Sideswipe (19 page)

James shrugged. "I don't care where I sleep." He took Dale's overnighter into the bedroom, and she followed him in. When James came out again, she closed the door and stayed in the bedroom.

"Take your jacket off, Pop," Troy said. "We've got some errands to run this afternoon, so you might as well be comfortable."

Stanley had put on his suit jacket after getting out of his car, but he shucked out of it now and removed his tie. Troy took them and handed everything to James.

"Hang these up for Pop, James. Okay, old-timer, let's get going."

"Where to?"

"James." Troy snapped his fingers. "Have you got any more money?"

"The five I gave you was my last cent."

"Well, it doesn't make any difference, I guess, now that Pop's here." He put a hand on the old man's thin shoulder. "Pop, you'd better give James twenty bucks or so, to go to the store. Talk to Dale, James, before you go, and find out what she needs. She can cook dinner for us. We should be back around six or six-thirty."

"I don't know where you're going, Troy, but I'd like to go along," James said as he accepted two ten-dollar bills from Stanley.

"And I'd like to take you, too, James, but Pop and me've got some business to discuss. Ask Dale if she knows how to cook pork chops."

Troy crossed to the bedroom door and rapped on it. "Dale, honey." The door opened, and Troy planted a long kiss on the woman's ruined mouth. "Pop and me are going out for a while. James'll get you what you need, and you can fix dinner for us. All right, sweetheart?"

"Yes, sir, Mr. Louden."

"There's a good girl." He patted her exquisite buttocks.

Stanley followed Troy down the stairs. Troy wanted to drive, so Stanley handed over the keys to his Honda.

CHAPTER 11

At seven-thirty that Sunday evening, Hoke and Aileen ate one roast beef sandwich apiece and decided to save the other two for Monday's lunch. Hoke wasn't hungry, and neither was Aileen, but they chewed methodically through the sandwiches, washing them down with tall glasses of iced tea. Aileen wanted something sweet afterwards, and Hoke told her to eat one of the mangoes, suggesting that she either eat it over the kitchen sink or take it into the shower--preferably the latter--because it was so ripe.

Aileen took the mango into the bathroom, closed the door, and moments later the shower was running full force. Hoke cleared the table, rinsed the plates and glasses, and put them on the sideboard. Because the water was running at the sink and in the bathroom, he didn't hear the first knock, but when he turned off the faucet, he heard a very loud pounding at the front door. Hoke opened the door, trying to hold back his rage. There was no need for anyone to bang so hard. Louis Farnsworth, the salad man at the Sheraton Hotel, was at the door. Hoke would have said something sharp to him, but there was a woman standing there too.

Farnsworth was a thin man with a pot belly. He wore his white pants above the pot, and it looked as if he had a bowling ball below his belt. His hair was gray and thinning, and he had a sour expression on his lined face. The young woman behind Farnsworth was shorter than he was, but she outweighed him by sixty or seventy pounds. Her face was round, and her cheeks were so fleshy they sagged almost to her lips. Her puckered mouth was a small round 0, and she stood there blinking pale blue eyes. She--or someone--had plucked away most of her eyebrows. She had given herself--or someone had--a home permanent that didn't take, and her brownish hair had frizzed up all over her head. A port-wine-colored birthmark covered most of the left side of her face, including the left eyelid. Her heavy breasts inside her white T-shirt sagged nearly to her waist, and she wore a waitress's brown mini-skirt with a skimpy red apron.

"You didn't have to break the door down," Hoke said.

"I'm sorry," Farnsworth said. "I guess you didn't hear me knock the first time. I knew you was in there because I could hear the water running."

"Okay--what can I do for you, Mr. Farnsworth?"

"I need me another key. This here's Dolly Turner. She's just come down from Yeehaw Junction, and she's got herself a dishwashing job at the hotel. Until she gets a couple of paychecks and can rent her own place, she's gonna bunk in with me. So I need us another key."

"Why can't you both use the same key?"

"We're on different shifts, that's why. What's the big problem about a second key?"

"No problem." Hoke went into the kitchen and opened the drawer where he kept his books and the extra keys. "You're 204, right?"

When Farnsworth didn't reply, Hoke brought him the extra key with the apartment number written on an attached cardboard tag. "That'll be a buck-fifty deposit," Hoke said. "When you return the key, you get the buckfifty back."

