The Safety Expert

by Doug Richardson

  Alex thought for a moment, lowered her luggage and clasped her hands together.

  “I loved you more than I loved any man. As I still do.”

  “But am I a man?” asked Ben. “Really, Alex. Does a real man spend his waking hours assessing the risks of others without ever taking a single risk himself?”

  Alex kept her eyes fixed on the bottom of the staircase. She looked to be both exercising patience and carefully choosing her words before she committed them to speech.

  “I don’t know,” she finally answered. “You were man enough for me. Man enough for my daughters. And you came along when we needed you most. If that’s not a man...” she shrugged.

  “Fair enough,” said Ben, who sat once more, this time halfway between the landing and Alex. “But I wasn’t there for Sara. I wasn’t there for my baby girls.”

  “You know what Danny would say to that —”

  “That I woulda died, too,” answered Ben. “I’m no longer sure. See. Yesterday. I shoulda died. Stew shoulda killed me.”

  “Instead, you nearly killed yourself driving home drunk—”

  “I’m here, aren’t I? And isn’t that the point? I’m still here! And so is he!”

  “We can move, Ben! Santa Barbara. San Diego!” Alex climbed the stairs. “You can still do what you do anywhere we decide. Together!”

  “Do what I do,” Ben repeated. “And what is that?”

  Alex kneeled and cradled Ben’s face.

  “Keep us safe,” said Alex. “Keep us all very, very safe.”

  “Then it’s not so much about what I do,” said Ben. “It’s about what I don’t do. Or haven’t done. Or should’ve done when this all started.”

  Alex straightened. Then she blinked her brown eyes once, then again, very slowly.

  “I can’t be here if you’re going to do something stupid,” she said. “Or foolish or criminal. I can’t expose myself or the girls. I won’t.”

  “It’s good that you’re going,” said Ben. “A good time to be gone.”

  Gracefully, Alex returned to the open door and re-gripped the suitcase handles.

  “Remember what I asked,” she said. “We’ll be back Sunday. You should be gone by then.”

  “Never answered your question,” said Ben.

  “Which one?”

  “Do I love you.”

  “You just did,” Alex smiled sadly. “You just did.”

  Alex, her last words capping the argument, shouldered the backpack, hoisted the small suitcase, then rolled the larger bag out the door and down the path. She clearly needed no help from Ben. Nor wanted any. At least that was her intention. Ben was left to wonder if she had left the door wide open just so he could watch her leave. The sun streaked in and was so damned bright, Alex practically disappeared into the day in her white-on-white snow togs.

  “Last year’s Ben” would have chased after Alex. He would have begged her not to go, made quiet and copious acts of contrition while adding the kind of promises that he could and would surely keep. Hell, thought Ben. Last year’s model of himself wouldn’t have gotten his life into such a stinking twist.

  As for “this year’s Ben?”

  He needed that fistful of Excedrin. That would require some form of food to protect his stomach. And Gatorade to hydrate and replenish fluids. The plan was simple, had clarity, direction, and the practical endgame of curing his crusher of a hangover.

  Ben’s next move would come later.

  9

  “IF YOU UPGRADE to a new plan, we can discount you on a new phone.”

  “Just the phone I had, please,” said Ben, trying hard to tie a noose around his frustration. He had stood in line for twenty minutes at the closest Verizon Store to his house just to replace his BlackBerry. And all the porky, pimply, nineteen-year-old salesman could manage was to push new phones and longer contracts on him.

  “I know you’re just trying to help me,” said Ben. He snapped his credit card on the counter like it was a playing card. “I also understand it’s your job to sell new contracts and upgraded phones and all that stuff. But really. All I can deal with today is giving you this credit card, and in exchange, you replacing the phone which admittedly I am responsible for drowning.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the salesman. “But you understand I can’t give you a discount on the replacement phone.”

  “You said that twice already.”

  “It’s less expensive for you to upgrade your contract and—”

  “Credit card. New phone. Now,” said Ben, emphatic. “Or I’ll walk across the street and talk to the nice people at Sprint.”

