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“On the street, he called One. Like Numero Uno.”
“Tony. That’s not a name. What else can you give me? I can’t make a deal for you if all you’ve got to bargain with is that you killed Aaron-Rey. No one is looking for his killer anymore.”
Tony was straining to breathe. Any second now a nurse was going to chase her out. She touched his hand.
“You’ve got to give me something I can run with, Tony. You understand. Numero Uno isn’t going to cut it.”
“You don’t look it, but you are a tough lady.” He swallowed hard. Then he said, “Arturo. Mendez. Find him. He’s A-Rey’s fren’. He saw who shot those pushers.”
“How do I find him?”
Tony closed his eyes. His breathing was ragged.
“F-u-u-u-u-u-ck,” he said. “I got to do everything? Ask A-Rey’s mom.”
“Hang in,” Yuki said. “I’ll do what I can.”
CHAPTER 75
YUKI CALLED AARON-REY’S mother, Bea Kordell, who had her son’s phone, which showed a contact listing for “Arturo.” Yuki sent Arturo a text, replied to his response, then sent another.
An hour later, at nearly 8 p.m., she parked on Turk near Dodge, the bad-news block directly across the street from the peeling three-story crack house on the corner.
She didn’t have to wait long.
A kid came out of the Chinese restaurant next door to the crack house. He looked about five eight, one forty. He was wearing jeans hanging below his hip bones, striped boxer shorts, and a dark hoodie, and had iPod cords dangling from his ears.
He stood on the corner for a while, looking every which way, his eyes resting for a moment every time he swept his gaze across her bronze-colored Acura two-door sedan.
When the traffic thinned, the kid ambled across the street, nodding his head in time to music. Then he walked over to her window.
“Yuki?”
“Arturo. Get in the car,” she said.
Yuki thought if Brady could see her inviting a crack dealer into her car, he would go bug-nuts.
Arturo got in and pulled the door closed, saying, “I got one minute.”
“Mrs. Kordell told you? I need to know what happened that day in the crack house.”
“And what I get?”
“A chance to do the right thing.”
“And a free lawyer if I ever need one?”
“Yes. Free lawyer. Deal.”
They shook on that. She fished a card out of her bag and handed it to Arturo. Christ. She’d tripled her client base today. Meanwhile, Arturo’s eyes were working the streets from under his hood. The sidewalks were empty. He started talking.
“Aaron didn’t shoot no one. It was three men that did that. They looked like cops. They wore police jackets. They showed up on the second floor and everyone scattered—but I was coming out the bathroom and I saw it going down.”
Yuki was startled. More than that. She was shocked.
“The men who shot those dealers—were cops?”
“I don’t know if they were cops. They were wearing cop jackets. They had guns. They said ‘SFPD.’ But they were wearing plastic masks. They pushed Duane, A. Biggy, and Dubble D up against the wall. They kicked their legs apart, patted them down. They took they money, they drugs, they guns, they phones, naked pictures of they girlfriends for all I know.
