“But you don’t know Montez,” Delsa said. “What do you think he’s been doing the past ten years? He was making six figures as a kid, now he’s running errands for an old man? Why would he put up with being a monkey in a suit all those years? He saw a payoff, a big one. He tells himself he’s comfortable in the suit, ride it out. Is he in the will? No, I checked. The old man was gonna give him the house and changed his mind. Lloyd, the houseman, said Montez had a fit. But he’s a hustler, and he’s given the opportunity to handle Chloe’s payoff, so he’ll go for that one. He doesn’t know he’ll fuck it up. But even if he knew the odds were against him, he’d have to do it. It’s his nature to hustle.”
Kelly said, “But you’re not sure.”
“Yeah, I am, I’m sure. But the only thing you can be sure of, as long as Montez needs you, you’re fairly safe.”
“You mean,” Kelly said, “Montez or the two motherfuckers won’t try to shoot me?”
Delsa shook his head. “I didn’t say that.”
17
THE PHONE RANG AT ELEVEN AND KELLY JUMPED, alone now in that cushy sofa. It was Montez downstairs in his car. He said, “You don’t buzz me in, babe, I’m gonna bust all the windows in your car.” His voice softened to say, “Girl, there things I need to discuss with you.”
Montez walked into the loft, stopped, raised his face to the hip-hop coming out of the system and said, “Missy Elliott.”
“‘Get Ur Freak On,’” Kelly said.
“Shit. What else you got?”
“Da Brat, ‘What Chu Like.’ Lil’ Kim being ultra nasty.” Kelly moving now, shoulders back, hands in fists.
“Shit,” Montez said.
“Gangsta Boo and some Dirty South.”
“Yeah, shit, I thought you was only into collegiate riffs, doing the cheers there.”
“Rah Digga,” Kelly said.
“Rah Digga …?”
“Used to be with Bustah Rhymes.”
“Yeah, I know her. I love those ladies, ‘specially that dirty mouth Lil’ Kim.” He saw the two glasses on the coffee table, a little something still in the pitcher, and said, “You had company, huh?”
“Frank Delsa.”
She watched Montez pretend to glance around the room.
“Not still here, is he?”
“Left hours ago.”
“But he had a drink.”
“You want one?”
“What’d he come for, hang a wire on you? Down in those nice cargo pants?”
She wore the cargoes with a black cashmere sweater. She said, “I thought you only wore suits.”
“I’ve been set free,” Montez said. He had on cargo pants, a T-shirt underneath a sweatshirt with a hood under his cashmere topcoat that he took off now and laid over a chair. He said, “We both in style, huh?” and pulled the legs of his pants out to each side. “Diesel, one-twenty-nine.”
Kelly pulled the legs of her pants to each side and said, “Catherine Malandrino, six-seventy-five. But yours aren’t bad.”
Montez grinned and said shit and sank into the sofa that Kelly saw now as designer quicksand. She’d had two drinks and wouldn’t mind another.
“What’d that man want to know this time?”
“Same old same old, why did I tell them I was Chloe.” She poured the last of the alexanders into a glass and offered it to Montez. “It’s my glass, not the cop’s.”
“I don’t drink anything looks like medicine,” Montez said. “He wanted to know why you told them you was Chloe. What’d you say?”
“I told him you threatened me.”
“Wait now.”
“Go along or I’d be shot in the head.”
“You’re playing with me.”
“What do you think I told them? You made me. Why else would I do it? They’re not stupid. But it’s your word against mine so we’re both off the hook.”
Montez, sitting back staring at her, said, “What else you tell him?”
“He’s already figured it out. Whatever Chloe was getting, you want me to get it for you.”
Montez looked like he was thinking now as he stared.
Kelly said, “I don’t know what it is, do I? I’ll tell you what I think it is, a stock certificate. Am I close?”
“You tell him where it is?”
“In a bank deposit box, but I don’t know which bank.”
“You told him that?”
“It’s your box, isn’t it? What’s the problem?”
She got up with her pitcher and her glass and walked toward the kitchen.
“You want a beer?”