  Ben waited for eye contact from salesman, whose lowered lids and long lashes hid a pair of dilated pupils that constantly darted behind square-rimmed glasses.

  Drugs, thought Ben. The pimpled pork chop behind the counter had probably been up all night playing computer wars against scores of other socially inept gamers in places as far away as India. Normally, Ben would have cared, showed more patience and empathy. But with the sickening hangover still lingering beneath his skin, he found himself short of most human niceties.

  “Here’s your phone,” said the salesman when he returned. “I’ve already programmed it to your old number. The battery’s only on about a quarter charge, so I recommend...”

  Ben didn’t hear the rest. The moment the phone was in his hand, he had it turned on and was retrieving all the voicemails he had received since the day before. Twenty-one in all. Ben used the “skip” function for the business calls. He listened to mere seconds of the only two calls left by Alex, either because he couldn’t stomach hearing her messages or because it felt like they had already said everything that needed to be said just an hour before. There was a pair of calls from Gonzo, concerned, trying to reach Ben after the frenzied voice message he had left her prior to his being attacked by Stew Raymo.

  There were six voicemails from Josie. The first message, one that she had left only minutes before Ben had arrived at the office the day before, was a simple head’s up that Ben’s 9:00 A.M. meeting had shown up early. Josie’s subsequent voicemails began with curiosity about the events she had missed while on her errand, then quickly escalated past worry and concern into flights of paranoia, the likes of which Ben had never heard from her. She asked if Ben was in jail. Would he need her help in order for him to post bail? Was Ben even alive? Would this be something she should call Woody Bell about? Is this the same Stew Raymo Ben had asked her to Google three months back? And would she be fired if she called Alex?

  Clearly, reasoned Ben, that’s how Alex knew all about yesterday. Josie, being the good egg that she was, first worried about protecting her boss’ privacy, but at last couldn’t help but inform his wife of her grave worries.

  The final message left by Josie was somber, haltingly delivered, and left at 7:58 that same morning.

  “Ben, hey. Josie here. Think it’s almost eight in the morning... I, uh... was thinking of calling in sick but... not that I feel great... but I don’t feel bad enough to lie. So I’ll just say it. I think I need to take a break. Maybe just quit. I don’t know. Feeling really uncomfortable with everything. Especially yesterday, you know? It’s been too hard lately, with all the cancellations and making excuses for you and all the stuff I do... or don’t know what you’re doing. Uh... yeah. If you want, I suppose I can say this in a letter of resignation. I guess I’ll call you in a few days and we can talk about things. Till then, I’ve texted you the number of the temp company I used that last time I was out with the flu... Really, really sorry. I hope you understand, and well... Okay. Bye.”

  Given the context of Ben’s day thus far, what should have been a surprise gut-punch felt like little more than a stubbed toe. In fact, Josie taking a break, even quitting, made strange and instant sense to Ben. He had been inconsistent as both a boss and safety consultant. How long could he expect her to make excuses for his acts in absentia? And then on the last day Ben had showed up in the office, he nearly got hauled
off to jail for beating the tar out a man who, as for as Josie knew, was a certified advocate for the safety interests of union baggage handlers.

  Thoughts of Josie quitting were crushed the instant Ben’s shoes hit the sidewalk, new phone held tightly at his ear as he listened to the last voicemail, left not an hour ago.

  “Ben. Hi. It’s Pamela Raymo,” said the soft voice.

  Ben’s heart nearly stopped. Then, like a pump that momentarily lost its prime, overcompensated by swallowing an extra valve full of blood before expressing it back though his aorta.

  “I just wanted to call you and thank you for last night. I mean, well, I suppose I should be asking you what in the world possessed you to call me so late? Jeezus. Couldn’t tell if you were a devil or an angel. Of course, now I know. And Lord help me, you are a godsend. So thank you, thank you, thank you. And... and this is the important part... I just wanted you to know that I took your advice and kicked the son-of-a-bitch out of the house. My lawyer friend says the restraining order should be in effect by the end of the day, too, so... I can’t... I... Wow, I can’t believe I did it. And for you? I guess I have no more words. Other than I can’t thank you enough. So. Well. Wow. Guess it’s bye for now.”

