by Miami Blues
She washed and ironed the clothes and sheets, and started a small vegetable garden in the back yard, planting cucumbers, radishes, and a single row of tomato plants along the back fence. She made friends with Mrs. Edna Damrosch, the widow next door, who worked as a saleslady in a Dania antique store on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
On the days Mrs. Damrosch didn’t work and when Freddy wasn’t home, they visited each other’s houses to watch soap operas and to discuss the lives of the characters.
One night Susan cooked fried chicken. She planned to serve cheese grits, Stove-Top dressing, canned peas, and milk gravy with the chicken but discovered she was out of milk. She grabbed her purse and asked Freddy for the car keys. Freddy was watching the news on television and, as usual when he was home, was wearing only jeans. There was a window air conditioner in the bedroom, but none in the living room where the TV had been set up, and the room was always warm and stuffy.
“Where do you want to go?”
“I just want to run down to the Seven-Eleven for some milk.”
“Fix iced tea instead.”
“I need milk for the gravy.”
“I’ll go. You’d better stay here and watch what you’re cooking.”
Freddy, without putting on a shirt or his shoes, picked up his wallet and the keys from the cobbler’s bench and drove the six blocks to the nearest 7-Eleven. He went to the dairy case, deliberated for a moment on whether to buy a quart or a half-gallon of milk, and then slid back the glass door. A short stickup man entered the store, held a gun on the manager, and told him in Spanish to give him the money in the register. The stickup man, in his early twenties, was very nervous, and the gun danced in his shaking hand.
The frightened manager, without a word, gave the gunman the $36 in the till. The stickup man put the bills in his pocket and backed toward the glass double doors. He then stuck the pistol in his waistband and took four cartons of cigarettes from a counter display. He noticed Freddy for the first time. Startled, he dropped the cigarettes and reached for his pistol again. Freddy, reacting impulsively, picked up a can of Campbell’s pork and beans and threw it at the gunman, who turned sideways, just in time. The can hit the window, narrowly missing the man’s left shoulder.
The glass shattered and a triangular sliver of glass gashed the man’s throat. It was a shallow cut, but it began to bleed. The man dropped his gun, clutched his neck, and rushed through the double doors. Freddy went after him, but as the man got into the passenger seat of a heavy Chevrolet Impala, the driver drove forward and up over the curb, heading for the doors. By the time Freddy skirted the stacked bread shelves and reached the doorway, so had the car bumper. Both doors crashed down on Freddy as the driver rammed them. The car then backed away and careened into the street. The falling doors slammed Freddy onto the floor and pinned him. The manager lifted off the doors, and Freddy got shakily to his feet. As the manager hurried to the phone, Freddy got into his car and drove home—without the milk.
When he got home, Freddy gave Susan the car keys and wrote out a list of supplies for her to get at Eckerd’s drugstore. He turned off the gas under the food in the kitchen before going into the bathroom to check his injuries. His left wrist was sprained badly, but he didn’t think it was broken. There might be a hairline fracture, but he didn’t think it was any worse than that. There were a dozen cuts on his face, however, and more on his chest where his chest had been scraped by shards of glass. The worst thing was his right eyebrow. The eyebrow, skin and all, was one big flap hanging down over his eye. He would have to sew it back on and hope that it would grow together again. The other cuts in his face were not only deep, they were penetrating punctures, but they wouldn’t require stitches. The cuts on his chest were ridged scrapes, but not as deep as the punctures on his face, so he figured they would scab over within a few days.
When Susan got back, he asked her to thread the smallest needle in the packet with black thread. He sewed the eyebrow flap on to his forehead with small stitches. Susan watched the first stitch and then vomited into the toilet bowl.
“That doesn’t help me much, you know,” he said. “Go into the bedroom and lie down.”
