The Safety Expert

by Doug Richardson

  “Ben.”

  “Nice meeting you, Ben,” said Pam, gesturing for him to enter. She made sure to leave the door open. Ben seemed harmless, enough. But experience had taught her to be careful.

  “Very nice,” said Ben, expressing his first impression.

  “You married, Ben? Kids?”

  “I was.”

  “So you’re looking just for yourself?”

  “Me and my accountant,” joked Ben. “Says I need a bigger tax deduction.”

  “It was really nice running into to you.”

  “You too.” Then thinking she sounded odd, Gonzo stammered, “I mean, me too. You know. It was a good thing it happened.”

  Alex smiled warmly, her glossed lips gliding across two rows of perfectly white teeth.

  “See you ’round school,” said Alex, flashing a set of newly lacquered nails with a finger wave.

  Gonzo pulled the creaking passenger door of the Valley Checkered Cab closed. She had explained to Alex that she and Romeo were assigned the car as part of a robbery-suppression, undercover sting unit. As cabbie and passenger, the investigating duo could answer calls while cruising for pre-profiled armed-robbery suspects. It was a dull assignment. That, and no matter how much she complained or how many car deodorizers Romeo hung, the car still smelled of urine.

  Still, Gonzo found herself unconsciously giving the same girlish wave back to Alex, then curling her fingers inward, embarrassed by her short mannish nails. She couldn’t remember the last time she had a manicure. Or even the time to schedule an appointment.

  All the while, Romeo was pleased to ogle Alex and her machine-cut ass as she skipped across Ventura Boulevard and vanished back inside Starbucks.

  “You’re staring,” complained Gonzo.

  “Damn straight, I am,” said Romeo. “That’s a fine—”

  “She’s got three kids, Romes.”

  “I can dig it. Makes her a smokin’ hot MILF.”

  “A what?”

  “M-I-L-F. Mom I’d Like to... you know.”

  Gonzo’s face registered her disgust. “You think that up all by yourself?”

  “MILF? You kidding me?” said Romeo. “They sell that shit on t-shirts. You seriously haven’t heard that?”

  “Maybe I’m looking in the wrong places.”

  “Not around the high-priced mommies you hang with?”

  “Put it in gear, will ya?” asked Gonzo. “We’re gonna be late for roll.”

  From that moment on, Gonzo’s memory faded. While Romeo steered the cab north toward the Van Nuys Division, he ranted about everything from unnatural breast implants to city servants he would pay to taze, to videos he had recently tripped over on YouTube. But it was all a blur to Gonzo. All because she kept pressing the replay button in her mind.

  It had begun with the surprise of bumping into Alex inside one of the hundred or so Starbucks that plagued the San Fernando Valley.

  “What a surprise,” said Alex.

  “Small world,” was all Gonzo could muster in response.

  “Hey, you got a minute?” asked Alex after an awkwardly silent moment.

  Gonzo had more than a minute. The line for coffee was backed up and in very uncop-like fashion, she had ordered a half-caff-venti-quad-180-latte. And according to Romeo, every hyphenated word in a Starbucks order added at least an extra forty-five seconds to the process. Romeo’s order was simple, old-school. Coffee. Black.

  Gonzo politely exchanged small talk while waiting for her order. Then, after texting her partner to please stand by, retired to a small corner table flanked by over-caffeinated singles plinking the keys of their laptops.

  “First,” began Alex, leaning nearly halfway across the two-foot table, “I wanna say how sorry I am for the other night. It must’ve been so awkward for you.”

  “I had no business showing up like that,” apologized Gonzo.

  “Ben explained all of it,” Alex said. “I’m sick about misjudging the entire situation.”

  “So things are good?” Gonzo hoped to push the conversation to a quick conclusion so she could leave with her overpriced coffee and return to the comfort zone of her job, and even the smelly cab.

  “Better,” said Alex. “The truth hurts, but it helps. It’s all about moving forward.”

  “Right.”

  “Let me add this. And if this sounds like unsolicited advice, well... I suppose it is.”

  Gonzo stiffened. She could swallow gratuitous guidance from her partner, PD superiors, judges, and occasional civilians when she was on the job. Other than that...

