The Dave and Don Chait Story

A true story

1968* 2,373 Words

By Howard Yasgar

In 1968 I was working for Automotive Parts Industries, the company was also known as API.

When I first moved to Florida, I was selling used parts to API, and that’s how I met Dave Chait.

Dave told me that he and his wife Sadie were the owners of API.

After doing business with Dave, both Dave and his wife Sadie encouraged me to buy 10% of API stock and come to work with them.

The company looked good, so I purchased 10% of the company stock from Dave for $10,000.

However, Dave turned out to be quite a liar.

I didn’t know he had also borrowed $25,000.00 from a loan shark lending company called Canaveral Capital.

Dave had also, besides obtaining the loan, he had given Canaveral Capital an additional 10% of the company stock for free as vigorish.

By the time I found out what Dave had done, several of the Canaveral Capital guys had called and were coming to Miami to have a meeting with us.

It became quite a meeting, as they tried to force Dave to buy back the stock, he had given them for free.

I attended the meeting and listened as they threatened Dave with a lawsuit.

Dave became a very difficult person to deal with, and soon the meeting turned into a verbal fight and Dave stormed out of the office, his face was red and he was sweating profusely, I thought he was going to have a heart attack.

The Canaveral Capital guys were acting very tough, and they asked me if I wanted to take over the company, as they said they were going to throw Dave out.

I would never take over the company, but I did agree to buy all the API stock from them, I agreed to pay them the money over several years.

Dave and Sadie were not too happy that I now owned 20% of API stock but I think I saved Dave from having a heart attack.

Over the next year or so, I observed that Dave had quite a few character flaws that I unfortunately

had to deal with.

Whenever Dave was talking to you, he swayed from side to side, it was very weird to watch him.

One day Dave told me that his wife Sadie was his First Cousin, and I think that it eventually explained quite a bit to me. I was always told that the offspring from close family relationships could produce psychologically impaired children, but at the time I was not involved with any of Dave’s children, so I didn't know if it was true or not.

However, once I met Dave and Sadie’s children, I saw that they all had the same character flaws as Dave.

To list all the strange things Dave did, I could have written a book about it.

I used to drive my own 1964 Falcon station wagon to make sales calls, but whenever anything on the car broke, Dave would make me pay for the repairs myself.

Another problem was whenever suppliers came to sell us parts, Dave always found it necessary to grind the guy’s prices down until there was no financial reason for the people to ever return to sell to us a second time.

Dave eventually killed most all our sources of supply by doing this.

I watched Dave fight with customers over things that any normal person could have resolved in two minutes, but with Dave they became out and out fights.

I knew that one day an irate customer might kill Dave, so I always ran and hid in a restroom as I did not want to be a witness to Dave’s murder.

According to Dave and his wife Sadie, everyone was always wrong except them, and the business suffered terribly from their attitude.

One day I came into the office after making sales calls, and Dave introduced me to his son Donald, he said Donald was coming to work at API.

Donald looked very much like a young Dave. He had a roundish face with light hair, and he swayed back and forth as he talked to you, in many ways he was just like his father.

Other than his strange behavior, Don was about my age and occasionally he appeared normal.

Because I was a minority stockholder in the company, Dave could do whatever he wanted, but I knew that usually when a father drags a dopey son into a business, and if neither of them knows anything, not much good can come of it.

Before coming to Miami, Don had been working as a traveling salesman, calling on drugstore’s, selling candy.

Prior to this, Don worked for Winn Dixie Food stores in the produce dept.

Don had no mechanical knowledge whatsoever, and I don't think he knew how to turn a screwdriver.

Dave told me that Don, had in his travels as a salesman, met a girl in Greensboro North Carolina and he married her. He said that Don and his wife had rented an apartment in Greensboro but couldn't make ends meet, so Dave offered to move them to Miami, and of course he was paying Don more than the company was paying me.

Don didn’t like his parents very much, and he told me that he was the last child of three children and he felt that he was born by accident. He felt as though his parents really didn’t want him.

When he was born, his mother had nicknamed him “Ducky” and he hated it, but his mother still always called him “Ducky”.

Upon graduating High school, Don said that he left Miami for Colombia in South America, where he went to college to just get away from his parents, and while in Colombia he learned to speak Spanish.

After a while his wife Cary divorced him, she said she couldn’t take any more of his craziness so Cary then bless her soul, got a college degree and went to work for UPS working her way up to an executive position.

I met Cary and concluded she was much smarter than Don was.

As a bachelor Don then started dating the ex-wives of all his divorced friends, which didn't sit well with their former husbands. Some of the women that he dated, I met, and they were nice but none of them lasted long with Don. Two of them even called me up to ask me if Don was a normal person.

One of the girls, the ex-wife of his former boss when he worked at Winn Dixie, called me and asked if I could cut off the source of Don's Money. It appears that they would go into a nightclub or bar and

Don would buy drinks for the whole house, and when Don went to the restroom the bar tender would set up drinks for the house on his tab. Everyone at the bars and nightclubs regarded Don as an asshole which really embarrassed the girls he dated.

I told them that I couldn't cut his funds as we were partners, but this raised a red flag that perhaps I should have looked deeper as to where Don was getting all his money.

