Mr. Paradise Part 7

"We'll keep it that way till the time comes. Gonna have to work it out with you, give you a cut for being Chloe."

"What's it worth?"

"The man said a million six."

"That's all?"

"A long time ago a million six, the way I understand it. See, and the amount keeps going up."

"Chloe said it was life insurance."

"Chloe didn't know s.h.i.t. See, the box is in my name and the old man's. He's gone, now it's just in mine. Day after tomorrow I get what's in there and bring it to you."

"It's stock," Kelly said.

"You want to believe that, go ahead."

The confidence in his voice made her want to hit him with something heavy or kick him in the crotch, and it gave her energy, an att.i.tude to hold on to, Kelly telling herself, You're smarter than he is. Use your head and get out of here.

She said, "You're crazy if you think I'll help you."

"Uh-unh, I'm desperate, so I know you will."

"I'm not Chloe. Anyone can see that."

"You close. We keep the police confused long enough, we home. You live with her, find her signature on something and learn to write it."

"Get another girl."

"It has to be you," Montez said, almost singing it, "no other will do."

Kelly walked to the chair by the window and saw her reflection against a dismal view of trees and shrubbery in different shades of darkness.

Sitting down she said, "I won't help you," and saw Montez appear on the gla.s.s pane, his face, and felt his hands on her shoulders.

"Come on now, you know what bullet holes look like. You say okay you gonna do it, but then tell the police you aren't who I say you are? I bet that ugly motherf.u.c.ker be waiting for you some night you come home. Won't say nothing to you, just shoots you in the head. You might not even see him and you're gone. Understand what I'm saying? I ain't asking do you want to do it, you already in, girl. Now sit down like I told you."

She eased lower into the chair wrapping her coat around her bare legs, a cigarette between her lips. Montez came over with the ashtray and dropped it in her lap saying, "You don't want to burn your nice coat, do you?" Saying, "I want you to get inside your head, tell yourself, yeah, I'm Chloe. Start playing the role, babe. You in there being her when the police ask what happened and who's this girl Kelly you live with, and they realize the sight of it, your friend lying in her blood dead, musta left you f.u.c.ked up, like you're in shock. Understand?"

For a little while the room was quiet. She felt protected in her wool coat, Kelly sitting low between the chair's round arms lighting another cigarette, Montez by the dresser now to fire up the bong and get into his role.

He wanted her to work it out in her head who she was. But the weed and the alexanders were giving her a buzz, enough to boost her confidence, getting it up to where she could tell herself she was okay. Be herself and not think of Chloe in the chair. She was never self-conscious, in panties, thongs, whatever they put on her. She knew how to pose, how to get att.i.tudes in her eyes. She was Kelly Barr and saw no reason, really, to become someone else.

He wasn't going to kill her.

He needed her.

She turned to look across the room.

"They're gonna smell that."

"Babe, homicide, they don't bother with dope. Where your handbags?"

"In the bathroom."

He got the bags, came back to the bedroom and held them up, both Vuittons. "Which is yours?"

"The black one."

Montez set them both on the bed, opened the one Kelly said was hers, brought out the wallet, looked at the driver's license inside and said, "This is Kelly's. Don't you know your bag from hers? You don't get it straight who you are, girl, I'm gonna put you facedown on the floor and stomp on your head. Goodbye nose. Goodbye teeth." He picked up Chloe's bag, looked in it and tossed the bag to land in Kelly's lap. "There all your things, your credit cards, your keys. Look in there and find out who you are. Learn what you don't know about yourself. Little Kelly's bag goes downstairs." Montez said then, "Was something I wanted to ask you ... Yeah. You know if Kelly's ever been fingerprinted?"

"Have I?"

"I said Kelly."

She shook her head. "No."

"Never was ever picked up and printed?"

"You mean arrested? For what?"

"Hookin', being a ho. You never was busted?"

"I'm not a wh.o.r.e, you moron, I'm a fashion model."

"What they call theirselves, except the ones on the street. They selling a.s.s and want you to know it. Listen, the police gonna ask who's this Kelly with the man, hardly any clothes on, showing herself, they can see see she's a ho. I say yeah, but high cla.s.s, you understand, or Mr. Paradise wouldn't have nothing to do with her. You both ho's, keep it simple in my mind." she's a ho. I say yeah, but high cla.s.s, you understand, or Mr. Paradise wouldn't have nothing to do with her. You both ho's, keep it simple in my mind."

Kelly said, "You know it'll be in the paper."

"Yeah, I guess, and on the TV."

"Pictures of the famous lawyer and the prost.i.tute. They'll find out soon enough it's Chloe. But while they're still thinking it's me ..."

"What?"

"They'll call my dad."

"He live here?"

"In Florida, he's retired. He'll have to come up to arrange the funeral. He was just here yesterday."

Montez said, "Hmmmmm."

"You didn't think of that, did you?"

"All I been doing is thinking since he flipped the f.u.c.kin coin. If I'd known you two were coming tonight ... See, but n.o.body told me." He was behind the chair again looking at himself in the window before he said, "Okay," like he was starting over. "The police gonna want to know all about little Kelly. Gonna ask you what she was like. She have a boyfriend was jealous? A pimp was angry at her for something? You don't know much about her, nothing of her family, where they might be at."

"Or her brother," Kelly said, "who'd beat the s.h.i.t out of you?"

