Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

Jaquette made his way slowly to my car. He’d changed into a tux, with a gleaming ebony cane to match. The suit was an immaculate fit, and broken and bent as he was, he looked elegant. Dressed to kill.

After he’d eased into my car, I leaned in and snapped his seat belt, fussing over his suit to make sure the belt didn’t muss it. And gave him a none-too-subtle frisk at the same time. I expected him to object, but he didn’t. He seemed amused, energized. Wired up and ready.

Costa Del Sol is one of the hottest discotheques in Detroit. Tucked away on the fifteenth floor of the Renaissance Center, it’s trendy, expensive, and very exclusive, with memberships available only to the very chic, and the very rich. I’d been there a few times as Desirée ’s bodyguard, but the bouncers working the front door still wouldn’t admit us until Roddy Rothstein bopped out to okay it.

The Costa is on two levels, a huge, lighted dance floor below, a Plexiglas-shielded balcony above, with a deejay suspended in a pod between them, cranking out power jams loud enough to give the Statue of Liberty an earache. A state-of-the-art laser system plays on the dance floor, psychedelic starbursts competing with the camera flashes of the paparazzi shooting the celebrities at play from the press section of the balcony.

We followed Roddy up the escalator to the second floor, the dining, observing, deal-making area. Shielded from the blare of the sound-system, the music from below is reduced to a pulse up here, a thump you feel through your soles like a heartbeat.

Roddy threaded his way slowly through the tables, adjusting his pace to Jaquette’s limp, leading us to the head table, where Sol and Millie were chatting up the entertainment editor of the Detroit Free Press. Sol had changed jackets, black, with a black shirt, to highlight a heavy gold Jerusalem cross. Millie was dazzling in a white sequined jumpsuit, a spray of diamonds in her hair. Desi was her usual fashionably frumpy self, street-person chic. In the bustle, nobody noticed us, until Jaquette spoke.

“Hello, Sol,” he said quietly. “How’s the leech business?”

Sol glanced up, annoyed, and the color bled from his face. “My God. Dexter.” He glanced quickly around, but Roddy had already moved off into the crowd. “What do you want?”

“To settle up. To close out my account.”

“There’s nothing to close out,” Millie said, glaring furiously at me. “It was all settled a long time ago.”

“Maybe not,” Jaquette said, glancing at Desi. “What do you think, girl? You know who I am?”

“You’re nobody,” Sol snapped. “History.”

“Maybe it’s history to you,” Jaquette said. “It’s not for me. You got any idea what it’s like to see a girl’s face on a billboard, have it nag at you? Knowin’ there’s somethin’ familiar about her? Bugged me so much I went to a shop to buy her album, and as soon as I saw her picture up close I knew. I mean I knew. It was like bein’ struck by lightning. She looks like you, Millie, even sounds like you. But she looks like me, too. And like my mama. The record jacket said she was only twenty-five, but I knew it was a damn lie. She’s mine. You were pregnant when you quit me, hid it from me so you could cop yourself a honky meal ticket.”

“That’s enough,” Sol snapped. “I don’t know what you think you got comin’, Dex, but if it’s trouble, you’re at the right place. Roddy!” Rothstein hurried toward us, bulling his way through the crowd, signaling to another security type standing near the balcony rail. Beyond him, I glimpsed a familiar silhouette, the man I’d seen on the rooftop that afternoon. He was in the press gallery now, with a camera, or a weapon, I couldn’t be sure.

“Too late, Sol,” Jaquette said, reaching under his coat. “You took everything, the music, my woman, even my child. It’s time to pay up.”

“Roddy!” Sol screamed, backing away, stumbling over his chair. Rothstein broke through the crowd and jerked his piece from under his coat, aiming at Dexter’s belly, two-hand hold.

“No!” I yelled, stepping between them. “Don’t. It’s what he wants!”

“Kill him!” Katz shouted. “Do it! Axton, get out of the way!”

“For godsake Sol, he’s unarmed! He didn’t come here to kill you, he came here to die! To take you with him! He’s got a guy in the balcony filming the whole thing!” Nobody was listening. Rothstein was circling to get a clear shot, and he was going to do it, I could read it in his eyes. Dammit!

I shoved Jaquette down out of the line of fire and threw myself at Roddy, tackling him chest high, the two of us crashing over a table. He hacked at me with his pistol, slamming me hard over the ear. I clutched desperately at his arm, but I was too dazed to hold it. He wrenched free, aiming his automatic past me at Dexter.