The Vanishing Expert

by David Movsesian

  When the ambulance arrived, the attendant told Ben that Rose in a state of severe shock. It was the police officer who informed Ben that his wife had been raped.

  Even years later, those days and weeks following the attack were like a disturbing dream to him. Back home, after being released from the hospital, she was remote and depressed, frequently drifting into the same catatonic state she’d been in when Ben found her that day on the floor of their bedroom. Usually, she would quietly return in a few minutes. Occasionally, she would emerge screaming in terror, and nothing Ben could do would comfort her. If he tried to speak to her, she seemed not to hear his voice. If he attempted to reach out a comforting hand to her, Rose reeled from his touch, sometimes violently, other times with little more than a slight dip of her shoulder. Even the touch of the kindest man she’d ever known repelled and frightened her.

  For months, they lived like this, until Ben finally announced to Rose that he was going to take a vacation and take her somewhere far away. He considered a trip to Europe, hoping that putting an entire ocean between his lovely wife and the animal that had done this to her might help her find some peace, but he knew Rose was in too fragile a state to adjust to life in another country, even if only for a few weeks. Ultimately, he decided to take her to California; if he couldn’t put an ocean between Rose and her attacker, he’d put an entire continent between them. Perhaps then she’d finally feel safe again. Perhaps then she’d find her way back to him.

  On the last night before they were to leave for California, Ben was up late packing. When he finished he showered and entered the small spare bedroom where Rose had been sleeping for the last several months. She hadn’t set foot in their bedroom since the attack, choosing instead to sleep in one of the two double beds that were originally intended for the guests they’d hoped to entertain. Rose always chose the bed furthest from the door.

  Ben found her already sleeping soundly in the darkened room, and he quietly crawled into the adjacent bed. Rose had only recently accepted his sleeping in the same room; Ben knew she wouldn’t accept him in her bed. He knew also not to risk waking her when she slept soundly for fear of startling her. Even a gesture as innocent as a kiss on the forehead or adjusting her covers could startle her awake, and cause her to fly into a fit of terror. On that last night, he simply passed her in the darkness and climbed into his own bed, and allowed the sound of her slow and steady breathing to lull him to sleep.

  He woke first the next morning, and hurried to the kitchen to make breakfast and coffee, hoping to have it waiting for her when she came downstairs. When he returned to the bedroom, he found her asleep, which wasn’t unusual in itself. She slept a great deal since the attack. But something about her seemed out of place. He spoke her name. She didn’t stir. She appeared pale. He risked touching her hand, which dangled over the side of the mattress. It was cold. He shook her and shouted her name, but she was already gone.

  It was only as he reached for the phone to call for help that he noticed the water glass and the empty bottle of sedatives on the nightstand. They were cloaked in darkness the night before, but must certainly have been there when he came into the room and climbed quietly into his bed. For the rest of his life the sight of the empty bottle would haunt him, not only because it had taken away his lovely Rose, but because of the nearness of it. Had he only turned on the light, he thought, he would have seen it, and he might have saved her.

  Ever since the attack, but especially since Rose’s death, Ben found himself walking the streets of Portland with a different demeanor. For years, as he’d strolled down these same streets, he saw them as being filled with opportunity. He was eager to approach every door, knowing he would be enriching the lives of the people who lived there as well as his own. He enjoyed stopping and speaking to people on the sidewalk, swapping opinions on the weather or the Red Sox; sometimes even about refrigerators. It was a simple, happy life while it lasted. But now everything had changed.

  Without intending to, or wanting to, he found himself looking strangers in the face, studying them, wondering if the man approaching him might be the man who had taken his Rose from him. Was the man waiting for the bus the man who followed his wife home? Was the man with the moustache and the friendly smile the same man who had gripped his wife’s slender throat and violated her?

  He sometimes considered what he would do if he were ever to find himself face-to-face with the man responsible for taking his wife from him. He was never a vengeful person by nature, but the answer came easily and it was always the same. The outcome would be inevitable. He imagined himself taking the man by the throat and as he looked him directly in the eye, he would shout out Rose’s name to the heavens so that Rose herself could hear it, so that she might look down upon him at that decisive moment. And then he would make certain that the name of his beloved wife would be the last sound the animal would ever hear.

  Maybe then, Rose would finally find some peace. Maybe then, Ben would too.

  Until that day came, if it ever would, the easy conversations with strangers about mundane topics were gone. The friendly greetings soon followed, and with them, all of the joy he’d once found walking the streets of Portland. He was still successful at his job, but the rewards of that success were hollow and meaningless. Every encounter was an effort, where they had once been effortless. Were it not for the loyalty he felt toward Gus, who he knew was depending on him, he might have left the city for good. Certainly he could do what he did anywhere. But he felt he’d already failed Gus once when he was unable to protect his only daughter; he wasn’t about to disappoint his dear friend again.

  Two things happened that changed the course of his life. The first came in the form of a registered letter from a developer in Maryland who expressed an interest in purchasing the one-hundred acre parcel of land Ben owned in Falmouth. As it turned out, Ben was grateful to part with the property. He’d purchased it with the idea that he would build a home upon it for Rose where they would raise a family and live out their long, happy lives together. Now it was nothing but a sad reminder that none of it would ever happen.

