Т Паркер - The Last Good Guy

The more search words I tried, the more I saw how publicity-shy the company was.

SNR Security declined to comment for this story.

SNR Security could not be reached.

SNR Security did not answer our inquiries.

There was a humorous story by a San Diego Union-Tribune business columnist trying to find out what the letters SNR stood for.

SNR Security didn’t return any of my ten emails over the next ten workdays.

So I decided to ask them face-to-face just exactly what their initials stood for.

In SNR Security’s contemporary but sterile lobby, I was greeted by a smiling woman in a blue security uniform who smilingly told me that SNR had no public relations department per se, but she would certainly help me if she could.

Smiling, she told me that SNR didn’t stand for anything specific — the letters were chosen because they were easy to remember.

When I asked to speak with her supervisor, she seemed sorry to tell me there were no SNR personnel available to talk to me at this time. She broke this news to me with a smile, and said their website had an email address, I just had to click on “Contact Us.”

I shared with her my plight of ten unreturned emails and she told me she would look into it.

I told her I’d be happy to wait while she did so, but she told me, with a smile, that it would take some time.

So I sat in a contemporary but sterile chair and waited for less than one minute.

As if on cue — likely the old hidden-camera trick — a blue-uniformed security guard with a surfer’s tan and a crew cut came through a door behind the reception counter, squeaked across the shiny marble floor in black combat boots, and asked me to leave.

He was not smiling. The gun at his side was black and fat as a family Bible.

I stood and asked him how he liked working for SNR, and he asked me again to leave or he would call the police.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you are trespassing and have been asked to exit the building.” He lifted a phone from his belt and arranged a thin speaker wire running down from a bud in his ear.

I smiled at both of them, and left.

I’m still not sure what SNR stands for. Say Nothing Real? Just because I happen to live in the city where they do business apparently does not give me a right to know.

I’m sure their security services are terrific. But they should get a more transparent name.

I sat in my office in the dimming evening light. Let my eyes wander across the bronzed pond and the hills and the sun melting into layers of orange and blue. But my mind did not enjoy the sunset. It was busy chewing on the problem of exactly where Daley Rideout was, and what she was doing, and what was being done to her. I felt frustration and a desire for violence, like a father might.

I wondered how SNR was controlling her. So many possibilities. The sex trader beats his new girl, then injects her with heroin or opioids to kill the pain. The beating breaks her spirit — because she’s been told she’s beautiful, and she’s been touched tenderly, and she’s gotten pretty gifts — and suddenly she’s a bruised and aching girl, plainly despised by the man she thought liked her. The narcotic brings a soft cloud of relief and creates a craving for more. A dependence within hours, an addict within days.

But I had no convincing evidence that Daley had been befriended, seduced, or abducted for the sex trade. It didn’t strike me as SNR-like. Hard to say why. They seemed more... sophisticated than that. In spite of the unsophisticated fact that onetime missionary Connor Donald had likely shot Nick Moreno in the forehead as the young man watched TV in bed. And that they’d beaten me just for saying Daley Rideout’s name.

But there are so many methods of control that don’t require powerful narcotics or physical force at all. I remembered Daley’s apparent familiarity with the two SNR men as they boarded the silver Expedition at Nick’s condo and drove away. I thought of her ignoring two SNR escorts as she talked with surfer Jake at the San Onofre Surfing Club. And of her arguing with two SNR men in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven in San Clemente — arguing but not resisting — then willingly getting into their vehicle.

As I pictured that scene playing over and over again, I believed that at that moment in the 7-Eleven parking lot, under the bored but curious gaze of Yash Chowdhury, the clerk, the balance of power between Daley and her not-quite-abductors had changed. They wouldn’t lose her again. No. And the easiest way to control her? Take her phone, put her in a remote house or building, lock the doors, and post some guards. SNR had plenty of those to choose from.

On my desk, Dale Clevenger’s big red laptop suddenly jumped to motion-activated life. Camera three: Two adults I’d seen earlier — Tattooed Forearms and Flat-Top Woman, both of them with guns on their hips — came from the house with two young boys and a girl. I guessed them at seven, five, and three years old. The boys wore white shorts, black canvas sneakers, and plaid shirts buttoned all the way up. The girl wore a pink dress and shiny pink shoes. Her hair was pulled into a yellow ponytail and she carried in both hands a baby doll easily half her own size.

They stood around the flagpole and the boys lowered the flag that Adam Revell had raised early that morning. They were careful with it, stretching it out for the long folds, then gradually stepping closer as the triangle of stars and stripes thickened.

The older boy presented the flag to the woman and the five walked in loose cadence back into the house, boys first, adults next, girl trailing behind, all of them just steps ahead of the dark.

An hour later I was driving back up the coast to San Clemente, headed for the last place I knew for certain that Daley Rideout had been seen.

I could sense her out there, this girl I’d never met. Both a moral duty and a paycheck. She was close, but drifting from my reach. One moment I felt puzzled but hopeful, like a dog returning for a buried bone that had disappeared just hours ago: I will now dig again. The next moment I felt only foolish and beat-up.

I pondered what Penelope Rideout had said about my willingness to dig to the bottom of things. And that she had chosen me for this labor because of it. It had made me proud, the choosing. I will now dig again . I wanted to do it well and show her the quality of man I was. I wanted her to truly see me. And here it came again, the forbidden jump of my heart. Forbidden why? Justine? Enter the cave of your past, and ask the ghosts that sleep there.

Light fog clung to the coast. Just off Interstate 5 the new Camp Pendleton Navy Hospital loomed in lighted glory like an immense barge floating on a wide black river. I’ve never set foot in it. My brethren were treated in other VA hospitals, and I had visited three of them and sat beside their beds and slowly walked the halls of rehab with them. Waited for appointments with them. San Diego. Long Beach. Phoenix. Separate but related hells. Two are doing just fine now. One is not and never will be. There is nothing sadder or more infuriating to see than a once strong young man or woman surrendering their desire to live. We warriors kill ourselves off at roughly twice the rate of the rest of you.

I pulled into the 7-Eleven parking lot, saw Yash Chowdhury behind the counter. Parked around the dark side of the building, where I wouldn’t take up a prime spot.

Got a big cup of coffee and paid Yash. He hadn’t seen Daley again, though her sister had been in earlier this evening. And two hours before her, a man who looked somewhat like the man who had dropped Daley off here that late morning had been here, too. He had told Penelope about seeing this man, but wasn’t sure enough to call me or the police.