The White Van

by Patrick Hoffman

  It was well into nighttime now. There were cars filled with kids from the suburbs coming into South of Market to hit the clubs. Homeless men were trying to wave people into parking spots. People smoked cigarettes on corners and people smoked crack in doorways. Massage parlors sat open next to liquor stores. Men and women gathered in small groups on corners.

  Later, when he was interviewed about what happened next, Elias would lie and tell the inspectors that he and Trammell had been on their way to the Henry Hotel in search of a gang member named Duda Rue. He would say they were just parking when they had spotted Emily running; in reality, they were driving back to Emily’s apartment when Trammell spotted her. He noticed her walking across Sixth Street close to the wall. “Whoa, whoa, slow down,” he said. Something about the way she walked, the fact that she was wearing a hat, her size, her race, her coloring all matched, but it was something more than that, something that couldn’t be quantified.

  “Hold on, hold on,” he said. Elias stopped and Trammell jumped out of the car and crossed Sixth Street against traffic. Elias didn’t know what was going on. He turned in his seat and watched and debated whether he should back up, turn around, or jump out. He decided to jump out. Emily kept walking away from them toward Howard Street.

  Elias ran a few steps and then shadowed Trammell from across the street. He felt scared; his heart was racing. His hand kept going down to the gun at his waist. Sixth Street was crowded with people; the buildings were tight and tall, and there were no alleys to run through. There was a group of young Chinese kids lined up to get into a club.

  When Emily looked behind her and saw Trammell coming after her, her first thought was that he was making a mistake, maybe confusing her for someone else. He wasn’t Russian. The idea that he might be a cop was just starting to form in her head when she bumped square into Elias.

  “Hey,” said Elias, like he was trying to wake her up. She had walked into his chest. They were in the middle of Sixth Street. Cars were stopping and honking. She tried to step around him, but he grabbed her shoulders and held her.

  At first Emily thought he was trying to help her. “I’m okay,” she said, pulling her arm away. His hand tightened on her wrist. She looked into his face and saw ugliness and hatred; he looked like he might hit her. Even dressed in plain clothes, she could tell he was a cop.

  “I’m all right,” she tried again.

  “Come on,” said Elias, pulling her toward the curb. Emily’s eyes darted around at all the cars, all the people; nobody was helping, everyone was either staring or ignoring her, but nobody was stepping forward to help.

  Trammell caught up to them and took her other arm, knocking into her, making her lose her footing for a second. They pulled her up and toward the sidewalk.

  “Nah,” said Emily. She tried to pull her arms away, but they both held tight.

  Her mind raced. They were cops, she could tell by their faces, but what were they stopping her for?

  “I didn’t do nothing,” she said. Her mind wheeled around.

  They pushed her toward a big blue building. Her heart raced. She looked around for help, but the sidewalk had become deserted; every window was empty.

  They kept her moving until the back of her head hit the wall. Were they cops? Were they with the Russians?

  Elias held up the mug shot and looked from it to her face and back again. “It’s her,” he said.

  Emily winced. If I could take it back, she thought. If I had stayed on the roof. She wanted to cry. If I stayed at the hotel.

  Trammell held her tighter, the expression on his face, to Emily, appearing incomprehensibly hostile; if they were cops, why were they so mad?

  “You fucking bitch,” said Elias. “You know how long we been looking for you?” He pulled his hand back like he was going to hit her. She flinched, and the back of her head hit the wall behind her again. He got right in her face, his expression even worse. “We’re trying to save you,” he said. His breath was hot and bad.

  “What’s your name?” asked Trammell.

  “Mariah,” said Emily.

  Elias swung her around so that her face was toward the wall. She stared at the grout between the bricks; she stared at the texture of the brick and tried to organize a plan. He began patting her down. His hands were rough on her.

  “You need a lady cop to search me!” said Emily.

  He groped around her pants. Her fear, expanding inside her, felt like it could lift her up. Why didn’t I leave town?

  “What the fuck we got here?” he said, finding the gun in her jacket pocket.

