Dead in Boca

by Miriam Auerbach

  “Hey, remember Reilly?” I asked Lana. “The guy who arrested Honey du Mellon for the murder of Chuck and Enrique’s wedding officiant?”

  Yeah, I remember he was seriously pissed about you meddling around in his case, she said. And guess what? Here you go again.

  “Bite me,” I said.

  On second thought, maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say to a gator.

  “And now for the weather,” the announcer said. “The tropical depression off the coast of Africa has now intensified to become the first named storm of the season. Tropical Storm Alejandro is currently located at thirty-five degrees west longitude and fifteen degrees north latitude, moving east-northeast at twenty miles per hour with maximum sustained winds of forty miles per hour. It is still too soon to determine whether it will make landfall. Keep it right here for the latest breaking developments.”

  “Looks like you better batten down the hatches, Lana,” I said. She didn’t bat an eye.

  THE PHONE WAS ringing as I walked into my office around eleven. I sat down my biking gear on one of the cheap chairs and picked up the receiver.

  “Harriet? It’s Gitta. Have you found out anything yet?”

  “Nooo,” I said. “You?”

  “Yes. A couple things. I talked to the police last night. They found Junior’s cell phone in his car. They looked at the recent calls. The last call he got was from a throwaway cell phone.”

  Who used a disposable cell phone? Only somebody who didn’t want a call traced to them.

  “They talked to all the county commissioners, and they all denied calling him,” she went on. “Plus, Father Kowalski was in custody for that exorcism thing when Junior got that phone call, so he couldn’t have been at the Kennel Club as Junior said.”

  “So either the call was a ruse or Junior lied to you,” I said.

  “Junior wouldn’t . . . oh, I don’t know.” She started sobbing. “He might. I don’t know anything anymore.”

  Had she ever?

  “Did the police tell you anything else?”

  “Yes. They didn’t find the key to the bulldozer anywhere.”

  So evidently the killer had it or had disposed of it.

  “And,” she continued, “they said they think Junior was . . . was buried alive under the rubble.” She sniffed. “Although they won’t know for sure until they do an autopsy.”

  “Did they give you an estimated time of death?”

  “Yes. Between ten and midnight.” She broke down in convulsive gasps.

  I’d long run out of words of comfort, so I just waited for the spell to pass.

  “I’m going up to Worth Avenue now to look for something to wear to the funeral,” she said. “But I don’t know yet when it will be. It depends on when they’re done with the autopsy, I guess.”

  Jeez. Her rush to Palm Beach’s boutique boulevard so soon after Junior’s death seemed a bit hasty. I mean, how did she know that the designer duds wouldn’t be outdated by the time the funeral rolled around?

  “Okay,” I said, “thanks for the info. I’ll keep you posted.”

  After I hung up, I fired up my computer. It informed me that I had twenty-seven new messages. I scanned the list of senders and subjects. Twelve were for Viagra, eight were for penis enlargement, six were for Russian mail-order brides, and one was from a “Goldfinger” re: “Operation Flytrap.” I was about to delete that one with the rest when something clicked in my brain.

  Goldfinger. Goldblatt. Leonard. Wonderful.

  I opened the message.

  Agent Horowitz,

  Subsequent to your hasty and unexpected departure from last evening’s strategic planning initiative, the conferees unanimously elected me to serve as your Chief of Staff and central point of contact. Additionally, the conferees were in agreement that encrypted nomenclature should be utilized to reference the operatives due to the clandestine nature of this mission. Accordingly, each operative has devised said nomenclature such that it will be decipherable by you. Consequently, in furtherance of my assignment, I hereby advise you that Agent Europa and Agent Boca Bait reported for duty with Agent Nice Ass at 0900 this day and successfully completed tactical training. At the present time, Agent Europa is being equipped by Agent Latin Lover. Thereafter, Agent Europa, in undercover attire devised by myself, and Agent Road King will be dispatched by the casino courtesy shuttle bus from Boca to Checkpoint Chance. In the other theater of operations, Agent Boca Bait and myself have developed and posted the following personal profile which is accessible to you by clicking the link below. I will report in as developments dictate. This communiqué will automatically delete itself from your hard drive in sixty (60) seconds.

