The Safety Expert

by Doug Richardson

  Ben sat back in the chair, scanning the simply decorated café. There were seven other diners. Two of them couples, the others singles, either reading or working a laptop. Two counters. One for gelato and the other for everything else from eggs to soup. Every song on the piped-in music sounded like it was by the Gypsy Kings.

  “About the way I’ve been acting—”

  “No,” said Alex.

  “No, what?” asked Ben. “I just wanted to say—”

  “Please. I don’t want to hear it. Really.”

  Alex held her palms up, fingers splayed full tensile. Her nails looked as perfect as all those damned palm trees Ben both loathed and admired.

  “I owe you an apology,” said Ben.

  “If you apologize, then you’re going to have to say why—and I just don’t want to know.”

  “You’re serious...”

  Her eyes cast downward and her hands retreated to the tabletop, leaving the slightest streak of perspiration. A certain sign of nerves from a woman whose credo was to never let anybody see her sweat.

  “Had this whole speech planned,” she said before correcting herself. “Have this speech. So please. Just let me say it.”

  “Okay...” said Ben, worried. There was the tiniest tremor in his wife’s voice—cause enough for concern.

  “Okay,” she began. “Yes. You’ve been acting strange. Not the first time. You and me, we’ve certainly both been through things. Bad things. Worse than anything that this can be.”

  “I can explain—”

  “Ben, please! I don’t want to hear anything. I just want to say what I need to say.”

  “Alright, then.”

  “What I want to say is that it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is. I don’t care. Just as long as you can tell me that it’s over. You’re done with it, through it, over it. Moving on, okay? Keep moving on, remember? Can we do that? Together?”

  “Of course—”

  “I’m not finished,” she snapped, working hard to put a stranglehold on her nerves. “I’ll have you know that I won’t be embarrassed by it or you. Things happen. We both know things happen. Mistakes. We’re human. I’d also like it very much if you started seeing Dr. Dhue again.”

  “Saw him this morning.”

  “Excellent. We’re already moving on then.”

  Then Ben saw the tears. He could count on one hand the number of times he had seen her cry outside a therapy session. Alex was human steel wrapped around a softer middle. The trick was always about waiting for the armor to fall.

  But what on earth was she crying about? How could she possibly know about Stew Raymo and Ben’s recent, morbid obsession with his dead wife and girls? If so, who the hell had talked and breached his trust? Gonzo? Josie? Woody Bell?

  The truth was, Ben hadn’t the faintest, and it would never occur to him to sneak a peak into his wife’s open email folder when he got home. If he had, he would have found a quick, anonymous missive from a concerned mom at Simi Canyons School. Contained within was a simple warning:

  Did you know your husband was cheating with one of our “single” moms?

  Not having read the email, how could Ben have possibly been clued in to his wife’s fears of infidelity? A man behaving without indiscretion could not imagine being painted as such, unless of course, his wife either asks outright or fully accuses him. Ben’s only defense would be the same truth he had guarded from her. The same truth he had planned, that very day, to confess to her.

  The very same truth Alex insisted she didn’t want to hear.

  It was plain. Both husband and wife were certain they knew the other’s secret. Yet neither knew anything at all.

  “Very well, then,” Ben relented. “We’ll move on.”

  “I love you,” she said. “You know that?”

  “Yes,” he said. “And you know I love you.”

  “And that’s all that matters.”

  Ben touched her hand, leaned across and kissed her on the mouth. Then she wiped her tears and forced a smile.

  “I’m famished. You?”

  “Starving.”

  “Know what you want?”

  “Just tell me what you want and I’ll go order it.”

  Pam was up twelve pounds from what she called her “porn weight.”

  Her “porn weight” was one hundred and nine.

  Not that anyone would notice. She had turned baby fat into lean muscle and seemingly trimmed all but her quasi-famous pneumatic breasts. Her hair was short and naturally blonde. A large pair of glasses and sweats and she would spend most days largely unrecognized.

  That suited Pam just fine.

