nine

RISK IS SOMETHING to which I have an aversion. When you have played by cautious rules your entire life – and you fear what could happen if you stepped away from routine and put your foot into uncertain waters – the idea of going toward something weighed down with potential danger is not an easy one …

But here I was, driving toward Westwood. Knowing I was putting myself back into the story of all that happened last week at that clinic in Van Nuys. Knowing that I wanted to do just that … if just to learn more about that security guard who died and who continued to spook me. Perhaps because part of me kept thinking: the moments he spent confronting me might have cost him his life.

I also wondered: would lightning strike again? Would I be driving her right back into potential danger? Still, it had been reported on the radio that every abortion clinic in the Greater Los Angeles area had beefed up security in the wake of the Van Nuys attack. I tried to feel reassured by that. Just as another part of me now thought: fuck the fear.

But as I got closer to her address another question kept nagging at me: why did she call me directly? Why didn’t she just order an Uber normally – and get whatever driver was assigned to her by the big computer in the sky?

That was my first question to her after we drove away from 1710 Malcolm Avenue.

‘I called you,’ she said, ‘because, after all that happened, I felt immense guilt about dragging you into this literal inferno. Are you okay?’

‘I’m here. Unlike that security guard. Was he a friend?’

‘A colleague. Not someone I knew well – but Jose always struck me as a good guy. I went to see his widow a few days ago. Felicia. She’s just twenty-eight, with two kids to now support and bring up alone. A boy and a girl, seven and five, who can’t work out why their father was murdered. Felicia told me that Jose was working three jobs and managing to somehow cover their bills. He had no life insurance, no savings. And she had done bartending jobs – but with two young kids she can only work just a few hours a day. There’s no way she can make next month’s rent on their little house in Lakeview Terrace. I paid it straightaway – but in the long term the family is probably facing eviction unless we can get some sort of emergency fund together. Their prospects are bleak. I wish I had the money to pay their rent for a year.’

‘I hear you.’

‘I’m sure you do. How long have you been doing this?’