Bear is Broken

by Lachlan Smith

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.

  Chapter 6

  “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.

  From a short hallway outside the elevator I had to pass through another metal door. The deputy who opened it checked my ID, then closed the door behind me. I was now in the jail proper. An inmate mopped the concrete hall. I signed the book, gave the guard Ellis’s name, and was shown to a tiny, airless interview room down another hall.

  Ten minutes later a different deputy brought him out from the deeper reaches. He walked purposely but without haste, his head down, like a man crossing an open field, and he didn’t look at me until he was seated in the flimsy plastic chair that went with the flimsy plastic table. He was a tall, thick man with a youthful face and a fringe of gray at his temples. Along with his jail-issue orange jumpsuit, he wore unlaced Timberland boots and half-rim reading glasses. The room was so close that I could smell his breath, an acidic smell I recognized from other meetings in these cubicles, somewhere between acetone and algae, equal parts bad nutrition, anger, and despair. It was the smell of a man digesting himself from the inside.

  “This is some terrible shit,” he said.

  Accepting that as commiseration, I nodded, waiting for him to be done talking about what had happened, about what was still happening to my brother and me.

  “So this dude just walked in there and popped Teddy while you two was eating lunch,” he said, shaking his head.

  I had not yet relived that moment in memory, and I had no intention of doing so now. I’d come here to put Ellis Bradley and his troubles behind me as quickly as possible, but he’d likely been my brother’s last client. At the moment when that bullet entered Teddy’s brain, Ellis Bradley’s fate had been more important to him than anything else.

  “You don’t look too good,” Ellis told me now. “I’m sure you need to be getting with your people, so I won’t take up your time. I’ve been thinking about my situation, as you can imagine. I figure I must qualify for the public defender since your brother cleaned me out. No way can I pay another private lawyer to go through this garbage all over again. The DA will probably offer me some shitty-ass deal, and I’ll probably end up taking the fall, doing two or three years, losing my kids. That about sum up the situation from your perspective?”

  I nodded. “The judge will probably declare a mistrial tomorrow morning and dismiss the jury. There’s always the chance the DA will drop the charges, but in a case like this, where it all comes down to witness credibility, that’s not likely to happen. Any case with a domestic violence label, you can pretty much expect the DA to go for blood. We might be able to argue for reduced bail, given the circumstances, the delay. But yeah, basically you’re goin
g to be doing this all over again. It’s too bad. The evidence came in pretty well for you. And Teddy knows how to close a case like nobody else. Knew.” I looked down.

  Ellis nodded, and I could see that the fight was seeping out of him. He couldn’t bring himself to eat anything on the mornings when he had to appear in court. During the trial he’d had a tendency to react visibly, sometimes audibly, to things that were said about him. Under stress, he appeared to be precisely the angry, aggressive black man whose portrait the DA had painted for the jury. No way was he going to testify, Teddy had decided, because his discomfort would come across as guilt. Seeing him now, I knew that he’d surrendered, that the system had broken him.

  “You can fight this. The new lawyer will get the transcript of what happened this time around. He’ll be able to see all the weaknesses in the DA’s case. The good news is you didn’t testify, so they won’t be able to use your words against you like your lawyer will use Lorlee’s.”

  He shook his head. “I just want to thank you for coming down here this evening.”

  It was time for me to leave, but I didn’t stand. I was remembering the last thing my brother had said to me, with that half-serious smile on his face: “I ought to let you close this one.” I wouldn’t have to try the whole case over again, the way a new lawyer would. It was a closing argument, a speech of an hour or two pulling together the evidence, arguing to the jury how the facts supported Ellis’s version of events. I wouldn’t have to cross-examine witnesses or argue fine points of law, and we’d keep the same jury and the evidence as it had come in, more in Ellis’s favor than not. By the end of the week it would all be over, instead of dragging out for six more months with him sitting in jail as a prelude to prison. I knew the case forward and back, and I knew the closing statement Teddy had prepared, though he was also a compulsive improviser, meaning that the statement he’d written was almost certainly not the one he would have given. Most of the jurors had probably made up their minds by now; Teddy always maintained that most made them up during jury selection, before they’d heard the facts, yet he fought as if the jurors’ hearts and minds were up for grabs to the bitter end.