“I like Dr. Cohen.”
“This isn’t a personality contest,” I reminded her. “Write this down and don’t argue with me.” I gave her the information.
Next, I went to Joy Feely’s office on Federal.
The sign on her door read:
JOY FEELY – COMPUTER SPECIALIST
Her office was like Louie Dewey’s living room: computers everywhere, printers, screens, blinking lights. Joy looked up from the papers on her desk, smiled, and waved.
“Hi, Eddie,” she said, touching her hair and giving me her toothy grin. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I heard you need help and I may have the perfect man for you,” I said.
She seemed a little disappointed but recovered quickly.
“I do need someone really good but I can’t afford really good.”
“This guy will come reasonably,” I assured her. “His name is Lou Dewey and he’s a computer fraud.”
She blinked several times but to her credit, she didn’t ask me to leave.
“I can’t hire a felon,” she said. “I do a lot of work for the police.”
“He’s not a felon,” I assured her.
“You just said he was a computer fraud.”
“He’s actually never been convicted,” I offered a defense.
“Then how do you know he’s a fraud?” she asked.
“I caught him in the act,” I said.
“Did you turn him in to the police?”
Before I could answer her logical question, there was a knock on the door.
“That would be him,” I said.
“You invited him here?” She didn’t sound happy.
I nodded.
“Come in,” I said, knowing she was too surprised to say anything.
The door opened and Lou Dewey entered, wearing black slacks and a black shirt with a widespread collar. He looked like a bucktoothed, homely, little Elvis.
“Well, here I am,” Lou announced.
He looked at Joy.
She looked at him.
They stared at each other.
It must have been like looking in a mirror for them.
Joy seemed short of breath and Lou was breathless altogether.
I cleared my throat loudly to get their attention.
“Lou Dewey, meet Joy Feely,” I said. “Lou’s a computer genius, Joy.”
They nodded numbly at each other.
“Say hello to Joy, Lou,” I prompted him. “Joy . . . Lou.”
They nodded again. Lou cleared his throat. Joy fidgeted with the top button of her blouse.
“I’ll leave you two alone to talk business.” I went to the door. Neither of them moved.
I exited the office and was halfway down the hall when I heard a crash from Joy’s office.
Oh shit, I thought. I ran back to the office and opened the door.
Lou Dewey was lying on top of Joy Feely, who was flat on her back on her desk. Their lips were locked. At first I thought Dewey had attacked her but I saw Joy’s arms around him, pulling him toward her. This was as spontaneous and consensual as it gets.
“Everything okay?” I said politely.
Lou looked back at me over his shoulder and got off Joy in a hurry.
“Oh shit,” he said, stumbling away from the desk. He looked at me, then at Joy. “Oh shit,” he repeated then ran out the door.
Joy got up slowly. Her glasses were crooked on her face, and her light lipstick was smudged. Her prim hair was disheveled.
“Are you alright?” I went to her side and put a comforting arm on her shoulder.
She swallowed hard and made a futile gesture to fix her hair.
“I’m fine,” she said smoothing her blouse. “Is he gone?”
“Yes,” I assured her. “Don’t worry.”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know for sure,” I said.
“Can you find him?” she asked.
“Probably. Do you intend to press charges?” I asked.
“No, I intend to hire him,” she said, adjusting her glasses.
Louie Dewey was pacing nervously in his apartment when I let myself in.
“I don’t know what got into me, Eddie,” he blurted, the moment he saw me. “I’ve never done anything like that before. Is she gonna press charges?”
“She wants to offer you a job,” I told him.
“After what I did?”
“Because of what you did, I think.”
“I couldn’t control myself,” he pleaded with me.
“I think she feels the same,” I said.
“I’ll go right over,” Lou said and he was gone.
I was too hyper to go home so I called Chief Frank Burke and invited myself over for a cup of coffee. I needed the company of cops to make me feel normal again.
We sat in his office, drinking bad coffee. Our relationship had become personal as well as professional.
“Any progress with Buford?” he asked about the neo-Nazi.
“I’m just waiting,” I said. “I’ve done all I can.”
“I’m glad I’m not involved. Too much red tape.” He sighed. “So, any murder cases yet, detective?”
“No. I may have to kill someone myself,” I told him. “I do have four cases though.”
“I’ve got about four hundred.” Frank pointed to a stack of folders. He picked a folder randomly. “Here’s one for you. Two guys in their mid eighties got in a fistfight outside a theater.”
“About what?”
“There was a long line and one guy accuses the other guy of cutting in front of him. They start shoving each other. One guy throws a punch, the other guy falls, hits his head, and dies.”
“Manslaughter?” I guessed at the charge.
“The guy who threw the punch is claiming self-defense.”
“What do you think?”
“I think one of them should have gone bowling instead,” Frank said.
We reviewed more folders.
A husband-and-wife team embezzled over six hundred thousand dollars from their homeowner’s association and gambled it away at the Hard Rock Casino. There were plenty of witnesses but the couple pleaded innocent anyway.
