Pleasant Exile

Bright and chipper as a schoolboy the first day of vacation, Marcos Perez Jimenez, 45, ex-dictator of Venezuela, bounced into the Miami office of State Attorney Richard Gerstein to do some explaining. A Caracas columnist had written that Perez Jimenez pays $500 monthly for protection to the Miami Beach Police Chief, and Gerstein wanted to know all about it. Perez Jimenez denied that he paid the police chief anything, but admitted that he hires off-duty Miami cops and pays them a total of $1,025 monthly. He needs the cops for protection against homicidal enemies and to bear witness that he is not doing anything illegal in his $300,000 Miami Beach mansion, said Perez Jimenez.

The ex-dictator has already overstayed by more than a month a U.S. Immigration Service expulsion order, but he apparently reckons that his lawyers' maneuverings will win him at least two more years in his beach house. The onetime dictator described a pleasant exile: swimming, archery, rowing, a few games now and then of dominoes and boccie (Italian bowling), even a foray to Manhattan with wife and daughter to see My Fair Lady.

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