Charles Willeford - Sideswipe

by Unknown

  Frank and Helen had a long talk about what to do with Hoke when they went into their bedroom that night after watching TV. Helen didn't want Hoke to stay with them, even though they had a large house with two spare bedrooms. Frank told her that Hoke would stay as long as it was necessary. Helen patted off her makeup with cold cream, stared at her handsome face in the mirror for a moment, and then hunched her plump shoulders combatively.

  "I want to know that he'll be leaving," she said.

  "We can't decide anything now, Helen. We'll see what the doctor says tomorrow or the next day, and if it turns out that the police department's too much for Hoke to handle any longer, I can always let him clerk in the store. He worked in the store summers and Saturdays when he was in high school, and he was one of the best clerks I ever had."

  "He's forty-three years old now, Frank, and he's been a cop for fourteen years. He can't go back to being a clerk in the store."

  "Why not? Mrs. Grimes has been in the store for thirtytwo years, and she's sixty years old. I still go to the store every day, and I'm seventy-five. What makes you think forty-three's too old to be a hardware clerk?"

  "That isn't what I meant."

  "What did you mean?"

  "I just meant that he's too old to be coming back home to live. Especially after being a police detective. It wouldn't work out for Hoke, and it wouldn't work out for us."

  "We'll talk about that tomorrow. By the way, Dr. Fairbairn said I was overdue for my prostate massage."

  Helen sighed, and then she smiled. "I'll get the Crisco." She got up from her vanity table and padded lightly down the hail toward the kitchen.

  Later on, when Hoke recalled this dormant three-day period, he remembered every detail of this long first day: Ellita's frequent reminders of the time, his daughter's kisses, the drive up the Sunshine Parkway from Miami, and Steely Dan playing "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" on the car radio. Hoke had huddled on the back seat of the old Le Mans with his terrycloth robe pulled over him. He had tried, for a while, to count the kingfishers poised above the hyacinth-choked canal, clinging to telephone wires. The kingfishers, loners to a bird, had been spaced out along the wire about five miles apart, with their heads pulled in as if they had no necks. But he soon lost count, and wondered if it could be the same kingfisher he was counting each time, the same old bird flying ahead endlessly to fool him.

  He didn't know why he couldn't bring himself to answer Ellita, his daughters, Bill Henderson, or old Doe Fairbairn, who had set Hoke's broken arm when he was eleven, but he had known somehow, cunningly, that if he didn't say anything to anyone, eventually they would all let him alone and he would never have to go down to the Homicide Division and work on those cold fucking cases again.

  It was funny-peculiar too, in a way, because he had been thinking about Singer Island while he was reading the newspaper, wishing he were back on the island, and now, without any conscious effort, here he was, all alone in his father's house, lying on a firm but comfortable mattress in a cool and darkened room. And no one was bothering him, or trying to force him to read all of those new Incident Reports and supps that were piled up on his desk.

  Hoke did not, after his first night's troubled sleep, take any more of the tiny black Equavils. They hadn't made him feel funny while he was awake (although they must have been responsible for his weird and frightening dreams), but while he was awake, they had robbed him of any feelings, and his mind became numb. If he took four of them a day, as the doctor ordered, he would soon become a zombie. Besides, Hoke didn't need any chemicals to maintain the wonderful peace of mind he now enjoyed. The bedroom was cool, and although he wasn't hungry, the little he did eat when Inocencia brought in his trays was delicious. He told himself that he would never have to go back to the police department. All he had to do was lie quietly on the bed, or sit by the glass doors and look out at the blue-green pool or at the occasional boats that passed on the inland waterway ignoring the NO WAKE signs, and everything would be all right. There was no need to think about anything, to worry about anything, because, as long as he kept his mouth closed and refused to react to anybody, he would be let alone. When a man didn't talk back or answer questions, people couldn't stand it for very long.

  When Hoke looked back later, those three days had been the happiest he had ever known, and he often wondered if he would ever have such peace again. But he had also known, or suspected--even at the time--that it was too wonderful to last.

