Chapter 17

A wire fence separated the Bajan sculptor's garage apartment and yard from the Robert E. Lee housing project. At least thirty black kids were playing some kind of grab-ass on the other side of the fence. They came over to the fence to stare at Hoke while he pulled into the narrow backyard and parked. There was a huge sculpture of a birdlike creature in the yard, blocking the way to the closed door of the garage. The wings were fashioned from automobile fenders, and the body was formed with welded auto parts. The "bird" had been painted with red rustproofing primer, and its eyes were red glass taillights. The eyes were unlighted, and Hoke wondered for a moment if the sculptor would wire them for electricity when he was finished with the sculpture. He then realized that he didn't give a shit what the sculptor decided to do, because he would never have to look at it again.

Ellita, if she moved into the small apartment above the garage, would be an object of curiosity, and she would be harassed by the kids in the project. Nor could he take the place himself; there was no way that he could leave his girls alone all day in this neighborhood. Without getting out of his car, he backed out of the yard. Before his back wheels reached Tangerine Lane, a rock hit the windshield on the passenger's side, but it didn't crack the glass. The kids on the other side of the fence, squealing, ran off in a dozen directions.

Hoke turned east to South Dixie Highway and then drove south to North Kendall Drive. He took Kendall west to 136th Avenue, and turned into a Kendall Lakes shopping mall. He parked in the lot, and then paced off the approximate distance to where Mary Rollins's hot pants and T-shirt were discovered. The location was now a chain sandwich shop, featuring roast beef sandwiches. The "Sunday Special" was a roast beef sandwich with a free Coke for $2.99. Hoke went inside, ordered the special, and doused his sandwich with the chain's special horseradish sauce. The teenagers behind the counter wore oversized red muslin tams and little red jackets that didn't meet in front. Their white muslin shirts had balloon sleeves. They wore their own blue jeans, however, which diluted by about five hundred years the medieval effect intended by the management. The tables and benches were bolted to the floor, and the benches were set too far back from the table for comfortable seating. Three years ago, this shopping center had been a U-pick pole-bean field. Now it held fifty different shops, anchored by a Publix supermarket and a Kmart. The mall was filled with Sunday shoppers, most of them wearing Izod alligator shirts and shorts, or running togs. There were a great many small children. Every one of them was eating something or other as the parents walked aimlessly around the mall.

Perhaps, Hoke thought, this cold-case idea of Brownley's was not such a good one after all. West Kendall was the fastest-growing area in the county, and there were hundreds of condos filled already, with more under construction. Not only did Miami have hundreds of new permanent residents moving in every day, there was also a daily tourist influx of at least thirty thousand strangers staying from one day to two months or more on vacations. A colder case than Mary Rollins -missing only, with no body- would be hard to imagine. It was perfectly possible that her body was buried somewhere under the thirty acres of asphalt parking lot.

Of course, Hoke hadn't expected to find anything out here anyway, but it had been more than two years since he had been this far out on Kendall Drive, and he hadn't realized how much the area had boomed. Hoke finished his sandwich and Coke, then showed the kid behind the counter his badge.

The phone was in the small back storeroom, and the kid stood uneasily beside Hoke as he dialed.

"This is police business, sonny. Get out and close the door." The boy left reluctantly but didn't argue.

Eddie Cohen answered on the twelfth ring.

"This is Sergeant Moseley, Eddie. Did Ms. Sanchez phone and leave a number for me to call?"

"Just a second. I got it written down."

Hoke waited, and then Eddie gave him a number in Delray Beach. "It's a pay phone, she said, and she'll either wait there, or be there at exactly two o'clock. If you don't call by two, don't call at all, and she'll drive back to the hotel. "

Hoke looked at his Timex. It was 12:30.

"All right, Eddie. If she calls again, tell her I'm on my way to the station, and I'll call her at two from there."

"I'll tell her. Anything else?"

"Yeah. Don't pull the plug on the air conditioning in my suite or in Ms. Sanchez's room."

"I already did. Mr. Bennett told me-"

"I don't care what he said. You plug 'em in again right now, understand?"

