by Sideswipe
Across from the El Pelicano, in the older business section of Singer Island, there was a row of one- and two-story office buildings and shops, and a three-story hotel. Several shops sold T-shirts and other resort clothing, and there was a discount drugstore. Back in the 1970s, one of these stores had been the office of Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, but the magazine had moved to New York, and now there was a realtor occupying the spot. Most of the space between these older buildings and the new Ocean Mall was taken up with a macadam parking lot that had no meters.
The mall had three restaurants, a dozen or more stores, a game room, and several small offices above the stores at the northern end of the mall. The Ocean Mall was “new,” as far as Hoke was concerned, because the mall hadn’t been there during the 1960s, when he grew up on Singer Island. There had only been one building then beside the municipal beach, a drive-in hamburger restaurant with girls on roller skates who waited on the parked cars that encircled the building. It had been a favorite place for the younger people in Palm Beach County to hang out, day and night. Sometimes the cars had been parked three deep, which meant that there was a constant movement, backing and filling, as people sought to get out or get in, and there was considerable visiting between cars.
The new mall was still a favorite place for young people. In bikinis and trunks they slouched and ran up and down the sidewalks on both sides of the mall, or cut through passageways and through the stores. There were also a great many tourists, and hundreds of middle-aged and elderly condominium residents stumbled and tottered about the mall.
There were a dozen motels and more than thirty high-rise condominiums along the single island highway, with more condos under construction. There was a narrow bridge exit at the northern end of the island, which led into North Palm Beach, as well as the Blue Heron bridge at the southern end, which took people into downtown Riviera Beach. The traffic on Blue Heron Road was always heavy.
In recent years, especially during the summer, Miami’s Latins had discovered Singer Island, thanks to the Sunday Miami Herald travel section, where motel ads announced cheap weekend rates. It was possible for a couple (with children under twelve free) to get a motel room on the ocean, a free piña colada, two free breakfasts, and a three-day, two-night stay for as low as fifty-eight dollars a room (tax not included). A few motels, anxious for summer business, offered even lower rates if the room was rented during the week and if the couple vacated it before the weekend. Miami’s Cubans, who had a long-standing tradition of going to Veradera Beach in Cuba for holidays, now flocked to Singer Island on weekends, bringing their parents, their aunts, and from three to five children per family. There were plenty of trash barrels on the beach, but the weekenders usually disdained them.
When Hoke picked his way among the sunbathers to take his first morning swim, he stepped on a discarded sanitary napkin with his bare left foot. Backing away from that and saying “Shit,” he stepped into a pile of the very thing with his bare right foot. No dogs were allowed on the beach (a rule that was strictly enforced), so Hoke was worried that he had stepped in human shit. He scraped it off with an empty beer can and decided, then and there, that he would not rent out any of his El Pelicano apartments to Latins.
Hoke swam beyond the surf for almost an hour, then walked up the beach, staying close to the hard-packed sand of the littoral. By the time he reached the third condo, the beach was almost deserted. The condos, especially the older ones, were sold out completely, but only about thirty percent of the owners lived in their apartments full time. The majority came down at Christmas and at Easter, or spent three or four winter months there; most of the year their apartments were unoccupied. At least, Hoke thought, they aren’t all year-round residents, like the condo owners in Miami and Miami Beach. If all of the apartments and motel rooms on Singer Island were occupied at the same time, there probably wouldn’t be enough room on the island to hold all of their cars. The island population would triple overnight. He wondered if the people buying into those condos under construction were aware of the population glut that was coming if they kept putting up these twenty- and thirty-story buildings. The condos all had heated pools on the ocean side of their buildings, explaining why very few condo residents took advantage of the warm Atlantic. Hoke decided that from now on he would walk down here and swim in front of one of these condos instead of swimming at the public beach.
As Hoke started back toward the public beach, he noticed a man seated in a webbed chair beneath a striped beach umbrella behind the Supermare, a twenty-story condo with a penthouse on top. The man had a blanket, an open briefcase, and was talking on a white portable telephone. As Hoke stopped to look at him, the man put the phone on the blanket and made a notation with a gold pen on a yellow legal pad.
