The Prince of Paradise (28 page)

According to Meredith Fiel, her aunt’s amended will bequeathing most of her money to a Jewish charity still lay unsigned on a table.

T
HIRTY-
S
IX

THE BATMOBILE

Now that the first half of their plan had been successful, Narcy and her brother Cristobal moved into the second phase.
After Bernice Novack’s death had been ruled accidental, they now felt emboldened to move on and kill Ben Novack Jr.

Over the next several months, Cristobal Veliz crisscrossed the Northeast as he and Narcy plotted Ben’s murder.
They had decided to kill him in New York, believing it would give them a far better chance of getting away with it than in Florida.

Ben and Narcy Novack would next be in New York on July 9, for a Hispanic Amway convention they were organizing at the Rye Town Hilton, and it was decided that this was where they would strike.

Once again, the siblings planned to use Melvin Medrano and Alejandro Garcia for the hit, considering them a good team who had already proven themselves.

In May, Cristobal Veliz arrived at the car wash, telling Garcia to start preparing for the big job he had promised.

“Cristobal said the time … was getting close,” said Garcia.
“I asked him what it was to be.
He said I had to beat up Señor Novack and cut off his balls.
There was going to be an Amway convention in New York, and I was going to come in and do the attack.
He said the object was that this man would be disabled, so he and his sister could take over the company.”

Veliz then explained that Ben Novack had sex with little girls.
He told Garcia that Novack also owned a factory that manufactured artificial limbs for children, and would trade these prostheses for sex.

“This made me hate him for what he was doing to the little children,” said Garcia, who had a thirteen-year-old daughter back in Nicaragua.

On May 18, 2009, Melvin Medrano was arrested for driving without a license, and deported back to Nicaragua.
Veliz then told Garcia to find a new partner, and offered him $15,000, as well as a good tip, for the Ben Novack job.
Garcia said he knew a twenty-six-year-old Miami-born Cuban named Joel Gonzalez, who had just lost his job driving a lunch cart.
He felt sure Gonzalez would come aboard.
Soon afterward, Garcia approached Gonzalez about participating in the attack.

“I said we can tie him up, kick him, and get out of there,” Garcia remembered.
“He said, ‘How much money?’
I said three thousand, and he said, ‘Fine, let’s do it.’”

*   *   *

On May 5, Ben Novack Jr.
had taken delivery of his eagerly awaited $128,000 Batmobile, blissfully unaware of the danger he was in.
It was a fully working exact copy of the original Batmobile used in the 1966
Batman
TV series, and had taken several years to build.
It used castings from the original Batmobile molds, fitted onto a 1963 Lincoln frame.

With a rocket exhaust flamethrower, bat rockets, a bat ray projector, bat turbines, and an emergency bat turn lever, it was Ben Jr.’s dream car.

“He called me when he got it delivered,” said Charlie Seraydar.
“He wanted me to come over and see it.
He was so excited.
It was the culmination of many, many years of working to get it.
It was his pride and joy.”

The Batmobile was officially registered to Ben and Narcy Novack, with the personalized Florida plates BAT 1966.
A delighted Ben Jr.
happily posed for photographs in the driver’s seat, wearing a white T-shirt, denim cutoffs, and a baseball hat.
Next, he told friends, he intended to buy a Batboat and a Batcopter.

He only ever got to drive his Batmobile once, to a gas station a couple of blocks away on Las Olas Boulevard, to fuel up.
Then he parked it in his garage, where it would remain for months.

*   *   *

On Saturday, June 6, Ben and Narcy Novack attended the 2009 Florida Supercon, held at the Doubletree Hotel and Exhibition Center at Miami International Airport.
Novack had previously given dealer Vincent Zarzuela a wish list of rare Batman comics and other collectibles he wanted.

When Zarzuela saw Novack on the convention floor, he thought the man appeared strangely subdued and preoccupied.
“Something was off with him,” Zarzuela recalled.
“For lack of a better term, my Spidey sense was tingling.”