"I didn't pay no deposit on my key," Farnsworth protested.

"That's because you paid a one-month security deposit rent, along with your first month's rent. If you lose your key, I can take it out of that. But each extra key's a buckfifty deposit."

Dolly Turner looked sideways at Farnsworth. He took out a blue-green package of Bugler and some white papers, and rolled an economical cigarette. Dolly had a black wool Peruvian handbag with a white embroidered llama on one side. She rummaged in the interior, which was filled with odds and ends, including a flannel nightgown, and managed to find $1.38 in change.

"That's twelve cents short," Hoke said, after counting the pennies.

She glanced over at Farnsworth again, who took a long drag on his thin cigarette, and then watched black ashes flutter to the floor.

"That's all I got on me," Dolly said, in a tiny voice, "but I'm supposed to get paid next Saturday, if I work out all right."

"Okay. I'll trust you for the rest. But we don't make any profit on lost keys. It costs a buck-fifty to have one made."

Aileen, wrapped in a bath towel, came out of the bathroom, noticed the couple in the doorway, and quickly dodged back inside. Farnsworth and Dolly Turner left, and a few minutes later, Aileen, in jeans and a T-shirt, came out of the bathroom.

"Who was that with Mr. Farnsworth, Daddy?"

"Dolly Turner. She's going to be living with him until she's saved up enough money to rent her own place. She just got a job at the Sheraton, and he was good enough to take her in."

"But they aren't married. Isn't it against the law to rent to an unmarried couple?"

"They aren't exactly a couple. He's renting the place, not her, so she's merely his guest."

"But isn't it against the law for two people to sleep together if they aren't married?"

"No. They can sleep together. There's no law against that. But fornication between them is against the law. In fact, the missionary position is the only position allowed by law in Florida, and even then you have to be married. But it's a law that's rarely enforced."

"What's the missionary position?"

"That's when the woman lies on her back, and the man gets on top."

Aileen giggled. "That ain't the only way they do it up in Vero Beach."

"-Isn't-, you mean, or anywhere else. But that's the Florida law. It just isn't enforced, that's all."

"If they did, it would sure spoil things in the parking lot at Beach High." Aileen laced up her running shoes and went to the door. "I'm gonna go out for a while and walk off that sandwich and mango."

"Aren't you going to ride your bike?" Aileen's new bicycle was wedged between her Bahama bed and the wall.

"I'm just gonna walk around the mall. But tomorrow I'm gonna clean out that old office downstairs and keep it down there. The apartment's too crowded, and if I leave it outside somebody'll steal it, chain and all."

"That's a good project for you. The dumpster people come on Tuesday, so I'll help you tomorrow. Most of the stuff in there is junk anyway. If we clean it up, maybe we can use it as an office again."

After Aileen left, Hoke was restless. He slapped his chest with both hands, and then he slapped his front pockets. He shook his head when he realized that he was feeling for his cigarettes, although he had no real desire to smoke one. He hadn't had a cigarette since the first day of his mid-life crisis, and he didn't really want one now, except that was what he had always done when he was bored or restless-- smoke a cigarette. To give his hands something to do he went into the kitchen and cleaned the burners with a wet Brillo pad. As the foam formed between his fingers he recalled a description of eating pussy he had read in a novel last year. The description had been exaggerated, but the fact that he was thinking about pussy again was a good sign. He would have to do something about that, as soon as he got things organized around the El Pelicano. The best place for pickups used to be the Sand-Shell Villas, in its small dark bar in Singer Island Shores. A lot of New York secretaries, usually in pairs, took a villa on the beach during the off-season at the attractive package rates, which included round-trip fare from Kennedy. They were easier to pick up with two guys, but now that he had his own apartment, he could probably break up a pair and bring one home for the night--except for Aileen. He would have to do something about Aileen soon. If she absolutely refused to go out to her mother in L.A., he would have to persuade her to go back to Green Lakes. After all, Ellita could use Aileen's help as well as her mother's when the baby came. But that was still a few weeks away. He wanted Aileen out of his apartment sooner than that--

There was a light tapping on the door. Hoke washed his hands at the sink and dried them on a dish towel as he crossed to the door to open it. Dolly Turner, clutching her wool handbag, blinked vacantly at him a few times, then took two hesitant steps inside as Hoke backed away from the door. She reached into her bag and handed him the extra key to 204.

