J.R.: Phyllis started flying down to Miami to visit me after I got set up in the coke business in 1975. Italian girls are like ticks. Once they stick under your skin, it’s hard to burn them out. I had mixed feelings for her. There were times still, like when she gave wise advice, that I was glad I had Phyllis in my life. Other times her voice made my stomach twist in knots. The one saving grace I had when Phyllis moved down was that she disliked my Bay Harbor house. It was too small for her. I gave her a condo in one of the buildings I owned in Coral Gables. The idea was, we would move in together when Phyllis found a decent place for us. Most nights I was free of her. Phyllis was happy if I kept her supplied with money for her shopping. I was happy if I could chase other girls.
One night I’m out at Sammy’s Eastside with Hank Goldberg and Jimmy the Greek—another person who became my best friend because of my coke—when Hank sees a beautiful girl at the bar. Hank goes over to her, starts laying some shit on her about what a big deal he is, and she says, “I don’t give a fuck. You’re too ugly for me. Introduce me to your friend.”
Jimmy the Greek stands up and says, “Me?”
She says, “You’re even uglier.”
She points to me. That’s how I met Lee Sweet.* Lee was involved with a guy who owned Chevrolet dealerships across the country. He paid for her to live in the Charter Club, which was a new building on the bay,† where all the girls lived who had somebody else paying for them. Even after Lee and I got together, she hung on to this old car dealer to pay her way.
Lee was just an average blond girl, but she was easy to spend time with because she liked boating. She’d stay over, and we’d swim in the ocean in the morning, and cruise around Miami in my boat, looking for good places to eat. One day Lee and I pulled up to the Palm Bay for lunch. I was salty from swimming in the ocean, so I told Lee I was going to shower by the pool, then meet her in the restaurant.
I decide to take a lap in the pool, and when I reach the other side, I see a knockout redhead sitting at the edge. I swim right over to her. Bippity bop, I make some jokes, tell her my name.
“I’m Betty Collins,” she says.‡
“Do you like boats, Betty?”
“No.”
“I know you like to spend money because you hang out here.”
“Who says it’s my money?”
“Whoever’s taking care of you must be loaded, because you got a smile worth a million dollars.”
“Well, Donny Soffer takes care of me.”
I knew Donny Soffer. He was a big-time developer in Miami who built Aventura.* He was one of the developers Danny Mones and I lent money to when he had problems with normal banks.
I say, “That old fuck takes care of you? Why don’t you come on my boat tomorrow?”
“Okay,” she says.
“I’ll pick you up. Where do you live?”
“The Charter Club.”
“Get out of here,” I say. “I got a friend who lives in the Charter Club.”
“What’s her name?”
“Why do you think my friend is a she?”
“I’m pretty sure you have a she-friend who lives in the Charter Club, not a he-friend. But that doesn’t bother me. We’re adults.”
I liked this girl’s attitude.
In less than ten minutes I’d rinsed off the salt water, had a swim, and made a date. I had a nice lunch with the other girl, Lee Sweet, and got rid of her that afternoon.
The next morning I took Betty out on my boat, and she gave me the fuck of my life. We saw each other like that for a couple of weeks. Even though she had Donny, Betty had hit that point where she wanted to get more serious.
Betty invited me for dinner at her place in the Charter Club. She was preparing a nice veal piccata when I came in. I’m waiting for her to finish, and I decide to check my answering service. There’s an urgent message from Lee Sweet, who also lives in the Charter Club. I go into Betty’s bedroom and call Lee. She says, “I know you’re in the building.”
Stupid me, I drove to the Charter in my gold Porsche. It’s a unique car, and the valet left it in front of the building. This is how Lee knows I’m here, and now she’s going crazy.
I tell Betty I need to get something from my car, and I go up to the floor where Lee lives. Soon as I step in the door, Lee pulls my slacks off and starts sucking my cock. She tears off my shirt, my underwear, and I can’t stop her because, I’ll tell you the truth, nobody sucked a cock like Lee. I could not defend myself. She’s licking my legs, sucking on my toes, putting her tongue God knows where. This girl was insane the way she gave head. She says, “Stand over here. I know you like to look out the window and watch the boats while I finish sucking your cock.”
She knew I had a thing where I liked to watch the boats on the water when I was coming. It was my weakness. She moves me to the balcony window, and boom, I explode, watching the boats glide past. Next, I see Lee throw my pants, my shirt, my underwear, and my saddle shoes out the window. The whole blow job has been a trick.
“You’re not leaving until you tell me who that other girl is,” she says.
“Let me wash up, and we’ll talk.” I go in the bathroom, grab a towel, and run out the door. There’s no reasoning with a girl when she goes crazy with jealousy. By now my appetite is really worked up for Betty’s veal piccata, and strange as it sounds, Lee’s blow job had me even hornier to fuck Betty. I’m thinking, One girl gives the greatest head, and the other is the best fuck. I’ll combine them in one night.
I go to Betty’s floor and knock on her door. She opens it, sees my towel, and I say, “I decided to jump in the pool, and some asshole stole my clothes from the changing room.”
Unfortunately, Betty is not stupid. “You saw your other girlfriend, didn’t you?”
“Betty, it was only a blow job.”
I can see in Betty’s face I’ve said the wrong thing. She says, “I’m going to shut the door now. Let’s have lunch tomorrow. But nothing’s happening tonight.”
I get the message. I walk down to the elevator, and as I’m getting in, Lee Sweet comes bombing in. She’s stalked me.
There’s other people in the elevator. A family with their grandma, taking her out to dinner. The fact I’m in a towel is not a problem. It’s Miami. I look like I came from the pool. But Lee starts laughing. She says, “What’s under the towel?”
The other people in the elevator look at this crazy bitch and press against the wall. Lee tries to yank off my towel. I grab her hands, and she starts fighting me. “You motherfucker,” she says. “I want you to walk out of here bare-ass nude.”
She gets a surge of crazy-bitch strength, breaks free from my grip, and pulls off my towel. I’m standing there, no clothes on, no shoes, nothing. The family in the elevator, they are freaked out. The mother turns her kids’ heads away. The grandma glares at me like this is my fault. I look at Lee and say, “You know what? Go fuck yourself.”
The doors open, and I walk out bare-ass nude into the lobby. I go out the front doors. The valets all know me. They don’t say nothing. The main valet runs to my car and screeches it up in front of me. He gets out, holds the door for me, and I just say, “Obviously, I’ll tip you later.”
I never saw crazy Lee Sweet again. I saw Betty, but it wasn’t the same. These were semiprofessional girls. They dated guys for money, but the reality is, even whores have feelings. The truth is, whores have hearts the same as so-called regular women. That was one experience that made me consider trying to give domestic life with Phyllis another shot. I could have been arrested walking through the lobby with no clothes on. That’s one risk I could not take. I needed to settle down.
* Lee Sweet is a pseudonym to protect the identity of Jon’s lady friend.
* “Donald Soffer’s ingenious plan to transform a mosquito-infested swamp in North Dade County, Florida, into an upscale, planned community began more than 50 years ago when he purchased a 785-acre tract of marshland and sketched his vision on a cocktail napkin. Today, that parcel of land stands in the heart of the City of Aventura, one of Florida’s most prestigious addresses.” From a Turnberry Associates corporate profile posted in 2011. Despite Jon’s assertions of having provided investment money to Donald Soffer, he has offered no paperwork to support the claims.
† The Charter Club, built in 1973, is a twenty-three-story tower at 600 N.E. 36th Street in Miami.
‡ Betty Collins is a pseudonym for Jon’s friend, who at the time he met her was a featured nude model in a popular gentlemen’s magazine.