Fear Has a Name: A Novel (32 page)

“That’s enough, LJ.” Travis headed for the door. “Jack’s gotta get to work and I gotta get over to see Daddy. Oh, that’s right …” Travis rattled around in a drawer until he found a brown bag. “I told him I’d bring him some biscuits.” He dropped three in the bag and wrung it closed. “That’ll do it. You ready?”

“Yep.” Jack followed him to the door. “Look, I’m not promising anything, but if I can get my editor to agree, would you guys be willing to give me names and details?”

“Shoot, yeah. Daddy’s got all the facts. You need to talk to him.” LJ stretched his long arms, touched the low ceiling, ran his fingers through his thin hair, and snapped the elastic band that held the eye patch in place. “But I bet you a six-pack you won’t do nothin’—beverage of your choice.”

Jack reached his hand out and it was engulfed by LJ’s massive, calloused paw, clean except for the dirt beneath his fingernails.

“You’re on.”

CHAPTER 2

It was getting light and snowing when Travis dropped Jack out front of the big
Dispatch
building downtown. From there, Travis rocked and rolled his dark green Jeep Wrangler through Trenton City slush puddles and back streets, on over to visitor parking at Cook County Hospital.

Up on the modern fourth floor, he quietly entered the dark, sterile-smelling room. Daddy was upright in bed, sleeping. Travis set the bag of biscuits down, then went to the window and pulled up the blind, knowing his father would want to see out when he awoke. His color looked better, more like the ruddy brownish-reddish color he usually was.

Travis ducked back out into the hallway, keeping the door open with his foot. “Excuse me—Candace, is it?” He addressed a plump young nurse in aqua scrubs, whose shiny brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

“Yes?” Her eyes shifted and cheeks reddened, as if she was surprised he knew her name.

Shoot, they’d been there how many days now?

“Has Galen Randall eaten breakfast yet? Right here in 411?”

She looked at her watch. “It should be coming soon. You’re one of the sons, right?”

“Travis.” He nodded. “I know I asked this before, but can he have waffles ’stead of eggs?”

“They should know that by now in the kitchen.”

Travis smiled and went back into the room, doubting they would get the order right. People didn’t care about their jobs anymore. Not like Daddy had taught LJ and him—to do your job well, respect others, please the customer, go the extra mile.

Travis sat himself down in the green vinyl chair. His father was fit as a fiddle for seventy-eight. He only stood about five foot nine, but he was lean and stubbornly strong. His forearms were thick and his hands were small and tough as metal. He could reach unreachable places on an engine, unscrew things, bend, clamp, tighten, and manipulate a motor like most people couldn’t do with a full set of tools. And nothing ever seemed to hurt those hands, or him—until now.

His father’s face was full of gray beard stubble. He looked older. Of course he had to be fatigued from all this hospital business. They still had the oxygen tube stuck up his nose, but it looked like they had reduced his IVs from two bags of fluid to one.
Good.

Travis just hoped he could get Daddy home soon, because that house and that garage and that piece of property were his life, especially since Momma died. He’d been going to church quite a bit since then, too, and that seemed to give him a lot of comfort, which was fine with Travis. Daddy even managed to get LJ and him to church once in awhile, when he promised to take them to Ryan’s afterward for the all-you-can-eat buffet.

It wasn’t like Daddy to sleep late, but he was probably still drugged up. Travis stood, took his parka off, and laid it over the chair so Daddy would see it when he awoke. Then he set out to get a paper and some of the vending machine coffee he “loved” so much.

He had the route down pat—out the door, turn right, down the hall, around the nurses’ station. He admired nurses and doctors—people who helped people. Maybe they didn’t make them like they used to, but most were still compassionate and good at comforting those who were hurting in all kinds of ways.

The cramped sitting room was bordered by red chairs. Only one was occupied, by a middle-aged man with blond hair and a cleft lip that had been surgically repaired, and poorly at that. He wore a black overcoat and sat hunched over, elbows on knees, cell phone glued to ear. Several coffee tables were strewn with newspapers and magazines. A TV in the corner blared
Good Morning America
. The vending machines were in a nook off to one side.

The seated man didn’t acknowledge Travis, which he thought was rude. But the man looked like he was in a pretty deep discussion and, who knew, his wife or momma or daddy might be on their deathbed.

