Charles Willeford - Sideswipe

by Unknown

  "Well, at least I'm not making any money." Hoke grinned. "Apparently the less money you have, the more likely you are to have your children living with you. That ballplayer my ex-wife married makes three hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars a year with the Dodgers."

  They returned to the living room, and Hoke poured a shorter drink. He added ice cubes but skipped the splash of soda. Hoke and Helen were almost the same age, and he had always been comfortable around her, although he had rarely talked to her alone. She was blonde and plump, but not heavy, and she had been a positive influence in his father's life. The old man was thinner and much happier since he married--began living with--Helen. She dressed him better, too. Frank wore slacks and colorful sport shirts now, instead of the wrinkled seersucker suits he had favored, and she had thrown away the black leather bow ties he had worn every day to the store.

  "Would you like another pink gin, Helen?"

  "I don't think so. We're going to have wine with dinner, so one'll be plenty."

  "When was the last time you visited your condo at the Supermare?"

  "About a month ago. Why?"

  "Was anything missing? Skinner told me that you had some burglaries there recently. The thief's been hitting the empty apartments."

  "That's the first I've heard about it, but I haven't been going to any of the monthly meetings."

  "Do you have a bolt lock on your door?"

  Helen nodded. "A regular through-the-doorknob lock, and a bolt lock too."

  "If you want me to, I'll check it out for you."

  "I don't keep any jewelry there. Just furniture and furnishings, and a few clothes. Frank and I change clothes there once in a while when we go to the beach. And I have to live there, or be physically present, on January first, to get my homestead exemption."

  "When's the last time you went to the beach?"

  Helen laughed. "About four months ago. During the season. It's too hot for me in the summer."

  "We'd better drop by and check it out."

  "I've got some extra keys. I'll give them to you, and you can drop by some morning when you go swimming. In fact, you can use the apartment any time you like, or swim in the pool. I'll call and tell Mr. Carstairs that you're my guest. But Aileen can't use the pool, or even hang around the building. No children are allowed."

  "Don't people there have grandchildren?"

  "Sure they do, but they're not allowed to visit. The nochildren rule was one of the major selling points for an apartment at the Supermare. A lot of people don't want to have grandchildren around, Hoke, or even their own adult children. Not everyone's like Frank and me." Helen got the extra keys from the center drawer of her desk and put them into an envelope. She handed the envelope to Hoke, and he dropped it into his front pocket. "You'd better get Frank now, Hoke. Take him a drink, and by the time he's finished, dinner should be ready."

  "What does he like? He used to drink bourbon on the rocks, or with a little Coke--"

  "Give him a Beefeater on the rocks, but put an olive in it. He thinks vermouth ruins a martini."

  "He's right."

  Helen went into the kitchen, and Hoke fixed his father a stiff gin on the rocks. It occurred to him for the first time in his life, as he headed toward the den, that one of these days, if he was lucky, Frank might leave him the El Pelicano Arms in his will. And if he did, he would be able to stay on the island until he died without any more worries. Even if Frank didn't leave him the apartment house, and left everything to Helen, he was sure that Helen would let him stay on as manager.

  But he had better prove that he was worthy of the job by renting out those two empty apartments as soon as possible...

  Aileen was shown the new bicycle before dinner, and she kissed Frank, Helen, and Hoke. Hoke had told her that she would not be allowed to drive his car again; now she could go almost anywhere she wanted to go on the island with her bicycle.

  "I'll get you a basket for the handlebars," Hoke said, "and you can do our shopping at the supermarket."

  "I don't need a basket. I can carry groceries under one arm, and steer with one hand."

  "Just don't ride through the mall parking lot," Hoke said. "A lot of sick Yankees back out without looking, and they might run over you."

  Aileen ate swiftly so she could ride her new bike, but still she put away two helpings of rare roast beef, with mashed potatoes and gravy, before she excused herself from the table.

