Charles Willeford - Sideswipe

by Unknown

  "Can I use your phone?"

  "There's a pay phone in the hall, back there by the john. You need any change? It takes quarters."

  "No, I've got change. But I can't read phone numbers too good, even with my reading glasses. Would you look up the eight-hundred number of Visa for me? And write it down?" Stanley put a dollar bill on the bar and pushed it toward the bartender. The bartender put the bill into a glass beneath the bar, then got the battered L--Z telephone book from the shelf to look up the number.

  Stanley called the Visa number the bartender gave him and told the woman who answered that he had lost his Visa card.

  "Do you have the number?"

  "No, but I can give you my Social Security number and address."

  "Let me have your name first."

  Stanley gave her his name, Ocean Pines Terraces address, and Social Security number.

  "When did you lose your card?"

  "Yesterday, I think. But I didn't miss it till just now."

  "All right. You'll get a replacement card in a week or so, but it'll have a new number. Not exactly a new number, but four additional zeros will be added in the middle. And this time, please write it down and keep it in a safe place, in case you lose it again."

  "If someone finds and uses my card I won't be charged more'n fifty dollars, will I?"

  "That's correct. But you should be very careful with your Visa card. It's not the same as money, it's better than money."

  "Yes, ma'am. I might've just misplaced it, but far's I know now, it's lost."

  "Yes, sir. Now if you do find it, don't use it. Just cut it in half and mail it in to us. Wait until you get your replacement card before you charge anything again."

  "Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry I lost my card."

  "We're sorry, too. But thanks for reporting the loss promptly, and have a rainbow day."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Stanley folded the slip of paper with the Visa phone number on it and put it into his wallet. It would take the Visa people a day or two, perhaps more, to get the missing number on their lists, and by that time, Troy would have an ample opportunity to charge whatever he wanted. He felt a little guilty about reporting his card as lost, but if everything worked out all right, he could call Visa again and tell them he had found it after all. A fifty-dollar loss wouldn't hurt him too much, but a two-thousand-dollar loss, when a man was on a fixed income, was simply too much. What he would do, Stanley decided, was to just ask Troy for two hundred dollars in interest, instead of five hundred, when he got his money back. After all, the money Troy was going to make was primarily for Dale's and James's benefit, and Stanley felt sorry for both of them.

  Stanley filled his car with gas and cashed a fifty-dollar traveler's check before driving back to James's garage apartment.

  CHAPTER 13

  Patsy didn't call Hoke at Frank Moseley's house until almost noon. On the advice of Curly Peterson's doctor, Patsy said, Aileen had been placed in a clinic at a Catholic convent in the Verdugo Woodlands section of Glendale. There she would be watched around the clock by the live-in sisters who ran the school.

  "It's much better than a regular hospital, Hoke," Patsy said, "because as far as anybody knows, she'll be just another student there. Curly worries about his image, and it wouldn't look good for him if it got into the papers that his stepdaughter was starving to death. Not with his income."

  "She isn't Curly Peterson's daughter. She's our daughter."

  "Well, it wouldn't look good for you or me either, would it, if Aileen starved to death? Besides, Dr. Jordan'll look in on her every day. Curly said Dr. Jordan practically wrote the book on sports medicine, and he has a lot of confidence in him."

  "She needs psychiatric help, not sports medicine. All those guys know how to do is shoot people in the knee with painkillers."

  "That's easy for you to say. If you saw the bone spurs on Curly's feet, you'd want shots, too. But the Mother Superior will talk to Aileen every day, and she told me she's had a lot of experience with anorexics. Apparently some of the nuns have had it, and some of the convent girls come down with it on Novenas, she said."

  "What are Novenas? One thing I know for sure, Aileen doesn't take any drugs--"

  "I don't know what they are, and I didn't ask. I'm just telling you what the Mother Superior told me, that's all. The important thing is she knows all about anorexics, and she'll watch Aileen like a hawk and supervise her diet. She's got little black eyes like shiny caraway seeds."

  "How serious is Aileen's case? And when'll she be cured?"

