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 4,000 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.
The median age in Boca is much higher than the national average. Violent crime is below the national average. Rape is rare and so is consensual sex.
Boca is benign, but crime is malignant, so there was plenty of work for me in the city. I could afford to be selective thanks to my policeman’s pension and simple lifestyle. I refused domestic disputes and accepted pro bono work, time permitting. I was already too busy when I chose to be involved with an old nemesis from Boston, Doc Hurwitz.
Doc Hurwitz wasn’t a doctor, and his real first name was Solomon. Everyone called him Doc because, during the sixties, he specialized in conning Boston doctors. He was much more than a con man, however. In his prime, from 1959 to 1981, he was a bookmaker, horse-race fixer, porn peddler, numbers banker, loan shark, and fraud perpetrator. It was rumored that he killed a couple of people, but that was never confirmed. Doc made money for the Italian Mafia, the Jewish hoods, and the Irish thugs, and his connections made him difficult to convict. I arrested him twice for bookmaking, but both cases were dismissed by two judges who themselves belonged in jail.
Doc was short and slight with a thin, dark mustache and shiny black hair. He was a fast talker and a sharp dresser … described as “slicker than whale shit” by a Gloucester fisherman he conned. Doc looked like a harmless ferret, but he was a squirrel with fangs. No one’s nuts were safe around him.
Doc was associated with the Cunio twins from East Boston. Rocky “the Repairman” Cunio fixed things … such as ball games, fights, and horse races. Rocky’s twin, Fabio “the Fireman,” was a pyrotechnic artist who set fires for profit. He torched countless delicatessens, Chinese restaurants, and old factories in Boston, and his blazes became known as Cunio Lightning. He was proud to say that no one ever died in one of his fires. In the late seventies, Doc and Fabio got involved in a complicated insurance fraud. Doc sold phony life-insurance policies on horses to their owners at Suffolk Downs. Instead of using the premiums to insure the horses, Doc used the money to insure a couple of empty warehouses he owned in Boston. The overinsured buildings were struck by Cunio Lightning one night in 1982, putting Doc in position for a big payday. Unfortunately, the barn area at Suffolk Downs legitimately burned down that same month. Eleven horses perished. The horse owners turned to Doc for their insurance money, but the cupboard was bare. Doc and Fabio appeared on the front page of the Boston Traveler being led away in handcuffs, charged with arson and fraud. I attended Doc’s sentencing, for old times’ sake, and watched him receive seven years from an honest judge. He was being led away when he saw me standing by the door. He winked. I smiled.
“See ya, Eddie,” he said.
“See ya, Doc,” I replied.
I didn’t see him for more than twenty years.
“Hello, Eddie,” I heard when I answered the phone at my office. “It’s Doc Hurwitz. Remember me?”
“You’re unforgettable, Doc,” I said, surprised. “It’s been a long time.”
“Over twenty years.”
“I wondered what happened to you.”
“I served three years for that unfortunate fire misunderstanding in Boston,” he explained. “After that, I moved to Florida.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve been straight all these years?”
“Okay, I won’t.”
I laughed. “What happened to the Cunio boys?”
“I lost touch with Fabio a long time ago,” Doc said. “Rocky died of a massive coronary a few years back watching a Miami jai alai game he’d fixed. He keeled over when his man lost.”
“How do you lose a fixed jai alai game?”
“Language barrier between him and his player,” Doc told me. “The Repairman was only seventy-three.”
“How old are you, Doc?”
“Eighty-one. What about you?”
“Sixty-one,” I said.
“Where did the time go, Eddie?”
“With the wind. So what can I do for you, Doc?”
“I want to hire you.”
“The last time I looked we were on different sides of the law.”
“Look again,” he suggested. “This investigation is strictly legitimate.”
“I don’t believe you … but I’m listening.”
“Do you know anything about pill mills?”
“No.”
“Florida has no state supervision or monitoring system for pain clinics,” Doc explained. “Anyone can open a pain-pill clinic anywhere in this state.”
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br /> “Any doctor you mean?”
“No … anyone. You, me, your plumber, anyone.”
“Not you. You’re a convicted felon,” I reminded him.
“It doesn’t matter. I can own a pill mill in this state. A chimney sweep can own one. Form a corporation, hire a doctor, and you’re in business selling narcotics.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“It’s deadly, and it’s big business,” he said. “Over a hundred clinics, thousands of users and millions of dollars.”
