The Attitude Adjuster: Three Cavanaugh/Protector Stories

by David Morrell

  And so it went, forty visitors, three promises to make offers and one firm offer for cash. Not a bad afternoon’s work, Dan thought.

  “The owners are visiting family in Seattle,” he told the prospective buyers. “I’ll fax the material to them. They have until noon tomorrow to respond. I’ll let you know what they say as soon as possible.”

  Dan escorted the couple to the door, checked his watch, saw that the hours for the open house were over, and allowed himself to relax. When the last visitors drove away, he went to the street and put the OPEN HOUSE sign in his SUV. He returned to the kitchen, where he cleaned the coffee maker and cups. He put all the empty cans and bottles into a garbage bag along with the coffee grounds and the remnants of the cookies, the peanuts, and the potato chips.

  The Baxters are coming for dinner, he thought. Laura’s expecting me to bring home the steaks. I’d better hurry.

  Giving the kitchen a final inspection, Dan saw movement to the right and turned toward a lanky man standing in the doorway to the living room. The guy had a creased, rugged face. He wore sneakers, jeans, and a pullover. His hair was scraggly.

  “I’m sorry,” Dan said. “The open house is over. I was just about to leave and lock up.”

  “I warned you I’d show up when you least expected,” the man said.

  “Excuse me?” Dan asked.

  “You’ve been bad.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Your attitude adjustment.”

  “Adjustment?”

  “The one you paid for. You’re Dan Yates, correct?”

  “That’s my name, but—”

  “Two-One-Five Sunnyvale Lane?”

  “How do you know my—”

  “No sense in putting it off.” The guy rolled up his long sleeves, as if preparing for physical labor. He had a rose tattoo on his right forearm.

  “Look, I don’t get the joke,” Dan said. “Now if you’ll come with me, we’ll just step outside and—”

  “No joke. You bid on the attitude adjustment. You won the auction. Now you get what you paid for. I don’t know what you did that was so terrible, but I swear I’ll ease your conscience. You’ll be sore, but you’ll feel a whole lot better after I finish with you.”

  Dan reached for his cell phone. The man threw it against the wall, punched him in the stomach, kneed him in the face, whacked his cheek, struck his nose, then started beating him in earnest.

  At five, when Dan didn’t return home with the steaks for the dinner with the Baxters, his wife called his cell phone. An electronic voice announced, “That number is out of service.” Out of service? What was going on? Laura called several more times, with the same response. The Baxters arrived at six. At seven, when Dan still hadn’t arrived, Laura phoned the police, but no one named Dan Yates had been reported in a traffic accident. The Baxters agreed to watch the Yates’s ten-year-old daughter while Laura went to where Dan had the open house. The front door was unlocked. She found him unconscious on the kitchen’s marble floor, lying in a pool of blood.

  “Fractured arm, ribs, and clavicle,” an emergency-ward doctor told her after an ambulance hurried Dan to the nearest hospital.

  “Auction. Rose tattoo,” Dan murmured as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

  “Must be the pain killers. The poor guy’s delirious,” a police detective said.

  * * *

  Barry, who had never been to California, used the generous travel fee he’d demanded to stay a few extra days. He watched the surfers near Huntington Beach’s famous pier. He planned to drive north to Los Angeles and cruise Hollywood Boulevard, then head up to Malibu. With luck, he’d cross paths with movie stars.

  Those plans ended when he read the next morning’s edition of the Orange County Register. With increasing anger, he learned that Dan Yates had attempted to identify him.

  Auction. Rose tattoo. That wasn’t the damned deal! Barry thought as joggers passed him at the beach. You weren’t supposed to resist, and you weren’t supposed to try to have me arrested afterward! Doesn’t anybody keep his word? Didn’t I adjust your attitude hard enough?

  In the hospital’s lobby, he requested the number for Dan Yates’s room.

  “Are you a member of his family?” the receptionist asked.

  “His brother. When I heard Dan was in the hospital—I still can’t believe it—I drove all the way from Phoenix.”