  "It just takes time and patience, Dr. Jordan said. But first she's got to gain some weight and accept the idea that she's not too fat. I already promised her that when she gets up to one hundred pounds I'd take her home. So we'll just have to wait and see, that's all. She ate breakfast before the doctor gave her a shot, and that's a good sign. I already fired that weird nurse you sent out with Aileen, by the way. Where'd you find her, anyway?"

  "On short notice, it was hard to get a nurse willing to fly out to L.A. I hope you paid her--"

  "I did, and you owe me another hundred dollars."

  "You'll get it, Patsy, just as soon as my pension money comes in. After my retirement papers go through, I'll take all my money out of the pension fund in a lump sum. And as soon as Aileen's well again, I want her back. But right now, money's tight."

  "You -have- to take her back, Hoke. I go on all the road games with Curly, and we can't take her with us. If Curly told me once he told me a dozen times, he married me--not my daughters. Sometimes, when he's at bat, the camera points at me, and they tell the TV audience I'm his wife, and he likes that."

  "I can understand a!l that. But if you hand!e the c!inic and doctor bills, I'll take Aileen back, and gradually pay you back. Sue Ellen's got a good job in Miami, so I don't have to worry about her"--Hoke didn't mention the green Mohawk haircut--"but Aileen'll have to go back to school in September."

  "Sue Ellen's got a job? That's hard to believe. I couldn't even get her to pick her clothes up off the floor in Vero Beach."

  "What can I tell you, Patsy? She's getting minimum wage, plus tips, at the Green Lakes Car Wash."

  "She has to go back to school, too, doesn't she?"

  "No, she's dropping out. They like her at the car wash, and the manager gave her a permanent job."

  "What kind of career is that for a girl? Only wetbacks work in car washes here in California."

  "It's mostly Haitians down here. Sue Ellen's the only white girl there. But that gives her an advantage, she says. It won't hurt her to work for two or three years. Then, if she wants to go to college, she can take the G.E.D. test and go to Miami-Dade Community College. Don't worry about Sue El!en. You've got enough to think about with Aileen. And please tell hen to call Grandpa's house collect any time she wants, and I'll get back to her when they !et me talk to her. Okay?"

  After Patsy inquired after the health of Frank and Helen, and asked Hoke to give them hen love, she rang off.

  Hoke was vaguely dissatisfied and resentful after the conversation. Somehow, either on the phone or in person, Patsy had always managed to put him on the defensive. Hoke and Patsy were not Catholics, and he knew very little about the religion except that nuns were supposed to be tough discip!inarians. But maybe that was what Aileen needed. In religious matters, Hoke and Patsy were both nonbelievers, and they had never sent the girls to Sunday school, figuring that they could make up their own minds about that when they were old enough to think such things out for themselves. The nuns would undoubtedly go to work on Aileen, but Hoke had already warned the girls about religious cults and their brainwashing techniques, and he was sure Aileen could handle whatever propaganda the nuns tried to give hen. Curly Peterson, the ballplayer Patsy had married, was probably a Southern Baptist, if he was anything, so it was probably the sports doctor--with his somewhat Biblical name--who had insisted on the Catholic clinic.

  Hoke had eaten breakfast with his father, but Frank had been unperturb
ed by the news of Aileen's affliction. "When a girl's sick," he said, "she should be with her mother, and you did the right thing. When we find out exactly where she is, I'll wire her some flowers."

  "Under the circumstances, it might be better to send her a basket of fruit."

  "What? Oh, sure, I see what you mean. I've got to get down to the store."

  Helen usually slept until noon, so Hoke managed to get out of the house before she called Inocencia for her breakfast tray.

