by Alan Russell
“If I don’t connect with my suspect today,” I said, “what do you say we go pay homage to Burroughs?”
The tone of my voice must have sounded like there was a potential outing in the offing, which got some tail wagging.
As a kid, Tarzan had been a big deal to me and my friends. It’s a wonder none of us were killed trying to duplicate his swinging through the jungle. Whenever we’d go swinging on a rope, usually with the object of landing in a body of water, we’d shout out bawdry Tarzan rhymes. Even Ronald Reagan had recognized the comedic value of Tarzan. “A hippie,” he said, “walks like Jane, looks like Tarzan, and smells like Cheetah.”
I parked, made sure the dogs were comfortable, and went to get a cup of coffee. Just in case Steinberg was there, I had some paperwork I wanted to share with him, including Mateo’s poems.
It wasn’t until I joined the line of the caffeine deprived that I casually looked around the place. Brad Steinberg was sitting at a table by himself. Whatever he was looking at on his tablet had him immersed, and he took no notice of my presence. I wanted to make sure that didn’t change, so I turned my back to him and pretended to study all the coffee and tea offerings as if they were of great interest to me.
Of course, I ordered a plain old coffee.
While I waited for it, I found a vantage point from which I could see Steinberg’s reflection in the window. He was still busily typing into his tablet.
My coffee was ready at the same time the table next to Steinberg opened up. I grabbed my cup and went to claim the table. When I sat down, Steinberg looked up at me, and then returned his gaze to the tablet. After a moment or two, he must have made the connection as to who I was, because he suddenly turned my way.
“Morning,” I said.
His hands appeared to be frozen just above his tablet, while his eyes remained locked on me. It was a classic fright-or-flight pose.
I extended my hand and said, “Michael Gideon.”
Habit drew his hand toward mine, and we shook.
“I left you a few messages,” I said. “I’m glad I caught up with you this morning. We need to talk.”
He ran a hand through his thick, dark curls and sighed. His brown eyes went basset hound on me and were suddenly full of worry.
“I can’t talk,” he said, and then looked away.
“Why is that?”
“My lawyer has advised me to say nothing. Would you like his name and number?”
“Not particularly,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee.
He maintained a rigid posture, unsure what he should do.
“So, do you like to be called Brad, or Mr. Steinberg, or do you prefer Hitch?”
“Brad,” he said. “The Hitch thing was sort of a joke.”
I nodded. “Chase said the same thing. But I got to admit I liked your choice of directors. Hitchcock was something, wasn’t he? I’ll bet you I’ve seen Rear Window half a dozen times. That’s my personal favorite, but I also love The Birds and North by Northwest and Vertigo. And let’s not forget Strangers on a Train. That’s right up there as well. Do you have a favorite?”
I wasn’t sure whether he was going to answer or not, but after a few seconds he said, “Psycho.”
“I can understand that,” I said. “In fact, most people would probably answer that. But for me, the shock value grew old after the first viewing. With a lot of his other films, it seems like there’s more nuance, and you see new things every time you view them.”
Steinberg didn’t answer, just continued to stare straight ahead.
“I guess the movies I like best, I need to engage with the characters,” I said. “That’s why I go back to Rear Window as my favorite. How can you not want Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly to make it as a couple? There’s also the mystery that draws you in. What happened to Raymond Burr’s wife? And you get this great cast of characters that live in the apartment complex.
“Vertigo was almost as good. Maybe I like that one because I’m a cop. You know how Jimmy Stewart got obsessed with the Kim Novak character? I can understand that kind of obsession. A good cop feels this need to get answers. It’s almost like a hunger. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
The stiffness hadn’t left Steinberg’s posture. “This is police harassment,” he said.
“How is it harassment?”
“I told you I didn’t want to answer your questions without my lawyer present.”
“That’s why I haven’t been asking you questions. I’ve just been offering up a few Hitchcock observations.”
“As I told you,” he said, “if you want to talk, I want my lawyer to be present. If you’ll excuse me, right now I need to get to class.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s in the cards.”
He turned to me and asked, “What do you mean?”
“You’ve been avoiding me,” I said. “If you’d called me back, I would have been amenable about scheduling a time and place to talk with you, and your lawyer. That time has passed.”
“Are you arresting me?”
“If I have to, I will. To make it easy on you and your lawyer, we can arrange for your booking to occur at the West Valley station on Vanowen Street in Reseda.”
“Jeez,” he said. “Can we slow down a little?”
“We can slow down a lot. If you want to sit here and talk to me, I’m good with that as well. But that has to be your decision. And I need you to go on the record that you’re good about not having a lawyer present.”
He thought about that and finally said, “Okay.”
“Just to show you that I’m not coercing you against your wishes,” I said, “I’d like you to sign this paper, which stipulates that.”
He read the paragraph I’d prepared the night before. I had anticipated that initially he would ask for counsel to be present.
“I’ll sign,” he said, “but I really do have schoolwork I need to get to.”
“I’ll try and make it short.”
“You know,” he said, “I’m not the one you should be talking to. This was Jason’s film. He and Chase were much more involved than I was.”