  On the fourth morning, Hoke awoke at six, his regular time, opened the sliding doors, and dived bare-assed into the swimming pool. He swam ten slow laps in the tepid water, showered, dressed, put in his teeth, shaved, and then, because he had no shoes, walked barefooted into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. When Inocencia arrived at seven, driving her whale-colored VW Beetle, Hoke asked her to make him a big breakfast.

  "You want to eat now, Mr. Hoke, or wait and eat with Mr. Frank?"

  "I'll wait for Mr. Frank."

  Hoke took his coffee into the living room to get out of Inocencia's way, and sat on one of the tapestried chairs that were spaced evenly around the polished black mahogany table. There were twelve of them, and room at the table for two more. These other two chairs flanked the arched entrance that led down a step to the sunken living room. Inocencia, when she had let herself into the house with her key that morning, had brought the newspaper in from the lawn and dropped it on the table. Hoke didn't open it. He just waited for his father, sipped his coffee, stared at the bowl of daisies in the centerpiece, and wondered what he should say to the old man.

  Anyone who saw the two together would notice a family likeness. It would be difficult to explain where it was, however, because the two Moseley men, except for their chocolate eyes, did not resemble one another. They were both a quarter-inch over five-ten, but Frank's shoulders slumped and he was stooped slightly, making him look much shorter than his son. He was also thin and wiry, and not more than 150 pounds, whereas Hoke weighed 190. When he had lived alone, Hoke had maintained an off-and-on diet and had once got down to 180 pounds, but after his ex-wife returned his daughters to him and Ellita had moved into the house in Green Lakes, Ellita had done all of the cooking. The starchy foods she liked--rice and black beans, fried plantains, baked yucca, chicken and yellow rice, pork roasts and pork chunks--had soon restored his lost poundage, and then some.

  Frank Moseley had a full head of white hair. When a few people had told him that he resembled the ex--auto maker John DeLorean, the old man had let his hair grow and had fluffed it out on the sides, which made his resemblance to the automobile designer almost uncanny. But Frank, oddly enough, looked much younger than DeLorean. Perhaps it was because he had led such an untroubled life.

  Hoke's face was as long as his father's, but it looked longer because he was balding in front, and his high brown dome and sunken, striated cheeks made his face seem a good deal narrower as well. Hoke had sandy hair, with no gray in it as yet, but he wore it roached back and without a part. His barber had suggested once that he comb it straight forward and let it grow a bit, which would give him a fringe effect. That style would minimize his baldness, he said. But Hoke thought that men who wore bangs looked like fruits, and he rejected the suggestion. A suspect would not, in Hoke's opinion, take a cop seriously if he looked the least bit gay.

  Hoke's face was almost as dark as iodine from his lifetime exposure to the Florida sun, and his hairy forearms were deep mahogany because he always wore short-sleeved shirts. When he took off his shirt, his upper arms were ivory-colored; the rat's nest of black chest hair, and the long black hairs on his shoulders and back, looked like tangled nylon thread against the whiteness of his skin. As a teenager, when Hoke had worked on a live-bait ballyhoo boat out of Riviera Beach during the summers, he had been tan from the waist up as well, but he no longer went out in the sun without a shirt, and, like most Miamians, he rarely went to the beach. Because of his cheap blue-gray dentures, Hoke looked older than forty-three; but then, when one
looked into his eyes, he seemed younger than that. Hoke's eyes, so dark it was difficult to see where the iris left off and the pupil began, were beautiful. Here, then, in the eyes, was where the family resemblance had concentrated itself. To see one man with eyes like that was remarkable; to see two men with eyes like theirs together was astonishing.

  "Morning, son," Frank said, picking up the paper and turning to the business section. "How d'you feel?"

  "Okay."

  The old man put on his glasses and checked the stock market reports with a forefinger. He grunted, shook his head, and removed the glasses. "You going back to Miami, or what? You've been mighty quiet the last few days."

  "I've been thinking, Frank. I've decided to resign from the department, and I'm never leaving the island again."

  "You mean you're moving back here to Riviera Beach?"

