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  “Even Luis?”

  “Of course,” his widow answered. “Jimmy’s as—”

  She caught her mistake.

  “Oh, my. I guess I’ll have to get used to saying was. Jimmy was … as good as gold to that boy.”

  The correction was painful and Frank gave Mrs. Barracas a moment to pull herself together. When she had, she continued, “He was too good, if you ask me. We had a lot of fights about Louie. Every dime Jimmy ever gave that boy went straight into his arm.”

  Frank didn’t care for ambiguity, asking exactly what Mrs. Barracas meant.

  “He’s been fixing since he was fourteen. He’ll shoot anything he can get into a needle, but heroin’s his drug of choice.”

  Frank wasn’t surprised. Claudia Estrella had chipped for years and Frank asked how her husband had felt about that, being a narcotics officer.

  Lorrie Barracas shrugged.

  “He was resigned to it. What could he do? The kids were older and they lived with their mother. Such as she was,” Mrs. Barracas sniffed.

  Frank had dim memories of a large, unwashed woman who sat in a dark room, staring out the window and drinking sweet wine.

  Frank asked if she had any idea where Luis was and she said no, she hadn’t had heard from him in three or four days.

  “What happened then?”

  “He called for Jimmy.”

  “Do you know what they talked about?”

  “Business, I’m sure.”

  “What sort of business?”

  An impatient gesture told Frank that the widow’s brave front was fading.

  “Jimmy set the boys up with a courier service. Cops always need things delivered here and there so Jimmy supplied the customers and the boys did the work.”

  “Mrs. Barracas, you’ve been extremely helpful. I know this is terribly difficult for you, but if you could just bear with me for a few more questions …”

  “Of course,” she answered, gamely masking the strain. She told Frank what she knew about the business, which wasn’t much, and provided names and phone numbers of her husband’s two closest friends. As is common with cops, they were his ex-partners.

  Frank thanked Lorrie Barracas for her time and patience, leaving her with the standard appeal to call if she thought of anything else, anything at all, no matter how silly it might seem.

  On her way over she’d passed a Peet’s and now she went back to it. Sitting in the parking lot, she considered the phone numbers Lorrie Barracas had given her. She poked one into the cell phone, but didn’t hit “send”. Telling Barracas’ wife had been bad enough. Telling his partners would definitely have to wait until she was well fortified with designer coffee.

  The day dragged on but by late afternoon Frank managed to get to the coroners office. Cause, manner, and mode of death were blatantly obvious in the Estrella case, so she didn’t really need to be there, and at least one of the boys would attend, most likely Bobby as Nook always managed to weasel out of being the attending detective. But because bodies sometimes gave up unexpected clues, and because ME’s often rendered opinions that couldn’t be printed in a protocol, Frank attended autopsies whenever she could. Gowning up, she tried to figure who was being cut. Gail had just started on Barracas and it looked like the Mangier was finishing with Marta Estrella. Bobby was watching a new baby-faced ME peel someone’s scalp over his face. From the brands it looked like Julio.

  “How we doing?” she asked him.

  “Well, we still don’t know where Luis is. Seems like he’s got a pretty bad jones, so maybe he’s on the nod somewhere. I asked Claudia who his main suppliers were, but she wouldn’t say. If he’s as bad as she says he is, I wouldn’t imagine he’d go too far away for too long.”

  “Talk to anybody at Narco?”

  “Not yet. We talked to some sources, a couple baseheads. Nook’s checking on some of the names they gave us.”

  “When was the last time Claudia saw him?”

  “Friday. He stopped by to borrow some money. She fed him and he hung around for a couple hours, playing with Gloria’s kids. She didn’t say much, neither did Gloria, but they know something.”

  “Too quiet?” Frank guessed and Bobby nodded, “Too evasive, too vague.”

  “I’ll stop by later, see if I can’t squeeze some blood out. You know Barracas set the boys up in some sort of courier service?”

  Bobby shook his head and Frank told him to check every service in the phone book.

  “Wife said Barracas set it up because cops always need deliveries and that he supplied the nephews with customers. Talked to the partners. They didn’t know much about it. Went by Hollywood and no one had heard of this alleged service. Depending on what you find, we might want to subpoena some IRS records.”

