Boca Daze

by Steven M. Forman

  To Barbara and our family

  As always, thanks to my agent, Bob Diforio, my editor, Jim Frenkel, and my publisher, Tom Doherty Associates. To my friend Barry Unger for his valuable comments, Steve Brooks and Morris Goldings for legal input, Dr. David Levey for his medical advice, Dr. Glenn Kessler for his psychological perspective, Chief Dan Alexander of the Boca Police Department for his opinions, Police Officers Rosalind Gualtieri and Sandra Boonenberg for helping me better understand Boca Raton’s homeless community, and Jeannie Fernsworth for teaching me how to make a Zombie without turning me into one.

  Every living thing is born without [a] reason and dies by chance.

  - Jean-Paul Sartre (paraphrased)

  The Japanese war flag … sixteen red rays bursting from a rising sun in a field of white … flew over the coral island of Tarawa. At dawn, twelve Allied battleships, sixty-six destroyers, seventeen aircraft carriers, and 35,000 troops launched a withering attack on the tiny atoll. Seventy-six hours later, the Rising Sun went down, Old Glory went up, and thousands of soldiers, from both sides, lay dead. Corporal Herb Brown was not one of them.

  Brown, a twenty-one-year-old marine from Providence, Rhode Island, jumped from an amphibious vehicle into knee-deep water off Red Beach One and waded ashore. By the time he reached the beach, eleven of the twenty men from his ATV were dead. Those who survived … attacked. A marine running next to Brown stepped on a land mine and disintegrated. Brown saw the dead man’s bloody dog tags flutter to the sand and bent to pick them up. A bullet tore through the front of his helmet, knocking it off his head, sending him sprawling on his back. He rolled onto his stomach, facing the ocean. Blood from the gouge on the top of his head trickled into his eyes, but he was able to see his helmet a few feet away. A hole was in the front and another in the back. A bullet had passed through his “steel pot,” seared his scalp and missed his brain by a millimeter.

  He jammed the M1 helmet on his head and struggled to all fours. Immediately machine gun bullets slammed into his buttocks; two in the left cheek and two in the right. He sprawled facedown into the sand and heard himself scream. A body fell next to him. Brown turned to his right, wiping sand from his eyes and spitting it from his mouth. Private Hugh Stone lay on his back, mouth open, gasping. Stone’s insides were outside, and he was holding them in his blood-soaked hands. He looked at Brown and winced. They were fellow marines, but not friends. In boot camp, Stone, an uneducated kid from West Virginia, referred to Brown as a Yankee Jew boy. Brown, much bigger and stronger than Stone, responded with a one-punch knockout of the smaller man. Their master sergeant enforced a truce, ordering them to “hate each other after the war.”

  Brown grabbed Stone’s shirt collar and began dragging him to the ocean. Brown dug his elbows into the sand and swiveled his hips, painfully squirming toward the shoreline. When he tasted salt on his lips, he knew he was at the water’s edge. He felt his fingers being pried from Stone’s collar and heard, “This one’s alive. This one’s dead.” He closed his eyes, not knowing who was who.

  Herb Brown lived. Hugh Stone died along with 1,400 Allied soldiers and nearly 5,000 Japanese troops in the three-day battle. When the war ended, marine general Holland Smith was asked if Tarawa had been worth the losses, and he said, “No.” When an investigating marine lieutenant asked Brown if he had been shot in the buttocks while retreating, Brown’s answer was also “No,” but he added a string of curses directed at the officer. His insubordination cost him a medal, but he had no regrets.

  He returned to civilian life in 1945, married Joan Livingston, a girl he had been dating before the war, and they started a family. He went to work for a clothing distributor in Providence, Rhode Island, and eventually bought the company. Throughout his career, he won the respect of the competition, the local unions, and the Providence Mafia. No one ever asked Herb Brown again if he had retreated. Whenever he thought of Tarawa, he wondered why he had lived while so many others had died.

  ​May 17, 1980 - Liberty City, Miami

  Clarence “Big Dog” Walken had just finished unwittingly impregnating his seventeen-year-old girlfriend, Gladys Hightower, when he got a call from Clifford “Free Man” Foster telling him a riot was happening in Liberty City. Big Dog got out of bed, dressed quickly, and hurried to meet Foster without saying goodbye to Gladys.

