New Hope for the Dead Page 3

  After Bambi, he had been forced to live in cheap efficiency apartments, and he had even tried living in private homes with kitchen privileges. But he had gone deeper into debt as the years passed. He ran up large dental bills himself as his dentist tried vainly to save his teeth, but at last they were all extracted, and he was fitted with a complete set of grayish-blue dentures. These fragile-looking teeth were so patently false that they were the first thing people noticed about Hoke when they met him.

  Two years earlier, before the department had been taken over by the new chief, Hoke had found a solution that had solved some of his financial problems. Howard Bennett, the owner-manager of the Eldorado Hotel, a seedy Art Deco establishment in South Miami Beach, had taken Hoke on as security officer. Hoke was given a rent-free two-room suite, and all he had to do was to spend his nights in the hotel, and most weekends. He had a view of Biscayne Bay and the Miami skyline from his window, and he could take the MacArthur Causeway into Miami and reach the downtown police station in fifteen minutes. Or less, depending upon the traffic. On the other hand, Miami Beach was not Miami, and Major Willie Brownley, the Homicide Division chief, had told Hoke to move back inside the city.

  “It’s imperative that you get out of the Eldorado as soon as possible,” Major Brownley had told him. “Next to Coral Gables, South Beach probably has the highest crime rate in Dade County. And sooner or later, in that crummy neighborhood, you’re going to get mixed up in a shooting or something and have to make an arrest. Then, when it comes out that you’re a Miami cop, and not a Miami Beach cop, I’ll be blamed because you aren’t supposed to be living there in the first place.”

  “It’s a quiet place, the Eldorado,” Hoke had said. “Mostly retired Jewish ladies on Social Security.”

  “And Mariel refugees.”

  “Only five left now, Willie. I got rid of the troublemakers. But I’ll get out. I just want to know how much time I’ve got, that’s all.”

  “Two weeks. You’ve got comp days coming. Take a few days off, find a place to live, and get the hell out of there. You’re the only man left in my division who hasn’t got a Miami address.”

  “I’ve got a Miami address. Officially, my mail goes to Bill Henderson’s house.”

  “But I know you’re still living in the Eldorado.”

  “I’ll be out in two weeks, Willie. Don’t worry about it.”

  “I’m not worried. Two weeks, or you’ll be suspended without pay till you’re back in the city.”

  A week had gone by already, and Hoke still hadn’t found a rent-free place to live. He had contacted several downtown hotels about the sort of arrangement he had with the Eldorado, but he had been turned down flat. The fleabag transient hotels downtown weren’t suitable for Hoke. The better hotels wanted full-time security officers only and weren’t willing to provide a free room to a part-time security officer with irregular hours—not when they could rent out the same room for seventy-eight dollars a night or more.

  Maybe, Hoke thought, the Safe ‘n’ Sure Home-Sitting Service in Coconut Grove would be the solution. It was worth a try, and if it didn’t work, he would have to find a room in a private house again, with kitchen privileges—some place with a private entrance. The way rents had increased in the last few years, he could no longer afford a cheap efficiency apartment: There were no cheap efficiencies. Once again, Hoke marveled at the brilliance of Patsy’s lawyer. No specific sum of money had been mentioned in the divorce agreement. It stated merely that Hoke would send every other paycheck, properly endorsed to Ms. Patsy Mayhew (his wife had resumed her maiden name), including any and all cost-of-living increments and raises. Ten years ago Hoke had been a patrolman earning $8,500 a year. He had lived much better, with Bambi, on half of that sum than he was living on now at $17,000. But ten years ago he had never dreamed, nor had any other police officer, that he—or even sergeants—would ever be paid $34,000 a year.

  Who could have predicted it? On the other hand, his oldest daughter would be sixteen now, and his youngest fourteen. In two more years, his new lawyer told him, when his oldest daughter became eighteen, he would petition the court and see if he could change the arrangement. Patsy’s salary (she had an executive job of some kind with a time-sharing hotel chain in Vero Beach) would also be taken into consideration by the judge—when the time came. But right now, his lawyer advised him, nothing could be done. Hoke would just have to live with the agreement he had so unwisely signed.

