Read Online Paradise Man by Jerome Charyn - Free Book Online Page A

opened the rear door and Holden sat the man down on the seat. There were no tattoos on his fingers. “Come on,” Billetdoux said. But Holden pulled on the man’s lip and saw a blue mark inside the flesh of his mouth. It was the moist little heart of an executioner. The man hissed at Holden with his eyes.
    “Come on,” Billetdoux said.
    Holden ducked his head out of the police car. Billetdoux slammed the door shut and the car bumped along the rue de Vaugirard like some mortuary wagon.
    “Billet, I didn’t know you were into the police.”
    “I’m not,” the bumper said. “Those weren’t flics. They were friends of mine. The suits were rented.”
    “And the car?”
    “Also rented. Don’t worry. I didn’t have to pay.”
    “Who’s my benefactor?”
    “The Swiss.”
    “I thought you work for Bronshtein.”
    “I do. But I also work for Schatz.”
    “Let’s have a coffee,” Holden said. And the two bumpers marched up to a café near the Place St. Sulpice.

Carmen

7
    H OLDEN ALWAYS WENT TO Muriel Spencer’s when he was in despair over the twig. He didn’t have to worry about any girl with a hardened look, because Muriel wouldn’t tolerate a whore in her establishment, and Holden would drink a lemonade and lie with the girl for half an hour. None of the girls ever stayed longer than six months. They’d marry one of Muriel’s clients or become an intern at a brokerage house. They were always young and narrowly built, and they never talked foul. Holden learned from his spies that Muriel had an exclusive arrangement with several finishing schools in the Midwest, but all the girls couldn’t have come from finishing schools. A couple of them were as ignorant as Andrushka had been before she’d discovered what a museum was.
    Holden hadn’t returned from Paris for some polite, skinny-boned girl. He’d given up the delusion of finding another twig at Muriel’s place. But he wanted to know how come the Bandidos were so eager to have him dead. Holden didn’t believe it was on account of the Parrot and his mistress. They were rip-off artists from Miami. They weren’t connected to the Bandidos up here. The Parrot had an isolated game. Why should the Bandidos have cared ... unless the Parrot was related to one of them. Holden had to know.
    His spies had fallen down on him. His secret service ought to have sniffed whatever danger there was. Half of Holden’s income went to his rats. And some moron with a tattoo in his mouth had nearly ruined Holden’s face with a fisherman’s spear. He wondered what kind of secret service the Bandidos had if they could afford to send a man to Paris. He had to grab hold of Gottlieb. But Muriel cornered him in her parlor. She was as tall and thin as the debutantes she produced. Her eyes were painted aquamarine, just like a water goddess. Holden had never desired the woman. Her manner, her whole allure, seemed to have come out of a finishing school. That was charming for a girl of nineteen. But Muriel was forty-five.
    “Holden,” she said, with a slight pinch of her mouth that was a mark of naughtiness, “where have you been? Everybody wants your autograph.”
    Muriel wouldn’t allow her girls to mingle with the men in her parlor. She did the selecting for you. The girls would wait upstairs in their clothes, like some banker’s daughter. They always unzipped themselves and lay like dolls while they were being caressed. Muriel discouraged all signs of passion. The girls were notorious for doing very little. That’s why Muriel married them off so quick. Her clients didn’t have to worry about the phantom of any other man. Muriel wouldn’t permit lust without marriage.
    There was a lone card game in the parlor. Holden recognized Robert Infante, Don Edmundo (chief of La Familia), Edmundo’s bodyguard, and another guy, that playwright Rex. Abruzzi had brown hair. He wore suspenders and a bow tie and looked like one of Edmundo’s thugs. His nose had been broken and he had