Bear Is Broken (20 page)

“You could have gone on sleeping and waited for me to come back.”

“Okay, maybe I could like you,” I admitted. “But I’ve got to say, I
think this story you’re giving me about these videos is a load of crap. I
just finished reading your thesis, and it also strikes me as crap. The last
chapter especially. I’m not looking to deflate anyone’s literary ambitions
here, but Jesus.”

“Are you jealous?”

I didn’t know if I was or not. I remembered Gerald Locke’s anger
when I asked why he didn’t have any pictures of his daughter up in
his office. “Tell me, didn’t Martha work at the Green Light?”

Christine’s tone was suddenly wary. “I don’t know. She might have.”

“What about you?” I asked. “Did you do any research there?”

“Call me when you’ve got the camera,” she said and hung up.

I was beginning to feel that everyone was lying to me. I was paranoid,
maybe, but it’s hard not to feel paranoid when you’re alone, isolated
by a grief the world does not share, and out of your depth. Check,
check, and check.

If I was going to be lied to, I decided, I might as well be lied to
straight from the source. It occurred to me that I needed to go to
Santorez, look him in the eye, and hear him deny having my brother
shot. I wasn’t so naive as to believe that I could tell if he were lying.
Maybe Car could sniff out a liar, but I couldn’t. Still, I thought I would
be able to tell something.

My bubble of determination lasted only a few minutes. I figured
out pretty quickly that there were no attorney visits at San Quentin
during the weekend and that my chances of getting in to see Santorez
during the week were slim.

Suddenly I remembered what Christine had told me about Martha
being arrested last night. From what Martha had said at the Seward, she
knew something about the circumstances leading up to the shooting.
If she was still in jail it would be easy to talk to her.

It was a plan of action, anyway. It was better than sitting around my
apartment smoking dope and playing Nintendo or riding my bike on
the stationary trainer and trying not to think about Christine.

I dressed in my suit and drove over to Teddy’s office to pick up what
he called his “jail kit,” a canvas briefcase filled with all the things he
liked to have with him when he met a client for the first time: legal
pads, retainer agreements, waivers for release of medical records, cards
for bail bondsmen, authorization forms, a digital camera, a preliminary
interview sheet, a tape recorder, various court forms, and a copy of
the penal code. I wasn’t about to sign Martha on as a client, but the
jailers didn’t know that.

While I was there I glanced at Santorez’s main file. On the inside
cover Teddy had noted a cell number along with a recent date. He
must have gotten the date wrong, I thought at first. It was against
CDC regulations for prisoners to have cell phones, and they could be
disciplined for being caught with one. It didn’t stop them.

It was as simple as dialing. The phone rang three times before someone
answered. “You a ghost?” a man’s voice asked, as if he didn’t actually
care one way or the other.

“Ricky Santorez?”

“Or maybe what I should ask is, are you a good ghost or a bad
ghost?” He sounded as cool as if he were stretched out on a recliner
in front of a big-screen TV.

“I’m calling to warn you that you’re going to be indicted sometime
next week for attempting to murder my brother. I found this number
in Teddy’s files, and I thought you deserved to know that the cops
think you did it.”

“Leo, right?”

I was taken aback that he knew my name. “Right.”

“You think I had your brother shot?”

“If you didn’t, tell me who did.”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“They’re bringing a witness before the grand jury tomorrow. I
don’t know what he’s going to say, but the cops seem to think they’ll
get the indictment.”

“That’s not a witness. That’s a snitch.” There was a pause. “You know,
one of these days you ought to come visit your father.”

“Visit him?” The suggestion was like a slap in the face.

“He must be getting pretty lonely over there in protective custody.
He doesn’t get to see any of his old friends anymore. But if he had a
visitor he could maybe get some air.” Some air between the ribs was
what he meant. He seemed to know already that my father was the
snitch. “He’s not such a bad guy, your old man. He’s made a life for
himself in here. I don’t know what he’s looking forward to on the
street. Without Teddy, there’s no one who gives a shit.”

“Did my brother steal from you, Ricky?”