"I'll see if I can find Emilio."

"Never mind Emilio. You do it yourself. Now."

"If you say so."

"I say so." Hoke replaced the receiver.

Before leaving the sandwich shop, Hoke bought an eight-ounce bottle of the special horseradish sauce from the boy behind the counter and thanked him for letting him use the phone.

When Hoke got to his office and turned on the desk light, two detectives on Sunday duty wandered over. They stood in the doorway, not quite coming into the small room, waiting for an invitation they didn't get. They both wore tattered jeans, ragged running shoes, and filthy sport shirts. They both had scruffy beards and long hair. Quevedo was a few years older than Donovan, but they had both been in the Homicide Division for more than three years. They looked like the bums who hung out in Bayfront Park and the Miamarina, because that was where they were working. In the last month, two sleeping bums had been doused with gasoline and set on fire, and they were trying to get a lead on the killer(s).

"I hear," Donovan said, "you're on a special assignment."

"You hear a lot of things around here," Hoke said.

Quevedo pointed to the stack of files. "Looks like a lot of cases to have out at the same time."

"It is indeed." Hoke said. "What's new on the torchings?"

"We got some leads."

"Well, don't let me keep you. I've got some reading to do and some phone calls to make." Hoke belched, and got a second, searing taste of the horseradish sauce. His stomach burned.

"We're going downstairs for coffee," Quevedo said. "Want me to bring you a cup?"

"No thanks." Hoke took the bottle of horseradish sauce out of his jacket pocket. "Here, Quevedo. You like hot stuff. This horseradish sauce is muy sabroso."

"You don't want it?" Quevedo said, taking the bottle.

"I've got another bottle in my car. Keep it. It goes great on hamburgers."

"Thanks. Thanks a lot."

The two detectives left. Hoke got up and shut the door. He sat at his desk again, watching the detectives as they crossed to the elevator.

The word was out already, Hoke realized. Quevedo and Donovan already knew about the cold-case assignment and were fishing around for confirmation. That meant his problems would soon multiply. Someone would notify the press, and then when the state attorney arraigned Captain Midnight, there would be reporters coming around to the division looking for details.

And what could he tell them? That the Captain Morrow collar had been merely a lucky break? That they hadn't even read through the old cases yet? It was impossible to keep anything secret in Miami; despite its huge population, Miami was like a small town where everybody knew everyone else's business. And there was too much business in the Homicide Division.

The phone rang. It was Ellita, calling from Delray Beach.

"I called Mr. Cohen again, Hoke, and he said you were going to the office. I called early because the girls are getting restless hanging around the mail here. Besides, the news is good for a change. I found Mary Rollins. She's alive and working as a waitress in Delray Beach."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive. It was fairly simple, although I had to talk to Mrs. Fridley for a long time before she would tell me where Rollins worked. It's a long story, but now that I've found Rollins -which we didn't expect- I don't know the next step. Wanda Fridley and Mary Rollins both went to Miami High together. In the same class. Mrs. Fridley married a pre-development salesman in Boca, and she's been living in Boca ever since. She just happened to run into Mary by accident at the Delray Beach cafe where Mary works. Mary told her not to tell anyone she was there. Apparently, Mary staged her own disappearance as a way to escape from her mother. Mary worked at an S and L in Miami, and lived at home. She had to turn over her paycheck each week to her mother, and she was a virtual prisoner. Then she met a guy in the S and L one day, and dated him. He's a married man with three children, and he lives here in Delray Beach. Mary got a raise at the S and L, but didn't tell her mother about it. She started saving her extra raise money, telling her mother the company was paying in cash now each week instead of by check. That way, her mother wouldn't know about the extra money-"

"Can you shorten this a little?"

"Not very well. Then, when Mary had two hundred dollars saved, she planted her bloody shorts and T-shirt in the pole-bean field out in Kendall, and caught a bus to Delray Beach. She thought if her mother figured she was dead, she wouldn't look for her."

"Where did the blood come from?" Hoke said.

