Mr. Paradise

11

Delsa said, "Your driver's license," handing it to her in the foyer. They both had their coats on now; he was taking her home.

She said thanks, but didn't look at it until Delsa turned to the door as the uniformed cop, the one who first questioned her upstairs, came in from outside and she checked the license, Chloe's, and slipped it into her coat pocket. She heard the uniformed cop say now was a good time, the chief had shown up and the TV crews were all over him. Delsa told her to stay close to him.

They went out the door and walked past the police cars in the drive to the street where video cameras were aimed at the Chief of Police of the City of Detroit and round black microphones were held in front of him. Kelly said, "What's he doing here?" Still feeling a confident buzz, talkative. Delsa said he was making an appearance. Kelly said, "Yeah, but why?" Delsa said she'd have to ask the chief that one. They walked past the TV news trucks to a dark blue four-door facing this way. Delsa unlocked his door and she walked around to the other side and got in. They were quiet until Delsa turned onto Jefferson, heading toward downtown now. Kelly said, "It's not far." He said River Place. They were quiet until he turned toward the river. Coming to the complex of old buildings revamped, headlights on red brick walls and tall oval windows, he said the Stroh Brewery headquarters was right here. He said Stroh's used to be the most popular beer in town but he never cared for it much. "You want history?" Kelly said. "The building I'm in used to be Parke-Davis, where aspirin was first made. I could use a couple right now." Delsa said he was thinking of looking for an apartment downtown, closer to the job. Kelly said, "You have a family?" He said no. Then told her his wife had passed away. Kelly said, "Oh, I'm so sorry," and wanted to ask about her but wasn't sure how to do it. They stopped in front of her building and he said he'd like to go in with her, look at her friend's things if it was okay. Kelly said, "Of course." He said he needed to learn everything he could about her. She said, "Well, if I can help:" She had to remind herself Frank Delsa was a homicide detective and quit thinking about his cool dark eyes and the quiet way he spoke. They got out of the car that was like an icebox, the heater still blowing cold air. Kelly opened Chloe's bag now to find the keys.

Her hand came out with all kinds of keys and a St. Christopher medal on a silver ring. She fingered through them wanting to see a front door key, please, that looked like hers. She found it, walked up to the entrance with him, put the key in the lock, tried to turn it: She said, "I must still be a little blitzed, I can't even pick the right key," and knew it was the wrong thing to say. Delsa waiting, watching her, Delsa saying why not let him try, and took the keys from her. He chose one, slipped it in the lock and opened the door. Kelly said, "Hey, you're good with keys." Sounding stupid and thinking, Keep your fucking mouth shut, okay? Jesus. They rode the elevator to the fourth level. In front of Kelly's door now he wanted to see if he could do it again. He unlocked the dead bolt, no problem; Kelly not exactly wide-eyed, more like the dumb girl watching. He tried two keys in the spring lock before the door opened. She said, "How do you do that?" Sounding amazed, still the dumb girl. She couldn't help it. He told her you try to match the key to the lock. "And if that doesn't work," Kelly said, "kick the door in?" He was a nice guy, he smiled. But then asked why she had so many keys. Yeah, well: "They seem to accumulate," Kelly said. "Two or three, I don't even remember what they're for. Well, I do-one's for the locker downstairs, but I don't store anything in it. Another one gets you up on the roof. There's a sundeck:" Talking to be talking, filling the silence as he watched her.

He held up the ring of keys and picked out the ones he had used. "This is your front door key, and these are for your apartment, your loft. Okay?"

Smiling again, still the nice guy.

But the smile this time telling her he knew who she was.

Then why didn't he come out and say it?

Delsa, in no hurry, wanted her to tell him.

He followed her into a brick foyer and along a hall of closets, doors to a study, a bathroom. She snapped a switch and track lighting came on over the living area. She said, "Both the bedrooms are over here. The kitchen's over there and everything else is in between."

Everything being whatever two girls with style and money wanted, half a basketball court in muted tones and splashes of bright color, plants and weird paintings, a soft look to the rumpled sofa, chairs with bamboo arms, bare windows in brick walls, red Orientals on the tan-painted concrete floor, a ficus that filled a corner and reached almost to the ductwork in the fifteen-foot ceiling, a round dining table with a slate top, an exercise bike, a tiled counter separating the kitchen. Delsa took it all in before his gaze returned to the dining table and the mail and magazines waiting there.

"You don't have a computer?"

"In the study."

He had to ask, "How much does a loft this size go for?" She told him four hundred, and he said, "Four hundred thousand?" even though he knew it was what she meant-for the corner of an old laboratory where they used to make aspirin. He said, "It's nice," nodding his head.

She said, "You live in the city?"

"Cops had to until a few years ago. I'm still here, on the east side." He walked over to the slate dining table.

"Which one of you owns the place?"

