Miami Blues (5 page)

"Cutter's?"

"That's mosquito spray, and it really works, too. Oh, they'll still buzz around your ears, but they won't land on you--not if you spray on enough Cutter's. There's another brand, when you spray too much on, you get a rash. But you don't care about the rash, because you've already got a rash from prickly heat. We better pay and go to class."

"I'll pay. Give me the ticket."

"No, it's my treat. If you want to, you can go to class with me. It's air-conditioned, and Professor Turner won't mind. He'll think you're a member of the class anyway. He told us that he doesn't learn our names. He finds out the names of the A and F students soon enough, he says, and the rest of us don't matter. I'm only a C student in English, so he's never even called on me yet."

There were thirty-five students in the class; thirty-six, counting Freddy, who took the last seat in the row by the back wall, behind Susan. There were no windows, and the walls, except for the green blackboard, were covered with cork. The city noises were shut out completely. The students, mostly Latins and blacks, were silent as they watched the teacher write _Haiku_ on the green board with a piece of orange chalk. The teacher, a heavy-set and bearded man in his late forties, did not take roll; he had just waited for silence before writing on the board.

"Haiku," he said, in a well-trained voice, "is a seventeensyllable poem that the Japanese have been writing for several centuries. I don't speak Japanese, but as I understand haiku, pronounced _ha--ee--koo_, much of the beauty is lost in the translation from Japanese to English.

"English isn't a good language for rhymes. Three-quarters of the poetry written in English is unrhymed because of the paucity of rhyming words. Unhappily for you Spanish-speaking students, you have so many words ending in vowels, you have the difficulty in reverse.

"At any rate, here is a haiku in English."

He wrote on the board:

The Miami sun,

Rising in the Everglades--

Burger in a bun.

"This haiku," he continued, "which I made up in Johnny Raffa's bar before I came to class, is a truly rotten poem. But I assure you I had no help with it. Basho, the great Japanese poet, if he knew English and if he were still alive, would positively detest it. But he would recognize it as a haiku because it has five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third. Add them up and you have seventeen syllables, all you need for a haiku, and all of them concentrating on a penetrating idea.

"You're probably thinking, those of you who wonder .about things like this, why am I talking about Japanese poetry? I'll tell you. I want you to write simple sentences--subject, verb, object. I want you to use concrete words that convey exact meanings.

"I know you Spanish-speaking students don't know many Anglo-Saxon words, but that's because you persist in speaking Spanish to one another outside of class instead of practicing English. Except for giving you Fs on your papers, I can't help you much there. But when you write your papers, pore-- _p-or-e_ --over your dictionaries for concrete words. When you write in English, force your reader to reach for something."

There was a snicker at the back of the room.

"Basho wrote haikus in the seventeenth century, and they're still being read and talked about in Japan today. There are a couple of hundred haiku magazines in Japan, and every month articles are still being written about Basho's most famous haiku. I'll give you the literal translation instead of a seventeen-syllable translation."

He wrote on the blackboard:

Old pond.

Frog jumps in.

Water sound.

"There you have it," Mr. Turner said, scratching his beard with the piece of chalk. "Old pond. Frog jumps in. Water sound. What's missing, of course, is the onomatopoeia of the water sound. But the meaning is clear enough. What does it mean?"

He looked around the room but was unsuccessful in catching anyone's eye. The students, with sullen mouths and lowered lids, studied books and papers on their armrest desk tops.

"I can wait," Mr. Turner said. "You know me well enough by now to know that I can wait for a volunteer for about fifteen minutes before my patience runs out. I wish I could wait longer, because while I'm waiting for volunteers I don't have to teach." He folded his arms.

A young man wearing cut-off jeans, a faded blue tank top, and scuffed running shoes without socks, lifted his right hand two inches above his desk top.

"You, then," the teacher said, pointing with his chalk.

"What it means, I think," the student began, "is that there's an old pond of water. This frog, wanting to get into the water, comes along and jumps in. When he plops into the water he makes a sound, like splash."

