Bear Is Broken (5 page)

“What did this guy look like? Tall, short? Fat, thin? White, black?” It
was no good, though. He wasn’t going to budge. Anticipating his demand,
I’d palmed a twenty-dollar bill in the stairwell, mindful of the security
camera, and now I slipped it to him through the pass tray, keeping my
hand flattened so that the camera couldn’t make out the exchange.

Like a fish snapping up bait his hand came down and made the
bill disappear from beneath my fingers. “See for yourself, I guess.” He
buzzed open the door, his manner now one of satisfaction. “Went up
there an hour ago and hasn’t come down. Room three-oh-eight. And
look, I can’t be responsible for all the lies people tell in here. I had to
answer for those, I’d be in the jailhouse long ago.”

He reached behind him for the key and slid it toward me the same
way the twenty-dollar bill had come.

“You should have checked his ID,” I said, taking it. He muttered
something about lawyers coming into his place, but the closing door
cut him off.

I went up the stairs slowly. I had no idea what I was going to say to
the person who’d evidently impersonated me and was now searching my
brother’s room. Again it occurred to me that I ought to be calling the police.
At the third-floor landing I met my dreadlocked friend from before.

“There you are,” he said. He was drunk or high, I couldn’t tell which,
and not entirely coherent. “I was wondering, did you go to the same
law school as your brother?”

“Maybe,” I said. “Only what makes you think I’m a lawyer?”

“You’re funny,” he told me, and we shared a laugh over how funny
I was. Then he got serious. “It’s just, you see, I caught this new case
and the PD wants to plead me out.”

I was holding my breath against the ammonia smell of him. “Come
with me to Teddy’s room and we’ll talk.” Maybe I was a coward, but
this way there would be a witness to whatever happened. A witness
with a drug problem and a rap sheet, no doubt, but if I got my head
blown off, his priors would be the DA’s concern, not mine.

He started to open his mouth, no doubt meaning to tell all the details
of his case, but I shushed him. We went to the door and I listened. A
soft flurry of movement in the room made me hesitate, standing frozen
with my hand on the knob. Then my heart started to beat again, and
I pushed open the door.

The room was very dim. For a long, panicked moment I was defenseless,
exposed; then she lifted her hand, and my eyes adjusted enough
for me to make out a small Asian woman with bleached-blonde hair
sitting up in bed as if she’d just awakened. I flooded with relief. She
wore an oversize green USF T-shirt, and her legs were covered by the
sheet. Her eyes were bleary, as if she’d been sleeping or crying. But
if I’d awakened her I hadn’t managed to surprise her. In her hand,
pointed at me, was a gun.

“Come in out of the hallway and close the door,” she said in a voice
that might have belonged to a child.

I came in, holding the door open behind me for my friend and
guardian, but the dreadlocked man now had vanished as suddenly and
soundlessly as if he’d been there only in my mind.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought this was Teddy Maxwell’s room.”

“Take the key out of the lock and close the door.” She had a heavy
accent that I couldn’t place.

I did what she said, pocketing the key and latching the door behind
me.

Like the other rooms this one contained only a twin bed with a
thin mattress, a dresser, a wardrobe, and a small desk. It was all cheap,
battered, and grimy. She swung her legs to the floor, pulling the blanket
around herself. It was the third time in my life I’d had a gun pointed
at me. The other two had been muggings. This was the first occasion
when I couldn’t be sure what the person with the gun wanted.

“I’m Leo Maxwell,” I said. “Teddy’s brother.”

She didn’t say anything. She went on pointing the gun, relaxing her
body forward so that her elbows rested on her knees.

“The cops are two floors up investigating an ax murder. You shoot,
they’ll be here in thirty seconds.”

She thumbed down the hammer.

“Point taken,” I said.

The silence began to drag, and I spoke again. “I hate to be the
one to say it, but this is starting to feel pretty awkward. Usually these
situations work more smoothly if the person holding the gun sort of
takes the lead.”

“Are you holding the gun?”

“Clearly not. Otherwise we would be talking about what I want to
talk about. About who you are and what you’re doing curled up with
that nine in my brother’s bed.”

