Miami Blues (9 page)

"I understand. I guess that's the price a man pays for doing his duty. How do I get the body?"

"It depends upon when they finish the post-mortem. But you can notify any funeral director to take care of it for you. If you want a cremation, the Neptune Society will do it for you and scatter his ashes at sea."

"Can't I get the ashes myself'? I'd like to scatter 'em on the lake. Martin always loved the lake as a boy, so that's where he'd like to be scattered."

"You can do whatever you like. You don't, by law, have to have the body embalmed, so don't let anybody talk you into that, Mr. Waggoner. Thank you for coming in." Hoke stood up, and so did Mr. Waggoner.

"You'll let me know, then, how the investigation comes out?"

"No. All our inquiries will be confidential. If the investigation's negative, it would be foolish to let anyone know we made one in the first place. So you don't have to worry about any publicity."

"I may not look it," Mr. Waggoner said, "but I'm ashamed. I'm deeply ashamed of what I had to tell you. Thank you both for being so patient."

"I'll take you to the elevator," Henderson said. "It's easy to get turned around in this building."

Henderson took a glazed doughnut out of his desk drawer, broke it in half, and offered the smaller half to Hoke. Hoke shook his head, and Henderson began to eat the doughnut.

"How'd you like Mr. Waggoner's little story, Hoke?"

"I found the bit about the hair-pie instructive."

"Me, too. Although I knew already that I was weak in that regard. You ever been in Okeechobee?"

"Years ago. But not since I left Riviera Beach. My dad and I went fishing for catfish on the lake a few times, but we only went into the town a couple of times. There's nothing much there, or there wasn't ten years ago. It's just an elbow bend on the highway north. I wouldn't think the town could support a software store, even if Waggoner rents out films for TV. But for all I know, Okeechobee's probably tripled in size by now, just like every other town in Florida the last few years. If a man likes to fish, it wouldn't be a bad place to retire."

"Apparently, there's a shortage of women. Otherwise, a brother wouldn't have to screw his own sister."

"You know I spent some time with the girl, Susan, last night, and there might be some truth to what Waggoner told us."

"Bullshit. If you hire somebody in Miami to do a beating for you, you get a professional job with bicycle chains. You don't pay anyone fifty bucks to break a lousy finger."

"But wouldn't a girl be chicken-hearted and not want her big brother hurt too badly?"

"Anything's possible. You want to check it out? We've got better things to do, you know."

"Susan's boyfriend was with her when I took her down to the morgue. He's an ex-con, I'm positive, and strong enough to break someone's _arm_. He gave me a phony name, Ramon Mendez, and for no good reason that I could see--unless he's on the run."

"Did you run a make on the name?"

"On Mendez? We've got hundreds of them. Remember when we tried to get a make on José Perez? Twenty-seven with records popped up. These Latins all have four last names and a half-dozen first names, including at least one saint on the list. And they use the ones they want at the time. But this boyfriend isn't a Latin in the first place. Remember the intelligence seminar we went to last year, the one the agent from Georgia gave? He was with the GBI."

"I remember that sonofabitch all right. He learned my name in the first class and called on me at every session."

"Well, Susan's boyfriend had blue eyes just like his--flat and staring. And he never looked away. I'd planned to lean on him a little, but after we talked for a while I knew I'd be wasting my time. Now, if Susan asked him to, this guy would break her brother's finger or neck without even thinking about it. He's done time, I'm sure, and he might even be a fugitive. He says he's from California, here to study management at Miami-Dade."

"That's possible. People come from all over the world to study at Miami-Dade."

"Not from California. In California, you can go to college free. So why would a man come three thousand miles to pay out-of-state fees at Miami-Dade?"

"You can go to college free in California?"

"That's right, right on through a bachelor's."

"Why don't you check him out, then, at Miami-Dade?"

"I will. But I'll have to find out what his right name is first." Hoke got up, and pushed his chair into the desk kneehole.

"Is that where you're going now?"

"No. I'm going down to the cafeteria for some coffee and a doughnut."