"Most of it came from a bloody nose. When she gets excited, she said, her nose bleeds. The rest was from a cut finger. She already had a suitcase with some other clothes and things in it stashed away at the bus station in a locker. She rented a room here in Delray, got a job as a waitress, and she's been up here ever since. Her affair with the married man is still ongoing, as they say, and she gets to see him once a week- sometimes twice a week. This is the story she told Mrs. Fridley, and the same one she told me. Mrs. Fridley would've kept the secret, she said, but Mary borrowed fifty dollars from her, promising to pay her back the following week. Then, when she didn't pay it back, Mrs. Fridley got mad and called Homicide and said she'd seen Mary Rollins. By the time we finally got around to sending MacGellicot up to Boca, Mary had already seen Mrs. Fridley again and paid her ten dollars on account. She was short, and could only pay her back at ten dollars a week. So then, when MacGellicot talked to Mrs. Fridley, she'd decided not to turn in her old school friend and she stalled MacGellicot. She was ashamed, she told me, for not trusting Mary to pay her back the fifty bucks. Mary lives in a ratty little room here in Delray, and she only spends an occasional afternoon in a motel with her boyfriend.

"Actually," Ellita chuckled, "Mrs. Fridley was dying to tell someone the story. Once she got started talking, it all tumbled out.

"Anyway, I drove up to Delray and found Mary. She's working at the Spotlight Cafe, so I got her address from the manager. I talked to her then, and I believe her. She knew, she said, that her mother was using her for support, and that she'd never have a life of her own unless she ran away. I feel sorry for her, Hoke. She's not too bright, and for a thin girl she's not bad-looking, either. But she doesn't seem to realize that this guy's using her just as much as her mother did. Eventually, she believes, after her boyfriend's children are grown, he'll divorce his wife and marry her, you see."

"But did you get a positive ID?"

"Of course. Driver's license and birth certificate. She showed me both of them. Do you want me to pick her up and bring her back down with me, or what? I hate to turn this young woman over to her mother again, although-"

Hoke laughed. "Sure. Bring her in! And then, after we return Mary to her mother, I'll drive you home and return you to your mother and father."

After a five-second silence, Ellita said, "I guess I wasn't thinking."

"No, you weren't. Just borrow Rollins's license and birth certificate, and we'll make Xeroxes down here and mail them back to her. Major Brownley can then call Mrs. Rollins and tell her that Mary's alive and well. That'll be the end of it. We don't have to tell Mrs. Rollins where her daughter lives. Twenty-six years old, she can live anywhere she wants. We don't have to tell her mother shit. But before you come back down here, reassure Mary that we won't give her address to her mother. Otherwise, she might stage another fake disappearance and take off again."

"She's really afraid of the mother, Hoke. Do you want to talk to her?"

"Hell, no. Just get her address and place of employment so I can write a memo on it to Brownley. We'll attach the Xeroxes to it, and the case is closed."

"I can give you the address now." Hoke wrote the information Ellita gave him on a yellow legal pad.

"You did a good job, Ellita. You know I can't give you any overtime, but if you put in a voucher for mileage up there and back, I'll sign it. Did you have lunch yet?"

"We ate at the Spotlight Cafe, where Mary works."

"Okay. Add your lunch receipt to the mileage, and I'll reimburse you for lunch on the voucher, too. See you back at the hotel."

Hoke chopped up the onion and added it to the three cans of beef stew simmering in the pot on his hot plate. He set the switch to low-low and sniffed the aroma. This was one of Hoke's favorite meals. The girls would enjoy it.

Ellita and the girls didn't ask for seconds, however, when they ate dinner. Hoke told them they could reheat the stew for lunch the next day. While they ate, Ellita retold the story about Mary Rollins and showed Hoke the birth certificate and driver's license.

"Has she got a new license under a new name?"

"She doesn't have a car, and she didn't change her last name. She just calls herself Candi now, with an i and no e. She's got a little nameplate on her uniform. She was pretty happy when I told her- convinced her, rather- that we wouldn't tell her mother where she was living. She showed me a photo of her boyfriend. He's about fifty, and he's got a gut out to here." Ellita made a circle with her hands to demonstrate and burst into tears.

