Charles Willeford - New Hope For The Dead

by Unknown

  "If you're going to call a lawyer, you'd better call your ex-husband. You might ask him how he found out you were fucking Jerry."

  "Jerry told him, and it was a lie."

  "Uh-uh. Your fat friendly neighbor, Mrs. Koontz, told him. Jerry just confirmed it, that's all."

  "Ellen? I don't believe it."

  "Ask your husband when you call him."

  "I'm not calling Harold. I want you to talk to a couple of friends of mine. Will you wait?"

  "Sure."

  Loretta picked up her purse and crossed the patio to the bar. She passed something to the bartender, and he put a phone on the bar. As she talked into the phone, she gestured with her left hand, making circles in the air. Hoke had a good idea about who these two men would be, but he wasn't certain. Maybe, despite what she'd said, she was just talking to Harold Hickey. Or maybe to her own lawyer. Hoke took out his pistol, set it on his lap, and covered it with a paper napkin. Loretta came back to the table and sat down.

  "I don't want to move to Atlanta, Hoke. My business is going to get a lot better now, and if I had to stay away for four years before coming back, it would mean starting all over again."

  "Look at it this way. If the case goes to trial, a good attorney could probably get the charge reduced to manslaughter. At most you'd get three years, and you'd be out in one. But with a dope lawyer like Harold Hickey on the stand as your chief character witness, probation would be out of the question with the tough judges we've got down here. Believe me, Loretta, four years of living well in Atlanta will be a lot better than a year in the women's prison working in the laundry."

  "None of this makes any sense, Hoke. It was only a matter of time before Jerry died of an overdose or got killed by the people he was working with--"

  "Just shut up about it before I change my mind."

  "My friends'll be here in a minute. I want you to talk with them first. Then, if we can't work something out, you can have my house--if that's all you want."

  "That's all I want."

  "I'll wait--over by the gate." Loretta got up and left the table. Hoke watched her teetering walk as she crossed the gravel to the gate in the wooden fence. He drank another glass of beer. Five minutes later, two young men came into the patio. Loretta talked to them for a moment before the three of them came over and joined Hoke at the chickee. Loretta sat down, but the two men on either side of her stayed standing. Both were in their late twenties, and they both wore linen jackets, open-collared sports shirts, and lightweight slacks. The taller of the two had a St. Christopher medal the size of a silver dollar on a gold chain around his neck, and there was a bulge under the left armpit of his white linen jacket. They were sleek and well-fed, with the expensive sculptured haircuts of TV anchormen, but Hoke wasn't deceived by their appearance. He had seen too many like them in the courtrooms, accompanied by attorneys in three-piece suits.

  "Loretta here," the tallest man said, "told us that you've got something that belongs to us."

  "What's that?"

  "Twenty-four thousand dollars."

  "Why not say twenty-five, and round it off?"

  "Because she returned a thousand already." He turned sideways and pointed to the top of a brown envelope in his jacket pocket.

  "Doesn't the envelope say one thousand and seventy?"

  "It says that, but there's only a thousand in it. She told us you've got the other twenty-four."

  Hoke looked at Loretta. She stared back at him with a determined expression, but there was a tic in her left eyelid.

  "When you lose something, and somebody finds it, the finder gets to keep it," Hoke said. "If you 'found' Loretta's thousand, that's her tough luck. But you'll never find my twenty-four. I've got it, and you've lost it." Hoke put his pistol out on the table, turned on its side. Holding onto the grip, he used his free hand to cover the weapon with a paper napkin. "Your trouble is, there's no way you can ever prove I've got it."

  "We've got the serial numbers written down--"

  "Did you tell Jerry Hickey you had the serial numbers written down, too?"

  The man said nothing, meaning he had.

  "He took it anyway, didn't he?" Hoke said. "If you were dumb enough to use a junkie like Jerry as a courier, you deserve to lose the money. Write it off to experience, and forget about it. But I'm not going to forget what you two bastards look like. From now on, any time I see you--either one of you--you're going to jail."