“You showed a lot of respect calling me like this, not to mention a
lot of balls. So I’m going to be straight with you, even though the truth
isn’t exactly in my interest, know what I mean? I paid your brother the
biggest retainer he ever earned, and the balance was supposed to come
back to me on request. Your brother and I were having some ongoing
conversations about that. It’s true, I have a big mouth. I blabbed about
him owing me, he better pay me, all that shit. Plenty of people heard
me talking like that, inside and out. But we were on good terms. It
was going to get resolved. Now I’m guessing it ain’t.”

“You’re going to need a good lawyer.”

“You’re a lawyer, aren’t you? Teddy told me you were waiting on
your bar results.”

I felt a flush of pride. If Santorez was trying to work me, he was
pushing the right buttons. “I passed.” I hesitated. “I could handle the
arraignment for you if you haven’t found a lawyer by then.”

“It’s shooting your brother they’ll be arraigning me for, right? Know
what I’m saying?”

“There’s a potential conflict of interest, sure. You can sign a waiver
form. You wouldn’t want me as the trial attorney on this one, not least
because I’m likely to be called as a witness. You probably wouldn’t even
want me on the preliminary hearing if there was going to be one, which
there won’t if the DA gets the indictment. I’m just talking about the
arraignment. There’s nothing substantive to be decided. You’re already
incarcerated, so there’s no bail. You take a bus ride into the city, enter
your plea, then they bus you back to San Quentin. What I’m thinking
is how it would look for you in the press if I’m the one who says, ‘Mr.
Santorez pleads not guilty,’ if I’m the one standing beside you, if I’m
the one who goes out on the courthouse steps afterward and tells the
press what bullshit these charges are and that the person who shot my
brother is still at large.”

“Man, you’re crazy.” He gave a laugh. “Guess I’m crazy, too. What
kind of retainer we talking?”

“I’ll do it for free. Pro bono. Not out of the goodness of my heart,
either, but because I want to light a fire under the cops, get the press
to realize that they’re going after the wrong man. And frankly, the
publicity wouldn’t be half bad for me as I’m starting my practice.”

I was playing a dangerous game. I thought Santorez was telling me
the truth, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Shit, man, it’s probably the cops who shot your brother. Because of
what he did for me, the verdict in my case. Two for one. Knock Teddy
off and at the same time make sure I never get out of San Quentin. I
got two of theirs—you know they want revenge.”

The pride in his voice made me feel sick to my stomach. “I’m
working on that possibility,” I said, though I didn’t even know how to
begin to run it down. “The grand jury will convene on Monday. The
proceedings are sealed, which means no one but the DA, the witness,
and the jurors gets to be in the room. If I hear anything about what
happens I’ll give you a call.”

“Yeah, holler at me. Just leave a message if I don’t pick up.”

I gave him my cell phone number and told him to call anytime.

“Don’t forget about what I said about coming to visit your pops,”
Santorez told me in parting. “Honor thy father, that’s what the Bible
tells. You got to make peace with the past.”

The peace of the grave, is what I thought he meant.

After pulling a parking ticket off the windshield, I fought inexplicable
Saturday afternoon traffic down to San Bruno. All for nothing. After
arguing with the deputy at reception I finally persuaded her to dig
deep enough into her computer to determine that Martha had posted
bail a few hours ago and been released. To me the implication was
obvious: A pimp had bailed Martha out.

I sent Christine a text message, asking for Martha’s address. A few
minutes later she texted me back. The address was a second-floor
apartment on Sycamore Street, an alley off Mission not far from the
Sixteenth Street BART. People like Gerald Locke probably still thought
of the Mission as dangerous, but it was pretty much like the rest of
the city, now filled with trendy restaurants and coffee shops replacing
bodegas and bars. It wasn’t the neighborhood that made me nervous. It
was one thing to interview Martha behind bars, quite another to seek
her out on her home turf, where she likely lived under the protection
of a dangerous, violent man.

If she’d been one of the girls at the Green Light, she would know
what had happened to Marovich. Maybe she could tell me if it was
an accident or if he was killed because he’d been researching sex trafficking.
She’d been in my brother’s room waiting for Christine, and
she needed to explain that, too.

