Stranger in Paradise

Wilson Cromartie, in a tan summer suit and a yellow gingham shirt, walked down the center passage of a big mall that had replaced the nineteenth-century brick buildings in the heart of Marshport. There were some shoppers, but the majority of the people in the mall were Hispanic teenagers, in the various costumes of their age group. A number of them were in a store called Images, gazing at the television sets they couldn’t afford.

Crow went into the store.

“My daughter bought a big-screen TV here a while ago,” Crow said to the clerk. “And the delivery seems to have gone astray.”

“Astray?”

“Yes,” Crow said. “She never got it.”

“Oh, my,” the clerk said.

He turned to the computer.

“What’s your daughter’s name, sir?”

“Amber Francisco,” Crow said.

The clerk worked the computer for a moment.

“Twelve-A Horn Street?” the clerk said.

Crow nodded. The clerk smiled.

“It was delivered ten days ago,” the clerk said. He was triumphant. “Signed for by Esteban Carty.”

Crow looked puzzled.

“Here in Marshport?”

“Yes, sir. If you’d like to step around the counter, I can show you.”

“No,” Crow said. “Thank you. That’ll be fine.”

He shook his head.

“Damn kid will put me in an early grave,” he said.

He left the store. As he walked back through the mall, several of the teenage girls lounging about watched him as he passed.

15.

Jenn came into the police station with her cameraman, waved at Molly, and came to Jesse’s office, the cameraman behind her.

“No cameras in the station,” Jesse said when he saw them.

The cameraman looked at Jenn.

“You want to make it a freedom-of-the-press thing?” he said.

Jenn grinned.

“Go ahead, Mike,” Jenn said. “Take a break in the van. I’ll just talk with Jesse.”

The cameraman picked up his camera and went out. Jenn sat across from Jesse.

“Very impressive,” she said.

Jesse nodded.

“Riding in with the little kids. Introducing them. Made the protesters look foolish,” Jenn said.

Jesse nodded again.

“I kind of liked it also,” Jenn said, “when Molly stomped on that woman’s foot.”

“Molly being Molly,” Jesse said.

“I am woman, hear me roar,” Jenn said.

“I suspect Molly would be Molly with or without feminism,” Jesse said.

Jenn nodded.

“I like her,” Jenn said.

“I like her, too,” Jesse said.

“What do you suppose the protesters really want in all of this?” Jenn said.

“We on the record here, Jenn?”

“I’d like to be,” Jenn said.

Jesse nodded.

“No comment,” he said.

Jenn leaned back a little in her chair and looked at Jesse with her head tilted to the side. Her summer dress had slid up to mid-thigh. Her legs were tan. Jesse felt the feeling. He had felt the feeling for such a long time now that it was nearly routine. Sometimes he thought it was the only feeling he had.

“Okay, then,” Jenn said. “Off the record.”

“First, a question for you,” Jesse said. “How’d you happen to be there.”

“It’s news,” Jenn said with a smile. “A lawyer named Blake called us up and informed us of that.”

Jesse shook his head.

“They actually think if they get coverage,” Jenn said, “they’ll get sympathy.”

Jesse nodded.

“Maybe a little out of touch,” Jesse said. “They probably have a couple of problems with the Crowne estate project. Neither of which, as you may have observed, is traffic.”

“Hell,” Jenn said. “Our van took up as much space as your bus.”

“It did,” Jesse said. “One of their problems is they fear a decrease in the value of real estate around the school. And if everybody is like them, the real estate next to a school for disadvantaged children will be harder to sell. And they think that everybody is like them. Or at least everybody who counts.”

“They do seem insular,” Jenn said.

“Most people are.”

“What’s their other problem?” Jenn said.

“They don’t want a bunch of low-class wetbacks moving into Paradise.”

“Simple bigotry?” Jenn said.

“It’s almost always that,” Jesse said, “when you wipe away the bullshit.”

“Wow,” Jenn said. “Cynical, cynical, cynical.”

“I like to think of it as profiting from the learning experience,” Jesse said.

“May I use any of this?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it was off the record,” Jesse said. “Feel free to use anything I said on the record.”

“The only thing you said on the record was ‘no comment.’”

“Feel free,” Jesse said.

16.

Mostly Molly ran the front of the police station, but she had persuaded Jesse to allow her, at least once a week, to take a shift on patrol. Jesse had not wanted her shift to be at night. But after Molly explained that he was treating her like a woman, not a cop, and that she was both and should be treated as both, Jesse put her out every couple of weeks, at night, in one of the two patrol cars.

Tonight she was cruising Paradise Neck. She liked the night patrol. Every night would be awful. She’d never see her husband or her kids. But once every couple of weeks it was very soothing. She felt safe enough. Paradise was hardly a war zone. She also had a .40-caliber handgun, Mace, a nightstick, a radio, and the shotgun locked to the dashboard.

She smiled. Armed to the teeth.