  "On what charge?" the smaller man said, lifting his chin. "You don't even know our names."

  "I could bust you right now for making a disturbance in a public place, resisting arrest without violence, and for carrying a concealed weapon. Now both of you get the hell out of here! You stay, Loretta."

  The two men looked at each other for a moment. Then they backed away. They walked to the gate, stopped, and looked over at the table.

  "You should've warned me, Loretta," Hoke said, forcing a grin. "I'm not as convincing a liar as you are. They'll talk to you some more, your friends over there, but if you can really convince them that I've got the money, it'll be all yours, safe in your lock-box. I don't want it. Like I said, all I want is the house."

  "I'm afraid of them, Hoke."

  "I'm not. But you should be. When they tell their bosses what happened, they might try for some kind of retaliation against me, but I think they'll write it off instead, or cover it out of their own pocket if they have to. To you and me, it's a lot of dough, but it isn't that much to them. So do we have a deal on the house?"

  Loretta stared at him, then at the two men in the distance. "I don't have any choice. That's what you're saying."

  "That's right. And if you decide to leave in the morning, leave the key in your fake rock, but put it in the back yard, near the back door so I can find it. Put all the mortgage papers and stuff on the dining room table, and when you send me your new address in Atlanta, I'll see that you get a legal lease on the house."

  Loretta shook her head and stood up. "I can't figure you out, Hoke."

  "It's simple, really. I need the house. And I'll take good care of it for the next four years till you come back--if you decide to comeback to Miami."

  "I don't know what I'm going to do. Nothing worked out the way I planned."

  "Nothing ever does. You'd better go. Your friends are getting impatient. Just stick to your story, whatever it is you told them, and they'll let you go. At least I hope so, for my sake. I need the house."

  Loretta started to say something else, changed her mind, and turned abruptly away. She joined the two young men at the gate and they left together, one on either side of her as they headed for the parking lot.

  Hoke returned his pistol to its holster. He forked another oyster, and then put it down again. His appetite was gone. His stomach burned and his throat was constricted. He was letting the woman get away with murder--and with the money she had killed for as well. But the fact was that his case against her was weak on a number of counts and probably wouldn't make it past a grand jury, despite everything he'd just made her believe. She'd be back out in no time, and laughing at him. The two slimeballs were still in town, but they would learn the true meaning of police harassment, and he knew every trick in or out of the book. Within six weeks, or two months at the most, they would leave Miami, move to Yuba City, California, and consider their new home a paradise.

  Hoke didn't like himself very much. He never had, now that he thought about it. Still, a man had to take care of his family.

  At least he had the house in Green Lakes.

  Ellita and the girls would love living in Green Lakes, especially after staying at the Eldorado for a few days. Later on, after they got settled, he could go down to the Humane Society and pick up a puppy for the two girls. He would make them take care of the dog, too, teach them something about responsibility.

  On Thursday he would send Ellita down to the water department and Florida Power to put down their deposits and to get the name changed on the service. The phone could wait;
a cop always had a little priority when it came to getting a new phone. Yes, Thursday would be plenty of time for The deposits. By that time they'd be finished reading all the cases and they could start working on a few of them that were getting colder every day.

  Hoke took one of his oysters, still in the shell, over to the pelican and offered it to him. The pelican turned its bill and head away, refusing the oyster. Either he doesn't like the horseradish, Hoke thought, or he doesn't like me.

  Hoke paid his tab. Then he borrowed the phone at the bar, called his lawyer, and told him he was coming over to get a lease made up for his new house.

  22

  When Hoke got to the station on the following Monday morning, he paused to read the bulletin board before going to his office. A new promotion list was posted. Slater had been promoted to captain; Bill Henderson had made commander; and Armando Quevedo had been promoted to Sergeant, now that Henderson's sergeancy was open.