  Standing stock still on the sidewalk, Ben was bumped by the cross traffic of pedestrians and those trying to enter or exit the Verizon Store. What the hell else had he done during his blackout? Either to whom or with whom? Christ, thought Ben. Had he really called Pam Raymo? And in his drunken stupor he had given advice? As he looked down, the sidewalk began to spin. He needed to sit. And think. And as much as it may hurt, remember.

  It was the most pivotal moment of Pam’s life. And she understood it to be exactly such. The digital clock on the bedside table read a number just short of midnight. And at the primal instant Pam was inching the muzzle of her shiny .38 caliber revolver closer to the grotesquely swollen cheek of her sleeping husband, the house phone rang with a loud, electronic whistle. Stew, lying naked and semi-fetal, stirred, groaned, and rolled a quarter turn on the bed. The snore that followed was equal in decibels to that of the telephone’s second ring. It was decision time for Pam. Pull the trigger and end the abuse. Maybe even take her own life afterward.

  Or answer the fucking phone.

  It wasn’t as if the telephone never rang that late at night. But it was always Stew’s mobile. Never Pam’s cell phone. And certainly not the house line. Pam’s thoughts instantly swerved from murder to the well-being of her long-since divorced mother and father. God, she worried, was calling to tell her someone else in her family had died before she could pull the trigger on Stew.

  On the third ring, Pam pocketed the revolver and grabbed the wireless handset from the cradle. She didn’t answer until she had left the bedroom and shut the door.

  “Hello,” she had answered.

  “Hi,” said the voice. “Is this Pam?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Don’t know if you remember me,” said the voice. “Ben... Ben Martin. I looked at your house a coupla weeks back. Then we sorta bumped into each other again at the market—”

  “I remember,” said Pam. “Why are you calling?”

  “Don’t really know,” said Ben, bold, and sounding as sober as a Sunday judge. “Was just thinking of you... how you are... so...Well, how the heck are you?”

  “It’s nearly midnight.”

  “Did I wake you?”

  “No,” answered Pam, her right hand wrapped firmly around the grip of her .38. “No, I was up. It’s just—”

  “Sounds like I called at a bad time.”

  “No,” said Pam, surprised at how her answer seemed to burst from her chest. “No. It’s good to hear a different voice.”

  There followed a pause at the other end of the phone call. So long a pause that Pam worried that the connection was lost.

  “You still there?” she asked.

  “Yeah, yeah. You alone?”

  “So to speak,” said Pam.

  “Husband home?”

  “Sleeping it off.”

  “Oh,” said Ben as if he understood. “Got tanked tonight, did he?”

  “He’s way off the wagon,” said Pam, sad, her voice signaling her distress with a faint quiver.

  “How far?” asked Ben, sounding both earnest and curious, just like the man he had pretended to be. A stranger. A man barely known to her and a nonentity to Stew.

  “Too far,” admitted Pam, finally cracking. “Too fucking far.”

  She began to cry.

  And seated on the living room couch with her sweaty hand cradling the revolver in her lap, Pam kept her eyes squared on the shadows of the bedroom corridor in case Stew were to rise from bed. All the while and in vivid detail, she recounted the awfulness of her evening. From the hour Stew returned home, sticky and stinking from the mix of sugar and whisky, to just shy of the moment she had crept into their bedroom, revolver cocked and loaded, with every intent to kill her husband.

  “I don’t know what happened to him,” she said. “He wouldn’t say what happened. But it looked like he had been in some kind of fight. Half his face was all swoll up. From there he went right to the booze. I mean, I swear I didn’t even know there was liquor in the house. Otherwise, I woulda poured it all down the drain before...”

  “Before?”

  “I was afraid for him. He was already drunk and I didn’t want him to drink anymore. So while he was in the garage looking for a liter of Pepsi, I popped the cap and poured it down the sink. All of it. The whole fifth of whisky.”

  “Stew,” said Pam. “He took the bottle and hit me with it. I don’t know how many times. I think my cheekbone’s busted and there’s some glass under my skin—”

  “You need to go the emergency room right now.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Then why don’t you?”