  “Too bad,” the lawyer had said, shaking his head. “I wish I’d been your attorney at the time. When a couple getting a divorce decides to share the same lawyer, he has two fools for his clients, but one of them is more foolish than the other. I would never have allowed you to sign such a dumb and binding agreement.”

  Hoke had more than an hour to kill before his appointment in Coconut Grove with the house-sitting service. It was too early for lunch, but he was starving. He stopped at a 7/Eleven, bought a grape Slurpee, and then ate his two hard-boiled eggs and slurped the Slurpee in his car in front of the store. This was his usual diet lunch, and it was as unsatisfactory as his diet breakfast, which called for two poached eggs and half of a grapefruit. He could get by on this diet fare all day, but could rarely stick to it by nightfall. By the end of the day he was always too hungry to settle for the three ounces of roast beef and can of boiled spinach his diet called for, so he usually ate something that tasted good instead—like the Colonel’s extra-crispy, with a couple of biscuits and gravy. But even so, Hoke had lost weight and was down to 182 pounds. He had given up a daily six-pack habit, and that had helped, but he felt deprived and resentful. He was also trying to quit smoking, in an effort to lower his blood pressure and save some money, but that was harder to do than it was to diet. Although, now that cigarettes cost $1.30 a pack, it made a man think twice before lighting up a cigarette worth six and a half cents. Hoke stubbed out his short Kool, put the butt in his shirt pocket for later, and drove to Coconut Grove.

  Hoke parked on Virginia Street, not far from the May-fair shopping complex, and put his police placard on top of the dashboard in lieu of dropping a quarter in the meter. The Safe ‘n’ Sure Home-Sitting Service, the outfit Hoke was looking for, was only a short distance away from the Mayfair’s parking garage. Hoke had selected this agency from one of six display ads in the Yellow Pages. Not only was Coconut Grove a desirable place to live, but out here he might be lucky enough to get a residence with a swimming pool.

  Ms. Beverly Westphal, the woman Hoke had talked with on the telephone, was on the phone again when Hoke came into her office. He was fifteen minutes early. A tinkly tocsin above the door announced his entrance. The small room—the front room of what was undoubtedly Ms. Westphal’s private residence—looked more like a living room than an office. The first impression was reinforced by the round oak table that served as her desk. The desk held a metal tray and the remains of a pizza, as well as her telephone, nameplate, and a potted philodendron.

  Ms. Westphal was about thirty, and she wore Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, a black U-necked T-shirt with the word MACHO across the middle in white block letters, and green-and-red jogging shoes. A small pocket watch dangled from the T-shirt. She didn’t wear a brassiere beneath the T-shirt, and her breasts had prolapsed. Her brown eyes were popped slightly, Hoke noticed as she hung up the phone. She was the kind of woman with whom Hoke would avoid eye contact if he happened to see one like her in a shopping center.

  Ms. Westphal told Hoke to pull a chair up to the table.

  “At least you’re a WASP, Sergeant Moseley.”

  “Yes, and I’m not bilingual.”

  “That isn’t important. I’ve got more Latin house sitters now than I can use, but there’s a shortage of WASP sitters at present. There’s a thousand-dollar security bond, and if you don’t have a thousand dollars—”

  “I don’t have a thousand dollars.”

  “—I can get you a bond for a hundred in cash.”

  “I can raise that much.” />
  Ms. Westphal summarized the situation for Hoke. Three years before, when white flight had begun in earnest, it was easy to move away from Miami. A house could still be sold for a handsome profit then, and the happy seller moved to Fort Lauderdale or Orlando or far enough north to avoid hearing any Spanish. But white flight had increased as the crime rate increased, especially after the influx of Castro’s 125,000 Marielitos, and the newer and higher interest rates kept young couples from buying used homes. Nevertheless, the inflated prices were holding steady. A used home sold eventually, but instead of a quick turnover, sellers often had to wait for a year or more to find a buyer. But people who wanted to move away still moved, and if they couldn’t sell their house or rent it, they needed someone to watch the empty residence to discourage burglary and vandalism.