The flap, after he had put as many stitches into it as he thought it would hold, was more than a little crooked, and the eyebrow slanted up at a curious angle, but that was about the best he could do. He was in considerable pain, but he felt lucky that he hadn’t lost the eye. By midnight, he knew that the entire eye area would be black and blue. His face was swelling already. He dabbed at his face cuts with balls of cotton soaked in peroxide, and when all of the cuts had stopped trickling blood, he plastered them with Band-Aids. Susan had bought the kind that were blue and red and dotted with white stars, and he ended up with fourteen patriotic Band-Aids on his face and neck. He washed his chest with a washrag, and then with peroxide, but decided not to bandage the scrapes.
His sprained wrist was now twice its normal size. He had Susan splint it with tongue depressors and bind it as tightly as she could with strips of adhesive tape. He could move his fingers, but it hurt. He sent her back to Eckerd’s to get a canister of plaster of Paris and cut pieces of gauze into eight-inch strips while she was gone. When she returned, they mixed the plaster with water, soaked the strips of gauze, and he had her wrap them in overlapping strips around his wrist. The cast, when she finished, was thick and heavy, but when it dried it would immobilize his arm just in case there was a hairline fracture. Freddy took three Bufferin, then ate some fried chicken, although he had no appetite for it.
“Are you going to tell me about it, Junior?”
“About how dumb I was, d’you mean? Sure, I’ll tell you about it. I forgot for a minute that Miami, like any other city, is a dangerous place. I didn’t take my gun to the store, not even my sap. Not only that, I broke my own rule, and I tried to help someone else instead of looking after my own ass. This straight life we’ve been leading has given me a misplaced sense of security, that’s all. For a moment there, I must’ve thought that I was some kind of solid citizen. That’s all.”
“But what happened to you?”
“Two guys in a blue Impala ran over me.”
Susan nodded but looked thoughtful. “I thought it must’ve been something like that.”
18
Marie Henderson was active in a Miami NOW chapter and had a subscription to Ms. magazine. When Bill Henderson had first told Hoke that his wife was subscribing to Ms., Hoke didn’t believe him, so Henderson brought one of her copies down to the office and showed him the printed address label. It was made out to Ms. Marie Henderson.
“That’s incredible,” Hoke had said, shaking his head morosely at the irrefutable evidence.
“Isn’t it?” Henderson agreed. “Now you’ve got some kind of idea of what I have to put up with …”
Hoke parked at the curb in front of Henderson’s ranch-style house. He didn’t see Henderson’s car in the carport. He walked reluctantly up the brick walk to knock on the door anyway. Perhaps, he thought, Bill wouldn’t be gone very long.
Marie Henderson, a tall bony woman of thirty-eight with brown, frizzy hair, seemed happy enough to see Hoke. She invited him in, pointed toward Henderson’s comfortable recliner, and asked him if he would like a drink.
“Sure,” Hoke nodded. “Early Times, if you’ve got it.”
“We’ve got it.” She brought a bottle of Early Times and two shot glasses from the bar and put them on the coffee table in front of him. She went into the kitchen and returned with a pitcher of ice and water.
“That’s the way Bill drinks it—straight with water back, so I suppose you do, too.”
“Yeah. It gives you a little lift this way.”
“I’m sure it does.” Marie smiled. “You don’t look too bad, Hoke. Bill said you looked like death warmed over. The beard could do with some trimming.”
“The doctor said to leave it on for a while.”
“He didn’t tell you not to trim it, did he? You know who you remi
nd me of with that beard? Ray Milland. Did you see that picture when he was sick and in a wheelchair? His daughter was a librarian, and he had her wait on him hand and foot. The way it turned out, he didn’t need the wheelchair at all. He was faking it to make a slave out of his daughter. Finally, the girl pushed him over a cliff and got all the money he was hoarding in a cigar box under his bed, or something. Did you see it?”
“No, I didn’t see it.”
“Well, you didn’t miss much. It was on the cable a couple of months ago. If it comes back, I’ll call you.”
“I don’t have cable. I saw Ray Milland in Love Story, when he played the father, but I don’t remember exactly how he looked.”
“He looked good then. That was several years ago. But you look a lot like him now, something about your smile, I think.”
“Thanks. When is Bill coming back?”