“A Henessey, a great big one.”
Kelly placed the pitcher on the counter and finished the last alexander. She’d make one more. She got out the cognac, a snifter glass. She looked at Montez across the room in the sofa.
“Why don’t you get whatever it is and we’ll take a look at it.”
She watched Montez pull himself out of the sofa and come toward the counter. She said, “Look, he knows you’ve got something in a deposit box. So what? Go pick it up. Maybe he can trace your name to the bank and he’s there when you open the box. So what? You’ve got something made out to Chloe. You didn’t put it there, but you were instructed to pick it up after the old man’s death. Okay, you’re picking it up. If no one’s watching, walk out. If Frank Delsa’s standing there, hand him whatever it is. You don’t get your payoff, but you don’t go to prison, either. It’s up to you how you work it,” Kelly said, pouring Montez his great big one. “But it’s always been up to you, Chops. Hasn’t it?”
Montez, at the counter now, stared at her.
•
Avern Cohn, at home in his study, was watching Jay Leno “Jaywalking,” interviewing nitwits on the streets of L.A., asking one of them if he knew who was buried in Grant’s Tomb. The nitwit said, “Cary Grant?” and laughed. Jay Leno said, “Yeah, Cary Grant,” and the nitwit said, “Hey, I took a guess and I was right.”
Was he putting Leno on? Avern decided no, the guy was a true nitwit.
His cell phone beeped, on the lamp table next to his burgundy leather chair.
Montez.
“I’m in my car coming out to see you. On 75 right now passing Hamtramck.”
“Which phone are you using?”
“My own.”
Avern said, “Call me back on the disposable,” and laid the cell on the table again.
He wouldn’t say Montez qualified as a nitwit. He was a high school graduate—not bad for a former street thug. If you asked Montez who was buried in Grant’s Tomb he’d say, “Yeah, Grant’s Tomb,” giving himself time to decide if it was a trick question. Montez’ weakness, he was too cool to be concerned with the little things that could trip him up. Lloyd said, “He knows everything so you can’t tell him nothing.”
Ten years ago, Avern ready to defend him on the assault with intent charge, ready to go after the cops for beating him up, Montez chose Tony Paradiso to represent him, Tony and his son, the prick, chasing any case that could become a civil action against the police. Avern had managed to put Montez out of his mind. But then recently, talking to Lloyd about dumb criminals they had known, Lloyd began filling him in on Montez’ activities working for Tony Paradiso, Lloyd saying he was now trying hard to pass as a house nigger to get in the man’s will. Avern said maybe he could help the boy and began hanging out at Randy’s on Larned, Montez’ favorite spot according to Lloyd, on account of the stylish working girls who stopped in there.
The idea: advise Montez on how to act with a gentleman racist and pay back Tony Paradiso, the guinea fuck, for stealing his client.
It wasn’t long before they were meeting for drinks, Avern showing no resentment and Montez sorry he had given up on him as his lawyer to become Tony Paradiso’s monkey. Well, he wasn’t making it into the man’s will, but was getting the house instead. Avern said, “I can get you a million and a half for it. When do you want to take possession?” In other words, when did he want the old man to di
e. Montez said how would that work? And Avern said, “Don’t ask unless you want it to happen.”
Next, Montez wasn’t getting the house after all, goddamn it, and was mad enough to whack the old man himself. Ten years he put in for nothing, and the old man’s ho was getting something worth as much as the house. Montez explained his part in it, the old man using him so his son the prick wouldn’t know about it. A stock certificate, Montez said, worth a million six at least, according to the old man.
Avern said, “He can still be sent to his reward any time you want. You give the ho her stock and she signs it over to you. What’s wrong with that?” Avern checked it out with Lloyd and Lloyd said yeah, that’s how he understood it was set up. Lloyd being in the will was okay with Tony Jr. And if the man was to go ahead of his time, that was okay with Lloyd. Once the will was read he was moving to Puerto Rico.
But now with Chloe dead …
Jay Leno was asking another nitwit who America fought in the American Revolution to gain our independence. The nitwit this time said, “Other Americans?” and laughed. He said, “Was it the South? The South Americans?” and laughed. The nitwits knew they were wrong and thought it was funny.