Hoke crossed over to the blanket and looked down at the man. He was balding in front, but he wore a thick gray moustache, and there was a thick cluster of curly silver hair at the back of his head. He wore a rose-colored cabaña set with maroon piping on the shirt and on the hems of the swimming shorts.
“Good morning,” he said, not unpleasantly, taking off his sunglasses.
“Morning. D’you mind if I use your phone?”
“Local or long distance?”
“Long distance. Miami. But I’ll call collect.”
“No need to do that.” The older man shrugged as he handed Hoke the phone. “I’ve got a WATS line. Don’t worry about it.”
Hoke dialed Ellita Sanchez in Green Lakes, and she picked up the phone on the third ring.
“Ellita? Hoke.”
“How are you, Hoke? I’ve called your father a couple of times, and—”
“I’m fine. You won’t have to call him again. I’m living in a new place. You got a pencil?”
“Right here.”
“It’s the El Pelicano Arms. Apartment number 201, upstairs, here on Singer Island.”
“What’s the phone number?”
“No phone. The address is 506 Mall Road, Singer Island, Riviera Beach. I’m going to need a few things. My checkbook, bankbook, and probably my car. I bought some surfer trunks yesterday, but the legs are too long, so pack my swimming trunks when you send someone up with the car.”
“What other clothes will you need?”
“None. I’ve got a new plan. I’ve still got my gun, badge, and cuffs, and I won’t need them either. Maybe you can turn them in at the department for me?”
“Espera, Hoke! Let’s wait awhile on that. You’ve got thirty days of leave, and Bill Henderson’s covering for you just fine. Don’t rush into any rash decisions. Your dad told me you were going to stay for a while, but you might change your—What’s that roaring sound?”
“Roaring sound? Oh. I guess that must be the surf you hear coming in. I’ve borrowed a portable phone from a guy on the beach.”
The owner of the phone laughed. Hoke moved twenty feet away from the blanket to keep him from listening in on their conversation. “I guess that’s about it, Ellita.”
“There must be a few other things you need.”
“I don’t want to tie up this man’s phone, Ellita. He’s working.”
“On the beach?”
“Yeah. We’re on the beach side of the Supermare condo—or in the back. I thought Frank already told you, I’m going to manage the El Pelicano for him, so I won’t be coming back to Miami.”
“What? What about the girls—and the house?”
“You can have the house. I’ll send you my half of the rent from my savings until you can get someone else to share it with you. The girls will have to go out to California and live with their mother.”
“Suppose Patsy won’t take them back?”
“I don’t want to think about that. I’ve still got some other things to sort out, but that’s my immediate plan.”
“Don’t you want to talk to Aileen? She’s home, but Sue Ellen’s out.”
“I do, yes, but I don’t want to tie up this man’s phone. There’s no hurry about t
he car. But I’ll need my bankbooks and checkbooks so I can buy a few things and send you the rent money.”
“You didn’t ask, but the baby’s fine. I’ll see that you get your car—”
“Thanks, Ellita.” Hoke cut her off. “It was nice talking to you.” Hoke walked back to the blanket and handed the man the telephone. “I don’t mind paying for the call. You can check the amount, and I’ll bring you the money later. It should be about a dollar eighty-five, but I don’t have any money with me.”
“That’s okay. It won’t matter to my WATS line.” The older man balanced the phone on his bare knee. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your call, but I had to laugh. She asked about the roaring sound, didn’t she?”
Hoke nodded.
“That’s one of the reasons I come down to the beach to make my morning calls. I’ve got the penthouse up there, but they always ask me about the sound. Then I tell them I’m on the beach under my umbrella, and that’s the surf they’re hearing twenty feet away. It puts me one up, you know, because then they know I’m wearing swimming trunks and sitting on the beach here in Florida, while they’re in an office wearing a three-piece suit in New York.” He chuckled. “Or else they’re sweating down there in an office in Miami, on Brickell Avenue.”
“It’s been a long time since I wanted to be one up on anyone—”
“Everybody needs an edge, my friend. You’ve got an edge with your badge and gun. What are you, a detective?”
