Who Needs Justice?

by Rex Bolt

  "Is he Russian?"

  "Eastern European, I think Croatian."

  "What's Damirko look like?"

  "He's short and prematurely bald. He appears athletic, like someone who might have been a gymnast. I met him only once, with Steve at the Golden Gate Park courts. We said hello, but my sense was this was a cold individual."

  "Any chance Steve and Damirko do business together?"

  "I've not heard of Damirko in that regard . . . but what I know doesn't mean a great deal, does it?"

  +++

  They had to wait a few minutes at the Burmese restaurant, even on a Wednesday night, but it was worth it, with the food pretty tasty and the portions large.

  Finishing their tea, Christian said, "Is Steve still fooling around on you?"

  "He says he's not," Birgitte said.

  "It reminds me of the baseball players," Christian said. "They catch a bunch of them using steroids, and Congress investigates, and then everyone calls it 'the steroid era', as though it's all over. You know most of the players are still using something, even the ones that got caught."

  "You're saying Steve coming clean, and treating me more lovingly, doesn't mean he's altered his behavior?"

  "Highly doubtful."

  "Well, my intellect agrees with you, but my heart doesn't want to."

  "That's understandable . . . Do you want to take a browse in the Green Apple and then come back to my apartment for a while?"

  "My, you shift gears unexpectedly. But yes, that sounds lovely."

  The Green Apple was across the street, a large, well-organized used bookstore that had been there since the sixties.

  Christian said, "There're always a lot of people in this place, you know it? With everything you hear about the e-readers and other dumb devices taking over?"

  "Thankfully," said Brigitte.

  Christian bought a book on past-life regressions written by a psychiatrist he heard interviewed on the radio once. There were chapters devoted to different patients who under hypnosis started speaking foreign languages or described Roman sandals on their feet or castles they lived in, that sort of thing.

  When they were driving home, at the stoplight on Arguello, he saw that Damirko, turning out to be quite a pesky little fucker, was behind them.

  "What'd you get?" Christian said.

  "Oh, just 'R is For Ricochet', from the Sue Grafton series. I've read most of them."

  "That's the woman private-eye with the letters of the alphabet, right? Set in fake Santa Barbara." Keeping his eye on the rear-view mirror.

  "It is. I do give her credit, she's been at it for thirty years. She's through 'V' now."

  "I started the first one. Couldn't buy into it. But I'm not much of a mystery fan."

  Birgitte smiled. "But you are apparently a fan of past-lives."

  "Something I'm looking into," he said.

  Damirko veered off when they crossed Lombard Street, and they went up to his apartment. Christian made coffee.

  "This is quite the bachelor pad," Birgitte said. "Forgive me if I am prying, but you must have entertained many ladies here."

  "I've tried. Not sure how consistently entertaining I've been . . . If you had to come up with a past life for yourself, what would it be?"

  "Ooh, that's difficult, though I am open to the possibility. Something with horses and a schoolhouse in England, perhaps? That vision has flashed through my mind on occasion since I was a child, like a deja vu sensation. What about you?"

  "I got nothing. I never believed in those type things, they fly in the face of logic. But this doctor on the radio was compelling. Plus my dad said some weird stuff near the end."

  "What did he say?"

  "That he was a soldier at Fort Sumter in Georgia. Something bad happened to him, I couldn't understand quite what. But his description of detail was uncanny, and he seemed so sure of himself, and pained by some of the recollections."

  "Well that is surely intriguing."

  "That was with the morphine kicking in of course . . . I was at a Club Med about ten years ago, and this comedy magician put on an adult show one night."

  "He did."

  "He asked for female volunteers from the audience to come up on stage, and he sat them in a line of chairs. Maybe six women volunteered. The guy then supposedly hypnotized the whole group, and their heads all slumped forward."

  "Yes? And then what?"