  Free Man and Big Dog ran the nine blocks west to sixty-second and seventeenth … hoping to do some serious looting. Big Dog needed a TV; Foster wanted a stereo. They wore their black-on-silver Overtown Outlaws jackets.

  Look like the goddamn Oakland Raiders.

  They found another Overtown Outlaw already at the riot.

  “What’s happening?”

  “People goin’ nuts … jury found them cops not guilty of killin’ Arthur McDuffie.”

  “McDuffie that motorcycle-ridin’ mothuh-fuckah crazy?”

  “Yeah, cops stopped him for speedin’ then broke his head with nightsticks. Not guilty my black ass.”

  “Whatchu expect from an all-white jury?”

  It ain’t fair.

  Big Dog shrugged. “Where the TVs at?”

  Suddenly the crowd roared. Big Dog saw an old Dodge sedan careen into the intersection with a white boy at the wheel, another in the passenger’s seat, and a white girl in back. They looked like teenagers. The mob was pelting the car with rocks and bottles. The driver lost control, and the Dodge swerved, hit a young black girl standing in the street, and slammed into a lamppost.

  Big Dog watched as the three white kids were pulled out of the Dodge and attacked by black rioters. The white boy who had been driving was immediately knocked unconscious by several blows to the head. The crowd left him and turned on the other male passenger, beating him mercilessly. Big Dog saw a middle-aged black man wearing a cabby’s hat pull the screaming white girl out of harm’s way.

  Gunshots split the air, and the crowd cringed. Big Dog saw the badly beaten white kid who hadn’t even been driving stagger backward with blood spurting out of his body. When the barrage of bullets stopped, the boy crumpled to the street like a bloody bag of laundry. Big Dog didn’t care. He felt nothing except a sharp pain in his chest. He looked down.

  Aw, shit.

  The front of his Overtown Outlaws jacket was leaking blood. He’d been hit by a stray bullet.

  Now that ain’t fair.

  Big Dog fell to his knees, crumbled face-first on the pavement, and died. He was twenty years old … the same age as the white boy lying dead in the same intersection.

  Nine months later, Gladys Hightower gave birth to a baby boy she named Clarence, after his father. The Overtown Outlaws took care of mother and child in their own way. They had Gladys work as a prostitute to feed her baby and her drug habit, and they made Clarence’s education a gang responsibility. The streets of Liberty City became his classroom.

  When his mother died of a drug overdose in 1991, Clarence could not read or write. But he could disassemble a .38-caliber handgun, clean it, and reassemble it as fast as any other gangbanger. He could cut pure cocaine into rocks of crack and knew a brick weighed a kilo and a kilo weighed 2.2 pounds. He grew up huge and could fight with his fists, feet, teeth, knife, or gun. He was a pure gangbanger, programmed from cradle to crib.

  When the Liberty City drug wars erupted in 1998, Clarence was the Outlaws’ ultimate weapon. At six foot six, 305 pounds, he was terrifying and fought like a wild animal.

  That mothuh-fuckah vicious … like a wolf.

  When the wars ended, Clarence Walken Jr. was the leader of the pack. He had been born without a father, and some say he had been born without a soul.

  He became known as Mad Dog Walken.

  Some people say I’m a senior-citizen superhero. I’m not. Superheroes have special powers. I have special n
eeds. Superman has X-ray vision. I’m nearsighted. Batman has a Batmobile. I have a Mini Cooper. Spider-Man spins large webs. I have an enlarged prostate. I was Boston’s most decorated and demoted policeman in my prime and the best marksman on the force. Now, I’m just a sixty-one-year-old ex-Boston cop trying to adapt to life’s changes. I retired to Boca Raton three years ago, and after solving local crimes and rescuing two damsels in distress, I became a private detective. A young newspaper reporter looking for a story dubbed me the Boca Knight, and the name stuck. I’m a little guy, barely five foot six, 165 pounds. But I’m fearless, and that makes me bigger.

