The Prince of Paradise

by John Glatt

  Narcy would inherit all his property, but if his eighty-three-year-old mother survived him, Narcy would receive only $200,000 and half the 2501 Del Mar Place. In the event that Narcy died before him, he bequeathed $250,000 each to her grandsons Patrick and Marchelo Gaffney, and $100,000 to their mother, May Abad.

  At the end of his will, Novack stipulated that his death would automatically void his and Narcy’s contentious 1991 prenuptial agreement, and be superseded by his will.

  * * *

  Ben Novack Jr. was now running up hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on his coveted black American Express card, for his business and personal expenses. But while he was living big, Bernice Novack shopped in thrift stores and watched every cent.

  “She loved these huge flea markets in Pompano Beach,” said Temple Hayes. “Once, we went and spent the whole day there, looking for bargains.”

  On one trip to New York, Hayes brought Bernice back a ten-dollar imitation Rolex watch she had bought on the street. “Bernice loved that thing so much,” remembered Hayes. “She was so tickled. She wore it faithfully all the time.”

  The former mistress of the Fontainebleau was now known in several Fort Lauderdale stores as a demanding customer and extremely hard to please.

  “Bernice loved to shop,” explained Guy Costaldo, “and she liked to return. She’d take it home, try it on, and then didn’t like it and return it. And I used to tease her, saying, ‘The girls in Saks must shake when they see you, because they don’t know if they’re getting a commission this week or not.’”

  Eventually, Bloomingdales banned her from the store, because she had taken back so many clothes.

  “We’d go shopping,” said Estelle Fernandez, “and we’d all buy stuff. And the next thing you know Bernice is returning everything. She really didn’t need it. She just did it for the thrill.”

  Where once the former model had dressed like a queen in the most expensive haut couture—and still had those clothes, now carefully stored away and labeled in boxes—she’d now throw on an old shirt and jeans to go to work.

  “She had no use for those clothes,” said Fernandez, referring to Bernice’s former classy wardrobe. “That was a different life and a different lifestyle. She was now down to wearing nothing, because she worked in this office with these lowlifes. She didn’t even want to put makeup on. She said she had no reason to get dressed.”

  * * *

  Although Ben Jr. was often rude to her, his devoted mother refused to hear a bad word about him. While her son and Narcy were traveling around the world running conventions, Bernice looked after Ben’s two cats and tidied up their cluttered home as best she could. Ben had always had a pet cat since childhood, and often seemed more attached to his cats than any human being.

  “Ben doted over those cats,” Temple Hayes recalled. “When [he and Narcy] would travel, he wanted [Bernice] to go over two or three times a day, especially if one of the cats was not feeling well. He stressed a lot about his cats. Sometimes he would even talk to them on the phone. Ben even had a small cat cemetery in his backyard, where his pet cats over the years were buried. There were these beautiful little tombstones of his kitties,” said Hayes.

  Ben was still highly dependent on his aging mother, regularly calling her late at night to talk. He made no allowances for her being in her mid-eighties and in declining health, and thought nothing of calling her in the midst of a heated argument with Narcy and asking her to drive over and provide moral support.

  “This is when he used his mother,” explained Estelle Fernandez. “‘I can’t handle Narcy. You have to come over.’”

  Narcy would then come on the line, complaining that Ben was watching pornography on his computer. He would deny it.

  Then the old lady would drive over to Del Mar Place at midnight to make peace between them.

  “It was horrible,” said Estelle. “She’d say every day, ‘I never thought my life would be like this.’”

  All the stress in her life was starting to take its toll. Bernice became depressed, and her doctor put her on the antidepressant Xanax and its generic, alprazolam. Also, her asthma, which she had always suffered from, was getting worse. She started suffering chronic asthma attacks in the middle of the night, and had to keep an oxygen machine by her bed. She even began sleeping with her clothes on, in case she had an attack and had to go to the emergency room in the middle of the night.

  “She was afraid,” said Fernandez. “She didn’t want to go to the hospital in her nightgown, and would be prepared.”

  Whenever she had an attack, she would immediately phone Ben for help. On the many occasions she was unable to reach him, or he was out of town, she drove herself to the emergency room.