“I understand you bankrolled the film.”
“That way overstates it. In fact, the money I put in the film was essentially a loan to Jason.”
“How big a loan?”
“I covered the expenses for the props and the set. Jason said he could do it for under ten thousand. I gave him that seed money.”
“Were the day laborers paid with your money?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “To tell you the truth, I felt sorry for Jason and Chase. Both of them graduated last May, and neither could find work in the film industry. I was accepted into graduate school. That’s been my emphasis. I know they resent me for pursuing the same dream we all have. That’s why they wanted to work on their short. They had this idea they could do most of the shooting in a week, and scheduled it for when I had spring break.”
“What was the original name of the script?” I asked.
“Ask Chase and Jason,” he said. “They wrote it.”
“WW,” I said.
He rubbed his chin and then said, “As a joke, they originally referred to the project as Wetback Wars.”
There had been a time when undocumented aliens were referred to as wetbacks. It was a seldom-used term now, and for many good reasons.
“From the time they first conceptualized the idea,” Steinberg said, “things changed. Chase wanted to have crazy boxing matches going on in lucha libre outfits. It was supposed to be a Fight Club kind of comedy, with lots of south-of-the-border stereotypes.”
Steinberg must have read the distaste in my eyes. “I know it sounds stupid,” he said, “and offensive.”
“What audience could possibly want to watch that?” I asked.
“Jason was planning to market it to lowlifes,” he said. “There’s always been an underbelly, people who buy DVDs of bums fighting or spring-break girls flashing for the cameras.”
“Sex and violence sells,” I said. “And for good measure, let’s add in a little racist comedy.”
“Don’t you think I know how stupid it all sounds?” he said. “But I was busy in graduate school, and this is all my friends had. Jason also had this idea that they could do certain outtakes for YouTube and rack up enough viewers to get advertising money. But do you know how I looked at the money I put up? I thought of it more as a contribution than an investment. To tell the truth, I never expected to get paid back. I felt guilty that I was continuing on with my career, all while my friends were feeling like they’d spent the last four years with nothing to show for it.”
“Guilt money,” I said.
“I suppose.”
“Is guilt the reason why you put twenty-five hundred dollars into a wallet and sent that money to a woman you’d never met? Or should we be calling it blood money for the death of Mateo Ramos?”
The “aha” moment didn’t fly. Steinberg turned away from me and withdrew into himself, going very still. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
I decided to back off, at least for the moment. “Before you leave today,” I said, “I would like you to have these.”
He didn’t reach for the papers, so I placed them in front of him.
“Those are copies of Mateo Ramos’s poetry,” I said, “and their translations. Do you speak Spanish?”
“Un poco,” he said.
“Same with me,” I said. “My girlfriend helped me translate these. It gave me a better sense for Mateo. He was a young man deeply in love. And his fiancée loved him just as much. Have you ever been in love?”
Steinberg didn’t answer.
“I’m not sure if you have or not,” I said, “but I believe you are a romantic. And I also believe you tried to do what was right.”
I let those words register with him.
“This was a tragic love story,” I said. “As a student of film, I would think you could appreciate that. An undocumented worker comes to America with the sole goal of making money and sending that money back to his family. But things change while he’s here. The worker falls in love with a woman who just so happens to have been born less than a hundred miles from where he was born. And in this supposed land of opportunity, in the place where the two of them meet, they set a goal for themselves. They want to save ten thousand dollars. Their plan is to go back to their birthplace and get married in the heart of Mexico. They’re getting closer and closer to that goal, but then something terrible happens. And now the woman won’t be going home for a wedding; she’ll be going home for a funeral. But one thing prevents that: she needs the body of her fiancé to take back with her.
“You might ask why that is. What difference does it make where someone is buried? I know I don’t have any great plans for my own remains, but different people and different cultures view death very differently.
“A few years ago I struck up a friendship of sorts with a Palestinian deli owner named Adnan. And one day I went into his deli right after there had been this horrific traffic accident on the street outside. And he told me, ‘That is why I drive so carefully in America.’ And I said, ‘What do you mean?’ And that’s when Adnan explained to me that he was afraid of dying in America. He said funerals here were sterile and artificial and devoid of emotion. Adnan said that was very different than funerals back home, where there was loud mourning and crying and displays of bereavement.
“I suspect when Mateo returns to his village, he will be remembered in the way that Adnan prefers. But first I have to locate his body.
“Verdades,” I said. “It means truths. It’s also the title of one of the three poems found in Mateo’s wallet. He didn’t write that poem. The author is anonymous, but I suspect whoever wrote it was a young man in love. I think my favorite line is when the poet says, Sometimes it scares me to think where I’ll put so much love, when it doesn’t fit in my chest. I think that was Mateo’s love. It was overflowing. I’d like you to read that poem, and the two poems that Mateo did write.
“Read them, and I’m pretty sure you’ll do the right thing.”
Brad Steinberg did his best to keep a neutral expression. He didn’t look at me or the poetry, but stared straight ahead.