  “Room eight forty-two.”

  One of many things Barry had learned while holding the sign for the road crew was that people got so absorbed in their affairs, they didn’t pay attention to what was around them. They’d drive over you before they noticed you. Walking along the hospital corridor, a newspaper in one hand, a bunch of flowers in the other, just one of many visitors, Barry might as well have been invisible. The door to room eight forty-two was open. He passed it, glancing in at banged-up Dan lying in a bed, the only patient in the room. Dan’s face looked like an uncooked beefsteak. Various monitors were attached to him. An IV tube led into his arm.

  I’d almost feel sorry for you if you hadn’t broken our deal, Barry thought.

  A not-bad-looking woman sat next to Dan. Roughly Dan’s age, she was pale with worry. The wife, Barry decided.

  That was all he saw as he continued down the corridor. He went into a men’s room, lingered, then came out, and returned along the corridor. Visiting hours were almost over. People emerged from various rooms and headed toward the elevators. The woman left Dan’s room and did the same.

  Barry went into Dan’s room and used a knee to close the door so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints. He set down the flowers and pulled his shirtsleeve over his hand, again so he wouldn’t leave fingerprints. He turned off the monitors, grabbed a hospital gown from a table, shielded himself, pulled a section of garden hose from the newspaper he’d brought, and whacked Dan several times across the face. Blood flew. He set the crimson-soaked section of hose on Dan’s chest, dropped the spattered gown on the floor, opened the door, and went down the corridor with the other departing visitors.

  Twenty seconds, Barry thought. Damned good.

  * * *

  A nurse went into Dan’s room. She was used to seeing blood in a hospital, but not this much. Screaming, she rang for an emergency team, then hurried to turn on the monitors, which immediately began wailing, the waves and numbers showing that at least Dan was still alive.

  * * *

  From: Laura Yates

  To:

  Subject: trouble, postpone visit

  Jamie, I hate to do this at the last minute, but I’ve been so worried and tired that I haven’t had the time or energy to send an email. I’ve got so much trouble. I need to withdraw my invitation for you and your husband to stay with us for a few days while you’re in LA on business. Dan was nearly beaten to death on Sunday afternoon at an open house he was giving. Then he was beaten again in his hospital room. We have no idea who on Earth did it or why. I spend so much time with him at the hospital that I won’t be able to see you. Plus, I’m so sick with worry that I won’t be very good company. Sorry. I was looking forward to meeting your husband and reminiscing about our sorority days. Life can sure change quickly. Laura.

  * * *

  From: Jamie Travers

  To:

  Subject: coming regardless

  Laura, Since we’re in the area, we’ve decided to visit you anyhow. But you won’t need to babysit us. This won’t exactly be a social occasion. My husband’s in a line of work that might be helpful to you. I’m pretty good at it myself. Apologies for sounding mysterious. It’s too complicated to explain in an email. Kind of a secret life I have. All will be revealed tomorrow. What’s the name and address of the hospital? Can we meet you there at noon? We’ll see if we can sort this out. Don’t despair. Love, Jamie.

  * * *

  Although Laura hadn’t seen Jamie in five years, her former college roommate looked as ra
diant as ever. Five feet ten, with a jogger’s slim build. A model’s narrow chin and high cheek bones. Long brunette hair. Bright green eyes. She wore brown linen slacks, and a loose-fitting jacket over a beige blouse. But Laura processed these details only later, so distracted by her emotions that all she wanted to do was hug Jamie as she came into the room.

  Laura wept again. She’d been doing a lot of it. “I’m so glad to see you.”

  “You couldn’t have kept me away,” Jamie assured her.

  Laura’s tear-blurred gaze drifted toward the man next to her.

  “This is my husband,” Jamie said proudly. “His name’s Cavanaugh. And this is my good friend Laura,” she told her husband. “She and I raised a lot of hell at Wellesley.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” the man said.

