Sideswipe by Charles Willeford Read Free Book Online

waited for his father, sipped his coffee, stared at the bowl of daisies in the centerpiece, and wondered what he should say to the old man.
     
    Anyone who saw the two together would notice a family likeness. It would be difficult to explain where it was, however, because the two Moseley men, except for their chocolate eyes, did not resemble one another. They were both a quarter-inch over five-ten, but Frank's shoulders slumped and he was stooped slightly, making him look much shorter than his son. He was also thin and wiry, and not more than 150 pounds, whereas Hoke weighed 190. When he had lived alone, Hoke had maintained an off-and-on diet and had once got down to 180 pounds, but after his ex-wife returned his daughters to him and Ellita had moved into the house in Green Lakes, Ellita had done all of the cooking. The starchy foods she liked--rice and black beans, fried plantains, baked yucca, chicken and yellow rice, pork roasts and pork chunks--had soon restored his lost poundage, and then some.
     
    Frank Moseley had a full head of white hair. When a few people had told him that he resembled the ex--auto maker John DeLorean, the old man had let his hair grow and had fluffed it out on the sides, which made his resemblance to the automobile designer almost uncanny. But Frank, oddly enough, looked much younger than DeLorean. Perhaps it was because he had led such an untroubled life.
     
    Hoke's face was as long as his father's, but it looked longer because he was balding in front, and his high brown dome and sunken, striated cheeks made his face seem a good deal narrower as well. Hoke had sandy hair, with no gray in it as yet, but he wore it roached back and without a part. His barber had suggested once that he comb it straight forward and let it grow a bit, which would give him a fringe effect. That style would minimize his baldness, he said. But Hoke thought that men who wore bangs looked like fruits, and he rejected the suggestion. A suspect would not, in Hoke's opinion, take a cop seriously if he looked the least bit gay.
     
    Hoke's face was almost as dark as iodine from his lifetime exposure to the Florida sun, and his hairy forearms were deep mahogany because he always wore short-sleeved shirts. When he took off his shirt, his upper arms were ivory-colored; the rat's nest of black chest hair, and the long black hairs on his shoulders and back, looked like tangled nylon thread against the whiteness of his skin. As a teenager, when Hoke had worked on a live-bait ballyhoo boat out of Riviera Beach during the summers, he had been tan from the waist up as well, but he no longer went out in the sun without a shirt, and, like most Miamians, he rarely went to the beach. Because of his cheap blue-gray dentures, Hoke looked older than forty-three; but then, when one looked into his eyes, he seemed younger than that. Hoke's eyes, so dark it was difficult to see where the iris left off and the pupil began, were beautiful. Here, then, in the eyes, was where the family resemblance had concentrated itself. To see one man with eyes like that was remarkable; to see two men with eyes like theirs together was astonishing.
     
    "Morning, son," Frank said, picking up the paper and turning to the business section. "How d'you feel?"
     
    "Okay."
     
    The old man put on his glasses and checked the stock market reports with a forefinger. He grunted, shook his head, and removed the glasses. "You going back to Miami, or what? You've been mighty quiet the last few days."
     
    "I've been thinking, Frank. I've decided to resign from the department, and I'm never leaving the island again."
     
    "You mean you're moving back here to Riviera Beach?"
     
    "No, not exactly. I'm not going to leave the island, or cross the bridge to the mainland. I'm going to get a room here on the island, and find a job as a fry cook, maybe, or something like that."
     
    "You can come back to work at the store."
     
    Hoke shook his head. "Then I'd have to drive across