  “Private schools can be really difficult to navigate. I’m not talking about the kids, either. It’s school. They get it. It’s the grown-ups who don’t play nice.”

  “Oh,” said Gonzo, only slightly relieved. After all, across from her was the woman who only days ago, was convinced Gonzo was sneaking around with her husband, exchanging body fluids and God knows what else.

  “Especially for a single, working mom,” added Alex. “There are just too many women with too much money and time on their hands. All they do is gossip. And when they’re not doing that, they’re getting in the faces of the teachers over why their kids aren’t getting better grades or being challenged—”

  “Listen. I understand. It was only talk, anyway. And now everything’s good.”

  “Until the next land mine.”

  Alex took a cryptic tone and arched her eyebrows for extra emphasis.

  Gonzo continued to replay the conversation through nearly all of the late-morning roll call. She sat in her usual seat at the rear of the cramped classroom. Nine rows back from the front. There were seventeen detectives in attendance. Only three were women, including the warrant officer breaking down the afternoon’s business of warrants, weekly robbery clusters, and murders under current investigation. A fluorescent tube behind a water-stained panel sputtered above the corner opposite Gonzo. She stared at it like an epileptic waiting for a seizure.

  “You're already a target,” said Alex. “I’m not saying this to upset you. To the contrary. After all, you’re a cop. If anyone’s a big girl, it’s you.”

  “Really,” said Gonzo. “I’m not too concerned—”

  “This is the part where it could affect your child, though.” Alex was nodding in self-agreement. “People don’t edit themselves in front of their children. They should, but we all know some parents don’t. And the kids take all the stuff they hear back to school.”

  “Is there something you heard that I haven’t?”

  “No. I’ve just seen this before. And I don’t want you to have to go through it. Or your child. It can be hell.”

  “So your unsolicited advice is?”

  Alex splayed her right hand and pressed it against her chest.

  “Use me,” said Alex. “I’m your resource. I’m connected. If there’s a fire at school—with the moms or the kids or the teachers—I’m the one who can put it out.”

  “Wow,” said Gonzo, taken aback and suddenly wondering if Alex’s way of apologizing was through a promise of action. For a moment, she had misjudged the woman.

  “I really appreciate that,” said Gonzo.

  “You hear anything, suspect anything. Your kid brings anything home or says something that you think is wrong, I want you to pick up the phone.”

  “I will,” smiled Gonzo. “I can’t express how appreciative I am, and you being so understanding about all of this.”

  Alex pushed her eco-friendly disposable coffee cup across the table until it kissed Gonzo’s.

  “I want us to be friends,” said Alex.

  “I can do that.”

  “One more thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “My husband. If he asks you for any more help with this old business of his. Or just wants to bend your ear...”

  It was as if all the moisture from Gonzo’s throat was extinguished in a single gulp. The frizz behind her ears instantly turned wet and clammy, spreading across the back of her neck a
nd forming a drip at the peak of her spine.

  “You’re talking about his deceased family—”

  “We call it old business,” repeated Alex. “It’s part of moving on and building a new and productive life.”

  Gonzo caught the shine on those serenely lacquered nails. How with each gesture they caught the decorative lights. Now Alex gripped the lid of her coffee cup and twisted clockwise, as if shutting off a faucet.

  “You asked how things were with Ben and I,” continued Alex. “I said they’re good and they are. But Ben has work to do. Counseling, that sort of stuff. If things are to remain on track, I have to know if things are just that. On track. Best for me. For Ben. My girls. You understand.”

  “And...” Gonzo groped. She needed wiggle room, not to mention oxygen. “If he volunteers something to me? In confidence?”

  If the question aggravated Alex, Gonzo couldn’t be the least bit certain. Alex did though, begin to twist that coffee cup in counterclockwise quarter turns.

  “I can only make the request,” answered Alex. “I want to be friends. I really do. Our children will be in school for a very long time, so...”

  “So...”

  “So we can’t help but know each other, see each other, help or hurt each other. You agree?”

  “Of course,” said Gonzo, at last unfolding the tacit threat levied by her counterpart.

