Shark Infested Custard (3 page)

       "Your face is red," I said.

       "But not as red as this magenta makes it look."

       "When you pay us off tonight," Eddie said, "it'll match perfectly."

       Hank looked at his wristwatch. "Suppose we synchronize our watches. It is now, precisely... seven-twenty-one. We'll see who ends up with the reddest faces."

       We checked our watches. For the first time, I wondered if I had made a bad bet. If Hank lost, I consoled myself at least his over-confidence would preclude my giving him any sympathy.

       We decided then to meet Hank at the Burger Queen across from the Southside Drive-In. He would take his Galaxie, and the rest of us would ride down in Don's Mark IV.

       Because we stopped at the 7/Eleven to buy two six packs of beer, Hank beat us to the Burger Queen by about five minutes. Don gave Hank a can of beer, which he hid under the front seat, and then Hank drove across the highway. It was exactly seven-forty-one.

CHAPTER THREE

We ordered Double Queens apiece, with fries, and then grabbed a tile table on the side patio to the left of the building. The Burger Queen didn't serve beer, and the manager couldn't see us fish our beers out of the paper sack around to the side. We could look directly across the highway and see the drive-in exit.

       Unless you're going out to dinner somewhere, eating at eight p.m. in Miami is on the late side. We were all used to eating around six, and so we were ravenous as we wolfed down the double burgers. We didn't talk until we finished, and I gathered up the trash and dumped it into the nearest garbage can. Don ripped the tops off three more beers.

       Below Kendall, at this point on the Dixie Highway, there were six lanes, and the traffic was swift and noisy both ways. Eddie began to laugh and shake his head.

       "What's so funny?" I said.

       "The whole thing—what else? I know there isn't a hellova lot to do on a Thursday night, but if I ever told anyone I sat around at the Burger Queen for two hours waiting for my buddy to pick up a woman at a drive-in movie—"

       "You'd better hope it's at least an hour-and-a-half," Don said.

       "I know, I know," Eddie said, "but you've got to admit the whole business is pretty stupid."

       "Yes, and no, Eddie," I said. "It isn't really money, either. You and Don both know that we'd all like to take Hank down a notch."

       Don smiled. "I think you may be right, Larry."

       "I'm not jealous of Hank," Eddie said.

       "Neither am I," I said. "All I'm saying is that for once I'd like to see old Hank lose one. I like Hank, for Christ's sake, but I hate to see any man so damned over-confident all the time, that's all."

       "Yeah," Eddie said. "I know what you mean."

       Don snorted, and looked at his watch. "You'll have to wait until another time, I think. It's now eight-twelve, and here comes our wandering over-confident boy."

       Don had spotted Hank's Galaxie as it cleared the drive-in exit, and Hank, waiting to make a left turn, was hovering at the edge of the highway when I turned to look. He had to wait for some time, and we couldn't see whether there was a woman in the car with him or not. He finally made it across and parked in the Burger Queen lot. We met him about half-way as he came towards us—by himself.

       "How about a beer?" Hank said.

       "We drank it," Eddie said.

       "Thanks for saving me one. Come on. I'll introduce you to Hildy."

       We followed Hank to the Galaxie. When he opened the passenger door and the overhead light went on, we saw the girl clearly. She was about thirteen or fourteen, barefooted, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt, and tight raggedy-cuffed blue jeans with a dozen or more different patches sewn onto them. On her crotch, right over the pudenda, there was a patch with a comic rooster flexing muscled wings. The embroidered letters, in white, below the chicken read: I'M A MEAN FIGHTING COCK. Her brownish hair fell down her back, well past her shoulders, straight but slightly tangled, and her pale face was smudged with dirt. She gave us a tentative smile, and tried to take us all in at once, but she had trouble focusing her eyes. She closed her eyes, and her head bobbled on her skinny neck.

       "She's only a kid," Eddie said, glaring at Hank.

       Hank shrugged. "I know. She looked older over in the drive-in, without any lights, but you guys didn't set any age limit. A girl's a girl, and I had enough trouble snagging this one."

       "It's a cop-out, Hank," I said, "and you know it."

       "Suit yourself, Fuzz-O," Hank said. "If you guys don't want to pay off, I'll cancel the debt."