  After dinner, Frank and Hoke went into the den with their coffee. Frank turned on the cable to a women's mudwrestling match in Buffalo, New York. Frank, who'd only had the cable channels for a few months, had never known about lacrosse, mud wrestling, four-wall volleyball, and knife-, star-, and hatchet-throwing contests until he signed up for cable, so he was still interested in these new--to him--sports. He was also fond of Dr. Ruth's sex show in the evenings, and rarely missed her program.

  At a quarter to five, Hoke got to his feet. "I've got to go, Dad. I left a note on my door saying I'd be back at five. Someone might be there looking for an apartment."

  "Stick around, son. There's a man coming over after a while I want you to meet. Let Aileen ride back on her bike; she can tell anyone there to wait for you."

  Hoke found Aileen outside and told her to take herself and her wet bathing suit back to the apartment house.

  "If someone's there, you can show them an empty apartment, but tell them to stick around till I get back."

  "I know how to show the apartments, Daddy."

  "I know you do, honey, but I want to screen people. I don't want any Latins to get in there for two months or more. Or some drunk. Okay?"

  "What's the matter with Latins? Ellita's a Latin."

  "Nothing's the matter with them, but our efficiencies are for one or two people, not for families of six or more. There're only two single beds, you know."

  Aileen let this pass. "I put a sack of mangoes in the front seat of the car, Daddy. Helen said we could have all we wanted from the tree in the back yard."

  "Fine. How're the brakes on the bike?"

  "I -know- how to ride it, Daddy--and I won't ride through the parking lot."

  Hoke fixed another Scotch and soda in the living room, but he didn't return to the den. He went into the kitchen. Inocencia had cleaned up in there and had gone home. Before leaving she had made four roast beef sandwiches and put them into a sack for Hoke to take home. Hoke took the bag of sandwiches out to his car and put them on the seat next to the mangoes. As he closed the car door, a black Buick Riviera pulled up behind Hoke's Le Mans in the driveway.

  "I'm leaving in a few minutes," Hoke called over to the man who got out of the car. "So you'd better let me back out first, then you can pull in ahead of me."

  "I'm only going to be here a few minutes myself. You're Sergeant Moseley, aren't you?"

  "That's right, but I don't live here. I'm just visiting my dad."

  "You're the man I've come to talk with." He introduced himself as Mike Sheldon, chief of police for Riviera Beach. "Your father called me yesterday and said you'd resigned from the Miami Police Department."

  "Well, I haven't resigned yet, Chief. I'm still thinking about it. My problem right now is what's best for me, Chief. You know how it goes. I can either take my pension money out in a lump sum, or I leave it in till I'm fifty-seven and then start drawing it monthly. I haven't got around to sitting down with a pencil and paper and figuring out what's the best thing to do."

  "If you take it out in a lump sum, you'll have to pay income taxes on it as earned salary this year."

  "I know that, but my income for the next six months will be negligible, so I still have to go over the figures."

  "I was in the same position." Chief Sheldon rubbed a deep white scar on his chin. He was a heavyset man in his late forties, and his face was severely sunburned. His nose was peeling, and when he took off his dark sunglasses, as he did now, the freckled skin below his blue eyes was paper-white. "I've only had this job for six months. The old chief was
indicted, you know, and I had to make up my mind in a hurry when the city commission offered it to me. I was a homicide lieutenant up in Trenton--that's in New Jersey--and I'd put in for chief at three or four small towns, answering ads in the journal. Riviera Beach made me the best offer. So I had to make the same kind of decision you're up against. I left my money in the pension fund. I'm making less money as chief here than I did as a lieutenant in Trenton, but life's a lot easier here on the Gold Coast. Money isn't the most important thing in a man's life."

  "Not unless you don't have any."

  "Your father said you'd had it with Miami, but you might be open to an offer here in Riviera Beach."

  "That's impossible." Hoke shook his head. "The police station's on the mainland. I've decided never to leave the island again."

