Boca Mournings

by Steven M. Forman

  Burke grabbed my wrist and held out his other hand. “Gimme that damned pitcher,” he growled.

  I handed him the handle. “I’m sorry, Frank,” I said calmly. “Did you want some water?”

  Forrest Buford was taken to the Boca Community Hospital in the backseat of a police car. I waved goodbye and gave him the finger.

  “Nasty cut,” I said to Burke as we returned to the conference room.

  “At least ten stitches,” the chief said, looking at the mess.

  “Twenty,” I predicted.

  “Why the water pitcher, Eddie?” Frank was upset with me. “You could have killed him. What were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking, Frank,” I said, rubbing my neck and sitting down. “The oxygen to my brain was shut off. So, I guess this means the meeting is over.”

  “Mrs. Buford is still here. She’s in the ladies’ room washing the blood off her hands.”

  “Nazis do that a lot,” I said.

  The door opened, and a small, mousy-looking, middle-aged woman entered carrying a mop and bucket. She had two outstanding features: two large, protruding breasts and four large, protruding teeth. I noticed the teeth first while Mr. Johnson took the low road as usual.

  The woman was followed by a toothless janitor in a gray uniform, who carried a push broom and a dust pan. The woman was dressed in blue slacks and a neat blue-stripped shirt buttoned to the collar. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, accentuating her black-rimmed glasses, perched on her pointy nose. She smiled at me and I thought of a chipmunk.

  “I see we had a little accident here,” she said diplomatically.

  “No, this was deliberate,” I said honestly.

  She looked uncertainly at me then pointed.

  “You’re him, aren’t you?”

  “Who?”

  “The Knight guy?”

  “Do you like the Knight guy?”

  “I love him,” she gushed.

  “I’m him.” I held out my hand she took it.

  Frank Burke rolled his eyes.

  “Joy Feely, meet Eddie Perlmutter,” Frank made the introductions. “Joy does our computer upgrades and maintenance.”

  “You don’t look like a cop,” I said, thinking she looked more like a ferret with a great body.

  Joy and I shook hands. “I’m not a cop,” she said. “I have my own business but the police department gives me a lot of work.”

  “Well, your job description doesn’t include cleaning up broken glass,” Frank told her.

  “I don’t mind helping Fred,” Joy said, referring to the janitor.

  “You’re overworked already,” Frank said.

  “This cleanup won’t take much time,” she told us.

  The intercom rang, and Frank picked up the phone.

  “Mrs. Buford is in my office, Eddie,” he said. “She wants to meet with you again.”

  “But I almost killed her husband just now.”

  “Maybe she wants to thank you,” Frank said, taking a shot.

  We left Joy Feely and Fred to clean up my mess.

  Mrs. Buford sat in Frank’s office, her hands folded in her lap. She looked sad and embarrassed. Frank went to sit behind his desk. I remained standing.

  “Mrs. Buford,” I said. “I had no choice but to defend myself.”

  “I understand,” she said softly. “Can we talk about my son?”

  “What about him?” I said, sitting down.

  “He’s only nineteen years old,” she began. “He’s just a boy.”

  “In the eyes of the law he’s a man, and in my eyes he’s a bad man,” I said.

  “He needs help.”

  “He needs a muzzle.”

  “I need help,” she pleaded.

  “Believe it or not, I am trying to help,” I said.

  “How? By getting my son killed?”

  “No, by narrowing his options,” I said. “Mrs. Buford, I didn’t start a rumor. I asked one man one question and human nature did the rest. Aryan Army believed a false rumor because they wanted to believe it.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “He’s one of them.”

  “Not anymore,” I said. “He shot off his mouth last year and there’s no room in Aryan Army for a loose cannon.”

  “You put him this position.” She needed someone to blame.

  “You’re as much to blame as anyone.”

  “I’m not responsible for this,” she insisted angrily.

  “You’re his mother,” I told her. “You helped make him a danger to society.”

  “I did not,” she said. “It was Forrest. I couldn’t stop him, he’s uncontrollable.”

  “I just controlled him by hitting him over the head with a water pitcher.”

  “I couldn’t do that,” she said.

  “No, but you could have gone for help,” I said without sympathy.

  She started to cry softly.

  I looked at Frank.

  What do you want from me?

  “Maybe that’s enough for now,” Frank suggested.

  “No, we have to keep talking,” she insisted. “Mr. Perlmutter, you said you were trying to help. What did you mean?”

  “Yeah, what did you mean?” Frank leaned forward in his chair.

  “It’s difficult to explain,” I said.

  “Give it a try,” Frank told me and Mrs. Buford nodded. “This I gotta hear.”

  I talked nonstop for about twenty minutes, thinking how proud of me Dr. Kessler would have been. I explained my idea of the best option and how everyone wins. When I was done, they were both looking at me like I was insane.

  “Where did you come up with your harebrained ideas?” Frank Burke asked.

  “It’s a gift,” I answered.

  “My husband would never agree to this,” Mrs. Buford said.