Travis put his money in and hit dark roast. It was as weak as the coffee they served at Daddy’s church, but he needed some go-joe. He picked up the steaming cup from the machine and turned around, and the blond man was gone.
Good.
He plopped down on the edge of a chair and went through the reading materials.

Wouldn’t you know it … smack-dab on top was a recent Sunday edition of the
Trenton City Dispatch,
featuring a huge color picture of Leonard Bendickson III, CEO of Demler-Vargus. And sure enough, it was written by none other than their buddy Jack Crittendon, who had just ridden in Travis’s Jeep!

How do you like them apples?

Bendickson’s picture had been taken as he stood inside the plant in an expensive-looking suit with a roll of blueprints under one arm, a hard hat and goggles on his head, one shiny shoe perched on the edge of a fancy fiberglass boat. Behind him was a massive puzzle of heavy-duty machinery, tanks, air ducts, conveyor belts, tubes, scaffolding, drums, gauges, and a giant furnace throwing flames and sparks. Travis dropped back in the chair and began to read.

Trenton City’s Person of the Year — Leonard Bendickson III—

Mastermind of the Fiberglass Universe

By Jack Crittendon

As one might guess from his formal name and expensive taste in clothes, Leonard Lee Spalding Bendickson III, known as Lenny B to his yacht club pals, was reared in a wealthy Virginia home, attended Ivy League universities, and never wanted for anything.

And he doesn’t plan to.

Since taking the helm as CEO of Demler-Vargus thirteen years ago, Bendickson has steered the Fortune 500 company to unfathomable heights. On its climb, the $7.9 billion corporation has consistently surpassed Wall Street expectations on its way to becoming one of the world’s most prolific manufacturers of fiberglass—all kinds of fiberglass.

“When I was asked to take over as CEO, the Demler Corporation mainly produced fiberglass insulation. I knew that was the tip of the iceberg,” Bendickson said.

It didn’t take him long to make waves. Within eight months of his arrival, the Demler Corporation had acquired Vargus International, a huge player in the fiberglass arena, based in Brussels and with plants around the globe. Over the next five years the companies consolidated nine plants into five. Since then, each has become a perennial powerhouse in the world of fiberglass manufacturing
.

Travis let the paper crumple in his lap. He had never met Bendickson, though he’d seen him once at the bank on the square downtown. He wondered what the truth was. Could LJ be right? Were pollutants from Demler-Vargus hurting employees and neighbors? Were they what killed his mother and made his father sick?

The Demler-Vargus plant on Winchester Boulevard on Trenton City’s east side is the largest of all, churning out dozens of kinds of fiberglass, which is then shipped to manufacturers worldwide and used to produce boats, car parts, buildings, sporting goods, windmills, insulation, fabric, bulletproof vests, and more.

“We hit our stride when we purchased the old Trenton City refinery and its 225 acres,” Bendickson said. “We built the new plant and that was the turning point for Demler-Vargus. We’ve never looked back. We are always exploring new ideas, techniques, and venues for our products.”

Although Demler-Vargus has been the subject of complaints about air pollution from Trenton City neighbors over the years, Bendickson insists the company has worked diligently to comply with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency.

“I love the natural beauty of our land, lakes, rivers, and seas; that’s one of the reasons I studied environmental engineering at Rutgers,” Bendickson said.

“Being a good environmental steward and a leader in green initiatives is one of my passions. When it comes to educating and properly fitting our employees with the safest, most state-of-the-art equipment and resources, we lead the way. And when it comes to reducing overall hazardous air pollutants in our community, Demler-Vargus is at the cutting edge. You won’t find a more conscientious corporation.”

Travis couldn’t take anymore in one sitting. He glanced at the elevators outside the waiting area and noticed a boy in an Ohio State ski cap pushing his gray grandpa in a wheelchair. If LJ saw the story, he would go directly to the moon, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars. But if Demler-Vargus was dirty, wouldn’t OSHA and the EPA have caught on and stopped them? Was Bendickson lying or was he running a clean shop?

Jack was a good writer. Travis wondered if he would really pursue a story about Demler-Vargus. He took the paper and coffee and went back around the nurses’ station.

“Good morning.” A different nurse was behind the counter now, an attractive brunette.

Travis looked behind him and, seeing no one there, concluded she was speaking to him. “Hello. How is the morning treating you?”

“Very well.” Her name tag read Meredith. “Can I help you with anything?”

