Free Miami Blues by Charles Willeford Page A

anymore."
    "Well, here's what you do. Go into the bedroom, take off your clothes, put two pillows under your stomach, and lay face down on that big brass bed. I'm gonna have another beer, and then I'll be right in."
    "You're gonna do it to me the back way whether I want to or not, aren't you?"
    "Yeah."
    "In that case, I'd better get another San Miguel for you, and some Crisco for me."
    Later, bars of moonlight came through the slanted vertical Levolors and made yellow bars across Freddy's hairless chest. Susan, in a shorty nightgown, snuggled close to him and used his extended right arm as a pillow. Freddy chuckled deep in his throat and then snorted.
    "Remember that haiku the teacher wrote?"
    "Not exactly," Susan said.
    "_The Miami sun. / Rising in the Everglades. / Burger in a bun_. That's what I was laughing at. Now I know what it means."
    8
    There was a middle-aged man sitting in the glass-walled office with Sergeant Bill Henderson when Hoke arrived in the squad room. Hoke checked his mailbox and then signaled his presence to Henderson with a wave of his arm. Henderson beckoned for him to come over. Henderson got to his feet and smiled as Hoke crossed the crowded squad room. Most of Henderson's front teeth were reinforced with silver inlays, and his smile was a sinister grimace. Hoke and Bill had been working together for almost four years, and Hoke knew that when Henderson smiled, something horrible about human nature had been reconfirmed for his partner.
    Hoke cracked open the door. "I'm going down for coffee, Bill. I'll be right back."
    "I already got you coffee." Henderson pointed to the capped Styrofoam cup on Hoke's side of the double desk. "I want you to meet Mr. Waggoner. We've been having an interesting little chat here, and I know you'll want to hear what he's got to say."
    Hoke shook hands and sat in his chair. "Sergeant Moseley. I'm Sergeant Henderson's partner."
    "Clyde Waggoner. I'm Martin's father." The man from Okeechobee was wearing a white rayon tie with a blue chambray work shirt, and khaki trousers. There was a thin nylon Sears windbreaker folded over his left arm. He had short brown hair with shaved temples, the kind of haircut they call white sidewalls in the armed forces. His skin was sallow, but it was blotchy in places from long exposure to the Florida sun, and there were scars on his nose and cheeks from debrided skin cancers.
    "I suppose you came for your son's effects," Hoke said, unlocking his desk drawer. "Sorry I'm a little late this morning, but I had to drop off some dry cleaning."
    Mr. Waggoner looked down at his scuffed engineer boots, made a goatlike sound in his throat, and began to cry. The sound was softly muffled, but the tears that came down his blotchy cheeks were genuine. Hoke directed a puzzled look at Henderson, and his partner broadened his brutal smile.
    "Just tell Sergeant Moseley the same story you told me, Mr. Waggoner. I could summarize it, but I might leave something out."
    Mr. Waggoner blew his nose on a blue bandanna and stuffed the handkerchief into his left hip pocket. He wiped his cheeks with his fingers.
    "I can't prove nothing, sergeant, as I told Sergeant Henderson here. All I can tell you is what I think happened. I hope I'm wrong, I surely do hope so. My business is bad enough already, and a scandal like this could make it worse. Okeechobee's a small town, and our moral standards are a lot different up there than they are down here in Miami. You know what they call Miami up in Okeechobee?"
    "No, but I don't suppose it's complimentary."
    "It ain't. They call it Sin City, Sergeant Moseley."
    "Are you, perhaps, a man of the cloth?"
    "No, sir. Software. I got me a software store in Okeechobee. I sell video games, computers, and rent out TV sets and movies."
    "My father owns a hardware store in Riviera Beach," Hoke said.
    "He's smarter than me, then. What I had in mind when I opened the store was a computer business for the commercial fishing on the lake. The