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that depressed me. No matter what the answers to my questions were, they couldn’t bring Jordan back, and I’d long since quit believing in the usual idea of justice.
    â€œWhere we going, man?” the guy finally said when the meter hit fifteen dollars. We were somewhere in the Sunset.
    Instead of answering, I asked if he’d been watching the news.
    â€œI used to listen to the radio all through my shift. I had to give it up. You follow the world too closely, you start to care too much, and sooner or later you end up talking back to these assholes. Started cutting into my tips.”
    It was silent as the grave in the cab. I finally gave him Jordan’s address and told him to drive there. When we arrived outside the building I said, “You picked up a double fare a week ago last Saturday night at this address. One of them was me. You took us to the Seward, and dropped me off there. The young woman whowas with me stayed in the cab when I got out. She had you drive her to another destination.”
    â€œI remember. I was wondering what the fuck she was doing going to a shitty SRO like the place I dropped you off.”
    â€œI need to know where you took her after you left me.”
    His fingers drummed a quick riff on the steering wheel. He seemed to be debating with himself. Finally he said, “You’re lucky I got an easygoing boss. What you did was, you called him up, after he’d already got through dealing with the cops, and evidently you made a very inflammatory comment about me being the last person to see your murdered friend alive. I’m just the cabbie, man. You can’t blame me for what happens to people after I drop them off wherever they want to go.”
    â€œI’m sorry about that, but I
had
to find you.”
    â€œI already talked to the cops. I told them what I know. They already arrested the guy who killed her. He confessed, right? So why should I talk to you? You’re probably working for the guy’s lawyer, trying to get him off.”
    â€œGet him off
again,”
I corrected. “Believe me, that’s not going to happen.”
    â€œThen what do you care?”
    â€œBecause I have to know. Please, just take me where you took her.”
    â€œWe’re already there,” he told me. “I drove her right back here.”
    I sank lower into the well-worn seat, turning my head to gaze out the grimy window at her building, which I’d been inside exactly twice. So she’d lied to me about the meeting; it was just a ruse to get me out of her bed. Or maybe someone was coming over, someone she’d wanted to be with that night more than she wanted to be with me.
    Or someone she was afraid of, whom she didn’t want to know about me.
    â€œDid you notice anything? Anyone lurking around inside?”
    â€œNormally, if it’s a woman alone I’ll watch until she’s through the door, but that night I didn’t. I’m telling you, man. I didn’t see anything, and she didn’t say a word to me.” He glanced in the mirror. “You want to go somewhere else?”
    I told him to take me home. Up in my room again, I reviewed what I’d learned. The story I’d just heard was consistent with Rodriguez’s confession. I had no reason to believe the driver was lying, though it’d seemed to me that at the last minute, parked in front of Jordan’s place, he’d been about to tell me something important. In any case, nothing he said had made me fear the cops had arrested the wrong man.
    I wondered if the police had even gotten a warrant for Jordan’s phone records. With the goal of finding out, my first stop the next morning was Gabriela’s office. She was writing longhand on a yellow legal pad. I stood there, waiting.
    â€œLeo. Just the man I wanted to see. Come in and close the door.”
    I did as she asked. “What’d you want to see me for?”
    â€œWhy do you