  Respectfully submitted,

  Agent Goldfinger

  A little clock face popped up on the screen, ticking away the seconds.

  My God. I had unleashed a monster. Hell, a whole mob of them. And what was up with this ridiculous “nomenclature”? I’d need a cheat sheet to keep it all straight. Agent Europa? The contessa. Boca Bait? Mom. Latin Lover? Enrique. Road King? Chuck. Checkpoint Chance? The Hard Rock Casino. And Agent Nice Ass? What a wise ass. Lior had evidently overheard Marla’s comment last night and was flaunting it in my face.

  I jumped as a voice came out of the computer.

  “This message will self-destruct in ten seconds . . . nine . . . eight . . .”

  I clicked on the link to the personal profile pronto. For all I knew, the whole damn thing would explode if I didn’t.

  There was a head shot of a woman who looked like a refugee from the sixties—Cher hair, aqua eye shadow, false lashes out to there, and pale pink frosted lipstick. I looked closer. Oh my God—it was Mom.

  The accompanying text read:

  Lovely but lonely widow, late fifties, seeks discerning gentleman, fifties-seventies, for companionship and possibly more. I enjoy the finer things in life: dining, dancing, opera, ballet, international travel. Am financially secure and seeking same. Treat me like a lady, and you will be richly rewarded. Life is too short to spend it alone. R U the 1 4 me?

  Well, looked like Leonard—uh, Goldfinger—had everything under control. There wasn’t anything I could do until the wooers came out of the woodwork.

  I SPENT THE next few hours busting a scam involving phone sales of sex toys for seniors. Call it Dialing for Dildos. My client, Virginia Stubbs, was a retiree living on a paltry pension who had forked over her life savings to purchase a truckload of OhMiBod musical vibrators, BareDownThere crotchless support hose, and BlowGuard mouth guards for performing oral sex with dentures. She’d made the purchase on the promise that she could anonymously sell the items over the phone to a huge, local, untapped consumer base of aging horndogs, whom she would then recruit as distributors. However, she soon discovered, to her shock, that the market for these particular products in South Florida’s retirement communities was already deeply penetrated, so to speak. She now found herself with a kitchen that was jammed floor-to-ceiling with pallets of the merchandise.

  Being a choir-singing churchgoer who had told her own two children that the only times she herself had ever had sex was when she became pregnant with them, Virginia was too embarrassed to turn to them for help, or even to the cops, who were, of course, mostly male. Hence, she came to me to recoup her investment and reclaim her cooking space.

  As a retainer, in lieu of cash, which she sorely lacked, she had given me a case of KeepItUp Kondoms, which was now taking up valuable space in the corner of my office. Like I had any use for those; but my Inner Vigilante couldn’t resist taking the case.

  Having tracked down the early investors over the past few weeks, I’d accumulated evidence that the operation was a franchise fraud, where payments were made for recruiting distributors rather than actually selling the products. Eventually, of course, the supply of distribut
ors ran out; thus the racket amounted to an illegal pyramid scheme.

  I was now aiming to dig up some dirt on the company’s owner that I could use to motivate (okay, blackmail) him to refund Virginia’s money and remove the inventory from her kitchen. Ultimately, after ensuring my client’s confidentiality, I would turn my evidence over to the police.

  A beep indicated an incoming email from Leonard. It informed me that Agent Boca Bait had received seventeen responses to the post. Of those, three looked like Worthington possibilities: Fairmont Marriott Hyatt II, Hampton Ritz Carlton III, and Sheraton Hilton Doubletree IV.

  What, no Red Roof Comfort Inn Budget 8? If one of those guys was for real, I’d eat my thong.

  Mom had meetings set up with each of them on the hour between five and eight that evening for drinks at La Cucina Toscana. Three dates in one night. I had to hand it to Mom. She was a pro. Worthington, if he was among the bunch, would never know what hit him.

