New Hope for the Dead (20 page)

“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.

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 cracked 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.”

Hoke grinned. “I thought as much. I also suspect that you knew she was dead because you didn’t pull the plug on her air conditioner the last couple of days. But it makes no difference to me, Eddie. Mrs. Feistinger had a long life.”

“She was eighty-four, she told me once. But she probably took off a few years. Either that, or she added on a few. Sometimes the old ladies like to add on a few so you’ll say they don’t look that old.”

“You’ve seen your share come and go, Eddie.”

“I’ve seen a few all right. I’ll type up a little notice and put it on the bulletin board tomorrow.”

“Cheers, Eddie. For Mrs. Feistinger.”

“For Mrs. Feistinger.”

Hoke went into the manager’s office and typed his report for Mr. Bennett, adding that he had told Mr. Kaplan to keep the old lady’s ring for the funeral expenses. There were two or three deaths a month at the retirement hotel, and Mr. Bennett and Kaplan always took care of the paperwork. Deaths weren’t Hoke’s responsibility, but he kept a carbon of his report to cover himself.

It was after 3
A.M.
before Hoke could fall asleep. On the other hand, he had thought, when he first went to bed, that he wouldn’t be able to sleep at all.

Hoke awoke groggily at 6
A.M.
, heated water on the hot plate for instant coffee, put his teeth in, and shaved in the bathroom. He had learned already that if he didn’t get to
the bathroom first in the morning, the girls spent an unconscionable length of time in there. They also managed, somehow, to use every dry towel, and they consumed an unfathomable amount of toilet paper.

When Hoke was dressed, he filled two cups with strong instant coffee and walked down the corridor to Ellita’s room. He banged the door twice with his knee and called out to her. Ellita, wearing her nightgown and a pink quilted robe, opened the door. She had on her large silver circle earrings; she actually does sleep in them, he thought.

“Sorry to wake you so early, but I wanted to talk to you.”

“I was awake, but I didn’t want to get out of bed yet.” She lifted the cup in a toast. “This is exactly what I needed. Come on in.”

Hoke sat in the straight chair, and Ellita sat on the edge of her unmade bed. She had turned off the air conditioner, and the odor of her Shalimar and musk was strong in the small room, but not unpleasantly so; maybe he was getting used to it.

“No use dragging it out,” Hoke said, “so I’ll get right to the point. We’ve both got a problem, but I think we can work it out together. I’ve been through some of this before, and you haven’t, but in the next few months some strange things will happen to you. You’ll start getting sick in the mornings, and later on, when the baby starts growing inside you, it’ll take over your entire body. You’ll get these periods of extreme lassitude, and your ti—your breasts, I mean, will hurt. You’ll still be able to work okay, right up until the eighth month, but there’ll be days when you’ll have to force yourself to do anything. You’ll also have to see a doctor at least twice a month. You’ll have to give up spicy foods, and coffee, too. Then, when the baby comes, you’ll either have to take an extended leave without pay, or else have someone take care of it when you go back to work.”

“I know all this, Hoke. And I’m sure that my mother will—”

“Your mother’ll help some, yes. But with your father’s attitude, her help will be limited at best. So let me finish. What I thought was this: When I get a house in Miami, it’ll be easier to get a three-bedroom than a two-bedroom, so why don’t you move in with me and the girls?”

“I still have to pay the rent for my parents’ house, Hoke—”

“I know. You told me that already. But money won’t be a problem, or not so big a problem as it is now. I’ll have my entire pay, now that I don’t have to pay half of it for child support. And what I’m gonna do, I’m going to go to one of these credit places where they consolidate all your debts and then you pay it off at so much a month with just one payment. In a few months, we’ll be in good shape financially. Sue Ellen’ll be working, and you can just pay a small portion of the expenses if you want—say half the Florida Power bill, or something like that.”

“I’ve got quite a bit of money saved, Hoke.”

“You won’t have to touch your savings. You’ll need your money for the baby. We can drive to work together, and if we need another car during the day, we’ll get one from the motor pool.”

“It takes an hour to get a pool car, sometimes longer than that.”

“We’re partners, and we’ll be together anyway. So we’ll still be able to use one car most of the time. The point is, I need you as much as you need me. The girls like you, and you can help me out with them. I know you’ve never lived alone before, and you shouldn’t be all alone while you’re pregnant. And certainly not after the baby’s born. The girls can watch the baby, and it’ll be good for them to learn what it’s like.”

“It doesn’t seem right to move in on you, Hoke. I love the girls, but—”

“They love you, too, Ellita. You’re a role model for them. We’re scheduled to go to the range next month, and I thought maybe we’d take the girls along and you could
teach ’em how to shoot a pistol. I’m too impatient to teach ’em, I know.”

