Punched in the face, stomach, and kidneys until he dropped, the old man didn't resist as he was hauled away. Swatting their hands, he crawled off. "f.u.c.k you," he spat out a drool of blood.

"Se la sale como agua," she said to herself.

An unmarked berry idled slowly toward the scene, the siren chirping once for them to disperse. At that, Detective Cantrell Williams stepped out of the car and marched toward La Payasa. His partner Lee McCarrell lingered closer to their car.

"La Payasa." The detective introduced them in Spanish. Cantrell had taken Spanish in high school more because Amanda Fisher took it and he was a thrall to his teenage crushes, though he never did work up the nerve to ask her out. Lee spoke English and demanded that the world, or at least its representatives that crossed his borders, spoke it also. Lee made scowling faces, the international language of increasing displeasure.

"Detective." La Payasa sucked at something stuck in her teeth.

"You ain't afraid to let your people see you chatting with me?" Cantrell had ducked out on the cameras, claiming a personal errand. He had been working on building up relationships within the Hispanic gangs. He figured if he were more of a presence, not just the face of police to lock folks up, he could get more cooperation. La Payasa he knew from her numerous run-ins with the police, from all kinds of petty drug stuff to attacking her mother.

"What's to see?"

"That old man looks like he had a rough day." Cantrell nodded in the direction the old man stumbled off to.

"You need to talk to him about that. Find some witnesses and build you a case."

"Still, wasn't no need to f.u.c.k him up like that."

"I know. It's the cost out here. It's the message. You can't show no weakness."

"Cost is too high. Taking a piece of your soul every time." La Payasa was a bright girl, the kind that both gave Cantrell hope and broke his heart. She had so much leadership potential that went wasted on the streets.

Her hands danced in a frenetic dance, her hands twisting in odd contortions as she spelled out the name of her crew. Inverting her arms to nail down some of the more intricate finger placements her pointer finger under her middle, curving thumb to make an "S", crossing her ring finger and then spreading her other three fingers each hand pose was a point of pride as she stacked their clique.

"You done?" Cantrell took mental notes.

"You know how we do?"

"Yeah. But I'm here about her." Cantrell flashed a picture of Lyonessa. He painted a picture of a girl in the wrong place at the wrong time. Caught up in the foolishness of an older brother and those meant to watch out for her. And that perhaps she was cute enough that despite her not being blonde and blue-eyed, her image might get some play on the evening news.

"n.o.body cares."

"We do." Cantrell said with a touch too much earnestness in his voice.

"You wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for them." La Payasa picked up a newspaper. "A few Mexicans get killed too publicly and no one can sweep them under the rug.

"Look, we're still collecting information, but so far, no witnesses have come forward."

"Around here bullets go off like car alarms and folks ignore them just the same. And folks're so scared to be thought of as snitches, gave them the case of the mutes for their own health."

"No one wants to admit that they think of a little brown girl being killed as neighborhood beautification."

"You're right. Lyonessa was invisible. To us, to most folks because staying below the radar was part of her job. Doesn't mean she was any less important."

"What do you want?"

"I want the violence to stop. No more bodies to drop while we have a chance to get into this. We know where to look."

"Then look."

"We need Black to back off. He made bad choices, but she was a good person."

"I know."

"Whoever killed her should pay for what they did."

"I know."

La Payasa didn't go the s.e.xed-in route to the gang: she was jumped in. By men. Time had not erased the memory of the pain. She braced herself for the rain of fists and knew no mercy would be shown. Time crawled. Every punch landed with fury on any exposed body part. Ears. Ribs. Kidneys. Kicks were the worst. When she got up, her fingertips tingled and her arms shook. The cholos were all smiles like they weren't the ones who just beat her. It was all strictly business. Black first to embrace her.

"What do you say?"

"Do you think you're some kind of hero?"

"No, I don't."

"You lie. To me, if not to yourself." La Payasa turned back to her men. "I'll talk to Black. But blood... it pours out like water."

The other day, La Payasa cried.

She had a nightmare about a man climbing through her window and skulking over to her bed while she slept. He loomed over her sleeping and powerless form, at first content to just watch her. Then he reached down, slowly and deliberately, to touch her.

The number 13 had been emblazoned on her shoulder. Black roots sprang from her blonde hair, a regal crown that finished her look. She was her gang through and through, no questions, no doubts. It was like little magics ran in her blood. Loyalty was a folk tale. There was a time when she thought that the gang meant something. When all of their talk about loyalty, family, and purpose meant something. The first thing the gang demanded was an initiation to prove her loyalty. None of that bulls.h.i.t about going to kill a random person at Meijer. Only a gang with no structure messed around with the kind of mess that would bring po-po down on their heads. She was blessed in. The gang had rules its members had to abide by. Only wannabes had no rules. No beliefs. No faith. And their judgments were as swift as they were harsh. She once had to administer a violation to one of her girls for talking to a member of a rival gang.