One evening, when I was dating my wife Katherine, we were invited to a birthday party for one of my friends.

When we arrived where the party was, it was loaded with people. Most were Hispanic, but we were approached by an American girl who was obviously under the influence of drugs. She waved her hand in front of Katherine's face, showing her a ring with a large expensive gemstone in it. She said, my husband is rich, he makes a lot of money.

That’s how my wife and I met Don's new wife, Linda, the drug addict. She had no idea who we were,

And this was another Red Flag waving in my face. Where was Don getting all the money?

Don's new bride moved into his townhouse in Hialeah, but soon Don found a more prestigious

address in Miami Lakes and he bought a house on the water.

Many times, our company had business associates in town and we all went out for supper.

On several occasions Don’s wife Linda would go to the bathroom and return in a short while and sit down but she would completely miss the chair. Don would simply put his fork down and put a chair under her and continue his conversation.

One time at a convention, my wife Katherine was on an elevator with Linda going up to our room.

When a hotel employee got on, Linda asked, where she can score some drugs, Katherine said she got a bit nervous, and she avoided Linda after that.

On another occasion, Don and I were going to the Marine Trade Show in Chicago.

Linda wanted to go, but Don explained that during the days we would be talking with our distributors and the evenings were for meetings with our representatives, so Don would have little time to entertain her.

So, in retribution Linda booked a vacation trip to Nassau for herself.

About 11 PM we were in our hotel room in Chicago, and Don received a call from Linda, she said that she was in the Hospital in Nassau.

Linda said that when she checked into her hotel, some people came to her room and beat her up,

robbed and then raped her. The hotel staff found her unconscious and rushed her to the hospital

Don said he would fly immediately to Nassau to bring her back to Miami.

Linda said no, she had paid for horseback riding on the beach the next day and she did not want to miss it.

Obviously, Linda had tried to make a drug deal at the Hotel, and when the dealers saw such a

bimbo they took her money. The rest of the story who knows.

One day in Miami, Don showed me a page from the Miami Herald that he had been saving in his desk drawer. It was a list and pictures of Miami's best divorce attorneys and he had circled the name Morry Kutner. One day Don came into the office late, and he looked terrible. He said he had just

been released by the Police for running over someone.

He said he had called the police and they came and took him to the police department for a statement.

Don’s attorney told him not to talk to the police no matter how nice they were. He told Don to just

Shut up and Don did what he was told.

It turned out that the victim was a Cuban Marielito refugee and his alcohol level was three times normal, so no charges were ever filed against Don.

Next, Don leased a new Jaguar for Linda. She called Don to tell him the engine had seized up as she was driving on the turnpike.

The Jaguar dealership told Don the red oil light had been on for more than three days why didn't Llinda see or say something.

Finally, Don decided to divorce Linda.

So, Don went to see Attorney Morry Kutner to handle the divorce, and he paid Morry $3500.00 deposit in Cash, this was a lot of Money at the time.

Don probably could have gotten a simple divorce for a few thousand dollars, but his ego wanted to make a big and what turned out to be a real costly divorce. He did everything to make things worse for himself.

Don’s wife Linda got an attorney that she paid for in Gold Krugerrands, money that Don had given her.

Linda’s attorney, then got a court order for Don to pay all Linda's bills while waiting for the divorce.

Then Linda’s attorney moved in with Linda, and they bought all kinds of gourmet foods and porno films, all at Don's expense. They even bought gourmet cat food for her attorney’s cats, all at Don's expense.

If there was anything wrong a person could do in a divorce, Don did it. He exposed every

mental quirk he had and he ended up a real loser.

I found out later that Don had been embezzling lots of money from our Company and I eventually had to sue him.

Don readily admitted that he had stolen the money and left me holding the bag.

After Don left the Company, I was cleaning out lots of old papers and came access Donald’s

Divorce deposition papers and reading them explained a lot about how mentally dysfunctional Don really was.

On a deposition given by Linda to Don’s Attorney, it went like this.

Linda are you a drug user, Linda said Yes.

Linda are you on drugs now, Linda said Yes.

“Where did you meet Don, Linda said, “I met him at a massage parlor”.

What were you doing at the massage parlor? Linda, I worked There.

How did you come to work there? Linda said I answered an ad in the paper, girls wanted, no experience necessary.

What did you do there? Linda said, “I gave hand relief.

She said all the girls at massage parlor called Don a Shmuck.

The deposition went on to say that Don was a regular customer there and had a regular girl that

He paid for several hours of her time. He did nothing but talk to her.

One day the girl was sick, so Linda took her place and it was love at first sight for Don the Shmuck.

Don, after leaving API went on to work with his friend at the Pink Pussy Cat strip joint.

One day in 1970, Dave and Sadie came into the office and told me Dave wasn’t feeling well and they were going to Hialeah Hospital.

At the hospital they told Sadie to take Dave’s clothing home with her, Dave wouldn’t need them anymore. Dave passed away from a massive heart attack.

In March of 2024, I was told that Don was in a nursing home, he was recovering from a minor illness. When a nurse passed by his room she heard Don talking to someone, but nobody was there.

Next time she went in Don’s room he was dead.