  "Then he gives them instructions. That when he touches their shoulder or hand they will become highly stimulated. He tells them to sit up and look straight ahead, and then goes around one-by-one poking them with a finger tip on the shoulder."

  "And . . . .they became . . . sexually aroused at that point?"

  "Yeah, right away, except for one woman who didn't react. But forget her. The others' responses became more heightened each time the magician would tap them again on the shoulder. It didn't matter if it was their bare skin, through the clothes worked the same."

  "Please continue."

  "So he keeps this up for a while, essentially teasing them, and then for the grand finale he shakes hands with each of them. Sustained contact now where he's bringing the person's hand up in the air and circling it back down, sort of like he's turning a crank. The women all climaxed, at least it sure seemed like it. A couple of them ended up out of the chair and on the floor."

  "I . . . I've never heard such a story before."

  "One of the women I knew a little bit, from a windsurfing lesson we took. I asked her the next day at lunch if she remembered being on stage and she said no, that she remembered volunteering but nothing after that."

  "I see."

  "Anyhow, I didn't mean to get so far off track. The point I'm trying to make, we know so little about how the brain works. We probably understand less than one percent of it."

  Birgitte nodded.

  "What?" Christian said. "You're still picturing the Club Med thing?"

  "Very much so," she said quietly, coming close.

  "Uh-oh," Christian said. "To be honest, this direction wasn't foremost on my mind tonight. Nothing with you, just my energy level is not quite up to par."

  "Shall you take a bit more coffee, then?" Birgitte was rubbing the back of his neck, slurring her words slightly.

  "I can probably tough it out," Christian said.

  30 - Bad Strokes

  He dropped Brigitte off late morning and drove over to the Golden Gate Park tennis courts.

  The courts were full of hackers like himself, mostly playing doubles, many with terrible looking wraps on their knees or forearms. They tended to talk after every point, all four of them chiming in on what a great rally it had just been, sometimes yelling out. It made Christian realize you didn't get much exercise in tennis unless you were pretty good, that you just looked stupid out there, and he vowed to forget the whole thing from here on out.

  There was an elevated clubhouse with a couple of couches and a ping-pong table, and next to the locker rooms was a small pro shop, with an attractive Asian woman in tennis attire behind the counter.

  "How do the lessons work please?" Christian said.

  "Certainly," the woman said. "I'm Jenna." Extending her hand. "We also have Mark. It's best to book a day or two in advance. We charge sixty-five dollars an hour, or forty a half-hour."

  "Anyone else teach here, besides you and Mark?"

  "Officially, no."

  "There are unofficial pros, then?"

  "Oh yes, unfortunately. They do it on the sly, and they undercut us. I keep telling Park and Rec, you have signs all over the place prohibiting that, you have to enforce the rules. But they don't."

  "You mean the pirate instructor signs up for a court with a partner, and the partner is the one taking the lesson?"

  "You got it."

  "That would make me go ballistic. It's your livelihood."

  "Thank you."

  "They good players, any of them?"

  "It's a mixed bag. The advantage with Mark or myself is we've paid
our dues. I played D-1 and Futures, and then got USPTA certified. You know what you're getting."

  "But a guy in his fifties with bad strokes and a bad attitude, will he get more out of his lesson with you than with some doofus?"

  "Probably not," she said.

  There was a bulletin board on a side wall with players seeking partners, musical happenings on Haight Street, upcoming tournament notices and so on. There were business cards here and there. Christian went through them one-by-one until he saw the word 'Damirko' and took that one off the wall.

  The card read:

  Fitness Training from National Trainer

  Mixed Martial Arts also Tennis call Damirko

  There was a rare pay phone outside the clubhouse, and Christian found some change and dialed the number.

  After half a dozen rings he got, "Yes Damirko trainer."

  Christian said, "Hey, I'm on the court. Golden Gate. What happened?"

  He could hear Damirko fumbling around. "My sorry," he said. "I teach San Jose today."

