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Mr. Paradise by Elmore Leonard Rating: ••• (Recommended)
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Satisfaction Elmore Leonard, the Maestro, returns with another fine novel, Mr. Paradise. Set in the author’s hometown, Detroit, the plot moves quickly, the characters are memorable, and the dialogue resonates true. Typically, Leonard finds just enough to say, then stops. Here’s an excerpt, all of Chapter 6 (pp. 39-45): 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 AM. 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 Task Force, was looking at the Love Swing instructions book. He said to Delsa, “Can’t stay away, huh?” Jackie knew better. Frank’s problem was staying home. Walk in the house and get the TV on fast. Until a couple of months ago Maureen’s clothes were still in her closet and chifforobe. He mentioned it at the Christmas party, Frank half in the bag but still quiet telling her. Jackie’s advice, get rid of the clothes, everything; she’d help him if he wanted. St. Vincent de Paul shoppers were wearing Maureen’s clothes now, and Delsa was practically living in the squad room: the man sounding the same as always but buried in police work from morning into the night, glad to have the paperwork. At his desk now he said, “You want to know what happened to Tyrell’s gun?” “It’s in the river,” Harris said, “or it’s in pieces all over the city of Detroit.” “My man Jerome,” Delsa said, “drove the guy who got rid of it for Tyrell. Reggie Banks, they call T-Bone, half-brother of Jerome’s girlfriend, Nashelle. Sunday, the night after Yakity’s, Reggie wants to cruise Belle Isle. Jerome says, ‘Man, it’s freezing cold,’ but lets Reggie talk him into it, Jerome suspecting what the trip’s for. So they go over and cruise Belle Isle, Jerome with his sounds turned up, all that heavy bass chugging out of the car—” “Bouncing his shit,” Harris said. “On the way back they stop on the bridge and Reggie chucks the piece over the side. Jerome says he knows the exact spot where Reggie was standing.” Jackie said, “How you get him to tell you all that?” “We let him deal some weed, keep him out of court,” Delsa said, “and he tells us things.” Delsa turned from Jackie, at her desk, to Harris across the aisle. “I asked him if he knew Orlando, both of them dealing weed. He says he’s heard the name.” “He’ll see the man’s burnt-up house,” Harris said, “he watches any TV” “What about Orlando’s girlfriend?” “I did what you said, got next to the neighbor lady, Rosella Munson. She told me Tenisha and her mother were close, she’d probably run to her mama’s house, and that’s where I found her. The mother doesn’t care for Orlando. She told Tenisha, answer my questions or she’d take a stick to her.” Jackie asked how old Tenisha was. “Twenty,” Harris said. “She and her mother are at Northland all day yesterday, shopping. The mother says she took her home around five. Tenisha goes in the house, Orlando’s mopping the floor in the dining room with Pine Sol and bleach, using so much, Tenisha said, it burned her eyes.” “She didn’t ask,” Jackie said, “what he was cleaning up, did she?” “Said she couldn’t remember if she did or not.” Jackie said, “You know this Orlando’s never touched a mop before in his life.” “She goes next door,” Harris said, “to get away from the fumes, the smell, and sits down with Rosella to watch a movie on TV After while she hears a car, looks out the window and sees two friends of Orlando’s standing by a black SUV. Orlando comes out with some trash bags—they’re full of something but she doesn’t know what—and puts them in the back end. Now Orlando drives off in the SUV, by himself. The two guys—one of ‘em she remembers as Jo-Jo—tell her to go on back next door. Stay there till they come get her. Tenisha says this is her house, she can do what she wants. She goes upstairs and comes back down with her coloring book and crayons. Frank, they were hers.” Delsa said, “You never know.” “There’s a part here,” Harris said, “we didn’t learn about till a few hours ago. Orlando and Jo-Jo, that afternoon, went to Sterling Auto Sales and took the SUV out for a test drive— be right back. Okay, later on Orlando drives off with the trash bags. He’s on Michigan Avenue westbound, a radio car from the Fourth flashes him to pull over. Orlando takes off, runs a red light, turns a corner, sideswipes a couple of cars and jumps out, abandons ship. They look for him but it’s dark now and he gets away. They