“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 twenty 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 two hundred and fifty 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.
Chapter 2
LOOKING A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH
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 divorcée 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 Israe
l 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 five thousand 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
From: Jerry Small—South Florida News
Subject: Weary Willie—Call me ASAP.
Jerry was the young newspaper reporter who’d dubbed me the Boca Knight. We had become close during the past two years.
I hit the DELETE button, flicked open my cell phone, read, You have one message, pressed the LISTEN button, and heard, “Eddie, it’s Jerry. Call me.” I clicked to erase the message, thumbed Jerry’s speed-dial number, and confirmed the “connecting” signal. I knew how to press buttons, but it was all a mystery to me.
When I grew up, television was beginning, ice delivery was ending, cars had running boards, phone numbers started with a name and a number—Longwood 6, Aspinwal 7, Copley 5—and party lines still existed.
“Eddie, thanks for getting back to me so fast,” Jerry answered, using his caller ID to identify me. Jerry was hyper and lived every day as if he were on a deadline. He was only twenty-eight but acted as if he were running out of time. He was too busy and self-centered to be married, and his greatest love was the next story. He would go anywhere and do anything for an exclusive. His bosses loved him because he was always on the job.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“You remember Weary Willie, don’t you?”
“Sure. You wrote a column about him last year. A homeless nut job who thought he was the sad-faced clown from the Great Depression. Your story got picked up by the Associated Press.”
“Willie was found early this morning with the back of his head bashed in,” Jerry told me. “He’s still breathing but comatose. He could have brain damage.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. But why are you telling me?”
“I want you to investigate Willie’s attack on behalf of the newspaper. My boss already approved the idea.”
“That’s police work,” I said. “Talk to them.”
“I talked to Frank Burke,” Jerry said, referring to our mutual friend, the Boca chief of police.
“What did he say?”
“He said his department would conduct a thorough investigation.”
“Good, you don’t need me.”
“Eddie, there are four thousand homeless in Palm Beach County, and attacks happen every day. The police have more urgent things to do.”
“Frank will do a good job,” I said.
“Of course he will. But Willie’s attack will become an ongoing investigation with the police, and with no clues they’ll move on. I want you to make it a priority.”
“Why?”
“I got to like Willie when I did his interview,” Jerry said. “Plus I think we’ll sell a lot of papers printing the exclusive story of a Boca Knight investigation.”
“So it’s business and personal.”
“Yeah. Willie was a good guy. I’d like to humanize him and get people to care.”
“Where was he found?” I asked, feeling myself getting sucked in.
“Under the boardwalk in Rutherford Park.”
“Homeless haven. He was probably attacked by one of his own,” I guessed. “Is Willie’s condition common knowledge?”
“No, I haven’t filed the story yet.”
“Can you write an article that says Willie is comatose but stable?”
“Sure. That’s basically the truth anyway,” Jerry said. “But what’s the point?”
“His attackers might get worried. Worried people get careless.”
“Is this your way of telling me you’ll take the case?”
And that’s how I became involved in the case of the Sad-Faced Clown.
About the Author
STEVEN M. FORMAN was born and raised in the Boston area. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, he founded a one-man business and built it into a multimillion-dollar, worldwide enterprise. In addition to Eddie the Kid, he has written three Eddie Perlmutter novels: Boca Knights, Boca Mournings, and the forthcoming Boca Daze. He and his wife live in Massachusetts when it’s warm … and in Boca Raton when it’s cold.
Eddie the Kid Page 10