New Hope for the Dead (10 page)

“Did you girls fly down from Vero Beach?” Hoke said.

Sue Ellen shook her head. Her curls, down to her shoulders, swirled as she looked toward the cab driver. “We came down on the Greyhound. We got into Miami about seven, and we tried to call here a couple of times”—she looked at Eddie Cohen—”but no one answered the phone. We had a pizza, and then we went to a movie. Then, after the movie, we decided to take a cab over here.”

“You girls shouldn’t be wandering around downtown Miami at night. Don’t ever do that again.”

“We were all right. We checked our suitcases in a locker at the bus station before we went to the movie.”

The suitcases were next to the desk: two large Samsonites and two khaki-colored overnighters.

“What about my fare?” the cab driver said. He was wearing a white dress shirt, with the sleeves rolled up to his
elbows, and tattered blue jeans. There were blue homemade tattoos on the backs of his dark hairy hands. He put his hands on his hips and pushed his chin out.

“How much is it?” Hoke said.

“I’ll have to take another look, now. The meter’s still runnin’.”

“I’ll go with you. Eddie, wake up Emilio and have him take a folding cot up to my room—and the girls’ suitcases.”

“I’ve got some empty rooms on your floor,” Eddie said.

“I’m aware of that.” Hoke shook his head. “But Mr. Bennett would charge me for them. The girls’ll stay in my suite.”

Hoke followed the driver outside, reached through the window, and punched the button to stop the meter. The charge on the meter was $26.50.

“How long you been waiting?” Hoke asked.

The driver shrugged.

Hoke looked into his wallet. He had a ten and six ones. Hoke showed the driver his shield and ID. “I’m Sergeant Moseley, Miami Police Department. I’m going to inspect your cab.”

Hoke opened the back door and looked inside. The back seat had a small rip on the left side, and there were three cigarette butts on the floor. All of the cab’s windows were rolled down.

“Did you turn on the air conditioning when the girls got into the cab?”

“No, but they didn’t ask.”

“That’s a Dade County violation. You’re supposed to turn it on when passengers get in, whether they ask for it or not. The floor’s dirty in back, and the seat’s ripped. Let me see your license.”

After exploring his wallet, the driver reluctantly handed Hoke his chauffeur’s license. It was expired.

Hoke, holding the license, jerked his head toward the lobby. “Let’s go inside. Your license has expired.”

At the desk, Hoke got a piece of hotel stationery, a ball-point,
and took down the man’s name, José Rizal, and license number, and the number of his cab. “If you came across the Mac Arthur Causeway, José,” Hoke said, “a trip from the bus terminal wouldn’t have been more than ten or eleven dollars. So you must have come over to Miami Beach by way of the Seventy-ninth Street Causeway to run up a tab of twenty-six bucks.”

“There was too much traffic on Biscayne, and I couldn’t get on the Mac Arthur.”

“Bullshit.” Hoke returned the driver’s license and handed him six one-dollar bills. “I don’t have my ticket book with me right now, but if you’ll come by the Miami police station on Monday morning, I’ll pay you the rest of your fare and write out your ticket for the county violations and your expired license.”

For a long moment the driver stared at the bills in his hand, and then he wadded them into a ball and put them in his pocket. He turned abruptly and walked to the double doors. At the doorway the cabbie turned and shouted:

“Lechon!”

He ran out the door, got into his cab, and spun the wheels in the gravel as he raced out of the driveway. Hoke knew that he would never see the driver again.

“Did he cheat us, Daddy?” Sue Ellen asked.

“Not if you enjoyed your unguided tour of Miami Beach.”

Hoke then opened and read the letter from Patsy:

Sue Ellen took a package of Lucky Strikes out of her purse, then searched in the clutter for her Bic disposable lighter.

“Let me have one of your Luckies,” Hoke said. “I left my pack upstairs.”

Sue Ellen handed him the pack, lit her cigarette, and then Hoke’s. He returned her package.

“Who’s Curly Peterson?” Hoke said.