  Not that she was entirely embarrassed by her sex-trade past. Given the opportunity, she would defend the decisions of her youth. Porn was a multibillion dollar business. Porn stocks were traded on Wall Street. If powerful Ivy League investment bankers weren’t embarrassed to buy and sell porn equities, Pam sure as hell wasn’t going to be ashamed of her own contributions to the skin-trade.

  Twenty-two films.

  Seven starring roles.

  Over a hundred websites still dedicated to her sexy, baby-doll image.

  So there were no surprises on those days she was recognized. Or even followed.

  Example: the silver Lexus Pam noticed when she was rolling out of the Rite-Aid parking lot. She first looked left, then right before easing her foot off the brake of her Land Rover. That’s when she first saw the car. It was parked across the street. The bright, but hazy sunlight spiked off the tinted windshield. As Pam made her turn, she had glimpsed the Lexus again as it surged into lunch-hour traffic, nearly running a red light in order to keep pace with her.

  Since the Rite-Aid, the Lexus had been following her for three miles.

  Pam was familiar with unsolicited attention. There were the usual sideways glances in restaurants, the occasional arm raised and finger pointed from across a busy boulevard, and the sleazy grins from supermarket checkers ringing up her groceries. Every so often, fans would be brave and approach Pam—to talk, ask for an autograph, or hit on her. But those were rare characters. And direct contact was always easy to deal with.

  It was those times when she was followed that made her nervous.

  Stalkers.

  Perverts in cars who would do neck-wrenching double takes while parked next to her at a stoplight, then take it upon themselves to slide in behind her and tailgate for a mile or two. Usually, to shake a stalker, all she had to do was park and wait for them to pass. Or pull out her cell phone and pretend to be dictating the numbers off the creep’s license plate.

  If neither of those tactics worked, there was always Stew. At the drop of a dime, her Protector in Chief would stop what he was doing and run interference. Sometimes, the mere sight of the big man sent stalkers speeding away. One time, Pam had recognized the pervert parked outside her nail salon as the same man who had brushed by her in the lingerie department at Nordstrom. One quick phone call and Stew had come to her rescue. He had caught the stalker masturbating in his car. Incensed, Stew had yanked the car door open and dragged the scummy perv by the collar until he was lying in the gutter, exposed for all to see.

  But the stalker in the silver Lexus was different. Miles ago, he had dropped two cars back. Then three cars to her rear and one lane over. At one point, the Lexus appeared to have vanished entirely, forcing Pam to second-guess her animal instincts.

  Twenty minutes later though, the Lexus reappeared while Pam was waiting at the Handy J car wash on Ventura Boulevard. She paid $19.99 cash for the daily special: wash, quick wax, and leather cleaner. As she was flipping through a leftover copy of the Daily News, she caught the same sun-spike off the Lexus’ windshield. Only this time the car was parked across the street on the south side, directly opposite the car wash, and facing east. For a moment, Pam felt vulnerable without the protection of the glass and steel of her SUV.

  But she eventually found her customary reserve, straightened, and faced the vehicle with arms akimbo.
She could barely make out the driver’s silhouette behind the tinted window. The man inside hardly moved a muscle, let alone showed any sign of being intimidated.

  Fine, she thought. Be that way.

  She walked eighty feet to her right, down the sun-baked sidewalk until she had an angle on the Lexus’ license plate. Through his side view mirror, the driver would get a damned good view of Pam, the ex-porn slut, wearing a sexless white sweat suit and sneakers. The driver was also certain to notice Pam using her cell phone to record the letters of his license plate.

  5HJR8429.

  That’s when most stalkers would beat it out of there. But the Lexus driver didn’t so much as twitch. This was when Pam spotted a second figure, a passenger, in the rear seat of the car. She couldn’t recall car creepers ever working in pairs. Sure, there was the occasional carload of frat boys who spotted the former Misty Fresh. The more usually meant the merrier, with windows rolled down, whistles, catcalls, and peer-fueled illicit proposals.

  These weren’t frat boys.

