Dire Means

by Geoffrey Neil

  “Like this?” Mark said, pulling his throat skin way too hard.

  “Almost. Just be a little more subtle about it. If you need it, you’ll be glad we have this code.”

  At 3:35, they emerged from their private meeting with a few minutes to spare before meeting the press. The plan was for Mark to offer a brief prepared statement about the incident that would satisfy the curiosity of the media.

  When they entered, the cameras flashed and red indicator lights illuminated. Lenses followed every inch of Mark’s movement to the table. The reporters shuffled, bumping one another to get good position as Mark sat down.

  Janne leaned to the microphones and opened by welcoming the press, and then gave them an eloquent statement about the bravery and selflessness Mark had shown by putting his own life in danger to save the life of one of society’s rejected citizens. She then sat back and gestured for Mark to lean to the microphone for his statement.

  Mark unfolded his notes. His tongue felt like cotton as he prepared to talk and Janne subtly pushed a glass of water a few inches toward him. He took a sip and a deep breath. His hand trembled so he placed the paper on the table. Janne patted his knee—reassurance hidden from the reporters by the front skirt of the table.

  “My name is Mark Denny. Two nights ago, I helped a man who needed it. I didn’t realize my actions were being televised until after I was involved.” Mark paused and looked up from his paper to the reporters. A batch of camera flashes fired off.

  Mark returned to his notes. “Since that event, the most popular question asked of me is why I took my clothes off. Newspapers have referred to me as the ‘stripping savior’ and the ‘knight in no armor.’ I agree that these are funny terms, but to set the record straight, I’m not an exhibitionist. I didn’t enjoy exposing myself. I was neither attempting to seduce, nor to trick the man who planned to take his life. We discussed humiliation. My act was a desperate attempt, at the end of a difficult conversation, to show him my willingness to experience the humiliation and mockery he claimed to feel daily—what many of our homeless citizens feel daily. When I moved close enough to reach him, I felt I had an opportunity to physically keep him from harming himself so I took it…” Mark’s voice cracked and he stopped. He blinked fast and exhaled hard to hold back tears. “Because I didn’t want him to die.”

  Janne leaned toward Mark and put her hand on his back. He looked up at the reporters and said, “And that’s all I care to say about the incident.”

  He wasn’t going to need a get out of jail free card today because he wasn’t going to take any questions.

  Janne nodded, stood, and thanked the media for their attendance. She and Mark headed for the exit while reporters shouted questions to them from behind the veil of camera flashes. Janne held up her hand like an overprotective publicist as they went to the door.

  The voice of a squawky female reporter pierced through the others. “Do you have any professional training in suicide prevention?”

  Mark stopped at the door and turned back. “No.”

  “Did you know the man?” Two reporters asked the same question at the same time.

  Janne leaned to Mark’s ear and whispered, “You don’t have to answer any more.”

  Mark nodded to her, but didn’t move. He decided to answer—while standing at the door for an abrupt exit if needed. “No, I didn’t know him,” Mark said. “I met him right before the crowd gathered. His name was Al. And if there is any chance you are listening, Al, I hope you are okay.”

  Another voice called out louder than the others, “How do you answer those who say that your friend, Al, was just a bum and not worth saving?”

  An incredulous expression spread on Mark’s face. Some of the other reporters seemed disgusted, too. Mark walked back to the table and leaned close to the microphones. “If more people could empathize, I mean really look through the eyes of a homeless person, there would be no Al’s in this city.” Mark pounded his hand on the table and said, “That’s how I answer them.” He walked out the door, still held open by Janne, and ignored the other questions the reporters shouted.

  He had finished his first news conference and he hoped that it would be his last. He thanked Janne for helping him make the process as comfortable as possible. She hugged him and made him promise to call her if he needed anything else.

  On his drive home, Mark considered taking a vacation. The last six days had been the most dramatic of his life and he needed a break. The news conference turnout was evidence that his act of saving Al still held strong public interest and probably would for some time. A trip to Maui for a week or two with a stack of books would do him good.

  §

  As Mark drove to his first appointment the next day—a new client referral from Janne Prophet—a reporter on the radio announced that a body—possibly one of the missing people—had been found early that morning. Mark turned up the volume. Details were still coming in, but apparently the victim was found in a westbound lane of California Avenue just east of Third Street. He was dressed in the dirty garb of a homeless man and placed face up with his arms crossed over his chest. The body had been taken for autopsy. Police warned that they could not confirm that this was one of the abductees, but added that more details could come as early as that evening.

  “Wow,” Mark said aloud. Finally, there might be some evidence—some break in the case.

  The discovery of a body had affected public behavior. Shopping crowds thinned more. Buses had fewer passengers. Telecommuting surged. It meant that the abductor was now officially a killer, with a healthy stash of future victims already obtained.

  Paranoia gorged on the imaginations of terrified people and altered their behaviors. Police reported that hotlines were flooded after each new incident, but, so far, all leads fizzled out.

