Charles Willeford - New Hope For The Dead

by Unknown

  "What?"

  "I thought they was kidding me at first, and I told them you wasn't married. Then one showed me your picture, and it's you all right, wearing a police uniform."

  "Two girls?"

  "Teenage girls. They don't look nothin' like you, Sergeant. But they say they're your daughters. You want me to bring 'em up, or do you want to come down?"

  "I'll be right down."

  Hoke put on a pair of khaki Bermudas, a gray gym Tshirt, and slipped into his shoes without putting on any socks. There were no clean black socks left in the drawer. He put his wallet and ID case and badge into his pockets, and slipped the holstered.38 into the belt at his back. His keys were on the desk, and he dropped them into his right front pocket. He went into the bathroom, put his dentures in, and quickly combed back his thinning hair.

  In the elevator down, he recalled the 3 A.M. phone call from the woman Eddie had told him about. That must have been Patsy, he thought, but she had claimed it wasn't an emergency. If sending his daughters down to Miami in the middle of the night wasn't an emergency, what would Patsy consider an emergency? But then, maybe the caller hadn't been Patsy. Something was up.

  The desk was well-lighted by overhead fluorescent tubes, but most of the lamps in the lobby had been switched off. The TV set was dark, and there were no Cubans playing dominoes. On Friday nights, the resident Cubans went out to nearby bars to spend their weekly paychecks. Sometimes, when they got drunk and brought women back, Eddie Cohen had to call Hoke to quiet them down, since the resident pensioners were usually in bed by nine or ninethirty.

  The two girls, both wearing shorts, T-shirts, and tennis shoes, were standing by the desk. Hoke wouldn't have recognized either of the girls on the street, but he figured that the taller girl was Sue Ellen, and the smaller was Aileen. Despite Cohen's observations, the girls bore a greater resemblance to Hoke than they did to their mother, now that Hoke had a look at them. They both had Hoke's sandy hair--an abundance of it--and Sue Ellen had an overbite. With her mouth closed, her two upper teeth rested on her lower lip, where the teeth had left permanent tiny dents. Both girls were slim, but Sue Ellen was well-rounded at the hips, and she needed the brassiere she was wearing under her "Ft. 'Luderdale" T-shirt. Aileen was more gangly, with a boyish figure, and there were no adolescent chest bumps yet beneath the thin cotton of her T-shirt. They weren't pretty girls, Hoke thought, but they weren't plain either.

  Aileen's generous mouth was filled with gold wire and tiny golden nuts and bolts. Her teeth were hardly visible, because the places that weren't covered by gold wires were concealed by stretched rubber bands. She wore a black elastic retainer, with the cords stretched across her cheeks, and headphones, with a cord leading down to a Sony Walkman on her red webbed belt. Both girls appeared a little anxious. Sue Ellen looked down at the photo in her hand, and then looked back at Hoke again before she favored him with a tentative smile.

  "Daddy?"

  "You're Sue Ellen, right?" Hoke said, shaking her hand. "And this is Sister." Hoke smiled at the younger girl.

  "We don't call her that anymore," Sue Ellen said.

  "Aileen," the younger girl said. She shook hands with Hoke, and then backed away from him. But Hoke didn't let her get away. He hugged Aileen, and then hugged Sue Ellen.

  Hoke turned to Eddie Cohen, who was grinning behind the desk. "These are my daughters, Eddie, Sue Ellen and Aileen. Girls, this is Mr. Cohen, the day man and the night man on the desk, and the assistant manager."

  "How do you do," Sue Ellen said. Aileen nodded and smiled, but didn't say anything. She took off the earphones and switched off the radio.

  "Where's your mother?" Hoke said.

  "She should be in L.A. by now," Sue Ellen said. "She tried to call you, she said, but couldn't get ahold of you. But I've got this letter..." Sue Ellen took a sealed envelope from her banana-shaped leather purse and handed it to her father.

  Hoke unsealed the envelope, but before he could remove the letter, a Latin man of about thirty-five or -six pushed through the lobby doors, shouting as he approached the desk. "What about my fare? I can't wait around here all night! I gotta get back to the terminal."

  "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 ballpoint, and took down the man's name, José Rizal, and license number, and the number of his cab. "If you came across the MacArthur 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 MacArthur."

  "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."
<
br />   Hoke then opened and read the letter from Patsy:

  Dear Hoke,

  I've had the girls for ten wonderful years, and now

  it's your turn. I'm going out to California to join Curly

  Peterson. We're going to get married at the end of the

  season. The girls were given a choice, and they said

  they'd rather live with you instead of with me and

  Curly. Perhaps they'll feel differently later, and can

  spend the Xmas season with us in California. Anyway,

  you can take them for the next few months, and if

  they don't come out to Glendale at Xmas-time, I'll see

  them when spring training begins again in Vero

  Beach. It's about time you took some responsibility

  for your girls, anyway, and even though I'll miss them

  and love them, they want me to have my share of

  happiness and I know you do, too.

  I'm pretty rushed right now, getting ready to leave,

  but I'll send down their shot records and school

  records and the rest of their things before I catch my

  plane. Whatever else you were, you were always

  responsible, and I know that our girls will be happy

  and safe with you.

  Sincerely yours,

  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.

  11

  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."