The manager of the apartment complex was trying to
simplify his life. He wore a yellow jumpsuit and tennis shoes.
No underwear, no socks. He made a pot-au-feu once a week,
and ate it all week long. He varied two of them. Chili and beans
and beef stew. He ate two boiled eggs and a slice of toast for breakfast
and skipped lunch. He was never going to leave the island. Never.
He was a homicide detective from Miami who had had a nervous breakdown.
His father owned the apartments. And a hardware store in Riviera Beach.
The natives call it Rivera. It is a high-crime community. A lot of blacks.
The detective's bossman, Major Willie Brownley, a black officer,
came and got him. Lured him back. He could not afford to lose
a good detective. The squad was loaded with blacks and Hispanics.
The detective was white but, except for his nervous breakdown, he was
competent. He had the highest clearance rate of anyone on the force.
He wasn't prejudiced. His partner was a pregnant Latino woman.
Unmarried. On pregnancy leave the last month of her pregnancy.