  Hotlines also reported a surge in false-alarm missing-person calls. Anxious family members phoned in reports on husbands, wives, and children who were simply late getting home from work or school. Employees whose out-of-the-office lunch hour ran long received phone calls from concerned bosses and coworkers. Police urged calm, while trying to appease a nervous public by reducing the twenty-four-hour requirement for a missing persons report filing to twelve hours.

  Retailers were hurting. Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year was around the corner. How would the Third Street Promenade, Main Street, and all the other retail areas in Santa Monica survive with shoppers becoming too terrified to leave their homes each day? Residents were glued to television news that offered only speculation and interviews with Santa Monicans who shared what they were doing to protect themselves.

  As Mark pulled to the driveway of his new client’s office, he noticed he was ahead of schedule by a half-hour. The job was a simple new computer set-up and migration of data from the family’s old computer, so he decided to relax in the car a few minutes before going in.

  He felt a lingering irritation about the missing computers at Soft Landing. Neva’s flippant, arrogant attitude about the problem worsened it. He pulled out his phone and called the shelter. He wanted to speak to Tory again. She would know.

  She answered the phone, and after a warm greeting and some small talk, he told her about his private encounter with Neva. With running water and pots and pans clanging in the background, she listened without a word. When he finished ranting about his wasted work, he said, “I want to know where the computers went.”

  “I cannot place an order,” Tory said over the noise.

  “What? Are you talking to me?” Mark said.

  “We don’t need espresso, but we may need some breakfast blend.”

  Mark paused, confused. “Are you talking to me, Tory?”

  “Yes, that is true,” she answered. “Can you call me back on my cell since I may be at the market shopping for the shelter? I might be interested in carrots.”

  Mark finally caught on; Tory was working in a room full of people brimming with Neva-allegiance, and maybe Neva herself was stand
ing near enough to hear. “What’s your number?” he asked.

  Tory gave him her cell number and told him to call back in five minutes. He called Tory’s number twice, a minute apart, and both times it went straight to voicemail. The third time Tory answered. “That wasn’t five minutes. You gave me no time to go outside!” Her accent thickened when she was agitated.

  “I’m sorry. I’m a little anxious about a day’s worth of my labor having gone to configure computers for your boss.”

  “Well, she did take the computers,” Tory said over the sound of traffic.

  “What? All of them?”

  “Yes. She told James to load them into her car.”

  “But she can’t—” Mark yelled. “Can she do that? They were a donation to the shelter, not to her.”

  “She asked us if you got a receipt.”

  “I didn’t get a receipt—my part was labor.”

  “Exactly. And that’s when she called for James to load them up.” Tory’s voice rose to compete with a passing motorcycle. “Look, Mark, I think you mean well by donating computers and your work, but this type of thing happens almost every day. I should have given you a warning. I’m sorry.”

  “It isn’t your fault. But I want this problem fixed,” Mark said, wiping his hands on his jeans.

  “Mark, you saw by the way she talked to me she is no good. She acts like an owner, not a director.”

  “Who does she answer to?”

  “Her boss is the board, but they don’t know what she does in the shelter. I cater personal parties for her using the shelter’s food and equipment. James, our clean-up man, and some other kitchen workers load her car with our food. She controls the inventory reports. I don’t think she’s bought any personal groceries for years. She takes the shelter furniture every year and puts it in her condo.”

  “You have got to be kidding me.”

  “I wish I was kidding. The shelter has plenty of money, but much of it goes to buy things for her.”

  “Why haven’t you reported her? How can you stand to see her get away with this?”

  Tory was quiet for a long moment. “I’m in a tough position. I can’t explain it to you now,” she replied, her voice much lower.

  “I’m sorry. I’m not upset at you. I just can’t believe she can fleece the shelter like this.”

  “I just saw her car leave, if you have some time I can tell you more.”

  Mark checked his watch. He had ten minutes until his appointment. “Sure. Absolutely,” he said, turning off his car.

  Tory went on to tell him that she was the only current employee who predated Neva at the shelter, thus, she had seen Neva’s rise to power from the inside and from day one.

  It was during the first year of Soft Landing’s operation that Neva Boyston was persuaded by one of her UCLA professors to try an internship there. Neva accepted, and one afternoon during her first week as an intern, Mr. Wilson Proctor, the wealthy former Air Force pilot and the shelter’s founder, stopped by in person. Proctor, impressed by Neva’s enthusiasm and beauty, praised her in front of Tory and the four other staff members.

  Proctor’s attraction to Neva was obvious enough to spark immediate gossip. His visits to the shelter increased in frequency and always occurred when Neva was completing her work-study internship hours. He extended his usual ten-minute weekly walk-through inspection of his shelter to a half-hour private inspection of every inch of the facility with Neva at his side.

  The relationship between Wilson Proctor and Neva Boyston soon had all the appearances of a romance—even though, at sixty-two, he was forty years her senior. In subsequent months, the shelter staff often spotted Neva leaving to enter a limousine at various times in the afternoon—whether or not her shift was complete.

  An intern was clearly the position of least responsibility at the Soft Landing Shelter House. Even so, Neva began to suggest operational changes to the shelter. The staff resisted the changes, but succumbed when encouraged by Wilson Proctor himself to accept Neva’s ideas as brilliant. Neva proposed that cell phone use should be prohibited by staff while inside Soft Landing Shelter House. She placed a basket by the back door into which cell phones were to be placed while staff was on duty—a rule existing to this day.

