Martel kept raking his hands through his black strands, sweat pouring off his nose. “You keep hammerin’ at me.”

“We need the truth if we’re going to help you,” Garrett said.

“Hep me?” Martel sneered. “You ain’t gonna hep me. You ain’t gonna do shit for me. If you be heppin’ me, I wouldn’t be in my cons, man.”

“Of course we want to help you,” Diaz said. “That’s why we’re here. Do you think we’d be wasting our time, talking to you, if we didn’t have something in mind?”

Garrett said, “We know that you’re not going to talk to us unless we help you. But we can’t do anything for you, Travis, as long as you continue to lie.”

“Once you lay off the bullshit and start telling us the truth, then maybe we can help you out.”

Decker said, “Because we know that you knew Ekerling. Just get it over with and tell us that you knew him and then we can begin helping you.”

“Don’t deny the obvious facts, Travis,” Garrett said.

Decker said, “That’s just plain stupid. It’s stupid when you say you didn’t know Ekerling when obviously you did.”

“So what if I knew him!” Martel blurted out. “Don’t mean I pinched the dude. I be havin’ nothin’ to do with his murder!”

The glory hallelujah words took a few seconds to sink in. Decker broke the silence. “Great. That was step one…that you finally admitted that you knew Primo Ekerling.”

“I didn’t be knowin’ the mofo.” A long pause. “Mebbe I have had met him once or twice.”

“See, that’s smart,” Decker said. “To admit that you knew him…that’s smart. Because we knew that already.”

“I said I didn’t know him. I just be meetin’ him a couple of times.”

“Met him where?” Garrett asked while looking at his hands.

“I don’t remember,” Martel told him.

Decker took a chance. “Travis, you were at his office. We’ve got your prints in his office.”

Martel’s eyes skated across the jail cell. “Mebbe I was at the mofo’s office once.”

“Maybe?”

“Okay, I had been there just once. Mebbe ten minutes. In and out. The bitch at the desk wouldn’t let me get pass no door. She kept saying he wasn’t in.”

Garrett said, “Why’d you go to Ekerling’s office?”

“’Cause I had not heard from the dude,” Travis said angrily. “He wrote me that he liked my shit and I sent him more shit, nomasayin’? But then I never had heard from him again. He coulda called. How long would that have took?”

“About one minute,” Decker said. “Must have pissed you off.”

Martel waved him off. “You gotta get past the bullshit if you want to be big, nomasayin’? You don’t got a thick skin, you ain’t gonna make it.” He looked around the interview cell. “If I didn’t have a thick skin before I had came here, I got one now. Fuckin’ mofos here dig my shit, though. Once I get out, I got my credentials, nomasayin’?”

“Nice to be appreciated,” Decker said.

“True dat.”

“Must have pissed you off when Ekerling went back on his promises.”

“’Course it pissed me off, but that don’t meant that I whacked him!”

“Then it’s too bad that we have someone who is saying that you did.”

Finally Martel made eye contact. “Say what?”

“That you whacked Ekerling.”

Martel squirmed in his chair. “For the last time, I didn’t whack Ekerling.”

“We have someone who said you did,” Decker said again.

“Then he be lyin’.”

“Interesting that you don’t ask who we have as a witness against you,” Diaz said.

Decker pulled the trigger. “C’mon, Travis. Tell us the whole story. Somebody set you up. You’re taking the rap for someone who isn’t worth it. Who set you up and why?”

“If you got a witness, why don’t you axe him?”

“We have asked him,” Garrett said. “We’ve heard his side, and it doesn’t look good for you.”

Diaz said, “Now we want to hear your side.”

Martel folded his hands across his chest and looked smug. “You’re total bullshittin’ me, man. You ain’t got no witness!”

“We’ve got a witness,” Decker said.

“Yeah?” Another sneer. “Who?”

“We know who set you up, because you’ve told the world in your download on MySpace.” Decker leaned toward him. “‘Like music and the crime-the shit of B and E.’”

Martel’s head snapped back. He attempted to recover and tried to stare down the cops, but he couldn’t pull it off. He finally figured out that the best way to combat undesirable information was to remain silent. Decker started to reel him in.

“B and E,” he repeated. “Very clever. To anyone not in the know, it’s just breaking and entering, right. But we know what the real crime is.”

Martel remained silent.

“Once we arrested him, how long do you think it would take Mr. B to start talking against you? Do you want to talk about Mr. B? He’s sure as hell talking about you.”

Martel didn’t answer. Decker kept at him without mentioning specifics.

B and E.

B and E.

The music and the crime-the shit of B and E.

The shit of B against E.

It took another hour before Martel’s cracks began to appear.

Martel opened and closed his mouth. “Mebbe I know whachu mean, mebbe I don’t.”

“We need more than a maybe if you want us to help you,” Garrett said.

“Mebbe I know, mebbe I don’t know.”

“So which is it?”

“If it be the same dude, mebbe I met him once or twice.”

“Once or twice, Travis?” Garrett questioned.

“Somethin’ like that.”

Decker said, “Mr. B liked your music?”

“That’s what he said.” Martel talked under his breath.

“He wanted to do a record deal with you?”

“That’s what he said.”

“But only if you’d whack Primo-”

“I didn’t do no whack and if Banks be sayin’ that, he’s lyin’! That’s whack!”

Yes, Decker said inwardly. The name has been verbalized! He wanted to play the video back just to make sure that it was recorded for posterity. The only thing lacking was the first name. He still wanted Martel to call him Rudy before Decker mentioned the name. “So what was the arrangement between you and Banks?”

“I didn’t do no murder! And if you pootbutts don’t know righteous from smack, that ain’t my problem, nomasayin’?”

Decker’s brain was firing snippets of past and present. Using the parallel from Little to Ekerling…Leroy Josephson is to Little as Travis Martel is to Ekerling. If his assumption was true, it made sense that Banks used Travis Martel in the same way as Leroy Josephson-either to do the hit or to dispose of the body and car.

He said, “Banks said you whacked Ekerling…” When Martel tried to protest, Decker held his hand up to silence him. “That’s his side. If you didn’t pull the trigger, tell us who did.”

“That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell y’all,” Martel cried out. “I don’t know who did it cuz I wasn’t there. All I did was boost the whip, you got it?”

“Okay, Travis, let’s have it your way,” Decker said. “All you did was to steal the car. So how did that work?”

Martel thought long and hard. For a minute Decker thought he lost him. Then Travis made eye contact. “First I want to hear what Rudy be sayin’ ’bout me.”

There it was. The first name. Rudy…Banks. He had said them both.

Decker said, “You know what Rudy’s saying.” He fired an imaginary gun with his fingers. “That’s what Banks is saying.”

“I didn’t whack Primo!”

“So what happened, Travis?” Garrett said. “Just tell us the truth and maybe we can help you out.”

Decker said, “Don’t go down for capital one murder if all you did was boost a car.”

“That’s what I’m tellin’ y’all!” Travis was hot with frustration.

Garrett said, “If all you did was boost the car or help out as accessory after the fact…then let’s hear it all. But let’s hear the truth. Then maybe we can help you out.”

Martel looked away. “I need a smoke.”

“I ran out,” Decker said. “I’ll get you another pack just as soon as you tell us what happened.”

“I don’t zackly know what happened cuz I wasn’t there.”