  "No, not exactly. I'm not going to leave the island, or cross the bridge to the mainland. I'm going to get a room here on the island, and find a job as a fry cook, maybe, or something like that."

  "You can come back to work at the store."

  Hoke shook his head. "Then I'd have to drive across the Blue Heron bridge to Riviera every day. I don't want to leave the island. I intend to simplify my life."

  "That ain't the way to do it, Hoke. You've got the two girls to look after--"

  "They can go back to Patsy. That ballplayer she married makes three hundred and twenty-five thousand bucks a year. He can take care of them, or put them in a boarding school. I'm concerned with my survival."

  "If it was just me, Hoke, you could stay here, I think you know that. But Helen wouldn't want you to live with us on a permanent basis. Now, I've got a little place near the Ocean Mall you can have. I own the apartment house-- eight units in all, all efficiencies--and you can have one of 'em. You can live in the apartment rent-free, and I'll give you a hundred dollars a week to manage them for me. They rent for a thousand a month during the season, and six hundred a month the rest of the year. There's a two-week minimum on rentals, and it's three-fifty for just two weeks. Paulson Realtors has been managing the place, but he hasn't been doing what I'd call a bang-up job. I had me some trouble over there last month. A single man rented an apartment for two weeks, and then moved in six of his buddies from Venezuela. It was an entire professional soccer team, and they almost ruined the apartment before Paulson even found out about them. I need someone on the premises, you see, not sitting in an office in Riviera Beach. If you're there all the time, you can rent out the units, take care of problems like that, and sort things out for me."

  "Are you talking about the El Pelicano Hotel?"

  "It was a hotel, but I had it converted a couple of years back to efficiency apartments. I thought maybe at first I'd make it a time-shared condo, but it works out better as rentals. Those time-share apartments are more trouble than they're worth. Three of the units are rented out already on annual leases to people working here on the island, and they get a special rate. I'll drive you over there right after breakfast, and you can move right in."

  "I need to stop at Island Sundries first and buy some sneakers."

  Frank nodded. "This'll be a better deal for you than working as a fry cook."

  Hoke shrugged. "I really don't care what I do, Frank. I'm not leaving the island again. I'll be glad to run the hotel for you.

  "It's not a hotel now, Hoke. I had the sign changed and call it the El Pelicano Arms. I had the boy paint a brown pelican on the sign, too. It looks nice."

  Hoke had a substantial breakfast of fried eggs, bacon, grits, and biscuits, but the old man ate a single piece of dry toast and a small dish of stewed prunes. In January, the single cool month of the year, Frank sometimes had oatmeal as well; otherwise this was his standard breakfast throughout the year. This was a frugal meal, but Hoke knew that the old man would leave his office in the hardware store at ten-thirty and go next door to Matilda's Café, eat two jelly doughnuts, and drink a cup of chocolate. Frank did this every working day, and he went to the hardware store six days a week.

  On the drive to the El Pelicano Arms, Frank stopped at Island Sundries, and Hoke bought a pair of sneakers, paying for them with his Visa card. Frank drove a new Chrysler New Yorker, and told Hoke it handled a little on the stiff side. For a few months he had driven a Bentley, just because Helen had wanted one, but business had dropped off at the store because the townspeople had thought he was doing too well. So he had sold the Bentley and bought the New Yorker, and business was back up to normal again.

  The sign was new, but long strips of ochre paint hung from the rest of the building like the shredding skin of a snake. There was an empty apartment on the second floor facing the ocean. Hoke put his suitcase on one of the Bahama beds, opened the window, and took a long look at the sea, two hundred yards away across the wide public beach. A one-legged man in a skimpy bikini was hopping across the sand toward the water. Three teenage girls in bikinis played a listless game of volleyball, two of them on one side, one on the other of a sagging net. By noon the beach would be crowded with bathers, and all of the parking spaces on Ocean Drive would be full.

  "This is perfect, Frank. It's only a block away from the Giant Supermarket, and I won't even need my car."

  "You might feel different in a few days, Hoke. But I'll get a 'Manager' sign from the store and bring it back tonight. You can tack it to your door. There's a bulletin board downstairs with the rates posted and all, and you can put up a note saying the manager's living in 201."