  A chill set in. Goosebumps rose from her moisturized flesh. Pam became so spooked that she turned and marched directly to her Land Rover. The Guatemalan man drying her rims wasn’t given the chance to apply the wax or leather cleaner. He merely saw the five-dollar tip stuck in his face and handed over the keys.

  Pam twisted the key, turned over the engine, hit the windshield wipers, and charged westbound onto Ventura Boulevard, nearly causing a three-car pileup. The sound of skidding tires just scared her more. She pressed the accelerator and barely beat the red light. She felt a cold sweat erupt on her forehead as the air conditioner kicked in. Repeated glances into her rearview confirmed the Lexus was nowhere in sight. But Pam didn’t feel the least bit safe. The creepy car had disappeared once before. Who knew when or where it could, or would, materialize again?

  She drove aggressively until she had all four wheels on her own driveway and the gate closed and locked behind her. Once inside the house she knew what to do. Check the locks, draw the shades, and pocket the sleek, little, five-shot .38 Stew had given her for her thirtieth birthday. Despite the shiny, nickel-plated finish and mother-of-pearl grip, Pam thought the gift was demonstrably unromantic. And when certain he wasn’t listening, she cursed Stew and called him “Shitferbrains.”

  Yet, every once in awhile, Pam thanked Jesus that big Stew had been thoughtful enough to buy the revolver, teach her how to punch hot little holes with it, and insist she keep it close and loaded at all times when he wasn’t around to protect her.

  Wheelchair conversion vans for paraplegics primarily came in three boring flavors. Honda Odyssey, Chrysler Town and Country, and Dodge Grand Caravan.

  It pissed Woody Bell off that he couldn’t test drive a vehicle like normies did. Kick the tires. Take it for a spin around the block, wrestle with the handling, and then haggle over the price with the salesman. Instead, Woody was relegated to shopping online, reading specs and bulletin boards and negotiating delivery costs via email. The closest thing to human involvement was the mobility technician sent to Woody’s house by the conversion company. A tattooed former gangbanger had measured Woody’s doublewide wheelchair, and given the private investigator a card for his brother-in-law’s custom paint shop in nearby Panorama City.

  Now Woody had flames.

  What had started out as a white shell with four black sidewalls and a muscular Detroit engine had been, in the course of a month and $30,000, transformed into a shaggin’ wagon for a four-hundred-pound paralytic. Ice-black base, spin-rims, red and orange flames licking the fenders, and a license plate rim on the rear door that read, If this van’s a rockin’ don’t come a knockin’.

  It was hardly inconspicuous. But Big Woody didn’t give a rip, just as long as it disguised his infirmity. When Woody wheeled through the drive-through at Carl’s Jr., nobody was ever the wiser. He could flirt, chitchat, and pay for his triple order of Western Bacon Cheeseburgers without anybody clued in that the fat man behind the wheel was disabled.

  So what was the wisdom in driving a paraplegic shag-wagon to Stew Raymo’s Studio City construction site? No wisdom at all, Woody excused himself. Just base curiosity. He had the site address. Hell, he had even accessed the building permits, architectural schematics, and the names and phone numbers of each and every subcontractor.

  The mean February temperature had dropped eleven degrees and the winter breeze had stiffened to a steady wind, dusting the air with swirls of broken tree leaves. Woody rolled his van to a stop across the street and one address south of the site. A cyclone fence surrounded a frame Woody recognized from the plans. At one corner of the structure, he counted a crew of four men digging a shoulder-deep hole. All Hispanic. And strangely, all wearing bicycle helmets.

  He observed a fifth man, also Hispanic, with salt-and-pepper hair and a fatherly demeanor. The man circled the hole, clapping his hands and barking Spanish. Woody saw the older man wave toward the rear of the property, whistle, and shout something that sounded like “Jefe!”

  Woody felt a rush of adrenaline. He was, for the first time, mobile and on the job. Just like an old-school private dick, gathering information through his optic photoreceptors instead of via his regular, twenty-first-century drive down the digital highway. If asked, he would certainly cop to the efficiency of the new world order. That in a matter of seconds with a few simple keystrokes, a modern detective could score reams of pertinent information on any given subject.

