"The guy out by Woodmere," Wendell said, "back of the cemetery. What's a man thinking, he shoots another man thirteen times?"

Delsa said, "What're any of them thinking."

3.

EARLY EVENING MONTEZ TAYLOR WAS IN THE MAN'S brown Lexus leaving downtown Detroit by way of East Jefferson. His phone rang. Montez brought it out of his tan cashmere topcoat, muted gold tie against dark gray underneath, and said, "Montez." Always Montez, because it always could be Mr. Paradise. brown Lexus leaving downtown Detroit by way of East Jefferson. His phone rang. Montez brought it out of his tan cashmere topcoat, muted gold tie against dark gray underneath, and said, "Montez." Always Montez, because it always could be Mr. Paradise.

It was Lloyd.

Meaning the man had told Lloyd to call and have him pick up something like booze, cigars, p.o.r.no movies. Montez didn't wait to hear what it was, he wanted to talk and said, "I'm at the office checking on that little girl's new there, Kim? Tony Jr. comes along with his big a.s.s, wants to know what I'm doing. I said picking up his daddy's junk mail. He tells me soon as the old man's gone I am too. I said, 'What about my benefits, my bonus, my Blue Cross?' Junior says, 'You got to be kidding.'"

Lloyd said, "Like you didn't know they gonna throw your a.s.s out in the street."

"Hey, I was f.u.c.kin with him. What's the man doing?"

"Watching his show, Wheel of Fortune Wheel of Fortune. He wants you to pick up some of those Virginia Slim 120's, the real long ones. The girlfriend's coming this evening."

Montez said, "Wait now." Stared at taillights running away from him in the dark, realized he was slowing down, and punched the gas pedal to catch up. Lloyd was mistaken, getting old. "You're thinking of last night she was coming. I told you, I went to pick her up, she wasn't home."

"That's why she's on for tonight," Lloyd said.

"He never said a word word to me she was coming." to me she was coming."

"He told me and I'm telling you. So stop and get the f.u.c.kin cigarettes," Lloyd said, and was gone.

Montez replaced his personal flip phone and brought out a cheap cell from the inside pocket of his suit: this phone to use when he called the number he jabbed in now with his thumb. A woman's voice he recognized said h.e.l.lo. Montez said, "Lemme speak to Carl." The woman's voice said he wasn't there. Montez asked where he was and if he was coming back. The woman's voice said, "Who knows where that s.h.i.thead is." Said, "Don't call here again," and hung up.

Montez said, "f.u.c.k," out loud, turned left off Jefferson, oncoming cars blowing horns at him, screeching tires, cruised up Iroquois to the middle of the second block, turned into the circular drive and eased up to the front entrance.

He used his key to step from the eighty-year-old Georgian facade into the gloom of dark furniture, heavy chests and tables, chairs n.o.body ever sat on, old paintings of woods and the ocean, scenery, light coming through trees, the clouds, nothing going on in the pictures. All this old s.h.i.t would be gone once the man was. He'd said, sounding p.i.s.sed, none of his kids wanted to live in Detroit, happy to be out in West Bloomfield and Farmington Hills. So he was giving the house to someone who'd lived in the inner city all his life and would appreciate it. The man sincere, rewarding Montez for ten years so far of faithful, a.s.s-kissing service.

But then just last month: Montez explaining to the man how he could turn his study into an entertainment center with a big plasma TV screen on the wall, the latest kind of sound system, all hi-tech s.h.i.t, and the man said, "I know your game, Montez," his mind working on and off, "you want me to pay for how you'd fix it up."

Then like getting punched in the stomach: "Montez, I've changed my mind about giving you the house." Saying he was sorry but not sounding like it. "I know I promised it to you ..." but now his granddaughter Allegra, Tony Jr.'s married daughter, thought bringing up her kids in the city would be a stimulating experience. The man saying, "And you know when it comes to family ..."

Montez saw what he had to do. He shrugged, showed the man a sad kind of grin, said, "I can't compete with little Allegra"-being cute getting the b.i.t.c.h anything she wanted-"and can appreciate her wanting to live in the inner city, even with crime the way it is here, it's way more stimulating than Grosse Pointe."