  "Anything you say, Frank."

  "Here's your first hundred in advance." Frank handed Hoke five twenties. "If you need more now, just holler, and I'll give you a second advance."

  "No, that's plenty. Thanks."

  "I've got to get over to the store. But I'll call Paulson and have him come over here with the books and explain things to you."

  "I could walk to his office--"

  "You'd better rest easy for a while. I'll send him over. There's a black-and-white TV over there, but no phone. I better order a phone for--"

  "I don't want a phone, Frank."

  "You'll need one in case you want to call someone, or if someone wants to call about a rental."

  "I don't want a phone. I want to simplify my life, like I told you. If someone wants to rent a unit, and one's available, they can come over here and look at it. I'll be here."

  "You might like to call the girls, or Ellita."

  "I don't think so, but if I do, there's a pay phone over at the mall. If Ellita calls you, tell her to send someone back up with my car. She can get one of the kids in the neighborhood to drive it up. I'll give him twenty bucks and he can take the bus back to Miami."

  "I'll call her. Anything else?"

  "I guess not. Mr. Paulson'll fill me in on what I need to know. And thanks, Frank. I think everything's going to be all right. I don't want you and Helen to worry about me."

  "I'm sure it will, son."

  The old man left, and Hoke closed the door.

  Frank Moseley wasn't so sure that everything was going to be all right. Hoke had seemed to be his old self again, but he was still a little preoccupied. Perhaps the pills Dr. Fairbairn had ordered made him like that. At any rate, Frank had gotten his son out of the house, and Helen would be pleased about that. This afternoon she had her bridge group coming to the house, and she had been worried last night that Hoke might lurch out into the living room in his urine-stained boxer shorts.

  CHAPTER 4

  Instead of throwing Stanley into the twenty-man tank with the assorted drunks and coke-heads, the jailer put him in a two-man cell with an alleged holdup man named Robert Smith. One of the tank drunks looked hostile, and the jailer thought he might pick on the old man if he found out that he was accused of a short-eyes offense. Stanley had had to take off his belt and remove his shoelaces. He held his pants up with both hands, and he scuffled, dragging his feet as he came down the corridor, to keep from stepping out of his shoes.

  Robert Smith, -né- T
roy Louden, was lying on his back in the lower bunk with his hands clasped behind his head. Troy was wearing scuffed cowboy boots, a blue-denim cowboy shirt with pearl snap buttons, and a pair of gray moleskin ranch trousers with empty belt loops. His tooled leather belt and silver buckle were with his other effects in the property room. Troy's blond hair was cropped short, but he had retained thick sideburns, and they were down to the level of his earlobes. His deep blue eyes were slightly hooded. Sometimes a woman would tell him, "Your eyes are the same blue as Paul Newman's." When a woman said this, Troy would always smile and say, "Yeah, but he puts drops in his." In other respects he bore no resemblance to Paul Newman. Troy was tall and rangy, an inch or two over six feet, with long ropy arms and bulging biceps. His nose had been broken and poorly reset, and the lines that ran from the wings of his nose to the corners of his slightly crooked mouth looked as though they had been filled with coal dust. His wide lips were about the thickness of two dimes. When he grimaced occasionally--he had a slight tic--he reminded Stanley of a lizard. Stanley didn't mention this, and neither did anyone else, but Stanley was not the first man to notice the reptilian look that appeared on Troy's face whenever he pulled his lips back hard for a split second, then relaxed them.

  The cell was four feet by eight, with a two-tiered bunk bed, and there was a stainless-steel toilet without a seat at the back of the cell. There was a steel sink in the back corner, but it only had one tap, and that drizzled cold water. There were no towels or soap. The bars were painted white and were flaked away here and there, indicating that they had been repainted many times. There was no window, and a single forty-watt bulb in the ceiling, covered with heavy wire, lighted the cell dimly. With Troy stretched out on the bottom bunk, there was no place for Stanley to sit, unless he climbed into the upper bunk or sat on the rim of the toilet.

  "I've got to use the toilet," Stanley said, after clearing his throat.