“Ahh …” Travis wanted to keep the conversation going. “I’m Galen Randall’s son, he’s in room 411. I was wonderin’, is he gonna get to go home today?”

She flipped through pages on a clipboard and paused. “His doctor is supposed to come by this morning and give him a look. He has definitely shown improvement. It shouldn’t be too much longer.”

“Very good, then.” Travis tapped the counter, wishing there was more to talk about. “By the way, my name’s Travis—Travis Randall.”

Meredith lost her pretty smile for a split second. She shot a glance at another nurse seated behind the counter, who made eye contact and then looked back down at his paperwork. Meredith gave Travis a sealed-mouth smile. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Randall. I hope your father gets to go home soon.”

Mr. Randall.
See how she immediately shut him down?
Slammed the door right in his uneducated, country-bumpkin face.

“Thank you.” Travis headed back toward his father’s room.

He was forty two. His folks had married in their twenties; they were together over fifty years. They’d had their two sons, built a business, taken care of each other and their neighbors—
that
was living.

Travis was sick and tired of being alone. It frustrated him that his life was half over and he had no one. The problem was, he never had any opportunities to meet nice women. He didn’t hang out in the bars. Most of the clients at the garage were men or housewives. Daddy told him he needed to go to the singles’ class at church, and he was half tempted to try it. What did he have to lose? But he’d probably only embarrass himself there too.

’Course LJ was in the same boat as Travis, but his brother hung out at the Twisted Tavern and the East End Grill now and again, so he had a bigger pool of ladies to draw from—if you wanted to call them that.

LJ had been married once, to Roxanne. They were the proud parents of Bo. When LJ got a tip Roxanne might be seeing somebody on the sly, he went after the fella in the Big Lots parking lot; tore him limb from limb. But then the man sent a posse after LJ one night, and they carved him up so badly he lost his left eye. After the divorce, LJ got shared custody of Bo.

Rounding the corner and walking back down the long hallway, Travis said hey to the nurse Candace, who was typing something at a workstation in the hallway. ’
Course she didn’t mention nothing about Daddy’s waffles.

Down the long hallway near his father’s room, Travis suddenly saw the man in the black overcoat pop into the hallway. He glanced both ways, held his eyes on Travis for a second, and whipped off in the opposite direction.

That’s odd.

The man practically ran out of there.

Travis picked up the pace. He’d take a look into the room the man had come from. He walked faster. Then his heart kicked up a notch.

Wait a minute …

It hit him like a bomb.

The man had not been
near
his father’s room—he’d been
in
it!

Travis busted through the heavy door, past the bathroom, hoping to turn the corner to see a nurse doting over Daddy, hoping to see his father awake with his glasses on, eating his waffle, looking out the window, complaining about how much longer he would have to stay.

Travis jammed on the brakes at the foot of the bed.

The room was still. Everything was fine.

Daddy slept.

The breakfast tray had been delivered; it sat on the swinging table next to the bed, but the food hadn’t been touched. Nothing was beeping on the monitors. Travis stared at Daddy’s chest until he saw movement.

“Phew-wee.”

Travis hurried back into the hallway, looking for the man in black, but he was long gone. Could he be sure the man had left this room? Perhaps he was mistaken.

He went back in and plunked into the chair, still holding the crumpled newspaper.

He reached over and lifted the silver lid off the main breakfast plate.

Egg.

“Dang.” He dropped back into the chair.

Incompetents.

Travis was worn out already and the day had hardly begun.

He leaned back, folded the newspaper, and found his place.

Bendickson felt so strongly about Demler-Vargus’s green initiative that he appointed his son, Devon Bendickson, 28, as the company’s environmental liaison. Devon has degrees from Furman and Rutgers and is Bendickson’s only child, by his first wife, Patricia.

Enjoying his third marriage, this one to concert pianist Celeste Excelsior, Bendickson resides in a 15,000-square-foot solar-powered mansion in Cool Springs. The glass, metal, and stone architectural award-winning structure has indoor and outdoor pools and spas, tennis and basketball courts, and a professional par-three golf hole designed by golf great and Columbus native Jack Nicklaus.

Although Trenton City residents may see Bendickson cruising around town in a silver Range Rover, his daily vehicle, the fiberglass king also has a collection of automobiles in his seven-car garage, including his prized possession, a 1982 DeLorean. He loves boating, mainly in the Atlantic, on his 32-foot yacht, aptly named
Fiberglass Slipper
, which he docks at the Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.