Boca Mournings

by Steven M. Forman

  “No, you didn’t mention it,” I told her. “Was it the same dream as always?”

  “Exactly.” She nodded. “I was looking up at the two-headed boy and the wicked witch. Both the boy’s heads were laughing at me and the witch was screaming.”

  “Any ideas this time?” I asked hopefully.

  “It means nothing to me. It’s just a stupid dream,” she said.

  “You’re sure you never had that dream when your husband was alive?”

  “I never dreamed at all when Harold was alive,” she said. “Since he died I sometimes dream about him but mostly it’s the two-headed boy and the wicked witch.”

  After lunch, we sat in my car in front of her house.

  “I loved my meal,” she said cheerfully.

  “I could tell,” I smiled at her. “You ate four chips.”

  “And I have leftovers for tonight’s dinner,” she said, proudly holding up her Ale House bag.

  “And breakfast and lunch tomorrow,” I said.

  An elderly couple hobbled slowly past the car.

  “Do you know them?” I asked Sylvia.

  “No, but I know what’s wrong with them,” she said. “He just had both hips replaced and she has osteoporosis.”

  Sad.

  I kissed Sylvia’s cheek and promised to see her soon. I watched her wave goodbye and close her front door. I felt guilty leaving her. I knew the two-headed boy and the wicked witch were only a dream away.

  I checked my watch. It was two thirty on a Tuesday afternoon. The municipal offices were still open on First Avenue, twenty minutes away. I exited Boca Heights, and turned east on Yamato. In my rearview mirror, I saw a V W Rabbit hop in and out of the hole. The V W’s right rear hubcap popped loose and spun crazily across Yamato, nearly hitting a pedestrian panhandler before crashing into a curb and twirling to a stop at the feet of a young bicycle rider.

  That pothole had to be stopped, literally.

  I went for help.

  “Can I help you?” a pleasant, middle-aged woman asked from the government’s side of the counter at the municipal office.

  “Can you fix a pothole?” I asked politely.

  “No, but I’ll get you someone in the Street Division who can,” she said. “You’re Eddie Perlmutter, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am.” I said.

  “I think you’re great.” She was smiling and pushing telephone buttons. “Hi, Ralph, this is Betty at the front desk,” she said into the phone. “We have a celebrity here who wants to talk about a pothole.”

  She listened.

  “What pothole?” she repeated his question for my benefit. “Don’t you want to know which celebrity? It’s Eddie Perlmutter . . . Yeah, the Boca Knight. He’s right here in front of me.” She listened again. “Yeah, he is a cool guy. I agree. I’ll send him right up.”

  “Who says I’m a cool guy?”

  “Everyone,” she said.

  She gave me directions to Ralph’s office in the Street Division.

  Ralph was a big, brawny guy with a large round head and a broad red face.

  “Eddie Perlmutter,” he boomed, offering his hand. “What can I do for you?

  “Fix a pothole,” I said, watching my hand disappear into his.

  “You bet,” he said. “Where’s the hole?”

  “At the exit of Boca Heights and Yamato, heading west,” I told him.

  “Yup, that’s a bad one, alright,” Ralph said, nodding.

  “You know about it?”

  “Sure. But we can’t touch it. Yamato is a state road and we’re the city.”

  “Cut the shit.”

  “I’m serious,” Ralph said. “The hole is seven inches off city property.”

  “Ralph,” I pleaded, “that hole is dangerous.”

  “I agree,” Ralph said. “But I can’t help you. It’s a state hole, like I said.”

  “Have you reported it to the state?” I asked, trying not to lose my temper.

  “Of course, I did. Six months ago,” Ralph said. “The guy at the State Department I reported it to got transferred. Then the guy who replaced him went on vacation and when he got back the paperwork was lost.”

  “Can we reapply?” I took a deep breath.

  “Sure,” Ralph said cheerfully. “But it’s a lot of red tape and a lot of time.”

  “Why can’t the state just authorize you to fix the damn hole?”