  I was getting antsy. Once this all went down, I didn’t want Worthington on the loose. If he was the killer, he was obviously dangerous. And smart. I needed to nail him. Fast.

  I decided to reconvene the cabal that night, together with Miss Lil, to view Mom’s and the contessa’s videos. I emailed my Chief of Staff to have him set up the meeting.

  Hmm. Having an assistant wasn’t bad. I could get used to this. Yeah. Just like I could get used to a lot of little luxuries. And then I’d slide right back into my Boca Babe life. Pretty soon I’d be going out on three dates a night in search of a sugar daddy.

  The way I see it, independence is not a half-assed proposition. You either are or you aren’t. It’s just like drug dependence: one little slip and you’re in full-blown relapse. And I’d just let myself slip. I’d succumbed to the seduction of support. Now I felt vulnerable. I needed to get back on top. And getting on top of my bike was just the ticket.

  I’d given due diligence to the dildo affair. I could log some time on my Hog.

  I donned my riding gear and locked up the office. As soon as I straddled the five-hundred-pound machine, I felt it: that sense of authority. Autonomy. Authenticity.

  I turned on the ignition, and the bike rumbled to life with that familiar syncopated rhythm that you only get from a Harley. I shifted into first, cranked open the throttle, and ventured forth across the rutted parking lot to the road. I turned south on Highway 441 then caught the Sawgrass Expressway and headed west. The Sawgrass curves around the edge of the South Florida metropolis. Seen from the air, it forms a clear border: civilization—orderly tracts of homes and shopping plazas, schools and playing fields, canals and lakes—on one side, desolate wilderness—shallow brown water reflecting the sky, tall reeds, cypress islands—on the other. Traffic tends to be light. It was especially so now, in the summer, since the seasonal residents had gone back north, leaving only us diehard Floridians behind. On the wide open road, I took the bike up to its top velocity of 103, where the sound of the rushing wind overcame the engine’s roar and the passing scenery became a blur. At that speed, there was no room for self-doubt.

  When the road curved to the south, I exited and turned back. By the time I returned to the office, I was reborn, recharged, and ready to get back on the case. My stomach, however, had other ideas, insisting on being fed first. I walked down the street to Saul’s Deli and picked up a pastrami on rye and a bag of chips. If we are what we eat, then I’m fast, cheap, and easy.

  I took the food back to my desk. As I sat down to eat, my cell phone buzzed, indicating an incoming email. Looking at the display, I saw that it was from Leonard. I clicked it open.

  Agent Horowitz,

  Situation normal, all fouled up. Call me.

  Agent Goldfinger

  Dammit, dammit, dammit. I knew I never should have delegated. I picked up the phone and dialed. He answered before the first ring was complete.

  “Agent Horowitz?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yes, Leonard, it’s me. What the hell’s going on?”

  “It is my duty to inform you that Agents Europa and Road King were victims of attempted highway robbery this afternoon at approximately 1730.”

  “Say what? Are they all right?”

  “Yes, they are unharmed.”

  I let out a breath of relief.

  Leonard went on, “While returning to Boca from Checkpoint Chance, during a stop at a red light, their casino shuttle bus was forcibly entered by two armed masked bandits.”

  A stab of guilt passed through my gut. I had put Chuck and the contessa in harm’s way. Wait a minute, no I hadn’t.

  “What were they doing on the freaking shuttle bus anyway?” I asked. The contessa had a Bentley. Chuck had a Hog. It’s not like they lacked for transportation.

  “I am given to understand that Agent Road King desired to partake of the complimentary all-you-can-eat buffet and twenty dollars in slot machine credit that come with the $7.50 bus fare.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I guess the bargain had just been too valuable for good-ol’-country-boy Chuck to resist, diet or no diet.

  “So what happened?” I asked.

  “Agent Europa disarmed the assailants using the skills acquired in this morning’s training exercise.”

  Oh, man. I could just see the headline now. “Botox Babe Beats Badass Bandits.” Only in Boca.

  “Agent Road King restrained the suspects until law enforcement arrived. Agent Europa’s surveillance device remained undetected and intact in her cleavage.”

