by Derek Blass
“What do you mean they murdered him?”
“Murdered him, bro! Stormed into his house on some bullshit domestic violence call and shot his ass!”
“No way.”
“Hell yes, man. We gotta do something carnal.”
“Hold on. Was anyone else there?”
“I don’t know man. Livan was pretty old and beat up. I know he lived with his daughter and her husband. That culo was a punk-ass-wannabe-banger, but whatever. They might have been there.”
Now the identity of the caller mattered. This man had information he may need. “You've got my attention, but who are you and what do you want me to do?”
“Damn man. You kidding me? Start la Guerra over this!” the voice exclaimed, sidestepping a part of the question. “Too much of this happens and los cochinos no se cambian. They never change—it's time to change them.”
“Well…”
“You’re the lawyer hombre! Bring the law down on law enforcement. Don’t hesitate bro. Get your chones together and let’s bring it.”
With that, the voice stopped and the line went dead. The caller's urgency, passion and then abrupt hang-up left Cruz in limbo—his mind swirling like the wind before a heavy storm.
T H R E E
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All right then, give it here,” Martinez said. He flicked a look at Williams, who shrugged his shoulders.
Max responded, “You kidding me? This tape is the story of the year. It’s worth millions.”
Martinez's coal black eyes narrowed, focused. “This man just died, and that’s what you care about? How 'bout this.” Martinez pulled his gun out of its holster and held its cold barrel to Max’s temple. “How about I blow your brains out onto this wall and I just take it from you?”
Max laughed nervously. “But, you…no you wouldn’t, couldn’t do…”
“The hell I can’t. You think I give a shit right now? Give me the drive.”
“Look, the drive is password protected anyway. I need to get to a computer to unlock it, so let’s go to my station and work it out there, okay?”
Martinez stood still in Max’s face. He relieved the gun's pressure from Max’s temple.
“Ain't gonna open it without the password,” Williams said softly to Martinez.
“We can do that. I’m just a little messed up right now,” Martinez said as he shook his head.
“I understand,” Max said warily.
“Get your stuff together and we’ll go back to your station. Call one of your news trucks to pick us up.”
* * * *
Cruz stepped out of his office and felt a chill wisp around his face. He stood just outside the door to his office for a moment, enjoying the exchange of stale, musty inside air to the outside breeze. Cruz was tall for a Mexican—around five-foot eleven. A pressed, white shirt fit his slender frame, and he wore his characteristic light brown pants. It was the look of every lower to middle-class man in Mexico City, a city where every man, regardless of class or wealth, had a collared shirt and pants to wear every day.
He had a slender nose and delicate lips, which were significant traits in a culture where those of Spanish descent normally tried to separate themselves from los indigenos. Brown eyes and dark, coarse hair stood out from his relatively pale skin. The mix of his light-skinned father and rich, cocoa bean mother were apparent in all his physical aspects.
The moment passed, and he hopped into his car while dialing a phone number.
“Sandra, you know what’s going on with this police shooting? Someone just called me, and …”
“Of course I know Cruz. It’s going to be all over the news. I’m about to go down there and tape a segment.”
“What the hell happened?”
“Cruz, I gotta go. In a nutshell, some cops shot an old Latino in front of his daughter.”
“How many cops were there?”
“Just come down to 11253 East Charligsen Street and we’ll do some investigating together, okay?”
“Yeah, see you there.”
F O U R
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After a while, a news van from Max's station showed up. The driver tried to get Max to stay and call a reporter for a piece, but Martinez quickly dispelled that possibility. He leaned back in his seat in the van and groaned. “I’m watching you. Don’t do any crazy shit with that drive.”
Max could faintly feel it in his shirt pocket. He had to find a way to sell its contents. After a while of silent riding, the van pulled up to the news station.
“All right, get out.” Max stumbled out of the van. Williams motioned that he was going to stay put.
“My office is right this way. It’s really a cubicle, not an office. I don’t think they’d give me an office,” Max laughed nervously.
“I don’t need a tour, I just need that drive.”
“Like I said, I need to unlock the drive for you to even be able to watch it.”
Martinez trailed Max through the cells of news groups. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. The adrenaline had faded and now he was exhausted.
“My cubicle is up here.” Martinez followed Max through a seemingly unending maze of human-sized cages. “Here we go.” Max plopped down into a worn, gray office chair. His cubicle walls were plastered with pictures of what looked like destination resorts. The desktop was covered with a rainbow of Post-Its, newspaper clippings and discarded plastic wrappers. “Gonna fire this beast up,” Max said as he turned his computer on. Martinez looked around the office and stared down several people that were being a bit too nosy.
“How long is this gonna take?”
“No more than five minutes.” Martinez looked over Max’s shoulder and tried to figure out what he was doing. It was all a flurry of clicks and typing, though, nothing he could follow.
“Okay, so I’ve unlocked the password protection. Now, you—or someone that knows what they’re doing—can just plug this into a USB drive and access its contents.”
“All right.”