"I want my deposit back."

"Leaving already? I thought you two were an ideal couple."

Dolly worked her tiny mouth in and out and shook her frizzed head. "He wanted me to do something."

"What did you expect? When Mr. Farnsworth didn't come up with the twelve cents, I figured he wasn't into altruism."

"What?"

"Kindness to strangers, with no strings attached."

"I don't mind the regular way, I expected that. But I'm not gonna do nothing that ain't natural."

"How're you going to get back to Yeehaw Junction?"

"I'm not going back. He didn't get me my job, and I'll just sleep on the beach till I get paid. It won't cost me nothing to eat in the hotel kitchen."

"You won't be able to sleep on the beach, Miss Turner. The public beach closes at ten, and the beach is patrolled at night. You'd get picked up for sure. Why don't you keep your key and go over to the mall till about ten or ten-thirty, and then come back. Tell Mr. Farnsworth you're afraid of catching AIDS--"

"What's AIDS?"

"Mr. Farnsworth knows. By ten-thirty, he'll probably be ready to settle for something rather than nothing. If not, knock on my door again. I'll be up till at least eleven, and I'll give you your deposit back and let you sleep in my car. But just for one night. Tomorrow you'll have to find someone else or make other sleeping arrangements."

"I wouldn't mind sleeping in your car right now."

"Do it my way. You should've thought of these things before you left Yeehaw Junction, but you can think about them now, sitting on the bench over at the mall."

"I had to leave. When my daddy died, I didn't have no place to stay." She began to cry.

"It's a hard world, Miss Turner, but it's not as bad as you think. You've got a job. You can eat, and you've got two places to sleep-either with Mr. Farnsworth or in the back seat of my car. And even if you do something unnatural with Mr. Farnsworth, you still won't actually have to sleep with him afterwards. He's got two Bahama beds in his apartment, just like I have, so you'll have a comfortable bed all to yourself."

"You've given me something to think about." She wiped her face with the back of her hand.

Hoke opened the door a little wider. "Good. As I said, I'll be up till at least eleven, so go over to the mall and think about your options."

"I think maybe I'd better go back down the hall and talk to Mr. Farnsworth again."

"Whatever."

Hoke closed the door behind her, wondering if he had handled the situation diplomatically. The girl was only twenty-one or -two, and he was no expert on giving advice to the lovelorn. Perhaps he should have returned her deposit, and let it go at that. But if he had, she would have ended up in the Palm Beach County Women's Detention Center without her new dishwashing job, and with the beginning of a rap sheet. He wondered what he would do if he were in Dolly's position--there was a double rap on the door--but he was a man, and would never be in Dolly's position. Hoke shook his head and picked up his car keys from the dining table. That was quick, he thought. I'll tell Dolly to keep her head down in the back of the car, even though the night patrol cars hardly ever check the apartment house parking lot. He would wake her at six, take her a cup of coffee, and she would be fine.

Dr. Ralph "Itai" Hurt was at the door. He wore a lightblue muscle shirt exposing stringy arms, swimming trunks, and canvas skivvy slippers.

"Good evening, Professor."

"Itai. Just call me Itai," he said with a half-smile. "You aren't eating dinner now, are you?"

"No, we finished a while ago."

Itai nodded. "That's what I figured. I'm a little embarrassed about this, Mr. Moseley, but I've got a strong sense of -locus parentis-, held over from when kids were still 'kids' at college until they were twenty-one. I still volunteer advice sometimes to eighteen-year-olds, and they're pretty quick to tell me it's none of my business. Now that kids are considered adults at eighteen--"

"I know. It's easier to put them in jail. I suppose you want your books back. They're over here on the table--"

"No, no, that isn't what I've come to see you about. I want to talk to you about your daughter for a moment. I've been thinking about it, and I know how young she is, so perhaps you won't think I'm out of line if I--what's the word--'rat' on her."

"We don't call them rats anymore. The new term is 'confidential informant.' What's your beef with Aileen, Professor?"

"None at all. There are, as you know, some hibiscus bushes right outside my window where I work--"

"How's the novel coming along?"