Montez thought he was a genius making Kelly pose as Chloe. He got the cops on him as a suspect and Fontana and Krupa pissed off enough to want to shoot him. Which could happen.
His phone rang with an annoying sound.
Montez said, “Whereabouts in Bloomfield Hills do you live?”
“You’d never find it,” Avern said. “What’s up?”
“I went to see this Kelly at her place? She says get the stock certificate and bring it to her and she’ll take a look at it.”
“That’s the idea, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know can I trust her. She was real friendly though, sounding like she wanted to help me out.”
“She didn’t act scared?”
“Not as much.”
See? This is what you were up against trying to do business with felons. They tended to be—not as nitwitty as the ones Leno ran into on the streets of Los Angeles, but dumb enough, prone to blow whatever they got into. Avern wanted with all his heart to believe Fontana and Krupa were the exceptions.
“I told you,” Avern said, “your false I.D. of Chloe was a bad move, done in haste and it’s got them looking at you. If you’d waited until you were in the clear and then went after Kelly, it wouldn’t be that much different than dealing with Chloe. I told you from the beginning, how you get her to sign it over to you. The means you use, is strictly up to you. Where are you?”
“Coming up on Fourteen Mile.”
“Turn around and go home,” Avern said. “If you want, call me at the office tomorrow. But I’ll tell you right now, I don’t see how I can help you.”
“Man, you the one got me into this.”
“And you told me you could handle it,” Avern said, “so handle it.” He paused and said, “She was quite friendly, uh?”
“Loose, she’d been drinking cocktails.”
“How friendly was she?”
“I tried to get her on the couch, she turned me down saying it wasn’t a color thing, she had a boyfriend once was African-American. Said she just wasn’t in the mood. We talked about things … But can I trust her?”
“That’s something you’ll have to decide,” Avern said. “I’m going to bed.”
He broke the connection but held on to the phone, wondering what his boys were doing. He’d have to let them know as soon as possible, once he decided how best to explain it, Montez might have to be taken out, so be ready. They’d holler, but there was nothing he could do about it. He’d rather tell Fontana, Carl a few points smarter than Art. But if he called him he knew he’d have to talk to that fucking Connie. He’d lose his patience and scream at her and she’d hang up on him. So he’d call Art, first thing in the morning.
18
LLOYD, WEARING A STARCHED WHITE DRESS SHIRT hanging out of his pants, opened the front door and stood facing Jackie Michaels in her winter coat, her patterned red scarf, her hair combed out, no dreads this morning, Jackie looking at peace.
“Now what you want?”
Her gaze came up from the square of cardboard taped over the broken pane of glass to Lloyd. “You ever gonna get this fixed?”
“I had to find out who’s paying for it,” Lloyd said. He stared at Jackie another few moments. “I don’t have to let you in, do I?”
“It’s still considered a crime scene,” Jackie said. “I can come in if I want, but I’m leaving it up to you.”
“You have a different tone of voice this morning,” Lloyd said. “Come on in and let’s see if it works on me.”
He brought Jackie through the dining room and pantry to the kitchen, bigger than her living room with a range made for a restaurant, every size pan hanging above the worktable, Lloyd telling her Mr. Tony Jr. was here just a while ago.
“Had his daughter with him, Allegra, nice polite girl. She stops and looks at those old paintings in the foyer. Say she wants to have somebody from DuMouchelle come and look at them. I asked her daddy who was paying to have the door fixed.”
Jackie was looking at the bottle of Rémy and the teapot and cups on the plain-wood worktable.
“He said to call somebody. I said, ‘I know how to do that, but what do I pay ‘em with?’ I said, ‘Your daddy always paid the tradespeople cash.’ I said, ‘Let me have some money till I’m gone to Puerto Rico.’”
“You have family there, uh?”