The table held a few magazines, a pile of catalogs, a Victoria's Secret, a few bills, a large black envelope, ten by twelve. He turned to see her with a bright expression, eyebrows raised as she worked on an answer that should be easy, but having a tough time being Chloe.

"Whose name is it in?"

She said, "Mine," right away this time.

"You hold the mortgage?"

Delsa waited.

She said, "It's paid for."

Delsa let it go. She was probably telling the truth. Chloe owned the place-not out of reach for a nine-hundred-an-hour call girl; he assumed that, too-and Kelly, who hadn't moved from that spot since they came in the loft, shared expenses.

He said, "You get a lot of mail, don't you?"

She said, "Mostly junk."

He picked up the Victoria's Secret catalog and showed her the cover. "Are you in here?"

She said, "Kelly is," and after a moment, "page sixteen."

Delsa found it and looked at the girl in the black bikini panties well below her hip bones, brown skin, no stomach. None.

She came over in her coat and looked at the page. She said, "Yeah," in a quiet voice, close to him, "that's Kelly. It was shot last summer."

Delsa leafed through the magazine-she was playing with him again, wanting him to see her-and stopped. He said, "Here's Kelly again. In her underwear. Wait a minute. Or is it you?" Offering her a break.

She looked at herself wearing low-rise panties and thongs. "Yeah, I forgot, that is me, right."

"The thong," Delsa said, "doesn't look too comfortable."

She said, "I can't wait to get it off."

Delsa told himself she was agreeing that it was uncomfortable, not making a move on him, putting anything into what she said. Otherwise he'd get out of here now and come back with Jackie Michaels, not take a chance fucking up seventeen years on the job. She was a witness. Maybe the best-looking girl he had ever seen this close, or outside of the movies, or even counting the movies, but she was still a witness.

He picked up the black envelope and looked at the label, addressed to Kelly Barr, from a photographic studio. He turned to Kelly-as-Chloe, almost as tall as he was.

"You think this will tell me something about her?"

"They're just photos."

He walked away, bringing the catalog and the black envelope to the counter, took a kitchen knife from a rack and slit the envelope open.

"We'll need pictures of the complainant."

"The what?"

"The victim."

"They're swimsuit shots."

"Taken recently?"

"Last week."

Delsa pulled out a half dozen color prints and a proof sheet and laid them on the counter: Kelly full length in bikinis, tiny ones.

She came to the counter to look at herself, leaning in on her arms to study the proof sheet.

She heard him say, "Your glasses are in your bag. You don't need them?"

She straightened and turned to him.

"You figured it out."

"Even without the glasses."

"You saw her in the chair, her skirt up. You look at these shots :"

"And I know Chloe doesn't model swimming suits," Delsa said.

"Yesterday we happened to be looking at this catalog and she said, 'If you want to know why I never wear a thong, ask Mr. Paradise.' You know what she meant?"

"He didn't go for the Hitler look," Delsa said. "Just an old-fashioned guy. Are you gonna tell me who you are?"

"You already know."

"I'd like to hear you say it."

She shrugged in her cinnamon coat.

"Okay, I'm Kelly Barr. Now what?"

He told her she had gone through enough for one day. He'd pick her up in the morning and take her statement at 1300, police headquarters.

She didn't like the sound of that. Take her statement? She said did he mean, like, what she was doing when it happened? He said, from the time she arrived at the house. Okay? He hadn't taken his coat off, he was ready to go:

Later, it reminded her of the thing Peter Falk used to do playing Columbo. Gets to the door and turns with one more question.

Delsa was still at the counter fastening his toggles. He said, "The main thing we'll get into, why you wanted us to think you're Chloe."

She knew it was coming and had to say something because he was looking at her, waiting. She had to give him an answer and had made up her mind to tell the truth. Up to a point.

"Montez threatened me. He said I had to do it if I wanted to stay alive."

"What was his reason?"

"He didn't tell me."

"All that time you were together-you didn't ask him why?"

"Of course I did. He still wouldn't tell me."

"Have you thought about it since?"

"Have I thought about it-all I keep thinking, I never should've been there in the first place."

"Chloe asked you to come and you couldn't say no?"

"She talked me into it. Help her out with the fucking cheerleading because the old man loved it."

"Were Chloe and Montez friends?"

"She said they got along okay."

"They have something going?"

"No. She would've told me."

"You were close? You confide in each other?"

"We were good friends."

"But she was a prostitute."

"She gave it up for Mr. Paradise."

"There was a time before that-"

"She never brought them home. She told really funny stories about weird things that guys liked. I asked if she ever beat them. She said, 'Hon, I even pee on some.'" Kelly picked up her pace saying, "We met doing a runway show for Saks. I'd see her at studios-photographers loved her hands-or we'd meet for a drink. We laughed a lot and she invited me to move in." Kelly took hold of Delsa's dark eyes saying, "She got tired of fucking strangers, especially the regulars. Mr. Paradise made her an offer and she quit being a ho."