So the New York dealer took Narcy to one side, asking her what was wrong with Ben.
“And she whispered in my ear,” Zarzuela said, “‘His mother died recently.’
And I said, ‘Okay.’”

Then Narcy went off somewhere, leaving Ben behind at the booth to negotiate prices.
As he and Zarzuela were looking through some comic books, a beautiful redhead, dressed up as the evil Batman villainess Poison Ivy, whose kisses are deadly poison, walked by the stall.

“She was very striking,” said Zarzuela, “and we were both pretty blown away.”

As the woman posed for photographs with fans, Zarzuela asked Ben if he wanted to be photographed with her.

“And he said, ‘No, no, no.
My wife’s really jealous,’” the dealer recalled.

So Zarzuela took a photo of Poison Ivy on his digital camera, offering to send a copy to Ben.

“He said, ‘Yeah, send it to me,’” said Zarzuela.
“‘You’ve got to tell me when you’re sending it, because I want to make sure my wife doesn’t see the picture.’
And he actually seemed very serious about that, because she was apparently a very jealous woman.”

*   *   *

One afternoon in mid-June, Alejandro Garcia introduced Cristobal Veliz to Joel Gonzalez at the car wash, where he was now working.
Veliz immediately asked the overweight Gonzalez, who had a shaven head, if he had a driver’s license and could follow a map.
He said he could.

Then Veliz, who had just bought Garcia a pay-as-you-go cell phone for the upcoming attack, drove the two men to a nearby Nicaraguan restaurant for lunch.
After they ate, Veliz dropped Gonzalez and Garcia off at their respective homes, telling them to shower and change clothes, as they were going somewhere.

After they had smartened up, Veliz told Gonzalez to drive his green Pathfinder to Fort Lauderdale.
During the drive, Veliz, who was sitting in the backseat, pointed to a photograph of Ben Novack Jr.
that had been attached to the dashboard.
He told the man to pay special attention to it, because they were going to see him very soon.

“The objective [that day] was to get to know Señor Novack,” Garcia explained, “and to find out who we were going to attack.”

On the way to Fort Lauderdale, Veliz received a phone call from Narcy, giving the name and address of the restaurant where she and Ben would be.
She told Veliz to look out for her husband’s beige Cadillac Escalade SUV, in the parking lot.

Veliz in turn told his sister what Garcia and Gonzalez would be wearing, so she would be able to identify them.

“He told us that Señor Novack was going to be at the restaurant sitting with his sister,” said Garcia.
“When we came in she was going to do a signal so we could recognize [him].”

When they reached the diner in Fort Lauderdale, they soon found the Escalade in the parking lot.
Veliz told the men to go into the restaurant.

The two men walked in and sat at the bar, ordering a glass of water.
Looking over to their left, they easily recognized the bearded Ben Novack Jr., who was at a table with Narcy and another woman.

“I said to Joel, ‘That looks like the man we’re after,’” Garcia recalled.
“At that moment, [Narcy] started to stroke Señor Novack’s hair, because that was the signal.”

Because Veliz had told them to get as close to their target as possible, Garcia instructed Gonzalez to walk past Novack’s table on their way to the bathroom.
A couple of minutes later, they came out of the bathroom and went back to the bar, before leaving the diner.

Cristobal Veliz picked them up outside, and the three headed back to Miami.
A few minutes later, Narcy called Veliz’s cell phone.
She complained that Gonzalez’s bald head was “intimidating” and “scary,” saying he would attract too much attention at the hotel.

Veliz told her not to be nervous, as Joel Gonzalez would be perfect for the job.

*   *   *

Soon afterward, Alejandro Garcia told Joel Gonzalez that Jefe now wanted him to play a bigger part in the attack.

“He wanted me to participate,” said Gonzalez.
“He would give me an extra five hundred dollars [in addition] to the three thousand I was promised.”

Then Garcia gave him more details about the big job.