  “Glad we had this talk.”

  “Me too.”

  Gonzo felt a pinch on her shoulder. Two fingers putting the squeeze on her left trapezius muscle. Her Pops used to call it the Super Spock Grip. Ever since she had told Romeo about her Pops’ term, he had taken to employing his version of the shoulder squeeze whenever she drifted off.

  “Ow,” said Gonzo.

  “You hear any of it?”

  “I miss something?”

  Gonzo returned to the present, noting the sliding chairs, murmuring, and shuffling feet of the other detectives. Someone told a joke that produced a short burst of laughter. Roll call was over. And like Romeo’s rants in the car, Gonzo hadn’t heard a word of it.

  “Nothing unusual,” said Romeo. “You feeling okay?”

  “I’m good.”

  “You should eat something.”

  “Your cure for everything.”

  “Gotta feed the brain more than caffeine.”

  “Fine. Lead on,” Gonzo relented with a nod.

  As the room emptied, Gonzo remembered nothing more than that stupid, sputtering, fluorescent tube. If her brain had actually captured anything, she wouldn’t immediately be able to access it. Too much information to remember anyway, she reasoned. Roll calls were all the same. Too many ad hoc descriptions of wanted criminals and stop-and-shop holdups and car-theft rings. The only wrinkle of the day was a repeat from the week prior—a missing-persons flyer describing an Armenian immigrant named Ara Djoumanian from Sunland. The man was described as tall, thirty-four-years-old, and was last spotted alongside an unidentified white male, leaving the Outback Steakhouse in Northridge.

  Motorized wheelchairs that fit a four-hundred-pound private detective aren’t found at a local medical supply storefront. Nor are they made in factories on an assembly line. Chairs like Woody Bell’s are built in small, specialized factories akin to the custom motorcycle and chopper shops seen on cable TV reality series.

  In fact, the engineer who designed Woody’s newest set of wheels was a motorcycle enthusiast and part-time mechanic. This despite having lost the bottom half of his left leg when making the sweeping right turn from the southbound Long Beach Freeway to the brand-new, westbound I-105, the Glenn Anderson Freeway. He had laid down his Harley-Davidson Super Glide to avoid slamming into a rented U-Haul truck that was stalled in the transition lane. The six-hundred-plus-pound bike had severed his leg cleanly at the knee. He would have bled to death if the U-Haul driver hadn’t been able to summon both a cell phone and the knowledge he had retained for twenty years from earning a first-aid merit badge as a Boy Scout.

  Eventually, that same rider recovered and rehabbed. With a new prosthetic leg he entered the business of building custom, motorized wheelchairs. The name on his shingle was Freedom Chairs. The business grew as did the number of employees. Over time, some of his workers suffered expensive on-the-job injuries. Some injuries were real, others suspicious.

  Enter Woody Bell, paraplegic private investigator specializing in fraudulent workmen’s compensation claims, and Ben Keller, OSHA-inspector-turned-safety-consultant. Though each man was hired independently of the other, a marriage of sorts was made soon after the two met on a job for Freedom Chairs. Since then Ben had kept Woody on permanent retainer and Woody had gladly kicked back a fair portion of the fees generated from Ben’s clients.

  It was a double bonus for Woody.

  Since the day he had met Ben he would never want for gainful employment or be denied the coolest and latest technological advancements in wheelchairs. His current chair was super-powered by a prototype rechargeable battery similar to those used in hybrid cars, custom-fit in a panel under his seat. The battery took a 220-volt charge and ran a cool 500-watt, high-torque electric motor. Due to the chair’s size and heavy load, it was fitted with treaded ATV wheels, disc brakes, and an onboard computer connected to an active suspension system to compensate for unexpected G-forces generated from side-hill driving or speedy turns.

  It even came with a safety belt.

  Including its passenger, the super-chair weighed seven hundred and thirty-three pounds. Fully charged, it could deliver Woody across five miles of city sidewalks at a terrifying top speed of twenty-three miles per hour—plenty of juice for Woody to make the round-trip to one of a dozen neighborhood eateries.