  "Fine, I'll come down there then. Where are you?"

  "Okay, you know the Stevenson Park? We can do six tonight."

  "That late?"

  "I'm sorry. I have juniors, from two."

  "All right, six then."

  "Your name is, again?" Nem.

  "Barry Bonds," Christian said, and hung up and started driving to San Jose.

  +++

  The gun was still in the spare tire compartment in the trunk as far as he knew, though he hadn't actually verified that fact since the issue in Pocatello.

  He stopped at a 7-11 in Cupertino to get directions to Damirko's park and backed into a space that faced a brick wall. He casually opened the trunk and confirmed he was good. While he was at it, he put on the latex gloves and carefully re-loaded the thing back to six shots. Highly unlikely but not out of the question.

  He got to Stevenson Park around three and all eight courts were full, with two of them occupied by Damirko and his juniors. He had to hand it to the guy, it was an impressive operation. Maybe fifteen kids out there, everyone busy, first hitting a series of balls fed by Damirko or his assistant, a young guy also wearing a shiny track suit, then running to a side area, putting down the racquet and doing an exercise, then hustling to pick up bunch of balls, and then back to the hitting drill again.

  Damirko barked orders like a drill sergeant, but no one seemed to mind. The kids all looked like elite, tournament players who were focused and took direction well. After a while they shifted to a different drill involving baseline crosscourt rallying, and it was clear Damirko was the weakest player out there. His strokes were short and choppy, while the kids all crushed the ball with the loose-armed, wrap-around open-stance technique you saw the pros using on TV.

  The guy had probably never been on a tennis court until he came to America and saw you could make money teaching it, and he figured out enough to make it work. You add in some personal training and the occasional side job, like getting hired to follow a guy and break his arm or neck, you probably did okay for yourself.

  Christian hung around for an hour, watching from a distance, and got out of there. He'd seen enough tennis drills for a lifetime, and it seemed unwise to confront Damirko. He thought about following the guy back to where he lived, getting a sense of that, but it didn't seem worth it because then what? Bottom line, he'd be running into the prick again soon.

  When he got back into the city he took a chance and stopped by Ray's. Ray came down to the lobby, happy to see him.

  "Seely, you know there's something wrong with you though," Ray said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "You ain't normal. You always got something urgent you dealing with. Can't wait to hear what it is now, the reason you came."

  "You want to get something to eat then?"

  "Man, I was getting ready to fix me something when you rang. But if you insist."

  "Where to?"

  "Ah, you know you want to go that first joint, the one I wouldn't walk into voluntarily in my lifetime. That'd be fine."

  Weatherby's was half-full when they arrived and they got a table in back and the drinks came quickly. Christian said, "First of all, what you did, making sure Birgitte was okay..."

  "We been over this already. She still okay?"

  "As far as I know. I saw her last night."

  "When you saying 'saw her last night', that mean you did her up?"

  "It went that way, yeah."

  "Man, I wish I was in your shoes."

  "Ray, don't worry about me, you can date Birgitte all you want."

  "Believe me Seely, I ain't worried about you. The problem is I got no libido."

  "What?"

  "The treatment, it's fucked me up in the head. Don't got shit anymore in that department."

  "You mean no interest, or can't do anything about it?"

  "Fuck you motherfucker. Both."

  "Wow . . . what do the doctors say?"

  "That the condition mess with some people, others it don't. They not sure why."

  "Ray, I'm real sorry to hear that. That's no way to live."

  "I don't especially need a piece-of-shit white boy to tell me that, all the action you getting. Playing the ladies, maybe even shooting people."

  "Have you tried, like a hypnotist or something?"

  "No, and not planning to. Bunch of bull roar there."

  "Well on my end—not as big a deal after I hear your thing—but I got a guy seems to know my business, insists on following me around."

  "Okay here we go. Now we establishing why we here."

  "Pretty sure it's connected to the Birgitte husband, Steve."