  “We asked, they refused,” he said. “Liability issues, they said.” Bullshit!

  “With all the new products available, it’s only a one-man job anyway.” Ralph sighed.

  “What new products?”

  “Rapid Road Repair, for one,” he said. “We’ve had samples here for a year.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Who knows? We never used it,” he sighed. “My boss told me to dump it months ago.”

  “Do you still have it?” I asked.

  “I think so.” He looked embarrassed. “Look, Eddie, I must sound like a real screwup to you but we have over two hundred miles of asphalt and concrete roadways to maintain, twenty-five miles of bike paths, and three hundred and sixty miles of concrete sidewalks.”

  “I understand,” I said, sympathizing with him. “Who’s got time to throw away Rapid Road Repair?”

  “Right,” Ralph said, appreciating my understanding.

  We’re bonding.

  “I’d be happy to dump those containers for you, Ralph,” I volunteered.

  Wink.

  He hesitated for a moment, then understood.

  “I can’t let you do that,” he said. “That’s city property. But I can put the canisters out back by the Dumpsters myself . . . right now . . . like I was supposed to do months ago.”

  Wink.

  Wink.

  Rapid Road Repair consists of fifty-pound buckets of asphalt, polymer adhesives, and graded limestone. Four of them are tough to load in a MINI but it can be done.

  It was Boca Midnight (10:00 p.m.) when I left my apartment to fix the hole from hell. I parked about twenty feet east of the pothole and used the MINI as a shield from westbound traffic. I kept my headlights on so I could see.

  I carried the four heavy buckets of RRR, two at a time, to the rim of the little canyon and read the simple instructions. “Sweep clean, remove base debris, yadda, yadda, yadda.” I pulled off the seal on one, pried off the lid, and emptied the claylike contents into the hole. I did this three more times until the hole was filled then stomped down the excess until it was flush with the street.

  No big deal. I admired my work.

  I heard screeching tires and a horn blaring. I turned and saw a speeding black Cadillac sedan in the right lane passing a slow moving car in the left lane. The Cadillac was bearing down on me. I dove off the road as the sedan whooshed by.

  An instant later I heard the car crash into the empty buckets of Rapid Road Repair. I got up and watched the Caddy shimmy to a stop about a hundred yards away. A small man got out of the driver’s side and looked back at me. I expected an apology or an inquiry about my health. Instead he walked to the right side of the car. He squatted down and pulled something out from under the fender. It was a Rapid Road Repair lid. He stood up.

  “Asshole,” he shouted, and threw the lid in my direction. It fell ninety-five yards short.

  Asshole? Red spots exploded in front of my eyes and I started running toward the guy.

  “Oh shit,” he said, and scurried to the car.

  By the time his wheels stopped spinning in place, I was close enough to see his license plate. Florida. I memorized it.

  Catch you later.

  I packed up what was left of my equipment and threw it in the MINI.

  The worst drivers in America live in South Florida, I thought.

  Last spring Frank Burke, Boca’s police chief, had encouraged me to get my Class C Private Detective’s license.

  “You’re a natural at solving crimes,” he said.

  “I specialized in violent crimes,” I
said. “There isn’t much of that around here.”

  “You’re right,” Burke said. “Murder in Boca is rare and rape is ninety percent below the national average around here.”

  “So is consensual sex,” I pointed out.

  After I finished with the Russian counterfeiters, the Aryans, and other assorted oddities several months ago, I got my detective license and a gun permit. I formed Boca Knights Detective Agency and rented a small office in an executive suite, eight ten-by-fourteen offices that shared services including a receptionist. Our suite consisted of three young lawyers, one old lawyer, a CPA, a travel agent, a party planner, and me. The building was around the corner from the Boca Police Station.

  My friend Jerry Small, a reporter for the Palm Beach Community News, gave my new agency a nice write-up in the Community Section of the Sunday paper, and since I already had minor celebrity status in the area, my phone was ringing the first morning I officially opened.