Montez grabbed a handful of her spiked hair and pulled her straight up in the chair, Kelly's hands on the chair arms, gasping until he let go.

"You don't know nothing will help them," Montez said, "and I don't either. Kelly? Chloe? s.h.i.t, I get 'em mixed up all the time. Names sound the same-you look enough alike it give me the idea."

"We're not exactly twins," Kelly said.

"You got the same hair, the same cute nose-you confuse me, you gonna confuse the police." Montez patted her on the head. "Babe, all I need is time to visit the bank and take this f.u.c.kin lawyer suit off and act my age. The time I got brought up for a.s.saulting police officers the man represented me free of charge, put me in a cheap suit of clothes, laid a Bible on the table I read while he argued my case and showed I'd been intimidated. Set up, the man looking for a lawsuit. He got me off and I went to work for him, not knowing I'd become his monkey he dressed up and I'd perform as his cool number one and pimp for him. Understand, he's already paid for what's in the deposit box. What happens n.o.body claims it, the bank keeps it?"

"So it's okay to take it," Kelly said.

"I'm giving you a way to look at it," Montez said. "The man's not out anything he isn't already out. Understand? See, but now I got to get hold of it quick."

"Like the guy told you," Kelly said, feeling her buzz, "you've got two days, Smoke."

Montez said, "Uh-oh," stared at her and said, "Letting me know you can be a cool little b.i.t.c.h when you feel like it. But see, what you have to remember, we partners now. We don't come through we both get shot in the head."

After the cop with the tobacco breath left-it made her think of her dad-she sat staring at her reflection in the window, a little girl wrapped in her coat. Lost. Alone. She wished she had another alexander. Boy, they were good. She saw herself talking to the cop in that dumb, numb voice playing Chloe in shock. Looked at it the way she would study a proof sheet of poses and thought: Are you nuts?

A black dude in a pinstriped suit tells you to act like you're in shock, never having ever seen anyone in shock before, and you do it. In front of a no-bulls.h.i.t cop, not an ounce of sympathy in him, a gun on his belt, handcuffs- Are you f.u.c.king nuts?

She turned halfway around in the chair to look past the back cushion to the doorway. Now there were two black women in the hall, the one in uniform and the other one, older, good-looking hair, very natural, in a long, dark quilted coat and red scarf that wasn't bad. Kelly said, "Excuse me, but what happens now?"

The older one, in her forties, stepped to the doorway and said, "You over your shock?"

"I feel a little better. I don't suppose I could go downstairs."

"Why you want to do that?"

"I want to go home."

"We can take you to 1300, police headquarters, talk to you there."

"Jesus Christ, you think I shot my best friend?"

"And your boyfriend?"

"The old man? This is the first time I've ever been been here. I met him tonight." Getting a little frantic. She told herself to be cool, and said, "I have no idea what the f.u.c.k happened. Okay?" here. I met him tonight." Getting a little frantic. She told herself to be cool, and said, "I have no idea what the f.u.c.k happened. Okay?"

The woman in the long quilted coat came in the room now saying, "I'm Sergeant Michaels. Why don't we turn your chair around and I'll sit on the bed?"

Kelly said, getting up and starting to move the chair, "Have you talked to Montez yet?"

"We talking to everybody," Jackie Michaels said, helping her with the chair. "The first thing I want to get straight, Chloe, are you a prost.i.tute?"

9.

DELSA STOOD IN THE DOORWAY. HE TURNED ON the overhead light. The girl in the chair, facing him, looked up with her Halloween eyes and they stared at each other until Jackie came out to the hall and closed the door. the overhead light. The girl in the chair, facing him, looked up with her Halloween eyes and they stared at each other until Jackie came out to the hall and closed the door.

"Frank, that girl's no more in shock than I am. She's stoned. Musta toked her way out of her condition. You can smell it out here."

"You feel her up?"

"I lifted her mini."

"Yeah ...?"

"She has on a pair of bikinis I couldn't of got into when I was ten years old. She ask me what I was looking for. I told her a gun. I went right at her and she got a little excited, but just for a minute. It was like she caught herself and turned it off. She seems alert, then acts a little goofy, like maybe she's stoned."

"Maybe she's pretending."

"Well, at times she seems over the top, if you know what I mean. You wonder if she's acting."

"She a hooker?"

"She says no, and never was. You're gonna like her, Frank."

Alex, the evidence tech, came along the hall with his camera and his kit. Delsa said, "Let's get it out of the way," and brought Alex in with him.

She was standing now, hands on her coat draped over the back of the chair. She looked around and said, "I didn't expect to be searched."

"Now you're having your picture taken. Miss Robinette, I'm Sergeant Frank Delsa, with Homicide. I'm sorry about your friends."

She said, "Only one was a friend," and looked at Alex. "Can I wash up first?"

"After," Delsa said. "We'd like to get you the way you are, part of the scene, the two of you dressed alike."

"Not quite."

"Were you topless, earlier?"

"No, I wasn't."

"Had your underwear on?"

The ceiling light went off.

Alex, his hand on the switch, said, "This is better. Five minutes, I'll be out of the way." He motioned to the girl and Delsa watched her cross from the chair to the dresser. Bare legs and sneakers, the sweatshirt covering her skirt. He watched her take her spot and look at the camera over her shoulder, knowing how to do it.

She said to Alex, "Like this?"