  * * *

  That Christmas, a man followed Bernice Novack home from a mall where she had been buying presents. He waited until she had driven her car into her two-car garage, and then attacked her.

  “As she stepped out of the car, he grabbed her heels,” said Estelle Fernandez,”and dragged her out of the car. Then he grabbed her purse and ran to a car parked nearby and drove off.”

  The old woman was so shaken up by the attack that Ben Jr. had Joe Gandy fit dead bolts on every door of her house, for extra protection.

  THIRTY-ONE

  LIFE WITH THE NOVACKS

  In early 2007, Prince Mongo moved to Daytona, and Ben and Narcy Novack sailed there to visit him. On the way, their fifty-foot yacht White Lightning broke down at Vero Beach, so they rented a car to complete the journey. Ben then ordered Joe Gandy to bring the yacht back to Fort Lauderdale to be completely refitted, at a cost of more than $2 million.

  While in Daytona, Ben and Narcy viewed available houses, as they were thinking about relocating. Ben wanted to be near the water for his boats, with Bernice remaining in Fort Lauderdale to run the Conventions Concept Unlimited office.

  Over the next few months, Ben and Narcy also looked at properties in South Carolina, Key West, and Tampa. They especially liked a house by the water in St. Augustine, which Ben thought would make an excellent museum for his Batman collection, and sent Mongo an air ticket to come see it.

  “They flew me in to Jacksonville,” Mongo said. “Ben picked me up and we looked at the house, and I flatly couldn’t stand it. They did not buy that house, although they looked at many others around my area.”

  During the trip, Mongo viewed houses with them during the day and socialized with them at night. “After that home invasion thing,” he said, “they were getting along better than they ever did. We’d go out and eat every night and they were chummy chummy. They smile, they laugh and talk and seemed normal. And I said, ‘Jeez, it’s good that you’re all getting along so good.’ Narcy said, ‘Well, he’s been better lately.’”

  One night, Mongo took Narcy to one side and asked her why they wanted to move out of Fort Lauderdale.

  “That was an awful mystery to me,” Mongo said. “Narcy told me, ‘Ben is acting so strange, he wants to get out of town now. He wants to buy a house and leave Fort Lauderdale.’

  “I said, ‘How can he possibly, with his lifestyle, want to leave Fort Lauderdale?’ And Narcy said, ‘It seems like somebody’s shaking him.’”

  A month later, an excited Ben Novack Jr. announced that they were buying a house in Seattle, Washington.

  “I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding,’” Mongo recalled, “‘It’s raining all the time in Seattle. What are you going to do about the boats?’ Well, Ben always had an answer. ‘You can boat in California day to day.’” I mean they were jitterbugging around … jumping like hot popcorn.”

  * * *

  In late 2007, Ben and Narcy Novack visited New Jersey for a convention and, while there, bought some furniture. Narcy’s elder brother Cristobal Veliz, who divided his time between Brooklyn and Philadelphia, had just been laid off from his bus driving job, so Ben hired him to drive the furniture back to Fort Lauderdale.

  “Narcy called,” said Cristobal’s Chinese-born fia
ncée, Laura Law, “and they have a meeting to arrange to move the furniture, as Ben wants to move it to Florida.”

  Recently, Narcy Novack had become closer to her two older brothers, Cristobal and Carlos. Every February, Cristobal, Laura, and his two young children from a previous marriage vacationed in Florida. They spent a couple of days with Ben and Narcy before visiting his other two sisters and a niece, who were scattered around Florida.

  During their brief visit in February 2008, Ben Novack Jr. was his usual brusque self, trying to avoid Narcy’s family as much as possible.

  “Ben Novack is very picky,” said Law. “Nobody can go inside their house, and guests can only stay in the guesthouse.”

  During their stay, Laura Law observed her in-laws and felt that something was wrong. “They are like a husband and wife,” she said. “But sometimes they argue. They are not happy.”

  Every night while they were there, Ben worked late on his computer in his second-floor office, drinking one coffee after another. “And when there was no coffee on the table,” said Law, “Ben was not happy. He would be on his computer and shout, ‘Narcy, coffee! Narcy, coffee!’ And Narcy makes a cup of coffee and brings it up to him.”