  Bobby recorded their conversation into his notebook, mentioning that he’d managed to get a good picture from Claudia.

  “It shows him from the waist up, showing off his tats. The guy’s got stars inked all over him. You know Estrella means star in Spanish?”

  Bobby never asked rhetorical questions so Frank shook her head that she didn’t know that.

  “I dropped the picture off and Donna’s making a bulletin. She thought she’d have it by shift change.”

  “Good.”

  Gail and a massive black tech were turning Barracas onto his back, and Frank asked, “How’s it going so far, Doc?”

  “I just got started. I had to do a missing kid that finally turned up. Well, at least parts of him turned up. It looks like a mountain lion got him, mauled him pretty badly. That’s my second mountain lion attack already this year.”

  “Where’d they find him?”

  “Out around Malibu somewhere. I guess somebody’s dog dragged one of his arms home. Can you imagine?”

  “Yech,” the tech said, “That’s why I have cats.”

  “Me, too,” Gail replied. To Frank she said, “We did Marta Estrella already. She was about six weeks pregnant.”

  “Make that seven and a dog,” Frank noted.

  Gail looked up sharply, then said to her tech, “Charlie, see if you can find me some vinyl gloves.”

  “We’re out. We’ve been out for weeks.”

  “Check for me anyway.”

  “Okay.”

  The doc finished a dictation, then clicked her recorder off.

  “What’s going to happen to Estrella’s little boy? Is there any family any he can stay with?”

  “I don’t know. CPS’ll handle that. Maybe he’ll stay with his aunt, Julio’s sister. Might become a 300 kid.”

  Frank referred to the legal code wherein a child was mandated to the care and custody of the state. Gail flicked a curious glance her way, asking, “Did you mean what you said to Hunt last night?”

  “What did I say?”

  “When he accused you of being maternal, you said it wasn’t maternal, just business. Was that true?”

  Frank thought about the question.

  “The kid had just seen his whole family butchered. He was petrified. Hunt’s got about as much compassion as a bullet. He wouldn’t have understood if I’d told him anything else.”

  Gail returned her attention to a fading cut on Barracas’ forearm.

  “Why?” Frank quizzed.

  “Because what you said was so cold. I didn’t want to believe you could be so heartless.”

  Charlie came back.

  “No gloves,” he said. Without looking up from her work, the doc thanked him, her eyes crinkling in a smile. Frank almost smiled too, realizing that Gail knew damn good and well there weren’t any gloves around.

  Chapter Three

  Frank was summoned to the Estrella’s at 9:47 PM on Sunday night. By 7:00 PM Tuesday she and her detectives had worked around the clock, through the most critical hours following a homicide. They were beat, and Frank sent everyone home. That’s where she should have headed to, but she was working her way to the Alibi on surface streets. The freeway might have been faster but Frank wanted the com
fort of the old roads. It pleased her to pass a Rexall that used to be a jazz club where Duke Ellington played. A little farther down the block she’d made her first collar. Two streets down, she and Noah had responded to a domestic and almost been knocked out by a charging 400-pound woman. At the corner of Avalon and 51 she slowed to admire a brand new strike. It was so fresh the paint still glinted.

  Old English letters, four feet high in blue and orange, cryptically announced “W52K-R213.” As dusk lowered around the swirling letters, their highly-stylized tips seemed to twitch and flicker like flames. Frank didn’t need to stare long to know who’d done the strike.

  Passing the next side street, she caught the artist’s familiar, bad-ass shuffle half way down the block. Placa Estrella, revered OG of the 52nd Street Kings, was deep into Playboy territory. Taking out an old gangster like Placa would be a hell of a coup for an up and coming rival. Frank pulled up alongside her, watching Placa’s hand move to her waist. The girl braced, waiting for the gun barrel to come poking out the window. Frank rolled ahead so Placa could see who she was. Only then did she roll the window down.

  “Aren’t you in the wrong neighborhood?” she called, driving beside her.

  “I got a right to be here.”

