Miami Blues (4 page)

"Mr. Waggoner said his son had a sister living with him here in Miami, and he wouldn't accept the truth of his son's death until she identified the body. His son was a deeply religious boy, he claimed, and was not the kind to fight anyone. I told him there wasn't any fight, and about how it happened and all, and he said that there had to be more to it than that. I know how he feels, the poor bastard. When I told him his son died from a broken finger I felt like I was lying myself."

"He didn't die from a broken finger. He died from shock."

Henderson shrugged. "I know. And I told him what Doc Evans said about shock. Anyway, I made the call to Mr. Waggoner, so you can take the sister down to identify the body."

"You lost the coin toss--"

"And I called Mr. Waggoner. The sister's a new development, and my wife expects me home for dinner. We're having company over. You're single--"

"Divorced."

"But single, with no responsibilities or obligations."

"I pay alimony and child support for two teenage daughters."

"Sometimes you break my heart. Your evenings are bleak and empty. You have no friends--"

"I thought you and I were friends?"

"We are. That's why you can get a hold of the sister while I go home to my assertive wife, my gawky teenager son, and my daughter with acne. I can then entertain for drinks and dinner a couple my wife likes and I can't stand."

"Okay, since you point out the joys I'm missing, I'll go. Got her address?"

"I wrote it all down, and I've made some calls. She lives in Kendall Pines Terrace out on One-fifty-seventh Avenue. Building Six--East apartment four-one-eight."

"Kendall? That's a helluva ways out." Hoke transferred the information from the yellow pad to his notebook.

"Luckily for you she isn't home. Susan Waggoner goes to Miami-Dade, to the New World Campus downtown. She'll be in class at six-fifteen. I already called the registrar, so if you stop by the office, they'll send a student assistant up to the classroom with you and get the girl out of class. You've even got time to get a drink first. Two drinks."

"And so everything works out for the best, doesn't it? You can go home to dinner, and I can escort a hysterical young girl to the morgue to see her dead brother. I can, then, in all probability, drive her to hell and gone out to Kendall and get her calmed down. Then I have to drive all the way back to Miami Beach. Maybe, if I'm lucky, I'll be home in time to watch the eleven o'clock news."

"What the hell, Hoke, it's all overtime pay."

"Compensatory time. I've used up my overtime pay this month."

"What's the difference?"

"Twenty-five bucks. Haven't we had this conversation before?"

"Last month. Only last month it was me who had to sit in the hardware store until four A.M. while you went home to bed."

"But you were on overtime pay."

"Compensatory time."

"What's the difference?"

"Twenty-five bucks."

They both laughed, but laughing didn't mask Hoke's uneasiness. He didn't know which was worse--telling a father that his son was dead or telling a sister that her brother was dead, but he was glad he didn't have to tell both of them.

5

In his new clothes Freddy looked like a native Miamian. He wore a pale blue guayabera, white linen slacks with tiny golden tennis rackets embroidered at irregular intervals on both pants legs, white patent-leather loafers with tassels, a chromium dolphin-shaped belt buckle, and pale blue socks that matched his guayabera. He had had a $20 haircut and an $8 shave in the hotel barber shop, charging both to his room, together with a generous tip for the barber. He could have passed as a local, or as a tourist down from Pennsylvania to spend the full season.

Freddy arrived at Granny's a little before five and ordered a pot of ginseng tea, telling the heavy-hipped Cuban waitress that he was waiting for a friend. He had never tasted ginseng tea before, but he managed to kill some of the bitterness by adding three spoons of raw brown sugar to his cup. The menu didn't make much sense to Freddy. After looking it over, he decided he would order whatever Susan ordered and hope for the best. The ginseng tea was foul, but it had seemed like a better choice than the gunpowder tea the waitress had recommended. He had run out of cigarettes, his first pack smoked since leaving prison. But when he asked the waitress to bring him a fresh package of Winston 100s, she told him that no smoking was allowed at Granny's, and that "cigarettes are poison to the body."

