Sideswipe (28 page)

The spacious apartment had two bedrooms, two baths, and an enormous walk-in dressing room. Very few of Helen's clothes were in the closet. There was a layer of dust over everything, and an anthurium, leaning at a desperate forty-five-degree angle toward the window, had drooped and died from lack of sun and water.

Hoke poured himself two ounces of Booth's gin from an opened bottle at the bar beside the television-hi-fl console. The refrigerator door was propped open with a yellow kitchen stool, and the plug had been pulled from the wall, so he drank his gin without ice. Except for Helen's ocean view, and it was an excellent one, especially from her bedroom floor-to-ceiling windows, Hoke decided that her apartment wasn't worth two hundred thousand--in fact, -no- apartment was. After the residents of the Supermare looked at their view in the morning, what did they do with the rest of their day?

Frank was wise to go to the hardware store every day, Hoke concluded as he unlocked the chain from Aileen's bicycle down in the lobby. Of course, Frank had little or nothing to do with running the store any longer. Mrs. Renshaw now ran every aspect of the business. But Frank had his private office in the back, and he was on the telephone a great deal. There was big responsibility in handling a fortune. Occasionally, when Frank left his office, to go to the bank or to see his lawyer, he would wait on a customer--just to keep his hand in. But at least he had a place to go in the mornings.

What did he, Hoke, have now, now that he had decided to leave the police department? In Miami, except for his job and his two daughters, his life had turned to shit--a big -nada-. But when they began to overload him and crap on him in the department, too, his unconscious mind must have rebelled against the work as well. Now his two daughters were almost gone, too, or soon would be.

Hoke was feeling so sorry for himself that he was almost splattered across the pavement by a white Mercury convertible as he allowed his bike to wobble into the middle of the lane on Ocean Boulevard. Before reaching the mall parking lot, Hoke dismounted and pushed his bike for the rest of the way to the El Pelicano. He locked the bicycle in the small downstairs office, deciding to clean out the cluttered room some other time.

The door to Hoke's apartment was ajar. He knew that he had locked it when he left, so he stood to one side of the door and kicked it open with his foot. Major Willie Brownley, the M.P.D. Homicide Chief, Hoke's boss, was sitting at the dining table playing Klondike with Hoke's deck of cards. There was a steaming cup of coffee in front of him on the table, and he was smoking a cigar. He looked up at Hoke and tapped some ashes into the saucer that held the cup.

"I understand you're managing this apartment house now," Brownley said as he counted off three cards and looked at a three of hearts. The chief was wearing a Miami Dolphins No. 12 T-shirt, with "Free Mercury Morris" in white cutout letters across the chest. Hoke had rarely seen the major out of uniform, and it looked strange to see this relaxed black man sitting at his dining table.

"I--I'm trying to, Willie," Hoke said, at last. "How'd you get in here?"

"With my passkey. I hung around downstairs for a while, waiting for you, but people kept looking at me funny, as if they'd never seen a black man before. So I decided to wait up here in your apartment. If I were you, Hoke, I'd put a bolt lock on the door--especially if you're going to be fucking off somewhere instead of staying here to rent out your apartments."

"I had some other business to attend to."

"You know, the ten of diamonds and the four of clubs are missing from this deck, and I don't think you're playing with a full deck either. I lost two games before I found out." The major gathered the cards together and shuffled them. Willie Brownley's face was the color of an eggplant, and the corners of his mouth dropped sharply. His gray kinky hair was clipped short, with a razor-blade part on the left side. The yellowish whites of his eyes made him look jaundiced.

"Sit down," Brownley said, putting the cards down and indicating a chair with his left hand. "Don't make me look up at you, you sneaky bastard."

"Who's sneaky?" Hoke sat across from the chief. "You broke into my apartment."

"You and Bill Henderson aren't half as smart as you think you are, Hoke. I signed your emergency leave without pay because I believed him when he told me your father was dying. But just because I believed him at the time didn't mean that I wouldn't check it out later. And I did. Your daddy told me on the phone that he was fine, that you seemed to be your old self again, and that it was nice to have you home.