Max turned around and handed the drive to Martinez. He lowered his voice and said, “You sure you don’t want to share in the proceeds of selling this with me?” Max asked. “We could get mountains of cash.”
“It’s evidence. I’ve already broken so many rules letting you come here. Now just give it to me.”
Max reluctantly handed over the drive. How did he stumble across the rare instance in humanity where ethics trumped capitalistic tendencies? “If you change your mind …”
“I won’t.” With that Max watched as Martinez walked away from him, unaware that a slew of trouble was headed their direction.
* * * *
Shaver sat with his back pressed against a closed locker. He flexed his chest muscle which responded with a ripple. Tomko was changing into his civilian's clothes and Lindsey was sitting quietly, watching the other two interplay. It was characteristic of that damn mute, Shaver thought to himself.
“Hey Sarge, you know that crap’s gonna be all over the news?”
Shaver remained focused on the bandage he was wrapping around his calf. It was an old achy injury by now. The kind that didn't bother you enough to go to the doctor because usually a good wrap and some Aspirin did the trick. He had plenty of these aches.
“Sarge, don’t forget that little Jew photographer was there filming,” Tomko insisted. Lindsey looked away from them, pissed. Shaver couldn't respect the guy. There he was, a freaking Jew himself, and he wouldn't even say a word to either of them. If he'd just stand up for himself once, maybe they'd change, or at least not fling around the crap in front of him.
“I told him to turn that camera off.”
“And you’d trust him at his word?”
This gave Shaver reason to pause. “Fuck me. You’re right.”
“I think he works at Channel Four News. I can go chat with him if you want.”
“Go ahead and do that. I need to have
my own conversation with Martinez. That bastard. I knew I could never trust a spic on my team.”
F I V E
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Cruz pulled up to an older row home and put the car into park. The place buzzed like a beehive. Cops roamed the perimeter of the house with menacing, come-close-and-I’ll-kick-your-ass looks on their faces. A horde of reporters and their cameramen stood on the sidewalk out front. Cruz stepped out of his car and scanned the tumult for Sandra.
“Cruz, Cruz! Over here!”
Cruz spun to his left and saw Sandra waving. He walked towards her, ricocheting off of two fast moving cameramen in the process.
“This place is a madhouse,” Cruz said.
“This is really crazy Cruz. Apparently the police were called to this house on a domestic violence complaint. They arrive, the husband is gone, but the wife is home with her father. Cops enter, and the next thing you know they’ve shot the old man.”
“You know his name?”
“Yeah, Livan Rodriguez. Fifty-five-year-old, Mexican male. From what I’ve been able to gather, Mr. Rodriguez was a Mexican citizen who lived here from time to time.”
“Someone I know told me he was active in the U.S. during the Chicano Movement. Seems strange that a Mexican citizen would be up here doing that.”
“That is weird,” Sandra mulled before moving on. “His daughter is a twenty-three-year-old. Also a Mexican citizen. Nowhere to be found now.”
“The cops are going to interrogate the hell out of her when they find her.”
“Yep. Hey Cruz, rumor is that a cameraman from Channel Four News was filming when this happened.”
“During the shooting?”
“That's the word. Name is Max Silverman. He's a cameraman for that show, Police. Channel Four produces it then licenses it out.”
“Talked to him?”
“Haven’t gotten there yet. Feel like taking a drive?”
“Sure.”
Cruz met Sandra when he was seven. Their families lived right across the street from one another. It defied odds that two kids from a poor Latino neighborhood, with the parents they had, could make it to where they were. Cruz, a relatively successful lawyer and Sandra, an anchor on late-night news. He remembered that Sandra had always been a wickedly smart kid. Smart to the point of trouble. Add to that her stunning beauty, the kind that still made his tongue play stranger, and the reasons underlying her success started to emerge.
Cruz remembered that they became friends through other friends. He didn't hang out with her much until they were teens. Once he got that chance though, it was readily apparent that she was vibrant, funny to the point of tears, and had a depth to her soul that made her seem like an eighty-year-old woman trapped in a thirty-year-old's body. She had a glowing smile and a laugh that played in his ears. Black hair slipped down to the middle of her back until later in her life when she cut it short to the collective gasps of the women in her family. Her face was soft but well-shaped and she had a freckle under her left eye that somehow made Cruz want to protect everything pure about her.
They both came from families of fanatical activists. This created obstacles in life. Not only were they minorities, but they couldn't keep their heads down and fly under the radar. It wasn't allowed. Their fathers frequently pointed a rough, brown finger in their faces and growled, “I made this opportunity for you, go fight for it!” This common background helped them develop a strong bond. Besides, she appreciated his quirks and intelligence, and he admired her passion for life and all its folds.
When Cruz shipped off to college, things started to change in him. Like most boys, he began to fill out. His voice grew deeper. His confidence grew as he interacted with more and more women. One fall break he came home and Sandra fell in love with him. Their parallel backgrounds had brought them together, and it was also what eventually tore them apart.