“I don’t have to move in on you to teach them how to shoot—”

“Don’t say move in
on
, Ellita, say move in
with
us. We’ll be like a kind of family. You can have the big bedroom, the master bedroom, all to yourself. We’ll get your bedroom furniture, and that way there’ll plenty of room for you and the baby when it comes.”

“When
he
comes.” Ellita smiled.

Hoke grinned. “He or she, it doesn’t make any difference. Girls are all right, too. My girls have been spoiled rotten by their mother, but they’ll get straightened around gradually. Right now, they’re still confused about things. But once they start working, they’ll change their attitudes in a hurry.”

“The girls are fine now, Hoke.” Ellita finished her coffee. “I’m touched, Hoke, I really am. And I guess you can see how half-hearted my protests are. Last night I was just sitting here in this crummy little room, and it got to me. I kept thinking, this is the way it’s gonna be from now on. Alone every night, and on long weekends, too. I’m pretty tough, you know that by now, but I’m not ready to live by myself. Not yet, anyway, even if I had a nice furnished apartment. So I don’t have to think about it, Hoke. I’m ready to move when you are.” Ellita got up, and Hoke hugged her awkwardly. He kissed her on the cheek, then took her cup.

“I’m glad, Ellita. We move on Friday. The girls will stay in the hotel today, and I’ll give ’em lunch money. After you’re dressed, come down for more coffee. There’re still a few bagels left, too.”

Hoke opened the door. “I’ll let you tell the girls you’re going to live with us. They’ll be as pleased as I am.”

Hoke, Bill and Ellita read their files and took notes with very little small talk until nine-thirty. Hoke was called to
the phone by the duty officer. There were six cardboard boxes to be picked up at the Greyhound baggage office.

“How late are you open?” Hoke asked the clerk.

“Till six.”

These boxes were the things Patsy had shipped to the girls from Vero Beach. Hoke had forgotten all about them, but he was glad they had arrived at the station. Now he had a legitimate excuse to get out of the office. Of course, he didn’t need to have a reason to come and go as he pleased (after all, he was in charge), but Henderson would rather do almost anything than paperwork and usually wanted to come along.

When Hoke returned to the interrogation room, Armando Que vedo was talking to Henderson and Ellita. Quevedo had shaved off his beard and was in a light-gray polyester suit, a white shirt, and a dark-blue necktie imprinted with silver pistols. He hadn’t cut his long hair, but he had tamed it with some kind of hair oil. He reminded Hoke of an M.C. at a wet T-shirt contest. For a moment, Hoke hardly recognized his fellow detective.

Quevedo flashed his teeth in a smile. “I gotta go to court today, Hoke. That’s why I’m in disguise. I was just telling Sergeant Henderson here that the lead you guys gave us on Wetzel didn’t pan out. As it turned out, we couldn’t hold him for anything. We had to let the bastard go, and he was the only suspect we had on the torchings and the Descanso Hotel fire. He was picked up downtown by a patrolman right after the hotel fire because he was carrying a can of kerosene. But you can’t charge a man with anything just because he’s got a can of kerosene. Wetzel stuck to his dumb story, and he wouldn’t change it.”

“Did he live at the Descanso?” Hoke asked.

“No. He usually lives under a tree in Bayfront Park. Wetzel claimed he bought the can of kerosene to fill his Zippo lighter. He had a Zippo filled with kerosene, so we were stuck with his story and so was he.”

“But what about Buford? Did Wetzel say anything about that?”

“When Buford was killed three years ago, Wetzel was in jail in Detroit. That checked out, so we released him. But then we drove him up to Fort Lauderdale and dumped him in Broward Country. I think we managed to scare him enough to keep him out of Dade County, anyway. But on the hotel fire and the other torchings, we’re back to square one.”

“What did you think of our boy Ray Vince?” Henderson said, broadening his metal-studded smile.

“That sonofabitch is scary, isn’t he? He probably heard something, or he wouldn’t’ve come up with Buford’s name. But when those guys get high on bang-bang, they’re liable to say anything. A lot of squeals come out of the stockade, but this one didn’t pan out, that’s all.”

“What exactly is bang-bang?” Ellita asked.

“It’s a drink the inmates make in the stockade under the barracks. They save potato peelings from the kitchen, the syrup from canned pineapple, raisins from the canteen, and then they get some yeast and brew it up in any kind of container they can get. When it ferments there’s a high alcoholic content, but I wouldn’t drink it for a million bucks. You can go blind from drinking shit like that. Pardon me, Ellita.”

“Claro
, Armando! I wouldn’t drink shit like that either.” She smiled at Que vedo.