“How’d you know?”
“Just a guess. I heard you mention your gun and badge. If you’d just said gun, I might’ve figured you for a holdup man.”
“I’m a detective-sergeant, but I’m retiring from the Miami Police Department.”
“To manage the El Pelicano Arms?”
“Yeah. For now, anyway.”
“Have you heard about the burglaries here on the island? Pretty soon the island’ll be as bad as Miami.”
“What burglaries?”
“In the condos. We’ve had three right here in the Supermare. And whoever it is, he’s only taking valuable items. The cops in Riviera Beach aren’t doing a damned thing about it, either.” He smiled smugly.
“You don’t know that. They must be working on it. They don’t always tell you everything they’re doing.”
“I don’t know about that, Sergeant. But stuff is disappearing. People are gone for a few weeks, or months, and when they come back paintings and other valuables are missing. We’ve got a security man on the gate twenty-four hours a day, so who’s taking the stuff?”
“There’s no guard back here,” Hoke pointed out, “on the beach side. I could climb those steps to the pool, walk into the lobby, and take an elevator right up to your apartment. This is a public Florida beach. Anyone can walk or jog all of the way up to Niggerhead Rock and back. In fact, when I get settled, that’s what I plan to do every day.” Hoke edged away.
“I’d like to talk to you again about these burglaries sometime.”
“I’m not a detective any longer. I was in Homicide, not Robbery. Was. Now I’m an apartment manager.”
“Take my card anyway. Some evening, if you’ve got nothing better to do, stop up for a drink. If you’re not interested in the burglaries, we can talk about something else. I have two martinis every day at five o’clock.”
Hoke read the card he was handed, E. M. SKINNER, CONSULTANT. “What’s the E.M. stand for?”
“Emmett Michael, but most people call me E.M. My wife used to call me Emmett, but she’s been dead for three years now.”
“Hoke Moseley.” The two men shook hands.
“Any relation to Frank Moseley?”
“My father. You know him?”
“I know his wife. I only met him once, but Helen has an apartment here in the Supermare. I knew Helen before they got married. She still owns her apartment here.”
“I didn’t know that. With the big house they have, why would Helen still keep an apartment here?”
“As an investment, a tax write-off, probably. Some owners live here for six months and one day to establish a Florida residency, just because we don’t have any inheritance or state income tax. They might make their money in New York or Philly, but legally they’re Floridians.”
“That’s not my family, Mr. Skinner. We go back a long way in Florida. The original Moseleys lived here before the Revolutionary War and then went to the Bahamas during the war because they were Loyalists. Then, after the war was over, they came back to Riviera Beach.”
“Not many families in Florida go that far back.”
“I know. There are still a few here in Riviera Beach, and even more down in the Keys. That’s why we’re called ‘Conchs,’ you know. Originally, we were conch fishermen, both here and in the northern Bahamas. The term’s been corrupted now, because they call any asshole born in Key West nowadays a Conch. But the Moseleys are truly Conchs in the original sense.”
“What’s the difference between a Conch and a Cracker?”
“Crackers are people who moved to Florida from Georgia, from Bacon County, Georgia, mostly. Farmers and stock people. So they’re called Florida Crackers instead of Georgia Crackers. I don’t know how the word ‘Cracker’ got started. All I know is there’s a helluva difference between a Conch and a Cracker.”
The phone rang, and Skinner picked it up. Hoke moved away down the beach, and Skinner waved. Hoke nodded back and headed for his apartment. The guy loved attention, Hoke concluded, and would have talked all morning.
Hoke was mildly curious about E. M. Skinner. The old man had everything, including a penthouse overlooking the Atlantic, but he was obviously lonesome as hell, looking for adventure or something. All the guy needed was a phone and a pencil, apparently, and he could sit under a beach umbrella and make money. Lots of money. Old Frank Moseley was like that, too, but his father’s knack for making money hadn’t been passed along to Hoke. Frank had once owned the land now occupied by the Supermare condo, and he probably still had a few points in the building as well, though Hoke didn’t understand exactly how points worked. Hoke knew the difference between being alone and being lonely, however, and he knew he would never be lonely as long as he stayed on Singer Island.