“He’s out bowling. He’s not on a regular team, but when Green Lakes Landscaping is short a man, they come by and get Henderson. He’s only got a one-thirty average, so they don’t come by for him often.”
“He did tell me that he was doing some bowling for the exercise.”
“Bowling for two hours once or twice a month isn’t too much exercise, is it?”
“I guess not. When’ll he be home? Maybe I’d better come back later?”
“Stick around. He’ll be home soon. Pour yourself another drink.”
“How’re the kids, Marie?”
“Out, I’m happy to say.”
Hoke had two more drinks before Henderson came home, but there was no more conversation because Hoke and Marie had run out of things to talk about.
When Henderson came in, carrying his bowling ball and bowling shoes in a blue nylon bag, Marie got up from her chair and went into the kitchen. Hoke rose quickly. He was a trifle dizzy and feeling the effects of three drinks.
“Did Captain Brownley get a hold of you?” Bill asked as he got a shot glass from the bar.
“No. I’ve been here for almost an hour.”
Bill poured a drink, and tossed it down. “I tried to get you before I left. I let the phone ring about fifteen times, and no one answered. What kind of a hotel is that, anyway?”
“Sometimes Eddie’s doing something else, and he isn’t on the switchboard. I told Mr. Bennett he needs someone on the desk all the time, but he says the old people don’t get that many calls. The Eldorado’s probably got the smallest staff of any hotel on the Beach. So what’s up, Bill?”
“You’re here, so that’s why I thought Brownley had called you. Sit down a minute. I’ll be right back.” Bill left the room and returned a few moments later with a large brown envelope, which he handed to Hoke. Hoke opened the envelope and took out a pair of handcuffs.
“Are those yours?” Bill asked. “There’s an M in red fingernail polish on the right cuff—”
“Yeah.” Hoke nodded. “They’re mine all right. Remember Bambi, the woman in the Grove I was sleeping with about two years back? We were playing a little game one night and—well, anyway, I used her nail polish to mark one cuff. Where’d you get them?”
“Robbery. They’ve had ’em for a few days. Two guys were cuffed together in the men’s John in Jordan Marsh, in the Omni store. They claimed they were cuffed up by some crazy cop who took their money. The Robbery people just figured these two guys were into something kinky and let them go. Then, a couple of days later, one of the detectives in Robbery happened to notice the initial, and remembered the red-liner memo on your lost buzzer and pistol. He sent the cuffs over to Captain Brownley through interoffice mail. So that’s that.”
“No, Bill, it’s much worse than that.”
Hoke filled Henderson in on Sergeant Wilson’s visit, and told him about the order to get the girl, Susan, back to the International Hotel in the morning. Still sensitive about his fragile, ill-fitting teeth, he omitted the part about Wilson throwing them out of the window.
“This guy’s trying to get you into trouble, Hoke. It may be the girl’s boyfriend, and maybe not. Why, though, is something else. One guy I really know is Wilson. He was in Vice when I was still in Vice, and he’s a vicious sonofabitch. Mean, but I always thought he was straight. I haven’t seen him in a couple of years, however, and a lot can happen to a man in two years.”
Hoke scratched his bearded jaw. “In two seconds a lot can happen to a man.”
“What’re you going to do about Wilson?”
“I don’t know. I could go to Brownley with it, but how do I explain the five hundred bucks?”
“You just tell it like it happened, and you’re covered. I was there, and I can back up your story. It links up with the way this guy—what’s his name?”
“Mendez. Only that isn’t his name.”
“Anyway, it links in with the way he used your cuffs to rob two bastards and leave ’em in the John. If you want me to, we can leave Brownley out of it, and I’ll talk to Wilson.”
“If you could get across to him that he’s after the wrong guy—”
“I will. But it won’t be all that easy because you were spending his money.”
“I didn’t know it was Wilson’s. Besides, he got his five hundred back. I can’t get the girl back and wouldn’t if I could.”
“I’ll talk to him. I know how to deal with a prick like that.”
“I appreciate that, Bill.”
“D’you have a gun?”
