The Way We Die Now (15 page)

Warren, Junior, was in a quilted box in the closet alcove, and Elena pulled the box out so Hoke could take a good look at him. The boy was wearing a Pamper, but nothing else. He moved his thin arms feebly within the box. His tiny legs had atrophied. He had thick, curly red hair, bulging green eyes, and a protruding forehead. The head was much too large for his short body, and he was obviously retarded. His mouth was full of overlapping teeth, and the harsh sounds he made in his throat resembled the caw of an aging crow. The retarded child, Hoke figured, undoubtedly explained the serious drinking and the disappearance of Sergeant Osborne. As Hoke looked at the boy, he wanted a drink himself.

Elena took a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke out of her refrigerator, filled a baby bottle, added a nipple to it, and gave the bottle to Warren, Junior. She poured two glasses of Diet Coke and joined Hoke at the table. Hoke gave her one of his roast beef sandwiches, and she brought two plates to the table from the rack beside the sink. She cut her sandwich in half and then cut up one of the halves into small squares. She fed the bite-size pieces to Warren, who chewed greedily and sucked at the nippled bottle between bites. Hoke took her knife and cut his sandwich into bitesize chunks as well, and gummed them as well as he could before swallowing. When Elena finished feeding Warren, she sat across from Hoke and began to eat her own half sandwich. Hoke got up from the table. With his foot, he pushed the box containing Warren back into the alcove out of sight. He was no longer hungry, and looking at this deformed kid gave him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"How long will he live? Warren, I mean?"

Elena shrugged. "I don't know. We are all children of God, and God decides how long we will live."

"That's one way of looking at it. If I don't get a job with Mr. Bock tomorrow, I'll be going back to Miami. If you want me to, I can find out where your husband went. I don't think he'll come back to you, but there're ways to make him send you child support."

"No." She shook her head and smiled. "When Warren finds a job, he will send for me." She crossed herself. "But sometimes, I think, maybe he is dead."

"He isn't dead, Elena. When he dies, you'll be told, and the government'll give you a VA pension and an American flag to hang on the wall beside his picture. I can find him easily enough, if you want me to."

"You are a good man, I think. I change Warren's Pamper, then we fuck, okay?"

Hoke went outside to roll and smoke another cigarette while Elena changed the helpless boy. He had never changed the diapers on his daughters (there had been no Pampers then) and had always gone out into the yard when his wife changed them. He didn't mind changing Pepe, however, so he thought he had gotten over this hang-up. He could not understand why, but he knew he wouldn't be able to watch Elena change her three-year-old without getting sick.

Hoke's initial problem had been solved, however. If Tiny Bock asked him how he knew about the job opening for crew chief, he could tell him that a Mexican at the pepper tree had told him about it, and also Mr. Sileo. He would talk to Bock at the farmers' market, and then, when he was turned down, as he would surely be, he could return to Miami. On the other hand, if Bock and his foreman came to the market every morning, it might be possible to visit Bock's farm and look around while they were at the market. That would mean staying over another day or two, but then he could at least tell Brownley that he had nosed around and found nothing.

Elena opened the door, and Hoke took one more drag before stripping his cigarette and going back inside. Elena had taken off her elastic top and denim skirt and was removing her panties and bra when Hoke sat at the little table to finish his Diet Coke. Without her high heels she was much shorter--about four-nine--and despite her small breasts, she had long dark brown nipples. Her short legs were noticeably bowed. She had an abundance of pubic hair; but it hung straight down, like a lamp fringe, and there wasn't a single kinky hair. Hoke had never seen straight pubic hair before, and he found it exotic but not erotic. That was all he needed, he thought, a case of AIDS to take back to Miami with him.

Hoke took out Adam Jinks's wallet, removed the fivedollar bill Mr. Sileo had given him and put it on the table. He weighted it with the catsup bottle so the breeze from the air-conditioner wouldn't blow it away.

"I'd like to fuck you, Elena," Hoke said, "but I'm a married man. I've got a sick wife up in Lake City. Are you a Catholic?"

She nodded.

"Then you understand why I can't make love to you. But I'll give you this five if you let me take a shower in your bathroom and sleep here tonight. This table pushes up and the cushions make into a bed, right?"

