by Miami Blues
After a prolonged study of the wide-ranging menu, he decided to compromise. He ordered a Spanish omelet with cottage cheese instead of french fries, a dish of applesauce, and told the waitress to hold the toast.
While he waited, Hoke leafed through his notebook and tried to organize his thoughts. He crossed out the name of Ronald I. France. He could do nothing to help him; the grand jury had decided to prosecute this old man for shooting and killing a twelve-year-old boy who had ripped up his flower bed. The old man was seventy-two years old, and he had cried when Hoke had taken him in for booking. According to the neighbors, he had been a nice old man, but killing a kid for ripping up a flower bed had been too drastic. It didn’t help that Mr. France had claimed he only wanted to wound the kid a little with his twelve-gauge shotgun. If that had been the case, why had he loaded the gun with double-aught shells? But Hoke didn’t cross out the address of Mr. France. Sides had been taken in the neighborhood, and Mrs. France, also seventy-two, was going to get some harassment.
Marshall Fisher—a DOA—suicide. That was cut-and-dried, but there was going to be an inquest, and he’d have to appear. He made a check mark to watch his in box for a notice on Fisher.
There were three convenience-store killings under investigation, but no leads. Signs were posted in English and Spanish in all the convenience stores, stating that the managers were only allowed to have $35 in the cash register. But the Cuban managers were killed by Cuban gunmen for the $35. American prisons didn’t frighten Marielito criminals; after Castro’s, American prisons were country clubs. And when a witness to a killing was found, which was seldom, he was too scared to point out the killer.
When Hoke ran across the address, “K.P.T.—157 Ave.—6-418E,” he was puzzled for a few moments. Not only was he hungry but he had a lot on his mind. There was no name, and he didn’t know anyone who lived out this far in Kendall. Then he recalled that this was Susan Waggoner’s address. Inasmuch as 157th Avenue was Dade County, and not Miami Police Department territory, Hoke rarely got this far west. All of West Kendall came under Metro Police jurisdiction.
Hoke was curious about this peculiar couple, and especially the jock, although he didn’t believe for a second that Susan had ordered “Junior Mendez” to break her brother’s finger. She had seemed too dimwitted even to entertain the idea, but still, it wouldn’t hurt anything to talk to her while he was out this way. He might pick up some information on the boyfriend. If they were college students studying for degrees in management, maybe he and Henderson should enroll in a seminary and work on doctor of divinity degrees.
The tall unfinished buildings in Kendall Pines Terrace reminded Hoke of the Roman apartment houses he had seen in Italian neorealist movies. The Salvadoran guard on the gate explained how to get to Building Six, and Hoke took the winding road to the last parking lot, avoiding the speed bumps by going around them on the grass. He parked in a visitors’ slot to avoid being towed away—as advised by the gatekeeper—and rode the elevator to the fourth floor.
Susan opened the door on the first knock, having a little difficulty with the new deadbolt lock, which was still stiff.
“I don’t have much to tell you, Miss Waggoner,” Hoke said. “But I was out this way, so I thought I’d drop by for a few minutes and talk to you.”
Susan was wearing a black dress with hose and black pumps. She had also applied some rouge to her cheeks and wore pink lipstick. There was a string of imitation pearls around her thin neck. The dress was too big for her, and she reminded Hoke of a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes.
“Would you like a beer, sergeant? Coffee?”
“No, no. Thanks, but I just had lunch.”
“Lunch? It’s almost five-thirty.”
“An early dinner, then. I missed lunch, actually, so I had something just now at the Roseate Spoon Bill.”
“I go there a lot. I like the Mexican pizza.”
“I’ve never tried that.”
“It’s really good. Lots of cheese.”
“I’ll try it some time. Your father came in this morning, Miss Waggoner, and he claimed the two hundred dollars.”
“He would.”
“But we’re going to hold on to the effects for a while. I was going to call the Krishnas today, but I’ve been busy with other things. Has your father contacted you today?”
Susan shook her head. “He won’t, either. But I don’t plan on going to the funeral, anyway.”
“He said he was going to cremate your brother and scatter the ashes on Lake Okeechobee.”
“Martin would like that. He always liked the lake.”
“Your father’s staying at the Royalton, downtown, if you want to call him.”