This time he did smile, though she didn't.

Smiled and let it fade and said, "How'd you happen to be upstairs with Montez?"

She told about the old man flipping the coin. "To share his ladies with Montez-his exact words-and not play favorites."

"He thought you were a hooker. Did you tell him you weren't?"

"I didn't want to start anything with the old man, Chloe in the middle. I'd go upstairs with Montez, and as soon as he had his pants off, I'd run. Out of the house."

"What about Chloe?"

"She's okay. It's her boyfriend's party."

"What'd Montez say?"

"Upstairs?"

"Before, when you got him."

"He got me. Took me upstairs by the arm."

"What'd you do then?"

"I smoked a cigarette and went to the bathroom."

"Did you talk?"

"Nothing that I remember."

"He take his pants off, undress?"

"I came out of the bathroom and that's when we heard the shots. Two and then two more."

"They all sound the same?"

"I think so."

"What'd Montez do?"

"Ran out of the room. I put on my coat, picked up Chloe's and started down the hall. He was at the top of the stairs, so I hung back, I didn't want him to see me."

"Why not?"

"I wanted to leave, not be involved."

"You knew they were dead?"

" No. It was like I knew it without actually knowing it. All I wanted to do was leave, get out."

"You said not get involved."

"With the police, as a witness."

"Don't you want to help us?"

"Of course, yeah, now. But when it was happening, no. I wanted to go home. "

"You say Montez was at the top of the stairs. What did he do then?"

"He went down to the first floor."

"How? I mean, was he cautious after hearing the shots? Not knowing who was in the house?"

"He ran down the stairs."

"He call out anything, a name?"

Kelly shook her head. "I went to the railing and looked down. He wasn't in the foyer."

"You hear anything?"

"I might've heard voices, but I'm not sure. I thought about running out of the house."

"What stopped you?"

"I didn't have my bag, goddamn it. I forgot it."

"Why didn't you get it?"

"I heard voices and looked down. Two men I'd never seen before, in dark coats and baseball caps, were in the foyer."

"White or black?"

"White. Not young, not old, both average height-it was hard to tell looking down at them. One was heavyset. He had a gun in his hand, like an automatic. The other one was holding a bottle of vodka."

"What kind?"

"Christiania, what the old man was drinking."

"And you and Chloe had alexanders," Frank said. "How're you feeling?"

"I'm worn out."

"Starting to droop a little. What'd the two guys do?"

"They left, out the front."

"Was the glass in the door already broken?"

It surprised her. "No, they did it when they were outside, smashed it with something. I suppose so you'd think that's how they came in."

"How did they?"

"I have no idea. Unless they broke in."

"Or the door was unlocked," Delsa said. "The two guys are in the foyer, where was Montez?"

"I don't know."

"You didn't see him with the two guys or hear them talking?"

"They left and a few minutes later he came upstairs. He could've been hiding-I don't know."

"Didn't you say anything?"

"I asked him what happened, if he saw the two guys. But he didn't say a word until he took me downstairs. In the living room he said, 'You know what you're gonna see. They're both dead, Mr. Paradise and your friend Kelly.' I thought he had us mixed up. I said I'm Kelly, and he said, 'Uh-unh, you're Chloe.'"

"Then what?"

"He made me look at the bodies."

"Was Chloe's skirt raised?"

Kelly nodded. "I was about to pull it down and he stopped me."

"He told you you were Chloe and you said okay?"

"Montez said, 'You know what bullet holes look like.' He said if I don't do what I'm told, that ugly motherfucker will be waiting for me some night."

"Who's the ugly motherfucker?"

"Someone who'll shoot me in the head."

"You're sure you saw two white guys."

"Positive."

He asked if there was anything unusual about them. Kelly said she thought of them as workingmen, blue-collar. He asked about their baseball caps and she remembered the orange D and he said they were the caps the Tigers wore on the road. He told her to go to bed, he'd call her in the morning.

She said, "What if Montez calls during the night?"

"He won't, I'm gonna have him picked up." Delsa said, "Anything else you want to tell me?"

Not right now.

Kelly didn't say that. She said, "Not that I can think of," with a little shrug. She had decided there was more to think about here than just getting it over with. Montez would deny everything she told Frank. Her word against his. In a corner Montez might even say it was her idea. It was kind of cool to be in this with your eyes open, letting it happen. Maybe she should try acting, modeling with lines, hitting marks: Frank Delsa looked at you with those quiet eyes asking questions, and you answer, you know he's getting more out of it than what you're saying. She wondered when he first knew she wasn't Chloe. Before she fumbled the keys, probably in the bedroom. He listened, he paid attention: For the next two days she'd hold off saying anything more and see what happened next.

She loved his eyes.