"What's the matter, Ellita?" Sue Ellen said.

"Nothing." Ellita wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I've got to wash my hair." As she got up from the table to go to her room, Hoke's phone rang.

Hoke picked it up and gestured for Sue Ellen and Aileen to stay seated and not follow Ellita to her room.

"Tony Otero's down here, Sergeant Moseley." It was Eddie Cohen. "He wants to talk to your daughter Sue Ellen. Shall I send him up, or does she want to come down here?"

"Tell him to wait at the desk. I'll be right down."

Hoke hung up the phone. He told the girls to clear the card table, fold it up again, and put things away. "I'll be back in a few minutes, and then we'll have a little talk."

Tony Otero, wearing a white linen suit, white shoes, and a red silk necktie, smiled at Hoke and shook hands with him when Hoke met him in the lobby. When Tony smiled, Hoke noticed a dark line above Tony's four upper front teeth. He realized that the little boxer was wearing an upper plate. He hadn't noticed it when Bill Henderson had introduced him to the lightweight a few weeks ago.

"Let's sit over here, Tony." Hoke gripped the boxer's elbow with a thumb and two fingers and led him over to a tattered divan in the lobby, away from the desk. The divan was well separated from the old ladies watching the TV set on the wall.

Tony was looking past Hoke's shoulder, toward the elevators.

"Sue Ellen won't be coming down, Tony. What gave you the idea you could talk to my daughter?"

"I was going to ask her out to dinner. Take her out for a steak maybe."

Hoke shook his head. "How old are you, Tony?"

"Twenty-four."

"D'you know how old Sue Ellen is?"

"Seventeen, she told me."

"She's sixteen. Just barely sixteen, hardly going on seventeen."

"Sixteen? Seventeen?" Tony shrugged. "What's the difference? I was just going to ask her out to dinner, no shit."

"Why?"

"She's a pretty girl, and I got nothing else to do tonight. I just thought that-oh, I see! You think I—" Tony laughed. "No, Sergeant, I'm not wanting to screw the girl, no shit. I'm in training, you know. I won’t be able to do nothin' like that till after the fight next month. My manager'd kill me, no shit."

"But after the fight you'd make your move, right?"

"After the fight, I go back to Cleveland."

"Do you know what 'propinquity' means, Tony?"

"Pro-propinquity? Sure, I'm a pro. I been fightin' five years now, man. I'm number twenty-two in Ring magazine, no shit. Number twenty-two."

"Not pro. Propinquity. It's a word. And what it means is close together. Two people, in propinquity, eventually get married, you see. If there's no propinquity, there's no marriage. So if you only have propinquity with someone you'd be willing to marry, you'll never make a bad marriage."

"I don't want to get married, man. I been married, but not married now, no shit."

"I know you don't want to get married again, Tony. That's why I can't allow any propinquity between you and Sue Ellen. Sue Ellen's only allowed to go out with a man who'd be a suitable husband for her, and no one else. Because, you see, without propinquity there can be no marriage. So inasmuch as you don't want to marry Sue Ellen, and she doesn't want to marry you, you can't take her out to dinner. Or talk to her down in the lobby here, or ever see her again. Get my meaning?"

"Well, I don't want to get married, no shit. I got a Jaguar out in the lot, man. I can always find a girl to take to dinner, no shit. Just tell her I stopped by to say hello."

Tony got to his feet, and so did Hoke.

"No, I won't tell her that, either. If I did, she might get the wrong idea, that you were trying to develop some propinquity. The best thing for you to do is to get into your Jaguar, drive away, and forget all about Sue Ellen."

Tony threw his shoulders back and looked around the shabby lobby. "This place is a dump, Sergeant Moseley, no shit. I got to get going."

"Good luck on the fight."

"I don't need no luck, no shit. I'll put that Filipino away in the third round."

Hoke held out his hand. Tony Otero ignored it and walked stiff-backed to the double doors without looking back.