“I don’t.”
“Where’s Mendez?”
“Who?”
“Ramon. Your fiancé?”
“Oh, Junior, you mean. His name is Ramon Mendez, Junior, but he always goes by Junior. He hates to be called Ramon.”
“How’d you happen to meet him?”
“We met in English class at Dade. He helped me write my haikus. I was having trouble with them.”
“Haikus? What are they?”
“It’s some kind of Japanese poem.”
“I see. So you met at school and got engaged.”
“That’s right. But now we have what’s called a platonic marriage.”
“He lives here with you, then?”
“He should be home soon. If you want to ask questions about Junior, you should talk to him.”
“What smells so good?”
“That’s dinner. I’m cooking stuffed pork chops. I use Stove-Top dressing, shallots, and mushrooms, all smothered in brown gravy. Also, baked sweet potatoes, peas, and a tomato and cucumber and onion salad. Do you think I should make hot biscuits?”
“Does Junior like biscuits?”
“I really don’t know. I’ve got white bread, but I think I’ll fix some. Most men like hot biscuits. Would you like to stay for dinner?”
“I’ve already eaten. I told you. You’ve got a lovely apartment here, Miss Waggoner.”
“Oh, I don’t own it. I rent it, furnished.”
“It must be rough on you, working and going to school, too.”
“It isn’t so bad. The work at the International Hotel isn’t hard, and I don’t have to work at night.”
“What are you—a maid?”
“Oh, no!” Susan laughed. “Maids only get minimum wage. I get fifty dollars a trick, and split it down the middle with Pablo. I’m one of Pablo Lhosa’s girls. That is, I was, but I quit. Now that we’ve got a platonic marriage, Junior doesn’t want me to work for Pablo anymore.”
“You’re a hooker, then?”
“I thought you knew. You aren’t going to arrest me, are you?”
“No, that isn’t my department. I just work homicides. I guess I’ve been lucky so far. I was with the Riviera Police Department for three years, and I’ve been in Miami for twelve, and I’ve never had to work Vice. When d’you expect Junior home?”
“When he gets here. It doesn’t make any nevermind to me. The pork chops are in the Crockpot, and the other stuff won’t take long. The potatoes are already done. He said he’d be home at six, but he might be late.”
Hoke handed her one of his cards. “Have Junior call me when he gets home tonight. It says the Eldorado Hotel, in Miami Beach, but I’m reachable there. If the phone isn’t answered right away, tell him to let it ring. There’s only one man on the desk at night, and if he’s away from the desk it takes a little time to get an answer. Somebody’ll answer eventually.”
“All right. I’ll tell him, but that doesn’t mean he’ll call you.”
“Just tell him I’ve been looking through some mug books.”
“Mug books?”
“He’ll know what I mean.” Hoke went to the door.
“Sergeant Moseley? You didn’t tell daddy about the car, did you?”
Hoke shook his head. “No. He didn’
t ask, and I didn’t volunteer.”
The traffic was heavy on North Kendall and heavier on Dixie, where Hoke turned toward downtown. It was after seven by the time Hoke reached LeJeune Road. He stopped for gas and made a phone call to the duty officer in Homicide, leaving a message for Sergeant Henderson to call him at home. He made another call to the morgue and learned that they did not plan to start the post-mortems on the Colombians until the next day, probably late in the afternoon. He paid for the gas, put the receipt in his notebook, and decided to go home. He could work on his report in the morning. Perhaps by then Henderson would have something from the woman’s testimony.
Hoke took the MacArthur Causeway to South Beach but decided to stop for a boilermaker at Irish Mike’s before going home. Mike brought him the shot of Early Times and a Miller’s draft, then waited until Hoke downed the shot and took a sip of beer.
“I suppose you’ll be wanting this on the tab, sergeant?”
“Yeah, and one more shot besides. I’ve still got enough beer.”
“D’you know what your tab is?”
“No, you tell me.”
“It was eighty-five bucks.” Mike poured another shot into Hoke’s glass. “Not countin’ these two.”
“I didn’t know it was that much.”
“That’s what it is, sergeant. When it hits a hundred I’m gonna eighty-six you till you pay the whole tab. I wouldn’t object to something on account right now.”
