Mr. Paradise

14

Carl Fontana and Art Krupa were at Nemo's on Michigan Avenue at a table, half past five, the bar side packed. They felt at home here, a block from Tiger Stadium, where they used to stop for a couple before a game and both rooms in the place would be full of fans. Carl was showing Art the front page of the paper, the headline:

Art said, "It doesn't look like him."

"It's an old picture," Carl said. "Must've been taken when he was about fifty."

Art read, "'Paradiso Sr., unidentified woman found dead in his living room.'" And said, "Why don't they know who she is? All they had to do was ask Montez."

"He prob'ly left," Carl said. "You know, so he can walk in with all the cops there, dumb look on his face, 'Hey shit, what's going on?'"

"Next thing," Art said, "they're checking his fuckin hands for gunshot residue."

The bartender motioned to them. "Art, telephone."

Art left the table and a minute later Avern Cohn came in the front looking around. Carl waved him over. Avern sat down saying, "How do you get a drink in this place?"

Carl said, "Fuck your drink. The guy was suppose to be alone. There's a half-naked broad sitting in the chair with him."

"The unexpected can happen," Avern said. "You did what you had to do."

"How come they don't say who she is?"

"I guess the cops don't want us to know."

The waitress came along the aisle. Carl stopped her. He said, "Geeja, keep an eye on us, will you, for Christ sake?" She stood with the edge of her tray against her cocked hip, not saying a word. Avern ordered a Chivas with one cube of ice. Carl said, "The same way without the tequila."

Picking up the empty beer bottles Geeja said, "Just the Coronas?"

"Isn't that what I said?"

"I was making sure," Geeja said. "What's the matter, Connie giving you a hard time?"

She left. Carl said, "I met Connie here. She use to work at the ballpark, behind a counter, and I'd meet her here after. Geeja's a friend of Connie's."

Avern was watching him, waiting and then saying, "I'm gonna tell you something that strikes me as fascinating, mysterious, like a portent. You're drinking Mexican beer, which I've never seen you do before, and I have a job prospect that comes out of the fatal shooting of three Mexicans, the night before last. It's in today's paper, page three. But the victims aren't identified, not even as Mexican. Their bodies were burned, one of them dismembered."

Carl said, "Why?"

Avern said, "Who knows. The house's only three blocks from here, the other side of the ballpark. Empty, half burned, you can go in and look around."

"For what?"

Art came back and sat down saying, "That fuckin smoke."

Carl said, "How'd he know to call you here?"

Avern held up his hand to Art and said to Carl, "I told Montez I was meeting you. I told him any hitch in the program, he'd have to tell you about it himself. I'm out of it." He said, "Unless, the way it's going, I end up representing Montez. He hasn't been arraigned, but it's a possibility."

Carl said, "They think he did it?"

"They'd like him as an accessory, at least. He falsely I.D.'s the girl you shot. But they can't prove he did it with malice, so they have to cut him loose."

Carl said, "Who'd he think she was?"

"Another girl was there and he made a mistake."

"There's nothing about that in the paper."

"I got it from Lloyd, the houseman."

Carl said, "You know the old guy, you know Montez, you know everybody in the house?"

"Hang out at Frank Murphy," Avern said, "you get a line on all the players. I've known Lloyd since he was holding up grocery stores. I represented him a couple of times. We'd run into each other and have a drink, tell stories. We try to top each other on the dumbest criminals we've known." Avern smiled, said, "That Lloyd," and shook his head. "He could write a book on playing a house nigger-eyes and ears open, mouth shut. I asked Lloyd to watch Montez for me. This was even before Montez came with the contract. He's working for old Tony all these years and has kept himself clean? It didn't sound like Montez. I said to Lloyd, 'He's getting something out of his faithful service.' And Lloyd said 'Yeah, he's getting the house when the man passes.'"

Carl said, "You pay Lloyd?"

"He owed me, I got him off on those early beefs in his youth. But now a few weeks ago Lloyd tells me the situation's changed. Montez isn't getting the house after all. He acted uppity and it pissed off the old man. Now his granddaughter gets the house. Then this morning I'm talking to Lloyd, he tells me there were two girls there last night. Chloe, the old man's girlfriend, and Kelly, her roommate. I spent four hundred and fifty bucks on Chloe one time and it was a highly memorable occasion." Avern touched his thinning gray hair, smoothing a spot. "She was in Playboy and her rate jumped up to nine hundred an hour."

Art said, "The fuck're you talking about?"

The waitress came with their order, the table quiet as she served them, a pause in the conversation. Geeja said, "What're you guys doing, telling dirty jokes?"

She left and Carl said to Art, "So Montez called:"

"Fuckin smoke says he won't have it tomorrow."

Avern stepped in.

"But he will pay, believe me. I have to wait for my end the same as you. But I know Montez and I'm absolutely sure he'll come through. The money's from the old man, paying for his own hit. He put stock in Montez' name. Montez sells it for enough to cover expenses. But his broker wants him to wait just another day or so, make a few more bucks."

Carl said, "He's in the stock market?"

"Everyone is," Avern said, "or was. Tony gave him some blue chips he's been sitting on. I said to Montez, well, okay, but he'd have to add another ten to the contract or you guys'd be after him."

