The Attitude Adjuster: Three Cavanaugh/Protector Stories

by David Morrell

  “There are plenty like him,” Cavanaugh added. “Thousands of people lost their jobs because of you. Their pensions are worthless. They can’t pay their mortgages or feed their families. Their lives are destroyed. All because you did whatever you wanted whenever you felt like it.”

  “Big gains require big risks.”

  “Keep telling yourself that in prison. Did you figure the first three attempts to kill you were only the beginning? Novak was behind them, incidentally. He couldn’t stand you anymore than anybody else does. Did the explosion at your Cape Cod property give you the idea to arrange for the last two explosions on your own, so when your boat blew apart, people would decide you were blown apart also and finally give up searching for you?”

  “Something like that.” Dant glared. “How the hell did you find me?”

  “Once we figured out what you were doing, it became a matter of asking the right questions,” Jamie answered. “Naturally you’d want to change your appearance. After that, you’d want to hole up someplace remote for a couple of years until you felt it was safe to return with a new identity. What property did your companies own that would be useful to you, particularly in terms of your appetite for female companionship? We spent months going through your records. One of your shadow companies bought this island just before your empire started to teeter. That seemed a good clue. So did the half-dressed native women.”

  “Damn it, why couldn’t you leave me alone? I gave you a generous check.”

  “Which bounced. But that’s not what pissed me off,” Cavanaugh said. “I told you protecting people is a very personal thing for me, but you treated it like a joke.”

  “I needed to. It was part of the act. I had to show I was so determined to do what I wanted, that I was so controlling, even the best bodyguards couldn’t have kept me from getting on that boat.”

  “Protectors, not bodyguards.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Now you’re the one who’ll be controlled.”

  THE ATTITUDE ADJUSTER

  A road-renovation crew. Trucks, grinders, rollers. Only one lane of traffic is open. As you drive toward the dust and noise, a man holds a pole with a sign at the top. The pole’s bottom rests on the dirt, so all he needs to do is turn the shaft to show you one side of the sign or the other. SLOW, you are directed, or else STOP.

  The man is tall and scarecrow lanky, exuding the impression of sinewy strength. He wears battered work boots, faded jeans, and an old blue work shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing a rose tattoo above the hand with which he holds the pole. His shirt has sweat blotches. His face is narrow, sun-browned, and weather-creased. He wears a yellow vest and hardhat.

  According to the radio’s weather forecaster, the temperature on this Illinois August day is ninety degrees Fahrenheit, with eighty-seven percent humidity. But the sun radiates off the road, increasing the temperature to one hundred and five. Because the project is behind schedule, the man is required to work overtime. He holds that sign twelve hours a day—for the past three months. You’ve seen countless versions of him. Passing him, you might wonder what he thinks.

  Stupid son of a bitch. Sits in his damned air-conditioned SUV, stares at my sign, speeds past, almost hits me, throws dust in my face. Can’t you read, you moron? The sign says SLOW! One of these days, I’ll whack this pole against a fender, hell, through a window. Teach these bastards to show respect. Everybody’s got a snotty attitude. Here comes another guy barreling toward me. King of the road. Hey, see this sign I’m pointing at, dummy! SLOW! It says SLOW!

  The man’s name is Barry Pollard. He is thirty-nine, but years of working outdoors have made him look much older. His previous jobs involved strenuous physical labor, lifting, carrying, digging, hammering, which he never minded because he felt content when he had something to fill the time, to weary him and shut off his thoughts. But months of nothing to do except stand in the middle of the road, hold the sign, and watch motorists ignore it have given him plenty of opportunity to draw conclusions about the passing world.

  Dodo, how’d you ever get a driver’s license if you can’t read? The sign says SLOW. For God’s sake, you came so close, you almost knocked it out of my hand. You think you can do whatever you want. That’s what’s wrong these days. Nobody pays attention to the rules. When I was a kid, if I even thought about doing something my old man didn’t like, he set down his beer can and punched me to the floor. Certainly taught me right from wrong. “You’ve got a bad attitude,” he used to tell me. “We gotta correct it.” From what I’ve seen the past three months, there’s a lot of bad attitudes that need correcting.

