Miami Blues Read Online Free PDF Page A

afternoon."
    "Thank you. But whatever you do, don't tell Pablo. We aren't supposed to go out with the johns--that's why I want you to meet me at Granny's."
    "Pablo, in my opinion, is an asshole. I'll just tell him I had jet lag and that kept me from performing. I'll slip him ten bucks and he'll be so happy he won't say a word to you. But I won't tell him about our date. Don't worry."
    Susan blushed, and looked shyly at the floor. "You can kiss me on the cheek and sorta seal our date. That way I know you'll really come to Granny's. I know you men don't like to kiss us on the mouth . . ."
    "I don't mind kissing you on the mouth."
    "You don't?"
    Freddy kissed her chastely, almost tenderly, on the lips, and then led her to the door. She waggled her fingers and smiled; then he closed the door after her and chain-locked it. She had forgotten the empty suitcase, and he still had the bag of clothes. He would give the suitcase to Pablo instead of the ten bucks he had intended to give him. As long as he had the clothes, he knew she would come to Granny's.
    He still had plenty of time to do some shopping.
    4
    Bill Henderson and Hoke Moseley worked on their reports for the rest of the afternoon at the double desk they shared in a glass-walled cubbyhole at the new Miami Police Station. As sergeants they were entitled to the tiny office, which had a door that could be closed and locked, but it was much more crowded and uncomfortable than the space the other plainclothes detectives had in the large, outer bullpen. The room was undecorated, except for a twenty-two by thirty-inch poster on the one unglassed wall. A hand holding a pistol, with the pistol pointed at the viewer, was in the center of the wall. The message, in bold black letters beneath the pointing pistol, read MIAMI--SEE IT LIKE A NATIVE.
    When they took the depositions of the brothers Peeples, only one man at a time could be accommodated in the tiny room. Irritated by the Georgians' uncooperative attitudes, they let the two men find their own way back to the airport by taxi instead of returning them to the PR man in a police car.
    Hoke flipped a quarter. Henderson lost, which meant that Henderson had to call Martin Waggoner's father in Okeechobee and break the sad news. While Henderson called, Hoke went downstairs to the station cafeteria and got two cups of coffee in Styrofoam cups. He drank his in the cafeteria and brought the other cup, now barely warm, back upstairs to Henderson. Henderson took one sip of the lukewarm coffee, replaced the lid, and dropped the cup into the wastebasket.
    "Mr. Waggoner said his son had a sister living with him here in Miami, and he wouldn't accept the truth of his son's death until she identified the body. His son was a deeply religious boy, he claimed, and was not the kind to fight anyone. I told him there wasn't any fight, and about how it happened and all, and he said that there had to be more to it than that. I know how he feels, the poor bastard. When I told him his son died from a broken finger I felt like I was lying myself."
    "He didn't die from a broken finger. He died from shock."
    Henderson shrugged. "I know. And I told him what Doc Evans said about shock. Anyway, I made the call to Mr. Waggoner, so you can take the sister down to identify the body."
    "You lost the coin toss--"
    "And I called Mr. Waggoner. The sister's a new development, and my wife expects me home for dinner. We're having company over. You're single--"
    "Divorced."
    "But single, with no responsibilities or obligations."
    "I pay alimony and child support for two teenage daughters."
    "Sometimes you break my heart. Your evenings are bleak and empty. You have no friends--"
    "I thought you and I were friends?"
    "We are. That's why you can get a hold of the sister while I go home to my assertive wife, my gawky teenager son, and my daughter with acne. I can then entertain for drinks and dinner a couple my wife likes and I can't stand."
    "Okay, since you point out the joys