Miami Blues by Charles Willeford Page A

put the check and his credit card on the counter. The manager smiled, tore the check in half, and pushed the card back.
    "Your credit's no good here, Sergeant Moseley. Why don't we see you in here more often? It's been quite a while now."
    "I'm working days now, and living over at the Beach. I'll try to get by more often. Thanks, Aquilar."
    "That was nice of him," Freddy said, after they were outside, "to tear up the check that way."
    "But you noticed," Hoke said, "that I offered to pay. Aquilar's a nice guy. We go back a long way, and I did a favor for him once."
    "What kind of a favor?"
    "I called him on the phone. Where do you want me to drop you, Susan?"
    "Second and Biscayne'll be fine."
    Hoke dropped them off at the corner of Second and Biscayne. He started to make an illegal U-turn to get back to the MacArthur Causeway and then changed his mind. He didn't want to go home; he never wanted to go home. He continued down the boulevard and headed for the Dupont Plaza Hotel.
    The pair had puzzled him. He had tried to jar them into some kind of reaction by showing them his Dolphin choppers, but they hadn't even risen above the level of mild curiosity. Cold fish. The jock was obviously an ex-con. There was no way that Mendez could be his real name. With that bronze tan, he looked like an Afrika Corps Nazi, and it was definitely a tan, not dark skin. Besides, the world was too fresh and new to him, as though he had been out of circulation for some time. The way he had crooked that Charles Atlas arm around the tiny cup of flan--who did he think would try to take it away from him, anyway? It wasn't enough that Carter had destroyed the city by sending in all the refugees, Reagan was importing ex-cons from California. Even if immigration was stopped altogether, it would be another twenty years before Miami got back to normal again.
    And the girl. She had looked at her dead brother as if he were a piece of meat. True, she had cried at the morgue, but she had cried much harder about the possible loss of her car and the $200. How could a girl as simple-minded as Susan Waggoner get into college?
    Hoke drove into the Dupont Plaza garage and parked on the ramp by the wall. As he locked the car, a Cuban attendant came running over. He had a parking stub in one hand, and a oneounce hit of café Cubano in the other.
    "I'll take those keys," he said, holding out the parking stub.
    Hoke showed him his shield and ignored the stub. "Police business. I'll leave the car right where it is. When more cars come in, drive around it."
    Hoke went into the bar lounge, filled a paper plate with chicken wings, hot meatballs, and green olives, then went to the bar. He ordered a beer reluctantly because a beer in the Dupont Plaza bar cost as much as a six-pack in the supermarket, but the free hors d'oeuvres just about made up for it. Hoke liked the Dupont Plaza, the quiet Mickey Mouse music that came over the speakers, and the tables beside the windows where he could watch the traffic on the Miami River. There was an older, dressed-up crowd here, and although his blue poplin leisure suit was out of place, he had once picked up a forty-year-old widow from Cincinnati, and she had taken him up to her room.
    Hoke showed the bartender his shield and asked for the telephone. The bartender reached under the bar and placed a white telephone in front of Hoke. As a matter of principle, Hoke never gave Ma Bell a quarter to use a pay telephone. He dialed Red Farris's number from memory.
    "Red," Hoke said, when Farris answered, "let's go out and do something."
    "Hoke! I'm glad you called. I tried to get you twice today, once at the station, and once at your hotel. The hotel didn't even answer."
    "You've got to let it ring. Sometimes the clerk's away from the desk."
    "I let it ring ten times."
    "Try twenty next time. I was out at the airport most of the afternoon, on a homicide."
    "How come they called you instead of Metro?"
    "I'll tell you when I see you. It's an