look in the SUV, Ford Explorer, find like a hundred pounds of grass in three of the bags, bloody clothes in another, and a Chinese AK-47. Sterling Auto Sales had reported the SUV stolen.” “If he used the AK on the Mexicans,” Delsa said. “Now he has to dump it.” “That’s how it looks,” Harris said. “And stash the weed at his mother’s, like they do. Hundred pounds, Jackie. How long would that last you?” “That was white-boy Glenn’s habit, not mine. I’m done with him. My evenings off, I’m out at Sportree’s sipping Bombay, looking to bring a tall black dude into my life. Little Glenn was fun, but he made me nervous.” “I’m not done,” Harris said. “Orlando comes home in a taxi and now he’s tripped out, can’t sit still. He says, ‘My prints are all over that shit. My fuckin life is done.’ This is good. Jo-Jo says to him, ‘So you didn’t get the gasoline and the fuckin chain saw like you suppose to. ‘ They get in an argument, Orlando wanting to know how he’s gonna get the gasoline and the fuckin chain saw with cops on his ass. The taxi’s still there, the driver a friend of theirs, so Jo-Jo takes it and comes back with, Tenisha says, ‘the things they needed.’” Delsa said, “They talk about the guys in the basement? Who they are? What happened?” “No mention of ‘em. Orlando puts Tenisha in the cab and tells the driver, take her to the Parkside Motel on West Warren. They called and reserved two rooms.” Jackie said, “Did she put up any kind of fuss? Orjust went along with whatever?” “Says she was too scared to say anything.” Delsa said, “She bring her coloring book?” Harris was shaking his head. “What the girl did was fall asleep. Laid down on the bed and woke up to Orlando pounding on the door. His homies had the other room but came in to sit around and smoke dope. Here’s the good part. Orlando makes a phone call. Tenisha hears him say, ‘The three dudes are in the basement. ‘ Then he says something like, ‘All the stuff’s there. ‘ I think meaning the gasoline and the fuckin chain saw. She falls asleep again while Orlando’s watching TV. She wakes up, asks him why he doesn’t turn it off so they can get some sleep. He says, ‘I’m waiting to see if I’m on the news.’ I asked her what he meant about the dead guys, if they were found.’ I asked did she see them at any time. No.” Harris paused and said, “You like it so far? Wait. There’s one more part you gonna love.” Jackie’s phone rang. Delsa turned to her as she was saying, “Squad Seven, Sergeant Michaels.” Then back to Harris. Harris saying, “Four o’clock in the morning somebody’s knocking on the motel door. It wakes up Tenisha. She sees Orlando go over to the door, open it partway and now he’s talking to a guy she thought was a light-skin brother. She couldn’t see him good.” Delsa looked at Jackie, busy now making notes. Harris saying, “She can feel the cold, the door open. So she calls to Orlando, ‘Honey, I’m freezing to death. ‘ The guy Orlando’s talking to raises his head and says to her, ‘You cold? You look hot to me.’” Harris waited for Delsa still looking at Jackie. Jackie saying into the phone, “How many?” Harris said, “Frank, you hear what I said?” “The guy told her she looked hot.” Harris said, “Yeah, but from his voice she could tell the guy was Mexican.” Delsa eased into saying, “Is that right?” in his quiet way. Harris said, “What do you think?” But now Jackie was off the phone. She said, “We just got a big-time double.” “How big?” Delsa said, the Mexican in the motel doorway gone. “Anthony Paradiso, at his home on Iroquois, Indian Village, and a young woman.” Harris said, “Which Paradiso?” “The old man.” Harris said, “Damn. I was hoping it was his kid.” He looked at Delsa. “I bet you were too. You know who fat-ass Tony’s gonna say did it, some quick-draw cop. Some cowboy they sued on a wrongful death and it cost the city money.” Delsa was looking at Jackie. “Who’s the woman?” “They don’t have a name yet. Blond, mid-twenties, wear-ing a little pleated skirt. Response was from the Seventh, the OIC’s your old buddy Dermot Cleary.” “Where were they found?” “Didn’t say. Three others in the house when the shots were fired.” “They still there?” “Waiting for us,” Jackie said. Nobody does it the way Leonard does. I laughed out loud when I reached page 248 and Leonard puts these words in a character’s mouth: “Ricky don’t lose that number.” Pick up a copy of Mr. Paradise and enjoy a fine time with a great writer. Steve Hopkins, February 23, 2004
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