Actually, Freddy realized, he didn't truly want a cigarette. Kicking the habit in prison had been difficult. Six days in the hole without a cigarette had given him a good start, helping his body get rid of the stored nicotine, but it hadn't helped his psychological dependence on smoking. There were very few things that a man could do alone in prison. Smoking was one of them. Smoking not only helped to pass the time, it gave a man something to do with his hands. Until he started pumping iron in earnest, those long days of wandering around in the yard without a cigarette had been his worst days in stir. And yet the first thing he had done when he got into the San Francisco bus terminal was to buy a package of Winston 100s. He had picked them because of the deep red package. He had somehow associated smoking with freedom, even though smoking was a form of slavery. That settled it. He would give it up before he got back into the habit. Otherwise, when he got back to prison, he would have to go through all of that painful withdrawal business again.

Susan, still in her work clothes, arrived a few minutes after five. She waved from the door and then joined him at the table-for-two against the wall. She ducked her head and sat under an ominous hanging basket containing a drooping mass of ferns. She was obviously pleased to see Freddy.

"You forgot the suitcase," Freddy said, "but I gave it to Pablo. The clothes are in the bag under the table."

"I didn't really forget. I just thought better of it. A lot of employees know what I do in the hotel, and they don't like me. They don't like any of us girls, because of the money we make. So if a maid saw me with the suitcase, she'd call the security office and say that I stole it from a guest or something. Then, when I told the security officer the truth, he'd still check with you, and he'd find out that you didn't have any other luggage. That could make some trouble for you. What I think, when you left your wife, is that you took the wrong suitcase. You took hers instead of your own. Isn't that right?"

"Something like that. That's interesting, Susan. I didn't think you could figure out something that complicated."

"I wasn't always a thoughtful person. When I was in high school in Okeechobee, all I thought about was having a good time. But at Miami-Dade, the teachers want us to use our minds."

"Where's Okeechobee?"

"It's up by the lake, when you drive north to Disney World."

"What lake?"

"Lake Okeechobee!" Susan laughed. "It's the biggest lake in the whole South. Everybody gets their water down here from Lake Okeechobee."

"I'm from California. I don't know shit about Florida."

"I don't know shit about California, either. So I guess we're even."

"Lake Tahoe's a pretty good-size lake in California. Have you heard of Tahoe?"

"I've heard of it, but I don't know where it is."

"Part of it's in Nevada, and the rest is in California. On the Nevada side, you can gamble in the casinos."

"You can't gamble in Florida, except on horses, race track and trotters, on dogs, and jai alai. Oh, yes, you can gamble on cockfighting and dogfighting, too, if you know where to go. But all other forms of gambling, the governor says, are immoral."

"Is the governor a Jesuit?"

"That's a Catholic, isn't it?"

"An educated Catholic, the way it was explained to me."

"No, he's a Protestant. It would be a waste of money for a Catholic to run for office down here."

"Tell me about Okeechobee, and tell me why you came to Miami."

"It's a lot hotter up there than it is here, for one thing. And it rains more, too, because of the lake. It's a little town, not big like Miami, but there's lots to do, like bowling and going juking, or fishing and swimming. If you don't like country, you wouldn't like Okeechobee. If a girl doesn't get married, there isn't much future there, and nobody ever asked me to get married. I did the cooking for my daddy and my brother, but that didn't stop me from getting pregnant. That's why I came to Miami, really, to get me an abortion. My father said it was a disgrace to get pregnant that way, and he told me not to come back--"

"The _Reader's Digest_ said about forty percent of the girls who get pregnant aren't married. What's he so uptight about?"

"My brother, Marty, had a big fight with him about that. He told daddy it's the Lord's right to punish people, and that daddy didn't have any right to sit in judgment on me. So the upshot of all that was that Marty had to go with me, and he was told not to come back either. Daddy doesn't believe in much of anything, and Marty's really religious, you see."

"So you both came down to Miami?"

She nodded. "On the bus. Marty and me are really close. We were born only ten months apart, and he's always taken my side against daddy."

The waitress interrupted. "You want more tea, or d'you want to order now?"

"I'll have the Circe Salad," Susan said. "I always get that."

"Me, too," Freddy said.

