Stranger in Paradise

44.

Four men wearing flowered shirts flew up from Miami on Delta. They picked up a Cadillac Escalade from a rental agency, drove to a motel on Marshport Road, and registered, two in a room. A half-hour after they arrived, an Asian man came to the door of one of the rooms with a big shopping bag that said Cathay Gardens on it.

One of the men from Miami opened the door. He was tall and straight and had salt-and-pepper hair.

“Mr. Romero?” said the man with the Cathay Gardens bag.

“Yes.”

The delivery man held out the bag. Romero took it, gave him a hundred-dollar bill, and closed the door. Romero’s roommate was a squat bald man named Larson.

“What did we get?” Larson said.

Romero took the bag to the bed and opened it. He took out some cartons of Chinese food, four semiautomatic pistols, and four boxes of ammunition. Romero checked. All the guns were loaded. Larson opened one of the cartons.

“May as well eat the food,” he said.

At 4:40 in the afternoon, the four men from Miami parked the Escalade at the head of Horn Street and got out. Parked a half-block away, on the corner of Nelson Boulevard, Crow watched them go down the alley. He smiled.

Didn’t take long, he thought.

At 12A Horn Street, Romero knocked on the door. Esteban answered.

“You Carty?” Romero said.

“Yes.”

“So where’s the girl?” Romero said.

“You from Mr. Francisco?” Esteban said.

Romero nodded.

“He wants to know about the girl,” Romero said.

Esteban jerked his head and stepped aside and the four men went in. There were half a dozen Horn Street Boys inside. The four men from Miami ignored them.

“I was just about to bring her over there,” Esteban said.

“Over where?”

“To Florida,” Esteban said. “And she run off.”

“Where’d she go?”

“I don’t know. Paradise, maybe,” Esteban said. “That’s where she lived with her old lady.”

“Next town,” Romero said.

“Yeah,” Esteban said. “I didn’t think she’d run off.”

“But she did,” Romero said.

“I did a good job on the old lady, didn’t I?” Esteban said.

“And you got paid,” Romero said. “Now we want the girl.”

“I can take you over there,” Esteban said. “Show you where she lived with her old lady.”

Romero nodded.

“How about a guy named Cromartie, calls himself Crow?” Romero said.

“That sonovabitch,” Esteban said.

“He in Paradise, too, you think?”

“Yeah, man,” Esteban said. “He’s there. Maybe got the girl, too. Okay with me you take the girl. But not Crow. I want him for myself.”

Romero smiled.

“You think you can handle him?” Romero said.

“He killed one of us,” Esteban said. “You kill a Horn Street Boy, you got to kill them all.”

Romero shrugged.

“I don’t care who kills him as long as somebody does. Mr. Francisco wants him dead.”

“He pay somebody to do it?” Esteban said.

“You think we’re up here for the hell of it?” Romero said.

“Maybe I get there first, I get the ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand,” Romero said.

“That’s what I got for the old lady,” Esteban said.

Romero nodded.

“That’s what I was going to get for the girl,” Esteban said. “Maybe still will, I get there first.”

“Twenty grand,” Romero said. “Set for life.”

“You gotta problem with that?” Esteban said.

“I got a problem,” Romero said, “you’ll be the first to know.”

“I got a right to that money,” Esteban said.

Romero looked at him for a moment, then he shook his head and turned and went out. The other three men from Miami followed him.