  I had just sat down at the counter at Kugel’s Boca Deli and ordered a cup of coffee when an old man tapped my shoulder and asked if I was the Boca Knight. I nodded. “Eddie Perlmutter,” I said, and held out my hand.

  “Herb Brown.” His hand felt like old iron. “I’m a big fan of yours.”

  “I’m a big fan of the US Marines,” I said, pointing to the semper fi insignia on his cap. “You live in Boca, Herb?”

  “I retired here thirteen years ago.”

  “Enjoying your retirement?”

  “Not really,” he said. “My wife died five years ago.”

  “My wife died over twenty years ago.”

  We retreated to our coffee cups, both of us thinking of lost love.

  “When were you in the Marines?” I asked.

  “World War Two.”

  “Did you see action?”

  “Yeah, in the Pacific,” he said. “Tarawa.”

  “I never heard of it.”

  “I wish I hadn’t,” Brown said.

  “Rough?”

  “Two thousand Marines killed in three days,” he told me.

  “How many Japanese?”

  “Who cares? I know I didn’t kill any. I never got off the beach.”

  “What happened?”

  “I got shot in the ass.”

  I didn’t know what to say … but I knew what not to say.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me if I was retreating?” Brown asked irritably.

  “No, but it sounds like someone did … and you’re still pissed.”

  “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Damn right,” I said.

  “You would have made a good marine.” Herb Brown patted my shoulder.

  “I was never in the service.”

  “You were a street soldier.”

  “The streets could be a war zone sometimes,” I agreed.

  “They’re worse now with the illegal immigrants.”

  “I don’t talk about religion or politics.”

  “Me neither,” he said. “But I don’t like that black senator from Illinois. How would you like having a liberal black man from Kenya as president someday?”

  “How do you feel about having a conservative white man from Texas as president today?”

  The old soldier smiled. “Good point.”

  “Hey, Eddie,” a familiar voice called. Steve Coleman, a friend from Boston, came up behind me and rubbed my shoulders like a trainer rubs a fighter. “How’s my favorite superhero?”

  “I’ll ask him when I see him,” I said. “Say hello to Herb Brown.”

  They shook hands.

  Steve glanced at his watch and ordered a coffee to go.

  “What’s the hurry?” I asked.

  “Investment-club meeting in fifteen minutes.”

  “Has your club ever made money?”

  “Never,” he admitted. “But that’s changing tonight.”

  “Do you plan to rob a bank?”

  Herb chuckled.

  “Better,” Steve said. “B.I.G. Investments has agreed to take our money.”

  I stopped in mid sip. “You’re making money because someone is taking your money?”

  “Not just someone. B. I. Grover.”

  “I never heard of him.”

  “Everybody’s heard of him,” Steve insisted.

  “I never heard of him either,” Herb Brown said.

  “He’s been making more money than anyone in the investment business for thirty years. He never loses,” Steve bragged.

  “Everyone loses,” Herb Brown said.

  Steve smiled indulgently.

  “What’s his rate of return?” Brown asked.

  “Twelve to 20 percent.”

  “That’s unbelievable,” Brown replied.

  “Yes, it is,” Steve agreed.

  “Then why do you believe it?” I asked.

  Steve patted my shoulder. “Grover is a genius, Eddie. His clients are big-time businessmen, charities, and celebrities. His fund has been closed for years.”

  “Why is it suddenly open?” I asked.

  “It’s not sudden. It took us two years to get in. We got lucky.

  “Or unlucky,” Brown said. “How much did you invest?”

  “Twenty guys at 250 grand. That’s his minimum.” Steve glanced at his watch again. “Gotta go, money never sleeps.”

  Steve was barely out the door when Brown said, “And a fool and his money are soon parted.”

  “You think he’s being foolish?” I asked.

  “No one beats the competition all the time. Something isn’t kosher.”

  “A lot of smart investors think he can.”

  “Who says they’re smart?”

  “Are you an investor?” I asked Herb.

  “Yeah. I’ve had my money with a rock-solid company named Lehman Brothers for years.”

  I nodded, but the name meant nothing to me.

  “Is Steve a good friend of yours?” Herb asked.

