Boca Mournings

by Steven M. Forman

  “You’re good,” Izzy said. “We have a card room on the second floor and no one from the first floor walked up the stairs after the elevator was installed. When we reminded them of our agreement, we got a registered letter from a lawyer saying the agreement was nonbinding because the building bylaws were never changed.”

  “Legally they’re probably right,” I said.

  “We’re not talking about legalities,” Izzy said. “We’re talking principle. They broke their word to old friends. The paying members got so pissed off they had a lock installed on the elevator. No key, no ride.”

  “That had to cause problems,” I said.

  “Within two weeks the lock had been so badly mangled the keys wouldn’t work,” Izzy said. “We had to disconnect the system to get the elevator operating again. Now we’re trying to get a temporary restraining order against those bastards from using the elevator until the matter is settled in court.”

  “That sounds like a good interim solution,” I said.

  “Yeah, except now no one will use the elevator. It’s suddenly become dangerous.” Izzy folded his arms across his chest.

  “What happened?”

  “The damn thing has stopped in between floors, with people inside, at least seven times during the last two weeks. It always starts up again but everyone is afraid, so no one rides.”

  “How long does it stop?”

  “It varies,” Izzy said. “One time it was stuck for over a half hour. The guy in the lift started to hyperventilate. He almost died.”

  “What does the elevator company say?”

  “They swear nothing is wrong with their equipment. They checked it out three times.”

  “You think it’s sabotage.”

  “You tell me,” Izzy said. “That’s the job.”

  “I’m not an elevator operator,” I told him.

  “I don’t want you to operate the elevator,” Izzy said. “I want you to find out if someone else is operating the elevator.”

  “I dunno. It’s not my thing,” I said. “Can I poke around before I decide?”

  “Do we have to pay for a poke?” he asked.

  “I’ll give you a free poke,” I told him. “Have you got a ladder?”

  Izzy walked to a door marked MAINTAINENCE and opened it with a key from his bulky chain. He took out a six-step ladder and gave it to me.

  “What else is in there?” I asked.

  “Telephone stuff, tools, and the circuit breakers.”

  I checked the room and saw nothing unusual.

  Izzy followed me to the elevator.

  I pressed the button and the door slid open. The inside of the elevator did not appear haunted. On the ceiling, I saw the outline of a removable panel. I positioned the ladder, climbed up five steps, reached up, and dislodged the panel.

  “The elevator boys already looked there,” Izzy called up to me.

  I poked my head through the opening in the ceiling and saw a standard pulley system that appeared clean and functional.

  I replaced the panel and stepped down the ladder. I pressed the button for the second floor. The elevator door slid closed and the unit went up uneventfully.

  No problem.

  I pressed the first-floor button and descended smoothly. I took four round-trips.

  Izzy was waiting for me on the first floor.

  “See anything?” he asked me.

  “The second floor,” I told him.

  We walked toward my car.

  A nice-looking older couple was approaching from the opposite direction, holding hands. I was envious. I never got to grow old with my wife.

  The woman smiled at me and waved when they got closer.

  “You’re the Boca Knight, aren’t you?” she asked in a sweet, small voice.

  “Yes, I am,” I said.

  “We were at your rally last spring in Palm Beach,” her husband said. “We’re better people because of you.”

  “That’s very nice of you to say,” I told them.

  They nodded before turning to Izzy, who stood silently next to me.

  “Fuck you, Fryberg,” the sweet old woman said.

  Her husband gave Izzy the finger.

  They walked away.

  “I’ll take the case,” I said.

  When I was young, I saw the world in black and white, and raged in red. I never saw shades of gray, which got me put on probation my second year on the force.

  During my first mandatory probation meeting with Dr. Glenn Kessler, a Boston Police Department psychiatrist, he asked me, “Are you angry often?”

  “I’m never angry,” I growled like a pit bull.

  “You’re not taking this interview very seriously, are you?” Kessler smiled patiently.

  “I’m here, aren’t I?”

  “You have to be here or you’ll be suspended from the force,” he said pleasantly. “So why don’t we try to make the most of it?”