“What’s your connection?”
“My twenty-two-year-old granddaughter OD’d on OxyContin a month ago,” he said sadly. “She bought the shit from one of these places.”
“Doc, I’m really sorry. But what can I do?”
“I want to prove where my granddaughter bought the stuff and who prescribed it. I want to shut them down.”
“Why come to me?”
“You were always a crusader, Eddie. If you can close this one operation and put this doctor behind bars, I’ll give you a new crusade. I’ll help you take down the whole industry.”
We set up a meeting for that night. Doc was right. I always was a sucker for a good cause.
I felt rich watching the sun set on Bal Harbour Village. I was sitting on Doc’s balcony overlooking the Intracoastal, sipping merlot from a long-stem, red wineglass. Doc lived on the top floor of a two-story apartment building with a magnificent view of Bay Harbor Islands, across the Intracoastal. The tropical air was soothing, and a breeze swayed the palms.
Who could ask for anything more?
But people do.
“You look good, Eddie,” Doc said, sitting on a lounge chair and raising his wineglass. He was also holding slips of paper in his other hand. I didn’t ask, figuring he’d get to them.
“You, too, Doc.” I returned his toast.
“Bullshit,” he sighed. “I look old. But I’ll bet you could still go a few rounds.”
“I retired undefeated. I’d like to keep it that way.”
“I was at Boston Arena the night you won the Golden Gloves middleweight championship.”
“That was forty-five years ago, Doc.”
“I lost a couple of hundred on that fight.”
“You bet against me?” I said, laughing.
“That kid Montoya was bigger, older, and more talented than you. But you fought like a maniac and knocked him out. You had a lot of anger.”
“It’s in my genes. My grandfather once killed a bear.”
“You killed your share of animals, too,” Doc reminded me. “I remember that Chinatown shooting when you got suspended from the force. They shoulda given you a medal for killing that son of a bitch.”
He was referring to a night in the seventies when I led a police raid on the Chinatown apartment of Danny Dong, a Boston drug dealer, pimp, and suspected cop killer. I kicked open Dong’s front door. By the time I got to his bedroom, he was holding a knife against a teenage prostitute’s throat. He threatened to kill her if I didn’t back off. I told him, “Take it easy,” just before I shot him between the eyes.
“I’d do it again,” I said.
“I know.”
We sat in silence until I said, “Quite a view,” and pointed to the water.
“Tessa used to love it,” he said, referring to his late wife.
“How long has she been gone?”
“Two years. And now I’ve lost my granddaughter.”
“I’m sorry, Doc.”
“She was my only daughter’s only child. Do you remember my daughter, Emily?”
“Not really,” I said. “How is she handling this?”
“I have no idea. I haven’t seen her in years.”
“What happened?”
“Drugs, too.”
“What about the girl’s father?”
“Emily never married Shoshanna’s father,” Doc told me. “He was a wise guy from Hartford. He disappeared when the girl was only ten.”
“Did you try to find him?”
“I had no idea where to dig,” Doc said.
“Sounds like your daughter made bad choices.”
“It’s my fault. I exposed her to a lot of low lives. When you’re surrounded by shit, it’s hard not to step in it. I tried to save Shoshanna at the end. I put her in rehab down here. She did okay until she found the pill mills. She died from drugs she bought with a bogus prescription at some bullshit clinic.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Follow a paper trail and see where it leads,” he said, handing me the papers he was holding.
I shuffled the slips. “These are all blank prescriptions signed by a Dr. V. Patel. Fill in a name, and you could use them anywhere.”
“Not anywhere,” Doc Hurwitz said. “No legitimate pharmacy would fill them. Check out the drugs.”
“OxyContin, Percocet, Roxicodone, Vicodin, and Xanax,” I read. “Controlled substances.”
“They’re out of control around here. Shoshanna called me the night she died. She told me she was real sick and asked me to come get her. She gave me the address of a motel in Fort Lauderdale. By the time I got there, she was dead. I found these prescriptions in her pocket.”
“Did you go to the police?”
“I don’t go to the police. They usually come to me.”
“I’m sorry, Doc. It’s a sad story. But if you’re looking for vigilante revenge … I’m not interested.”
“Eddie, I told you … I want enough proof to close down that clinic and put that phony doctor away for good.”
“And you intend to do this legally?”
“You have my word,” he said.
In Doc’s gangland gibberish, when he gave you his word, there was a fifty-fifty chance he was lying. If he said, “I guarantee it,” it meant the game was rigged and he was telling the truth.