"Then I asked my secretary to call Ellita. Ellita, of course, gave Rosalie a full report and told her that you were under a doctor's care up here in Singer Island. Then I braced Bill Henderson, and he told me what really happened. As a reward for Bill's disloyalty I gave him all of your unprocessed homicide cases to work on--in addition to his other duties, of course. That should keep him so busy for a while that he won't be able to cover up anything else on me for a few weeks. While I pondered various disciplinary measures, if any, I wondered why you hadn't come to me with your problems, even if they were imaginary problems. Surely, by now, I thought, Hoke trusts me to do the right thing. Hoke"--Brownley shook his head and tapped his chest with his right palm--"it hurts me right here to have my trust in you violated."

Hoke cleared his throat. "I can't explain myself, Willie. But I wasn't trying to bypass you, or anything like that. I was suddenly overwhelmed, that's all, and sort of blacked out. What I needed, I guess, was a rest. I'd been pushing hard, and I--"

"Spare me the bullshit, Hoke. I had a call from Mike Sheldon."

"Who?"

"Mike Sheldon. The Riviera Beach police chief. Are you going to pretend you haven't talked with him?"

"Oh, sure, Chief Sheldon. I met him at my father's house. He seems like a nice guy. Used to be a homicide detective up in New Jersey. What's wrong with that?"

"He called me and asked for a written recommendation, that's what. It appears that you applied for a lieutenancy in his department, and he wanted a letter so he could start on the paperwork."

"He made a tentative offer, but I turned him down, Willie. I didn't -ask- him for--"

"Bullshit! What hurts me, Hoke, you went behind my back. Why didn't you tell me you wanted to be a lieutenant? How many times, in the last three years, have I suggested that you take the exam?"

"Several. But I told you I don't want to be a lieutenant."

"What you mean is you don't want to be a lieutenant in Miami, working for me, but you'd like to be a lieutenant up here at half the salary you already make as a sergeant. That doesn't make any sense."

"No, I don't want to be a lieutenant here, either. I do plan on taking an early retirement, but I'm not joining the Riviera force, Willie. The job's too much for me--at least I think it is. I don't really know any longer."

"If you wanted an easier job, why didn't you come in and see me? My door's open at all times."

"I -have- seen you! I've bitched about my overload plenty of times, for Christ's sake."

"Everybody has a lot to do, Hoke. Didn't I give you Speedy Gonzalez as an assistant?"

"He spends half his time in gas stations, asking for directions--"

"He's getting to know the city, Hoke, and you just proved my point. It takes a long time to train a man for homicide work, and that's why I can't afford to lose you to some jerkwater little town like Riviera Beach. Hell, you'd die of boredom here. And you've already proven you can't run this little apartment house."

"How's that?"

"There was no note on your door saying when you'd be back. And some old redneck from Alabama, who thought I was the janitor, asked me to fix his toilet for him. He said no matter how much he jiggles the handle, the toilet still keeps running. You'd better do something about things like that."

"Fuck him."

"See what I mean? Here, I've got something for you." Brownley opened his briefcase, which was on an adjacent chair, and took out a large brown envelope. He put it on the table. "You don't have to open this now, Hoke, but when you come to your senses again, it'll come in handy. I put your name down for the lieutenant's exam next month. You'll have to write your own essays, on Part Two of the exam, but here are all one hundred and fifty answers to the multiple-choice questions in Part One. With these answers memorized, you should be at the top of the list when the results are posted. Only minority applicants will have any priority on you on the next vacancy. That's because of Affirmative Action, and there's nothing I can do about that. But otherwise you should head the list."

Using his thumbnail, Hoke opened the envelope and took out the Xeroxed answer sheets.

"I said you didn't have to open it now," Brownley said. "Memorizing all of those answer sheets'll take several hours of uninterrupted study."

Hoke laughed. "Hell, these aren't the answers, Willie, they're just letters. Without the questions that go with 'em, they don't make any sense."