Carl said to Art, "He tell you that?"

"Yeah, and I told him it had to be another ten each. He said okay."

"You believe him?"

"I told him he don't come through he's a dead nigger."

"Both concise and reasonably coercive," Avern said. "Now then, if you'd like to hear about the next one-"

"Three dead Mexicans," Carl said to Art. "Somebody's looking for a payback."

"I'm negotiating with him now," Avern said.

"One of 'em cut up," Carl said to Art. "I imagine with a machete."

"A chain saw," Avern said. "I'm talking to the head of the gang, the posse the three guys belonged to. I explain to Chino-"

Art said, "That's his fuckin name, Chino?"

"It's what he's called."

"How do you know him?"

Avern was patient with his ethnic hitters, his guinea and his polack. He said, "Again, hanging out at Frank Murphy, where the action is. I explained to Chino how he can enjoy satisfaction for his loss without becoming involved. I said, 'Why take a chance with heat on you? Gang squad cops waiting for you to retaliate.'"

"I live down there," Carl said, "by Holy Redeemer? You go in that Mex neighborhood, cruise down Vernor, you see a big maroon Lincoln prowling the streets, always three to four detectives in it."

"Special ops," Avern said, "known as boosters. The old days they were the Big Four. Rode around in a Buick-four big cops with shotguns, armed to the teeth and looking for trouble. Okay, back to the gay caballeros."

Art said, "The dead guys were queers?"

"Forget I used that expression," Avern said, "it doesn't mean anything."

Art said, "What'd you say it for?"

"I wasn't thinking," Avern said. "Okay. The three Mexicanos delivered a hundred pounds of weed to a dealer's house, a black guy they've been doing business with. But something happened and they end up dead in the guy's basement. Check the house. It might have police tape around it, but no one's there now. It could give you a lead on the guy. I got his name from a kid who works for Professional Recovery Service-they picked up the bodies."

Carl said, "You met this kid at Frank Murphy one time?"

"Actually he's the brother of a guy I once represented," Avern said. "The guy you want to pop, his name is Orlando Holmes."

Carl and Art ordered a couple more Coronas and decided, yeah, they'd do the tequila again. What was on Carl Fontana's mind weren't dead Mexicans or this jig Orlando, it was the guy who'd just left.

"He knows everybody in town," Carl said, "as long as they're felons. Friendly man, isn't he? Runs into Montez, they have a drink and he gets a contract. Runs into Lloyd and has a drink, gets information. Runs into Chloe, who wasn't suppose to be there-"

"And gets fucked," Art said. "What might be happening to us."

"Well, now you're catching on," Carl said. "I never felt right about this one, now I'm starting to see why. Avern says walk in and shoot the old man 'cause Montez Taylor feels sorry for him and will cash in stock the old man gave him to be out of his misery sitting there with that naked girl."

Art said, "I never heard of a smoke owning stock."

Carl said, "I think Avern wants to put us on his dumbest criminals list and tell Lloyd, have a good laugh over it."

"You ever see him?"

"Who?"

"Lloyd."

Carl shook his head. He took a swig of Corona from the bottle. Art did too.

Carl said, "I think Avern had to make that story up in a hurry, about the stock. Threw it out there and kept talking, couldn't wait to get to the dead Mexicans."

Art said, "The one chainsawed, I imagine they cut him in five pieces."

Carl said, "I think Avern and Montez might be partners in this deal."

Art said, "I mean six pieces."

Carl said, "Shit, or it was Avern's idea to kill the old man in the first place. Avern gets his cut as our agent, but what's Montez get out of it?"

"You hear him?" Art said. "Avern hasn't been paid his end either?"

"You believe it?"

"I think he would've tore up the unwritten contract."

"Yeah, but you hear how he talks about Montez? How he trusts him, knows we'll get paid? Shit, Avern's running it. We got to find out what the deal is here."

They picked up their tequilas, flipped the shots down and took swigs off their Coronas.

Carl said, "You want another?"

"I wouldn't mind."

"You mentioned this Lloyd a minute ago."

"I asked did you ever see him."

"If you haven't, I haven't."

"He must live right there."

Carl said, "If he's the houseman. Avern says Lloyd owes him a couple, so he's got him keeping an eye on Montez, find out what he's up to. I believe that. I think part of what Avern said when he was lying was true. See, then when Montez came to him with the contract, shit, Avern knew Montez was looking at a payoff."

Art was listening, nodding his head of John Gotti hair.

"Pissed 'cause he wasn't getting the house. He told Avern what the deal was, to get his help, or he told this Lloyd and he told Avern."

Art squinted with a faint smile. "How'd you figure all that out?"

"Like laying bricks," Carl said.

"All this time," Art said, "I thought it was Connie had you acting weird."

Carl said, "Jesus Christ, don't bring her up." He thought about the situation again before saying, "We put a gun to Avern's head, he'll think up another story and we might believe it. We can't call Montez on it, we shoot him we don't get paid." Carl said, "Shit, I think what we have to do is talk to this Lloyd."

Art waved to Geeja to come over.

Carl said, "How you figure the Mex was cut in six pieces?"