“I can’t depend on your word,” I reminded him.
“Agreed.” He laughed. “But if you want to take down the pill-mill industry, you’ll have to take a chance on me.”
I did a risk-reward analysis and decided to take a chance. “Okay, Doc. You got a deal. But I’ll be watching you.”
“Of course you will.”
“Do you know what clinic you’re after?” I asked.
He removed a slip of paper from his shirt pocket. He passed it to me. “Patel is listed as the resident doctor at this address, and it’s near the motel where Shoshanna died.”
“You’ve already got your man and your place.”
“I need ironclad proof,” Doc explained. “Patel can claim someone stole his prescription pad, and the clinic can deny they ever sold Shoshanna anything.”
I nodded. “Good thinking.”
“I think like a criminal.”
I glanced at the paper. No Pain-U-Gain 24 Hour Clinic, 1245 Federal Highway, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. No appointment necessary.
“What if I can’t prove anything?”
“You will,” he said confidently. “You’re undefeated, remember?”
“When do I get the information on the whole industry?”
“Do I have your word you’ll handle my clinic first?”
“I guarantee it,” I told him.
“A guarantee is always good from you.”
Doc returned with a bottle of wine and a file folder. He refilled both our glasses, sat down, and shook the folder at me. “This file contains over a hundred dirty clinics. But Shoshanna comes first, right?”
I nodded.
We clinked glasses in a silent toast. Doc knew he could trust me, and I knew I couldn’t trust him. Nothing had changed between us. It was just like old times.
The next morning I studied Doc’s information. The pill mills were loosely defined as “doctors, clinics, or pharmacies providing powerful narcotics inappropriately … for nonmedical reasons.” Over a hundred unsupervised clinics were in Broward and Palm Beach Counties, making Florida the top source for opium narcotics nationally. The Hillbilly Mafia transported drugs from F
lorida to wherever demand exceeded, supply … such as Appalachia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio. High-pressure demand combined with low-pressure supervision was a perfect storm for drugs from Florida. Unscrupulous doctors were rarely prosecuted, and the rewards were well worth the fines anyway. OxyContin sold for $1 a milligram. An eighty-milligram pill cost $80, a small bottle of 100 pills … $8,000. Millions of pills were sold annually in Florida strip malls and office parks by nonmedical corporations.
Overprescribing was good for business. Overdosing only hurt for a little while. Three hundred and fifty pill-mill customers died in 2005, but when one kid such as Shoshanna Hurwitz overdosed, another took her place. This particular Shoshanna, however, was the granddaughter of Doc Hurwitz and he could not replace her. All he could do was nail the pill mills that killed her … using me as his hammer.
Lou Dewey felt a covert operation was the best way to catch Doc’s clinic in the act. By the end of the day, he presented me with an electronic listening device called the Intruder.
“With this little beauty,” Lou told me, “you can invade people’s privacy and ruin their lives from a hundred yards.”
Cool.
The device looked like a large handgun with an audio receptor, shaped like a cone, at the end of the barrel. It included a video camera.
“Just aim and shoot,” Lou told me.
I can do that.
It was 10:00 p.m., Boca midnight, and the somnolent city was nodding off as I drove the Mini south on Federal Highway toward Fort Lauderdale. Federal is an interminable 2,000-mile stretch of four-lane, divided highway that connects Fort Kent, Maine, to Key West, Florida. Fortunately, I only needed twenty of those miles to reach the No Pain-U-Gain Clinic.
Federal Highway is crisscrossed by countless traffic lights at innumerable intersections and lined with strip malls, strip joints, multiple shopping centers, restaurants, schlocky and fancy office buildings, and Walgreens. I passed through Deerfield Beach and saw a sign pointing west to Wilton Manors. Last year I had a case in that city involving a gay couple kidnapped to Russia, but that’s another story.
I saw the No Pain clinic on the east side in a three-unit strip mall. I turned my Mini into a similar mall across the highway where I had a perfect view. No Pain was located between ABC Medical Supplies and Happy Endings Massage … both closed for the night. I assembled the Intruder and checked the area. Four empty cars were parked in front, and a bald, stocky man with his left arm in a cast sat on a wooden bench near the door. A long-haired, skinny man with a goatee exited the clinic with a tall, scraggly woman. The couple walked toward a beat-up, old Chevy sedan with a Tennessee license plate.
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