  A voice squawked from a walkie-talkie hooked to Barry’s belt. “Okay, that’s enough cars going north for a while. Stop ’em at your end while the cars on my side get a chance to go through.”

  “Roger,” Barry said into the walkie-talkie, feeling a little like he was in the military. He swung his sign so the message now read STOP.

  A guy in a van tried to go past.

  “Hey!” Barry shouted and jerked his sign down in front of the windshield.

  The guy barely stopped before the pole would have cracked the glass.

  “Back up and get off the road!” Barry shouted. “There’s a bunch of cars coming this way!”

  Red-faced, the guy charged from the van. “You almost broke my windshield!”

  “I could have, but I didn’t!” Barry said. “Maybe next time!”

  “You jerk, I ought to—”

  Barry pointed the pole at the guy. “Oughta what? I told you to back up your van and get off the road. You’re interfering with the project.”

  “You could’ve waited to stop traffic until I went past!”

  “When the boss tells me to stop vehicles, I do it. You think you’re more important than the guy in the car behind you? I should stop him but not you?”

  “I’ve got a job I need to get to!”

  “And he doesn’t have some place to go? You think you’re a big shot? A VIP? That stands for Very Important Prick. An attitude like yours, it’s no wonder the country’s going to hell. Here comes the other traffic, bozo! Move your vehicle.”

  The guy spit on Barry’s work boots, then stormed back to his van.

  Barry stared down at the spit.

  A sign on the van read MIDWEST CABLE AND HIGH-SPEED INTERNET INSTALLATION. A phone number was under it. As the guy got into the truck and backed from approaching traffic, Barry took his cell phone from his belt and pressed numbers.

  “Midwest Cable,” a female voice said.

  “One of your installers was at my place today. He did such a good job, I thought I’d phone and tell you how impressed I am.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Just a second. I’ve got his . . . Of all the . . . Dumb me, I lost the card he gave me. He’s about forty-five. Kind of on the heavy side. Real short red hair.”

  “Yeah, that’s Fred Harriman.”

  “He did a great job.”

  At seven, after the job shut down for the day, Barry drove home, looked up Fred Harriman’s address on the Internet’s White Pages and made a note of it. He waited a month, wanting to be certain that no one at the cable company would remember his phone call. At last, he drove to Fred’s neighborhood, passed a blue ranch house with two big flowerbeds, saw a pickup truck in the driveway, and stopped at a park down the street. With lots of other cars near him, no one paid attention as Barry watched the truck. Soon, the sun went down, and the people in the park went home, but Barry continued watching. Lights glowed through the front windows.

  At nine thirty, as Barry began to worry that a police car would cruise the area and wonder why he was sitting alone in a car in the dark, the front door opened. Fred came out, got in the truck, and drove away.

  Barry followed him to a bar called the Seventh Inning Stretch, where Fred joined a couple of buddies at a table, drank a pitcher of beer, and watched the end of a baseball game. They cursed when the Cubs didn’t win. Fred was su
ch a putz, he didn’t notice Barry watching among drinkers in the background. But Barry was gone when they paid for their beers.

  In the shadowy parking lot, they made a couple of jokes. One of them burped. The others laughed. They went to their separate vehicles. Fred got to his about the same time the others got to theirs. He climbed into the truck, started to drive away, then felt that the truck handled wrong, and got out. The shadows were so dense that he needed to crouch to see the flat tire on the front passenger side. He cursed more seriously than when the Cubs lost. His pals were gone. As he straightened and turned toward the locked tool kit in back of his truck, he groaned from a two-by-four to the side of his jaw, although he never knew what hit him or saw who did it. Barry felt the satisfying crunch of flesh and crack of bone. To make it look like a mugging, Barry took all the cash from Fred’s wallet.