"Ten to one," the old man said, "Allegra sells it before she ever moves in. I know her husband John wants to move to California, get in the wine business."

f.u.c.k. Another punch in the gut. Montez made himself shrug and grin, knowing the man would have to offer him something else instead. And he did.

"You'll get a check in the form of a bonus from the company," the man said, "so your name won't come up in the will and cause a commotion."

This time Montez could not shuck and jive the man with a shrug and grin. He stared at the man that time last month, stared and said, "Mr. Paradiso, do you believe your son would actually give me anything?"

The man didn't care for that. It was like being talked back to. He said, "If I tell my son you have something coming, you're gonna get it, mister."

His serious tone and that "mister" s.h.i.t meaning the conversation was over. Except Montez could not leave it there. He had to ask the man: "When you're gone, how you gonna make Junior do what you want?" Paused and said, "When he don't give a f.u.c.k what you want anyway?"

Blew it. The man didn't say another word. Went over to his big double-size easy chair full of pillows and sat down in front of his old TV console, like a piece of furniture in the living room.

Where he was now.

Mr. Paradise shrinking and going frail with age, strands of white hair combed just right to cover his scalp, the man watching the end of Wheel of Fortune Wheel of Fortune, Pat Sajak and Vanna White busting their a.s.s to stretch the conversation through the closing seconds.

"Vanna doesn't give him much help," the man said. "She can't wait to say 'Bye' and wave to the audience. What she's good at."

He was wearing a warm-up suit, the dark blue with yellow piping. He had glanced at Montez coming in the room and gone back to Pat and Vanna.

Montez said, "Chloe's coming tonight, huh?"

"Yeah-you get the cigarettes?"

"Not yet. You want me to pick her up?"

"That's what you do, isn't it?"

Montez could say not always, but this was edgy enough. He said, "What time?"

"Nine-thirty."

Montez waited a moment. "You know I didn't have any idea she was coming?"

The man was watching a sappy ad now about Mr. Goodwrench. He said, "Don't forget the cigarettes."

"Come on, Mr. Paradise, do I ever forget anything?"

The man looked up at him and said, "You forget who you are sometimes."

Lloyd, in the white shirt and black vest he wore with a black bow tie, was in the dining room clearing the table. He said to Montez coming in, "Put something in your hands." Montez picked up the bottle of red, down more than half, and followed Lloyd to the kitchen.

Montez saying, "He still got the bug up his a.s.s."

"You're the one put it there," Lloyd said.

"How come I didn't know his girl's coming?"

"You still on that?"

"What if I'd gone someplace?"

"You'd have gotten permission, wouldn't you? Ask Mr. Paradise sir was it all right? He'd tell you no, you got to pick up his ho," Lloyd said. "Least he'll be in a good mood later on. You see what he's wearing? His ath-e-lete suit. Means we gonna have some cheerleading tonight." Lloyd said to Montez walking out, "The ho's gonna bring another ho to do it with her."

Montez went out the back door and cross the yard toward the garage thinking, Jesus Christ, two of 'em now. He brought out his special phone, the cheap one, and punched the number he'd tried in the car. When the woman's voice came on, the same woman saying h.e.l.lo like she hated answering phones, Montez said from a hard part of his throat, "Don't f.u.c.k with me, Mama." She hung up on him. He put in the number again, listened to it ring and ring until Carl Fontana's voice came on saying he was out and to leave a message. Montez said, "There's no game tonight. Understand? Call me by nine."

That was all. He knew better than to get his name and too much of his voice onto tape.

4.

JEROME LOOKED AT HIS STREET-MARKET ROLEX.

It was 8:15 P.M., fluorescent lights on in the squad room: Jerome sipping on a can of Pepsi-Cola in a swivel chair Delsa had brought over to put next to his desk, Delsa reading what he said was Jerome's LEIN report. They were the only ones in the room. Jerome tried to figure out what LEIN meant and finally had to ask.

