Mr. Paradise by Elmore Leonard

Author:Elmore Leonard
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction, Police Procedural, Police, Mystery & Detective, Political, Older men, Witnesses, Young women, Detroit (Mich.), General
ISBN: 9780060083960
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2005-05-05T04:00:00+00:00

16

SHE HAD THE TRACK LIGHTING SET MEDIUM-LOW for mellow, Sade on the sound system doing “Smooth Operator” at the moment with Lauryn Hill standing by, Missy Elliott and her jungle hi-tech ready to bump up the mood if needed. He came at twenty to eight wearing the same outfit he’d had on earlier today, the dark turtleneck and duffle coat that made him look like a seaman. He’d shaved. The lotion wasn’t bad. She told him he’d look salty with a beard, saying her dad had grown one in the navy and she had pictures of him she loved. He told her it was still cold out, wiping his feet on the Oriental inside the door. He said it was supposed to go down below freezing tonight and tomorrow afternoon it could be fifty degrees. Why does anyone want to live in Detroit?

She said, “Why do you?”

He said when he was away for a while he was always glad to get back.

“And you don’t know why,” Kelly said.

She helped him off with his coat, smelling his aftershave again, hung the coat in the hall closet and brought him into the loft the black woman cop, Jackie, said you could play touch football in naked if you wanted. Now he was taking it all in, the lighting, Sade’s soothing voice, the crystal pitcher of alexanders on the coffee table. She said, “Don’t be nervous, Frank, I’m not trying to seduce you.”

“You mean it’s always like this?”

“Pretty much.”

“Two glasses on the table?”

She said, “Come on,” and steered him to the sofa, got him into the deep cushions that were hard to get out of, poured alexanders into the stem glasses and placed one in front of him on the glass top of the bamboo coffee table. Kelly, standing on the other side now, raised her glass. She said, “Here’s to your getting the bad guys,” and watched him look up at her. Reading something into her toast? Maybe. He took a sip of his drink, then another that almost finished it.

He looked up at her again and said, “That’s not bad.”

She topped off his glass, feeling him watching her. He asked her what she did when she wasn’t modeling. She straightened and looked down at him trapped in the ochre-colored cushions.

“I like to go to clubs and wave my arms in the air, thrash around, get down with the beat. I think there’s more energy in it here than in New York, a working-class audience getting their release. You know what I mean? I’ve seen Eminem at the Shelter, in the basement of St. Andrews? Iggy at the Palace, back with the Stooges. Hush, white hip-hoppers, and the Almighty Dreadnaughtz at Alvin’s. Karen Monster, a cool chick, the Dirt Bombs, they’re high-speed Detroit punk. The Howling Diablos any Sunday out in Berkley. There’s a new band called the Go, kind of glam but they’re okay. Aerosmith I love, they keep coming back to town. I was never a groupie,” Kelly said, “but I’ve always sort of envied those chicks, they’re so aggressive.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.