  The new rank of commander was a compromise, after the city manager vetoed the colonelcies the new chief had wanted. The rank of commander was to be higher than a sergeant but lower than a lieutenant, something like a warrant officer in the army. Each division in the department had been allotted one of them. A commander would be entitled to a salute and a "Sir" from the lower ranks, but wouldn't be in command of any men or task force. His major function would be paperwork, plus taking the responsibility for property and keeping track of it, thereby relieving captains and lieutenants of these irksome chores. This would give the latter more time for supervisory duties, and allow them to get away from their desks more often.

  Major Brownley would never get that eagle for his uniform now, Hoke thought, but he was happy about Henderson's promotion.

  Henderson was in the little office, glowering into a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

  "Good morning, sir, Commander Henderson, sir," Hoke said, throwing Henderson a salute.

  "Fuck you," Henderson said. "I don't know why they picked me. You and two other guys outrank me by date-ofrank, and I didn't take any exam or ask for this promotion."

  "We'll find out when we talk to Willie Brownley at ten, I suppose. But congratulations, Bill. If anyone around here deserves a promotion, you do."

  "But I'm not so sure I want it. The rank doesn't make sense. Why call a man a commander if he doesn't command anybody or anything except a desk?"

  "They had to call it something, I suppose. And they couldn't use warrant officer because everybody's already an officer, including the lowliest rookie on the street."

  "I don't like the insignia, either. It's a silver lozenge. When I think of a lozenge, I think of a piece of candy."

  "Don't look at it that way, Bill." Hoke grinned. "Just think of the extra fifty bucks a month you'll get."

  "Big deal. I could make that much in one night, wearing my uniform and watching the polka dancers at the PolishAmerican Club."

  "You still can--"

  "No I can't either. A commander has too much rank for that. But I'm going to take it because of Marie and the kids. I just talked to Marie on the phone, and she's happy as shit."

  "I'm happy for you, too, Bill, all shitting aside."

  "Thanks, Hoke. But you should've got it instead of me."

  "I think Brownley wants to keep me on the cold cases. But I don't know what you'll be doing. You won't stay with me and Ellita, not as a commander."

  "I know that. Where's Ellita, anyway? Didn't she come in with you?"

  Hoke shook his head. "She's got a doctor's appointment at ten, so she won't be here for the meeting either."

  "Are you settled in yet, in the new house, I mean?"

  "We're getting there. We haven't picked up Ellita's bedroom suite, but we'll get it sometime this week. But Saturday, Sue Ellen got a job at the Green Lakes Car Wash. She started this morning."

  "Doing what?"

  "They trade off. Part of the time she'll be vacuuming the cars before they go through the wash, then they trade places and she dries the cars with towels after they've been through it. Vacuuming is best, she said, because if she can talk the customer into a pine spray or a new car spray, she gets a fifty-cent commission. Also, all the people pool tips, and they're divided equally at the end of the day. But otherwise, she gets minimum wage."

  "That's a good job for a kid. What about the little girl?"

  "I don't know. I'm going to see if I can get her an afternoon paper route in the neighborhood, delivering the -Miami News-. But I want to keep her close by, in the neighborhood. Sooner or later a route'll open up. Otherwise, everything's working out fine so far."

  "What do you want me to do this morning?"

  "I don't know. You might just summarize all of the cases you've read so far, what your thoughts are on them. We've picked the first five, but you won't be working on them now, so I don't know what else to tell you."

  "I've done that already, but it isn't typed."

  "You don't have to type it. I'm closing out the Gerald Hickey case as a probable accidental OD this morning, and we won't start on the Dr. Raybold case until I've talked to Ellita about it. Raybold's the first one on our list."

  "It's got good potential, Hoke, and I'd like to work with you on it."

  "Why not? You're staying in the division, no matter what else they give you to do, and you'll still be able to help with some of these cold cases."

  Teddy Gonzalez knocked on the door, which was open, and then came into the office. Gonzalez was in his early twenties, with an A.B. in History from Florida International University. He had wanted to teach history, but joined the police force instead when he couldn't find a teaching job. He wore a suit and tie, and his shoes were shined, but he had a nervous habit of biting the cuticles on his fingers.