She nodded again. "But bed is too short for you. You take back bed, and I'll sleep here." She went to the alcove closet and pulled out a gray-and-white seersucker wrapper. "You go ahead. Shower. I'll stay up and watch TV." She slipped into the wrapper and tied the sash into a bow. "No hot water in shower, but it's not too cold."

Hoke took off his shirt and went into the bathroom. The zinc-lined bathroom was cramped, and so was the narrow shower, and the water came out in a drizzling trickle. There was a brown bar of Fels Naptha soap in the dish, and he soaped his body and his hair. Elena opened the door and came in.

"You want a slow hand job in shower? Hand job not the same as adultery."

"No, thanks, Elena. If I wanted a hand job, I could do it myself. Women don't know how to do it right anyway."

"I know how. You like?"

"No, but thanks anyway."

The lukewarm water felt good on his body, and Hoke took his time rinsing away the thick suds. After drying with Elena's clean pink bath towel, Hoke took his clothes to the bedroom and lay down on top of the bed. There was a sheet on the bed but no covers. None was needed. The chilly air from the air-conditioner didn't reach this far back in the trailer, and he was soon perspiring again. Hoke set his mental alarm for 4:oo A.M. and fell asleep immediately on the rubber mattress.

Hoke awoke with a start in the dark, feeling uneasy, not knowing where he was for a moment, and then he sat up and dressed. As he pulled on his white socks, he regretted not washing them when he showered. The toes were sticky, and they were still stiff with sweat. The living room-kitchen overhead light was on, and Elena got up from the couch when she heard Hoke open the sliding door to the bathroom. When Hoke came out of the bathroom, she was stirring a pot of oatmeal on the tiny twoburner stove. She put two slices of white bread into the toaster.

"What time is it?"

"Four-fifteen," she said. "It's too early to get up."

"I've got to find the farmers' market, and I'm not sure where it is."

"In the big lot behind Golden Packinghouse. You'll see all the lights."

Hoke rearranged the seats in the eating nook, pulled down the Samsonite tabletop, and locked it in place. He had slept well, but he was still sleepy. He rolled a cigarette. "Aren't you going to make coffee?"

"No coffee." She poured a glass of Diet Coke and brought it to the table. She then served Hoke a bowl of oatmeal and handed him a spoon. Apparently she was out of milk as well. Hoke crumbled his toast into the hot oatmeal. Cawing sounds came from the closet, and Elena gave Warren a nippled bottle of Diet Coke. The caws stopped, and she filled a smaller bowl with oatmeal for Warren and placed it on the counter to cool. She sat across from Hoke and watched him eat.

"You want to shave? I'll boil some hot water for you."

"No. Yes, I want to shave, but I'm trying to see how I'll look with a beard. Aren't you going to eat anything?"

"Too early for me. I'm going back to bed."

"I'm sorry I took your bed, but there was room enough if you wanted to sleep with me."

"You said you no like me."

"I didn't say that. I said I didn't want to fuck you, that's all, and I explained why."

She shrugged and made a face.

"Have you got a social worker? D'you take Warren to a clinic for checkups?"

"Sometimes. You want more oatmeal? Toast?"

"No, but thanks for breakfast."

Elena got up from the table and picked up the small bowl of oatmeal and a teaspoon. Hoke didn't want to watch Elena feed Warren or even take a final look at the kid in his box. He patted Elena on the head, said good-bye, and left the trailer. There was a buzzer on a post that opened the gate from inside. Hoke pressed it and walked down the street. The city was dark, except for a brightly lighted area down by the tracks. Hoke headed for the lighted area.

The farmers' market was well lighted, and there was a great deal of activity in the large lot. Stalls were set up, and there were overhead strings of light bulbs crisscrossing the area. The larger hotels and restaurants from Naples, Fort Myers, and Marco Island sent cooks to buy produce in the market, and small farmers had regular booths. The buyers prodded and squeezed produce, and there were excellent bargains. Cantaloupes that sold for $1.39 apiece in supermarkets could be purchased here for thirty-five cents apiece. There were lugs of lettuce, tomatoes, turnips, and other vegetables that sold for only a fraction of the prices they sold for in supermarkets, Uoke noticed. Eight cents' worth of broccoli could be transformed by a Naples -nouvelle- chef into a $5.95 side dish. An old lady was selling doughnuts and coffee in a booth, and Hoke bought a twenty-fivecent Styrofoam cup of coffee. Carrying his cup, he strolled slowly through the lot, looking for Mr. Sileo. He found him in the parking lot. Mr. Sileo was hefting a fifty-pound sack of potatoes into the back of his Impala station wagon. The back was already loaded with vegetables. There was a dead naked child on the passenger side of the front seat. Startled, Hoke took a closer look and recognized that the body was the carcass of a dressed lamb.