  "Never's a pretty long spell. Just hear me out. I looked over your record from when you were still a patrolman here on the Riviera force, before you went down to Miami. You were a good officer here. No reprimands, and five commendations, which isn't bad for three years. Then I called your Homicide Chief, Major Brownley, in Miami, and he said you were one of his best detectives--"

  Hoke laughed. "You called Major Brownley? He doesn't know I'm quitting! As far as he knows I'm on a thirty-day leave without pay. I told you I hadn't put any papers in yet. He must've shit his pants when you called him."

  "He was a little disturbed at first, yes. But I was discreet. I just told him I wanted to offer you a lieutenancy as my Homicide Chief here, but when I mentioned the salary he just laughed. All I can offer you, except for the lieutenant's bars, is fifteen thousand a year."

  "I make thirty-four as a sergeant in Miami."

  "That's what he told me. But then, if you're fed up with Miami--and I can't blame you for that--the higher rank and the job itself might be more to your liking. We don't have many homicides, although we do have a lot more abuse cases and missing persons every year, and they come under Homicide, too. A lot of things have changed in Riviera since you left here. Ten years ago, most of the residents were WASPs; now we've got sixty percent blacks."

  "You must be kidding. I don't think there're more than one or two black families living on the island."

  "That's here on Singer. They can't afford to live over here. But there's been a big influx in town. For a couple of years we had a drop in population, but now it's on the upswing with more blacks moving in. The WASPs have moved out to North Palm Beach, or to those new suburbs in West Palm. That's one of the reasons I was hired. I had to deal with a lot of black crime in Trenton."

  "Major Brownley's a black officer."

  "I figured that when I talked to him on the phone. But he told me you'd worked in Liberty City and Overtown, so you've dealt with black crime."

  "What you need is a black lieutenant, Chief. You don't need me. I've never taken the lieutenant's exam in Miami, and I'm not sure I could pass it if I did."

  "That's no problem. If you were a sergeant already on my force, you'd have to pass the exam before you could get a promotion. But if you come on the force from outside, I can appoint you as a lieutenant immediately, based on your experience and my personal evaluation. The city commission gave me the job, and so far they've been letting me run it my way. Why don't you sleep on the idea tonight, and then come by the station in the morning? I'll show you what the job entails. You'll have a free car, you know, and that's worth at least four thousand bucks a year. And you'll only have two detectives to supervise--a black and a Puerto Rican."

  "I already told you, Chief, I can't come over because I've made up my mind not to leave the island."

  "You aren't making a helluva lot of sense, Sergeant Moseley."

  "Maybe not. But I'm living in a six-hundred-dollar-amonth apartment, rent-free, and I'm making another four hundred in salary, so I can survive without ever going into town. Everything I need's right here on the island--laundromat, supermarket, restaurants, and the best beach in Florida. Complete with no hassles. The worst that can happen to me is to step on a tin can on the beach and cut myself."

  "No job's any safer than Homicide, Moseley. When you report to the scene, the victim's already dead, and the killer's long gone. Or he's still there, crying and saying he didn't mean to do it."

  "But then there's all the paperwork and the headaches. It was time for a change. But I want to tell you I appreciate the offer, Chief Sheldon."

  "It wasn't exactly unsolicited." Sheldon shrugged. "After all, your father has a lot of clout in this town. He used to be on the city commission, and he owns half of Singer Island. I'm not saying you aren't highly qualified--"

  "I think some of that's exaggerated. Dad used to own a lot of the island, but all he has left now are a few beachfront lots--"

  "Which appreciate about a thousand bucks per beach foot every year."

  "I suppose. What about those burglaries in the condos? Who's handling them?"

  "At the Supermare? Right now, Jaime Figueras. He's a homicide detective, the Puerto Rican I told you about, but I gave them to him. He hasn't found out much of anything. Who told you about them?"

  "Things get around. If you live on the island, you find out about everything sooner or later. I might be able to help him. Why not ask Figueras to drop around and see me at the Pelicano? Tell him to bring an inventory of the missing stuff. That is, if you don't mind a little civilian help."

  "If you haven't resigned yet, you're still a police officer, and I need all the help I can get. I'll send him around tomorrow."