  "Congratulations, Commander Henderson," Gonzalez said, smiling.

  "Thanks, Teddy," Henderson said. "What's on your mind?"

  "Not much of anything, right now. I just wanted to congratulate you, that's all. I followed up on that tip you gave me about Leroy's floating crap game, and it's still in operation. Leroy Mercer, who ran it all these years, has been dead for about eight months. His son Earl runs it now, but they still call it Leroy's game. I checked around at Northside, and found out that the game was held up about a month ago by three men. And those three guys who were killed could've been the holdup men. If so, they could've been found and killed for holding up the game. That sounds reasonable, although it doesn't seem likely that they'd be killed for the small amount of money they took from the game."

  "How much was in the game?"

  "I don't know. But according to the snitch I talked to, there was never more than five or six thousand bucks in any of those games."

  "In Liberty City," Hoke said, "five thousand bucks is a hell of a lot of money. Did you talk to Earl Mercer? Question him, find out who was playing when the game was held up. Then run down each guy, and see where he was on the night of the murders."

  "Earl isn't in town, and the game isn't playing right now. My snitch said he went back to Tifton, Georgia, to stay with his mother for a vacation."

  "Who's your snitch?"

  "The old black man who takes tickets at the Royale Theater. All they play at the Royale is kung-fu movies, and Shaft reruns. They got a double-feature Shaft movie on now, and old Bert says he hasn't been able to get around much lately because they've been so busy. Anyway, that's where the case stands. I really don't know what to do next. You got any more suggestions, Sergeant--I mean, Commander?"

  "I don't know, Teddy. It seems to me you've got reasonable cause to get the chief up in Tifton to pick up Earl Mercer. At least for questioning. Then you can go up there and talk to him. What do you think, Hoke?"

  "I think that Slater should turn the case over to a black detective. Nobody in Liberty City's going to tell Teddy much of anything. And hearsay isn't enough to pick up Mercer either. What did Slater tell you, Gonzalez?"

  "I haven't talked to him about the crap game yet. He won't be in today, anyway. He's lectur
ing at the police academy."

  "We've got an appointment at ten with Major Brownley," Henderson said. "I'll suggest to him that the case go to a black detective."

  "I'm not trying to get out of anything," Teddy said. He put a finger in his mouth and began to chew it.

  "We know that, Teddy. But you've taken it about as far as you can. Haven't you got anything else to work on?"

  "A DOA on Fifth Street, but it looks like a suicide. I won't know for sure till I see the P.M."

  "Work on that, then," Henderson said, "and I'll talk to either Slater or Brownley about taking you off the triple murder. If we were still working together, Teddy, if it makes you feel any better, I'd ask to get off the case myself. If Lieutenant Slater won't take you off, he ought to at least get a black detective to work with you on it."

  "-Captain- Slater," Hoke said, grinning.

  "That's right." Henderson smiled. "He was insufferable before. I wonder what he'll be like now with two bars."

  "The same," Hoke said. "Actually, now that he finally made captain, he might mellow out a little."

  "Thanks a lot," Teddy said. "And congratulations again, Sergeant Henderson. Commander." Teddy left the office, and they watched him through the glass as he crossed the squad room toward his desk.

  "What do you think of Gonzalez, Bill?"

  "I don't know yet. But he's got a lot of guts. It takes nerve for a white man to go down to the Royale Theater and hang around in the men's room there for a chance to talk to an old ticket-taker. I know he's armed, and all that, but I wouldn't want to hang around in there alone for very long. Jesus, look at Armando!"

  Armando Quevedo was coming toward the office from the men's room. He had a short haircut, with white sidewalls, and he was wearing a brown silk suit with an opened collar shirt, and a wide grin.

  Quevedo stood in the doorway and spread his arms. "Congratulations, Bill," he said. "Thanks to your promotion, I finally got my three stripes."

  "And a haircut," Hoke said.

  "You would've got your three stripes no matter who got the commander rank," Henderson said. "So you don't have to thank me. Besides, your score was the highest on the division list."