  “That’s not mine,” said Emily, looking back at him. Trammell tightened his grip on her shoulder and pushed it into the wall. Elias popped the clip out of the gun, confirmed it was loaded, popped the clip back in, and put the gun into his jacket pocket. During the entire investigation that came later, an investigation that included hundreds of officers, this gun was never discovered; it sat untouched and unnoted in Elias’s pocket even as he was questioned by the homicide inspectors.

  Cars were driving past like nothing was happening.

  He jammed his hands into her pants pockets and found the bag of marijuana. He pulled it out, looked at it, sniffed it, and handed it to Trammell.

  “My God,” he said. “You’re fucked.”

  None of this mattered to Emily. She didn’t care about a gun charge, or a weed charge, but the fact that they were looking for her, the fact that they were carrying around her mug shot, seemed to mean they had her for the bank. That fucking PI, he probably called them as soon as she left.

  Elias found the bottle of Dilaudid and shook it. His lips were smacking like a cokehead. Emily could hear him breathing heavy. He moved down her legs and found the stack of hundred-dollar bills tucked into her sock. Everyone got quiet. Trammell smiled.

  “Keep it,” said Emily. “Just fucking keep it.”

  “Keep it?” said Elias, looking at Trammell. “She wants us to take a bribe.”

  “She’s a gangster,” said Trammell.

  “What do you think?” asked Elias.

  “I think she’d get ten years for the gun, plus two for the pills, and one for the bribery of a peace officer.” He pulled out a radio, turned his back to them, and spoke into it. All of the problems that Trammell and Elias had been having disappeared like fog. They felt awake. They felt free. They felt strong.

  “Bullshit,” said Emily. “That shit ain’t even my gun.”

  “What about the money?” asked Elias.

  A man walked by, skirting around the parked cars. Emily thought about yelling for help, but decided against it.

  “I found that. Swear on my mother. Right up on Turk Street,” she said.

  “You found a stack of hundreds on Turk Street?”

  “I know,” she said.

  Trammell was still forcing her right shoulder into the wall. She couldn’t move.

  “You sure it wasn’t on Geary?” asked Elias.

  “What?”

  “On Geary?”

  “Nah, on Turk,” she said.

  “Not on Geary?” asked Elias again.

  “Not at a bank on Geary?” asked Trammell.

  Emily felt sweat on her forehead. Dread boiled in her guts.

  The two cops stepped even closer to her, jamming her up against the wall like they were going to rob her. She braced herself for a beating. She could smell sweat and alcohol. The older one needed to shave and he didn’t seem stable. She turned her shoulder, pushed her knee against the wall, and tried to squeeze through them.

  “Hold on there,” said Elias. He elbowed her back against the wall and reached under her shirt with his left hand and grabbed the skin of her stomach and pinched it. “Hold on,” he said. Emily tried to push his hand away, but his wrist was like a metal bar. Her skin felt like it might tear. She wanted to cry out, but she couldn’t.

  “Shhh,” said Elias in her ear. “Did you get it at a bank?”

  “Hell no,” she said.

 
; Elias let go of her skin and held the mug shot up to her face. “You see this?”

  “So what?” said Emily.

  He took the paper away from her face, leaned in, and said, “Where’s the money?” His breath smelled alcoholic. It smelled sour. The stubble on his face was gray; the whites of his eyes looked yellow. His skin was dry.

  Emily was dying of thirst. There was no good thing that could come from this. This was it.

  Trammell loosened his hold on her shoulder, moved closer to her, and spoke into her ear: “Look, we got you with a gun, you got drugs, you got money on you that was stolen from a bank—”

  Emily opened her mouth to speak, but was cut off.

  “You got bills with serial numbers that match stolen bills from a bank. We got video. We got DNA at the bank. You’re fucked. It’s over. Chowchilla time. You gonna be a hard-ass bitch.”

  Elias leaned in and spoke calmly. “Now, the way it’s going to go down is this: you’re going to tell us where the money is, and we’ll let you go.” He looked at Trammell.

  “Scot-free,” said Trammell.