Hoke took Sue Ellen and Aileen up to the roof. He took three webbed chairs off the stack and arranged them on the duckboards so that he could face the girls as he talked with them. Hoke had the view across the bay to the city, and the girls, looking past him, saw the steel elevator door. It was hot on the roof, but a damp wind from the Atlantic, gusting occasionally, made it bearable. The girls had changed back into their shorts and T-shirts. They had never been out of Florida, and they paid no attention to the heat, but Hoke was perspiring beneath the arms of his clean sport shirt. His face was oily with sweat, and he cleared the perspiration off his forehead with a sweeping forefinger.

A Chalk's Airline amphibian, coming in for a landing on the water, was almost level with the roof of the hotel. As the three of them turned to watch the plane, it honked its horn three times.

"Did you hear the goose honk?" Hoke said.

The girls nodded. "I thought I did," Aileen said.

"The pilot always does that to alert the ground crew on Watson Island that it's coming in for a landing. The last time I came in from Bimini there was a nervous guy aboard. When it honked three times, he said, 'Why'd it do that?’ I told him that the pilot was honking for the bridge tender to open the bridge, and the guy almost crapped his pants."

The girls giggled. "That's for boats," Sue Ellen said. "They have to blow a horn three times to get the bridges lifted. "

"I guess he knew that much," Hoke said. "That's why he believed the amphibian had to do the same thing."

"Will you take us over to Bimini sometime?" Aileen said.

"Sure, but there's nothing there. It's only sixty miles and twenty minutes away by Chalk, and it's a nice place to take girls for a weekend. Just don't try to pin me down to any definite time. You know by now we have a cash-flow problem. This is all family talk, understand, just between the three of us. I don't tell my partner everything, and you're not to say anything to Ellita, either."

"What's the matter with her, Daddy?" Sue Ellen said. "Why was she crying?"

"She's got a few problems of her own, but I can't discuss Ellita's personal problems with you, either. If she wants to tell you, she will. All I can say is that she's been living at home, and now she's left home and she's going to get a place of her own somewhere. She's never lived alone before, and I guess she misses her mother." Hoke smiled, and patted Sue Ellen's left knee. "I suppose you girls miss your mother, too?"

The girls looked at each other.

"Not me," Sue Ellen said, lighting a cigarette with her disposable lighter.

"Me neither," Aileen said. "I thought I would at first, but I haven't so far."

"Maybe it hasn't caught up with you yet. Besides, Cubans aren't like us. What's that you're smoking, Sue Ellen?"

"It's a generic cigarette. That's the only kind the machine downstairs carries, and they don't taste like much of anything."

"I should've warned you about that. That's Mr. Bennett's personal machine. He stocks his own machine, you see, and at a buck and a half a pack he makes a bigger profit on generics than he would on real cigarettes. From now on, buy your cigarettes at the supermarket, you'll save fifty cents a pack."

"I've never seen Mr. Bennett, or Emilio either," Aileen said. "Everybody's always looking for Emilio, but no one ever finds him."

"Mr. Bennett gets the kind of help he pays for. But Emilio's around. You can see the evidence of his work. Didn't you notice how neatly the gravel driveway was raked this morning? That's Emilio. But Mr. Bennett only comes around late at night, when he comes around at all. Otherwise he'd be bothered by the residents complaining to him all the time. But it works out. Any time an old lady gripes to me or Mr. Cohen, we refer her to Mr. Bennett. But that's not what I wanted to talk to you about. Your mother's house in Vero Beach. What's she going to do with it? Will she sell it or rent it out?"

"She'll never sell it," Sue Ellen said, "She and Curly'll live in it when the Dodgers come back for spring training next year. She could probably rent it, but I can't see her doing that, not with all her nice things and all."

"It was just a passing thought," Hoke said. "If Patsy would give me the house, I could try for a job on the police force up in Vero, and--

"No, Daddy." Sue Ellen shook her curls. "Momma wouldn't give you anything. You might not believe it, but Momma doesn't like you very much. Isn't that right, Aileen?"

"She hates your guts, Daddy," Aileen said, nodding in agreement. "That's a fact."