Next case:
“An eighty-four-year-old woman was pulling in to a parking space in front of the Department of Motor Vehicles in Delray. She stepped on the gas instead of the brake and drove her 1998 Mercury Marquis through the registry window into the lobby. She was there to get her license renewed.”
“Did she get a new license?”
“She got a five-year extension.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Of course, I’m kidding.”
Next case:
“A plastic surgeon in Boca was busted for having no medical license. He had the best prices in town and was very popular. His patients are protesting his arrest.”
Next:
“You’re gonna love this one,” Frank smiled. “A guy filed a report a few weeks ago saying a hundred and five dollars was missing from his bank account. His bank insists he made an online withdrawal and they have the paperwork to prove the transaction took place.”
Oh, really?
“Why is he bothering the police?” I cleared my throat nervously. “Isn’t this the bank’s problem?”
“The customer claimed Internet fraud,” Frank read from the folder. “He’s convinced someone hacked into his account and stole his money.”
“Is that possible?” I asked feeling light-headed.
“Sure, it’s possible,” Frank said. “But the victim had about seven hundred thousand dollars more in that same account . . . and none of it was touched. What cyberthief would go to the trouble of hacking into a bank account, steal one hundred and five dollars, and leave six hundred ninety-nine thousand, eight hundred and ninety-five?”
I know one.
“But, here’s the kicker,” Frank said, laughing. “The guy called this morning and told us the hundred and five bucks was back
in his account. He figured it must have just been some computer error after all.”
“That’s a relief,” I sighed.
“Yeah, except we had to go through all the motions before the guy called us back. We talked to the bank and the customer. We even talked to Joy Feely to see if she could track anything down for us. Before she could get started the alleged victim called us with the good news. It was all for nothing.”
I got up from the chair.
“Where you going?” Frank asked.
“I just got a headache,” I told him the truth. “I gotta go home to lie down.”
I was driving to my apartment for a much needed nap when a red Mustang coupe swooped behind my MINI, inches from my bumper. The Mustang’s engine roared and the horn blared. In my rearview mirror I could see the young male driver making frantic arm motions, demanding I get out of his way.
I hate tailgaters.
I sent him a “get off my ass” message by stepping on my brakes hard and risking a rear-end collision. The Mustang never slowed down. It veered into the right lane, accelerated, zoomed past me, and then swerved in front of me. The driver gave me a single-digit salute.
I replied in kind.
Weavers piss me off.
These hyperactive idiots are incessantly weaving in and out of traffic in a one-man race to the next red light. Weaving is like a dog chasing its tail: can’t win/can’t stop.
The Mustang got dangerously close to the rear bumper of a worn-out sedan and honked his horn. Without waiting for the old car to move into the right lane the Mustang swerved right and accelerated to pass. Unfortunately, the old sedan was also moving right to allow the Mustang to pass on the left. The two cars arrived in the right lane at the same place at the same time. They collided side by side and careened off Yamato Road just west of the Broken Sound entrance. Both cars came to rest on the wide grass area on the north side of the street. I eased in behind them.
I got out of my car and began walking toward them. I saw the Mustang driver jump out of his car with a look of rage on his face. He was tall, well built, and young. A much smaller man with a dark complexion got slowly out of his dented sedan.
The Mustang maniac, after checking the damage to his car, charged the smaller guy and started throwing punches, screaming obscenities. The little guy covered his head with his arms and looked terrified.
I stepped in between them, shoving the bigger man backward.
“What do you want, squirt?” Mustang Man shouted.
He reached for me.
“Take a bow,” I said, kneeing him in the balls just hard enough to make him bend forward to my height. I pushed down on the back of his head, forcing him to his knees. He was stunned but not seriously hurt . . . yet.
I turned to the terrified smaller man. His eyes were darting from side to side looking for an escape route.
“Are you alright?” I asked gently placing my hands on his shoulders.
He looked confused, and I got the feeling he didn’t understand English. His eyes looked behind me with alarm and I sensed Mustang Man was approaching. I did a half turn and glared at him over my shoulder. He thought twice.
“Why are you defending him?” he wanted to know. “That little bastard almost killed me.”
“The accident was your fault,” I told him. “You were tailgating, speeding, and weaving in and out of traffic. You did the same thing to me, you dip-shit.”
He glanced at my MINI Cooper. “You were driving too slow,” he said, remembering my MINI. “All you old farts drive too slow.”
“Have you timed all of us?” I asked him.
“I’ll bet that little foreigner doesn’t even have a license or insurance,” the young man pointed. “He’s probably an illegal alien.”
I turned to the frightened little man.
“Anti-legal?” I asked with my limited Spanish vocabulary.
His eyes opened wide and he ran away from me and out onto Yamato Road.
“Stop,” I called after him, but he didn’t look back.
I watched him run east, then dart south across the wide street where a four-door Chrysler was running a red light. The poor little guy didn’t have a chance. The Chrysler knocked him down, ran over him, and dragged him for several yards before spitting him out on the side of the road. The big car rolled to a stop on the grass not far from where I stood with Mustang Man.