9

Susan made scrambled eggs with green peppers, buttered rye toast, and fried baloney slices for Freddy's breakfast. After he finished eating, he took his cup of coffee out to the screened porch. The brown, cultivated fields stretched out for several miles, and there were bands of dusty green that faded into a misty, darker green toward the horizon. The country was so incredibly flat he couldn't get over it. There wasn't a single mound or a dip or a gully for as far as he could see. And, from the fourth floor, the horizon had to be at least twenty or twentyfive miles away. Susie's apartment was on the western side of the building and shaded in the morning, but he knew that the sun would bake this side all afternoon.

Inside, with the air conditioning set on seventy-five, the apartment was nice and cool. Out on the porch, where the humid heat was at least eighty-five, the sudden change brought a shock to his skin. But he decided he liked the heat. Freddy didn't wear any underwear, and his linen slacks stuck to the backs of his legs as he sat in the plastic-webbed porch rocker. Susan, wearing white shorts and a light blue bikini halter, brought out the coffeepot and refilled his cup. Her bare feet were long and narrow, and she looked about thirteen years old.

"Explain about the bank business again," Freddy said.

"It isn't a bank, it's a savings and loan, but it works just like a bank. I don't know the exact difference except that the S and L pays a higher interest rate. Marty and me got a CD for ten thousand in both our names, and a NOW checking account. The interest from the CD goes into our checking account automatically at the end of each month. There's more'n four thousand in it. So I'm going to draw it all out and start another CD and another NOW account in some other S and L. That way they won't be able to get none of it because it'll all be in my name."

"That's no good," Freddy said, shaking his head. "They can still sue you, those Krishnas with their lawyers, and then they'll tie up all the money until the judge decides who gets it. What you do, when you go down there, is take out all the money and bring it to me. I'll take care of it."

"That's too much money to keep around in cash. In Miami, somebody'll steal it from you."

"I'll rent a safe-deposit box, except for some walking around money. I don't want you to worry about it. What you don't have, they can't take away from you." He finished his coffee, handed her the cup. "Now that we've got our platonic marriage going, I'll take care of you. Don't you worry about interest or anything else. If you want something, anything--and I don't mean just because you need something, I mean want something--tell me, and I'll get it for you. Who's that guy down there?" Freddy pointed to a man wearing a dark blue suit, complete with vest, getting into a new Buick Skylark in the parking lot.

"I don't know his name. He lives down in two-fourteen, and he carried some groceries up here for me once. He's a prephase real estate salesman, he told me. That's why he has to wear a suit and tie all the time."

"What's a prephase salesman?"

"I don't know, but that's what he said he was. He seemed very nice and said he had a daughter about my age in junior high back in Ohio. I didn't tell him how old I was or proposition him. I don't think it's a good idea to fuck people where you have to live."

"You'd better get going to the S and L. So go ahead and get dressed."

"I am dressed. You don't have to get all dressed up out here in Kendall. All the women out here wear shorts and halters."

"Except you. I don't want my wife running around like some little kid. Put on a dress and shoes and stockings. Do something about your hair, too. It's all tangled."

"Aren't you going with me?"

"No. I'm going to study the street map of Miami. We'll go out when you come back."

Freddy watched Susan drive out of the parking lot. He put on his shirt, but not his shoes, and took the fire stairs down to the second floor. He twisted the knob of the front door to 214 as far as it would go, and then forced the door open with his shoulder. It sprung open easily.

He found two $100 bills in the bible on the bedside table and a loaded .38 caliber pistol in its leather holster in the drawer of the same table. There was a locked drawer in the metal home desk in the living room, but he found the key in the middle pencil drawer. He opened the locked drawer and found a cowhide case containing fifty silver dollars, each mounted in a round numbered slot. This was a collection, and much more valuable, he knew, than the $50 face value. When he rented the safe-deposit box, it might be a good idea to keep the collection to use as getaway bread. He took two pairs of black silk socks from the dresser and put his stolen items into a brown paper grocery sack he got from a stack under the kitchen sink. He added a package of six frozen pork chops from the freezer compartment to the sack, then returned to his own apartment.