  Ms. Westphal had separate lists of homeowners. One was a group that had moved and didn’t want their houses to remain unoccupied while their agents were trying to sell them; the other was a shorter list of homeowners who wanted to take vacations of from two weeks to two months in North Carolina, and didn’t want their houses left unoccupied. Homeowners on both lists paid her fifteen dollars a day for the service. Out of this amount, the sitter received five dollars a day. At the end of each two-week period, she gave the sitter seventy dollars in cash.

  “If there’s anything I hate,” she said, “it’s fooling around with all of that withholding tax and minimum-wage bullshit paperwork.”

  “I understand,” Hoke said. “Using cash eases your paperwork burden, and the government’s.”

  “Exactly. What d’you know about house plants?”

  “I’ve never owned one.”

  “That’s an important duty. You have to take care of the house plants. But the owners usually leave detailed instructions, so all you have to do is follow them.”

  “I can do that.”

  “What about dogs and cats?”

  “Cats are okay. I lived with one once, but I’ve never owned a dog.”

  “Well, this place I’m sending you to has a dog that goes with it. You’ll have to feed and water the dog as well as the house plants. The last five people I’ve sent out there have turned the place down. I don’t understand what the problem is. None of them would say why they backed out. It may be the dog. But you, being a cop and all, should be able to handle a dog.”

  “As I told you on the phone, Ms. Westphal, I’ll be coming and going at odd hours, so it’s probably a good idea to have a dog on the place. I don’t mind the dog.”

  “That’s about it, then.” Ms. Westphal handed Hoke her business card, with the address of the house scribbled on the back. “But if you tell me no, too, you’ll have to give me a reason. Otherwise, I’m going to ask Mr. Ferguson to try another agency.”

  “What is it? A house or an apartment?”

  “It’s a small house, but it’s quite lovely. Two bedrooms, one bath, with a kidney-shaped pool in back. There are some orange trees, too, but you won’t have to worry about the yard. Mr. Ferguson’s got a gardener for that. You’ll have to spend your nights there, but the fact that you come and go at different times is a plus. The house has a TV and air conditioning, but there are no nearby stores. You’ve got a car, haven’t you?”

  “A 1973 Le Mans, but it’s got a new engine.”

  “Good. I’m going out now myself, but I’ll be back by two or two-thirty. Talk to Mr. Ferguson. Then come back here and we’ll work out the bond arrangement and the contract.”

  * * *

  The mailbox on Main Highway had the number and Mr. Ferguson’s name stenciled on it. There was a gravel driveway in a sigmoid loop, and the house was hidden completely from the road by palmettos and a thick stand of loblolly pines. As Hoke parked in front of the house, Mr. Ferguson, together with his dog, a bushy black-and-burnt-orange Airedale, came out of the house. The moment Hoke got out of the car, the dog, slavering, gripped Hoke’s right leg tightly with his forelegs, dug his wet jowls into Hoke’s crotch, and began to dry-hump Hoke’s leg in a practiced, determined rhythm. Mr. Ferguson, a red-faced, red-haired man in his early forties, wearing a gray, heavy cardigan sweater despite the eighty-five-degree temperature, lit his pipe with a kitchen match.

  Hoke tried to shake the dog loose. “Ms. Westphal sent me out about the house-sitting job.”

  “I know,” Mr. Ferguson said after he got his pipe going, “she called me. Come on inside.” Mr. Ferguson started toward the door, and Hoke managed to kick the amorous Airedale viciously enough to dislodge him when Mr. Ferguson turned his back. But the dog darted ahead through the door before Hoke could close it. The moment Hoke closed the door, the dog was on him again, his forelegs clamped like a vise around Hoke’s right thigh. Hoke took out his pistol.

  “If you don’t get this animal off me, I’m going to kill him.”

  “No need to do that,” Mr. Ferguson said. “Rex! On the table, boy!”