  “Okay.” I shrugged.

  “So, what makes you angry?”

  “Stupid questions.” I smiled this time.

  He returned my smile. “What else?”

  “Injustice,” I said seriously. “I don’t think anything pisses me off more than injustice.”

  “You’re in good company,” Kessler said. “Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.’”

  “Then some asshole shot him in the head,” I said. “The ultimate injustice.”

  “Actually, he was shot in the throat,” said Dr. Kessler.

  “I don’t care if he was shot in the ass. It was an injustice,” I said.

  “Do you feel you have to strike out against every injustice?”

  “Only if I’m within striking distance.”

  “Did you ever try counting to ten?”

  “I only got to five.”

  “When you get angry and lose control, do you ever think of your own safety?” he asked.

  “I don’t think of anything,” I said honestly. “That’s why I’m on probation.”

  When I told Dr. Kessler I actually saw red spots of rage and couldn’t remember my outbursts afterward, he diagnosed me with compulsive explosive disorder - uncontrollable rage. He suggested I try to think of the consequences before I acted impulsively.

  I promised him I would try but I didn’t keep my promise until I got much older, moved to Boca and began to see shades of gray.

  According to the Sixth Amendment, everyone has the right to a speedy trial. Randolph Buford, the Aryan Army punk who had attacked Claudette and her grandmother, Queen, last spring wasn’t getting one. Under normal circumstances I would have considered this an injustice, but in Buford’s case I really didn’t care. As far as I was concerned, the Buford family was getting what it deserved, except maybe for their mentally challenged daughter, Eva.

  They had moved to Boca Heights from South Carolina, in the winter of 2003. Their mission was to infiltrate and assimilate the Jewish community on behalf of Aryan Army, a white supremacist organization that had some long-range, evil plan. They managed to blend in for a while until Randolph, the Bufords’ teenage son, told a neighbor that Hitler hadn’t killed enough Jews. Outraged neighbors wrote letters to Mr. and Mrs. Buford demanding an apology from their son. Forrest Buford, Randolph’s father, wrote letters back saying he agreed with his boy about the number of Jews killed by Hitler.

  When irate members of Boca Heights wrote letters to the newspaper editor, the elder Buford wrote long anti-Semitic, venomous letters in response.

  I wrote a few letters myself . . . on Buford’s house. FUCK YOU, NAZIS was my primary message.

  I used a bright Israeli blue for the block letters, which I bookended in between two Stars of David. It was just my simple way of telling the Bufords, There’s a Jew out here crazier than you.

  I also started following Randolph Buford around town looking for an excuse to bust him . . . physically or legally. It didn’t take long. One night I witnessed Randolph and two friends attack
ing an old woman and her granddaughter, Claudette Permice, in the parking lot of the Boca Mall. Randolph was in heat, tearing at my future girlfriend’s clothes, when I kicked him in the nuts to cool him off. I put his friends in the hospital and him in jail. That’s when the shit hit the fan and Aryan Army marched on Palm Beach County to “Free Randolph Buford.”

  Free Randolph Buford, my ass!

  Randolph’s first trial delay was his own fault. At his arraignment, he attacked Judge Avery Jacobs when the Jewish jurist set bail at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

  “Are you kidding me?” the Nazi youth screamed at the judge.

  “Why don’t you make it two hundred and fifty million, you Jew bastard?” Randolph’s father, Forrest, bellowed.

  “You can appeal the amount.” Judge Jacobs banged his gavel. “Get these people out of my court.”

  Randolph moved fast for a chunky Nazi. He sprang toward the judge, trying to sidestep two burly black police officers who eventually wrestled him to the floor.

  “Get off me, niggers!” Randolph shouted, introducing himself to the guards.

  Forrest Buford then did a belly flop onto the pile of three struggling men. Fists were swinging, and epithets were ringing.

  Order in the court, I mused, watching the Bufords dig their own graves.

  A gunshot rang out. Randolph screamed and the room went silent. The guards got up from the floor as did Forrest Buford. Randolph Buford stayed down. He had a smoking gun in his hand.

