Kiss Of Evil

25

Jack Paris stands in the checkout line at the Rite Aid drugstore at East 113th Street and Euclid Avenue, a ridiculous parody of a Christmas tree in his hands. Actually, he is holding a box no bigger than a boot box, a box that allegedly contains a “full 36-inch-tall Christmas tree, great for small spaces!”

He has decided that he will not let this Christmas pass without some sort of cheer in his otherwise cheerless apartment.

The line is moving slowly, but that is not the worst of it. The worst of it is the incessant, mind-scrambling ring of the Salvation Army bell, courtesy of the Santa-clad volunteer standing just outside the door. Paris, like everyone else in the store, would like to take Santa out with a spinning back kick and stomp that bell flatter than a tuna can on the freeway.

Instead, after paying for his tree in a box, he nods at Santa as he passes him and, as per routine, walks another ten feet or so, spins on his heels, saunters back, and dumps a buck in the bucket.

“Thank you,” Santa says. “And Happy Holidays.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Paris answers, his grumpiness a receipt for his small generosity.

Paris reaches his car and opens the trunk. At least one-third of his life stares back at him. After some clever maneuvering, he is able to slip the Christmas tree box into the left side, next to the gym bag containing workout sweats that have already survived two full years in the trunk without ever having seen the inside of a gym.

Then, from behind him, a sunny voice says: “What a softie.”

Paris turns around to see Mercedes Cruz. They had planned to meet here and she is right on time. “Hi,” he says.

“Saw you give in to the Christmas spirit there, detective.”

“Don’t let it get out, okay?” Paris says, slamming the trunk, hoping, for some reason, that Mercedes hadn’t seen his pathetic tree-thing. “Cops have four million charities and I’d never have a minute’s peace. In fact, tonight is the annual Cleveland League Christmas party. Bunch of conscience-plagued cops and inner-city kids. I go every year. It’s my penance.”

“You are a softie. I admire that in a… married man?”

“Divorced,” Paris says.

“I admire it even more,” she says, then instantly covers her mouth with a magenta-mittened hand. “Oh my goodness, was that sexual harassment?”

“Let’s see. Who has the power here?”

“I’d say it’s equal. I’ve got a pen. You’ve got a gun.”

“Then it was a compliment.”

“Whew,” Mercedes says.

“But let’s keep it to a minimum,” Paris says. “First it’s compliments, then the next thing you know people will think the press and the police are getting along.”

“I won’t let it happen again.”

“By the way, I met your brother. He took a few photos of this crooked face and busted nose.”

“You’ve got to be shittin’ me,” Mercedes says.

“What?”

“My brother actually did something I asked him to? Unbelievable.”

“Nice kid,” Paris continues. “Good-looking, too.”

“Yeah,” Mercedes says, rummaging in her bag. “He’s a real thief of hearts, let me tell you. Girls have been knocking on our front door ever since Julian turned twelve. I’m just stunned he stopped by.”

“It was painless,” Paris says.

“Good. Maybe getting these pictures published will get him off his ass.” She gestures toward the city. “So, where to first, detective?”

“West side,” Paris says. “I think it’s time to visit the botanica.”

“Want me to drive?” Mercedes asks, holding up her key chain, pointing to a sparkling, midnight blue Saturn.

Paris looks at his listing, rusted car, caked with road salt, and makes his first mistake of the day when he says: “Sure.”

They are on Detroit Avenue, going thirty-five miles per hour, sliding on ice, and about to slam into the rear end of a primer-prepped old Plymouth; a Plymouth whose driver decided to pause, at a green light, to empty his ashtray into the middle of the street.

In the middle of a snowstorm.

On the way, Paris and Mercedes had stopped at Ronnie’s Famous for a few minutes and Paris had switched Thermoses. He had also turned Mercedes Cruz on to Ronnie Boudreaux’s vaunted beignets. She had agreed instantly. World’s best, no contest.

Now, though, as they hit a patch of ice on Detroit Avenue, Paris can feel the coffee and the beignets in his stomach begin to head north. They do a three-sixty. Then another. Then, the Saturn comes to a full stop, somehow pointed in the right direction, somehow just inches to the right of the Plymouth. No damage.

Yet.

Mercedes gathers herself, waits a few beats, lowers her window, smiles, gestures to the other driver to do the same. He reaches over, a confused look on his face, and rolls down the passenger window.

“Hi,” Mercedes says, all charm and innocence.

“Hi,” the driver says.

“Chinga!” Mercedes yells out the window. “Chinga tu MADRE, tu PADRE, tu ’BUELA!”

Although Paris is monolingual, having plenty of trouble with English alone, you don’t have to be Antonio Banderas to know what Mercedes just said about the other driver’s sainted mother, father, and grandmother. The driver, a fair-sized young Latino kid, promptly flips Mercedes the bird, then floors it, fishtailing his way down to West Thirty-eighth Street, where he makes a hurried left turn and disappears into the squall of falling snowflakes.

Winter silence ensues for a few moments. Mercedes looks at Paris. Paris speaks first, realizing he had just witnessed the temper Mercedes’s brother Julian had mentioned. “You okay?”

“Fine. Sorry about that.”

“No harm done.”

“I said a bad word.”

Paris laughs. “A bunch of them, actually. Nice talk for a Catholic gal.”

“You understood that?” she asks as she carefully scans her side mirror and gingerly pulls back out into traffic.

“Well, if you work the inner city, you learn the f-word in many languages. I had an Arab flip me off in Farsi once. I’m sure of it.”

“I’m so embarrassed.”

“Don’t be. I offer the same sentiment to my fellow Cleveland motorists quite often. Usually in Italian, though.”

“You’re Italian?”

“My grandfather on my father’s side was named Parisi. The i got chopped off at Ellis Island somehow. My mother’s father was Italian, too. What about you?”

“Puerto Rican on my father’s side. My mother’s family is English/Irish.”

“Which heritage do you feel more strongly?”

“I guess I consider myself Hispanic. My brother and I are both pretty close to my ’buela, my grandmother. She is a wonderful woman. My role model. I look a lot like her when she was younger. I think we’re the same type.”

“Type?”

“You know. Independent. Mysterious. Darkly exotic.”

“I see.”

“Kind of a Penelope Cruz type. No relation.” Mercedes looks at Paris, affecting a glamour pose. “What do you think?”

Paris, completely cornered, ever the diplomat, says: “I’m going to have to give it some thought, you know?”

Mercedes laughs, snaps on the radio, grabs her third beignet out of the oily white bag between the seats, and says, “I’ve got all day, detective.”