"Good morning, Mr. Sileo."

"You ready for a good day's work?"

"I'm always ready to work, Mr. Sileo. But I haven't had a chance to talk to Mr. Bock yet. You told me you'd point him out."

"Anyone here could do that."

"There's a lot of people here. I didn't expect to see so many."

"If you get here early, you get the best shit. And if you come late, you get what's left a hell of a lot cheaper. See that fucker sleeping in the back of the Ford pickup?" Sileo pointed. "He drives all the way down here from Sarasota once a week, waits until nine or ten, and then loads up on what's left at rock-bottom prices. He has his own little grocery store up there in Sarasota, and he cleans up. I could buy the same way, 'cause I'm right here in town, but I'd rather be successful selling good food at reasonable prices."

"Sure," Hoke said, remembering that he had worked for less than a dollar an hour for this cheap Levantine bastard. "How do I find Mr. Bock?"

"He's in a tent on the other side near the coffee stall. He'll have a half dozen Haitians with him probably. I'll wait here for you, and you can ride back to the cafeteria with me."

"Don't wait. If Bock doesn't hire me, I'll work for someone else. I can't work for ten bucks a day."

"I'll pay you twelve."

"Give Marilyn my love."

Hoke got another cup of coffee before he went to the tent that the coffee lady pointed out as Mr. Bock's. Hoke realized that he was acting much too arrogantly for a man who was supposed to be a mendicant fruit tramp. He looked the part, but he still didn't feel like a migrant worker. After all, he was a detective-sergeant earning thirty-six thousand dollars a year. The farmers here were living marginally, and except, perhaps, for a few chefs from the better hotels in Naples and Marco Island, who were buying produce, Hoke probably had a higher annual income than anyone else in Immokalee.

The tent was a pyramidal army surplus top. All four sides were rolled up to waist level. Tiny Bock sat inside at a card table on a folding metal chair. He had a clipboard and a stack of vouchers on the table, the latter weighted down with a small chunk of brain coral. Bock wore a Red Man gimme cap, a blue work shirt with the sleeves cut off at the shoulders, creaseless corduroy trousers, and lace-up work shoes. His bare arms were muscular, and there was a blue rose tattooed on his left wrist. The forefinger of his left hand was missing down to the second knuckle. His thick eyebrows were gray and black and formed an almost straight line above his dark brown eyes. His tanned face was crisscrossed with hundreds of tiny fine lines. There was a sun cancer the size of a half-dollar on his right cheek, bordered by a quarter-inch hedge of gray stubble. He had a slight paunch, but it looked hard. He was probably a few years older than he looked, but he could pass for fifty-five.

Hoke rapped the doorway post but didn't enter the tent. "Mr. Bock?"

"The load's been sold," Bock said, without looking up.

"I'm not buying, sir. I'm looking for work, and I was told you needed a crew chief."

"Who told you that?" Bock looked at Hoke but raised his eyes without lifting his head.

"Mr. Sileo told me, down at the Cafeteria. I was a crew chief down in the Redland, working tomatoes."

"Why'd you leave? There's plenty of tomatoes left down there in South Dade."

"I was fired. I got into a little fight in Florida City."

"What happened to your teeth?"

"I had a set, but they were lost during the fight. When I got out of jail, I went back to the bar, but nobody'd seen them. Somebody probably found and pawned 'em, I guess."

"Follow me."

When he got to his feet, Bock was a much bigger man than Hoke had thought he was when he had been sitting. His thighs were so large they stretched his corduroys tightly, and Hoke figured that he was at least two hundred and forty pounds. Hoke followed Bock to the far edge of the lot, where five black men were unloading a semitrailer of watermelons and loading them onto another trailer. The two trailers were about fifteen or twenty feet apart. There was a man on each truck, and three men were on the ground passing the melons. The men were talking in Creole, and one man was laughing. But as Bock and Hoke approached, they fell silent. The pace of the work did not speed up, however.