  Two weeks later, the roadwork was finished. With time on his hands, Barry unhappily discovered that everywhere he went, people had attitude problems. A guy in a sports car cut him off at an intersection and gave him the finger when Barry blared his horn. A woman pushed in front of him at Starbuck’s. A clerk at a convenience store made him wait while the clerk used the store’s phone to gab with his girlfriend. A waiter at a diner brought him a bacon and tomato sandwich that had mayonnaise, even though Barry had distinctly told him he didn’t want any mayo. When Barry complained, the waiter took the sandwich away and brought a replacement, but when Barry opened it, he saw traces of white. All the waiter had done was scrape some off.

  In movie theaters, people wouldn’t stop talking.

  “That cop better stay out of that warehouse,” a woman said, pointing at the screen.

  “Yeah, he should radio for backup,” the man next to her said.

  “He didn’t radio for backup when he searched the abandoned house, either, the woman said.

  “Well, if he did, the stupid writers wouldn’t have a plot.”

  “Please, be quiet,” Barry said behind them.

  “And look at this. The lights don’t work, and he doesn’t have a flashlight, but he’s going inside anyhow.”

  “Please, don’t talk during the movie,” Barry said.

  “Yep, here’s the vampire sneaking up on—”

  “SHUT THE HELL UP!”

  The man turned and glared. “Have you got a problem, buddy?”

  “This isn’t your living room! I’m trying to—”

  “You want me to shut up?”

  “That’s what I’ve been telling you.”

  “Make me.”

  Barry left the theater, waited outside, followed the couple home, put a ski mask over his head, and taught them to shut up by knocking their teeth out. Then he smashed all their TV sets and set fire to their car. He took money from the guy’s wallet and the woman’s purse. Another job well done.

  * * *

  “There, your computer system’s updated,” the technician said.

  “High-speed Internet.” Barry marveled. “I figured it was time I joined the twenty-first century.”

  He found an online company that specialized in surveillance equipment.

  FOLLOW ANYBODY ANYWHERE, an ad announced. JUST HIDE THIS TINY RADIO TRANSMITTER ON THEIR CLOTHES OR IN THEIR BRIEFCASE OR THEIR PURSE. IT GIVES OFF A SILENT BEEP THAT ONLY YOU CAN HEAR THROUGH YOUR MATCHING RADIO RECEIVER.

  But when Barry got the transmitter, it was the size of a walkie-talkie and the even-larger radio receiver needed to be less than thirty feet from the transmitter or else Barry couldn’t hear the beep.

  He sent an email, asking for his money back, but never received an answer. He repeatedly phoned the number on the company’s website, but all he ever heard was a recorded message, telling him that “every available technician is talking with another customer.”

  Barry drove four hours to St. Louis, where the company had its post-office box. From his car in the parking lot outside the post office, he stared through windows toward the company’s PO box. After a rumpled guy took envelopes from the box, Barry followed him to an office above an escort service. When Barry finished teaching the guy the error of his ways, he had his money back, plus the guy’s driver’s license and his FOLLOW ANYBODY ANYWHERE business card, which allowed Barry to cash all the checks in the envelopes.

  Compensation for my time, Barry thought. It’s only fair.

  Back home after the long drive, he counted his money yet again, almost eight hundred dollars, and opened yet another beer. Sure beats standing on the road, holding that damned sign. He chased a shot of bourbon with a gulp of beer and told himself that he was actually performing a public service. Protecting people from jerks. You bet. Teaching bozos to mend their ways.

  He slumped on his sofa, chuckling at the thought that some guys with attitude problems might even be thankful if Barry set them straight. For all I know, they’re ashamed of being dorks. Like my father said, everybody knows they need direction.

  Amused, Barry staggered to his computer. Alcohol made his fingers clumsy. He thanked God for the computer’s spell-check program. After all, he needed to make the proper impression.