"I've often suspected that," Hoke said, "especially when her lawyer calls me. But it was just a thought. I'd hate to live in Vero anyway. But we're going to have to be practical. Tomorrow morning, when I go to the station, Sue Ellen, I'll take you with me. Then you can start looking for work at all the places of business closest to the police station. The cafes, shops, drugstores, dry cleaners, whatever. Go to each place in turn, but the closer to the police station you find work, the easier it'll be for both of us. That way, when you get a job, I can drop you off each morning on the way to work, and then bring you back here, or wherever we move to next Friday, when my shift is over."

"I've never had a job before. What do I say?"

"First, you have to look nice. Wear a dress and panty- hose, and some shoes with heels- not those running shoes. Fix your hair and put on some lipstick. Then, you walk in and say, 'I'm looking for a job.' The guy or the woman who runs the place will then say, 'We don't need anybody.' What you do then is point out that they do need someone. Show them how dirty their windows are, and that they need washing. Point out the dust, and other dirty things. Then tell them that you'll clean the place up for three dollars an hour. About every third place, especially the smaller shops, is always crummy. So you'll get some work all right. A cleanup person for only three bucks an hour's a bargain, so they'll hire you instead of doing it themselves. Do you have any problems with that?"

Sue Ellen frowned. "What about stuff to clean with? Should I buy some-"

"No. At only three bucks an hour, they'll have to furnish the equipment and cleaners and whatnot. All these places have brooms and rags and soap, but they're too lazy to use it. Concentrate on shoe stores. Did you girls ever use a restroom in a shoe store?"

"I asked once," Aileen said, "but they said it was for employees only."

"You know why they said that? It's because the rest rooms in shoe stores are the dirtiest johns in the entire United States. Shoe salesmen, wearing suits and ties, think they're too good to clean up their john, so they let it go to hell. You can get two hours' work, or six bucks, for every shoe-shop john you clean. They're filthy."

"What about me, Daddy?" Aileen said.

"Until you're sixteen, you can't get a work permit, but you can go into private enterprise. There's a good way to make some money. When I was a kid up in Riviera, I washed dogs one summer, and you can do the same. I used to get two dollars a dog, but times have changed with inflation. You can charge five bucks a dog now, and they'll pay up without a word, because people hate to wash their own dogs. We'll get you a bucket and some laundry soap from the utility room, a dozen towels or so, and you can hit up the dog owners in the apartment houses around here. No dogs are allowed in the hotel, but a lot of these old people in the apartment houses have them. So you can wash their dog, dry it off with towels, and pick up five bucks a dog. If you wash four in the morning, and four more in the afternoon, you'll make forty dollars a day."

"If it's so easy to make forty dollars a day, why doesn't Emilio do it?" Aileen said. "You told us he worked in the hotel for nothing except his room and tips. These old people around here aren't going to tip him much- they can't even find him."

"It's hard to explain, honey"-Hoke took a breath- "but Emilio's a Cuban refugee who was raised as a Communist in Cuba. The Communists don't understand the American way of life. They don't allow free enterprise in Cuba, and their government finds everybody jobs, jobs they have to take whether they want them or not. When there are no jobs, they give them free food and a place to stay anyway. Besides, Emilio gets a check for eighty-five bucks a month from some Cuban refugee organization here in Miami Beach, just because he's a Marielito. If he started to make any money on his own, they'd stop giving him the check. He wouldn't jeopardize losing that check for anything. He was brought up to think that way in Cuba, you see. If he wanted to work and make a lot of money, he'd leave Miami and make fifteen or twenty bucks an hour in the East Texas oilfields. But you girls are WASPS, and you've got to realize that you've got to make your own way in the world. As girls, you've got two choices. Either you work, or you marry some guy who'll support you."

"I don't want to get married," Aileen said. "Ever!"

"Okay, then. You can wash dogs. Don't be disappointed at first when you get turned down a lot. You may not get a single dog to wash. But when someone does see you washing a dog out in the yard, they'll bring theirs over to you, too. People are like that. They don't want to be the first one, you see. Later on, when we get settled in Miami, you'll get repeat business, too, a regular route. Then you can go around and wash the same dogs every month or so. But for the rest of the week, you can practice here on South Beach, and get some experience."