“That’s the man mom’s been living with—you know, the pinch hitter for the Dodgers. Sometimes he plays center field. She met him two years ago when the Dodgers came to Vero for spring training. He just renegotiated his contract, and he’ll get three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars a year for the next five years.”

“How much?”

“Three hundred and twenty-five thousand a year.”

“That’s what I thought you said. I remember the name vaguely, but I can’t picture anyone named Curly Peterson. I don’t follow baseball much anymore. There’re too many teams anyway.”

Aileen looked at the floor and made a circle on the carpet with her right foot. “He’s a black man.”

“He isn’t
real
black though,” Sue Ellen said. “He’s lighter than a basketball.”

“Just the same,” Aileen said, “he’s a black man.”

“He isn’t as dark as Reggie Jackson. They both gave me autographed pictures, so I can prove it.”

“He’s mean, too,” Aileen said, still looking at the floor.

“Curly isn’t really mean, he’s just inconsiderate,” Sue Ellen argued, “as Mom said. He’s had a lot on his mind, renegotiating his contract and all.”

Hoke’s mind was frozen. For a moment, he had difficulty in getting his thoughts together.

“What’s his batting average?” Hoke said, clearing his throat.

“Two-ninety, and he’s got a lot of RBI’s.”

“That’s pretty good for a pinch hitter. He took you to all the games, did he?”

“We had passes to all the spring-training games in Vero.”

“Do you like baseball?”

“Not particularly. And we didn’t like Curly either. But Mom’s gonna marry him, not me.”

“Why don’t you like him?”

“Well, one time he was having his lawyer and his agent over to dinner, and he told Mom he wanted everything just so. Me and Aileen helped, cleaning the house and all, and Curly came over early to check everything over. We vacuumed, dusted, and even washed the fingermarks off the doors. Then Curly took out his Zippo lighter, got up on a chair, and flicked his lighter in the corner of the ceiling. When he did that, the spider webs in the corner turned black and you could see them. You couldn’t see ’em before, but the smoke from the lighter turned ’em black, you see. He didn’t say nothing about how nice the rest of the house looked. He just showed us the cobwebs, and said, ‘You call that clean?’ Then he went off with Mom in the kitchen.”

“It was a mean thing to do,” Aileen said.

“That wasn’t the only awful thing he did, Daddy,” Sue Ellen said. “That’s just a sample. But I didn’t mind too much because, if you didn’t take it personally, it was kinda
funny. I guess I didn’t like Curly because he didn’t like us—me and Aileen, I mean. We were in his way. He was there to see Mom, not us, but there we were, always hanging around. We were just a big nuisance to Curly.”

“Do you girls know what’s in this letter?”

Sue Ellen shook her head. “No, but I don’t want to read it. On the bus coming down, me and Aileen agreed that we weren’t going to be played off between you two.”

Hoke put the letter back into the envelope. “What did she say to you when you left?”

“Not much. Just that we were to come down here, and not to talk to anyone. That she’d send the rest of our things down later. She was so excited that Curly actually sent for her, she didn’t say much of anything. Mom wouldn’t admit it, but I don’t think she thought Curly’d ever ask her to marry him. But when he did, she couldn’t get out of Vero fast enough.”

Eddie came down the hall from the dining room, which had been closed for years and served now as a catchall storage room. He was carrying a folding canvas cot by its webbed handle.

“Emilio’s not in his room,” Eddie said. “I’ll get you some sheets and towels.”

“That’s okay,” Hoke said. “I’ll get the sheets, and put the cot together when I get upstairs. You’d better stay down here with the switchboard.”

Hoke got the sheets and a thin cotton blanket from the linen room, as well as bath and face towels. Hoke and the girls took the suitcases, the cot, and the linen upstairs in the elevator.

“This is an awful big hotel to only have one old man like Mr. Cohen working,” Aileen said.