  “Your husband doesn’t have to agree with anything. Randolph is an adult,” I reminded her. “He can make his own decisions.”

  “What makes you think Randolph will agree with something like this?” she asked.

  “It’s his best option,” I answered.

  Mrs. Buford stared at me for a moment. “This is crazy.”

  “But it’s not impossible,” I told her.

  “How long would he be away?”

  “I figure we can get him eighteen months,” I said.

  “That’s a pretty light sentence,” Frank speculated.

  “It’s not a sentence,” I explained. “It’s a pretrial diversion. It’s more like an agreement.”

  “Do you think he’ll be safe?” she asked.

  “Safer than jail,” I said.

  “Can you really get this done?” She looked at me hopefully.

  “I honestly don’t know,” I answered. “A lot of people need to agree but I think it’s worth a try.”

  They sat in silence for a few minutes considering my plan.

  Mrs. Buford surprised me with a quick answer. “If you can get this done, do it.”

  “Mrs. Buford, I strongly advise you to think this over,” Frank interrupted. “This is highly unusual.”

  “I understand, Chief Burke,” Mrs. Buford said, “But my son’s options are limited now, thanks to Mr. Perlmutter, and I have to get Randolph out of harm’s way as soon as I can.”

  “He’ll still be in harm’s way,” I said.

  “Yes, but with a better chance of surviving doing it your way,” she decided. “I accept your offer.”

  “It’s not an offer,” I emphasized. “It’s just an idea.”

  “I understand,” she said, getting up from her chair. “And I don’t know whether to hate you or thank you for it.”

  “You don’t seem like a hater to me, Mrs. Buford,” I said.

  “I’m not,” she replied.

  “Why did you marry one,” I said.

  “Forrest wasn’t always like this. We grew up together in South Carolina,” she said. “He was a typical kid from South Carolina.”

  “When did he decide
to become Adolph Hitler?”

  “It was a gradual thing,” she said reflectively. “Forrest had some major setbacks in his life and after enough of them he felt like a loser. He started drinking heavy and hanging out with other losers in town and they’d sit around a bar, get drunk and figure out who to blame for their failures.

  “How did your husband fail?”

  “The worst thing for him,” she sighed, “was losing the tobacco farm that had been in his family for three generations.”

  “What happened?”

  “It had something to do with the savings and loan scandal in the eighties.” She shrugged. “I don’t know much except it was bad. We lost everything.”

  “I know a little,” I said. “A lot of people lost everything but most of them didn’t become Nazis.”

  “I’m explaining him not defending him,” she said. “Things got out of control after we lost the farm. We moved to Lancaster where Forrest found some odd jobs. But then he got laid off and got real angry. He found another bunch of losers in Lancaster who drank all night and blamed the Jews and blacks for everything.”

  “Why Jews and blacks?” I asked an old question.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “If you don’t want to admit you’re a loser I guess you blame the people most different from you for all your problems.”

  “Sure, why not?” I said. “Then one thing leads to another.”

  “You got it,” she sighed. “Eventually Forrest and his buddies got organized. They started raising money from other folks in the area who felt the same as them.”

  “Did they find many?” I asked.

  “They found plenty,” she said, raising her eyebrows expressively. “They raised a small fortune and a small army.”

  “What were you doing while this was going on?” Frank asked.

  “I had all I could do to put food on the table,” she said. “And my daughter Eva needs a lot of attention.”

  “If money was such a problem how could you afford to move to a fancy house in Boca Raton?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Forrest said it was Aryan Army money and Aryan Army business.”

  “What were you supposed to do?”

  “He just told us to blend in and wait,” she said.

  “The wait’s over,” I told her.

  I looked for Sergeant Billy Simms when the meeting was over. He wasn’t at his desk but I saw a pad of paper on his blotter with big bold letters:

  LOUIS DEWEY – 1453 GLADES ROAD APT 101 – BOCA

  For me?

  I committed the message to memory and left the notepad untouched.

  Dewey lived in an apartment building on Glades Road near the entrance to the Florida Turnpike. It was a two-story brick building with all the charm of a tollbooth. There was no lobby so there was direct access to every apartment from the outside. Each apartment door had a number on it and 101 was easy to find. A dented black Cadillac sedan was parked nearby and the plate matched.

  I got out of my car and approached the black sedan. I braced myself against the driver’s side and began rocking the big boat until the alarm went off. The sedan’s lights flashed, and the horn started to blast in rhythm. I walked to a shadowy corner of the lot and waited. The door to apartment 101 opened and Louis Dewey appeared. He was a little guy like me, and I estimated he was in his fifties. He had an Elvis hairdo from the 1950s and buck teeth for all ages. He reminded me of Joy Feely, the woman at the police station.

  Dewey’s hair was neatly combed but he wore a bathrobe and slippers as if he had just got out of bed. I wondered if this was the way he dressed for work.

  “Motherfucker.” I read Dewey’s lips and watched him walk toward the shrieking, flashing Cadillac. He had a set of keys in his hands. While he fiddled with the car lock, I stepped out of the shadows and approached him from behind. He turned and saw me.