They drove to the news station while catching up on each other’s lives. It had been about a year since Cruz law saw her.
“So, you’ve been busy, huh?”
“News never stops. Neither does this type of junk.”
“What junk?”
“Discrimination. Police brutality. We could run a strong discrimination story on a weekly basis.” Cruz was glad to see this one thing hadn't changed. Sandra was imbued with a strong sense of justice, of a requirement to fight in defense of her community and her principles. She refused to accept any stifling of life.
“Maybe keeping it in the news would help.”
“No, you know what’s really going to help?”
“What’s that?”
“A fundamental change. Not turning our collective cheek when we get slapped.” He smiled at her unabated passion.
“You mean fighting back against the cops? That’s a difficult position to take.”
“What reason is there for change when you can kill a defenseless person and all you get is suspended? For an action like that, there should be an equally violent reaction.”
He sighed, as they fell back into a routine as familiar as the pillow he slept on every night. “You know I don’t believe in that philosophy.”
“I know, I know. You are from the Ghandi-esque school of peaceful civil disobedience and kumbaya. I’m not. But, I think the wisdom is in knowing when one approach may work over another. And what has the civil disobedience approach changed? All it has done is forced discrimination to become more cunning, and generally moved it behind doors.” Sandra pulled up into a visitor’s spot at the news station. Her perspective flowed naturally from her upbringing, much like his flowed from his own.
“How about we continue the conversation over lunch after we talk to this cameraman?”
“Sure. But you know I’m right.”
Cruz smiled. “I didn’t say that.”
S I X
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Tomko pulled up to the Channel Four news station and went to the front desk. He was slighter than the other guys in the team, and probably a reason he hitched onto Shaver so tightly. Scruffy, brown hair topped his rectangular face. His steps were hurried, jumpy. “You know where I can find a cameraman named Max?” He flashed his badge to move the process along.
A young, blond receptionist looked up at him and studied his badge. “Man, he’s sure been popular today,” she murmured.
The answer piqued Tomko’s interest. “Oh yeah? Who else’s been here to see him?” When she hesitated he added, “Off the record.”
“Well, no one really,” she said in a low whisper. “Just that he’s been getting calls from a bunch of tabloids and other news agencies.”
“That it?”
The young girl paused again but then said, “He came back to work earlier with another cop.”
“What'd he look like?”
“I dunno...Mexican?”
“Fucking Martinez,” Tomko muttered.
“Huh?”
“Nothing, show me where Max is.”
“I can’t show you, but I can tell you. Go down the long hall there and make your first right after the water fountain. Max’s cubicle is the third on the left.”
Tomko started walking towards Max’s cubicle while wondering why in the hell Martinez would have come back here. As Tomko turned the corner to Max’s cubicle, he noticed Max standing there talking on a cell phone. All he could catch was the tail end of a sentence, “…get you one.”
“Hey, Max!” Tomko called out. Max spun around.
“Tomko?” he squeezed out. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to talk to you about today.” He looked around, noticed an empty office to the right and yanked Max into it. He shut the door and crouched down in front of it.
“Calm down! What's your problem.”
“Like I said, I want to talk to you about today.”
“You and every other freak in the world,” Max said as he readjusted his collared shirt. “You realize what you du
mbasses have gotten me into? A million phone calls from reporters and journalists wanting to know what I saw.”
“And what did you tell them?”
“What did I tell them?! Nothing! You think I’m an idiot? I saw what you guys did to that old Mexican!”
“Hey—lower your damn voice. Keep doing the right thing and keep your mouth shut, Max. This will be a department thing. We’ll take care of it.”
Max laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure you guys have an interest in helping me out.”
Tomko glared at Max, but let the comment go. “Listen, I want to see the camera you had today.”
“Why, it was off while all this crap went down.”
“Cause I said!”
“Right there, on my desk,” Max said with a flick of his wrist.
Tomko grabbed the camera and turned it around in his hands. He furrowed his eyebrows and analyzed the mangled piece of electronics.
“How does this thing store what you record?”
“A removable drive, but Martinez took it with him.”
Tomko looked at him in disbelief. “Were you gonna tell me that?” Shit, Tomko thought, that’s why Martinez was here.
* * * *
“Martinez, whatchu gonna do with that drive?” Williams said, his usual baritone voice tinged with a bit of nerves. They were driving in the general vicinity of the police station, but Williams noted that Martinez was taking a meandering route.
The two of them met in high school. Martinez was a scrawny sophomore when Williams exploded onto the scene. He was six inches taller than Martinez and already six-foot-five when he got to the school. They were on the high school football team, Williams playing both quarterback and linebacker while Martinez used his speed as a safety.
They both came from the 'hood, different ones though. Martinez grew up in a house of mothers, the youngest of four children. His father passed away when he was five and that left him, his mom, one aunt, and three older sisters. The overdose of estrogen made him an overly sensitive kid, slightly whiny, and definitely a mama's boy. Despite the lack of a male figure, and despite the fact none of his family played or even enjoyed sports, he always had physical ability.