  One of the officers stepped on the kid’s wrist and disarmed him.

  “He grabbed my gun and shot himself in the foot,” one of the cops said to the judge, looking embarrassed.

  “He certainly did,” the judge agreed.

  “Your honor,” Assistant DA Barry Daniels shouted. “These men are in contempt.”

  “These men are beyond contempt,” the judge disagreed, rendering his judgment.

  Randolph Buford exited the courtroom on a stretcher, his father in cuffs.

  Two weeks later the Appellate Court upheld the high bail.

  Aryan Army’s lawyers filed a second appeal while their client sat in a jail cell, his injured foot confined to a walking cast. It didn’t take long for sympathetic bigots to start picketing outside the jail demanding Buford’s bail be reduced. I wanted to wade into the protesters and reduce their status to rubble but I actually gave the situation a second thought and counted to ten once. Dr. Kessler would have been proud of me, but I wasn’t so proud of myself. I was thinking too much.

  I must be getting old.

  I considered three possible outcomes to the Buford situation but each of them was unacceptable to me.

  Possible Outcome One: Buford is found innocent by the same jury that acquitted OJ.

  Possible Outcome Two: Buford is found guilty, goes to jail a Hun Hero, and comes out worse.

  Possible Outcome Three (developed by yours truly): I totally fuck Buford up with the Aryan Army by spreading a rumor that Buford is cooperating with authorities in exchange for a lighter statement. He gets a lighter sentence. Under my contrived scenario, Aryan Army believes the rumor without substantiation (“What luck for the rulers that men don’t think” - Adolf Hitler) and withdraw Aryan Army lawyers from the case. Buford then goes to jail and dies after a brief honeymoon in the jailhouse shower.

  Although I hated the little Nazi I didn’t want to be responsible for his death so I had to modify Outcome Three a little. Eventually I developed a more bizarre plan I could live with . . . and maybe Buford could live with, too. I set it in motion.

  I invited my newspaper reporter friend, Jerry Small, to lunch where I asked him one simple question:

  “Is there any truth to the rumor that Buford is testifying against Aryan Army in exchange for a lighter sentence?”

  Jerry choked on his chicken soup. “Where did you hear that?”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” I said. “I was just asking a question.”

  “C’mon, Eddie, tell me.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” I said.

  “Is there a story here?” he asked.

  “How should I know?” I answered a question with a question.

  Jerry took my answer as a “yes” and started looking for a story. He called the DA’s office and got no comment, which he also took as an affirmative answer. He contacted police in West Palm and Boca and he took their denials as affirmation of his suspicions.

  His next column opened with a question: “Is there any truth to the rumor that Randolph Buford is cooperating with authorities against Aryan Army in exchange for a lighter sentence?”

  Jerry offered no answers and no evidence. He just asked the question and the rumor spread like an oil spill.

  I was certain that Aryan Army hadn’t forgiven the Bufords for the catastrophe at the Boca Knights rally last spring. I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to turn on the Bufords if given a reason . . . so I gave them a reason - a whiff of betrayal. Within days the Aryan Army lawyers withdrew their defense of Buford, citing a conflict of interest. Their actual conflict was that Randolph Buford wanted to keep breathing and talking while Aryan Army wanted him to stop.

  Buford insisted that he was not cooperating with the police but the only person who believed him was me. Soon he was receiving anonymous death threats.

  Excellent.

  Within a week, I received a phone call from Chief Frank Burke of the Boca Police, telling me to be at his office the next morning at eleven.

  I arrived at the station early.

  “How’s Boca’s finest sergeant?” I asked Billy Simms at the front desk.

  “What do you need, Eddie?” Simms asked without smiling.

  “Can you find the owner of this car for me?” I asked, handing him a note.

  Simms read my note and shook his head. “No can do.”

  “Thanks, Billy.” I walked through the station saying hello to everyone and feeling at home. By eleven o’clock I had worked my way to Frank Burke’s office. He sat behind his desk.

  “What’s up, Chief?” I asked cheerfully.

