Montez wasn't around for the show. He said he'd be in the kitchen, said he hadn't eaten and was hungry. That was all he did say after the row with the old man. "I'll be in the kitchen, Mr. Paradiso."

Kelly caught it but didn't think it registered on the old man. Montez was Montez and Mr. Paradiso was not Mr. Paradise. They had left their unfinished alexanders upstairs. Lloyd brought them each another and the old man said, "Tell Montez to get out here."

Kelly watched him come through the dining room still wearing his gray suit, his eyebrows raised to the boss, not speaking, but this way asking what the man wanted, sitting there on his throne with a vodka on the rocks.

Kelly imagining the way Montez saw him.

Mr. Paradiso said, "You don't think I treat you fairly. All right, give me a coin, a quarter."

Montez brought change out of his pants pocket, found a quarter and gave it to the man.

"What I'm gonna do, Montez, my number one, I'm gonna share my ladies with you. I don't want to show favoritism, so I'm flipping the coin. Heads, Chloe goes upstairs and you have a party on me. Tails, and I mean a nine-hundred-dollar piece of tail, Montez, you get Kelly here. How's that sound to everybody?"

6

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 A.M. 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?"