"Very good! That's about as literal an interpretation as you can get. But if that's all there is to the poem, why would serious young men in Japan write papers about this poem every month in their haiku magazines? But, thank you. At least we have the literal translation out of the way.

"Now, let's say that Miami represents the old pond. You, or most of you, anyway, came here from somewhere else. You come to Miami, that is, and you jump into this old pond. We've got a million and a half people here already, so the splash you make isn't going to make a very large sound. Or is it? It surely depends upon the frog. Some of you, I'm afraid, will make a very large splash, and we'll all hear it. Some will make a splash so faint that it won't be heard by your next door neighbor. But at least we're all in the same pond, and--"

There was a knock on the door. Annoyed, Mr. Turner crossed to the door and opened it. Freddy leaned forward and whispered to Susan. "That's some pretty heavy shit he's laying down. D'you know what he's talking about?"

Susan shook her head.

"Us! You, your brother, and me. What's that other word mean he keeps talking about--_onomatopoeia?_"

"It's the word for the actual sound. Like _splash_, when the frog jumps in."

"Right! See what I mean?" Freddy's eyes glittered. "You and me, Susan. We're going to make us a big splash in this town."

6

Professor Turner stepped back into the room and cleared his throat. "Is Susan Waggoner here today?"

Susan raised her hand.

"Come out into the hallway, please. Bring your things with you."

Susan put her books into her oversize bag. Freddy followed her into the corridor, carrying the laundry bag. The teacher frowned at Freddy and shook his head.

"This doesn't concern you, son. Go back to your seat."

"If it concerns Susan it concerns me," Freddy said. "We're engaged."

Sergeant Hoke Moseley, looking at the floor, lifted his head and nodded when the student assistant asked him if she could leave.

"Susan," Mr. Turner said, "do what you've got to do, and stay out of school as long as it takes. When you return to class, see me in my office and I'll let you make up any assignments you missed." He looked sternly at Freddy for a long moment. "You've already missed several classes, but the same goes for you." He returned to his classroom and closed the door.

Hoke showed the pair his shield. "Sergeant Moseley. Homicide. Isn't there a lounge somewhere where we can sit down and talk?" Hoke hadn't expected to see such a young girl. She looked more like a high school kid than a college student. But if she was engaged to this hard-looking jock, she was probably older than she looked. It was a help to have the fiancé present; maybe he wouldn't have to drive her out to hell-and-gone Kendall after all. Her boyfriend could take her home.

"There's a student lounge down on the second floor," Susan said. "We can go there. I haven't done anything bad. Have I, Junior?"

Hoke smiled. "Of course you haven't." Hoke started toward the elevator. "Let's go down to the lounge."

They sat at a glass-topped table on three unstable wire Eames chairs in the study area near the Down escalator to the main floor. Hoke lit a cigarette and held out the package. When they shook their heads, he took one drag and dropped the cigarette into an empty Coke can on the table.

"I've got some bad news for you, Miss Waggoner. That's why I wanted you to be seated. Your brother, Martin, in a freaky accident at the airport, died today. And your father, when we called him in Okeechobee, asked us to have you identify the body. We've got an ID already from the other man who was working with your brother at the airport, so there's no mistake. It's just that we need a relative for a positive identification. After the autopsy we can turn the body over to either you or your father. You are eighteen, aren't you?"

"Nineteen," Susan said.

"Twenty," Freddy amended.

"Just barely twenty. This is hard to believe. How did it happen?"

"An unidentified assailant broke your brother's finger, and Martin went into immediate shock and died from this unexpected trauma to his middle digit." Hoke pursed his lips. "It happens sometimes."

"I've changed my mind, officer," Freddy said. "Can I borrow one of your cigarettes?"

"Sure." Hoke offered the pack, and held a match for Freddy to light the cigarette.

Susan shook her head, looking bewildered. "The airport's a dangerous place to work. My brother's been attacked out there before, you know. A man in the men's room gave him a black eye once, and a lady from Cincinnati kneed him in the balls one morning. He walked bowlegged for almost three days. He reported both cases to the security people out there and they just laughed."