  "That dude? Honestly don't strike me as someone you'd have to worry about, other than he be yelling and screaming."

  "I thought that too. But this guy he's got working for him, or whatever, he might be a tough customer. Foreign guy, with an MMA background."

  "So you afraid he gonna slap a submission hold on you, make you tap out?" Ray was laughing.

  "Actually 'kill me' would be at the top of the list of what I'm afraid of."

  "Nah . . . nobody gonna take a chance on you. You ain't worth it."

  "Hopefully. But what if the husband was insane enough to think so?"

  "Then you on defense," Ray said.

  "Meaning what?" Christian said.

  "Well . . . you know your friend, running the other joint around the corner, right?" Ray was talking softer.

  "Yeah, Booker."

  "Me and him, we had a little history, years back. Lot of shit was going down in Bayview, and Booker near the middle of it. Whenever he found he on defense, he handled it right away."

  "Je . . . sus . . . Christ."

  "He got pinched once but it never stuck. Now he striding around table-to-table with manicured fingernails, jazz music flowing, asking how is everything. The ones put him on defense, things worked out different."

  "This was what I was afraid you would say. Not about Booker. But my deal."

  "Course you could do what a sensible citizen of the United States of America usually do. Call the po-lice."

  "I thought of that, but if I had to . . . go back on defense, they're familiar with me now."

  "Didn't know you was a natural genius. How 'bout that."

  "But back to handling this. There anything you recommend?"

  "Well, Birgitte's old man getting smacked upside the head, that might put an end to the show."

  "Might be rolling the dice there, though. Could backfire the other way."

  "All right, let me clarify something. You got the piece, you acting the part . . . but you full of shit."

  "Mostly, yeah."

  "At least you honest about it. I can't blame you. You got the good life going on."

  "So you'd say keep an eye on things for now, and hope they resolve themselves."

  "I don't believe you heard me say that."

  31 - Bitten Off

  Friday morning he tried a little curve ba
ll, starting his run right from his apartment, not driving anywhere. But when he got half way across the Marina Green, yep, there was Damirko on him again, pacing himself ten yards back. The guy was actually talking on his phone a few minutes later when Christian looked over his shoulder, quite the multi-tasker.

  Ray was right, of course. Christian was hoping for an alternative he hadn't thought of, but ultimately there was just the one way. The problem being, you'd probably get caught. You shoot a guy in San Francisco, especially a foreign guy with some mystery behind him, the case would be all over the news and the police would work it hard.

  Getting caught at the end when you can barely get out of bed was one thing, but getting caught when you still felt pretty darn good and had plenty left to accomplish was dumb.

  You could baseball-bat the guy and maybe improve your odds. You wouldn't be leaving any firearms evidence and it could look like a random case of road rage or something, but close combat with this guy seemed foolish because he might fend you off and then put an extended rear-naked-choke on you, and it's all over.

  This time the dick followed him all the way to the bridge and back, until Christian crossed Marina Boulevard to get back into his neighborhood. In the shower he thought, could something fall on the guy, or could he hit him with the car saying it was an accident? Could he start an argument with the guy and then shoot him in self-defense? No, that was all idiotic, and he was procrastinating.

  He went to the library and looked up 'drowning'. What he wanted to know was: did someone who got drowned by another person exhibit anything different to a coroner than someone who drowns accidentally on his own?

  After a half hour, the answer wasn't clear. The literature was too complicated and disorganized, like much that you tried to look up on the internet. Why couldn't they just tell you what people want to know?

  While reading about drowning though, Christian had an idea: what about somehow drowning the guy under the bridge, and have it appear the guy jumped off? After all, the Golden Gate Bridge was one of the most-used suicide structures in the world.

  He realized that idea was ridiculous. Surveillance cameras on the bridge, too many people around, and that if the asshole really jumped off the bridge his bones and organs would be shattered on impact, was his understanding.