“Holy shit,” the weaver said, standing next to me now. “Did you see that?”
“Did you see it?” I shoved him away with a hand to his chest. “You caused it.”
“What did I do?” he shouted.
I ran toward the bloody body on the ground. Cars were stopping and people were gathering. I knelt next to the broken man and saw he was still breathing. His eyes were open but unfocused. His lips moved, and I put my ear close to his lips so I could hear him.
“Papan,” he groaned. “Papan.”
His eyes closed and he died.
I knew Papan was a girl’s name. Was he saying goodbye to his wife or his daughter? Whoever she was, Papan would soon be in Boca, mourning.
I got up from my knees, went to the Chrysler, and opened the driver’s door. A dazed old man was behind the wheel, leaning against the seat back. His eyes were glassy and his forehead was bloody. A woman sat next to him. There was blood on her forehead as well. An older couple in the backseat appeared to be unhurt but seemed too stunned to speak.
“What happened?” The driver turned slowly toward me.
I guessed he was in his late eighties, maybe even ninety.
“You hit a pedestrian,” I told him.
“Is he okay?” the dazed driver asked.
“He’s dead,” I said softly.
“Oh, my God,” the woman next to him cried. “You went through that red light.”
“I did?” the old man asked, confused. “I didn’t see a red light.”
A police car and an ambulance arrived.
“What happened?” the cop asked me.
“People who shouldn’t be behind the wheel of a car were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” I told him.
“That happens a lot around here,” the cop said.
Later that afternoon when I told Claudette about the tragic car accident on Yamato she was visibly shaken. When I told her about Lou Dewey’s past she could have cared less. “He saved your life,” she said. “That’s all I need to know.”
Point well taken.
When I told her about Lou and Joy she said, “That’s so cute.”
Cute is not the word I would have used.
“Do they really look exactly alike or are you exaggerating?” she asked.
“Both,” I said.
“Was it love at first sight?”
“It was lust at first sight,” I told her.
“When I was your nurse at the hospital did you lust for me at first sight?” Claudette batted her eyelashes at me.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Mr. Johnson had a tube in his eye if you remember,” I said. “I’d just been shot and lust was low on my list. In fact, I was listless.”
“I’m a little disappointed.” She stuck out her lower lip and pouted.
I love the way she pouts, so sexy, Mr. Johnson said and I had to agree.
“I just started a new list,” I told her. “And I put you first on it. Let’s pretend I’m Lou Dewey and you’re Joy Feely.”
I grabbed her in my arms.
“Okay,” she laughed and stuck her top teeth over her lower lip.
“That’s mean,” I said as I did the same. We tried to kiss and our teeth collided.
“How do they do it?” she said, touching her lower lip, checking for blood.
“Very carefully,” I said. “Let’s practice.”
Lou Dewey called the next morning.
“Lou, what’s up?” I asked.
“That’s an appropriate question,” he said.
“Pace yourself,” I advised.
“Eddie, meeting this woman is the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” he said.
“Ohhh, Louie, that’s so sweet,” I heard Joy Feely gush in the background.
“Not now,” I heard him struggling. “I have to talk to Eddie. Joy, stop it. I said stop it. I’m sorry, Eddie, I’ll have to call you back.”
CLICK!
He was breathless when he called forty minutes later. “This woman won’t give me a break,” he said.
“Will she give you a job?”
“I never asked.”
“Now would be a good time,” I suggested.
“Joy, will you give me a job?” he asked her.
Her reply was muffled.
“I mean a real job,” he stipulated. “You know, where I work for you and you pay me.”
Another muffled response.
“She said yes.”
“Good. Now that you’re gainfully employed, I have a job for you. I’ll pick you up at your apartment in an hour and tell you about it then,” I said.
“I work for Joy. Doesn’t she have to approve?”
“You handle Joy,” I said.
“My pleasure,” he replied.
Just before he hung up I heard Joy giggle hysterically. It sounded like he was handling her just fine.
Lou Dewey and I were at Delray Vista at 10:30 that same morning. We stood outside Izzy Fryberg’s building, drinking coffee. I glanced at Lou. “You look tired,” I told him.
“I am. I’ve got friction burns-”
“Spare me,” I interrupted him. “Let’s get down to business.”
“Okay, I’ll summarize what you told me,” Lou said. “A group of good friends from the Boston area bought apartments in this building about thirty years ago.”
Lou did an excellent job of recapping the entire history of Delray Vista, Building 550, including the close personal relationships that had totally disintegrated.
“You got the whole story,” I told him.
“So, what do you want from me?”
“I want you to figure out what’s causing the elevator to malfunction.”
“Maybe it’s mechanical.”
“No,” I said. “The elevator company checked for that. The motor’s fine. The cable is fine. I think it’s a computer thing.”
“A computer thing?” he said sarcastically. “When did you get so high tech?”
“I think someone planted something somewhere, smart ass.”
Boca Mournings Page 11