Charles Willeford - New Hope For The Dead

by Unknown

  The dinner went very well, Hoke thought. The bottle of wine was only twenty-eight dollars and the bouillabaisse for two, as recommended by their waiter, only thirty. A green salad and a rice pudding with raisins were included with the dinner, and they finished their meal with two dollar-fifty espressos.

  Loretta Hickey, in a low-cut white chiffon dress, looked lovely to Hoke. She was wearing a lavender orchid (Hoke had ordered it and charged it to the Eldorado's telephone) pinned to her narrow waist. Hoke had told the Vietnamese girl at the Bouquetique to hand the orchid to Mrs. Hickey when she left the shop, figuring that if he was going to order a corsage, he might as well give Loretta's shop the business. Loretta was delighted with her orchid.

  "You may not believe it, Hoke," she'd said when he picked her up at her house in Green Lakes, "but it's been years and years since I've been given any flowers. People think that because I have my own shop, I can get all I want free. That may be true, but I do love flowers, and I certainly didn't expect such a lovely orchid. Even if I did pick it out myself."

  "On the phone I told the girl to pick it, and to hand it to you when you left."

  "Oh, no, Dotty wouldn't dare risk her taste against mine. She's a Vietnamese refugee, you know, and she's practically helpless around the shop. But she's all I can afford at the moment. What I really need is a good designer. Because I'm usually working in the back, I miss a lot of gift sales in front. Dotty Chen couldn't sell a Cuban a cup of coffee."

  Hoke grinned. "And they drink ten cups a day."

  Three strolling guitar players came to their table in the dining room and played and sang a song. Although Hoke's Spanish was limited, he got the drift that the three singers wanted to die in combat in Cuba with their faces turned up toward the sun. He gave the player nearest him a dollar bill and they strolled off, singing lugubriously, to another table.

  "The only thing worse than three Spanish guitars," Hoke said, "is one violin."

  "That's right. Three are okay, but one violin sounds screechy."

  "How's business, Loretta?"

  "Not all that good, lately. It should be good, but it isn't. There're too many street people on corners selling old cheap flowers, and the prices I have to pay are ridiculous. I have to sell roses for five dollars apiece, and people just won't pay that much for roses. I'll be glad when summer's over and the season starts."

  "I guess you have to borrow money before holidays?"

  Loretta nodded. "At sixteen percent. And it's always a guessing game. For Mother's Day I bought too many carnations. For some reason, no one wanted any this year, so even though I was busy for three days, I had to eat the carnations. I just barely broke even. If I could find a buyer, I sometimes think I'd sell the shop."

  "Then what would you do? It might be hard to work for someone else after you've owned your own business."

  "But I wouldn't have the headaches. A good designer, and I'm a good one, can work anywhere in the country. And people in the business know me, too. I put on design demonstrations at the last two floral conventions in Miami Beach. And I'm not so crazy about Miami that I want to stay here forever. If I wanted to, I could go to Atlanta like that!" Loretta tried to snap her fingers, but they wouldn't.

  "Why don't you, then?"

  "What?" Loretta laughed. Her face was flushed from the wine and the food. "And give up my own shop? I'd be crazy to give up my shop in Coral Gables to work in Atlanta. At least we can still walk down the street in the daytime. The last time I was in Atlanta, I was afraid to walk down Peachtree by myself at high noon."

  "Do you want an after-dinner drink, a post-prandial? A short Presidente brandy maybe?"

  "We can have a drink back at the house. I've got beer arid a bottle of bourbon at home."

  Hoke grinned. "Sure you don't want to go out to a disco first?"

  "Please!"

  Although Hoke had to pay another dollar for valet parking, and the attendant had stolen his toll change from the ashtray, he thought he got off lightly for the evening. The wine had been good, but Hoke had poured most of it for Loretta. She was feeling the effects of it, too. On the drive to her house, Loretta gripped his arm with both hands and once in a while rubbed her face against his shoulder.

  When they got into the house, Hoke took off his jacket and tossed it on the couch. Loretta went into the kitchen and came back with an unopened bottle of Jack Daniel's. Black label.

  "I usually don't buy bourbon," she said, "because no one ever drinks it. I've had a few parties here, but most people want Scotch or vodka. Miami's mostly a vodka town, isn't it?"