  “Fuckin’ car,” he said by way of explanation as he silenced the alarm with the key.

  “Yeah, that fuckin’ car almost ran me over the other night,” I said to him.

  His face went from frustrated to frightened, to feral . . . fast.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said as he dodged his way around me and shuffled in his slippers toward his apartment.

  I pursued him and grabbed him by his shoulder. “You almost ran me over.”

  “You got the wrong guy,” he said, trying to pull his shoulder free.

  “No, I don’t. How did you get that damage to your right fender?” I challenged him.

  “Somebody hit my car in a parking lot.” He continued struggling toward his apartment. He opened his apartment door and I followed him inside like a two-man conga line.

  “Get out of my apartment,” he shouted.

  I looked around the living room. There was computer paraphernalia everywhere. Paper was spewing out of a printer. Stacks of computer paper were on tables and the floor. Computer lights were flashing, and the machines were whirring. It looked like rush hour at a Chuck E. Cheese arcade.

  “Get out,” Dewey said, and he made an effort to shove me toward the door.

  I put my right leg behind his left leg and eased him to the floor like a folding lawn chair.

  “Take a seat,” I said to him.

  “You’re trespassing,” he said.

  “Call the police.” I offered him my cell phone. “I have them on speed dial.”

  When Dewey didn’t reach for my phone I knew I had stumbled onto something serious. Sometimes you have to be a genius to catch a thief, and sometimes you just get lucky. Today was my lucky day.

  I picked up one stack of papers and thumbed through it. Each page had a long list of names and a corresponding column of numbers. I was able to distinguish three categories of numbers: one was telephone numbers, another was Social Security numbers, and the third looked to be credit-card numbers. From what little I knew about computers, I figured that Louis Dewey was a cyberthief.

  “You’re stealing identities,” I said, proud of my limited computer knowledge.

  “No, I’m not,” he said, standing up. “I’m just a hacker.”

  “You can tell your story to the police,” I said as I picked up another ream of paper and ran my index finger over the long list of names. I saw a couple I recognized from Boca Heights.

  THUMP!

  I felt a jolt in my chest.

  THUMP! THUMP!

  My throat ached. Dewey’s face suddenly looked like a wavy television picture. His lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear any words.

  THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

  First, I felt dizzy and I know I staggered. Then I felt a sharp blow to my forehead. Then I felt nothing.

  I jolted awake in pain and saw several, unclear faces above me. I heard garbled voices in the distance. I felt lightning pass through my body and I gasped. There was no more pain. I figured I had died.

  I was lying on my back, looking up at a pure white sky.

  I’m dead, I thought until I saw an air conditioning vent and realized I was looking at a ceiling.

  The coffee-colored face of an angel looked down at me and I knew I was alive.

  “Hi, Halle,” I croaked softly.

  “He’s fine,” she said turning away. “No more brain damage than usual.”

  A man’s face appeared above me.

  “Eddie Perlmutter,” he said, “we have to stop meeting like this.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Tell me who you are so I can stop meeting you.”

  “I’m Dr. Farmelant,” he said. “I treated your shoulder wound last year.”

  “Nothing personal, Doc,” I said, “but you seem to be a fuckin’ jinx.”

  He turned to Claudette. “You’re right. He seems perfectly normal.”

  I put a hand to my forehead and felt bandages. “What happened?” I asked.

  “You passed out in Mr. Dewey’s apartment,” the doctor explained. “He said you had just arrived for your computer lesson when you collapsed and hit your head on a table. He
called 911 and probably saved your life.”

  I remembered the events vaguely. I also remembered that I had uncovered Dewey’s computer-crime operation. Why would he help me? I had seen enough to put him in jail.

  “What happened to Dewey?” I asked the doctor.

  “He’s in the waiting room.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “You can thank him personally after we talk about your medical condition,” the doctor assured me.

  “I had a heart attack, right?” I guessed, forgetting Dewey for the moment.

  “You had a heart event known as SVT.”

  “What the f-u-c-k is S-V-T?” I asked, confused.

  “Supraventricular tachycardia,” he explained.

  “I have no idea what you just said.”

  “I’ll make it simple,” Dr. Farmelant said. “The heart is a muscle with four chambers. The upper chambers are known as the atria and the lower chambers are known as ventricles.”

  “You call that simple?”

  “Sorry,” the doctor smiled. “How about . . . the heart is a blood pump for the body?”

  “Said like a true simpleton,” I told him.

  Dr. Farmelant laughed and turned to Claudette. “Is he always like this?”

  “Worse,” she said without hesitation.

  “Okay.” The doctor sighed and continued. “We’re all born with a natural pacemaker that controls the rhythm of the heart. The pacemaker sends electrical impulses through the heart regularly to make it beat normally but if the impulses are interrupted-”

  “You fall and hit your head,” I interrupted.

  “Not necessarily,” the doctor said.

  “I did.”

  “Your heart was racing at two hundred and fifty beats a minute when the medics got to you,” Dr. Farmelant explained. “Normal is a hundred and fifty or less.”