"You'll like the Circe Salad. Daddy gets mad, but he always gets over it. I think we could go back now, and he wouldn't say a word. But we've done so well down here, we're going to stay a long time. We're saving our money, and when we've got enough saved Marty wants to go back to Okeechobee and get us a Burger King franchise. He'll be the day manager, and I'll manage nights. We'll build a house on the lake, get us a speedboat, and everything."

"Marty has it all figured out."

Susan nodded. "That's why I'm going to Miami-Dade. When I finish English and social science, I'm going to take business and management courses."

"What about your mother? What does she think about you two leaving?"

"I don't know where she is, and neither does daddy. She was working the counter at the truck stop, and then one night, when I was only five, she ran off with a truck driver. Daddy traced her as far as New Orleans, paying a private detective, and then the trail got cold.

"But Marty and me are doing real good here. He's got a job collecting money for the Hare Krishnas, and he gives at least a hundred dollars of it every day to me to put in the bank. It's a hard life for Marty, compared to mine, because he's restricted to the camp at night, and he has to get up at four A.M. every morning to pray. But he doesn't mind working seven days a week at the airport, not when he makes a hundred dollars a day for us to save."

"I think I saw one out at the airport today. I don't understand this Hare Krishna business. What are they, anyway? It doesn't sound American."

"They are now. It's some kind of religious cult from India, a professional beggars' group, and now they're all over the United States. They must be in California, too."

"Maybe so. I never heard of them before, that's all."

"Well, Marty saw the advantages right away, because it's a way to beg legally."

Susan leaned forward and lowered her voice.

"What he does, you see, is put a dollar in one pocket for the Krishnas, and a dollar in another pocket for us. The Knshnas, being a religious organization, can beg at the airport, whereas if you were to go out there and beg, they'd put you in jail."

"In other words, your brother's stealing the Krishnas blind."

"I guess you can put it that way. He said they'd kick him out if they ever found out. But they aren't going to catch on. I meet Marty every night by the mailbox outside the Airport Hotel, which is right inside the airport. While I pretend to mail a letter, he slips the money into my purse. He's got a partner who's supposed to be watching him, but Marty can always get away for a minute to go to the men's room. What I can't understand is why those passengers out there hand him fives and tens, and sometimes a twenty, just because he asks for it. He says they're afraid not to, that they're all guilty about something they've done bad. But he sure collects a lot of money on a twelve-hour shift out there."

The waitress brought their Circe Salads: large chunks of romaine lettuce, orange slices, bean and wheat sprouts, shredded coconut, a blob of vanilla yogurt, and a topping of grated sugar-cane sawdust soaked in ginseng. The salad was served in a porcelain bowl in the shape of a giant clam shell.

"I've never eaten in a health food restaurant before."

"Me neither, till I came to Miami. You don't have to eat it if you don't like it."

"I don't like the ginseng root. Do they put it in everything here?"

"Just about. It's supposed to make you feel sexy, so they use ginseng because they don't serve meat here. That's the reason, I think."

"I'd rather have meat. This would be all right without the ginseng taste. How'd you do this afternoon?"

"Fifty dollars. One Colombian, and an old man from Dayton, Ohio. Counting all those clothes you gave me, it was a good day for me. Besides, I got to meet you. You're the nicest man I've ever met."

"I think you're nice, too."

"Your hands are just beautiful."

"Nobody ever told me that before. Here--take the rest of my salad."

"You didn't even try the yogurt."

"Yogurt? I thought it was soured ice cream."

"No, it's yogurt. It's supposed to taste a little sour."

"I don't like it."

"I'm sorry, Junior. I guess I should've had you meet me at the Burger King. It's right across from the school."

"I'm not that hungry. I had a club sandwich in my room, before I bought these new clothes."

"Your blue shirt matches your eyes. Did you buy it because it matched your eyes?"

"No. I liked the extra pockets. It's too hot to wear a jacket, and I need the pockets. Is it always this hot?"

"It's only about eighty-five. That's normal for October. In the summer it gets really hot, especially up in Okeechobee. And then there're mosquitoes, too. It gets so hot you can't do anything even if you wanted to. When you go out to a drive-in movie at night, all you do is sweat and drink beer and spray Cutter's."