  "Or a pot town, a coke town, and a 'lude town."

  "Do you want some pot? Being you're a policeman and all, I thought--"

  "No, no pot. I'll just have a short Jack Daniel's with a little water. If I have too many drinks, I can't perform, and I can feel the wine a little. I'm mostly a beer drinker, but what I want most right now is you." Hoke pulled Loretta into his arms and kissed her. She tasted like wine, and she forced her hard, hot tongue between his dentures.

  Hoke unbuttoned his shirt and tossed it on top of his jacket on the couch. He unbuckled his belt in front and unclipped his holstered pistol.

  Loretta looked at the picture window and the opened draperies, and laughed. "The neighbors across the street can see you. Maybe you'd better undress in the bedroom."

  "I understand." Hoke grinned. "You want the neighbors to think you're after me for my money."

  Loretta, carrying the bottle, led the way to the bedroom, and Hoke followed her.

  Loretta switched on the bedside lamp. The unmade bed was a mess. While Hoke undressed, she swept the longlegged dolls to the floor, removed the crumpled quilt and top sheet, and pulled the flowered bottom sheet tight. Hoke plumped up the pillows, stretched out on the round bed, and clasped his hands behind his head.

  Hoke's erection throbbed with anticipation. Loretta went into the bathroom; Hoke listened to the water run in the sink and thought he could hear his heartbeat above the sound of the running water. He sat on the edge of the bed and picked up the bottle of Jack Daniel's from the bedside table. He unscrewed the cap, took a mouthful of whiskey, and swished it around for a moment before he swallowed it. He took another, shorter drink and recapped the bottle. He felt fine now. Because of his dentures, he always worried a little about his breath. A man never knows for sure whether he will get laid or not, Hoke thought, even if he's married. Especially if he's married. The woman, finally, always selects the man, the time, and even the place.

  Once, when Hoke had thought he had a sure thing, he had driven the woman home, locked his car, and walked to the front door, expecting to spend the night. She had unlocked her door, stepped inside, said goodnight and slammed the door right in his face. He had been astonished. The next time he took her out--and he had called her again--everything had worked out well. He asked her why she had slammed the door on their first date.

  "You locked your car," she said. "And when you locked your car, so damned confident and macho, I said to myself, the hell with you, boy."

  Women, sometimes, were hard to understand.

  Loretta had scrubbed the makeup off her face, removed the barrettes from her hair, and brushed it out. Her thick hair was fluffy around her shining face. Her breasts were fuller than he had thought they would be, with prominent pink nipples. The triangle of pubic hair was darker than her long blonde mane.

  "Should I switch off the lamp?"

  "No. I like to see what I'm doing. And you've got a damned nice figure."

  "Lay back," Loretta said, "the way you were before, with your hands behind your head."

  Hoke stretched out again, clasping his hands behind his head. Loretta, on her knees, crawled between his spread legs and sat back slightly. She reached beneath Hoke's balls, searching for his anus with a greased forefinger. She found it and shoved her finger in.

  "Don't!" Hoke said. "I don't like that."

  "It got you hard, didn't it?"

  "Hell, I was alrea
dy hard. I've been hard all day."

  Hoke reached for Loretta, but she ducked below his hands and buried her face in the hair on his stomach. She bit into it, sucked up some skin, hard, very hard, and made slobbery sounds. This is what she did to Jerry Hickey, Hoke thought. She put those hickeys on his neck the night he died.

  Hoke's erection collapsed suddenly and, he thought, irrevocably.

  "That'll do," Hoke said.

  "What's the matter?" Loretta laughed. "Don't you like love bites? You can give me one if you want."

  "Turn over."

  "What?"

  "I said, turn over. On your stomach."

  "Why?"

  "I want to put it up your ass, that's why."

  "Oh, no you won't! I'll do anything else you want, but not that--"

  "Why not? Haven't you ever had an anal orgasm?"

  "No, and I don't want one, either. Why don't you just let me suck you off? I'm very good at it, I really am." She licked her lips and smiled. "I'll give you an around the world--"

  "You can blow me next time, after I've put it up your ass."

  "I can't, Hoke," she said. "I've got hemorrhoids; it would hurt too much. Hemorrhoids go with floral designing. I'm on my feet all day, every day, and I've sure got them. If you don't believe me--"

  "That's okay. I believe you."