The entrance to her duplex was guarded by a metal grate. I rang.
No answer. I pushed the grate, and it creaked loudly. I called hello up
the stairs. Hearing nothing, I started up, my heels echoing on the bare
wood. The door at the top was ajar.

I paused at the open door, then stepped cautiously into the living
room. A canvas wing chair was parked in front of the television, with
an ashtray overflowing with butts on the floor beside it. In the next
room an enormous jade plant towered above a green painted dining
table. There was a smell of cat piss.

I clicked my tongue, and a young energetic black cat appeared with
a friendly chirrup from the bathroom. She arched her back and rubbed
against my shin; as I bent to stroke her, my eyes settled on the string
of rust-colored prints that trailed behind her, the four-toed impressions
as clear as printer’s ink on the tiled threshold of the bathroom,
fading across the rug.

Her muzzle was wet. Smelling the ferric sweetness of whatever she’d
been dipping into, I straightened. There was a streak of what looked
like blood on my hand where I’d brushed her cheek. I stomped my
foot wildly and she galloped into the dining room, continuing to trail
an ever-fainter series of prints.

I stepped forward. The bathroom window was half-open, revealing
the hinged frame of a fire escape. More bloody cat prints came and
went on the sill. Beneath the window lay the body of a young Asian
woman—Martha.

Her bathrobe had come open to reveal her breasts and a pubic bush
like a tight snarl of thread. She’d been shot in the face at least twice, and
the blood had pooled on the floor. Brains splattered the window frame.
One eye was a hole and the other was squeezed through the socket, giving
her a look of inconceivable surprise, but she hadn’t been surprised
by the shot. She’d locked herself in the bathroom and had probably just
gotten the window open to climb onto the fire escape when her attacker
kicked in the door. She lay half-twisted against the tub, as if she’d
been in the process of turning to face him when he pulled the trigger.

On the counter by the sink a gun lay as casually as if it were a tube
of toothpaste. The air was heavy with the mingled smells of gunpowder
and blood, but the feminine odors of shampoo and incense lingered.
I turned into the kitchen, just managing to make the garbage before
I threw up the contents of my stomach in one long retching heave.
After a while I went back to the bathroom and looked in again. This
time the gun caught my eye. I recognized it as one of Teddy’s. The
police had taken the one from Teddy’s bedside table, or so I assumed.
That left the other one unaccounted for—the gun Car had taken away
from me and locked in Teddy’s safe.

Car.

I suddenly felt very cold. The room began to spin. I fled the bathroom
again and dropped onto the sofa. Take the gun and get out of
there, my brain said, throw it off the fishing pier into Mission Bay.

She couldn’t have been dead long. I forced myself to stand and walk
back into the bathroom, lean over the pooled blood, and feel the arm
that was flung up over the rim of the clawfoot tub. Not warm, but not
cold. Not too many hours, probably, but I was no pathologist. I went
back out to the kitchen sink, washed the vomit taste from my mouth,
and scrubbed my hands. I went on washing them long after all traces
of Martha’s blood had disappeared.

I dried my hands on a dish towel, then searched the apartment
halfheartedly, using the towel to open drawers in her dresser and in a
desk that stood under the window in the bedroom, always with the
sense that Martha could hear me going through her private things.
But, of course, my secret observer was not Martha but the police, who
would soon be here.

One dresser drawer was filled with economy-size packages of
condoms and lube. The rest of the drawers and one closet contained
the most shocking assortment of sexual torture instruments I’d ever
seen. There were collars and whips, elaborate harnesses, chains, batons,
and a set of strange hooks connected through a system of elastic
cords. It took me a moment to realize that these hooks were meant
to be inserted in the skin. There were prods and dildos and just about
every instrument of mingled pain and pleasure you could imagine.
Incredible that no one had called in the gunshots, but maybe someone
had. Maybe the police were on their way.

I knew the gun had only my fingerprints and Teddy’s on it, and
certainly not Car’s—I remembered him holding the gun by the edge
of his shirt when he’d picked it up off the floor in Teddy’s office.