“It’s only half full now, but even so, the Eldorado’s got the smallest staff on the beach,” Hoke said. “But the dining’s room closed, and so’s the kitchen. Only permanent residents live here, and if they want any maid service, they have to pay extra. Not many of them can afford to pay
extra, so we only have two maids during the daytime. Emilio does all the maintenance, like cleaning the corridors and taking care of the yard. He’s a Cuban, a Marielito, so Mr. Bennett gives him a free room for the work he does, but no salary.”

“How can he eat with no salary?” Sue Ellen asked.

“Tips. And he also has some kind of a government refugee allowance, too.”

Hoke made up the brass bed with clean sheets and gave the bed and the cotton blanket to the girls. He had to move the Victorian chair and two spindly tables in the sitting room to make room for the cot. The girls, who were used to having their own beds, didn’t like the idea of sleeping together. They argued about who would sleep on the outside; neither girl wanted to sleep next to the wall. Hoke realized that they were tired and irritable, as well as excited, but he finally told them to shut up and go to sleep.

But Hoke couldn’t sleep. There was no mattress, and the canvas cot was stiff and uncomfortable. He was also too worried to sleep. When he moved to that small garage apartment in the Grove ghetto, could he take the girls there, too? He wanted a drink, and considered walking over to Irish Mike’s, where he could drink on his tab, but he decided against it because the girls might wake up, wonder where he was, and get frightened.

It was a rotten trick for Patsy to send the girls down to him without any warning. If Curly Peterson—Hoke’s mind froze again momentarily—was making $325,000 a year and didn’t want the girls around, why couldn’t the ballplayer cough up enough money to put them into a private school somewhere?

Unable to sleep, Hoke slipped on his khaki shorts again and took the elevator to the roof. There was a duckboard patio on the roof, and at one time there had been a bar as well, but very few residents came up to the roof now. Hoke looked across the bay at the Miami night skyline, which was beautiful at this distance. A warm wet breeze came
from the ocean, and it felt good on his bare back. To his right, Hoke saw the lights on the four small islands that made up the connecting links for the Venetian Causeway. Straight ahead was the dotted yellow line of light bulbs of the MacArthur Causeway. On his left, farther south, Hoke could see the lights of Virginia Key and Key Biscayne. He lit a Kool, and remembered the old joke that had circulated after Nixon sold his house on Key Biscayne.

“What’s the difference between syphilis, gonorrhea, and a condominium on Key Biscayne?”

“You can get rid of syphilis and gonorrhea.”

But more to the point, how could he get rid of these two darling but unwanted girls—at least until he got straightened out? In the morning, he would call his father. Frank had four bedrooms in his big house on the inland waterway in Riviera Beach. Maybe the old man would take them for the summer, or even for a month or two until he could work something out. Even two weeks would help a lot. By that time, maybe he would have a decent place to live in Miami. But now, with the two girls, he would need at least a two-bedroom apartment, or maybe a small house in a safe, quiet neighborhood. Next Friday was payday, and his next paycheck was supposed to go to Patsy—then he felt a little better, a swift surge of relief. Now that Patsy had sent him the girls, the agreement was canceled. Finished.

Feeling a little better, but not much, Hoke butted his cigarette for later, went back to his canvas cot, and fell asleep.

Hoke took the girls to Gold’s Deli for breakfast. It was only two blocks away, so they walked. On their way over to Washington Avenue, Hoke pointed out the dilapidated condition of the old apartment houses and small hotels, and explained that there had been a moratorium on new construction for several years because there was supposed to be a master plan for complete redevelopment. But no redevelopment funds came through, so the owners of the buildings made only enough repairs to satisfy the fire marshal. He also told them to notice the population mix; young Latins and old Jews predominated.

“South Beach is now a slum, and it’s a high-crime area, so I don’t want you girls to leave the hotel by yourselves. If you had a doll, and you left it out overnight on the front porch of the hotel, it would probably be raped when you found it in the morning.”

Both girls giggled.

