Hooked by Matt Richtel Read Free Book Online Page B

from the procession. She didn’t like a crowd—certainly not this one. We parked by a tombstone proclaiming “Frisky” to be a “cat above.”
    “When you mourn, you really like your privacy,” I said.
    “So how did you first learn that the cop had nearly killed the Malaysian girl?”
    I’d done it enough times myself to know when I’d been Googled.
    I reached into my breast pocket. I felt the small square picture. Maybe it would jog Erin’s memory. Then again, maybe Annie was all in my imagination and there was no jogging to be done.
    I kept the picture tucked. And, seeing no harm in it, I told Erin the Aravelo story from the beginning. I had friends from medical school who worked at San Francisco General, a take-all-comers urban triage center. They often gave me tips about interesting health issues that they felt (1) wouldn’t be of interest to the mainstream press, or (2) wouldn’t be fully understood and explained by someone without a medical background.
    Erin said, “So are you a doctor?”
    “I’m a nonpracticing, ill-qualified, not-up-to-date, medical school graduate.”
    “So you are a doctor.”
    Signs of life. She seemed to smile without moving her lips. She’d removed her glasses, revealing eyes deep brown and magnetic.
    I explained that my doctor friends started seeing a spate of young Asian women with HIV. It was clear they were prostitutes. The trick was finding where they worked. It turned out that the brothels were actually advertised under various euphemisms in the neighborhood papers. I called for an escort, and was given an address in the Sunset District. From there, I did the basic grunt work of journalism. I met several prostitutes, including Azlina Hathimar, also known as Daisy. They’d been shipped over from Malaysia and Vietnam and were essentially buying freedom through the sex trade.
    “So why didn’t they go to the police?” Erin asked.
    “Some of their johns were cops and they didn’t know who to trust.”
    “Fucking police,” she said, looking away.
    I had planned to go to the cops myself, but events overtook us. I’d gone back to the brothel to do more reporting, arriving not long after Patrolman Aravelo had dealt out his beating. I’m not sure Azlina would have survived if I hadn’t gotten there and begun treating her; her pimps might not have bothered to call for an ambulance.
    “So now you’re investigating the café explosion? You’re looking for another project?”
    She started the car.
    “Where are we headed, Erin?”
    “Cole Valley. I’ll take you back to your car later.”
    It was a different Erin than the one who’d fled at the tutoring center. This one was driving, literally and figuratively. This one seemed highly capable.
    Erin held out a ballpoint pen. It looked like it had been chewed in half.
    “What do you make of this?”
    “I diagnose you with raccoons.”
    “Andy did that. With his teeth.”
    I had no idea who Andy was, or why Erin was telling me about him.
    “Andy killed himself two weeks ago,” she said. “They say he walked off the bridge. He’s the last person on earth I would ever have expected to do that.”
    “Who’s ‘they,’ Erin?”
    She just shook her head.
    “Andy was your boyfriend?”
    “Not exactly. He was so kind, and funny. He . . . Two months ago, he . . . started getting these terrible headaches.”
    I had seen water bottles on the backseat. I twisted my body around to grab a couple. On the seat and spilling onto the floor were a jumble of clothes, discarded food wrappers and balled-up paper, and a worn Bible. Unlike Annie, Erin apparently didn’t gravitate to order.
    “Back up,” I said. “Can you give me some basics?”
    I wasn’t asking because I particularly cared, but I realized the best thing I could do was to keep Erin talking. Maybe she’d say something that would help me get closer to understanding the café’s connection to Annie—if there was one.
    Maybe I could just get a better handle on