  Again, Laura paid attention to his appearance only later. He was around six-feet tall, not muscular but somehow solid looking. Handsome, with a strong chin that somehow didn’t intimidate. Hair that wasn’t quite brown and not quite sandy, not long but not short. Alert eyes that were hazel and yet seemed to reflect the blue of his loose sports coat. He had an odd-looking black metal clip on the outside of a pants pocket. But all that mattered was his handshake, which was firm yet gentle and seemed to communicate a reassurance that as long as you were with him, you were secure.

  “Cavanaugh?” she asked. “What’s your first name?”

  “Actually”—he grinned—“I’ve gotten in the habit of just being called ‘Cavanaugh’.”

  Laura looked at Jamie. “You call him by his last name?”

  “It’s sort of complicated,” Jamie said.

  “But it sounds kind of cold.”

  “Well, when I want to be friendly, I call him something else.”

  “What’s that?”

  “ ‘Lover.’ ”

  “Perhaps I should leave the room,” Cavanaugh said.

  “No, stick around,” Jamie said. “We’re finished talking about you. You’re not the center of attention anymore.”

  Cavanaugh nodded. “Exactly. He is.”

  They turned toward Dan, who lay unconscious in a hospital bed, all sorts of equipment and tubes linked to him. His face was purple with bruises.

  “Laura, the initials GPS on my website address stand for Global Protective Services,” Jamie said. “My husband watches over people in trouble. He takes care of them. He’s a protector.”

  Laura frowned, puzzled.

  “Sometimes I help,” Jamie said. “That’s why we’re here. To find out what happened.”

  “And make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Cavanaugh said.

  “But I don’t know what happened, only that Dan was attacked. Twice.” Laura’s voice shook.

  “Tell us what you can,” Jamie said. “Tell us about Sunday.”

  Ten minutes later, wiping more tears from her cheeks, Laura finished explaining.

  “I don’t understand any of it.” Laura raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  “Has Dan been able to say anything?” Jamie asked.

  “Nothing that makes sense.”

  Unconscious, Dan fidgeted and groaned.

  Cavanaugh studied the room and frowned. “Why isn’t someone watching the door?”

  “The police said they don’t have the budget to keep an officer here.”

  “Jamie said you had a daughter.”

  “Yes. Bethany. She’s ten-years-old.”

  “And where is she now?”

  “At school. I need to pick her up at three. She’s worried sick about her father.”

  Cavanaugh pulled out his cell phone and pressed numbers.

  “Vince,” he said when someone answered, “can you bear it if you don’t do any sightseeing in LA? I need you to come down to Huntington Beach.” Cavanaugh mentioned the name of the hospital. “A patient needs watching. Dan Yates. Jamie went to college with his wife. That’s right—this one’s for friendship. I’ll fill you in when you get here. If Gwen’s available, bring her with you. A little girl needs watching also. Great. Thanks, my friend.”

  Cavanaugh put away his phone and told Laura, “They’re a brother and sister team. We brought them with us on the Gulfstream for a job that starts two days from now.”

  “Gulfstream?” Laura looked more bewildered.

  “Global Protective Services has a lot of resources,” Jamie said. “That’s why I married him.”

  It was a joke. Jamie, who sold a promising dot-com company during the Internet stock frenzy of the 1990s, owned plenty of resources of her own.

  “Laura, we need to ask the obvious question,” Jamie continued. “Does Dan have any enemies?”

  “Enemies?” Laura made the word sound meaningless.

  “Surely, the police asked you the same question.”

  “Yes, but . . . Enemies? Dan’s the nicest man in the world. Everybody likes him.”

  “From everything Jamie told me, he’s kind and decent,” Cavanaugh agreed.

  “That’s right.”

  “A loving husband. An attentive father.”

  Laura wiped her eyes. “Absolutely.”

  “Good-natured. Generous.”

  Laura frowned. “Where are you going with this?”

  “In my experience, a certain type of person hates those virtues,” Cavanaugh said. “Despises anyone who exhibits them. Takes for granted that someone who’s kind and good-natured is weak. Assumes he or she is a mark to be exploited.”

