“Cosmic Liquidity wearing a Kobe Bryant jersey”

The cops had all cleared out. Leaving behind trampled elephant ears and a commotion of dirt all over the walkway. Some dutiful officer had put up more yellow tape around the entrance to number two, but it looked hastily done, stretching between two large philodendron plants in front of the door. Here marks a murder; or a cop who got shot in the ass by a murder suspect.  

I lingered, looking at the mess that civil servants could make. The smell of jasmine floated off the fence to my left.  A white fence that had seen better days. It sagged in loping dunes and was covered in dark, green vines. It was a disconcerting mix of the senses. Such a sweet smell infiltrating all the chaos. Such was this city. A maelstrom of sweet smells and dirty bodies and pulverizing ambitions.  

The door to number three was slightly ajar and a light from inside shot a shaft out across the trampled elephant ears. I could hear the wood floors creaking inside. The woman who’d stuck her chin out to yell at the invaders was moving around in there, I thought. But why was her door open? Nosiness brought me closer to the opening and inside three people could be seen, shifting about through the crack in the doorway. The woman and two men. Two men that were familiar to me. Hosseini. And the bald guy from Pershing Square that probably killed Brenda. Agassi. 

Hosseini and Agassi were in close proximity to each other, cavorting in hushed towns, but vehemently. Agassi seemed pissed and Hosseini rubbed his neck and seemed to be trying his best to calm the man down. The woman had moved out of view. I craned my neck to find her in the opening of the door when I was reminded of the bump on my head.  

It was a thud at first. A deep thudding on the back of my head. And then another blow and pain shooting down the back of my neck. And then blackness, again.  

Another dream. You think they would’ve knocked all the subconscious out of me by now. And it was one of those that you don’t remember. But you awake with just enough to know something was being worked out. Some deep cataloguing going on. Down so deep that the ego must never be aware of its goings on.  

Voices were what brought me to the surface.  

“Think that motherfucker is dead?”  

“I don’t fucking know. I don’t fucking care. We should just leave him here. Cops be back any second now. What the fuck we even doing here? This is fucking stupid, man.”  

“If he’s dead, why we here?” 

“Why we even here, is what I’m saying?” 

“Mr. A told us to wait until he came to.”  

“That’s the story and we’re sticking to it. Cops show up again, that’s what we tell them.”  

There was no answer to that last bit. Mr. A. Agassi. My eyes seemed to be shut without me having to shut them. They felt swollen and my nose felt like a pancake. Everything bulging and out of place.  

“There it is.”  

My eyes slit open and I was sure I heard them make a noise like splintering wood. A blood-crusted cracking.  

“He awake?” 

There were two of them. Both bald-headed. You can’t have hair if you’re Armenian. Must be the case. The way you keep your membership. And tattoos. You gotta have tattoos. These two wore all black and had nine millimeters in their belts, belly-side. They looked professional. Stood straight and looked down at me like they only wanted to extract something from me and then they would kill me.  

The one on the left had a thin beard. The one on the right was clean shaven. Both had round faces. You eat well when you’re gangstered up.  

“What now? The one with the beard asked.  

The clean-shaven one took a piece of paper out of his back pocket. He had a grocery list written down. He looked at it like he had trouble reading in front of the class. He even cleared his throat.  

“Jesus Christ.” The man with no hair on his face put the piece of paper back in his pocket. “I could’ve remembered that.”  

“What?” the bearded-one asked.  

Clean-shaven shook his head. “He thinks we’re fucking morons.”  

The one with the beard only raised his eyebrows, unable to fight the accusation. “Well, what’d he want us to ask him.”  

Beard looked away from his partner and looked at me. “Where’s the stone?”  

I wasn’t sure I could even open my mouth. Someone had hit me over the head and surely kicked me in the face. My teeth felt like rubble. How to speak through a mouth full of broken rocks? 

But I managed. “What stone?” All the same.  