  Okay, disaster averted. But what was wrong with the people, anyway? I ask you: If you were going to hold up a casino coach, would you do it on the way to or from the joint? I thought so. I just don’t know what the criminal element is coming to these days. Used to be you needed a little smarts. Now they let anybody into the business.

  “That concludes my status report,” Leonard said. “Agent Boca Bait and myself are now concluding ops. All operatives and Charleston Charmer will report to Agent Latin Lover’s office at 2130 this evening.”

  “Charleston Charmer? You mean Miss Li—”

  “Agent Horowitz,” Leonard snapped. “This is not a secure line. Please use the encrypted nomenclature only.”

  “All right, all right. Thanks, Le—uh, Agent Goldfinger. See you later.”

  I felt bad about the danger the contessa and Chuck had faced, but then I realized the contessa would dine out on that story for at least a year, and Chuck would get fussed over by Enrique for a good week or so. So everything was great. Just great.

  I worked on the sex toy case some more then headed out to the Boca Beach Hilton. I found everyone already gathered in Enrique’s situation room. Enrique was in a leather swivel chair in front of his control panel. The other guys were lined up against the back wall. Miss Lil was seated on a sofa between two freaky-looking women. More Holy Rollers? No—I recognized the one on the left as Mom. She wore a pop-art Pucci pantsuit to match her retro hair and makeup disguise. But who was the other one? She looked like a Goth dominatrix—straight black hair with pink highlights, black lipstick, and a studded black pleather jumpsuit. I scowled at her. What was this stranger doing here?

  “Harriet, it is I,” she said. I detected the trace of a German accent.

  “Oh my God, Contessa!” The punk getup didn’t strike me as screaming Wealthy Widow, but I guess we’d soon find out how she’d fared, apart from busting the bandits’ balls.

  “Are you all right?” I asked her.

  “Yes,” she said. “We’ve already covered all that prior to your arrival. Charles and I are both fine. Now let’s get down to business.”

  The contessa had always been one cool customer. I’d recently learned that she’d been a hidden child in Europe during World War II. I guess after an experience like that, nothing would faze you.

  “Okay. Fine.”

  L
ior held a chair for me.

  “Thanks,” I said, giving him a piercing look in the eye.

  “My pleasure,” he replied, returning the gaze.

  Enrique popped the contessa’s video data card into his computer, and we all looked at the monitor.

  We got a boob’s-eye view of a blackjack table. Chuck was seated at the far end, and several other seats were occupied. The sounds of slot machines and chatter filled the background. The camera shifted from the contessa’s cards to the dealer, around the table and back again.

  The jerky movement was starting to give me motion sickness.

  “Agent Nice Ass,” I said, “will you please go to the gift shop and get me some Dramamine?” I handed him a couple bucks.

  “Yes, boss.”

  He returned a few minutes later and handed me the pill bottle. I waved it around.

  “Anybody?” I asked. They all shook their heads. Great. I, fearless leader, had the only weak stomach in the bunch.

  On the screen there was finally some action.

  “Oh, my poor Hugo,” the contessa’s voice said. Her hand lifted a martini glass and brought it above the camera’s range. When it came back down the glass was half empty.

  “Look where I am now, Hugo,” she sobbed. “So far away from Monte Carlo. Oh, those were mahvelous times we had, dahling.”

  She took another gulp.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” the dealer asked.

  “I lost my dear husband,” the contessa said. “The Count of Monte Cristo . . . Carlo. Monte Carlo. He was Prince Rainier’s stepbrother’s second cousin once removed . . . all I have left is our château on the Riviera. And that is so empty without him. Imagine, eighty rooms all to myself. It so needs a man’s presence . . . hit me!” She rapped her knuckles on the game table, and the dealer laid down a card. In the distance, Chuck remained stone-faced.

  A couple minutes later a sixtyish guy with a black pompadour and a wind-tunnel facelift sat down in front of the camera. “I wish I were one of those tears,” he said, “so I could start in your eyes, live on your face, and die on your lips.”