinet. She brought home a pair of sealskin mukluks from a shoot in Iceland, seeing herself posing in them for a panties shot, but none of the catalogs went for the idea.

Driving home she thought of her dad, wondering what he would do in this situation: if he were a girl and had a stock certificate in Chloe Robinette's name, could fake her signature and had her driver's license. He asks how much the stock is worth and she tells him possibly a million six hundred thousand. He'd clear his throat and say:

"Or more if the value went up?"

Her dad was a gambler who always had his trade, scissors and a comb. When she was sixteen, talking about getting into modeling, he'd said, "Sweetheart, go to barber college and get a trade first. You ever see me I don't have money in my pocket?"

Tonight he'd say, "What's the stock?"

"Del Rio Power."

"Never heard of it."

"But you're not in the market."

"Not as long as you can bet at a casino."

"I'm about to look it up. But tell me what you'd do."

"I'd check to see what it's actually worth. See, then you have to decide what your price is. If you get caught for stock fraud or forgery, I doubt you'd do more than a year, if that. Get a dress at St. Vincent de Paul to wear to court. What's the risk of having a sheet worth to you? Assuming you can handle your conscience okay. Think of it as nobody's money. What's wrong with putting it in the economy?"

She'd lay it out before him to see what he'd say, not to take his advice.

"Okay, what's your price?"

Her dad would say, "You kidding? At a million six I'd go for it. Wouldn't you?"

Kelly sat at the computer in the study with a Slim and a scotch. The stock certificate and statements from Del Rio Power came in a green folder with DRP in an elaborate design on the cover, the folder open now next to the computer. The statements told that the original 5,000 shares of stock were purchased in 1958 at eight dollars a share. Since then the stock had split twice, making Anthony Paradiso the owner of 20,000 shares. A form, signed by Paradiso, would transfer the stock to Chloe Robinette once she added her signature.

Okay, he'd paid forty thousand for the stock forty-five years ago, no doubt on an inside tip. Let's see what it was worth now.

Kelly keyed in the Web address for the New York Stock Exchange, got the home page, and in the SYMBOL LOOKUP window entered DRP and clicked the QUICK QUOTE button.