"Too much like work," Wendell said.
"I guess."
"What else? The guy sitting in his car on St. Antoine."
"Talking to his wife on the phone," Delsa said. "She hears three shots. We've got no witnesses, nobody to focus on. And we're still looking for two white guys going around shooting black drug dealers. They should stick out like they're wearing signs, but we're not getting anywhere."
"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.
It was Lloyd.
Meaning the man had told Lloyd to call and have him pick up something like booze, cigars, porno 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 ass, 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 ass out in the street."
"Hey, I was fuckin with him. What's the man doing?"
"Watching his show, 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."