“Yeah, what stone?” The bearded one followed up.  

The clean-shaven one looked at his partner like they both needed new jobs far away from each other as possible. “Jesus-fucking-Christ.” He reached back to his pocket again and took the note out and looked at it and shook his head. “It doesn’t fucking say.”  

I started laughing. It hurt my face to do so, but the joy of secret-knowings nudged the pain into a corner.  

“Fucks he laughing for?” The bearded guy asked.  

Clean-shaven guy sighed and looked jittery, knowing the cops would be back any minute. Or would they? Had they tracked down Ed? And weren’t their hands full with cop-shooting Beebe? And why had Agassi left these goons to ask one question?  

I was still laughing when I puked. It was then that I realized that I was sitting on a couch in some apartment I didn’t recognize. The upchuck went all over my shirt and lap and some of the couch and rug on the floor.  

The two goons jumped back.  

“Aw man.” The clean-shaven one exclaimed.  

“Oh god–” The bearded one said before vomiting himself. All over the Persian rug they were standing on.  

“Fuck!” The other one said. “Awww, man.”  

The front door to the place flew open.  

The cops! 

No.  

Big Willie Winsboro! 

He had awoken, with a gun in his hand. It was that piece he’d taken off those Salvadoreans downtown. The bearded one was closest to the door, but he was still bent over, upchucking. Big Will kicked him in the face, and I had to grin at that. His foot made a flat, suctioning sound and the bearded one’s head snapped back in an odd manner and he fell over like sack of onions.  

Clean-shaven took a step back and went for his piece at his waist.  

But Willie’s gun was already pointed at the man, and he stepped in close and fast and put the muzzle right on the man’s nose. His next move was just as quick and smooth; reaching with his free hand taking the man’s gun from his belt and now he had two guns pointed at the man. 

I looked around, finally. The place we were in seemed to be the lady who stuck her head out and yelled at everyone. The place I’d just been peeping. Where Hosseini and Agassi were confabbing. Where’d they go with the lady, I wondered.  

“You alright?” Willed asked over a shoulder.  

At first, I didn’t think the question was addressed to me, then it slowly dawned. My head and face felt like a burden. A thing to put aside and forget about until it felt different. Or didn’t feel like it weighed six thousand pounds.  

“I’ll live.” I said, like a real tough guy.  

Big Willie kept his eyes on the clean-shaven one. The bearded one was out for the count, laying in his own vomit.  

So was I, kind of. I tried to sit up. It took me about thirty minutes, but I managed without my eyes bulging out of my head. “These two are looking for a stone.” I told Willie, sitting on the edge of the couch, feeling the wetness of my puke on my chest and lap.  

“A hot rock.” Willie grinned.  

“The police have it.” I told him. 

The big man’s head jerked slightly. “Really?” 

“I’ll tell you about it later.” And I stood up, feeling alright, but lopsided like a Mookie Betts bobble-head.  

“What about this fool?” Willie flicked the muzzle of his gun against clean-shaven’s nose.  

The bald man didn’t blink or seem to even breath. One cool customer. Known in his hood to have guns pointed at him on the regular.  

“Leave him.” I took a step towards the door. “Anything else and he’d need it written on a post-it-note.”  

Big Willie kept his gun on the man and moved towards the door with me. Clean-shaven looked at me with a tough, steel-eyed stare. The gun didn’t bother him, but my words screwed hooks into him.  

I stopped in the doorway and looked at his partner on the floor and then up at him. “Why’s your boss want that stone, so much?” 

The clean-shaven man’s lips frowned, and he shook his head, slightly and he shrugged. Just a thug. A goon with a piece of paper in his back pocket. Given a gun and will travel to the Westside from Glendale to knock some heads. A flash of empathy moved through me. A certainty of which side of the tracks we lay on might’ve tied us together in cosmic liquidity. A second only. Then it was gone with an obtuseness in both of our thoughts of the future. What now? Or whatever. Those were the only plains we lay in.  