  Hoke got off the bed, put on his shorts, and started toward the bathroom.

  "Where're you going?"

  "To the bathroom. I'll just be a minute."

  Hoke closed the bathroom door and slid open the mirrored door to the medicine cabinet. There was a bottle of Dexedrine, some Bufferin, a half-dozen bars of bath-size Camay soap, dental floss, four packets of tomato-flavored Kato (potassium chloride for oral solution), a bottle of peroxide, a four-ounce bottle of iodine, seven unused Bic razors, a half-tube of family-sized, mint-flavored Close-up toothpaste, and an empty plastic bottle that had once contained Breck shampoo. On the tank top of the toilet there was an opened tube of K-Y jelly, a box of tampons, and a small leather kit of tools for taking care of finger and toenails.

  Hoke rummaged around in the small plastic wastebasket beside the toilet. There were used Kleenex tissues, some honey-colored hairballs, a cardboard tube from a used toilet paper roll, and at the bottom of the basket, a tiny ball of blue tinfoil.

  Hoke was perspiring heavily. The smell of Pine-Sol cleaner was strong in the room. He washed his face and hands, dried them on a dinky, delicately embroidered guest towel and concealed the ball of tinfoil in his hand as he went back into the bedroom.

  "What's the matter, Hoke?" Loretta said, sitting up on the edge of the bed. "Are you sick?"

  "No, I'm okay. I'm just a little nervous is all. I'll get my cigarettes from my jacket."

  Hoke went into the hall, then ran to the living room. Loretta's purse was on the round coffee table in front of the couch. Hoke rummaged through the purse and found a narrow cardboard box of suppositories, each of them wrapped in blue tinfoil. There was a typed Ray's Pharmacy label on the cardboard box.

  282 454 Dr. Grossman

  One at bedtime. Mrs. L. Hickey.

  Nembutal 200 mg. Sups/

  (Renewable, but dr must be called)

  Hoke put the suppositories back in the purse and took out Loretta's checkbook. He glanced at the total in the bank, and then tore a blank deposit slip from the back of the checkbook. He put the deposit slip and the ball of tinfoil into his leisure jacket pocket, then started back down the hall. He ran into Loretta at the bedroom door. She had slipped into a robe. He hoped she hadn't seen him come out of the living room.

  "Are you sure you're all right, Hoke?"

  "Yeah, but I could use a beer."

  "Lie down. I'll get you one."

  Loretta went into the kitchen, and Hoke went into her bedroom. He lit a cigarette. His hands were shaking. He pulled on his socks and was putting on his pants, when she came back into the bedroom with a red can of Tecate beer. She handed it to him.

  "Look, Hoke, it's no big deal. So you lost your hard-on, and now you're embarrassed. You were too anxious, that's all."

  Hoke opened the can and took a sip of beer. "This has happened to me before, Loretta, but this time I've also got a knot in my stomach. I've... I've had a hard week and I'm keyed up. I should've taken a nap or something this afternoon."

  "Don't get dressed. Lie down. Take a nap now. In an hour or so, you'll be fine." Loretta sat on the edge of the bed and let her robe fall open. "Come on, baby. Lie down, and let me hold you. You'll fall asleep in no time."

  Hoke took another sip of beer, then dropped the butt of his cigarette into the can. "No, not tonight. I just don't feel right. I'll call you tomorrow."

  Hoke sat on the chaise longue and laced his shoes.

  "Don't brood about this, Hoke. These things happen to men once in a while, but it doesn't mean anything. We should've taken our time and necked a little in the living room before rushing into bed. All you've got is an anxiety attack."

  "I know. Next time it'll be different. But the best thing for me to do now is to go home."

  Loretta went with him as he retrieved his pistol in the living room. He knew he had to kiss her good-bye at the doorway, and he managed to do it, but it was the hardest thing he had ever done. He wasn't positive--not yet--and he still couldn't prove it, but he knew in his heart that after Loretta Hickey had fucked her stepson, she had killed him herself.

  He just didn't know why.

