Chapter 7: Home again and happy endings?

Back at home, Clair and I got caught up with our own business. In addition to the groves, we handled the beef products from my dad’s ranch and a few select other local ranchers, and over the years we had begun distributing fresh vegetables and berries that were grown on family farms in Middle Tennessee. Our employees did a good job in our absence, but there were always tasks that needed our hands-on participation.

That didn’t mean that we had heard the last of Bruce and his shenanigans.

After we had been home about two weeks, Pete called up again one morning to let us know that law enforcement people had found Claudia Rivera’s Toyota parked, presumably abandoned, in the long-term parking lot at the Miami International Airport. She and Bruce, she, traveling on her Panamanian passport, while Bruce got out on his U.S. passport before they could flag it, had flown out on a commercial flight to The Dominican Republic. After that their trail went cold. No one expected to see them in the U.S. again.

The news came out later, that Bruce had gotten away with selling his other three clients groves to Jake Sterns, the land developer. The sales were legal because his other clients, being absentee owners and not really involved with their groves, had given Bruce legitimate Power of Attorney authority. They had given it to him years prior and had never had problems before. But it was months before anyone though to call the previous owners to ask them if they had really wanted to sell the groves. The only redeeming feature was that the three grove owners did take Sterns to court and tied up his money and the land long enough that he had to declare bankruptcy. The owners, though, never got their money or the groves back.

In the end, Bruce got away with less than $30,000 from us, including everything, but he got away with millions from the sales of the other groves. Trying to track the money was almost impossible. First the money went to a bank in Panama. Yes, those nasty guys who showed up at the ranch house and were still sitting in the Florida state prison system for drugs and gun violations, were really Panamanian bankers. They had done their part of the scam.

Then the money disappeared into accounts first in Costa Rica, then it bounced to the Cayman Islands, and lord only knows how many times the money was transferred from one place to another, but eventually it dropped off the radar, leaving the former owners weeping for their lost groves. They may have been able to get some of the money back on their income tax returns as losses, but I wouldn’t know about that.

I did get a call from a gentleman in New Jersey who had owned one of the groves, wondering if I had ever gotten any more information on Bruce’s whereabouts. He also asked me how it was that our grove escaped Bruce’s illegal activities, when the others didn’t. I told him luck was part of it — someone gossiping with someone else; plus, the fact that I grew up in Vero and a lot of people knew me; when something strange seemed to be happening, I got calls from friends who were still local.

He was very polite, but I got a bad vibe, even over the phone, from him. He asked me to call him and let him know if I found out any new information about Bruce. I took his number and said I would.

The other grove owners were not the only people keeping their eyes out, looking for Bruce. Nothing else showed up for over two years. Then I got a phone call from Consuela.

She had heard through some of her Latin American friends that Bruce was now very ill, and in the later stages of ALS, but he well enough that he could still take care of himself. They said he had gone to Canada to get into the Canadian National Health system for his long-term care as he declined towards the end. Once again trying to scam the system.

Such a vague rumor wouldn’t be very helpful, except that someone had overheard a conversation and the name of a hotel in a small town outside of Quebec City.

After consulting with Clair, and even though she thought it was kind of worthless after so many years, I arranged to go to Canada. I was going to confront Bruce, assuming that the rumor had legs and it actually was Bruce.

Two days later, I had arrived at the hotel and asked after a man who I thought might be visiting there. The manager of the hotel had a keen sense of privacy for his customers, but a couple of Ben Franklins in his palm not only got me confirmation that such a man might be staying at the hotel, but also got his close friend a key to his suite, so I could wait in comfort. He was out to dinner when I had arrived, but he expected back within the hour.

I was sitting there in the dark when the door opened and the occupant walked in.

He didn’t notice me at first, but when he turned the lights on, he suddenly saw me. I had startled him.

“Jesus! David, you frightened the piss out of me!”

“Hello, Bruce. It’s been a long time.”

Bruce sat down in the second chair across from me.

“Dave, you’re looking good,” he observed.

“Bruce, you’re looking like shit, if you don’t mind my saying so.”

Bruce was looking thin and worn and about twenty years old than he was.

“Yeah,” Bruce kind of sighed, “It kinda sucks; that’s the truth. According to the docs, I probably only have a year, or maybe two with luck. That’s what ALS does to you.

“Even now, I have to eat soft foods — a lot of soup and baby food. But at least I can feed myself. I don’t know when, but I’ll probably need a feeding tube put in. Thank Canada for having their National Health Service. They will keep me going to the end, without my paying.”

“I don’t know,” I told him, “The NHS seems like they are trying to get anyone with a terminal condition to let them euthanize them.”

“I’ve heard about that, too. I’m not sure that when it gets that bad I might not just go along with that. Let ‘em stuff me to the gills with happy pills and just go to sleep and never wake up again. Worse ways to go.”

Bruce changed the subject.

“So, are you here to capture me? To turn me in to the authorities? To squeeze this turnip for blood?”

“No, not at all. You didn’t get that much from us. We recovered and repaired most of what you had done,” I replied.

“Then what?” Bruce asked with real curiosity.

“I just want to hear the why of it all, from your own mouth.”

“Are you wired to capture my confession? To play back what I say in some ‘court of justice?’”

“No, no. Just honestly, I want to know why you betrayed and backstabbed every friend that you had known since you were a boy. I want to understand how you could make your parents shamed and pitied by all of their friends of a lifetime. I want you to tell me why you first abused your wife’s trust and honor, and then abandoned her and your boys — just leaving them on their own.”