“Maybe you should take your own advice and shut the fuck up,
since I’m the one holding this and I don’t really feel like talking.”

Her aggression was only at the surface. These were just the words
that came out, and I felt it gave her neither pleasure nor displeasure
to speak them.

“It wasn’t advice, exactly. It was more in the way of a general observation.
There are exceptions to every rule, even where guns are
concerned. I could try to guess why you’re here, if you’re not going to
tell me.” I seemed impelled to prattle on. “You don’t look like Teddy’s
type of girlfriend, no offense. So I’m guessing client?”

A look of involuntary disgust came over her face. “I’m nobody’s
client.” There was a shyness to her now, and maybe pride.

“I’ve told you my name. Maybe you could tell me yours?”

“I could tell you but I’d have to kill you,” she said through a yawn.

“I could come back. We could do this another time, when you’ve
had your rest.”

She sucked her lower lip and looked at me pensively. “I never heard
Teddy had a brother.”

“So you know him. That’s a start. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“Teddy’s all right,” she said. Coming from her, this might be a rave review.
By now I’d had a chance to look around, and I’d seen enough to
realize that there was nothing of Teddy in this room, not so much as
a sock wadded under the bed. The door to the wardrobe was open.

Inside were only a few suit hangers. A bottle of Jim Beam with an inch
of liquor left in the bottom stood on the dresser beside a plastic cup;
another cup held a toothbrush and a travel-size toothpaste.
I didn’t let my attention wander long. She was still holding the gun,
and it was still pointed at me.

Finally she looked me in the eyes and said, “Who shot him?”

News traveled pretty fast. “I don’t know.”

“You were there.” She wagged the gun. “I know you were.”

“White man. Slicked hair. I didn’t actually see him but that’s what
I heard.” I hesitated, then said, “Maybe you were in on it.”

She scoffed. “I didn’t shoot Teddy. Don’t be dumb.”

“Then who did?”

She gave a laugh. “Teddy doesn’t tell you nothing, does he?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. “Tell me what?”

“Nothing, that’s what.”

“I know you lied to the man behind the desk, told him you were
Teddy’s sister. I’d love to know why you came here.”

“I never said anything about being his sister.”

“Or his brother. I don’t know what you said.”

“You don’t know nothing, do you?” she repeated.

I sensed that she was beginning to lose interest. I wanted to hold
her attention. “You tell me who shot him, then.”

“Teddy thinks he’s above it all. Teddy brought it on himself.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you don’t know, then I’m not telling you. He’s your brother.
You figure it out.”

I couldn’t explain that I didn’t really know him, that we’d gone
our own ways after our mother’s death, and that he’d always been a
mystery to me, a silent presence when he was home, but more often
an absence, night after night, week after week. He was supposed to be
my guardian, but the housekeepers he paid to fix my lunches and cook
my dinners were the ones who raised me. He was just a tenant in the
apartment that belonged to neither of us, that was not our home. We
were merely the stranded survivors.

She tilted her head, seemingly listening for something, still pointing
the gun. Too late I realized what we’d been doing here all this time:
not playing a game after all but waiting for a third person to arrive. I’d
heard whatever she must have heard, footsteps in the hall coming to a
stop outside the door. There was a knock. “Open it,” she said.

I opened it and found myself face-to-face with a second, much taller
woman, wearing a baggy black hooded sweatshirt and extremely baggy
lowrider men’s jeans held on by a canvas belt. Despite the outfit, one
glance was enough for me to see that she was beautiful, nearly as tall
as I was, with curly dark hair, a slender nose, cleft chin, high narrow
cheekbones, and smooth skin the color of scalded butter. Her face was
thoughtful and serious, with all the stillness and gravity of intelligence.
She had the broad shoulders of an athlete and the compact chest and
waist of a fashion model.

When she saw me, her eyes narrowed and her delicate nostrils flared.

“Don’t worry,” the girl on the bed said in a voice purring with
pride. “I’ve got him covered.”

When she spoke I’d half turned, worrying about the gun. The tall
woman stepped forward, and I turned back to her just in time to see
her hand come up toward my neck with a plastic object clutched in
it, metal prongs glinting in the light from the window, then a blue
crackle. Taser, my mind said, then a thousand teeth ground in my ears,
and I went down.