  She also suggested parking limits for employees, punishments for sampling food, and a host of other restrictions that kept the shelter’s small staff on edge and miserable.

  One morning, only a few months after her first visit to Soft Landing, Neva announced to the staff that her internship had been converted to a permanent new position entitled Director of Operations—effective immediately.

  In the following weeks she became bolder in her bending of the rules and exploitation of Wilson Proctor’s fondness. She came in late, left early and regularly exited the shelter carrying food, appliances or whatever else she wished for her personal use. Proctor called a special meeting of the board of trustees. After promoting her tireless efforts and profound dedication to the homeless cause, Wilson convinced the board to vote Neva Boyston in as the new Executive Director of Soft Landing Shelter House. Within a year, Wilson Proctor was dead from a heart attack.

  “Look, Mark, I need this job,” Tory explained. “I can’t remember everything she did, but I can tell you that you are the first person from the outside to notice and ask questions. I’m sure she’s angry about the other night. She always gets angry when people question her.”

  “Can you put me in touch with a member of the board?”

  “I don’t know…” Tory said, her accent thick again. “I am afraid. I think I have told you too much.”

  “You won’t be involved. She stole my client’s computers and my labor to set them up, and this situation has nothing to do with you.”

  “I don’t know. I am afraid,” she repeated.

  “Listen, Tory, I can look up the shelter’s board members, but that will only be a list of people that I don’t know and it will take me a lot of time. You can make this so much easier for me if you can just give me some insight on the appropriate person to talk to. I know that you know who can do something about this problem.”

  “Yes, but if she finds out that I gave you information, I will be worse than fired.”

  “What do you mean worse? Will she hurt you?”

  Tory didn’t answer. “Tory? Tory, are you still there?”

  “Let me see what I can do. Don’t call me about this on the shelter’s phone. If you do, I won’t be able to talk. I will call you.”

  “Thank you, Tory. Please do the right thing. Just get me a name and number. I’ll handle the rest.”

  §

  After finishing the day’s service calls, Mark decided to stop at Bonfiglio Café for dinner. He wanted to hear what patrons in the café said about the discovery of a body. Only a few blocks away, his phone rang. It was Tory.

  “Got a pen?” she said.

  “Wait!” He pulled over and fumbled through his glove box. He found his car’s rental agreement and flipped it over. “Ok, go ahead,” he said.

  “You did not get this number from me.”

  “I promise I didn’t. What number? I never got a number! Give it to me.”

  Tory laughed nervously. She gave Mark the number for Jared McCrane, a Santa Monica resident and chairman of Soft Landing’s governing board of directors.

  “I have to warn you, Mark,” Tory added. “Neva punishes anyone who so much as parks too close to her parking space. If she discovers that someone reported her to the board she will explode.”

  “I look forward to it. Thanks, Tory. She doesn’t scare me. Thank you for the phone number you didn’t give me.”

  After he ended the call with Tory, Mark immediately dialed Jared’s number. A secretary answered on the first ring, “Mr. McCrane’s office…”

  “Jared McCrane, please.”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “My name is Mr. Denny.”

  “And the nature of your call, Mr. Denny?”

  �
�I’m a benefactor for Soft Landing Shelter House and my time is limited—if you don’t mind…”

  “Oh, my apologies, sir. Please hold.”

  Mark smiled.

  Moments later a deep, scrappy voice came on the line. “May I help you?”

  “Mr. McCrane, my name is Mark Denny, and I have some information about the Soft Landing Shelter House that you want to get from me.”

  Jared McCrane chuckled. “Oh, I do, do I?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m a computer service technician. One of my clients generously donated several computer systems to the shelter. I donated my time and expertise to set them up for the shelter, and now they have disappeared at the hand of the Executive Director.”

  “Isn’t this a matter to be discussed directly with Neva Boyston?”

  “Sir, I’ve tried. But apparently she can do as she wishes. A witness who will remain anonymous has informed me that Neva furnishes her own condo with shelter furniture every year. She regularly orders employees to stock her car with shelter food inventory and more. Now if this doesn’t matter—”

  “Where are you getting your information, Mr. Denny?” McCrane interrupted.

  “I’d prefer to keep that person’s name confidential, but I assure you that my source is reliable. You can verify any of the things I’ve told you with minimal investigation. I can vouch for the computers I set up. They are gone and Neva was unwilling to explain why. When she didn’t, I felt that the board of directors should be made aware of it. Personal use of shelter resources doesn’t seem in line with Wilson Proctor’s dream for his shelter, does it?”

  “No, indeed—and these allegations are quite serious,” McCrane said.

  “I know, sir. I thought that volunteering at the shelter would be a rewarding experience. But the waste of my hard work—without explanation—has discouraged me.”

  “If your allegations are true, Mr. Denny, then Ms. Boyston has breached our clearly defined tenet for the shelter. She would have no authority to take the liberties you have described.”