Mr. Paradise

13

Montez sat in this room no bigger than a closet, a wood table the size of half a desk, two straight chairs facing each other, no window, pink walls with nothing written on them. Montez was thinking that if brothers had sat in here and over time made to wait like he was, there ought to be things written on the walls, names like Shank, Bolo, "V-Dawg was here." Inscriptions like "F-1": for Family First. "SMV," same as a tat the Seven Mile-Van Dyke gang wore on their arms. Could even be swastikas and "White Power" shit written there by Aryan Nation assholes. The walls were clean, Montez decided, 'cause nobody brought anything to write with in here. Coming into 1300 there were brothers coming out carrying their shoelaces.

He had told his story over and over how he was confused.

The door opened and here was the brother in a striped shirt and gold cuff links, tiny knot in his tie up there tight, starch in the shirt, the one last night the tech called Richard, Richard Harris sitting across from him at the table now and asking, "How long have you known Chloe Robinette?" Gonna ask him all this shit again, leading to why did he say it was Kelly with the man when he knew it was Chloe?

"I already told your boss and I told that woman they call Jackie? Man, ask them."

Harris said, "Yeah, but what you told them's all a fuckin lie. I want to know why you told Kelly she was Chloe."

"I never told her that."

"You knew she was Kelly."

"I didn't is the thing. I look at the girl dead, messed up, all the blood on her. Yeah, I know Chloe, but this dead girl don't look any fuckin thing like her. Man, seeing them like that can fuck with your head. You understand? Once I decided this one in the chair's Kelly, since it don't look like Chloe, then the other one had to be Chloe, upstairs in the bedroom, dark in there. After while I become mixed up, this Chloe or Kelly? They look alike, they dressed alike, same hair. I breathed on the bong a few times to settle me. Know what I'm saying? Now it could been either one in the chair. I said fuck it."

"We had a window in here," Harris said, "I'd hang you out there, five floors to the concrete, till you told me the truth. Ask you the question-you're hanging outside in the weather-I say, 'What was that, motherfucker? I can't hear you.' The girl says to you, 'I'm Kelly, you ignorant fuck.' You say to her, 'No, you not, you Chloe.'" Harris leaned over the table on his arms, close to Montez now. "Why'd you tell her she was Chloe?"

"She lied to you, man."

"Why do you want her to be Chloe?"

"Ask the bitch why she lied."

"What do you get out of her being Chloe?"

"I swear to God on my mother's grave-"

"Where'd you pick that up, the movies? Your mama passed? Her ass rotting in a grave? Where's this grave at? You swear to God, then gonna give me the same shit you been telling us."

Montez held up his hands to show his palms. "Man, you got the advantage on me. What can I say?"

"What's your phone number, your cell?"

"Why you want that?"

"Tell me right now or use it to call a lawyer."

Kelly said, "He's in there? I thought it was a closet."

She sat at the side of Delsa's desk, turned in the chair to look over her shoulder.

"It's our interview room," Delsa said. "Richard Harris is with him. He was there last night. As we were leaving Harris was talking to the tall guy in the trench coat and beige cap? That was Wendell Robinson, our boss. He might want to talk to you when we finish with your statement." Delsa watched her glance toward the back of the squad room again, not comfortable being near Montez. Delsa could understand why, but maybe there was more to it.

"What if he comes out and sees me?"

"He won't."

"If Harris leaves him alone?"

"He knows he has to stay in there, and he will, he's trying to make a good impression, can't believe we find fault with his story. I meant to ask you," Delsa said, "he knew you were coming last night?"

"He picked us up. Chloe arranged the visit. She wanted me to go with her the night before but I had to take my dad to the airport. He said the reason he came up, he missed his little girl so much, but it was really to borrow money. My dad drinks."

Delsa said, "Did you know that people who come from money call their dad 'Dad,' and people who don't come from money call him 'my dad'?"

Kelly said, "Can you prove it?"

"I feel it, I don't know it."

"Dad lives in West Palm Beach," Kelly said. "He's a semi-retired barber. Not a hair stylist, a barber. He drinks and chases women."

"Your mother's not with him?"

He was used to asking questions with obvious answers.

"She died just about the time I started modeling, I was sixteen. She pushed me into it but didn't live to see it pay off. My dad says he drinks because he misses her, but you know he's been drinking all his life." She said, "He's not a bad guy. I can take him for a couple of days."

She had a soft, almost lazy way of speaking, and he said, "You're not from Detroit."

"Actually I am, I was born here, Harper Hospital. We moved to Miami when I was little. I was twenty, I came up to do an auto show, met a guy and decided to stay. The guy turned out to be a mama's boy, left his clothes lying around, but now I was here: I can live anywhere I want, really."