I was aware of the women stepping over and around me, of clothes
being pulled hastily on and a cursory search for an object that seemed
not to be there. When I came to my senses I was lying on the dusty
floor. The door was shut and I was alone. My fingertips tingled. I
figured that in about five more minutes I would feel like getting up.

On the way down I met the dreadlocked man again. He gave no sign
of remembering having abandoned me at the sight of the gun, and I
didn’t speak of it, either. We treated each other with the utmost courtesy,
and he even dusted off the arm of my suit as we walked. “You see, the
way I figure, it was entrapment,” he began as we went down together.

“I didn’t have even five bucks on me. The cop offered to give me the
stuff if I agreed to pay him later.”

“Did you agree?” It was easier to listen to him than to think about
what had happened.

“Well, yeah. I’d never seen him before and I figured I’d never see
him again. Anyone would have gone for it.”

“Let the PD plead you out. They end up getting the best deals
anyway. It’s called a volume discount.”

“You don’t think we could prove it was entrapment?”

“Not unless you didn’t say a word, didn’t so much as look in his
direction.”

“What if we had a witness say I walked away and he kept following
me, and he stuffed the baggie in my pocket?”

“Is that what happened?”

“What if we had a witness?”

“Then your lawyer would be guilty of suborning perjury. He could
lose his license and go to prison.”

“Oh come on man, don’t do me like that. Don’t you never work
pro bono?” On his lips the term sounded lewd. “Your brother would
help me. Your brother and I are tight. Teddy would step up, man.”

When we reached the bottom of the stairwell, I turned and slammed
him against the wall, my breath coming in bursts. It was only after I’d
gotten him there that I realized how much larger and stronger than
me he was, even in his obviously run-down state. But I was too angry
to care whether I got my ass kicked again. “My brother would never
have done what you’re suggesting, knowingly put a liar on the stand.
You got that?”

He looked at me in puzzlement. “Just take it easy.”

I let go of his shoulder and stepped away, hesitating briefly to make
sure he wasn’t going to try anything. When he didn’t budge, I pushed
through the lobby door and left him.

“You have yourself a family reunion?” asked the man behind the
desk, his eyes boring into mine with a lascivious smile.
“Those two look like Teddy’s sisters to you?”

He shrugged. “You all had the same last name. How was I supposed
to know you weren’t related?”

“Hamilton. Same first name, too, I suppose. Alexander. That’s some
coincidence.”

His smile spread. “Like I said, how was I supposed to know?”
“Look, you ever see either of those women before?”

“Hamiltons?” He went on grinning. “Now and then. Not as often
as I’d hope.”

I had another twenty ready. “With my brother?”

“The taller one mostly.” He looked away as he took the bill, his face
becoming serious. “I think she must know your brother pretty well. I
let her in. No nonresidents in the rooms, but I let her go up. I did it
for Teddy. Ain’t no limit to the things I would have done.”

“You mean for Alexander Hamilton? You ever see either of them
again, you give me a page, and I mean right away, and there’ll be three
more Hamiltons in the family.”

I wrote the cell phone number on the back of one of Teddy’s cards
and palmed it to him along with another twenty, the last of the petty
cash from Teddy’s office. I realized I should call the police, file a report,
give a description of the two women, let Detective Anderson know,
but I also understood that I would do none of these things. First I had
to find out what they’d been looking for in Teddy’s room.

I didn’t want to get Teddy into any more trouble than he already was.

“Legal visit,” I said to the woman behind the bulletproof glass. Behind
her, half a dozen video monitors cycled through views of the jail. The
inmates wore orange, the guards forest green. My voice sounded strange
to my ears. I should be at the hospital, I thought. Where I really wanted
to be was on my bike, pedaling up the shoulder of Mount Tam.

I slid over my ID, and after checking me in the computer the woman
behind the window slid it back with a clip-on visitor’s pass. “No phones,
no currency,” she said, and I traded my wallet for a grubby claim check.
Waiting for the elevator I felt disoriented, like I was wearing the
wrong pair of glasses. I was in no state to dispense legal advice, but I
was sure that I was doing what Teddy would want. Someone had to
talk to Ellis.