  EBOD

  THE ADULT ALTERNATIVE TO EBAY

  LOWER COMMISSION—LESS MONITORING—MORE FUN

  SELLERS ASSUME ALL RESPONSIBILITIES FOR LISTING ITEMS

  I WILL ADJUST YOUR WAYS

  ITEM 44735ABQE

  High bidder receives an attitude adjustment.

  I am strong and tough from years of outdoor work. If you win this auction, I will teach you to walk the straight and narrow. I promise not to cripple or kill you. No weapons, just my boots and fists. Maybe a club, depending on how much your attitude needs adjusting.

  Barry chuckled.

  I will perform this service only if you promise not to resist and not to have me arrested afterward.

  Clever point, Barry thought.

  You will provide travel expenses and directions to your home and work. You will also provide motel expenses, but these should be low because I plan to do the job swiftly so that I can proceed to giving adjustments to other people. I will pick a time that you least expect. Perhaps while you’re asleep or in the bathroom or going to work. During your adjustment, I may be forced to break windows or furniture. The costs for these are your responsibility. If you have a family or whatever, warn them to stay out of my way unless you want their attitudes adjusted also.

  Ha! Barry thought.

  No checks or PAYPAL. I accept only money orders made out to CASH. Good luck.

  * * *

  The next morning, Barry foggily remembered what he had done and cursed himself for wasting time when he could have continued drinking. EBod was part of a porn site, for God’s sake. The only reason he’d used it was that eBay wouldn’t have allowed him to post his auction. For all he knew, nobody visited that portion of the site.

  Anyway, who’s going to bid on getting beat up? he asked himself.

  To prove his point, all week he didn’t get a response.Then, on Sunday, with a half hour left in the auction, he received the following:

  QUESTION TO SELLER

  I thought about your auction quite a while: all week, every day and

  night. I have done something bad that makes me feel awful. I can’t

  stop thinking about it. I need to be punished. How could I have done

  such a terrible thing? Are you serious that you won’t kill me? I’m a

  devout Roman Catholic, and if you kill me, God might see it as a

  kind of suicide. Then I’d go to Hell. I need to know that you won’t

  endanger my soul, which is in danger enough already.

  * * *

  Dan Yates stuck the OPEN HOUSE sign into the lush lawn and walked past rose bushes toward the two-story Spanish Colonial Revival. Another sign was prominently displayed, YATES REALTY, under which was a phone number and a website address. Dan wore a navy sport coat, white shirt, and conservative striped tie. He paused on the porch and surveyed the handsome yard and pleasant neighborhood,
nodding with confidence that someone would make an offer by the end of the afternoon.

  Dan left the front door open and proceeded to the kitchen, where he brewed coffee and arranged cookies next to bowls of peanuts and potato chips. He set out bottled water and canned soft drinks. He stacked brochures with eye-catching photographs of the house and information about it. The asking price was $899,000. Two months ago, it had been $939,000. With low mortgage rates and the housing market starting to return, he felt sure that the house would sell for $889,000, close to what the sellers wanted.

  His preparations completed, Dan gave his best smile to his first visitors, a man and a woman, who were obviously impressed by the marble-topped kitchen counter but tried not to show it. Thirty seconds later, another couple arrived, then another soon after, and the show was on.

  “The house is three years old. This subdivision used to be the Huntington Beach airport. As you can see, there’s no house behind you, only this low attractive wall, beyond which is a Mormon church. Very quiet. Plenty of sky. You attend that church? The Latter Day Saints? My, this house would certainly be convenient for you. On Sundays, you could practically crawl over the wall and go to services. The subdivision has its own swimming pool and park. There’s a golf course down the street as well as a shopping center three blocks away and a school three blocks in the other direction. You’ve heard the old saying about what makes property valuable? Location, location, location. Ten minutes to the beach. Honestly, this has it all.”