  Hoke unlocked the door to his suite at 12:40 A.M. He looked in on his daughters, and they were both asleep. The girls wore short, white cotton nightgowns, and they had kicked off the sheet. Sue Ellen, sleeping with her mouth open, was on her back. Aileen was curled into a knot, hugging an eyeless teddy bear. In their sleep they looked much younger than they did when they were up and running around. With her eyes closed, Aileen didn't look too old to be sleeping with a Teddy bear. Hoke covered the girls with the sheet and left the door open to the sitting room so they would get more cool air from the chuffing air conditioner.

  Hoke took the elevator down, stopping and locking the elevator at each floor as he sniffed for cooking smells and listened for the sounds of loud talk and laughter. But the hotel after midnight was like a mausoleum.

  Eddie Cohen had been asleep on a couch in the lobby when Hoke first arrived, but he was awake now, playing a game of Klondike on a burn-scarred card table. Except for a standing bridge lamp beside the table, and the fluorescent lights above the desk, the lobby was dark.

  "What's the matter, Eddie? Can't you sleep?"

  "I slept a little. Mrs. Feistinger's on my mind."

  Eddie gave up his game and gathered his cards together. He shuffled them three times and offered them to Hoke to cut. Hoke tapped the top of the deck instead of cutting them, and Eddie laid them out for a new game.

  "Mrs. Feistinger didn't pick up her paper this morning, or yesterday's either," Eddie said.

  "Shit. Have you seen her around?"

  Eddie shook his head, looking at his cards.

  "Did you check her room?"

  "Hell, I've got enough to do around here. But I thought I'd tell you about it when you came in, and now I have."

  "Have we got another one, Eddie?"

  "How the hell do I know?"

  "What's her room number?"

  "Four-oh-four."

  "Want to come up with me?"

  "I can't." Eddie shook his head and put a queen of hearts on a king of spades. "I gotta stay here and answer the switchboard."

  Hoke walked to the elevators.

  Mrs. Feistinger was dead, all right, and she had been dead for a day or two, but the room didn't smell so bad because the air conditioning, on high, was going full blast. She was in her eighties, and almost bald. Her blue-tinted wig, complete with ringlets and Mamie Eisenhower bangs, was on a Styrofoam head on the bedside table. She was wearing a blue flannel nightgown and was covered by a sheet and a multicolored afghan. Her pale gray eyes stared sightlessly at the cr
acked ceiling. Her jaw was rigid; Hoke wouldn't be able to get her false teeth into her mouth without using a lot of force, so he dropped them back into the glass of water. He put the wig on her, though, knowing that she would have wanted it that way, and would have put it on herself if she had known she was going to die in her sleep.

  Hoke returned to the lobby and told Eddie to call Kaplan's, the funeral parlor the Eldorado had an arrangement with. It would be a half-hour before Mr. Kaplan arrived with his hearse. While he waited for Kaplan, Hoke looked up Mrs. Feistinger's guest card and discovered that she had listed a cousin in Denver as her next-of-kin. He wrote down the Denver address for the funeral director.

  Kaplan arrived with his two grown sons and sent them upstairs on the elevator with a folding stretcher. Hoke handed him the slip of paper with the information.

  "Mr. Bennett'll check out her effects, Mr. Kaplan. If she's got an insurance policy, or some money, he'll see that you're paid."

  "I understand that. There's usually something. We always work it out together. Me and Mr. Bennett go back a long way."

  "But in case there isn't any insurance, she's wearing a diamond ring. Don't mention it to the cousin, and if she doesn't come up with the funeral expenses, the ring will more than cover it."

  "Don't worry, Mr. Moseley. I take care of everything. I notify Social Security, I get the necessary six death certificates--everything. I've had this arrangement with Mr. Bennett for several years now."

  After the hearse left, Eddie brought out a bottle of Israeli slivovitz and two glasses. They drank at the desk, then Eddie poured two more shots before locking the bottle in a cabinet behind the counter.

  "We saved a full day," Eddie said, "and this time no one saw the hearse. Some of them around here get very upset when someone dies. I wish everybody subscribed to the morning paper. It was almost a week that time when Arnie Weisman passed away. Nobody checked his room because somebody said he was visiting his son in Fort Lauderdale. It turned out he didn't have no son in Lauderdale or anywhere else. I still remember how his room smelled. That's why I didn't want to go up there with you tonight, Sergeant Moseley." Eddie looked down at his shot of slivovitz. "I wasn't really worried about the switchboard."