"What the f.u.c.k were you doing?" La Payasa asked.

"I knew him from back in the day."

La Payasa knew him too, from elementary school all of sixth grade. Across the gulf of junior high. A lifetime ago. "You one of us now."

"I know..." she let the words hang. She knew she had to be punished.

"Head to toe or violated out?"

"Head to toe." She flashed her gang signs to reaffirm her commitment.

La Payasa understood they both were being judged. Her girl as a member and her as a leader. She had to put on a show. Drive home the lesson that the gang came first. That the streets were dangerous and real. And that other groups, all chavalas, were hated. No one outside the gang was to be trusted.

And La Payasa hated her role.

She summoned two other girls to join her. As soon as they flanked her, La Payasa punched the girl dead in her left eye. The ferocity of the blow caught her off balance and sent her sprawling backwards. More tripping over her suddenly clumsy feet than anything else, she landed on her back. A hail of kicks soon followed. La Payasa dropped low to continue to punch the girl in her side until she exhausted herself. The girl didn't cry out once.

"Help her up. She's one of us," La Payasa said. "A sister."

But there was a simple truth about the gang: it needed a rival to have meaning. It needed the police or another set to define its territory, to test it, to make it stronger and smarter. Without an outside enemy, there'd just be fighting among themselves. It boiled down to feuds. Blood feuds. It became personal and though wars should never be personal, wars were always personal.

War was inevitable.

Much more comfortable living in his head, Cantrell hated talking through his case out loud. The onsite director of The Squad flitted about, capturing footage of his phone conversations, loving how telegenic Cantrell's frustration was. "Think of it as running down the case for your captain," he was encouraged. Though Captain Burke didn't apply make-up to him before he provided details of a case. Cantrell reached out to Garlan's people. No place of employment, not in school, and a whole lot of "he don't stay here no more". Not that anyone could tell him where "he stay at now". Cantrell left messages for Garlan to contact him in regards to his car.

"I'm trying to track down a Mr Garlan Pellam. It was his vehicle that was used in the commission of the Perez kidnap and shooting. Since his name has popped up a few times on the Gang Task Force radar, we want to question him about it. Maybe get some intel about the state of the streets and who's beefing with who."

Within a few hours, Garlan strolled in requesting to speak to "the detective that was bothering his peoples."

"Mr Pellam."

"I heard you was looking for me."

"You're a hard man to find."

"I'm here now."

"This dude was all wrong. From the way he slumped in the chair, evaded his eyes, and shifted about, I knew he'd been hauled in before. But Garlan didn't have the flex of someone who had been in the system. More like someone who'd been around the game and now suddenly was in a lot deeper, like a climber finding their footing. It wouldn't take long for him to find his equilibrium and become a hardened soldier."

"We on TV or something?" Garlan asked.

"They got us out here filming a doc.u.mentary or something," Cantrell said.

"I gotta sign something?"

"Yeah, before we're done, I'm sure." Cantrell set his coffee cup on the table next to a stack of file folders. "Else they just blur your face and not even your woman would recognize you."

"I'm good with that."

"You know a Lyonessa Perez?"

"Nah, should I?"

"Now see, Garlan, we starting off on a bad foot. Cute little Mexican girl. Been all over the news."

"Yeah, I heard about her. That was some s.h.i.t."

"Your name came up in the investigation."

"How so?"

"You're what we like to call a person of interest."

"What's that mean?"

"That you might know something that might help us out. And we the appreciative type."

"What you think I know?"

"What kind of car you drive?" Cantrell flipped open his notepad.

"Black PT Cruiser."

"How 'bout that?"

"What?"

"A car just like yours was spotted at the scene. You mind if we check yours out?"

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"Got stole. You find it?"

"Bad news there, partner. We found it, but it had been torched."

"d.a.m.n." Garlan lowered his head.

"He couldn't act for s.h.i.t. His problem was that he didn't know how to react in this sort of situation. Was he supposed to be happy? Was he supposed to be p.i.s.sed? Was he supposed to be relieved? So I'm guessing he knew it had been torched to cover any trace evidence they might find. I just don't know his level of involvement yet."

"Your name came up because your car was used in the commission of a homicide.

You ever let anyone borrow your car, Mr Pellam?"

"Sometimes."

"Ever rent it out?"

"Sometimes."

"That happen here?"

"It was stole. So I don't know who had it."

"So you don't know who had it."

"Nope."

"Why didn't you report it immediately?"

"Didn't notice it was gone."

"Notice?" Cantrell noticed the careful parsing of Garlan's words. Too careful, too well thought out.

"I was at my girl's place. She picked me up, we made a long weekend of it. When I came back, my s.h.i.ts was gone."

"I'll need her contact information. She going to back up your story?"

"She'll back it up to China, you know what I'm saying?"

"What you do for a living?"