  “Because I was going to go after.”

  “After what?”

  “Just after—” said Pam, her voice cutting off.

  Stew had lost control when he had discovered that Pam had poured an entire bottle of Jack Daniels down the kitchen disposal. And when she stood up to face his obscene drunkenness, he picked up the bottle and backhanded it across her face. Pam slid down the counter, but Stew kept swinging until the neck of the bottle had snapped.

  Pam was still kicking, shouting for help, as he rolled her over and sodomized her on the kitchen pavers. When he was finished, he lay on top of her, his teeth biting her ear between breathless rants about what a whoring, worthless...

  “Cunt,” said Pam. “He kept calling me that over and over again.”

  “That’s horrible,” said Ben.

  “Not like the first time I was called that. Or raped, you know? But he’s my husband. And a husband’s supposed...”

  Pam’s voice trailed and for more times than she could remember, was overtaken by sobs.

  Ben convinced her to locate her car keys, exit the house, and drive to the nearest emergency room. Once she had explained her situation to the admitting nurse, the police would be called and a rape kit assembled. Ben calmly cautioned Pam not to return home until a restraining order had been issued and Stew had been arrested and removed from the house.

  Somewhere between the door and the car, Pam hung up on Ben without recalling if she had said thank you or goodbye. Safe inside an old girlfriend’s condo, but yet unable to sleep, Pam called Ben’s cell phone and left her grateful message. Never once did she question why Ben had called her so very late the night before. Nor did she imagine he was, or suspect that he was, drunk. To her, Ben was an angel, sent by God himself to deliver the instructions that prevented her from committing a deadly sin.

  Stew awoke to the sound of a doorbell. He groaned, shouted for Pam to answer the goddamn door. Moments later, there was a hard rapping on the French doors that led from the bedroom to the backyard, then a rattling as if somebody was twisting the handle.

  “What the fuck?” said Stew aloud.

&nbs
p; Through squinted eyes, he recognized the deep navy-blue uniforms of the LAPD. This is when he knew.

  “Bitch,” he muttered, detecting within his own tone more than a spoonful of regret.

  In a matter of hours, Stew was cuffed, booked for battery and rape at the LAPD North Hollywood substation, and then transferred by cruiser to the Van Nuys Division. He had his blood drawn for a DNA test by a Ukrainian-accented nurse with forearms nearly as big as his and was bussed downtown for a meeting with a public defender. The day was topped off by a smelly night inside the L.A. County Jail. Because Stew hadn’t been subject to anything heavier than a traffic fine during his sober years, the arraignment judge set bail at a mere twenty-five thousand dollars. The ten percent fee to the bail bondsman was covered by Stew’s new American Express card.

  So by Wednesday morning, with a copy of Pam’s five-hundred-foot restraining order clenched in his fist, Stew was released back to the free world less than twenty-four hours after his arrest. Now came his hardest decision. He could either have the turban-wearing Sikh cabby deliver him to the nearest bar—or the nearest Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

  “You have an address?” asked the cabby.

  “Hold on to your fuckin’ diaper,” snapped Stew, hung up on his dilemma.

  Stew fished into his rear pants pocket and came up with a yellow Post-it folded in quarters. Scribbled in thin blue ink were a phone number and a pair of cross streets in Los Feliz, just south of Los Angeles’ gargantuan Griffith Park.

  “Awright, I got it,” said Stew, pushing the Post-it through the coin and bill drawer hinged in the bulletproof glass.

  Back in February, Gonzo had made a request for e-notes to be deposited into her electronic in-box if Stew Raymo’s name ever rang up on the LAPD’s digital blotter. The request was still in effect two months later. So she was officially pinged when Stew was booked, again when he checked into L.A. County Jail, and a third time upon his arraignment and release.

  If only she had been at her desk.

  Instead, having already heard through the Simi Canyons’ grapevine that an actual separation between Ben and Alex was in the works, her mind was more occupied with Ben’s marital fate than her cop job. The weight of her culpability had pulled Gonzo deep inside her own guilty skin. So on that fateful Wednesday, Gonzo called in sick.