Mr. Paradise A Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

you’re our Mr. Paradise.”

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    L LOYD BROUGHT THEM ALEXANDERS in crystal lowball glasses they took upstairs with their coats and handbags. They’d have a cigarette and a drink while they fooled with their makeup, did something with their eyes. Chloe led the way to a bedroom. They put their coats on the bed and went in the bathroom and looked at themselves in the mirror, Kelly saying, “ ‘And you’re our Mr. Paradise.’ “ She leaned over the sink and poked a finger into her open mouth a few times.
    “It’s what you do,” Chloe said, “you’re a mistress.”
    “What do you think Montez said to him?”
    “He probably called Tony Jr. an asshole. You’re keeping the sweatshirt on?”
    An extra-large that Chloe loaned her and hung below her cute skirt.
    “If it was just the old guy I might take it off. I’m not showing my tits to the help.”
    “Because they’re colored guys?”
    “I went with a black guy once, a professor at Wayne, an intellectual type. He really was, but he said ‘You understand what I’m saying?’ about every other sentence. I think to let me know he was street before he got educated, knows wazzup.”
    Chloe said, “I’ve usually had a good time with colored guys. When they’re cool they’re really cool. Like Montez, the way he gave it back. That was cool.”
    “Yeah, well, I broke up with my black guy, he was sofucking boring. I said, ‘Look, just assume I understand what you’re saying. If I don’t, I’ll tell you.’ And, yes, I’m wearing the sweatshirt.”
    “It’s way too big for you.”
    “So?”
    T HE OLD MAN DIDN’T seem to mind the sweatshirt, since it was from U of M. He said he liked it when they jumped up in the air. They did the stupid cheers, “We’re the girls from Mich-i-gan . . .” and acted nasty in cute ways.
    Montez wasn’t around for the show. He said he’d be in the kitchen, said he hadn’t eaten and was hungry. That was all he did say after the row with the old man. “I’ll be in the kitchen, Mr. Paradiso.”
    Kelly caught it but didn’t think it registered on the old man. Montez was Montez and Mr. Paradiso was not Mr. Paradise. They had left their unfinished alexanders upstairs. Lloyd brought them each another and the old man said, “Tell Montez to get out here.”
    Kelly watched him come through the dining room still wearing his gray suit, his eyebrows raised to the boss, not speaking, but this way asking what the man wanted, sitting there on his throne with a vodka on the rocks.
    Kelly imagining the way Montez saw him.
    Mr. Paradiso said, “You don’t think I treat you fairly. All right, give me a coin, a quarter.”
    Montez brought change out of his pants pocket, found a quarter and gave it to the man.

    “What I’m gonna do, Montez, my number one, I’m gonna share my ladies with you. I don’t want to show favoritism, so I’m flipping the coin. Heads, Chloe goes upstairs and you have a party on me. Tails, and I mean a nine-hundred-dollar piece of tail, Montez, you get Kelly here. How’s that sound to everybody?”

SIX
    TEN TO ELEVEN DELSA WALKED IN THE squad room taking off his duffle coat, the kind with the hood and wooden toggles, the coat, the turtleneck and blazer a deep navy blue.
    Harris said, “You’re back?”
    “You see me,” Delsa said.
    Jackie Michaels was playing slot machines on her computer, the calliope ding-dong sound turned low. Jackie had the 8:00 P.M. to 4:00 A.M. She looked at Delsa taking off his blazer with the duffle and hanging them on the rack.
    “Richard said you went home.”
    “I did, I had something to eat.”
    Richard Harris, forty-four, cool mustache, gold cuff links, a white girlfriend named Dawn who hustled drinks at the Greektown Casino; Harris a year with Squad Seven after a few years of patrol and a few more on the Violent Crimes TaskForce, was looking at the Love Swing instructions book. He said to Delsa, “Can’t stay away, huh?”
    Jackie knew better. Frank’s problem was