“I am going to close this case, Brad. What I would suggest is that you come clean with your lawyer. He’ll know how the system works. Inevitably, the first person who talks gets the best deal.”
I placed my business card atop Mateo’s poetry. “My cell number is written on that card,” I said. “Call me anytime, but I strongly advise you to call me soon.”
I picked up my coffee cup and exited the Starbucks.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A Shallow Grave
I second-guessed myself on the ride back, thinking about what I could have done better during my talk with Steinberg. There are a lot of moving pieces to consider when you’re trying to make a suspect confess. I had bet on Brad Steinberg’s better nature. He had demonstrated that he wanted to do the right thing; he had passed on Mateo’s wallet to Luciana, and had added money of his own. Still, as much as Steinberg likely wanted to confess, he was restrained from doing so because it would impact his friends.
There was also Steinberg’s own future. At a minimum, it was likely he’d be charged with involuntary manslaughter. It was possible the three young men could get probation, but it was also possible they could get jail time. Confessing might also result in his getting bounced from graduate school and having to give up on his dream of working in Hollywood.
Maybe I should have used more stick than carrot, I thought. Maybe I should have waved the possibility of a get-out-of-jail card. I wouldn’t have explicitly promised anything, but I could have said that the deal I was offering came with a limited-time offer. Often, it’s only a ticking deadline that gets lawyers to respond.
When I joined the ranks of law enforcement, I had no idea that sales was part of the job. Many experienced cops, many of the best cops, are salesmen in blue. They know that you have to close the deal to close the case. Some of those closers are great at reading body language. Others are expert at the fine art of manipulation.
To try and close Brad Steinberg, I’d used the love card. I wondered if that would prove enough.
It was my hope that Steinberg was reading Mateo’s poetry at that very moment. He knew that happily ever after was no longer possible for the couple, but he could still do something for them. He could bestow peace in the form of a body. The story I’d told about Adnan being afraid of dying in America wasn’t made up. Many cultures focus their memorial services around a body. I was hoping I had sold Steinberg on the idea of making amends by giving up the location where Mateo was buried.
As more time passed, though, I was sure I hadn’t succeeded, and critiqued myself much as an actor would. How had I delivered my lines? Was what I had said believable? How convincing were my words? How effective was my entrance, and my exit?
By the time mid-afternoon came around, I had decided that I wasn’t much of a salesman or an actor. That didn’t mean I couldn’t be a good old-fashioned cop, though. I didn’t need a confession in order to make a case. There was plenty of evidence for me to rework, and I still hadn’t even had a face-to-face with Jason Cunningham, or his mother. It was just a matter of time before I found something I had overlooked.
“Back to the old drawing board,” I said.
For most of the afternoon, I reviewed case notes. I was figuring out my moves for the next day, when my cell phone rang. The display said Alex Eisen was calling, a name unfamiliar to me.
“Detective Gideon?” he said. “This is Alex Eisen. I’m a lawyer representing Brad Steinberg.”
Before cutting a deal, I insisted Brad Steinberg provide a formal written statement describing the circumstances that resulted in Mateo Ramos’s death. I read his account several times. I wish I could say there was some purpose for Mateo’s death, but there wasn’t. Mateo didn’t die in the middle of som
e epic bout. Javier Moreno and some of the other fighters had to be induced to go into the ring through a combination of money and drugs, but not Mateo. Boxing was just another job, another means to his end. That wasn’t what killed him. He’d died from something that shouldn’t have killed him. His death was a fluke, a one-in-a-million tragic occurrence.
According to Steinberg’s statement, Mateo was a proud man. When asked, he refused to kiss the pig or pretend she was his love. He wore a costume, a rooster mask with a pronounced cockscomb, but did so reluctantly. As an actor, he was wooden, unenthusiastically delivering the lines he was prompted to say. He was a man with a purpose. Mateo had agreed to fight for money, and to that end he lived up to his bargain.
To the best of Brad’s recollection, Mateo’s bout was with a man named Juan Carlos. Both men were of similar height, age, and weight, but the fight was dominated by Mateo. There was plenty of blood, but all of it belonged to Juan Carlos. The three directors did what they could to prolong the fight; still, the beat-down of Juan Carlos was just what they wanted to get on film.
Mateo didn’t strut around after his victory, as did most of the winners. He was interested in getting paid and returning to Home Depot. Mateo’s eyes were on the prize, and that was Luciana. The money he’d earned fighting would get them that much closer to their wedding.
After the fight, the directors told Mateo not to change into his work clothes, because they would need to shoot more footage of him both inside and outside the ring. For the time being, though, they told him he could take a break.
No one was looking at Mateo, let alone filming him, as he made his way out of the boxing ring. The boxing shoes he was wearing were large on him, so he might have slipped; maybe his mask made it difficult for him to see. Experienced boxers have miscalculated entering and exiting through the ropes in the ring. Mateo was not experienced. He might have tried to vault the ropes and gotten his feet tangled up. Maybe he decided to climb the ropes and push off from the corner post, only to have one of his feet catch. It’s possible he got tripped up on the ropes and stumbled downward.