“I wouldn’t mind giving you something on account, Mike, but I’m a little short right now. I’ll bring in fifty on payday, but don’t let it run up so high again.”
“I’m not the one that runs it up—you are.”
Mike went into the back, and Hoke quickly downed the second shot, finished the beer, and left the bar. He was depressed enough already without being hit for an $85 bar tab. Hoke didn’t drink all that much, but when he wanted a drink he hated to drink alone in his room. Fortunately, he had a bottle of El Presidente at home. This was one time when he would have to keep himself company.
Hoke got into his car and drove to the Eldorado Hotel.
11
Before leaving Kendall Pines Terrace, Freddy had locked the pistol in the glove compartment and spread the city map of Miami out on the passenger’s seat. He turned east on Kendall and took the Homestead Extension Freeway north toward the city. The traffic didn’t get heavy until he turned east again on the Dolphin Expressway toward the airport. By watching the overhead signs carefully, he avoided the lane that would have taken him across the causeway to Miami Beach and managed to bluff his way into the left lane that took him down to Biscayne Boulevard. He was astonished by the erratic driving on the freeway. If they drove this way in Los Angeles, he thought, most of these people would have been killed within minutes. Freddy didn’t consider himself a good driver, but compared to these Miami drivers he was a professional.
On impulse, he turned into the Omni Mall and took the ramp to the third level before finding a parking space. The parking garage was color-coded as well as numbered, and he wrote Purple 3 on his parking ticket before putting it into his hip pocket.
Using the Mendez Visa card, he bought two short-sleeve sports shirts in the County Seat, and then paid cash for a featherweight poplin suit in an Italian men’s store. The suit was on sale for $350. To make the sale, however, the salesman had to get a pair of pants with a twenty-nine-inch waist from another suit to go with the size forty-two jacket. He bought two $25 neckties in another men’s shop, using the Mendez card, and then a pair of cordovan tasseled loafers for $150 cash at Bally’s. He returned to the TransAm and locked his purchases in the trunk. He went back into the mall and bought a stuffed baked potato at One Potato, Two—, asking for the Mexican Idaho, which included butter, chili con carne, jack cheese, and tortilla chips. The chili was hot, and he drank a large Tab with lots of ice.
All he had to buy now was a box of white shirts and a present for Susan. She was not the kind of girl who had been given many presents, and she would be happy with anything he got her. She was so passive in bed that he doubted that she had ever had any tips from her clients.
In addition to its three shopping levels, the air-conditioned mall was anchored at each end with a Penney’s and a Jordan Marsh department store. There was also an involved egress to the Omni Hotel. A man could get lost quickly in the Omni Mall, but not for very long because of the color-coded exits and numbers.
A portly man in a blue-and-white seersucker suit was standing in front of a store window and looking intently at the merchandise. As Freddy glanced at him, wondering what it was in the window that held his attention, a small dark man with a bushy head of curly hair bumped against the portly man, apologized, and walked on. Freddy saw the small man slip the wallet out of the heavy man’s hip pocket, but the man hadn’t felt a thing. Freddy trailed behind the small man, who was wearing a blue serge suit and a blue wool tie, to the escalator and watched him drop the wallet into another man’s folded newspaper, El Diario. The pickpocket continued through the mall, and the one with the newspaper, a tall dark man with black sideburns down to and even with his mouth, took the Down escalator.
Freddy got on the escalator behind him. He followed him past Treasure Island and the carrousel, and into the lowest level of the mall. The man strolled past the Unicorn Store, a T-shirt store, skirted a French sidewalk café, and then went into the men’s room. Freddy waited outside the door, counting to thirty, then went in. The tall man with the sideburns had the wallet in his hands. He looked up at Freddy for a moment and then back down at the wallet. Freddy grabbed his left wrist, twisted it behind his back with one motion, and then ran the man into the white-tiled wall, face-first. The man screamed something in Spanish and tried to get his right hand into his trousers pocket. Freddy jerked the left arm higher and it broke at the elbow. As the arm cracked, the man vomited and fell to his knees. Freddy kicked him behind the ear, and the man went unconscious.