The clothes in the salesman's closet, unhappily, had been at least two sizes too large for Freddy, but he was satisfied with his haul, especially with the pistol. He put the pork chops on the kitchen table so they would thaw for dinner. Then he shaved with a disposable lady's shaver Susan had unwrapped for him, and took a long tub bath.

Soaking in the tub, Freddy examined the Miami city map, section by section, from Perrine to North Bay Village. The Greater Miami area was five times longer than it was wide, a long narrow urban strip hugging the coast and the bay, with no way to expand unless the buildings were built higher and higher. There was no way the city could expand any farther into the Everglades until they were drained, and the coastline was completely filled. If a man had to escape from the cops, he could only drive north or south. Only two roads crossed the Everglades to Naples, and both of these could be blocked. If a man drove south he would be caught, eventually, in Key West, and the cops could easily bottle up a man on the highways if he headed north, especially if he tried to take the Sunshine Parkway.

The only way to escape from anyone, in case he had to, would be to have three or four hidey-holes. One downtown, one in North Miami, and perhaps a place over in Miami Beach. There would be no other safe method to get away except by going to ground until whatever it was that he'd have done was more or less forgotten about. Then, when the search was over, he could drive or take a cab to the airport and get a ticket to anywhere he wanted to go.

Well, Freddy thought, I've already got me a nice little hideyhole out here in Kendall.

Susan returned before noon with two bags of groceries and $4,280 in fifties and twenties. Freddy sat at the uncleared breakfast table and counted the money while Susan began to put away the groceries.

"It's ten thousand dollars short," he said.

"That's because I took out another CD at the S and L in Miller Square. There's plenty of money right there to spend or to lock away in a safe-deposit box, without losing interest on the other ten thousand every month. There was already a penalty of almost four hundred dollars I had to pay for cashing in the CD early. I had to pay the penalty, but it's stupid not to have the interest coming in every month. I was getting onethirty-two a month before, but the new S and L's only paying ninety-two." Susan picked up the package of frozen pork chops and frowned. "That's funny, I don't remember getting--"

Without rising, Freddy slapped Susan a sharp blow across the face. She fell down, dropping the pork chops, and the package slid across the linoleum floor. She began to cry and to rub her reddened cheek, which began to swell immediately.

"Part of being married," Freddy explained, "is learning to do exactly what your platonic husband tells you to do. I'm not some daddy you can defy, and I'm not a dumb brother you can manipulate. Do you know what 'manipulate' means?"

Susan nodded through her tears. "Uh-huh. I saw a program on it once, on 'Donahue.'"

"I'm not unreasonable. You're probably right about the interest rate and all. I don't know much about things like that. But the main thing here is that you didn't do what I told you to do. And you weren't really concerned about the interest rate, either. You kept the other ten thousand because you didn't trust me. Don't say anything. Not a word. I don't want to hear any lies. What I'm going to do, I'm going to let you keep the other ten thousand in the S and L. I don't need it right now, and you don't need it, and I realize you're insecure and need the money for your peace of mind. Now, put the pork chops back on the table and leave them there so they'll thaw out. I'll want them for dinner tonight, with whatever else you fix that'll go good with the pork chops."

"Will baked sweet potatoes be all right?"

"That's your department. Now, aren't you going to ask me where I got the pork chops?"

"I figure that's none of my business."

"That's right. Now you're learning."

Freddy looked through Susan's purse and took out the car keys. "I'm going down to the hotel to fix things up with Pablo for you. Then I'm going to get oriented around town. I should be back around six--that is, if I don't get lost. But I've checked out the map, and I don't think I will as long as I keep the avenues and the streets straight."

"I'm supposed to go to social science tonight. English on Monday and Wednesday, and social science on Tuesday and Thursday nights."

"No, I don't think so. I don't want you in school right now. Call up and tell your science teacher there's been a death in the family. Professor Turner already knows. I'll decide whether I want you to go back at all."