       "Nobody said he wouldn't pay," Don said. "But the idea was to pick up somebody old enough to screw. You wouldn't fuck a fourteen-year-old girl—"

       "That wasn't one of the conditions," Hank said, "but if that's what you guys want, I'll take Hildy home, give her a shower, and slip it to her. I sure as hell wouldn't be getting any cherry—"

       The girl—Hildy—whimpered like a puppy, coughed, choked slightly, and fell over sideways in the seat.

       "Nobody's going to hurt you kid," Don said.

       "She's stoned on something, Hank," I said. "You'd better get her out of there before she heaves all over the upholstery."

       Hank bent down, leaned inside the car, and pushed up the girl's eyelids. He put a forefinger into her throat and then grabbed her thin right wrist to check her pulse. He slammed the passenger door, and leaned against it. His red, sunburned face was watermelon pink—about as pale as Hank was capable of getting.

       "She's dead," Hank said. He took out his cigarettes, put one in his mouth, but couldn't get his lighter to work. I lighted a cigarette myself, and then held the match for Hank. His fingers trembled.

       "Don't play around, Hank," Don said. "Shit like that isn't funny."

       "She's dead, Don," Hank said.

       "Are you sure?" Eddie said.

       "Look, man—" Hank ran his fingers through his fluffy hair, and then took a long drag on his cigarette. "Dead is dead, man! I've seen too many... too fucking many—"

       "Take it easy, Hank," I said.

       "What do we do now, Larry?" Don said. Hank and Eddie looked at me, too, waiting. At 28, I was the youngest of the four. Hank was 31, and Don and Eddie were both 30, but because of my police background they were dumping the problem in my lap.

       "We'll take her to Hank's apartment," I said. "I'll drive Hank's car, and Hank'll go with me. You guys go on ahead in the Continental and unlock the fire door to the north-west stairway. Meet us at the door, because it's closest to Hank's apartment. Then, while you three take her upstairs to the apartment, I'll park Hank's car."

       "Okay," Don said. "Let's go, Eddie."

       "Don't run, for Christ's sake," I said.

       They slowed to a walk. Hank gave me his car keys, and I circled the car and got in behind the wheel.

       On the way back to Dade Towers I drove cautiously. Hank sat in the passenger bucket seat beside me, and held the girl's shoulders. He had folded her legs, and she was in a kneeling position on the floor with her face level with the dash glove compartment. He held her steady, with both hands gripping her shoulders.

       "How'd you happen to pick her up, Hank?" I said.

       "Thursday's a slow night, apparently," Hank said. "There're only about twenty-five cars in there. No one, hardly, was at the snack bar. I got a paper cup from the counter, and went outside to pour my beer into it. Sometimes, you know, there's a cop around, and you're not supposed to drink beer at the drive-in, you know."

       "I know."

       The girl had voided, and the smell of ammonia and feces was strong. Moving her about hadn't helped any either. I pushed the button to lower the windows, and turned off the airconditioning.

       "That was a good idea," Hank said. "Anyway, I got rid of the beer can in a trash basket, and circled around the snack bar to the women's can. I thought some women might come out, and I could start talking to one, but none did. Then I walked on around the back of the building to the other side. Hildy, here, was standing out in the open, not too far from the men's room. She was standing there, that's all, looking at the screen. The nearest car was about fifty feet away—I told you there were only about twenty-five cars, didn't I?"

       "Yeah. A lot of people don't come until the second feature, which is usually the best flick."

       "Maybe so. The point is, nobody was around us. 'Hi,' I said, 'are you waiting for me?' She just giggled and then she mumbled something.

       "'Who?' I said, and then she said, 'The man in the yellow jump suit.'

       "'Oh, sure,' I said, 'he sent me to get you. My name's Hank—what's yours?'

       "'Hildy,' she said.

       "'Right,' I said. 'You're the one, all right. I hope you don't mind magenta instead of yellow.'

       "Then she asked me for some of my Coke. She thought I had a Coke because of the red paper cup, you see. So I gave her a drink from the cup and she made a face. Then she took my hand, just like I was her father or something, and I led her over to my car. It was dark as hell in there, Larry, and I swear she looked older—around seventeen, anyway."

       "That doesn't make any difference now," I said.

       "I guess not. I wish to hell I had a drink."

       "We can get one in your apartment."