"Law Enforcement Information Network," Delsa said.

"I'm in there?"

"Anybody commits a crime."

"What they have me doing?"

"Possession with intent."

"Was only dank. I never had any intention to sell it. Was the judge wouldn't believe it was for my own smoking pleasure."

"How much did you have?"

"Four hundred pounds. Got me thirty months in Milan, man."

He thought the detective would start talking about prison now, asking did he want to go back, waste his life inside. Preach at him. No, that seemed to be it. Now he was looking for something on his desk. Having trouble finding it, all the s.h.i.t piled there. One thing about him, he never yelled, never got in your face and screamed at you, like some of those old-time white d.i.c.ks still around. Jerome swiveled in his chair away from Delsa and pushed up.

He said, "You got all white fellas in here?"

Delsa looked up at Jerome, standing now.

"We had eight in the squad, five black, three white. Three of the eight women, but now we're down, shorthanded."

"You the boss, you sit at the front desk?"

"Acting head. The lieutenant's in the army reserve. He's over in Iraq."

He had always a quiet tone of voice, answered your questions. It gave Jerome the feeling you could talk to him. Jerome believed he was Italian, dark eyes that were kinda sad, dark hair that looked like he combed with his fingers. What he should do, have it straightened some and slick it back with a dressing, give it a shine. The blue shirt and tie could pa.s.s, if it's what you had to wear working here. The man didn't have much size to him-was stringy, but could have been an athlete at one time. Or he ran and did that weight s.h.i.t, like in the yard at Milan.

Jerome looked around the room, took a few shuffle steps and paused. When he wasn't told to sit down he began to stroll, checking out the s.h.i.t on the desks: Case files, witness statements, preliminary complaint reports-Jerome reading t.i.tles on the sheets-scene investigation and Medical Examiner reports, M.E. proof sheets of gunshot wounds-six in the back of the head, Jesus Christ, exit wounds in the man's cheek-Polaroids of a woman lying in the weeds, phones, computers, directories, mug shots and coffee mugs. Four desks on one side of the room, two pair b.u.t.ted together, three on the other side. The one Delsa sat at faced down the aisle between them to a door that was open and what looked like a walk-in closet inside, painted pink.

Why would they have a pink room in here?

Why would they have a fish with big ugly lips in a tank on top a file cabinet? The fish looking at him.

A printed sheet with a fancy border of flowers, taped to the side of the cabinet-you had to get close to read-said:

TOO OFTEN WE LOSE SIGHT OF LIFE'S SIMPLE PLEASURES. REMEMBER, WHEN SOMEONE ANNOYS YOU IT TAKES 42 MUSCLES IN YOUR FACE TO FROWN. BUT IT ONLY TAKES 4 MUSCLES TO EXTEND YOUR ARM AND b.i.t.c.h-SLAP THE MOTHERf.u.c.kER UPSIDE THE HEAD.

Delsa said, "Jerome? You have an idea what happened to the gun?"

He watched Jerome in his green and red Tommy jacket and black do-rag, blousy cargo pants sweeping the floor, turn and come back to the chair next to the desk.

Jerome said, "What gun you mean?" sitting down again.

"Tyrell's, the murder weapon."

"How would I know?"

Jerome swiveling the chair back and forth now in slow motion.

"You said he pulled a nine."

"I could be mistaken."

"Jerome, don't bail out on me. I swear you won't have to testify. Nothing you tell me leaves this room."

"Was a Beretta, the one holds fifteen loads."

Delsa said, "Your girlfriend's name is Nash.e.l.le Pierson?"

"That's right."

"She has a half-brother named Reggie Banks?"

Jerome hesitated. "Yeah ...?"

"And Reggie, who works at the Mack Avenue Diner with Tyrell, is a homey of yours?"

"How you know that?"

"I ride the block and talk to people. Who's this Jerome Juwan Jackson I hear about? Has style, tight rims on his car. A girl sitting on her front steps says, 'Oh, you mean Three-J? Yeah, lives in the house down the block, in the house has boards over the windows. Protect him from dudes shooting at him.'"