  But the efficiency of digital didn’t hold the same rush as Woody’s analogue whim. They used to call it “foot leather.” A man on a stakeout. A job that spawned an entire genre of books and movies and television shows.

  A flat-out, fuckin’ gas, thought Woody. Even if it was for only a moment.

  That and why should those hairy Anton Brothers have all the fun? The Armenian leg-breakers were all too eager to start the Raymo job by recording the comings and goings of the target’s porno-licious wife. “Research through the lens of a silver Lexus,” they called it. The need to know everything about a target before they made their move. First, leave nothing to chance. Then, when the moment was right, strike quickly and with decisive violence.

  A dark room.

  A taped confession.

  Then the summary execution of the confessed murderer.

  Maybe Woody would show the tape to Ben. Maybe he wouldn’t. But the favor would be claimed. And Ben’s pain would be, at last, forever vanquished.

  Woody powered down the windows and let the wind brush his stubbled face. He deeply wished he could open the door, step to the street upright, his two feet carrying him down the crack-worn sidewalk instead of a motorized wheelchair.

  Then Woody saw him. The fantasy snapped the instant Stew Raymo circled around from the back of the property in answer to the Hispanic man’s call. But for the limp in his left leg, Stew appeared as advertised, closely matching the descriptions Woody had found in all the arrest records. Tanned and tall with a scruff of sunny blond hair topping his scalp. His carriage was like that of a retired pro athlete. A tool belt hung low on his waist like a gunslinger’s holster. The man was impressive at a distance. Woody found himself imagining what Stew might look like close up and in a rage. If he would only turn around so Woody could see his face.

  Instead, Stew had his cell phone glued to his ear, all the while half-listening to his site foreman. Without missing a step in his phone call, he gestured his instructions to the Hispanic foreman with a pointed index finger and flicks of the wrist. Then, just before Stew was about to disappear back inside the frame of the spec house, Woody thought he saw Stew take a sideways glance in his direction.

  A sickening fear struck Woody.

  Whatever silly-assed daydream the private detective had imagined was squeezed out in a flop sweat when he took a closer look at the killer. Woody’s hammy fingers found the ignition key and turned over the Ford’s engine. The rumble of eight, growling cylinders was loud enough to draw attention. By design. Along with the custom
rims and the flames shooting off the fenders, Woody had splurged on a custom intake and exhaust package just so his shag-wagon sounded as nasty as it looked. That meant every engine start had an explosive quality that caused heads to turn and sent nearby birds into instant flight.

  And Stew noticed.

  At the sound of that guttural Detroit rumble, his eyes snapped from the double-door entry to the ruckus on the street. There he paid brief witness to the custom rig accelerating by his construction site. Stew didn’t pay much attention beyond noting the chin-heavy black man in sunglasses and a baseball cap who was behind the wheel. Odd, he thought. Not something you see every day. A fat, black guy driving a custom fuckmobile. Takes all kinds, thought Stew. Some kind of white-trash wannabe—

  “You with me, Stewart?”

  “Still here,” said Stew back into the phone.

  “Still a little confused on the picture you’re painting me.”

  “Hang on,” said Stew, who turned to Henry. “Don’t care what the engineering says. After it’s dug I wanna see every inch of rebar. Don’t want no inspectors telling me to re-pour again. Hear me?”

  “Gotcha, Jefe.”

  As Stew tromped toward the rear of his site, he continued his phone conversation.

  “Picture is this. Having to re-pour my foundations on this thing has put me in a cash hole. You follow?”

  “I follow. But what does this have to do with me?”

  It was a woman he was talking to. A real estate agent with a distance in her voice. Stew could hear the clicking from the keyboard of her computer as she multitasked while on the phone with him.

  “When you’re done you’re gonna sell this beast and make three points, right?”

  “That’s our agreement,” she said.

  “Right. Well, to raise the cash, I’m gonna sell my other house. And I want you to do it.”

  “Glad to.”

  “Tellin’ you right now, there’s nothing in the deal,” said Stew. “I’ll go up to four points on the spec house, but nothin’ on the house I’m in.”