  Hoke became very busy at the El Pelicano. Before he could shave, Mr. Winters, a man in a khaki safari suit, had showed up wanting to rent an apartment for two months, and perhaps through October as well. He had a cashier's check for twelve thousand dollars, but no cash and no bank account. To obtain the first and last month's rent in advance, Hoke had to break his rule again and drive Mr. Winters to the bank in Riviera Beach so that he could cash the check and open an account. The drive to the bank was what Hoke would have called once a "two-cigarette" drive, one on the way over and another coming back, but he no longer smoked. Mr. Winters, or "Beefy" Winters, as the new tenant called himself, was an elephant trainer. He had been fired from the Ringling Brothers Circus in Kansas City. He tried to explain why, as they drove over the bridge into the city, but Hoke couldn't follow the complicated politics of the dismissal. Winters had also left his wife, who still worked for the circus "in Costumes." After returning to Sarasota, their winter home, Beefy Winters had cashed in their savings, and then had driven over to Singer Island to hide out from his wife until the season ended. He had a permanent winter job every year in Sarasota as a pharmacist, so he had decided to sit out the rest of the circus season in Singer Island and let his wife worry about where he and the money had gone. He was pretty sure that by the end of September she would take him back. He already missed the three elephants he trained, but not his wife--at least, not at the moment. But he would be glad enough to see her when the circus returned to its winter quarters in Sarasota.

  Back at the El Pelicano, as Hoke gave him his key and a receipt, Beefy said that as a pharmacist he could make thirty thousand a year if he worked at a drugstore all year round, but circus life got into a man's blood.

  "You have something in common," Hoke told him, "with Professor Hurt on the first floor. He's a horsefly man, and would probably enjoy talking to you about elephants and Africa..."

  Hoke shaved, showered, and washed his dirty jumpsuit while he showered. He put the damp suit on a hanger and hung it over the showerhead to dry. The poplin material would be bone dry in about three hours. So far, the jumpsuits were the only items that had simplified his life. Everything else seemed to be as complicated as ever, and he still hadn't managed to slow his life down to the leisurely pace he had envisioned when he had accepted the management of the El Pelicano.

  There were several cardboard boxes of Aileen's things in the apartment, and the small room was much too crowded. He decided to clean out the old office downstairs and store her bicycle and boxes there. The boxes had been opened, and he noticed the yellow-and-black Cliff Notes for Catcher in the Rye. He remembered reading the novel, and a simpler story would be difficult to find. Why would Aileen need the help of Cliff Notes to understand a boy like Holden Caulfield? He riffled through the pages of the Notes. Holden Caulfield was sixteen, but that was back in 1951, when the book was first published, so Holden was fifty-two years old now. Hoke took two boxes downstairs, one under each arm, thinking that Caulfield was probably either a balding broker on the stock exchange or one of those gray-faced corporation lawyers who had never been inside a courtroom. Either way, the thought was depressing.

  Hoke unlocked the office door behind the short Formica counter. He put his cardboard boxes on the counter and looked inside the office. The room was about six by eight feet with an enclosed half-bath--a toilet and a washbasin, but no shower. If he cleaned it up and redecorated, and if he could somehow squeeze in a shower stall, he could probably rent this little room out as a one-person efficiency. Either that, or use it as an overflow bedroom for some family with an adult son or daughter. If he added a hot plate, he might be able to rent it to some permanent worker on the island--say, a dishwasher like Dolly Turner--for one hundred fifty or two hundred dollars a month. Then, if he didn't tell his father about it, he could pocket the money and Frank wouldn't know the difference. Fat chance. Frank would know about it within an hour; there were no secrets on the island.

  The room was a mess now. A dusty metal desk took up most of the space, and there were two rusty rollaway beds on top of it. Boxes of discarded sheets and battered cooking utensils were stacked haphazardly against the walls. Hoke tried the toilet, but it didn't flush. The water didn't run from the washbowl taps, either.

  "Maybe the water's turned off, Sergeant Moseley?"

  Hoke looked over his shoulder. A thin, dark man in his early twenties with a fluffy bandito moustache stood in the doorway. He had dark blue eyes, but Hoke recognized a Latin when he saw one. He wore a light tan summer suit with a yellow shirt and an infantry blue tie. He held a large brown envelope with the tips of his fingers.

  "I'm Jaime Figueras," he said, shaking Hoke's hand. "You're a hard man to find, Sergeant Moseley. I came over about ten, hung around awhile, and then had a couple of beers at The Greenery. I decided to try again, and then if you weren't here I was going back to the station. How come you don't have a phone?"