  On one occasion, after an argument, Narcy refused to make him coffee. Ben then complained to Cristobal that his sister wasn’t talking to him, asking if he could mediate and tell Narcy to stop being so angry.

  “My husband was in the middle,” said Law.

  The next day, Ben bought Narcy some jewelry to make up with her. Narcy refused to accept it, telling Ben that she didn’t want his gifts anymore.

  “And then Ben was so mad,” said Law.

  * * *

  Several weeks later, Ben Novack Jr. answered a sex advertisement on a Fort Lauderdale–based escort service Web site called Cityvibe.com. The advertisement had been placed by an attractive $300-an-hour prostitute named Rebecca Bliss, who had fallen on hard times after a former boyfriend shot her a year earlier.

  Born Rebecca Dabakey in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the heavily tattooed and pierced forty-year-old brunette had a troubled history. After dropping out of the Kendall College of Art and Design, she had married and had a daughter. In 2002 her marriage broke up and she lost custody of the now-seven-year-old girl and moved south to Fort Myers, Florida, to work as a tattoo artist.

  “I got my first tattoo when I was sixteen,” says her Web site, “and have had a passionate love for body art ever since.”

  Three years later, she moved to California to start a new career as a porn star, as she owed her ex-husband thousands of dollars in child support. Over the next several years, under the name Mona Love, she starred in hardcore movies such as Mona Love: Housewife Willing to Do Anything, Mona the Love Warrior, and Mommy Blows Best.

  In 2007 she retired from porn and moved back east to work as a tattoo artist. A few months later, her boyfriend shot her three times in her right hand and leg, effectively ending her tattooing career.

  Then she moved to Miami and became a prostitute to survive.

  Apart from advertising on Miami Internet sex sites, Bliss also had her own raunchy Web site, in which she boasted, “Have skills will travel … MI, NYC, CA, FL.”

  In February 2008, Ben Novack Jr. answered one of her online ads, and they began e-mailing each other.

  “I included my phone number,” said Bliss, “and he was able to call me, and we started speaking.”

  Soon afterward, they met for a coffee at a Starbucks in Fort Lauderdale so Ben could look her over, and he liked what he saw.

  “The first date was just sexual relations,” Bliss would later testify. “He paid me six hundred dollars, but we also talked.”

  Over the next few months, Ben began seeing Bliss regularly and they’d speak almost every day on the phone.

  “We got a lot closer,” she said. “And we talked a lot more every day on the phone.”

  * * *

  That April, Vincent Zarzuela, who owns Metropolis Collectibles, the largest vintage comic dealership in the world, first heard about Ben Novack Jr. He was tipped off by a friend that Novack was spending big on vintage Batman comics, and would be at the upcoming Supercon in Florida.

  “I figured, ‘Hey, a new serious customer,’” said Zarzuela. “‘I’d like to get away to Florida for a few days.’”

  Several weeks before the show, the New York–based dealer received a call from Novack, who was interested in some of Zarzuela’s rare Batman comics. Zarzuela arranged to meet Novack at the convention, to which he would bring the rare Batman books Ben was interested in.

  On May 23, the first day of the Florida Supercon, Zarzula was at his stall when Ben and Narcy Novack came over and introduced themselves. “He reminded me of an old-school kind of hippy,” Zarzuela said. “He had a lot of very big rings on him, the turquoise New Mexican cowboy type. He even had one of those Western-style bolo ties. A denim shirt. Curly blackish hair. His wife, Narcy, was also there. You meet so many collectors’ wives, but she seemed okay.”

  As Narcy looked on, Ben Novack began thumbing through the stacks of Batman comics Zarzuela had brought, soon zeroing in on the ones he wanted. “He was rather stern in his negotiations,” said the dealer. “Like I gave him a price, and he was, ‘No, you’ll have to do better than that.’ It was kind of funny, because most customers don’t talk like that. But we worked it out. Once we struck the price, he’d run it on his black Amex card. When you see a black Amex card you know the guy’s got deep pockets, because there are not a lot of those around.”