“Maybe you and I can go out for a drink sometime—”

Ellita shook her head. “I’ll take a raincheck, Armando. I’ve got to lose some weight.”

“I thought you said you had to go to court,” Hoke said.

“You’re right.” Quevedo looked at his watch. “I gotta get to court.”

After Quevedo left, Hoke told them that he had to pick up his daughters’ baggage at the bus station and see a real-estate woman about a house.

“You want me to help you with the stuff, Hoke?” Bill said, getting up from his chair.

“No, it’s just a few cardboard boxes. You’d better stay here and take a look at the distribution. By tomorrow
sometime, I’d like to have a short list of cases we can get started on—even if it’s only one case we can all agree on.”

“I’m ready to start on Bill’s pile now,” Ellita said.

“Okay. Bill can start on yours when he’s finished. I’ll just have to get back to mine later.”

Hoke put on his jacket and left. He drove to the Fina station a block away from the police department where he always traded and used the phone in the office while the manager filled his tank and checked under the hood. Hoke called the morgue and asked for Doc Evans.

“What made you think the Hickey kid had piles, Hoke?” Doc Evans said when he answered the phone.

“The lab report. There were some tinfoil balls in the ashtray by his bed, and they checked out as Nembutal suppositories. Nembutal can kill a man, can’t it?”

“If you take enough of it, yes. But Hickey only had one, or maybe two, gobs up his ass. There was enough to put him to sleep, but it didn’t kill him. He died from too much heroin, Hoke.”

“Did he have piles?”

“No. He had diverticulitis, but no piles. He was a little young to have diverticulitis already, but it wasn’t bad enough to bother him. About forty percent of us over forty have got diverticulitis, but most of us don’t even know it. I’ve got it myself, but it doesn’t bother me because I don’t eat tomatoes, cucumbers, or anything with little seeds. You avoid little seeds, you won’t have a problem.”

“If Hickey didn’t have piles, why would he use Nembutal suppositories?”

Doc Evans laughed. “Maybe he wanted to get high and have a good night’s sleep at the same time. Nobody knows how a junkie’s mind works, Hoke, but they’ll try damned near anything. I can remember, a few years back, when they were all smoking banana skins. They’d bake the skins in the oven, scrape off the inside, and roll cigarettes. There was no dope in the bananas at all, but they got high anyway.”

“I remember that.”

“If you want a nice sleepy high, Hoke, mix paregoric with some pot. Then when it dries, you’ve got a smoke that’ll make you high and sleepy at the same time. It’s a lot cheaper than heroin and Nembutal. I don’t know what else to tell you, Hoke. Do you need the autopsy report right away?”

“No. Not right away.”

“In that case, you’ll have to wait three or four days before we can get it typed. We’re a little swamped over here right now.”

“That’s okay. I can wait.”

“Fine. Why don’t we have lunch?”

“I can’t today, but I’ll call you. In the meantime I just have one more question, Doc. My daughter’s got a strip of gold glued to her bottom teeth. The orthodonist put it on too tight, and I can’t get it off. Is there some kind of solvent I can get to remove it?”

“Jesus Christ, Hoke! A solvent strong enough to dissolve gold would burn holes in her gums. When we have lunch, just bring your daughter by the morgue, and I’ll take it off for you. After twenty years in pathology, I could make a fortune by repairing the iatrogenic work done here in Miami.”

“What kind of work?”

“I’m busy, Hoke. Remind me, when we go to lunch, and I’ll tell you more than you want to know. It’s one of my pet peeves.”

“Thanks, Doc. I’ll call you soon.”

“See that you do, or I’ll call you.” Doc Evans hung up.

Hoke drove to the Greyhound station, identified himself, and picked up six cardboard boxes that he loaded into the back seat of his car. The boxes were sealed with gray plastic tape and were heavier than he had expected. Possessions. The six boxes containing his daughters’ worldly possessions dissolved any lingering doubts, if he had ever
had any, that their move was only temporary. There was no disputing it; Sue Ellen would be with him for two more years, and Aileen for four. At least when they were eighteen he could send them out into the world legally and get them off his hands. But in the next two and four years it was still his responsibility to prepare them in some way to earn their livings. He had never really thought about it before, but the responsibilities of fatherhood were mind-boggling or, to use the current term, seismic.

When he got to Coral Gables, Hoke found an unmetered parking space on Murcia and walked to the International Bank of Coral Gables. He showed his shield to the uniformed bank guard, a frail, white-haired man who had a long-barreled .357 magnum in a low-slung leather holster. Hoke told the old man he would like to talk to the bank officer who handled old accounts and made loans.

“That could be either Mr. Waterman or Mr. Llhosa-Garcia.”

“I think I’d rather talk to Llhosa-Garcia.”

“That’s him back there.” The guard pointed.