"They don't have to make sense, and you don't need to know the questions. Besides, I couldn't get a copy of the questionnaire. The right answers have all been blacked in, so all you have to do is memorize them in order. See? Number one is C. Number two is A. Number three is C again. You go over them again and again until you've got 'em in your head, like reading them off a blackboard. Hell, you've got a month. I give you a beer, and now you want an egg in it, for Christ's sake."

Hoke returned the sheets to the envelope. "Why are you doing this, Willie?"

"I want to keep you in the division, and I like you, Hoke. It also occurred to me that I might've been working you too hard. But that's the way it always is, Hoke. People who can do more than other people always get more to do. I'll tell you right now, though--when your leave is over, I'll see that you get a lighter load."

"I don't want the answer sheets, Willie. When I decide to go for a promotion, which I doubt, I'll study for it just like everyone else. Besides, I haven't made any decisions. Let me finish my leave, and I promise I won't make up my mind till I've talked to you first."

"Fair enough. But keep the answer sheets anyway, in case you have a change of heart."

"No." Hoke shook his head. He put the envelope back into the major's open briefcase and shut the lid. "I wouldn't feel right about it. Besides, I have a hunch I'd be pretty high on the list even if I didn't study for the exam. You may not remember, but I was first in my class at the FBI course."

"I remember. How many years have you got left to go? Exactly?"

"For regular retirement? About seven and a half years."

"That isn't too long, Hoke. And if you weren't a cop in Miami, you'd still have to be a cop somewhere. You don't know how to do anything else."

"You might be right. But I can learn."

"I know I'm right."

There was a knock on the door. Hoke got up from the table. It was Professor Hurt, and Hoke introduced him to Major Brownley.

"I came up to invite you to dinner, Mr. Moseley, but there's plenty, so you're included in the invitation, Major Brownley." Hurt shook hands with Brownley.

"I've got to drive back to Miami."

"No use going back on an empty stomach. Besides, I've got four liters of Riunite on ice."

"I guess I could have a glass or two with you, but I really have to get back to Miami."

"Let the traffic thin out a little, Willie," Hoke suggested. "Eat dinner with us."

"Beefy Winters is coming, too," the professor said. "He's an elephant trainer with Ringling Brothers, Major."

"He was," Hoke amended. "But that'll make four of us, and then maybe we can play some Monopoly?"

"I should go back--" Brownley said. "But I guess I can stay for one game. If we play the short game. The regular game takes way too long."

"I like the short game myself," Hoke said.

"Okay," Hurt said, rubbing his hands together. "I've got a dozen Swanson Hungry Man dinners. What'll you have? There's fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, spaghetti and meatballs, you name it. What I've found out with Swanson's is that one isn't quite enough, but two of them are too much. So what I usually end up doing is heating up two different kinds, and I eat what I want from both of them at the same time. I suggest that you do the same. I'll pop 'em in the oven, and they'll all be ready in a half-hour or so. Meanwhile, we can start on the Riunite and the game."

"You two go ahead," Hoke said. "I'll dig out the Monopoly set."

Major Brownley picked up his briefcase and went with the professor, telling him he liked the kind of dinner with the little square of apple pie better than he did the kind with the little square piece of cake. Otherwise, he said, he didn't much care whether he ate macaroni and cheese or the ham with the sweet potatoes.

Before joining them downstairs, Hoke took the Monop oly game out of the cardboard box and arranged the property cards so that when he dealt them around for the short game he would end up with Boardwalk and Park Place. Hoke knew that if he played Monopoly against Major Brownley, he would need an edge.

CHAPTER 16

It was 10:29 exactly when Stanley Sinkiewicz parked his Honda in the asphalt lot outside the supermarket in the Green Lakes Shopping Center. There were seven cars in the lot, not counting his own--more than he had expected--but some of them, he concluded, belonged to store employees. The uneven façade of unfinished buildings, dark and unoccupied, stretched for almost three hundred yards down the lot before the two-story windowless department store blocked and anchored the northern end. Only the supermarket was lighted. There were dozens of tall street lamps scattered at intervals throughout the lot, but none of the sodium-vapor light clusters was turned on. A few fourand five-foot palm trees, propped up by two-by-fours, had been planted recently in some of the concrete islands in the lot.