  After striking a deal, Novack relaxed, and began discussing his passion for Batman comics and collectibles. “He loved Batman,” said Zarzuela, “and I found him to be a passionate collector. He told me he was having a Batmobile made, and had all the working doodads and gadgets, down to the parachute shot out of the back.”

  Novack proudly announced that he was close to building complete sets of Batman and World’s Finest comic titles, which would be worth millions.

  “He’s what we call in this business ‘a completest,’ said Zarzuela. “He was working on his want list and he had very specific things.”

  At this first meeting, Novack and the dealer found a rapport, and when Zarzuela returned to New York, he shipped Novack the comic books he had wanted, whose cost totaled more than $100,000.

  Over the next year, they remained in close touch over the phone and by e-mail.

  “Ben had the potential to grow into a very big customer,” said Zarzuela. “What I would consider a good customer. A guy you want to keep doing business with, because he had the passion and the means to pay for his passion.”

  * * *

  In early June of 2008, Ben Novack Jr. invited Rebecca Bliss to move to Fort Lauderdale so she could be closer to him. He offered to find her an apartment and pay all her expenses, on condition she gave up escorting.

  While she looked for a suitable new home in Fort Lauderdale, he installed her in the luxurious Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa in Weston, Florida. Over a period of two weeks, she ran up thousands of dollars in expensive spa treatments and other luxuries, paid for by Ben’s company Black Amex card.

  “[Ben] even bought me a toy poodle,” Bliss said.

  She eventually settled on a $1,220-a-month luxury apartment in an exclusive Fort Lauderdale gated community called Falls at Marina Bay, which boasted a “country club lifestyle” by the water. It had a clubhouse, a health and fitness club, and a movie theater.

  “I called [Ben] to let him know that I had found something,” Bliss said, “and he came over and looked at it. He agreed it was nice and said he was going to pay for it.”

  On the June 22, 2008, Marina Bay residency application, Ben Novack Jr. listed himself as Bliss’s spouse. He cosigned the fourteen-month lease on apartment 204 in the name of Novack Enterprises, Inc., listing his assets as $10 million. He also put down a $250 security deposit as well as a small one for Bliss’s four-year-old toy poodle.

  As it was unfurnished, Ben told Bliss to
go shop for furniture and then bill him.

  “I went to Rooms to Go in Fort Lauderdale,” Bliss recalled, “and I got a living room set, a kitchen set, and a bedroom set, costing somewhere between nine thousand and and ten thousand.”

  After she moved in, Ben bought her a new cell phone, taking away the old one with her old clients’ numbers on it.

  He then assigned his right-hand man, Joe Gandy, to look after her.

  “[Joe Gandy] came over to take me to do some errands,” Bliss explained. “He would take me to pay my utility bills.”

  * * *

  That summer, Ben Novack Jr. invited May Abad and her sons to move back to Fort Lauderdale and live in his guesthouse. It was agreed that May would work in his office doing customer service and helping out at conventions, while her sons Patrick, sixteen, and Marchelo, fifteen, went to a local school.

  The plan was for Narcy to spend less time in the office, and eventually May would take over.

  “According to Narcy,” said Ben’s cousin Meredith Fiel, “they were giving May a second chance, and grooming her to be part of the business.”

  This despite the fact that Narcy and her daughter had always had a very strained and combative relationship, often placing Ben in a difficult position.

  “So May was fishing from both wells,” said Charlie Seraydar. “Whoever would take care of her. It was a convoluted relationship between them all.”

  * * *

  In July, Bernice Novack made out a new will, leaving most of her estate to the Jewish Federation. Her previous will, signed on November 12, 2004, had directed that she be cremated and that her ashes be mingled with those of her beloved pet schnauzer Micah and scattered at the Fontainebleau.

  That earlier will left everything to Ben Jr., except $50,000, which would go to her sister Maxine, and $15,000 to each of her nieces, Meredith and Lisa. If Ben failed to survive her, everything would go to his nearest relation, Narcy.

  Bernice told Estelle Fernandez that she now wanted to update her will, making sure Narcy never received a cent of her money or any jewelry.

  “Her biggest desire,” said Fernandez, “was never to let Narcy get anything of hers. Not one thing.”