Elmore Leonard: Mr. Paradise

"The TV set was off?"

"Yeah, I checked that, too. We'll dust it good, the glasses, get elimination prints off the witnesses and test 'em for gunshot residue."

"What about the wounds?"

"The ones in the head are through and through, but I haven't dug 'em out of the chair yet. No casings on the floor."

"What about her skirt?"

"That's how it was. Like somebody folded up the hem to check out her pussy. The guys from the Seventh were commenting on it. You hardly ever see a mop like that on a young girl. They get their cooze waxed and it reminds you of Hitler."

Harris said, "I heard that kind referred to as a Charlie Chaplin."

"That'll work," Alex said. "I've seen all kinds, even heart-shaped ones."

Jackie said, "I'm gonna leave this one alone."

Delsa turned to her. "Why don't you check on Chloe? Find out if she's a prostitute. Hey, first call the M.E.'s office, ask if they want to send a pathologist, we know the time and manner. They'll send their death investigator and he can call the removal service. Okay?" He said to Harris, "Talk to the houseman, Lloyd Williams, and send Montez over."

Delsa looked at the girl again, Kelly, at her spiked blond hair, concentrating then to see her face beneath the blood and the makeup masking her eyes, trying to see her alive. He heard, "Detective," and turned to see Montez Taylor coming in his gray pinstripes, a man who wanted you to notice him.

"I been waiting for somebody to cover her up," Montez said, "once they checked out her bush. Be the decent thing to do. Never mind how the girl made her living."

"You knew her pretty well?"

"I think she only been here a few times."

"What about Chloe?"

"Either one, they come by this evening to entertain Mr. Paradise, do their cheerleading routines. The man's favorite thing, cute girls doing cheers?"

"They're cheerleaders?"

"Only for the man. They do ones they make up like, 'We the chicks from Mich-i-gan, nobody can fuck you like we can.' I don't know if that means doing it, or what they charge for doing it. Know what I'm saying? They high class, Mr. Paradise don't invite skanky bitches to his home."

Montez stood with his hands hanging folded in front of him, a pose of respect.

"You were upstairs with Chloe," Delsa said.

"That's right, while the man watched a football game with Kelly. A video, some Michigan game. The man has all the ones they won. Or it could've been Chloe. As I say, either one. They like his girlfriends."

"Interchangeable," Delsa said. "And he lets them fuck the help?"

It got Montez to stare at him straight on, deadpan, before managing kind of a smile.

"Would I be up there 'less it was his idea?"

"You ever mix it up, you and the boss and a girl or two?"

"I ain't even gonna answer that."

"What were you doing tonight, trading off?"

Eye to eye Montez said, "The girls did their cheerleading number and Mr. Paradise sent me upstairs with Chloe. Said have a party on him."

"You ever take Kelly upstairs?"

"I oblige the man whatever he wants."

"You ever had Kelly?"

"No, I haven't."

"Are you in his will?"

"That's all, no more questions."

"Are you?"

"That's the man's private business."

"It sounds to me," Delsa said, "if he lets you fuck his girlfriends, you have a pretty good deal here. How much is he leaving you?"

"I don't know he's leaving me anything."

"He ever talk about dying?"

"His health? He'd kid about his old ticker with these young girls."

"He's with Kelly and you're with Chloe."

Montez hesitated. "That's right."

"They're watching TV together in the chair."

"How I last saw them."

"You're upstairs with Chloe. Then what?"

"Was what happened, this nigga busts in and shoots 'em."

"This home invader."

"What else could he be?"

"You heard the shots."

"Was four. Pow, pow, then quiet, then pow pow."

"What did you do?"

"Ran out to the hall. I look over the rail to downstairs, he's in the foyer. I yelled at him and he ran."

"What'd you yell?"

"I said I had a gun and he went out the front."

"Did you?"

"What, have a gun? No."

"Couldn't he see you weren't armed?"

"He hardly looked. Glanced up at me and split."

"You have a gun?"

"No."

"Is there one in the house?"

"In the man's room."

"Why didn't you get it?"

"I run out to the hall-I don't know what's going on. Did the shots come from outside? See, I'm thinking of Mr. Paradise downstairs with the girl, with Kelly. Is he all right? It couldn't be her shooting, could it? She brought a gun?"

"In her little cheerleader skirt," Delsa said.

"In her coat, her bag-I'm not thinking where she kept it, I want to know is Mr. Paradise all right."

"You went from the bedroom to the top of the stairs," Delsa said. "Then what?"

"I yelled at him I had a gun."

"And you say he split. How'd he get in?"

"You come in the front, you musta seen the door."

"You hear the glass break?"

"I was upstairs."

"There's no alarm system?"

"I'm here, I don't put it on till I go to my rooms, my suite over the garage. I'm not here, Lloyd puts it on when he retires."

"What'd the guy look like?"

"Big full-grown nigga."

"You ever see him before?"

"No."

"What'd you yell at him?"

"I told you."

"Tell me again, the exact words."

"I said-I yelled at him, 'I gotta gun, nigga!' And he took off."

"You see his gun?"

"Look like a nine."

"Was he wearing gloves?"

Montez thought a moment. "I don't know."

"Did he take anything?"

"Bottle of vodka."

"Have you ever been convicted of a felony?"

"What? What you ask me that for?"

"I want to know."

"Was something I got into a long time ago. Mr. Paradise represented me."

"What was it?"

"Assault with intent-you gonna look me up anyway. It wasn't any big deal."

"What did you do for Mr. Paradise?"

"Look out for him."

"Why would anybody want to do him?"

"It turns out," Montez said, "if it wasn't a dirty cop out to pay him back-know what I'm saying?-there ain't any reason. It's why I told the police that come answer the nine-eleven, it was somebody broke in to rob the place."

"Why'd he shoot Mr. Paradise and Kelly?"

"Why's some guy stick up a Seven-Eleven and whack the clerk? Answer that, it's the same thing."

"After he went out the front door," Delsa said, "what'd you do?"

"I ran downstairs and see them in the chair, blood all over, man."

"You turn off the TV?"

Montez had to pause to remember. "It wasn't on."

"Did you touch the bodies?"

"I'll tell you something," Montez said, "I almost did. Not the bodies, I almost pulled the little girl's skirt down, but caught myself in time, or I'd be tampering, wouldn't I?"

"You didn't check to see if they're alive?"

"Man, look at them. That's how they been, like they'd bled out. I made the call." He stopped. "No, I'm about to, I see Chloe's come downstairs. She looks at these two and I see she's about to freak on me. She start screaming-I told her go on back upstairs."

"Why?"

"So I could think straight to make the call. I took her back upstairs first and then called."

"She quiet down?"

"I gave her something."

Delsa said, "Yeah:?"

"One of my duties," Montez said, "I change the water in Mr. Paradise's bong, check to see there's dank, just street stuff, no crypto or wacky shit, you know, that might hurt him. For when the man wants to relax. I get the bong and give it to the girl, Chloe. I tell her, 'Put your mouth on this, it'll ease you down.'"

Delsa said, "I was talking to a guy today they call Three-J, lives out in the Ninth. Three-J witnessed a shooting, a fatal he didn't want to tell me about. He sees I know he was there, so he goes, 'Okay, I'm gonna be honest with you. I was smoking blunts all day and wasn't paying attention to anything.' You see what he's doing? Pleads to a misdemeanor he knows I don't give a shit about, to get out of telling me who the shooter was."