The operation at Dade Towers worked as smoothly as if we had rehearsed it. I parked at the corner, ten feet from the door. Hank wrapped a beach towel around Hildy, an old towel he kept in the back seat, and Eddie opened the car door. The fire door to the stairway, which was rarely used, only opened from the inside. Don held the door partly open for Hank and Eddie, and they had carried her inside and up the stairs before I drove across the street and into the parking lot. After parking in Hank's slot and locking the car, I shoved Hildy's handbag under my T-shirt.

       I knocked softly at Hank's door when I got upstairs. Don opened it a crack to check me out before he let me in. Hildy was on her back on the couch, with the beach towel beneath her. She was only about four-eight, and the mounted sailfish on the wall above her looked almost twice as long as she did. The sail's name in yellow chalk, "Hank's Folly," somehow seemed appropriate. When I joined the group, Hank handed me a straight Scotch over ice cubes.

       The four of us, in a semi-circle, stared down at the girl for a few moments. Her brown eyes were opened partially, and there were yellow "sleepies" in the corners. There was a scattering of pimples on her forehead, and a few freckles on her nose and cheeks. There was a yellow hickey on the left corner of her mouth, and she didn't have any lipstick on her pale lips. Her skin, beneath the smudges of dirt, was so white it was almost transparent, and a dark blue vein beneath her right temple was clearly visible. She wasn't wearing a bra beneath her T-shirt—with her adolescent chest bumps, she didn't need one.

       "She looks," Eddie said, "like a first-year Brownie."

       Don began to cry.

       "For God's sake, Don—" Hank said.

       "Leave him alone, Hank," I said. "I feel like crying myself."

       Don sat in the Danish chair across from the TV, took out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes, and then blew his nose.

       I emptied the purse—a blue-and-red patchwork leather bag, with a long braided leather shoulder strap—onto the coffee table. There were two plastic vials containing pills. One of them was filled with the orange heart-shaped pills I recognized as Dexies. The other pills were round and white, but larger than aspirins, and stamped "M.T." There was a Mary Jane, a penny piece of candy wrapped in yellow paper, the kind kids buy at the 7/Eleven; a roll of bills held together by a rubber band; a used and wadded Kleenex; and a blunt, slightly bent aluminum comb.

       As I started to count the money, I said to Eddie, "Search her body, Ed."

       "No," he said, shaking his head.

       "Let me fix you another drink, Ed." Hank took Eddie's glass, and they moved to the kitchenette table. Don, immobilized in the Danish chair, stared at the floor without blinking.

       There were thirty-eight dollars in the roll; one was a five, the rest were ones. I emptied the girl's front pockets. This was hard to do because her jeans were so tight. There were two quarters and three pennies in the right pocket, and a slip of folded notebook paper in the left. It was a list of some kind, written with a blue felt pen. "'30 ludes, 50 Bs, no gold''." There was only one hip pocket, and it was a patch that had been sewn on in an amateurish manner. The patch, in red denim, with white letters, read, KISS MY PATCH. The pocket was empty.

       "There's no I.D., Hank," I said.

       "So what do we do now," Eddie said, "call the cops?"

       "What's your flying schedule?" I said.

       "I go to New York Saturday. Why?"

       "How'd you like to be grounded, on suspension without pay for about three months? Pending an investigation into the dope fiend death of a teenaged girl?"

       "We didn't do anything," Eddie said.

       "That's right," I said. "But that wouldn't keep your name out of the papers, or some pretty nasty interrogations at the station. And Hank's in a more sensitive position than you are with the airline, what with his access to drug samples and all. If—or when—he's investigated, and his company's name gets into the papers, as soon as he's cleared, the best he can hope for is a transfer to Yuma, Arizona."

       Hank shuddered and sat down at the coffee table beside me in the straight-backed cane chair. He opened the vial holding the pills that were stamped "M.T."

       "Methaqualone," Hank said. "But they're not from my company. We make them all right, but our brand's called 'Meltin.' There're twenty M-T's left in the vial, so she could've taken anywhere from one to a dozen—or more maybe. Four or five could suffocate and kill her." Hank shrugged, and looked at the girl's body on the couch. "The trouble is, these heads take mixtures sometimes of any and everything. She's about seventy-five pounds, I'd say, and if she was taking a combination of Dexies and M.T.'s, it's a miracle she was still on her feet when I picked her up." He tugged on his lower lip. "If any one of us guys took even three 'ludes, we'd sleep for at least ten hours straight. But if Hildy, here, was on the stuff for some time, she could've built up a tolerance, and—"