  Woody had dedicated this particular morning to a law firm client. Though Woody had never visited their Century City office, he imagined an entire floor filled with nothing but pinstriped divorce lawyers. A veritable New York Yankees with law degrees, dedicated to breaking up families for profit. Being a child of divorce, the thought of such a firm made Woody sick. But these lawyers paid retail. So after logging four morning hours searching for deadbeat dads delinquent in their child-support payments, Woody was hungry. Running his tongue between his lips, he tasted Chinese food. Mr. Gu’s, he had decided.

  Despite the overcast day, Woody donned a cheap black felt fedora he had purchased years ago at Disneyland and a pair of dark shades that would have made Roy Orbison jealous. Having called in his order ahead of time, Woody was subjected to no more than two minutes inside the poorly ventilated Mr. Gu’s. He paid with his gold American Express card, placed the plastic bag holding the boxes full of hot Chinese food on his lap, then began the return trip to his house.

  Woody really enjoyed the mostly uphill ride home through the wooded streets of Chatsworth. He imagined his custom wheelchair to be a four-wheeled assault vehicle roaring through a post-holocaust wasteland. Woody busted across intersections, used those ATV tires to hop curbs, and every so often, swung wide and accelerated hard enough to loosen the new sod on a neighbor’s fresh-cut lawn. Woody calculated the odds of anybody complaining as roughly nil. How stupid would some angry retiree look shouting down at a poor paraplegic? And how sweet would it be when Woody captured the moment using the video function on his cell phone? In minutes, the moving pictures of the shouting neighbor could be uploaded to the Internet for the entire planet’s instant amusement.

  Two blocks from Woody’s driveway, though, the super-chair began to slow. A sure sign the battery pack underneath his seat was nearly dry. As Woody eased back on the joystick, hoping to conserve enough power to get himself home, he scoured his memory. Had he actually forgotten to charge the batteries the night before? Doubtful. The special power outlet was right next to his bed. It was his routine to plug the chair in before he winched himself into bed for the night. And yes! He distinctly recalled unhooking the cable that very morning.

  Then he remembered something else—the blinking digits on his clock radio. The telltale giveawa
y that at some point during his slumber, the electricity had gone out. He didn’t know for how long, but it was sure as hell long enough to short his wheelchair battery of a full charge.

  Regret set in. He shouldn’t have wasted juice on his off-road maneuvers. Or speed. Or taking a slightly longer route back to his house. Across a thin strip of street and a hundred yards ahead, Woody could see the pitch of his own cracked, concrete driveway peeking out from between the massive, unattended shrubs that spilled onto the sidewalk. The same deep driveway where, as a boy, he and his neighborhood pals would drag race on skateboards.

  At fifty yards, the motor on the wheelchair began to whine and beg for more power.

  “Shit,” said Woody, working the joystick, hoping to trick the motor into stealing just enough power to get him through his front door.

  Woody turned the wheelchair into the street, setting a beeline to his own address. He looked left, then right for approaching cars. And though none were visible, at the snail’s pace he was moving, he might not be safe anyway. The huge, pneumatic wheels rolled heavily across the asphalt, making an excruciating dull crunching sound.

  For drainage, the lane gently sloped away from the center stripe. So Woody was now hoping to reach the apex and disengage the chair’s drivetrain. If he was lucky, gravity would propel him down the other side, saving him power, and leaving him with enough juice to finish the trip to his door. But the slope proved not nearly steep enough to deliver him past the two-inch lip of his own driveway. And after reengaging the gears, the motor only responded with the most impotent of hums.

  “Goddammit!”

  The curse, of course, fell on no ears other than his own. Woody flipped open his mobile phone and dialed up Freedom Chairs.

  “I’m stuck,” said Woody. “Where’s Scotty?”

  “Scotty’s not here.”

  “Who’s this then?”

  “You got Rodrigo. Say you’re stuck?”

  “This is Woody Bell. Scott knows me and—”

  “Hey, I know you, man,” said Rodrigo. “I worked on your new chair, dude. That thing’s got sass.”

  “Well,” said Woody, bottled with frustration, “My fuckin’ chair ain’t got no more go.”