Police radios squawked. Sirens rolled up the street.

I turned my head and saw the kid’s vacant eyes, empty, wasted. The eyes of Derek Sams even though I was smarter than that and knew it wasn’t Derek. No way it could be. Derek had been dead a long time. My voice hoarse, “You could have given him a chance. He would’ve surrendered.”

“Shut your pie hole.”

“You didn’t even give him a chance. He would’ve put his gun down.”

The boot came from off to the side, a fleeting shadow in a long, wide arc, aimed to broadside my face. I flinched defensively, only not far enough. My head exploded for a second time.

“What’d I tell you, asshole?” The words came as an echo in water that warbled and vibrated in the unkicked ear.

Gradually, the world came back into sharp focus. I realized what I had in my pocket and went absolutely still. I didn’t want to provoke them further. I couldn’t afford to. But it was already too late, they had me cold. There was no reason to believe, that under the circumstances, they wouldn’t search me.

Two men moved in, stood close, their shoes a foot away, men evaluating the scene. “You capped two of them?”

“No, he ran out into our crime scene and refused to follow orders.”

“So you capped him?”

“No, he resisted. We had to put the boot to him. No big deal. This is all good. It was a clean shoot. The puke had a gun in his hand. Look.”

“Clean, right? So you got it all on video?”

The other man remained silent.

“Ah, man, tell me you got it on tape.”

“The video broke.”

“Sure it did. Here’s the lieutenant. Shut your face and let me handle it.”

A third man walked up. “I heard the call and was in the area.”

A voice, one I recognized, one that made me want to shrivel down into the crack in the sidewalk.

Whatta ya got?”

“Two-eleven, armed, came out of the store like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He was ordered to stop. He didn’t comply and we had to put him down.”

“You got video?”

“No, the machine malfunctioned.”

“Ya, right, how many times you think they’re going to buy that one.” The lieutenant paused. His shoes took a couple of steps back. “Hey, this is Sammy’s Market Number II. Who’s this dude?” The lieutenant nudged me with his toe.

The thug cop spoke up, “Sir, he came out of the store into our crime scene and—”

“Knock off the party line. I’m not some paper-pushing bean counter from downtown. I know what time it is. Get him up.”

Two sets of strong hands helped me to my feet. The thug cop, who’d put the boot to me, had a flat, white face, blue, deep-set eyes, and buzz-cut white-blond hair. His shoulders were humped with muscle. He was nervous and flexed them again and again as if at any moment he would reenter the ring for round two. He was still pumped with adrenaline and had not yet registered the cold evening. He wore a t-shirt and jeans and a shoulder holster with his Los Angeles County Sheriff’s badge clipped to it.

I kept my head bowed. Robby Wicks, the lieutenant, leaned down to try and see my face, my one good eye, not swollen shut from the kick. “Ya, I thought it was you. Hey, Bruno, what’s goin’ down?”

The thug cop was stunned. “You know this asshole, Lieutenant?”

“That’s right, and you call him an asshole again, I’ll bust you back to working the cell blocks at Men’s Central Jail. Take those cuffs off. You okay, Bruno? You want to file a complaint against this guy?”

I didn’t know how to take his congeniality after what had happened the last time we met. He acted as if nothing had come between us.

My right eye was swollen shut and the other watered, blurring everything. I didn’t say anything and rubbed my wrists, then daubed the eye with a sleeve.

The thug cop was angry. “Man, that ain’t right. We didn’t do anything we didn’t have to, that we weren’t forced to do. It was his fault. This was all by the book.”

Robby Wicks said, “We’ll never know for sure, now will we? Not since your video recorder just happened to malfunction.”

“Bruno, say the word, and I’ll start the paper on this one, do it myself.”

I looked down at the dead kid pushed up against the wall of a shitty little market on a dirty sidewalk in South Central Los Angeles. Then I looked the thug cop in the eye until he looked away and he asked, “Who is this guy?”

Robby Wicks reached over and pulled up the t-shirt sleeve stretched tight around the thug deputy’s large bicep. He revealed a recent tattoo, still red and enflamed against his too-white skin, “BMF,” in bold black letters. “Looks like you recently made your bones and joined up, got initiated, huh? Good thing this doesn’t smell of a blood kill. God forbid.”

BMF, the insignia of the Los County Sheriff’s elite Violent Crimes Team.

The thug pulled away from Robby, anger in his eyes.

Robby stepped over to me and pulled my sleeve up. My skin was black and made it difficult to see, but it was there, “BMF,” only more crudely etched.

“This guy you called asshole is none other then Bruno the Bad Boy Johnson. The man who started the BMFs.”

BMF, that’s right. Robby had to rub my face in it. People do stupid things when they’re young, things they regret for all time, things they wish with their very soul to take back. Only it was too late, like the kid on the ground, it was too late.

The thug deputy’s mouth dropped open. “You’re the Bruno Johnson?”

My left fist snapped out and connected with his right cheek—the diversion—as I came out with a right roundhouse—the heat—and laid it right on his nose. Cartilage crunched. Blood burst out as his knees gave way and his eyes rolled up. He melted to the sidewalk. His sergeant caught him. Uniform deputies moved in fast, batons out, ready to beat me until I was dead.

Robby held up his hand to stop them. “Hold it. Hold it, it’s all over.” He looked at the sergeant who was easing his unconscious man down to the same dirty sidewalk as the dead kid. “We done here, Sergeant? We going to call it even or do I call in IA and take this incident apart piece by piece?”

His eyes angry, “No, we’re done here, Lieutenant.”

“Good.”

Robby put his arm over my shoulder, turned us around, and guided us back into the shitty little market. I felt sick at his touch and would have shrugged him off had I not needed the insulation, the cover to protect what I had in my pocket, a small piece of what I needed to fight the underground war.

“Christ, Bruno, your hands are bleeding. You want me to call med aid?” He reached for the handie-talkie on his belt.

“No, I think you’ve done quite enough. That big white boy out there’s not going to forget what happened. Especially, the way it went down right in front of all his homeboys. There’s no way he can leave it alone.”

“He can’t lay a hand on you. Everyone would know about the bad blood. Besides, I’ll whisper in his ear, make sure he knows exactly who he’d be pissing off.”

The lieutenant of the elite violent crimes unit carried more clout than a deputy chief.

Robby looked around the store. “This the best you can do, Bruno?”

I got a broom from the back and started to sweep up. The handle instantly turned slick.

Robby took it away. “Man, you of all people know the routine. The forensics gotta have a go at this mess first. Come on, I’ll give you a ride to the hospital. You need stitches on those hands and maybe even an X-ray of that rock-hard head of yours.”

Doom-and-gloom depression descended and gave the night’s darkness a hard edge. I should’ve done more to stop the kid’s assassination. He was someone’s child, someone’s grandchild. A mother, an auntie would be waiting up for him tonight and, instead, they’d get a coroner’s house call.

Chapter Three

Outside, everyone had been moved away from the front of Mr. Cho’s store and stood behind yellow crime-scene tape. An instant crowd had gathered. Both ends of Long Beach Boulevard—a major drag through town—remained blocked off. Robby had me by the arm, escorting, letting all concerned know I now came under his protective veil.