“No sweat, Larry,” Eddie said. “If you want me to, I’ll drive the convertible. I’m a better driver than you.”
I shook my head. “That’s why I want you behind me, in case we have to make a run for it in the Vega. Besides, I’m not going to drive over thirty, and when I cross the bridge, before the Goodyear landing pad, I’m going to throw my pistol over the side. It’ll be a lot easier to throw it over the rail from the convertible.”
“Move out, then. I’m right behind you.”
I got rid of the gun, leaving it in the holster, when I passed over the bridge, and a few moments later I was parked in the Japanese Garden parking lot. There were no other cars. The Garden itself was closed at night, and fenced in to keep the hippies from sleeping in the tiny bamboo tearoom. But the parking lot was outside the fence. Sometimes lovers used the parking lot at night, but because most people knew that the Garden was closed at night, they didn’t realize that the parking lot was still available. Eddie pulled in beside me and cut his lights.
I got some Kleenex out of the glove compartment of my Vega, and smudged the steering wheel and doors of the convertible. I did this for Eddie’s benefit mostly; it’s almost impossible to get decent prints from a car. Then I got the GI blanket and the beach towel and the paper sack of personal belongings. As we drove back toward Dade Towers, I folded the blanket and the towel in my lap.
Eddie said: “What do you think, Fuzz-0?”
“About what?”
“The whole thing. D’you think we’ll get away with it?”
“I’m worried about Don.”
“You don’t have to worry about Don,” Eddie said. “Don’s all right.”
“If I don’t have to worry about Don,” I said, “I don’t have to worry about anything.”
“You don’t have to worry about Don,” Eddie said.
“Good. If you don’t scratch a sore, it doesn’t suppurate.”
“Hey! That’s poetry, Larry.”
“That’s a fact,” I said. “When you hit Twenty-seventh, turn into the Food Fair lot. I’ll throw all this stuff into the Dempsey dumpster.”
When we got back to Hank’s apartment, Don and Hank were watching television. The color was back in Don’s face, and he was drinking red wine with ice cubes. Hank had found an old electric fan in his closet, and some Christmas tree spray left over from Christmas. The windows were still open, but the pungent spray, diffused by the noisy fan, made the room smell like a pine forest. I turned off the TV, fixed myself a light Scotch and water, without ice, and sat in front of the coffee table. I counted the money, and gave two one-hundred-dollar bills each to Eddie, Hank, and Don, and kept two of them for myself. I folded the remaining money, and put it into my jacket pocket.
“I’ll need this extra money to buy a new pistol,” I said. “I got rid of mine — and the holster.”
“What did you do with it, Larry?” Don said.
“If you don’t know, Don, you can’t tell, can you?” I looked at him and smiled.
“What makes you think Don would ever say anything?” Hank said.
“I don’t,” I said. “But it’s better for none of you guys to know. Okay? Now. If anybody’s got anything to say, now’s the time to say it. We’ll talk about it now, and then we’ll forget about it forever. What I mean, after tonight, none of us should ever mention this thing again. Okay?”
Hank cleared his throat. “While you and Eddie were gone, Don and I were wondering why you had us bring the girl here in the first place.”
“I was waiting for that,” I said. “What I wanted was a make on the girl. I figured that if I could find out her address, I could call her father, and have him come and get her. Either that, or we could take her to him after I talked to him. That way, he could’ve put her to bed and called his family doctor. That way, he could’ve covered up the fact that she died from an OD, if that’s what it was.”
“That wouldn’t have worked,” Hank said.
“Maybe not. But that was the idea in the back of my mind. You asked me why I brought her here, and that’s the reason.”
“It would’ve worked with me,” Don said. “I wouldn’t’ve wanted it in the papers, if my daughter died from an overdose of drugs.”
“Okay, Larry,” Hank said. “You never explained it to us before, is all. I just wonder, now, who those people were.”
“The papers will tell you.” Eddie laughed. “Look in the Miami News tomorrow night. Section C–Lifestyle.”
“Don?” I said.
“One thing,” Don said, looking into his glass. “I didn’t mean to pull the trigger. I’m sorry about getting you guys into this mess.”
“You didn’t get us into anything, Don,” Eddie said. “We were all in it together anyway.”
“Just the same,” Don said, “I made it worse, and I’m sorry.”
“We’re all sorry,” I said. “But what’s done is done. Tomorrow, I’m going to report it at the office that my pistol was stolen out of the glove compartment of my car. They may raise a little hell with me, but these things happen in Miami. So I’m telling you guys about it now. Some dirty son of a bitch stole my .38 out of my glove compartment.”
No one said anything for a few moments. Don stared at the diluted wine in his glass. Eddie lit a cigarette. I finished my drink. Hank, frowning, and looking at the floor, rubbed his knees with the palms of his hands.
“Eddie,” I said, “do you want to add anything?”
Eddie shrugged, and then he laughed. “Yeah. Who wants to go down to the White Shark for a little pool?”
Hank and Don both smiled.
“If we needed an alibi, it wouldn’t be a bad idea,” I said. “But we don’t need an alibi. If there’s nothing else, I think we should all hit our respective sacks.”
Eddie and I stood up. “You going to be okay, Don?” Eddie asked.
“Sure.” Don stood up, and we started toward the door.
“Just a minute,” Hank stopped us. “I picked up the girl in the drive-in, and bets were made! You guys owe me money!”
We all laughed then, and the tension dissolved. We paid Hank off, of course, and then we went to bed. But as far as I was concerned, we were still well ahead of the game: four lucky young guys in Miami, sitting on top of a big pile of vanilla ice cream.
The Works
by T.J. MacGregor
South Beach
(Originally published in 1990)
I know how it is down here on the beach for the old ones now, what with rising prices and traffic and crime. They’re afraid to go out at night. Their Social Security checks barely cover a month of meals at Wolfie’s. They feel like Miami Beach’s postscript.
The Art Deco craze did it, you know. Ever since folks decided Deco was in again, those little hotels over on Ocean Drive are booming with business, charging prices like I can’t believe, and yeah, people pay them. I mean, seventy bucks for a room no larger than a closet, five bucks for a hard-boiled egg and a slice of bread that’s hardly toasted, two bucks for coffee. The old ones can remember when coffee in these places cost a dime.
There’s a haughty look to the hotels that really gets me too. They stand so prim and proper at the edge of the sea, all spiffed up in pastels, windows so clean they gleam like jewels. The old ones feel like they can’t afford to even walk there, and when they do, shuffling in their tired bones, under the weight of eighty or ninety years of memories, they’re nearly trampled by the youthful crowds rushing to this hotel or that bar.
So I keep my prices low and do what I can. When an old one is troubled or sad, sick or too drunk to stand, I take him or her in. Word has gotten around that Millie’s Place is where you go when it’s gotten bad.