  When the offer for the land was twice what he’d paid for it only two years earlier, he was satisfied, but cautious.

  “Never accept the first offer,” he’d often advised friends over the years. And when he rejected the Maryland developer’s first offer, the offer was increased again by nearly half.

  Ben paid off his original loan with the bank, and used the remainder of the money to purchase additional parcels of land. Over the next few years, he would repeat the process many times, each time earning a substantial profit on his investment.

  In 1962, Ben Jordan turned forty-nine years old, and between his savings and his investments, he’d earned his first million. It only became easier after that.

  About the same time, Gus Deluca decided it was time to retire from the appliance business. He’d received more than one offer to purchase his business, but since he’d made Ben a partner years earlier, he was obliged to discuss it with him. He would be honored if Ben were to carry on the business, Gus told him, but with all that had happened, he wondered if Ben simply needed a fresh start. In the end, Ben signed his portion of the business back over to Gus, making Gus the sole owner once again. He asked for nothing in return. It was Ben’s gift to the man who had been so kind to him over the years. The two men shook hands, and while they would always remain friends, their business relationship had come to an abrupt but amicable end.

  Ben had long since sold the house he'd shared with Rose. After her death, he found it impossible to return there. He’d chosen instead to rent a two bedroom apartment in an old building near the waterfront. He could afford better accommodations, but he’d always been accustomed to a simple life, and he saw no reason to change that. No one who passed him coming and going from his modest apartment ever realized there was a millionaire living among them. They saw only a well-dressed sad man who was always a gentlemen to the ladies he p
assed, greeting them with a smile and a tip of his hat, but who looked sternly, even suspiciously, at every man he met.

  By 1991, when James met him, Ben Jordan owned properties in Kittery, Kennebunkport, Portland, Freeport, Rockland, Camden, Ellsworth, and all over Mount Desert Island. At the age of sixty-eight, he was the first man of leisure James had ever met, living off the profits from his accumulated investments, though he spent most of his time hidden away in his large but comfortable home on the shore of Northeast Harbor, listening to the ocean and dulling the sharp edges of his life with single malt scotch.

  20

  The Benefactor

  When James arrived at the old service station just north of Somes Sound a few minutes before one o’clock, he found Ben Jordan waiting for him. The building, which had once been the only gas station for ten miles, had been long since closed and abandoned. Sheets of plywood were nailed over the windows and the door to the office, and the three large service bay doors were chained and locked with rusted padlocks that suggested that no one had entered the building in some time.

  “Do you own this place?” James asked him.

  Ben produced a key from his pocket and began to work at the padlock that secured the door to one of the service bays. “I told you my boat was in my garage,” he said. A broad smile spread across his face. “This is my garage.”

  He raised the door, and James found himself staring at the wooden bow of a thirty foot boat. It bore the familiar Chris Craft logo, in flaking gold leaf on either side of the hull, and it appeared to have been an older model than his own; James believed it to have likely been built after the war, in the late forties or early fifties. Out of the water, the boat was a massive structure, more than filling two of the three service bays, and as James walked slowly around it, he was impressed with the size of the boat, though he was a bit overwhelmed by the enormity of the task before him. Still, he reminded himself that he hadn’t yet agreed to take on the project. He was there mainly to see the boat.

  Ben Jordan had purchased the boat three years earlier, acquiring the service station shortly afterward to provide him a place to store it, and to work on it should he ever have the inclination. It proved to be too daunting a task for him, and he simply moved on to other less taxing interests, always hoping that someday he would find a way to return the boat to its original condition and to bring out the beauty he could still see in her.

  The boat showed obvious neglect, but the visible damage had been inflicted long before Ben came to own it. It was obvious that the hull had been subjected for years to the damaging effects of sea water without the care and attention needed to prevent the wood from deteriorating. Above the waterline, the hull’s finish was mottled and dull, and the chrome was tarnished and gray. Beneath the waterline it was heavily encrusted with barnacles and dried algae. Upon closer inspection, James could see that the hull had twisted and sagged, a condition no doubt made worse from years spent resting upon a trailer.

  “She’ll be a beauty when she’s finished, don’t you think?” Ben asked.

  James grunted, admiring Ben’s optimism. He had to admit that he wanted to see the boat restored to its original condition. It saddened him to see it in its current state. He remembered his father’s boat when he first brought it home. It was in much better condition, and was smaller than the massive hulk of a boat that loomed before him now. Even so, renovating it had taken two of them nearly a year.

  “It needs a lot of work,” James said. “I have no idea what this is gonna cost you.”

  Ben put up his hand as if to stop him. “Let me worry about that,” he said. “I want to see this old girl looking beautiful again. Just let me know what you need, and do whatever it takes.”

  James placed his hand against the bow, as if hoping to find the same inspiration in its surface that he always found in his own boat, but it was damaged and rough. “I honestly don’t know if I’m up to it,” he confessed.

  “Take as much time as you need,” Ben told him. “Get to know her a bit before you decide.”