  “Playboy’s might not agree with you,” Frank countered. Placa shrugged, kept walking.

  “Want a ride?”

  Placa shook her head, her long braid like an anchor to the sidewalk.

  “Okay. I asked you nice, now I’m telling you to get in.”

  Placa planted her feet and glared.

  “What I gotta get in for? I ain’t done nothin’.”

  “Bet you’re strapped. Want me to pat you?”

  “So? I still ain’t done nothin’.”

  Frank pushed the door open, moving slowly, and told Placa to get in. Placa protested feebly but got in. She slunk down in the seat so no one would see her.

  “What I done?”

  “Nothin’. But there’s been enough blood spilled in your family lately. I don’t want to be the one to have to tell Claudia I left you here and some Playboys capped you.”

  “Yeah,” Placa snorted, “you’d be all tore up.”

  “I would,” Frank insisted, “and your sister’d kick the shit outta me then put a hex on me.”

  She was pleased to see the corner of Placa’s mouth twitch. As they waited for the light to change, they both watched a Baby Playboy cross the street on a bike.

  Frank teased, “Bet he stole that off a King,” and Placa immediately shot back, “That bitch wouldn’t be walkin’ if he stole that off a King.”

  Moving through the intersection, Frank asked “How’s your mom doin’?”

  ” ‘Kay,” Placa shrugged.

  “How about Tonio and your sister?”

  ” ‘Kay.”

  “And your Uncle Luis?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “See him Sunday?”

  Placa shook her head.

  “Since then?”

  Again her head shook.

  “You always were talkative,” Frank said. “You do that tag down the block?”

  “Tagging’s illegal,” Placa responded ambiguously.

  “Since when’s the law ever stopped you?”

  Placa didn’t answer and Frank asked, “Still in school?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Frank nodded. They’d come into 52nd Street territory, and Placa put her hand on the door handle.

  “How about Rolo? How’s he doing?”

  That earned Frank a sideways glance.

  “Why you wanna know for?”

  “Just wondering,” Frank shrugged. “He’s your dog, ain’t he? Heard he took a knife a while ago.”

  That wasn’t all Frank had heard. Rolo had lost a lung in that fight and word was he couldn’t fight anymore. Placa still used him for drive-bys and for peeping when they hit a liquor store or Quik Mart, but she was getting a lot of shit from the other Kings. They said he was too slow, that he couldn’t take care of himself and that somebody’d get hurt having to rescue him someday.

  Placa said proudly, “He’s okay. He just needs to get his strength back.”

  Pulling onto Placa’s street, Frank slowed in front of her house, studying the dark windows.

  “Where is everybody?”

  Placa just offered another shrug. Frank pulled a card out of her pocket and pressed it into Placa’s hand.

  “You need anything, you call me. Claro?”

  No one ever looked a cop in south-central squarely in the eye so when Placa gave Frank her full attention she was taken aback by the intense scrutiny.

  “Is that all?” Placa asked.

  “You want me to tuck you into bed?”

  “Naw, I just…”

  Placa suddenly found the seats ripped upholstery fascinating. It was the opening Frank needed.

  “What’s going on?”

  Placa plucked a piece of foam then glanced at the street. There was a naked flash of pain, then it was gone.

  “Nothin’.”

  She jumped out of the car before anyone could recognize her in the strange company of the law. Frank waited until Placa was inside before accelerating through the quickening night. Fatigue and memories wrapped her in a thick fog. She’d watched Placa come up from toddler to feared gangster. It was a deep bloodline.

  Her father and her uncle Julio had been OGs in the Westside Kings and her brother Chuey had claimed for 52nd Street after the Kings splintered into three fractious gangs. Claudia had been a revered Queen, but lost her standing when Placa’s father was shipped off to Chino for twenty-five years. Before she had her babies, Placa’s sister Gloria had been a fierce 52nd Street Queen. Frank remembered a rookie who rode with her when she was a field training officer. He’d sliced his finger to the bone patting Gloria’s hair down. While he was bleeding and wondering what the hell to do, Frank had suggested he check Gloria’s mouth to see if she had razors in there too.