“I get my new gun and shield back Monday, when I see Captain Brownley.”
“I’ll get you one. I’ve got a chrome Colt thirty-two automatic you can have. I used to carry it in Liberty City in case I needed a throw-down piece. It’s not much good, but the magazine holds seven rounds.”
“I can give it back to you on Monday. It really feels funny as hell driving and walking around Miami without a weapon.”
“I can imagine.”
Henderson got the .32 out of the desk in the dining room and gave it to Hoke. Hoke removed the magazine, checked the chamber, and then slipped the magazine in again and loaded the pistol with a round in the chamber. He flipped up the safety with his thumb and put the weapon into his hip pocket.
“In case you’re interested, Hoke, I gave Martin Waggoner’s effects to his father when he took the body back to Okeechobee. I used my key to your desk.”
“That’s okay, but what about the Krishnas?”
“They didn’t have any claims.” Henderson smiled. “I called the head honcho out there when I didn’t hear from them, and I got the impression that Martin Waggoner was a novice, not a full member, and was about to be thrown out anyway.”
“Did he tell you that?”
“Not in so many words, but that’s the impression the honcho gave me. He wasn’t even interested in the funeral arrangements, even though I told him what Mr. Waggoner had in mind.”
“Martin was probably ripping them off. That’s some family, isn’t it? Incest, prostitution, fanaticism, software…. I’d better go home, Bill. This is really only my first day to be traipsing around, and I’m bushed as hell.”
“Want me to drive you home?”
“Hell, no. I just mean that I’m tired. Otherwise I’m okay.”
“Be careful, Hoke. This guy, this Mendez, or whatever his name is, seems like a crazy bastard to me. And when he finds out that you’re up and around, he might come after you again.”
“I’ll watch myself all right, don’t worry.”
Hoke was almost certain that the man from California was after him, but he couldn’t figure out why. He didn’t feel safe until he got home and had locked the door and bolted it behind him.
On Sunday, Hoke stayed in bed almost all day. He braved the heat at noon and walked to Gold’s Deli for the Sunday chicken-in-the-pot special, but he napped again during the afternoon. At six, he made his regular rounds of the hotel and discovered that Mr. Bennett had, during his absence in the hospital, put chains and a padlock around the quick-release handles to the back fire door exit. Hoke got the keys from the
office, unlocked the chains, and put them into the storage room behind the unused kitchen. Later, when he made out his report and put it on Mr. Bennett’s desk, he reminded the manager that the fire marshal could close the hotel down for a serious violation like that.
For dinner, Hoke heated a can of Chunky Turkey Soup on the hot plate in his room, and then watched “Archie Bunker’s Place” on television. After the show, he called Bill Henderson.
“Everything’s okay, Hoke,” Henderson said. “I talked to Wilson last night, explained things to him, and he’ll be on the lookout for Mendez himself.”
“I don’t think that’s his real name.”
“All right, all right! What do we call him then?”
“I’m sorry. Mendez, I guess.”
“Anyway, Wilson wants to find him as much as we do now. Apparently the guy scared the hell out of Pablo, and Wilson told me that Pablo’s talking about going back to Nicaragua. I also reassured Wilson that neither one of us is going to say anything to Internal Affairs. We’ve got enough to do in Homicide without worrying about what’s going on in Vice. He also told me to tell you he’s sorry about your teeth.”
“I’m sorry about them, too. I have to pour hot sauce on everything now in order to get any taste.”
“How you feeling otherwise?”
“Okay. I’ll probably see you in the morning when I come in to get my gun and badge from Brownley.”
“I don’t think so. I’ll be out with Lopez. We’re doing that investigation about the woman who sat on her kid, and I’m letting him handle it. But I’m watching him.”
“What case is that?”
“It was in the papers. This woman was punishing her kid, a six-year-old, and she sat on him. She weighs about two-forty, and she crushed in his chest. The kid died, and now she’s up for manslaughter. It’ll probably be reduced to child abuse, but we’ve got to knock on doors all morning to see what the neighbors’ve got to say about her and the kid.”