“Maybe that’s stretching it a little, but between First and Fourteenth Street, South Beach is not the real Miami Beach you see in the movies. If you were looking out the window of the cab last night, and paying attention, you’d’ve noticed the difference. North of Sixteenth there are tourists out on the streets, lights, open stores and restaurants, and so on. But as soon as you reach Fifteenth, heading down this way, there are no people anywhere at night. On the corners, you’ll see two or three Latin males,
maybe, but none of the old people leave their rooms after the sun goes down. And I don’t want you girls to go out alone at night either.”

“Why do you live here, then?” Sue Ellen said.

“We’re moving next Friday. The owner of the hotel had a security problem with Marielitos, so I was just helping him out temporarily, that’s all.”

In Gold’s, the girls ordered Cokes and toasted bagels with cream cheese. Hoke ordered two soft-boiled eggs and a slice of rye toast.

“Did your mother give you any money?” Hoke said, while they were waiting to be served.

“Fifty dollars apiece,” Sue Ellen said, “after she bought our bus tickets.”

Hoke held out his hand. “Let me have it.”

Sue Ellen had forty-two dollars, and Aileen had thirty-nine and some change. They handed over the money reluctantly.

Hoke counted it. “Where’s the rest of it?”

“We spent some coming down,” Sue Ellen said. “Then we had a pizza and went to a movie.”

“I played Donkey Kong in the bus station,” Aileen said.

Hoke gave each girl a dollar bill. “Until you get jobs, and I’ll help you find work when we get back to Miami, I’ll give you both a dollar a week as an allowance. But for a while, money’ll be rather tight.”

“You can’t do much of anything with a dollar,” Aileen said.

“I don’t want you doing much of anything. I’ve got to go over to the station after breakfast. You can either go with me, or stay in the hotel, where Mr. Cohen or Emilio can keep an eye on you.”

“Can we swim in the pool?” Sue Ellen asked. “I noticed the sign in the corridor pointing to the pool.”

“There’s a pool out back, on the bay side, but Mr. Bennett had it filled with sand. If you have a pool, you see, you have to have maintenance and insurance. The bay’s too
polluted for swimming, and I don’t want you girls going over to the ocean by yourselves.”

“At home, we had our own pool,” Aileen said.

“Did you girls really choose to live with me, or did your mother send you down here against your will?”

“We said we’d rather live with you, Daddy,” Sue Ellen said.

“All right, then. Just remember that I don’t make three hundred and twenty-five thousand a year. But my job’s got other compensations.”

“Like what?” Sue Ellen said.

“Well, for one thing”—Hoke smiled—”I’ve got my two daughters back.”

Apparently it was the right thing to say. Sue Ellen smiled. Aileen covered her golden mouth with her hand, so Hoke knew that she was smiling, too.

The girls decided to go with Hoke instead of hanging around the hotel. But Hoke made them change from their shorts into dresses before driving across the MacArthur Causeway.

“Tomorrow afternoon we’ll go up on the roof, and you can watch the cruise ships come in through Government Cut. We’ve got more cruises out of Miami than any other place in the world.”

“I’ve never been on a cruise,” Sue Ellen said.

“Me neither,” Aileen said.

“I went once, for a weekend in Nassau. It isn’t worth the money. A weekend in Nassau’s like a weekend in Liberty City.”

“Where’s Liberty City?” Aileen asked.

“It’s just a black ghetto in Miami—one of the biggest.”

When they got to the station, Hoke took the girls into the interrogation room, and then got them some typing paper and pens from his office.

“I’ll be working in my office, doing some paperwork, but
you girls can draw pictures to pass the time. I know you like to draw.”

Sue Ellen laughed. “I’m sixteen years old, Daddy.”

“You used to like to draw.”

“That was a long time ago. I remember. I also remember the time you handcuffed me to the table in the patio.”

“I never did that.”

“Yes you did, too. I remember. And I cried.”

“You were only six when you left Miami. My handcuffs wouldn’t close around your little wrists. They were only about this big around.” Hoke made a circle with his thumb and forefinger.

“That’s why you put the cuff around my ankle instead. I remember lots of things. You’d be surprised.”

“All right, then, if you don’t want to draw, write letters to your mother. I’ll get some envelopes later.”