Freddy picked up the wallet from the floor and stuffed it into his pocket. He searched the man on the floor. There was a pearl-handled switchblade knife in his right front pocket and a roll of bills held together with a rubber band in the left hip pocket. He found another wallet in an inside jacket pocket. Freddy stuffed these into his pockets and washed his hands. A teenager, wearing a red-billed Red Man cap, jeans, and a CLASH T-shirt, walked in and saw the man on the floor, bubbling blood from his mouth and ears, then went to the urinal.
“What’s the matter with that guy?”
“Ask him,” Freddy said, blotting his hands dry on a brown paper towel.
“I don’t want to get involved,” the teenager said, unzipping his fly.
Freddy left the men’s room and took the stairway up to Level Two. He bought a box of three white-on-white Excello shirts at Baron’s. He bought a pedestal coffee cup that had Susie painted on the side in Old English script, and a half-pound bag of Colombian coffee. He asked the girl at the coffee shop to gift-wrap the two items together, which cost him an extra $1.50. He returned to his car and locked his new purchases into the trunk before getting into the front seat and turning on the engine and the air conditioning.
Freddy counted $322 from the portly man’s stolen wallet, $809 from the tall man’s wallet, and $1,200 from the tight roll of bills. In the middle of the tight roll of American money, there was an even tighter roll of 10,000 Mexican pesos. So, not counting the pesos, which he might be able to exchange later, he was $2,331 richer than when he had arrived at the Omni—minus the cash he had put out for his shopping, of course. This was absolutely the best haul Freddy had ever made in a single day. He had also picked up two new credit cards—the fat man’s—a Visa and a MasterCard. The tall man with sideburns, apparently the other half of a Mexico City pickpocket team, had a green card in the name of Jaime Figueras in his wallet. This meant that he could work in Miami, but it didn’t authorize him to work as a pickpocket; he would be unlikely to report his mugging to the police. If that damned kid hadn’t come
into the men’s room, Freddy could have waited for a few minutes and made another nice haul after the short partner came down for his cut. But probably it was just as well. He had gotten in trouble before by staying too long in a men’s room. Vice Squad cops pretending to be gay, and some who didn’t have to pretend, hit public rest rooms all the time to top off their daily arrest quotas.
Freddy paid the parking fee to the Cuban girl at the exit and drove south on Biscayne Boulevard, planning what he would say to Pablo Lhosa at the International Hotel.
By the time he had crawled through the heavy traffic to Dupont Plaza, Freddy decided that it might be best not to see Pablo at all. Pablo knew him as Gotlieb, and by now, or at least in another day or two, the hotel would find out that it had been stiffed by a stolen credit card. Of course, the hotel would get its money, in all probability, but Pablo would have some leverage to use against him. Perhaps for the moment it would be best to do nothing. He would tell Susan not to answer her phone, and when Pablo came out to see her he could take care of him. By that time, some kind of solution would occur to him.
Freddy circled the Dupont Plaza and drove back down Biscayne to the Omni. This time he pulled into the hotel entrance. He turned over the ignition key, but not the trunk key, to the valet. He registered at the desk as Mr. and Mrs. Junior Waggoner and pocketed the room key. He counted out $1,000 in cash for a $120-a-day room and told the clerk he would return with his baggage later when he came back from the airport with his wife.
No, he told the clerk, he didn’t know how long he would be staying, but to remind him when his bill got up to $900, and he would either check out then or put down some more cash as an advance. Freddy waved off the bellman and took the elevator up to his room.
He stashed the extra wallets and the pesos in the bedside table next to the king-size bed and went back down to the lobby entrance for his car. He paid for the valet parking, gave the valet a quarter, and turned off the salsa that was blaring full blast from his radio. If the valet hadn’t turned on the radio he would have gotten a dollar instead of a quarter, Freddy reflected. He headed south on Biscayne again. He crossed the Miami River and drove down Brickell. He now had two nice hidey-holes, one in Kendall and another downtown in Omni. To avoid the sun and the heat, he could work the Omni Mall; the way the Omni was laid out, it was a thief’s paradise. If he only robbed pickpockets, he could work for weeks without any fear of detection. Of course, there would be competition; there was bound to be in a perfect setup like that. Freddy didn’t mind a little competition. As the fly said, crossing the mirror, “That’s just another way of looking at it.”