  Elias whispered, “Listen, we are the only people that know it was you, but in about two minutes, I’m going to call in and tell them that I’ve got the girl who robbed the bank. It doesn’t matter if you think we can’t prove it. We can. We have video, you have the money. It’s over. Unless you give us the rest of the money, and we forget about your stupid junky ass, and everyone goes back to their happy ways.”

  They waited. A cloud of depression moved in. Emily didn’t know what to do. She had never experienced not knowing what to do in such a pure way. Her insides were splitting. It felt like her heart was breaking. She wanted to shut down, she wanted to go silent on them, maybe even fall down onto the street, let them prove whatever they had to prove. They seemed like they might kill her. She was too scared to think. Time crawled. People were walking by now, but they weren’t doing anything. Where is Pierre? Emily watched as a white van turned the corner from Howard onto Sixth Street. It drove past them. She looked at the driver. He was staring back at her. It was the ugly Russian man, the quiet one from the hotel. Their eyes locked as he went by. “They got it,” she said pointing at the van. She felt anger inside.

  “Who?” said Elias.

  “Right there in that van, the Russians.”

  Elias and Trammell both watched the van as it continued down Sixth Street and then turned right onto Minna. The two cops exchanged looks. Something shifted. The word Russians echoed in the moment. They pushed Emily in front of them and began walking toward Minna. People sank back to let them pass. Everyone stole looks at Emily to see if she was snitching. Fuck all y’all, she thought. Minna was four hundred feet in front of them. They walked without speaking. As they approached the corner, Trammell let go of Emily’s arm and hustled ahead. He peered around and then looked back at Elias. “It’s sitting right there,” he said.

  “They got it,” said Emily again. “They got the money.” She didn’t know why she was saying it. It felt compulsive. She couldn’t control her words. She said it calmly but with conviction. The words came out hot. Maybe they would let her go.

  “Let’s go,” said Elias, pulling her by both arms. When they turned the corner Emily saw the white van idling in the middle of the alley. It wasn’t parked, it just sat there, about two hundred yards in. Elias pushed her forward. The alley was clear of people. It got darker as they went. Emily looked for the PI’s car, but it was gone. Sirens blared down Sixth Street, headed for some other incident.

  The cops pushed Emily toward the wall of the alley. Before she knew what was happening the white one was lifting her right hand and handcuffing it to an iron window bar. He was breathing heavy like men do before a fight.

  “No, you don’t got to do all that,” said Emily. He clicked the cuffs closed.

  Elias nodded his head toward the van, and said, “Go.”

  Trammell began trotting with his gun out toward the van. Elias followed right behind. Emily pulled on her hand, trying to yank it free. The cuff bit into the skin of her wrist. The city sounded like bees in her ears. She was lost.

  As the cops got near the van, the engine shut off. Emily watched as the taillight went dark. She watched as Trammell jogged forward. The driver’s side door of the van popped open, and the man Georgy stepped out. Emily watched as he walked toward Trammell. They were about twenty feet apart from each other. Georgy’s posture was straight, and he seemed perfectly relaxed. He had a slight smile on his face. For a moment Emily thought they might start talking to each other. They were ten feet apart. Emily watched as Georgy’s right arm raised up. Everything slowed down. The next thing Emily saw was Trammell’s head snapping back like he had been punched. The color red floated in the air. And then she heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot. Trammell fell backward. Shot in the head.

  Emily watched the other cop shoot. She saw the Russian man’s head explode. It only took one second, and then everything was over. Two men had been shot dead right in front of Emily’s eyes. It happened as fast as someone clapping their hands twice.

  She yanked on her hand again, but it wouldn’t budge. She said, “No, no, no,” and “Fuck me,” but nobody was there. Elias bent down and checked his partner, then walked over to the Russian and looked down at him. He went to the driver’s door and looked into the van and got into it. Emily experienced a brief moment of hope—she thought he might drive away—but then the back doors of the van swung open and Elias jumped out.