"What about dog bites? A lot of dogs don't like strangers."

"I used to have a muzzle I put on them first. So just wash small dogs at first. Then, after you get your first five bucks, pick up a muzzle at a pet shop. Don't wash any pit bulls, Dobermans, or Chows. Do you know what these dogs look like?"

Aileen nodded. "Curly Peterson's got two Dobermans. Twins."

"That figures. Okay, now, everything's settled. Except now I have to tell you about sex. First, though, what did your mother tell you about sex?"

"She already told us everything, Daddy," Sue Ellen said, looking at her fingernails. "You don't have to talk about sex."

"She tell you about the clap, syphilis, AIDS, herpes, shit chancres?"

"Not about AIDS," Sue Ellen admitted.

"AIDS you don't have to worry about. That comes from anal sex. If you avoid anal sex, you won't get AIDS, but the point is, I want you girls to avoid sex altogether. There'll be a lot of pressure on you down here. Miami isn't Vero Beach, you know."

"There was pressure in Vero, too," Sue Ellen said.

"I know, I know, but the young guys running around down here are different. They'll tell you anything. They'll start by asking you to feel their dong. Then the next thing you know, they'll ask you to jerk it a few times. First thing you know they'll talk you into giving them a blow job. Bang! You've got herpes or gonorrhea of the throat. So, no sex, period. Any guy who gets laid won't ask you to marry him, either. That's something else to remember. But I'm not unreasonable, Sue Ellen. If some guy wants to marry you, bring him around and I'll talk to him. You're sixteen, so you can get married with my consent, but I'll have to check the guy out first."

"How do you mean, check him out?"

"His father. I can check his father's credit rating in Dun and Bradstreet. I can check the boy's school records and find out what kind of I.Q. he has. You wouldn't want to marry a moron, would you?"

Sue Ellen giggled.

"Then there's his family. I'd have to see his family, find out if there's a dwarf or something in his family. You wouldn't want to have a baby dwarf, would you?"

"No!" Sue Ellen laughed.

"It isn't funny, Sue Ellen. Some of these guys have rap sheets, and I can check that out. Or else the guy might be married already, and be lying to you. That's why you shouldn't have sex until after you're married, you see. Because once he gets it, he won't marry you. Meanwhile, I know you girls are normal, and you'll have normal urges. That's natural. But to relieve your urges, just go into the bathroom, lock the door, and masturbate. But remember this, masturbation is a private matter. Do it alone, and not to each other, and don't ever talk about it."

"Not even to Ellita?" Sue Ellen asked.

"Especially not to Ellita. Jesus. She's a Cuban and a Catholic. She'd be shocked if you told her about any of this stuff I'm telling you. But VD is the worst. A dose of clap'll make an old man out of you before you're thirty."

Both girls laughed.

Hoke grinned. "That's what my old first sergeant used to tell us every payday, when I was in the army. So it won't make an old man out of you girls, but clap's harder on a woman than it is on a man because it can make you sterile. Got any questions?"

The girls looked at each other. Aileen smiled; Sue Ellen studied the tip of her cigarette. "Can I let the hair grow under my arms? Like Ellita?"

"Not yet. Wait until you're eighteen. Okay? And any questions you have, ask me, and if I don't know the answer, I'll find out for you. If you can't trust your father to give you the straight goods about sex, who else have you got? Okay, run along now. I'm going to stay up here for a while. "

The girls kissed him and took the elevator down. Hoke lit a cigarette and walked to the parapet. The sun was down, but the entire western sky was still a watercolor wash of red, purple, and orange. Low on the horizon, there were darker, slanting shafts of blue-black, indicating the rain that was passing through the Everglades.

All in all, Hoke thought, his little talk had gone fairly well, but he was glad it was over. He had left out a lot, but there were some things the girls weren't ready for, even though they were brighter than he had thought they were. They had made it easy for him, too, by not asking a lot of dumb questions. But he still didn't know what he was going to do about finding a decent place to live.