"Not bad. I got a page and a half today. Actually it's a page and a quarter, but that's because I stopped halfway through the last sentence. When I finish the sentence tomorrow it will be about a page and a half. Hemingway said that was the way to do it."

"It works that way on Incident Reports, too. Look, what's on your mind, Itai?"

"Incident Reports? Right. Well, your daughter's been vomiting behind the hibiscus bush. That's what I wanted to tell you."

"When?"

"The last time? Just a while ago. But she's also been down there throwing up after breakfast in the mornings. Is she sick? Has she said anything to you about being sick to her stomach?"

"No. She eats a lot for being so skinny. More than I do, in fact. But she seems healthy enough."

"She isn't healthy, Mr. Moseley. I suspect she's got bulimia--a form of -anorexia nervosa-. Remember that singer a few years back, Karen Carpenter? That's what she died from. She kept vomiting, sticking her finger down her throat until she lost so much weight she finally starved to death. It's fairly common at the university. Even Jane Fonda had bulimia as a girl, she said, although she managed to kick it later on."

"I don't see how Aileen could catch anything like that. She hasn't been around anyone with a disease like bulimia, or I'd've known about it. She's never complained about being too full, either. If anything, she seems hungry most of the time, like any other normal teenager."

"If you threw up everything you ate, you'd be hungry, too, Mr. Moseley. It's called an eating binge. Then they get rid of it, and they still stay thin, or get thinner. How old is Aileen now, exactly?"

"Fourteen. Almost fifteen."

"Does she menstruate?"

"I think so. I haven't noticed any of the pads and whatnot around here yet, but down in Miami, living with three females, I'd sometimes see the Carefree boxes they came in--you know, in the garbage. But I don't know for certain about Aileen."

"At fourteen, she should be. But once you develop bulimia, and stick with it, even if you've started menstruating, you'll stop again. Just like female runners stop when they get up to six miles a day. And that's what they like, you see. When they stop menstruating they consider it a good sign. Their diet's working and they're getting thinner."

"Christ, how thin does she want to get?"

"This is a psychological disease, Mr. Moseley. If they've got bulimia, they'll never believe that they're thin enough. So if that's what this is with Aileen, she needs treatment right away. I don't want to alarm you, but I thought I'd tell you what I thought. Because if I'm right, your daughter needs to see a shrink."

"Jesus Christ."

"I'll talk to her if you want me to, because I could be wrong, you know."

Hoke shook his head. "I think you may be right, Itai. I should've noticed the signs myself. She always disappears after every meal, saying she's got an errand, or she's going out for a walk--even down in Green Lakes."

"I've got some Early Times downstairs. Come down and I'll buy you a drink."

"I'd better wait for Aileen to come back."

"I know where she is. I can point her out to you from my window downstairs. After she throws up, she lies down on the bench by the parking lot. It makes you weak, you know, throwing up that way, so she always stretches out there to rest afterwards. Come on."

They went downstairs to Itai's apartment and the professor pointed through his window to Aileen. She was lying on her back on the concrete bench, with both hands clasped behind her head.

"You want to look at the vomit?" Itai suggested. "We can go outside, and I can show it to you behind the bush."

"Fuck no, I don't want to see the vomit! Where's the Early Times?"

Itai brought out the bottle and glasses, and they had two shots apiece, without water or ice.

"I feel like a bastard, Mr. Moseley. But this is pretty serious business, and if the girl doesn't get psychiatric treatment she could actually die."

"What ever happened to the brother?"

"What brother?"

"Karen Carpenter's brother."

"I don't know. But he wasn't a bad musician. I imagine he found a job playing in a cocktail lounge somewhere. But they made so much money as a couple, he might've retired. Their records still sell pretty well. You hear them on the goldie-oldie stations sometimes."

"Bulimia must be a female disease. I never heard of a man getting it, did you?"

"No way! Most men'll diet for a few days at a time, but men don't have the intestinal fortitude to starve themselves to death the way women do."

"Thanks for the drinks, Itai. I appreciate you coming to me with this--and I owe you one."

"I feel like a prick, being the informant, and I may be wrong. But it won't hurt anything to look into it."

Hoke went back to his apartment, wishing he had hit up Itai for a third drink. He made a pot of coffee instead and waited for Aileen. She returned about fifteen minutes later. He told her to pour herself a cup of coffee and to join him at the table.