  The dog released Hoke’s leg at once and jumped to a chair, then onto the kitchen table, which still held the dirty dishes from Mr. Ferguson’s lunch. Mr. Ferguson reached between the dog’s legs, above the red, pencil-sized penis. “Old Rex gets horny living here without a mate, but if you jack him off once or twice a day, he stays mighty quiet.” The dog climaxed, and Ferguson wiped the table with a paper napkin. Rex jumped to the chair, then to the floor, and crossed to a corduroy cushion under the stove.

  “What I want to do,” Mr. Ferguson said, “is go up to stay with my mama in Fitzgerald, Georgia. She’s dyin’ of cancer, you see, and the doctors only give her six or seven months to live. I don’t think it’ll be that long, but however long it takes, I’m gonna stay with her. She’s all alone up there, with no friends, so I have to go up whether I want to or not. A man only has one mama, you know.”

  “Why not bring her down here? Wouldn’t that be better than leaving your job and your house?” Hoke shivered. The air conditioning was set for sixty or lower; no wonder Mr. Ferguson was wearing a sweater.

  “No, I can’t do that. She’s too old, and she don’t want to leave her friends up there.”

  “You just told me she didn’t have any friends.”

  “She has friends, all right, but they’re all dead and in the cemetery. Mama’s eighty-six years old. But she’s got her own little house, and sick as she is, she wouldn’t want to come down here to Miami. And I can’t take Rex up there with me. Mama don’t like dogs, and she never did. And I know she wouldn’t ’low Rex in the house. I hate to leave Rex down here, but I don’t see no other way out of the situation. Do you?”

  “You could hire somebody to stay with her.”

  “No, I couldn’t do that. Jesus Christ Himself couldn’t get along with that old woman. Nobody’d stay with her for more’n a day or two. No, I have to go. A man’s only got one mama. Want to see the rest of the house? I got a pool out back. Rex likes to dive for rocks. You can throw a rock in the deepest part, and he’ll dive right in and bring it to you. Labrador retrievers do that, but not many Airedales.”

  “I’ve got another appointment, Mr. Ferguson. Ms. Westphal will call you later.”

  “You gonna sit my house for me?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve still got a couple of other options.”

  “That’s too bad. Rex liked you a lot. I could tell.” Hoke drove back into the Grove, parked behind the Hammock Bar, and drank two draft beers before returning to the Safe ‘n’ Sure office. After his experience with the frigging dog, Hoke felt entitled to the drinks. Except for Rex, the house would have been ideal.

  Ms. Westphal unlocked the front door, and they went into the office together. “Sorry you had to wait,” she said. “What I need is a secretary. I was going to buy an answering machine, but most people won’t talk to them anyway.”

  “I don’t want to sit Mr. Ferguson’s house.”

  “You, too? What’s the problem out there, anyway?”

  “Well, part of the deal is that you have to jerk the dog off every day. I don’t know why he didn�
��t tell you about that in the first place. But Mr. Ferguson owns a concupiscent Airedale.”

  “What kind of Airedale?”

  “Sex-crazed. He humps your leg, and he won’t let go till you jack him off.”

  “How long does it take?”

  “Less than a minute. Closer to thirty seconds than a minute.”

  “What’s the big deal then, Sergeant? I used to jerk guys off in junior high. Oh, don’t look so surprised. If you didn’t, you never got a second date. It seems to me that getting a lovely home to live in free, and five dollars a day besides, should be worth a minute of your time every day.”

  “Not to me it isn’t. If it ever got out in the division that I—look, I’m just not interested.”

  “Let’s talk a minute. I’ll tell you what. It’ll only take me ten minutes to get over there. Why don’t you take the house, and then when the dog jumps your leg you can call me. I’ll drive over and handle it for you.”

  “Why don’t you sit the house yourself? Then you could get a secretary and let her live here. You’d have someone here to answer your phone when you were out, and you’d have a nice house with a pool for a few months.”

  “That isn’t a bad idea, you know.”

  “I know. What else do you have?”

  “I’ve got a duplex in Hialeah.”

  “No, it’s got to be in Miami. Not necessarily in the Grove, but within the city limits.”

  “All I’ve got in the Grove right now is a week at Grove Isle. A two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar condo, complete with sauna.”