  The receptionist answered all the calls for the eight companies. By eleven my first morning, she had answered ten calls for me and I had been offered ten jobs, all for the same day: February 14th.

  Valentine’s Day for detectives is apparently like Christmas for retailers. Demand exceeds supply.

  I told my fifth caller what I told the first four. “I only investigate crimes.”

  “It is a crime,” my fifth caller insisted. “He’s spending my money on that bimbo.”

  “That’s a shame, not a crime,” I said, disagreeing.

  The tenth call sounded different.

  “Betsy Blackstone, line one, Eddie,” Olivia, the tattooed receptionist told me.

  I only had one line.

  “Eddie Perlmutter,” I said. “How can I help you, Mrs. Blackstone?”

  “I think my husband is cheating on me, and I want you to tell him to stop.”

  “You should tell him to stop,” I said. “I’m a detective, not a marriage counselor.”

  “He won’t listen to me,” she said. “He’ll listen to you.”

  “Why would he listen to me?”

  “Because you’re the Boca Knight,” she said.

  I rubbed my forehead with my fingers.

  “Mrs. Blackstone,” I said patiently, “that’s just a nickname given to me. There is no Boca Knight.”

  “Tell that to my husband,” she insisted. “He said he wants to be just like you.”

  “I never cheated on my wife.”

  “Tell him that, too,” she said.

  “In all due respect, Mrs. Blackstone-”

  “Betsy.”

  “In all due respect, Betsy, your husband sounds like a Boca Bullshitter to me, not a Boca Knight.”

  “He wasn’t like this when I married him.” She blew her nose. “And it’s my fault.”

  “You’re talking like a battered woman who blames herself when her husband beats her.”

  “My husband doesn’t beat me,” she defended him.

  “He seems to be giving you a mental beating,” I disagreed. “Look, Mrs. - Betsy, I just don’t think I can help you.”

  “Can I tell you why I think it’s my fault?” she asked.

  “I’d rather you didn’t,” I told her.

  “I’ve had two miscarriages,” she sniffled, ignoring me. “The first one was in my thirteenth week. My doctor told me it was perfectly normal and to try again. We tried again and the exact same thing happened in the thirteenth week.”

  “What did your doctor say that time?”

  “The same thing,” she told me. “He told us to try again.”

  “Is this guy a rich doctor or a witch doctor?” I asked.

  “His name is Dr. Ronald Cohen, and he’s very popular.”

  “So is Ronald McDonald,” I said. “Did you try again?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “My husband and I haven’t had sex for over a year.”

  “That’s none of my business,” I said quickly.

  “Sex has become painful for me physically and mentally,” she said, ignoring me.

  “You should talk to your doctor about this, not me,” I told her.

  “I have talked to him,” she sniffed. “He said it’s all mental and there’s nothing wrong with me physically.”

  “How is your husband reacting?” I asked.

  “He says he understands, but he’s changed,” she said. “He stays out late at night now and I’m sure there’s another woman. What should I do?”

  “You don’t want my advice,” I said. “I solve problems the way they do on the Jerry Springer Show. I’d break a table over his head. You need Dr. Phil.”

  “I only want you,” she whined. “My husband trusts you.”

  “He doesn’t even know me.”

  “He thinks he does,” she said.

  A nut job.

  “What does he do for a living?” I asked out of curiosity.

  “He’s a manager at Mendy’s Grill at Mizner Park,” she said.

  I know that place.

  “What does he look like?”

  “He’s gorgeous.”

  “Can you be more specific?”

  “He’s tall with a great build and wavy black hair. He’s thirty.”

  Lucky bastard.

  “His name is Bradley,” she volunteered. “Are you going to talk to him?”

  “I charge fifty dollars an hour.”

  “How many hours do you think this will be?”

  “None, if I don’t take the case,” I told her.

  “Please take it,” she pleaded.

  “How long have you been married?” I asked, wondering why I cared.

  “Five years.”

  “Newlyweds,” I joked.