Hoke showered, slipped into slacks and a sport shirt, and walked to the Tropic Shop in the Ocean Mall to see if his jumpsuits were ready yet. He had ordered two yellow poplin jumpsuits when he bought his surfer trunks, but had asked the shop owner to have the sleeves cut off and hemmed above the elbow. This was Hoke’s first positive step toward simplifying his life. He would wear one of the jumpsuits one day, wash it at night, and then wear the other one the next day. That way he wouldn’t need any underwear, and he could wear his sneakers without socks. He had selected the jumpsuits because they had several pockets, including zippered pockets in the back. He had wanted the long legs, however, instead of cutoffs, because they could be Velcroed at the ankles. Insects were not a big daytime problem on the island, because of the prevailing breeze from the ocean, but when the direction changed and the winds came from the ’Glades, it usually brought in swarms of tiny black mosquitoes at night.
The woman at the Tropic Shop told Hoke that she hadn’t got the jumpsuits back from the tailor yet, but would send them over to the El Pelicano when her daughter came back from the mainland.
“She doesn’t have to do that. I don’t know where I’ll be, so I’ll check back later this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”
“I could call you when they come back.”
“I don’t have a phone.”
Hoke left the shop and crossed Blue Heron Road to the Giant Supermarket. He picked out potatoes, onions, celery, carrots, summer squash, and two pounds of chuck steak. He bought a dozen eggs and three loaves of white sandwich bread. He added a bottle of Tabasco sauce, and a jar of peppercorns for seasoning, and carried the two bags of groceries back to his apartment. His new plan was to eat two meals a day. He wanted to lose at least ten pounds, so he would eat two boiled eggs and a piece
of toast for breakfast each morning, and skip lunch. At night he would eat one bowl of stew, and he had enough ingredients to make a stew that would last for five days. Then, the following week, he planned to make enough chili and beans to last for five evening meals. This would solve his cooking problems, and he could eat two slices of bread with each bowl of stew or chili. On the other two days, when the beef stew or the chili ran out, he would just eat eggs and bread for breakfast, and perhaps go out at night for either a hamburger or a fried fish sandwich. With a plan like this one, he wouldn’t get bored with his meals, because when the stew started to bore him, it would be time for two days without stew, and then the following week he could look forward to chili and beans.
Hoke was taken with the simplicity of his plan. He chopped the vegetables for the stew while he browned the cut-up chunks of meat in the cast-iron Dutch oven. Then he dumped in the vegetables, added water, and turned the electric burner to its lowest setting. He threw in a handful of peppercorns, then sat at his dining table to examine the account books Al Paulson had brought him last night.
Three units were rented on one-year leases: to a schoolteacher, to a salad man at the Sheraton Hotel, and to a biology professor from the University of Florida who was on a one-year sabbatical. Hoke, of course, had 201, so there were only four other apartments. Two were already rented to two elderly couples from Birmingham, Alabama, who were vacationing for two months on the island. So two units were still unrented. The sign on the bulletin board in the lobby said that there was a two-week minimum, but the sign hadn’t deterred a few people from coming up to Hoke’s apartment and asking about weekend rentals. All he could do then was to repeat what the sign said, but that hadn’t kept one asshole from Fort Lauderdale from arguing with him about it. There would be more assholes like that, Hoke suspected, from his experience in living at the Eldorado Hotel in Miami Beach for two years. The Eldorado had also been a hotel for permanent or semi-permanent guests, and it didn’t take overnighters or weekenders either. Poor old Eddie Cohen, the day and night manager of the Eldorado, must have had a hundred arguments with transients who just wanted an overnight stay. The best thing to do, Hoke decided, was to try and get all permanent residents for one-year leases, if he possibly could. If he could manage that, he could just collect the rent from everyone once a month and hang out a NO VACANCY sign. Perhaps the best way to start was to change the policy from a minimum rental of two weeks to a two-month minimum? Hoke went downstairs, crossed out “weeks” and wrote in “months” above it. His father might not like the new policy, but then he wouldn’t have to tell him about it—not until he had the empty units rented, anyway.