  He looked up at me tiredly.

  “The Bufords will tell you,” Frank said as he got up. “They’re in the conference room. Mrs. Buford asked for this meeting. She’s a very distressed mother.”

  I knew Randolph had a mother. I just never gave her any thought.

  “What’s her problem besides living with Hitler and Eichmann?”

  “Threats to her son’s life seem to be bothering her,” he said. “Someone, I’m not saying who, spread a rumor that Randolph Buford was cooperating with the prosecution against Aryan Army. His parents think you’re the source.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “You tell me,” Burke said.

  Frank and I were friends but my methods were a lot different than his.

  “I have nothing to tell you except I think you should put the little storm trooper in isolation until his trial . . . for his own protection,” I said.

  “He is in isolation,” Frank told me.

  “Then this is an isolated incident,” I said. Frank didn’t laugh so I moved on. “What do Mr. and Mrs. Hitler want from me?”

  “They want a retraction of the rumor,” Frank informed me.

  “Napoleon said, ‘Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.’”

  Frank wasn’t amused. “Do you often quote Napoleon?”

  “No, he gives me a complex.”

  Frank shook his head. “Will you talk to them?”

  “Sure, I’ll ask them what they’re doing for Passover. Do they have a lawyer with them?” I asked, wondering if I needed one.

  “No, a public defender was just appointed to replace the Army guys,” Frank said. “The PD gave the Bufords permission to meet with you as long as legal matters were not discussed.”

  When I entered the conference room I was confronted with the scowling, brooding, flat hard face of Forrest Buford. He was sitting at the long, rectangular conference table n
ext to his blonde wife. She didn’t look malevolent. She actually looked human. I could tell she had been crying. She may have raised a vulture in a vacuum, but at this moment she looked as vulnerable as her husband looked vicious. I had to remind myself that she was the mother of a menace and the missus of a monster.

  “What can I do for you Nazis?” I asked.

  Buford started to get up from his seat but his wife grabbed his shoulder. My eyes locked on his. He wanted me dead. I wanted him dead. This meeting should have been held at a funeral home. As we stared at each other I thought of the words written by an Auschwitz survivor: “The head takes the longest to burn; two blue flames flicker from the eyeholes . . . the entire process lasts twenty minutes - and a human being, a world, has been turned into ashes.”

  I sat down across from them, and Frank Burke sat at the head of the table.

  Mrs. Buford broke the silence in a soft, shaky voice.

  “Mr. Perlmutter,” she said, “you’ve put our son’s life in danger, and I am asking you to publicly renounce your false rumor.”

  I felt nothing and said nothing. I was thinking of burning skulls.

  “I know you don’t like us or our politics-”

  “I hate you and your politics,” I interrupted. “But I am not threatening your son’s life. Aryan Army is. Talk to them.”

  “They refuse our calls,” she told me. “And they’ve told us to move out of the house they rented for us. You have to tell them the truth.”

  “Aryan Army doesn’t care about the truth,” I said.

  “They believe your lie,” she said, her voice quivering.

  “They believe what they want to believe,” I told her.

  She looked down at her hands. Tears were in her eyes. I resisted feeling sorry for her. She married the shit. She slept with him. “Mr. Perlmutter, please-”

  “Martha,” Buford snarled, “you said your piece. Enough.”

  He got up from his chair and I got up from mine. We glared at each other.

  “Can’t we just talk?” Martha Buford pleaded. “My son’s life is at stake.”

  “Blame your psychotic husband and his friends,” I told her.

  I had no one to blame but myself for what happened next. I should have known not to take my eyes off an uncaged wild animal. Buford lunged across the conference table and his thick fingers were around my throat in an instant. His thumbs pressed into my windpipe and I knew I was in serious trouble. I saw Frank Burke go after Buford, but I couldn’t wait. I grabbed the full pitcher of water on the table by the handle and crashed it down on top of Buford’s head. The pitcher shattered and Buford crashed face first onto the table. Glass and water flew through the air and blood began to seep from the gash on Buford’s head. Mrs. Buford screamed.