“Well...” Bruce chuckled, a soft sound. “You’re not asking for much are you?

“Okay, I’ll tell you and explain it as I see it, but it is a long story and goes back a long time.”

I nodded, “I have plenty of time.”

Bruce laughed again, “Probably more than I do.”

Suddenly, Bruce became more serious. He leaned back in his chair, relaxing, letting his head lean back and his eyes close, and then he began speaking.

“I once looked up the definitions of a psychopath and a sociopath. I’m not sure which category I fall into, or maybe something in between the two. I’m not sure there is a clear distinction between them.

“It seemed to start when I hit puberty. I remember thinking that ‘rules is for fools,’ and I thought of all of you ‘virtue is its own reward’ types as the fools. That includes my parents. Even today, I’ll bet they sit around saying to each other, ‘What did we do wrong with that boy’, as if they could have made a difference.

“Understand, I did realize that I had to keep my ‘mask’ on and keep the real me hidden from the world. If I did that, I could get away with almost anything. Until the end, when I hit the jackpot, that was my only rule: be smart, don’t get caught.

“A lot of the time I was stupid and impulsive. If I saw something I wanted, I just took it. But at some point, I realized if I kept doing things that way, eventually I would get caught. Either in the act, or with the goodies in my hands.

“That was when I understood that I needed to have a plan. I needed to have my own set of rules, not to comply with ‘society’s’ requirements, just for my own protection. I called it my ‘looking out for number one’ plan.

“The first thing was, don’t be greedy. If I found a woman’s jewelry box, I wouldn’t take the most expensive piece, or a really unique piece, and heaven forbid, not a piece of heirloom jewelry. I’d take a set of gold ear studs, or maybe a gold ring with a couple of small jewels. Things that it might be months or even years before they were missed, and if they were they would think that they misplaced them and just couldn’t remember what they had done with them. After a while, they would only have a vague memory of them. They were just ‘lost.’ And they were easy to get rid of, because they were non-descript.

“Remember that pistol you found me selling to my homey in Fort Pierce? That was an example. The gun was in a drawer on one of the boats in the harbor. It was at the back of the drawer, covered with some shirts, where people wouldn’t see it unless they were looking for it. I could tell the owner of the boat hadn’t had it out for a long time. I don’t know if he ever knew it was gone. But by the time he might have looked for it, he wouldn’t really remember what he had done with it. It would be gone, and he would think that he had moved it and just couldn’t remember where he put it.

“That time, you almost caught me. I didn’t expect you to show up until later, and the gun would be long gone. I know you were suspicious at the time, but I had my story, and you were still giving me the benefit of the doubt.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m bragging, but I had all of you fooled and I had some good times.”

“Women. Now there’s a topic all by itself. I could charm the panties off women. Of course, you know I’ve always had an eye for the Latinas. Even after I got married, I never stopped banging other women. There was some fine young Latina pussy working at the packing houses, and they were not just willing, but anxious to give it away. Head, pussy, ass — all of it. Sometimes I’d do two of them at a time. After we’d had a few drinks and I’d give them a line or two of coke or some pills, they would do just about anything I asked. I had them licking each other’s pussies, just to amuse me, while I fucked them doggy style.

“Sometimes, I’d do some of the guy’s mothers.

“Remember Matt, from the football team? I did his mom a couple times. She loved it. She wasn’t a Latina, but she would still let me do anything. She was one of the original cougars, she just loved getting boffed by a younger guy. I did a couple of other mothers and sisters of guys on the team. God, it was so easy to manipulate them. You know that woman can be as driven by their pussies as men are with their cocks.

“Consuela was different. She was smart, and I wanted to have kids, so I treated her differently. I married her, which convinced her that I loved her. I mean, she still let me have anything I wanted, but I self-imposed limits until the end. She was just another woman, just a piece of pussy I lived with and could have any time I wanted.

“Then came the catastrophe. I’ve always been coordinated and in top shape, so when I started having balance and strength problems, I knew something was wrong and I got to the doc.

“He sent me to a specialist who gave me a preliminary diagnosis of ALS. To be definitive, he claimed, would take some time, but I knew in my bones he was right. It was a life sentence and there wasn’t much that could be done. There is no ‘cure,’ and even the best medications add months, not years to your life. I was told that realistically, I had three to five years before my body would shut down and I would suffocate because my lungs wouldn’t be able to breathe anymore.

“I guess that is what set me off.”

Bruce sat quiet for a full minute after he told me that.

“I told my folks, but I asked them not to tell anyone, even Consuela, about the diagnosis, until we were certain.

“I had already been fucking Claudia for six months before I found out about my ALS. Claudia was a nympho, if such a thing exists, and she was so perverted even I was amazed.

“She was the one who had the idea of selling the groves initially. I mentioned that I had Powers of Attorney from the owners of three of the groves that I managed, and she started scheming.

“How much, she asked me, could I sell those groves for? She was working in a real estate office and knew some of the land developers who were trying to obtain land to build tract homes in the area. It was through her that I met Jake Sterns. He and I sat down and started talking about the parcels of land that I could control.

“He thought that he could come up with about $15 million from investors to buy the land if I sold all three parcels. At that point, we didn’t even consider your grove, because I knew that you had a long-term plan to develop it yourselves.