Hoke returned to his office and telephoned his father in Riviera Beach. On Saturdays, the hardware store was only open until noon, but Frank Moseley rarely went in until ten, so Hoke knew he could still catch the old man at home.

“It’s Hoke, Dad,” he said, when Frank answered.

“How are you, son? Did the girls get there all right?”

“Sure. They’re with me now, I’m at the police station. Did Patsy tell you she was sending them down to me?”

“Yes, she called me, and she said she’d call you.”

“She didn’t. The girls arrived last night, and I didn’t have a clue.”

“That’s funny. She told me she’d call you and explain.”

“Well, she didn’t. Things are a little awkward for me right now, Dad, and I was wondering if you and Helen could take the girls for a couple of weeks.”

“We aren’t going to be here, son. If you hadn’t called me, I would’ve called you on Monday. But in ten days, Helen and me are taking a round-the-world cruise on the
Q. E. II
. Twelve thousand dollars apiece for an inside stateroom, but the boat goes everywhere. I’ve never had a real
vacation, except for the week of our honeymoon, when Helen and I went to St. Thomas. And Helen wanted to go on the
Q.E. II
, so that’s that.”

“I think that’s great, Dad. In ten days, you say.”

“That’s right. The boat leaves from New York, but it stops in Fort Lauderdale. You can bring the girls up to Port Everglades to see us off, and we’ll have a little going-away party in the stateroom. They say it’s quite a ship, and I know the girls would like to see it. My tickets are in the mail, and when I get them I’ll leave boarding passes for you, with the stateroom number and so on. You can meet us on the ship.”

“If I can make it, I’d like to see it. How’s Helen, by the way?”

“Excited. She’s got a wardrobe trunk and two suitcases packed already, more than enough stuff for three months. She made me buy a tuxedo. On the ship, you wear a tux every night.”

“Not on the first night, Dad. The first night out, as I understand it, is informal.”

“I know that much from watching ‘Love Boat.’ But Helen says it won’t be the first night out for us because the first night out will be from New York, so I’ll have to wear mine. But I don’t mind. I look pretty good in it for an old man. Something like that DeLorean fellow, only I’m a lot better-looking.” The old man laughed.

“I’d like to see you in it.”

“I’ll show it to you on the boat. I don’t like the suspenders though. They hurt my shoulders.”

“Don’t wear ’em then. With the jacket on, nobody’ll know.”

“Helen will. She said if you don’t wear suspenders, the pants don’t hang right. But I’ll be okay. You give the girls love from Grandpa, and I’ll see you all on the boat.”

“If I can’t make it, I’ll let you know.”

“Try and make it. I think you’d like to see the boat, but I
also know how busy you are. If you send me your size, Hoke, I’ll get a suit made for you in Hong Kong.”

“I don’t need a suit, Dad.”

“Send me your measurements. I’ll get you one anyway. A man can always use a new suit, and in Hong Kong they’re dirt cheap. Helen’ll get presents for the girls.”

“It was nice talking to you, Dad. Give Helen my best regards.”

“I’ll tell Helen you called … I’m awful sorry—” Frank started to cough, and then he gasped for a moment before catching his breath. “Excuse me. I’m—I’m really sorry about Patsy and that colored ballplayer.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Dad.”

“Right. Me neither. Well, you give the girls my love, hear?”

“I will, Dad. And have a bon voyage.”

“Thanks. I’ve got to get down to the store. There’s a lot to do before I leave.”

“Sure. And if you send postcards, mail ’em here to the station. I’m moving, but I don’t have my new address yet.”

“I can call you from the boat. There’ll be a phone in the stateroom, so I can call the store every day. So we’ll be in touch, son.”

“Sure, Dad. I’ve got to get to work myself.”

Hoke hung up the phone, wondering how Helen had managed to talk the old man into a round-the-world cruise. It was probably the phone in the stateroom that did it, he concluded. The fact that Frank could call every day and pass on some unneeded advice to his manager had been the clincher. Nevertheless, even though Frank wouldn’t be able to take the girls, Hoke was happy for the old man. Christ, Frank had all the money in the world from his real-estate deals. It was about time he spent some of it.