  Like a lot of bangers, Placa started her rise to ghetto stardom by spraying her gang’s name on anything that didn’t move. Her artwork was bold and inspired. It pleased the Kings and they made her a Baby Queen, but that insulted Placa. She’d already seen how the Kings treated Queens and she didn’t want any part of that abuse. She told the 52nd Street homeboys that she wanted to be jumped in like her brother Chuey. She would stand with them as a King or she would stand against them. The OGs had laughed, but they’d given her missions. Frank picked her up on a break-and-enter the day after her tenth birthday and that was only one of many infractions.

  Placa’s reputation grew in proportion to her juvenile arrest records and on her twelfth birthday she was jumped into the Kings. She’d since risen steadily and Frank knew that the 52nd Street vatos didn’t make decisions without Placa’s council. That had happened once and the next day two Kings ended up at King/Drew with concussions and multiple compound fractures.

  Frank was glad when she got to the Alibi that there was an empty booth. She snagged it, noting Johnnie already at the bar, an empty shot glass and a beer in front of him. He was arguing with Hunt, and Frank swore if he got into a fight she wouldn’t help him. Even as she thought it, she knew her promise was empty. Johnnie could be a pain in the ass but at least his intentions were good. Frank had no such faith concerning Hunt. She was glad to see Nancy approach her booth. She and Frank had been flirting since Frank was in Homicide. Nothing ever came of it, Frank made sure of that, but it was an amiable routine.

  “How you doin’, hon?”

  “I’m good, Nance. You?”

  “I’m better now that you’re here. Coffee, scotch or stout?”

  “Scotch. Double. Cobb salad and fries. Busy tonight?”

  “Enough.”

  Frank allowed herself the simple pleasure of Nancy’s ample ass in motion before turning her attention to a legal pad stuffed with notes. She had to squi
nt at the letters to make them stop jumping. She skimmed Noah’s report with the kid in the closet, Julio Estrella’s youngest.

  He’d been sleeping in his room before the shooting went down. When he’d gotten up to go to the bathroom he heard booming and yelling and ran into the kitchen. He saw his father and brother bleeding and a man in black clothes walking down the hallway. The kid had run into his mom’s closet. He thought it was a good place to hide because his sister couldn’t find him there when they played hide and go seek. When asked if he knew the man, the kid had said no. And when they asked if the man looked like his uncle Luis, the kid had been vague, but thought his uncle was smaller.

  She flipped through more pages, scanning copies of her detective’s notes from dealers and crackheads, neighbors and friends. No one had seen Luis Estrella more recently than Sunday afternoon. That bothered Frank. Everyone described Luis as a friendly guy, always ready with a joke and a smile. His nickname was Payaso, clown, and he was always looking for a party. He was a small man with a limp from a broken ankle that had never mended well. Where other men tattooed gang insignia and weapons, Luis had branded himself with stars and was known to coo poetry at pretty girls. The squad was sniffing out gang affiliations but that was looking like a dead end. They still claimed, as all veteranos did, but it had been years since either Julio or Luis was actively involved with the Kings.

  In a ‘hood where guns were as common as roaches, no one could recall Luis strapped and why should he be? Everyone liked him. It sounded like he’d made a good niche for himself — joker to the lords of the street, a threat to no one, loved by all. That he had suddenly disappeared meant two things to Frank, he was guilty or he was a witness. From all she’d heard about Luis in the last twenty-four hours, the latter seemed the most probable. He didn’t sound like a killer. In fact, the pit bull had been his. He’d rescued it as a puppy from a guy who fought dogs. The man was going to cut its throat because one of its paws was deformed. When Diego had told her that, she’d said, “Chalk one up for Johnnie.”

  Luis didn’t fit the profile of a man who’d shoot his own dog, nonetheless his own family; the killing spree didn’t square with anything she’d heard about him. That his car had been at the scene meant he might have fled after the shooting started. Or maybe he’d come in on the middle of it, then grabbed his own gun for defense. He might have run then or he might have looked into the house, seen the carnage and taken off. Luis was a clown, not a fighter. He had to have known the shooter grossly outmatched him. It made sense that he’d get in his car and fly.