  "There's a pay phone fifty yards away in the mall."

  "I didn't know that number. Besides, when you call a pay phone, nobody answers. And if someone does, he always tells you it's a pay phone and hangs up."

  "I'm trying to simplify my life a little, that's all. If I had the only phone in the building, I'd be the message center for all my tenants. They'd also be knocking on my door at midnight wanting to use it. Anyway, what can I do for you, Figueras?"

  "I haven't got a clue. Chief Sheldon said you might be able to help me out with these burglaries." He tapped the envelope against the Formica counter. "That's about it. He said you were a famous homicide detective from Miami, and that I could probably learn something from you."

  "Famous? What else did he say about me?"

  "That's about it. Except that you were Frank Moseley's son, and that you used to be on the Riviera force before you went down to Miami."

  "You're pretty young to be in plainclothes already."

  "I'm twenty-four, and I've been a cop for more than three years now. I joined when I graduated from Palm Beach Junior College. I was going to transfer up to Gainesville, but I decided that two more years of education at the U.F. wasn't worth borrowing twenty thousand bucks, plus the interest. Besides, I was offered a job here, so I took it."

  "As a cop, you'd make more money in Miami."

  "I know. I went down there and talked to some of the Latin contingent on the P.B.A. But they discouraged me when they found out I was a Mondalero."

  Hoke laughed. "What did you expect? Cuban cops think that anyone who didn't vote for Reagan is a Communist sympathizer. If you voted for Mondale, you should've kept that information to yourself."

  "I meant to, but I'm a Puerto Rican, not a Cuban. The trouble with Cuban-Americans, even when they're born here, is that they think of themselves as Cubans first, and then Americans. We love our island as much as they say they love theirs, but we know that without some kind of welfare, an island with a growing population can't support itself. All these Reagan cuts are killing us down there, man."

  "You're probably night." Hoke shrugged. "You must've made the right choice, staying here in Riviera, or you wouldn't be a detective already. Want some coffee?"

  "No, but I'd like to use your john. Like I said, I had a couple of beers in The Greenery."

  Hoke put the two boxes inside, relocked the office door, and led the way upstairs. Hoke pointed to the bathroom door and took the envelope from Figueras. It contained two Xeroxed rosters listing the names of the residents with stolen items at the Supermare. The items each resident was missing were ty
ped beneath the names. Many of the items were small objects, but there were also three paintings and a Giacometti sculpture on the list. The dimensions of the Giacometti weren't noted, but the paintings included a Corot, a Klezmer, and a Renaissance cartoon, artist unknown. The artists' names, except for the Klezmer, were vaguely familiar to Hoke.

  "What've you done so far?" Hoke asked, as Figueras, zipping his fly, came back into the living room.

  "I've talked to these people, and to the manager, Mr. Carstairs. These residents come and go, you know. Mr. Olsen--he's the president of the Supermare board of directors--he and his wife went on a two-week trip to the Galapagos a couple of months back, but they didn't miss their stuff right away. The cartoon was in the hallway, he said, and he never liked it much anyway. But it was plenty valuable. He didn't know whether it was missing before they left or not. His wife lost a diamond ring and a halfdozen elephant-hair bracelets. She had another diamond pin in her jewelry box, but that wasn't taken."

  "What was the cartoon about?"

  Figueras grinned. "I asked her the same question. It isn't a comic cartoon. It's a preliminary drawing of a Madonna and child, and it's supposedly after Raphael, Mrs. Olsen said. In other words, it's a brown-tone drawing, the kind the artist makes before he does the painting, and it's called a cartoon. 'After Raphael' means that it might've been drawn by Raphael but probably wasn't. It could've been done by one of Raphael's apprentices."

  "It couldn't be worth much."

  "I don't know. Mr. Olsen said it's worth quite a bit. Just as it is, without authentication, it's valued at twenty grand. And if it's ever authenticated, the value would triple. Mrs. Olsen isn't so worried about the diamond ring, but she wants the elephant-hair bracelets back because her granddaughter gave them to her last Christmas."