  "We'd better go inside and see the old man."

  "I don't need to see Mr. Moseley. He asked me to talk to you, and I have. I'll just back out and go."

  "Better see him for a minute. If you leave without talking to him, it'll hurt his feelings. Have a drink, at least, and then tell him you've got some pressing business. But he's funny about things like that."

  "A man can always use a drink."

  They went inside, and the chief had two drinks and made some small talk with Frank before leaving. He didn't mention his offer to Hoke, and Frank didn't ask him about it.

  But after the chief was gone, Frank said, "Did you take Sheldon up on his offer, Hoke?"

  "No. I couldn't take it because I'd have to leave the island and work in the Riviera Beach station. And please, Dad, don't do any more favors for me. I'm happy at the El Pelicano. But I sure didn't know that the black population was up to sixty percent in Riviera."

  "Seems like more than that. But it's been good for the hardware store. They have to fix up those old fifties houses they move into, and my business has increased almost twelve percent in the last year."

  "Why don't you sell the store, Frank? You and Helen could take life easy and do some traveling or something. You don't need the money."

  Frank grinned. "Going to the store gives me a chance to leave the island every day, that's why. I'm just as stubborn as you are. And I already saw the world on that trip Helen and me took on the -Q.E. II- last year. It wore me out, and I don't want to see it a second time."

  "I'm sorry, Dad. I shouldn't've mentioned it."

  "I'm the one who should apologize. I shouldn't've called Chief Sheldon, not without checking with you first."

  "Don't worry about me, Frank. I'm fine now, and I appreciate you getting Aileen the bicycle. I'll just say goodbye to Helen, and then I'd better get back and see about renting those empty apartments."

  As Hoke drove back to the El Pelicano Arms, he turned over in his mind the information he had picked up. He had discovered that Frank wasn't married to Helen, which was something he wouldn't have thought possible a few years back; and he had been offered a job that he would have leaped at if it had been offered to him six months ago. But he couldn't take it now. If he did, he could still reside on the island, but he would be spending most of his time investigating knifings and shootings in Riviera Beach-- that is, when he wasn't waiting around in the Palm Beach County courthouse to appear as a witness. He had liked Chief Sheldon; they had similar backgrounds
in police work, and Hoke knew exactly how Sheldon's mind worked. But Hoke had almost insuperable problems just trying to manage a place like the El Pelicano Arms.

  The rents were too high, for one thing. And he needed a coin-operated washer and dryer for the residents to use, because it was a two-block walk to the laundromat. Both of the Alabama couples had complained about that. The ice machine in the lobby was broken, and he couldn't get a man to come out until next Tuesday, if then. He would have to find a new service, one that would come out on weekends. But worst of all, he was under the old man's thumb again.

  When he'd been married to Patsy, and still on the Riviera Police Department, he and Patsy used to have dinner with the old man every damned Sunday, and now he would be expected to spend every Sunday afternoon with Frank again. There was no way out of it. Frank would expect it, and no excuse would be acceptable.

  There was a blue Camaro with Dade County plates parked in Hoke's manager's slot at the El Pelicano Arms. Hoke pulled in behind the car and blocked it so it could not back out. Then he walked over to the mall and used the pay telephone to call the towing service. After the tow truck had showed up and towed the Camaro away--it would cost the Camaro owner sixty dollars to redeem his car--Hoke felt good for the first time that day.

  CHAPTER 10

  Unlike Troy Louden, Stanley Sinkiewicz was a homeowner with responsibilities. He couldn't just pick up and leave in the middle of the night, and he would never have gone down to Miami by himself to spend money on an expensive hotel room. But Troy had invited him to stay with him, and he wouldn't be all alone down there in the city. He wanted to get away from the Terraces for a while, even if it was only for a week or so, to let "the incident," as he now thought of it, blow over. He wouldn't get in Troy's way, and he wouldn't wear out his welcome down there. From all accounts, Miami was a dangerous place, but nothing would happen to him if he was down there with Troy and that Bajan fella.