“Yes, I do, a flock of cousins still living. Tony Jr. takes out a wad—the man has on a three-thousand-dollar suit of clothes and carries a wad. He says how much did I want, a couple hundred? I told him a couple hundred don’t get the toilet fixed. I said give me fifteen hundred. He give me a thousand. But try to get it out of his hand—”
“Hangs on to it,” Jackie said, “while you’re pulling on the bills. My daddy was like that.”
“He still living?”
“No, he went early. He’d be your age now, about sixty?”
Lloyd smiled at her showing gold in his teeth. “You know how old I am, you been through my jacket a few times, haven’t you? You wondering, could this seventy-one-year-old geezer play any part in this? I bet you think you know all about me, my scores, the falls I took—”
“Only to become, from what I hear,” Jackie said, “the perfect nigga for around the house. You gonna pour the tea, or you want me to?”
“Go ahead,” Lloyd said. “You want sugar in yours or just the cognac, the way ‘Lizabeth Taylor use to take hers?”
“I love to learn things like that,” Jackie said. “I’ll go with Ms. Taylor.”
“I’ll tell you something else,” Lloyd said. “I was only sixty, you’d of smelled my lust before we’s through the dining room.”
Jackie said, “Takes a little longer now?”
•
The second time they passed the house in Carl’s Tahoe Carl said, “That’s a cop car.”
“Chevy Lumina,” Art said, looking back as they headed up Iroquois. “It could be Lloyd’s, couldn’t it?”
“The help don’t park in the drive,” Carl said. “Cops are in there looking for clues, like we’re gonna do now. Go on over to Orlando’s, stick a finger up our butts and wonder what the hell we’re looking for. But, shit, tell me what Avern said. He wants us to take Montez out?”
“He says we might have to. Montez gets his nuts in a crack he starts looking to make a deal.”
“You ask him who pays for this one?”
“Avern says it’s self-preservation. Keeps us from going back to D Block.”
“Next time we talk to him,” Carl said, “I’ll let him know he’s paying for it, twenty each to stay out of jail.”
“Avern?”
“Yeah, Avern. Otherwise, we get caught we give him up. He has to know that.”
“Same with the smoke this afternoon,” Art said, “if he don’t have the cash.”
Ca
rl said, “Yeah, if he shows up. He don’t, we have to look for him. Shit, this deal is all work and no pay.”
•
They were seated at the kitchen table now with their Elizabeth Taylor hot tea and smoking leftover Virginia Slims. Jackie said, “Tell me, Sugar, for the record, you a hostile witness or you want to help us out here?”
“Do I look hostile to you? I’m watching what happens,” Lloyd said, “like I’m at the movies.”
“You find it interesting, how it’s going?”
“Let me say predictable.”
“You’d of done it different?”
“Done what?”
“Figured out how to get Chloe’s money?”
“That’s what this is about? I thought it was a murder case, somebody shooting Mr. Paradise and his sweetie.”
“You have a motive for that, too. You’re in the old man’s will.”
“You getting tough with me again? Finish your tea.”
“It just slipped out,” Jackie said, “from habit.”
“I figured from the time you was here before,” Lloyd said, “you the one plays the mean cop, the one don’t take any shit, huh?”
“Sometimes, yeah, I try to mess with their heads.”
“That’s a shame, ask a nice-looking woman to do that. Listen to me. If I’m in the man’s will and he’s up in his years, what’s my hurry? I been living in a big, comfortable house. I got all kind of hand-me-down clothes I’m taking to Puerto Rico with me for my cousins. I got hand-me-down shoes looking good as new. Always had shoe trees in ‘em.”
“They fit?”
“That’s the only trouble. I took a pair and cut slits in ‘em?”
“On the side by the little toe,” Jackie said.
“That’s right, and the man got mad, said I’d ruined a nine-hundred-dollar pair of shoes. I said, ‘But they hurt my feet.’ Didn’t matter. He made me put the shoes back in his closet. I’ll take all his shoes along, too. In my youth, I would’ve kicked his white ass with those pointy motherfuckers. See, but now I have control of my impulses.”
Jackie said, “Wisdom coming with age.”
“And a nine-year stretch.”
Jackie said, “Learned crime doesn’t pay.”