  James moved around the boat, running his fingers along the hull, learning her curves and feeling the years of neglect as he considered the job before him. He found a stepladder, which he dragged over to the side of the boat, and he climbed aboard. The cabin was in marginally better condition, but still in need of a great deal of work, mostly cosmetic from what he could tell. He stood at the wheel looking out over the bow, picturing this boat glistening in the summer sun with all of the dignity and beauty she once knew. He went aft and lifted a hatch to look at the engine, but in the dim light of the garage, he couldn’t see much.

  “Does it run?” he called out.

  “It did when I bought it,” Ben called up to him. “I don’t know about now.”

  James replaced the hatch and stood up peering down at Ben, who looked up at him expectantly. “I’m a little lost when it comes to engines,” he confessed. “You’ll probably need to get someone else to take a look at it.”

  “I know a few people,” Ben assured him.

  James climbed down and picked up a short length of pipe he found on a workbench. He crawled under the bow and began poking at the hull, searching for rot, but each time the pipe met the wooden hull, it returned a solid and encouraging thump. He worked his way around the hull until he finally found himself standing beside Ben again on the starboard side.

  “It needs a lot of work,” James told him again.

  “You can work here,” Ben told him. “That’s why I bought this place to begin with— so I’d have a place to work on her. I just never knew how to begin.”

  James looked around the garage. It was a perfect place to work. Ben had spent a great deal of time cleaning out the clutter that had been left behind by the previous owner so that the only thing that remained was an empty workbench and rows of shelves along the back wall. Except for the empty stall, there wasn’t a great deal of room to move around, but it was adequate for what he needed, certainly more than he was accustomed to. He didn’t want to admit it to his new friend, but he felt a sudden rush of excitement.

  “Can you do it?” Ben asked him.

  James considered it. “I won’t know for sure until I see what the wood looks like,” he cautioned. “I can make her look pretty again,” he said. “But I suspect we’ll have to replace a few beams and most of the hull planks.” He looked somberly at Ben. “I’m not an expert, but you might want to consider that it’ll be more trouble than it’s worth.”

  Ben smiled. “Aren’t we all?”

  James frowned, uncertain Ben understood what a costly undertaking it would be not just to make the boat seaworthy again, but to restore it to its previous beauty. “What I’m trying to say is that you’ll probably spend more repairing this boat than you would just buying a new boat, or at least a newer one. It wouldn’t be the worst idea to consider cutting your losses.”

  “Understood,” Ben said.

  “And I don’t know about the engine,” James told him.

  “We can deal with that later,” Ben assured him.

  James agreed. “I’ll need some things to get started.”

  “Get me a list,” Ben said.

  “A lot of things,” James said, as if still trying to impress upon Ben the expense of the project.

  “Then get me a long list,” Ben said, smiling.

  James looked Ben up and down, sizing him up. “There’s one more thing,” he finally said.

  Ben looked at him expectantly.

  “I’m gonna need some help,” James said.

  A broad smile spread across Ben Jordan’s face. “I was just waiting for you to ask.”

  Ben gave James a set of keys to the old service station, and he had the electricity and the water turned on so James could work there whenever he wished. James spent his spare time during the first week cleaning what would be his workshop, ridding it of the debris that appeared to have been left behind when the service station closed. When Ben
purchased the station three years earlier, he’d managed to clear enough room in the shop for his boat, but since then had done little else to make the space functional. That, it seemed, was left to James, and before long he had a more than adequate space in which to work.

  In the short time he knew Ben Jordan, James found him to be a likable fellow. Despite his wealth, and whatever assumptions James might have drawn as a result of it, he found Ben to be completely without greed or pretense. He never outwardly flaunted his wealth, nor did he make any apologies for it. He simply drew upon what seemed to be a bottomless pool of resources, not frivolously, but rather as a means to an end. The money, James observed, seemed irrelevant to him, aside from the fact that it gave him the freedom to pursue his interests without trepidation or compromise. If there was status associated with what he’d accumulated over the years, he was unconcerned with it, if not entirely oblivious to it.

  Though he did not know Ben’s circumstances, he assumed that Ben Jordan did not inherit old money. He was casual about his wealth but he didn’t give the air of someone who took it for granted, and from that James surmised that Ben had come into his fortune on his own, through hard work and sacrifice. In time, James would come to know a good deal more about Ben Jordan. For now, he knew only that he enjoyed Ben’s company. Even during those early interactions, James felt a connection with him, although it would be some time before he would learn the full measure of the bond they would one day share.

  What he did notice about his new friend was that he we was discreet about his past. As he grew more comfortable with James, Ben was refreshingly free with conversation, most of which centered around their shared affinity for antique boats, their mutual respect for a solid Yankee work ethic, and the ins and outs of life on Mount Desert Island. He discovered early on that Ben was particularly discreet, even evasive, regarding details about his childhood and the war, and only rarely did he ever discuss his brief marriage. On occasion he mentioned his wife in passing, and there was something about the way he referred to her as ‘my Rose’, always pausing at the sound of her name as if he were picturing her face, that led James to the conclusion that hers was a sacred memory. For that reason, he resisted the urge to ask too many questions.