"I'm not surprised," Hoke said. "Your brother was a Krishna, and the airport lost its case in court when they tried to get them barred from begging out there. So I can see how security would turn their heads the other way when Krishnas are attacked. On the other hand, the Krishnas annoy a lot of people with their aggressive tactics."

"What do you think, Junior?" Susan turned her head.

Freddy dropped his cigarette into the Coke can. "I think we should go and take a look at the body right now. It may not be Marty after all, and I'm pretty sure the sergeant here would like to get it over with and go home to his dinner."

"My car's down in the patio." Hoke started for the escalator, and they followed him.

Hoke's well-battered 1974 Le Mans was indeed parked on the school patio. He had been unable to find a parking place on the street, so he had jumped the curb and driven over the flagstones to within a few yards of the escalator. There were winos lounging on the patio benches. Two old men, by the wall outside the bookstore, slept noisily on flattened cardboard boxes. Two other derelicts on a nearby concrete bench jeered and gave Hoke the finger as he unlocked the alarm in the left front fender and then unlocked the door and took his police placard off the dashboard. He shoved the placard under the front seat before unlocking the door to the passenger side of the car.

"We'd better all sit in front," Hoke suggested. "A man was sick on the back seat yesterday, and I haven't had a chance to get it cleaned up yet."

Susan sat in the middle. Freddy, on the outside, unrolled his window. "Why does the college let these winos hang around the school?" Freddy said.

"They suspended the old vagrancy laws a few years back. We can't arrest 'em anymore, and if we could, where would we put 'em? On top of the normal eight thousand vags who come down here for the winter, we've got another twenty thousand Nicaraguans, ten thousand Haitian refugees, and another twentyfive thousand Marielitos running around town."

"What's a Marielito?" Freddy said.

"Where have you been?" Hoke said, not unkindly. "Our wimpy ex-president, Jimmy Carter, opened his arms to one hundred and twenty-five thousand Cubans back in 1980. Most of them were legitimate, with families already here in Miami, but Castro also opened his prisons and insane asylums and sent along another twenty-five thousand hardcore criminals, gays, and maniacs. They sailed here from Marie!, in Cuba, so they call them Marielitos."

As Hoke reached forward and switched off the police calls on his radio, a ragged Latin man came up to his window and pounded on it with his fists, shouting:

"Gimme money! Gimme money!"

"See what I mean?" Hoke said. "When you drive around Miami, Susan, always keep your windows rolled up. Otherwise, they'll reach in and steal your purse."

"I know," Susan said, "my brother told me."

Hoke backed expertly into the street, honking his horn until the traffic gave way.

As Hoke drove north on Biscayne Boulevard toward the city morgue, Freddy said, "This old boat rides pretty smooth. You wouldn't think so, just from looking at it."

"I had a new engine put in it. It's my own car, not a police vehicle. The radio belongs to the department, and the red light, but they give us detectives mileage if we use our own personal vehicles. Fifteen cents a mile, which doesn't begin to cover it, and nothing for amortization. But the convenience is worth it. If you order a vehicle from the motor pool you have to wait for a half-hour or more, and then it may be low on gas or have a bad tire or something. So I usually drive my own car. I should do something about the dents, but I'd have them back again the next day. Twenty percent of the drivers in Miami can't qualify for a license, so they drive without one."

The morgue was a low one-story building. Its limited storage space had been supplemented by two leased air-conditioned trailers to keep up with the flow of bodies that were delivered every day. Hoke parked, and they followed him into the office. Dr. Evans had left for the day, but Dr. Ramirez, an assistant pathologist, took them to a gurney in the hallway and showed them the body.

"That's Martin, all right," Susan said quietly.

"I never met Martin, sergeant, but he looks like a nice guy," Freddy said. "He doesn't look anything like you, Susan."

"Not now he doesn't, but back when we were little and almost the same size, people used to take us for fraternal twins." She looked up at Hoke. "We were born only ten months apart, although Marty looks much older than me now." Tears welled from Susan's eyes, and she brushed them away impatiently.

"Is it true," Freddy asked Hoke, "that a man's hair and fingernails keep growing after he's dead? I noticed some stubble there on Marty's chin."