  He walked straight toward her. She tried to find the strength to scream, but she didn’t have the breath. She was suffocating. There was nothing she could do. She didn’t feel ready to die. She prayed for one more chance. Please God, everything I did, I did it for you. She looked over her shoulder toward Sixth Street, but nobody was there.

  The cop kept walking toward her. He walked past his partner’s body splayed out on the ground. She braced herself. He looked crazy. His mouth was open. He looked like he was going to cry. He held his gun loosely in his right hand.

  “Please don’t tell on me,” he said. He walked right up to her and raised the gun up and pointed it at her head and said, “I didn’t fucking do it.”

  All of the men that Emily had ever known passed through her mind; good men and bad men; teachers, boyfriends, and bullies.

  “No,” she said, her mind becoming calm and focused. Something clicked. She felt composure settle into her. “Listen to me,” she said, staring him in his eyes. “I’m your witness. I saw it. You saved him. You tried to save that guy, your friend. You did right. You had to. You get it? I saw it.”

  Elias lowered the gun. “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “Jesus Christ. I’m fucked.” His face was squeezed in like he smelled death. He kept up a low moaning sound.

  Emily pulled on the cuff. It wouldn’t budge. People had started to appear at the mouth of the alley, but they were still far away.

  Elias bent over in front of her. “Oh fuck. I’m so fucked. I’m so fucked.” He looked up at her and said, “I don’t know what to do.”

  Emily breathed deeply. “Listen to me,” she said. He looked at her. “Did you radio it in?”

  He stopped moaning. “Fuck,” he said. He sounded like a dope fiend. “My radio’s in the car,” he said.

  “Do you have a phone?” she asked, calmly. She was in complete control now.

  He patted his pockets, pulled out a cell phone, and looked at her.

  “Call nine-one-one,” she said. The sound of sirens was already growing in the background.

  She looked at him and said, “I didn’t rob that bank. You hear me? This is the deal: I didn’t rob that bank. I was smoking weed right here. That man in the van tried to grab me. You and your partner saved me, right?”

  Elias stopped crying. He looked at her, trying to understand.

  “You saved me, right?” She looked straight at him and sounded out the words: “You saved me and I didn’t rob no bank.”

  Elias�
��s face relaxed; he seemed to understand. He tucked the gun behind his back and unlocked her handcuffs.

  9

  Emily, for the past hour, had been sitting alone in a ten-foot-by-ten-foot interview room in the homicide unit at 850 Bryant Street. The room was lit by a large fluorescent tube on the ceiling, which gave off stuttering, bright light. She could hear the low rumblings of male voices. Every now and then she heard the sound of yelling coming in through the walls. The room smelled vaguely of shit.

  She had never been in an interview room before; all of her prior arrests were the type that didn’t warrant formal interviews. The carpet was stained. The walls were grimy, like someone with dirty hands had been touching them. There was a table that seemed too big for the space. Electrical piping circled the room at head level. The words fuck you had been scrawled onto the wall to her right. The only window was a five-inch square in the door, which looked out toward a wall in the hallway.

  Emily was trying to breathe deep and calm down. The fact that she had to rely on the cop was no good. He was crazy. Anybody could see that. He looked like he was on PCP.

  The door opened. A woman and a man squeezed into the room. The woman wore a black, slightly wrinkled pantsuit with a pearl-colored shirt; she had long brown hair with gray in it and a deep crease in the skin between her eyes. The man was tall and bald, with a shaved head. He looked like he weighed three hundred pounds, but his suit still hung loose on his body.

  The woman took the seat opposite Emily. The man said something about needing a chair and stepped back out of the room.

  The lady looked at Emily’s face, like she was trying to size her up. “I’m sorry we kept you waiting so long,” she said.

  Emily nodded.

  “Can we get you a drink, or something to eat?”

  “I am kind of thirsty,” said Emily. What do they know? Emily read the woman’s face for clues. Do they know about the bank? Emily remembered the crazy cop saying they were the only ones who knew about the bank. I was wearing a wid and glasses, she told herself. I am one woman out of half a million women in San Francisco. Relax.