“Alex told me … we were going to attack Mr.
Novack, because his wife wanted to take control of the business,” said Gonzalez.
“Novack was to be left disabled … and he showed me step by step how the assault would take place.”

Then Gonzalez asked what would happen if he said no.

“He said it would be in my best interests,” said Gonzalez.
“That these were powerful people with money and they can make us disappear.”

*   *   *

In late June, Ben and Narcy Novack went out to dinner with Ben’s childhood friend Kelsey Grammer and his wife, Camille.
They arranged to meet up in three weeks’ time at Kelsey’s rental in the Hamptons, when the Novacks came north for the Amway conference.

Kelsey Grammer would later tell investigators that Narcy was acting very strangely that evening, and that something was wrong.

*   *   *

On June 26, Ben Novack Jr.
hired an attorney to file for divorce.
Then, according to Joe Gandy, his attorney abruptly dropped the case after receiving threats.

Gandy said, “The lawyer called up Ben and said, ‘I’m dropping the case … because I’ve been threatened.”

*   *   *

In the final week of June, Cristobal Veliz was back in Miami finalizing arrangements for the imminent attack on Ben Novack Jr.
With just over two weeks to go before the Amway convention in Rye Brook, New York, Veliz collected Alejandro Garcia and Joel Gonzalez at the car wash and took them to a nearby Nicaraguan restaurant for a briefing.

The Veliz siblings had now decided to buy a used vehicle for the attack, distancing themselves even further from it.

“Mr.
Veliz asked us a lot about finding a car,” Gonzalez recalled.
“He said he needed a car for the trip to New York.”

After inspecting several in Miami that were not up to scratch, Veliz told his hit men that they would be driving to Brooklyn, New York.
He said he was buying an old Ford Thunderbird from his son-in-law, Denis Ramirez, and then towing it back to Miami for repairs.

On Wednesday July 1, the three men left Miami in Cristobal Veliz’s Nissan Pathfinder, stopping off for the night in Jacksonville, Florida.
Cristobal stayed with his daughter Karen Veliz, while putting up Garcia and Gonzalez at a Motel 6.

The next morning he met them in the parking lot, and a few minutes later Denis Ramirez arrived with Veliz’s daughter Karen.

Ramirez then got into the back of the Pathfinder and, with Gonzalez doing the driving, the four men set off for New York, stopping only for food and bathroom breaks.

*   *   *

It was late afternoon when the green Pathfinder drew up outside 1499 Jefferson Avenue, where Francisco Picado was waiting.
Ramirez then took his father-in-law to a fenced-in parking lot to the right of the brownstone, where his 1990 gray two-door Thunderbird with a broken windshield was parked.
After starting the engine, Veliz agreed to pay Ramirez $800 later, saying he would have to get the car fixed in Miami.

Then, after buying everyone dinner at a Dominican restaurant in Brooklyn, Veliz drove Garcia and Gonzalez to the Crossbay Motor Inn at 137-27 Crossbay Boulevard in Ozone Park, Queens, where they would be spending the night.
He handed Gonzalez $110 in cash to pay for the room, before leaving to stay with Laura Law.

At 9:08
P.M
.
Gonzalez officially registered, using his driver’s license as identification.
It was the first time in New York for both men, and they went out that night to a club, drinking and doing drugs.
They also bought matching pairs of knockoff Valentino sunglasses from a bargain store.

*   *   *

At around 9:00 the next morning, Cristobal Veliz collected Alejandro Garcia from the hotel, leaving Joel Gonzalez in the room.
The two men then drove to a PepBoys auto parts store in Metropolitan Avenue, Ridgewood, Queens, to buy towing lights and cables to haul the T-bird back to Miami.

Veliz told Garcia that there had been a change in plan, and instead of cutting off Ben Novack’s testicles, Garcia would be slashing his eyes instead.
Veliz told Garcia not to tell Gonzalez this, in case it scared him off.