"And you stay in Detroit."

"I'm too lazy to move. No, it's okay. A lot of music, not a lot of traffic, you can drive fast. I have a VW Jetta, black, always starts, easy to drive in snow and ice: What else do you want to know?"

"Montez picked you up:"

She hesitated. She said yeah. "But now that I think of it, he didn't know we were coming. In the car he said no one told him. He made a call on his cell but didn't speak to anyone."

"He leave a message?"

"No, he was mad when no one answered and threw the phone down." She said, "Have you talked to him?"

"This morning? Yeah, I was first, then Jackie Michaels-you met her last night."

"She threatened me."

"Woke you up. Now Harris is on him."

"And Montez, what does he say about it?"

"You're lying. You made it all up."

"Does he know everything I've told you?"

"We're giving him a little bit at a time and let him think about it. We haven't mentioned the two guys," Delsa said. "You're sure he doesn't know you saw them."

"Almost positive."

"They left and Montez came upstairs."

"A few minutes later," Kelly said, what she had told him in the loft, in the kitchen. "If he thought I saw them, wouldn't he ask me? He said it was a black guy. He said, you know what bullet holes look like. He said if I didn't do what I was told the ugly motherfucker would shoot me in the head. You can understand why I'm a little freaked. Right?"

Delsa couldn't keep his eyes off her.

Kelly asked if she could smoke and he brought his ashtray out of the desk drawer and watched her light one of her Virginia Slims 120's and raise her perfect face to blow a stream of smoke into the fluorescent lights. She wore a sheepskin-lined coat with her jeans, an outdoor girl this morning, black cowboy boots, old and creased, but with a high shine.

"Did you hear Montez call nine-eleven?"

"He was downstairs."

"What about Lloyd, was he around?"

"Not after."

"Jackie's gonna have a talk with him."

"He seems harmless."

"But he was there," Delsa said.

"You know Montez is your guy. But it comes down to my word against his," Kelly said. "Isn't that right?"

"So far."

"If he doesn't admit being involved you'll have to let him go?"

The way she said it Delsa wasn't sure if she was hopeful or apprehensive. But if being near him freaked her, she wouldn't want to meet him on the street. Would she?

Maybe get Jackie to have a word with her.

"If we keep talking to him," Delsa said, "he'll want a lawyer. And if we can't arraign him on a warrant, he walks. We're looking for a motive. Who stands to gain from the old man's death, other than family? We rule out robbery-nothing was taken but a bottle of vodka, an expensive brand, Christiania, but not worth a home invasion. So we focus on Montez, a guy with felony indictments on his sheet but clean for the past ten years. If he isn't somehow involved, why is he lying to us?" Delsa threw in, "Assuming you're telling us the truth," and saw it give her a nudge.

Kelly, about to draw on her Slim, lowered it to the ashtray. "I told you who I am, I straightened that out."

"Not right away."

"No, and I explained why."

"Afraid of being too talkative."

"We got to the loft, I felt more secure. I told you everything I know."

"The house full of cops, you didn't feel safe?"

"Frank, I was semi-stoned, I wasn't sure what I felt. I didn't want to have to think and answer questions till I had a clear head."

On the defensive but cool now, using his name, comfortable in the chair.

"Okay," Delsa said, "we put the focus on Montez. If he's not involved, why is he lying? Why does he want you to be Chloe? There has to be something in it for him, a payoff that's worth becoming a suspect. He isn't in the old man's will. Neither is Chloe. So I wonder if Mr. Paradise had some other way of taking care of her, after his death. She ever mention anything like that?"

"He was giving her five thousand a week," Kelly said.

"Very generous man, but made no attempt to put Chloe in his will."

"Because of his son," Kelly said, "Tony Jr."

"So you did talk to her about it."

Delsa watched her tap the cigarette in the ashtray, twice, three times.

"Yeah, well, for the reason you said, the guy was so generous, I thought she'd be in his will. She told me why she didn't expect anything and really didn't care. Even the five thousand a week, Chloe could make more than that turning tricks."

Delsa said, "Amazing, isn't it?"

Kelly seemed to shrug, smoking her Slim.

"In the meantime," Delsa said, "we're working to get a lead on the two guys. We have to believe they were hired to hit the old man. The flip of a coin put Chloe there instead of you and they had to take her out."

"I think about that all the time," Kelly said.

"And Montez is part of it." He held her eyes for a few moments, looking to see what he might find in there. He said, "Give some thought to the two guys in the baseball caps. Tell me again what they looked like."