  Laura looked at Jamie in confusion and then again at Cavanaugh. “That’s awfully cynical, don’t you think?”

  “I work in a cynical profession,” Cavanaugh said. “You’d be surprised how many kind, good-natured, generous people have enemies.”

  Laura, who’d been thinking a lot about the times she and Jamie shared at Wellesley, recalled an American fiction course they’d taken. “Billy Budd?” She referred to a work by Herman Melville, in which a ship’s officer hates a kind-hearted sailor simply because he’s kind-hearted.

  “Something like that,” Cavanaugh said. “Some people—sociopaths—get their kicks taking advantage of what they consider weakness.”

  “Then anybody could be Dan’s enemy.”

  “It’s just something to think about,” Jamie said. “The point is, often the enemy isn’t obvious.”

  “Often, it’s someone who appears to be a close friend,” Cavanaugh said. “You mentioned Billy Budd. Think about Iago in Othello.”

  Again Laura looked at Jamie. She might have been trying to change the subject. “I doubt many bodyguards know Shakespeare.”

  “Not a bodyguard,” Jamie said. “A protector. As you’ll see, there’s a difference. We need to consider something else, Laura. Please, don’t take this wrong. Don’t be offended. Are you absolutely certain Dan’s faithful to you?”

  “What?” Laura’s cheeks reddened.

  “Stalkers tend to be motivated by sexual anger,” Cavanaugh said. “If Dan were having an affair, if the woman were married, the husband might have been furious enough to attack Dan. Or if Dan tried to call off the affair, the woman might have hired someone to put him in the hospital. ‘Keep our agreement, jerk, or you’ll get an even worse adjustment.’ The note can be interpreted to fit that scenario.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

  “I understand,” Cavanaugh said. “I’m a stranger, and suddenly I’m asking rude questions. I apologize. But I did need to ask, and now it’s important for you to look at your world in a way you never imagined. Suppose someone thought Dan was making sexual overtures even when he was perfectly innocent. Did you ever have a fleeting suspicion that someone was needlessly jealous? If we’re going to find who did this to your husband and stop it from happening again, we might need to suspect what seemingly couldn’t be suspected.”

  Laura eased into a chair. “I don’t feel well.”

  “I’m surprised you’re holding up as strongly as you are,” Cavanaugh said. “Why don’t you let Jamie take you home? Ther
e’s nothing you can do for Dan at the moment. Get some rest.”

  Laura looked at Dan, where he lay unconscious in the bed. “But . . .”

  “I’ll stay with him. Nothing’s going to happen to him while I’m here. I promise.”

  Laura studied Cavanaugh for several long seconds. “Yes,” she finally said. “I could use some rest.”

  Jamie helped her to stand. As they walked toward the door, Laura turned and studied Cavanaugh again. “What’s that metal clip on the outside of your pants pocket?”

  “This?” Cavanaugh pulled on the clip and withdrew a black folding knife from the pocket. With a flick of his thumb, he opened the blade. He touched his loose-fitting jacket. “I also carry a firearm that I have a permit for.”

  “So do I,” Jamie said.

  Bewildered but more certain of the reassurance they communicated, Laura let Jamie guide her from the room.

  * * *

  Cavanaugh identified himself to a nurse and doctor who came in. Although they frowned, they seemed relieved by his presence. Sitting next to the door, out of sight from the hallway, he performed the hardest, tensest activity in his profession: waiting. Bodyguards might pass the time by reading, but protectors didn’t distract themselves—they kept their hands free and watched.

  In a while, he sensed a change in Dan and glanced toward the bed, keeping most of his attention on the doorway.

  Dan’s bloodshot eyes were open, squinting. “Who . . .”

  “I’m a friend.”

  Dan’s eyes closed.

  In a further while, a man walked into the room. Like Cavanaugh, he had strong-looking shoulders and wore a loose sport coat. He looked immediately toward Cavanaugh’s sheltered position next to the door, as if that were the proper place for Cavanaugh to be.