Hoke rechecked the paperwork on the Captain Morrow case, wrote a short covering memo to Major Brownley, and then took the file case into Brownley’s empty office and left it on the chief’s desk.

Hoke took the next case from his unread stack of files and opened it. There had been an argument in a bowling alley, and a man named Rodney DeMaris, an ex-Green Beret captain, had gone out to his car, returned to the bowling alley with a .357 magnum, and shot a bowler named Mark Demarest five times in the chest. The five holes in Demarest’s chest, fired at close range, could be covered by a playing card. Hoke looked at the Polaroid shot of Demarest’s chest, taken at the
P.M.
by the pathologist, and marveled at the tight pattern. DeMaris had then driven away and disappeared. Hoke wondered why Brownley had selected this old case, dating back five years, and then he found a Xeroxed page from a detective’s notebook stating that a man who looked something like DeMaris had been seen in town two weeks ago, driving a green 1982 Plymouth. The officer had tried to stop the driver, but the suspect had evaded him on 1-95. That wasn’t much of a lead; the detective didn’t even get the license number of the Plymouth. The detective wasn’t positive that the man had been DeMaris, but the fact that the suspect refused to stop had reinforced the possible identification. Hoke decided not to waste any time on that one. What was he supposed to do—drive around town looking for a green Plymouth? Hoke put the file to one side, and reached for the next one.

The phone rang. It was Ellita Sanchez, and she was crying.

“I’m so glad you answered, Sergeant Moseley,” she sobbed. “I’ve been trying to call your hotel …” Ellita was crying so hard Hoke had difficulty understanding her. She was also talking over band music—some kind of frantic salsa. He could hear horns honking and street noises in the background.

“Where’re you calling from? I can hardly hear you.”

“Just a second—don’t hang up!”

“I’m not going to hang up. Try and calm down a little.”

As Hoke listened, trying to pick Ellita’s voice out of the
background noises, Lieutenant Slater came into his office. His white, pockmarked face loomed above the desk like a dead planet. He wore a blue shirt with a white collar and white barrel cuffs, and the vest and black raw-silk trousers of his five hundred-dollar suit.

“What’re those girls doing down in Number Three?”

“Just a minute, Slater, I’m talking to my partner.”

“I’m at the little cafeteria outside the La Compañía Supermarket at Ninth Avenue and Eighth Street,” Ellita was saying. “Can you come right away?” She had stopped crying and her voice was calm.

“I guess so. What’s the matter?”

“I’ll tell you when you get here. It’s an emergency, of my own, and I don’t know what to do. Do you have any money?”

“A little. How much do you need?”

“A dollar. I’ve had three coffees, and I want to give the cafeteria lady a quarter for using her phone.”

“I’ve got that much. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Please hurry.”

“I’ll be right there. Everything will be all right.”

Hoke put the phone down. Slater was still glaring down at him.

“Those girls are my daughters, Lieutenant. Why? What’s the matter?”

“You should’ve checked them in with me, that’s what’s the matter.”

“You weren’t at your desk when we came in.”

“I was at my desk when you sneaked that file into Major Brownley’s office.”

“I didn’t sneak it in, I took it in.”

“Everything’s supposed to go through me. Otherwise, I won’t know what’s going on around here.”

“Take a look at it if you like. It’s the Morrow file.”

“I’m not allowed in Brownley’s office when he’s not there, and neither are you.”

“For Christ’s sake, Slater. I’m on a special assignment
with Henderson and Sanchez. You know that, because Brownley filled you in when he assigned Gonzalez to work with you. What do you want from me?”

“I want you to follow the chain of command, Sergeant. You’re no better than anyone else around here.”

Hoke nodded, realizing suddenly why Slater was so angry. He had not been asked by Brownley to attend the meeting about the cold cases, nor had Brownley, in all probability, consulted him about their selection.