  “He’s my best friend’s brother-in-law,” I said, referring to Togo Amato from the North End of Boston. Togo had been the best man at my wedding forty years ago and one of my wife’s pallbearers twenty years ago. “I’d say we’re pretty good friends. Why?”

  “You’re a licensed private investigator in Florida, right?”

  “Over a year,” I confirmed.

  “Maybe you should do your friend a favor and investigate B. I. Grover.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “If something sounds too good to be true it usually is.”

  “It’s none of my business,” I said. “Besides, it’s too late.”

  “It’s never too late to help an old friend,” my new friend said.

  I went home to my live-in girlfriend, the fabulous Claudette Permice. She was a coffee-colored beauty who looked a bit like Halle Berry. She was half-white, half-black, and a little more than half my age. We met two years ago when I was rushed to the Boca Raton Community Hospital with a gunshot wound to my shoulder courtesy of the Russian Mafia. Claudette was my nurse. I wasn’t physically attracted to her at first because I had a catheter inserted in my plumbing, but when she unhooked me, I was hooked on her. I loved island girls. Claudette was from Haiti on the island of Hispaniola, and I was already seeing a divorcee from Long Island. The two women were complete opposites. Alicia was like a violin interlude in a symphony, and Claudette was a drum solo in a jazz session. I loved the music I made with both of them, but Alicia wanted to change my tune. That wasn’t going to happen at my age.

  I told Claudette about Herb Brown.

  “He sounds like a nice man,” she said, “and probably lonely. Why don’t you invite him to dinner one night?”

  “Good idea.” I got the current Boca phone book from a cabinet. Herb and Joan Brown were listed. She had been gone for five years, but he was still holding on to her. I dialed the number and got his answering machine. As soon as I identified myself, Herb picked up.

  “I don’t answer till I know who’s calling,” he explained. “Too many solicitors.”

  I told him why I was calling, and he sounded surprised and delighted. We tried several dates and finally picked one a month away.

  “Maybe I’ll see you at Kugel’s in the meantime,” Herb said before we disconnected.

  Claudette was standing at the kitchen sink when I walked behind her and kissed her cheek. />
  “Thanks for the idea,” I told her. “He was really excited by the invitation.”

  “I’m not just another pretty face with a gorgeous body.” She smiled.

  “You’re much more than that.” I hugged her.

  I slept well that night and was at the office early the next morning.

  “I want you to do a search on a guy named B. I. Grover,” I told Lou Dewey as I walked into his adjoining office. Less than a year ago, Lou was a skinny, bucktoothed computer fraud who wore his hair like Elvis and thought like a bank robber. I was arresting him when fate intervened. My heart misfired and raced out of control as it had done many times in my life. Dewey could have run away, but he didn’t. He stayed by my side and saved my life. In exchange, I changed his. We became good friends and business partners after going through major attitude adjustments.

  I introduced him to computer wizard Joy Feely, who became the love of his life. We were like a family after that. Joy and Lou moved in together, and Joy moved her computer business into our new office.

  “How deep an investigation do you want?” Lou asked.

  “Use rubber gloves,” I told him.

  Lou turned to his keyboard.

  Tap, tap, tap … Pause … Tap, tap, tap … Pause. Tap … Emphatic tap …

  “‘Benjamin Israel Grover,’” Lou read aloud.

  “Benjamin Israel? You’re kidding.”

  “You like Louie Dewey better?”

  “What’s in a name anyway?” I asked. “Tell me about Benjamin.”

  Lou scanned the screen. “Born in the Bronx in 1938. Uneventful childhood, attended Hofstra and graduated with a business degree. No awards. No special recognition. Married his high school sweetheart, Rhonda Tucker, in 1959. Started a small investment firm in 1969 with a borrowed 5,000 bucks. The rest is history.”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  “Keep looking,” I said.

  I went to my private office, sat at my desk, and pressed the enter button on my laptop. Lou had given me the Dell and personally dragged me off the technology bypass onto the information superhighway. A picture of Claudette lit up the screen.

  An icon flashed, and a voice told me I had mail. I clicked on the voice-mail square.

  To: Eddie Perlmutter