  “No,” she sighed. “When we were newlyweds, we were happy. We were high-school sweethearts. We got married one year out of college.”

  “I married my high-school sweetheart, too,” I told her.

  “I know,” she said. “I read about you in the paper. She died. I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. Do you have proof your husband is cheating on you?” I asked, changing gears.

  “No.”

  “So, it’s just this feeling.”

  “Yes.”

  I took her phone number and told her I would get back to her if I was interested.

  Later that night I had too many concerns about Dr. Cohen’s casual answers to Betsy Blackstone’s serious questions.

  I decided to take the case.

  Early the next morning Olivia, my receptionist, announced, “You have a call on line one, Eddie. He says his name is Izzy Fryberg and he’s president of the Delray Vista Condo Association.”

  I was sure there were no great views at Delray Vista, just like there was no point at Boca Point.

  I waited a few seconds then picked up the phone and pressed my one line.

  “Eddie Perlmutter,” I said into the phone. “How can I help you, Mr. Fryberg?”

  “Call me Izzy.”

  “Okay, Izzy. How can I help you?”

  “I’ve got a case for you, Mr. Perlmutter.”

  “Call me Eddie.”

  “I’d rather keep this on a professional level.”

  “You just told me to call you Izzy,” I said.

  “I did?”

  We settled on first names and he told me his problem.

  In 1982, fifty-five-year-old Izzy Fryberg, his fifty-four-year-old wife Emma, and eleven other couples from Chelsea, Massachusetts, bought reasonably priced condos in a new community called Delray Vista. The completion date was twelve months away.

  All the buildings had two floors with six two-bedroom units per floor. The complex consisted of twenty-five buildings, three hundred units altogether. Within two years all the condos were purchased. By the time Izzy sold his small office-supply business in Chelsea, Massachusetts, Delray Vista was a bustling community of energetic retirees.

  “Sounds like a great place,” I interjected.

  “It was,” Izzy said. “No
t anymore.”

  “What happened?”

  “The community and the residents got old.”

  “Sounds like you need doctors and repairmen.”

  Izzy assured me that he needed a detective.

  “What would I be doing?” I asked.

  “Watching an elevator,” Izzy told me.

  Before I could decline, Izzy offered to pay me if I would meet him at the condo.

  Why not?

  We met an hour later in front of 550 Buena Vista Boulevard in Delray Vista.

  As I suspected, the views were no big deal.

  The condo complex was past mature and so was Izzy. He was fire-plug wide, with thin white hair and broad shoulders. He stuck out his chin when he talked as if he was daring you to hit him.

  “You’re shorter than I thought you’d be,” he said, looking up at me.

  “I’m shorter than I thought I’d be.” I used an old line.

  We walked to the building and looked at the elevator.

  “You won’t believe the trouble this thing has caused,” he said sadly.

  Izzy told me that during the final building stage of the community many years ago, the developer went bankrupt. Elevator shafts had been put in all the buildings but no actual elevators were installed. The bank took over the project from the builder and offered the owners discounts if they would accept their buildings without elevators. The condo association at 550 voted unanimously to accept the discount.

  “Hey, we were young,” Izzy explained. “We weren’t worried about climbing one flight of stairs.”

  “And then the years flew by.” I nodded my understanding.

  “Like a fart in a windstorm,” Izzy said. “And the stairs became a pain, literally. So, a few years ago we had a meeting to vote on installing a working elevator in the existing shaft at a cost of thirty thousand.”

  “Let me guess,” I interrupted. “Everyone on the top floor voted FOR and everyone on the first floor voted AGAINST.”

  “One apartment on the second floor voted against.”

  “Why?”

  “They just said we didn’t need it,” Izzy said. “Rather than fight about it, five of the families on the second floor voted to pay six thousand apiece for the elevator provided the nonpaying residents signed an agreement not to use it. It was an insurance issue mostly.”

  “So the first-floor people signed the agreement and used the elevator anyway,” I guessed.