“Make sure you clean this place up.” Willie told him, for some reason. 

“Fuck you.” Clean-shaven spit.  

Big Willie stopped. And stepped back toward the man and smashed the butt of the gun in his right-hand against the man’s nose. It made an awful wet, popping noise and the man’s eyes closed immediately and he fell to his right, like another sack of onions. I hoped the lady could use them. For a soup, maybe. 

The big man looked back at me with raised eyebrows. “You can’t leave em standing, podjo.”  

Podjo. Alright, we were partners now. But there were still secrets out there in the ether between us both.  

“You got some duds I can change into?” Looking down at the upchuck on my shirt and pants. 

He did. More oversized jorts and a Kobe Bryant jersey. The Minnesota throwback white. I didn’t have the shoes to pull it off. Then again, nobody could pull that off but the Mamba.  

There were lights on inside Cliff’s apartment. I knocked on the door. Willie and me stood there for a minute or two, waiting. I knocked again, pulling my jorts up. Nothing. The cops hadn’t come back yet. Maybe they never would. We couldn’t seem to get away from this building. A black hole. Deforming and collapsing everything we thought we knew or wanted to in the span of a lifetime.  

“They in there.” Willie said.  

“Maybe they left to go get a drink.”  

“Them men don’t drink.” He reached past me and pounded on the door. It shook the whole building, made of popsicle sticks and cotton candy.  

“Cliff drinks.” I pointed out.  

“Maybe him, but men like Hamed like to keep they minds clear. All the time. Working angles and such.” 

Hamed. “Agassi too?” I asked.  

He shrugged.  

“You know him too?” 

He shook his head. “I don’t know the man.”  

I couldn’t tell if he was lying. “That how you stop seeing angles? Too much Old Milwaukee?” 

Big Willie looked at me and a tug came into the corner of his mouth. He had both the guns in each of the large pockets of his jorts. “You ever see em?” 

“What? The angles?” I didn’t have to think about it. “No. I just jump in the lake and sink or swim.” Then I did think about it. “Or sit on the beach and watch others.”  

“Same shit.” Willie said.  

“Is it?” 

“I don’t know your life or what’s in your head.”  

“I don’t either.” I reached up and rubbed the back of my head. It felt like trying to caress a boulder. “Maybe too many licks to the head today.” I wondered what I looked like. Some creature from the muck come to knock on your door at night. 

“You been getting hit over the head every day?”  

I looked at Willie and he was smirking. I felt myself chuckle, but the roll through my chest felt far away. “Seems like it.” And the smirk turned into pain. The feeling of being able to carry on this line of innocuous man-lamenting had roots stretching back to the beginning of time. We were trapped in casual loops of DNA. Thousands of years of constructs.  

But what now? 

First things first. We had to break the black yoke of this place again. It was strange that the cops hadn’t been back. Maybe they had caught up with Ed and had their hands full with Beebe, who had the stone on her. I told Willie this.  

“Why’d you give it to her?” 

“She told me some story.” I shook my head, cobwebs brushing away. “Sounded like…” I looked Willie in the eyes. “Sounded like she was abused as a kid.”  

Big Willie shook his head. “You a sap.”  

“What?”  

“How many women you met with a story?” Big man putting emphasis on story.  

We were walking towards the alley now, squeezing between the dumpsters and a Toyota Corolla, finding ourselves in the alley once again.  

“How many women have I met that were fondled and raped as kids?” Stopping and looking at the man in the eyes again.  

They alleyway was deserted. What time was it? I checked my phone. It was still in my pocket. There were some notifications on it that I had missed. I eyed them, forgetting about the time.  

“It’s a story you hear a lot, I know.” Big Willie pulled his jorts up.  

I pulled up my jorts, thinking about pieces of rope. There was a message on my phone from Jackie’s number. It was a couple of hours old. Beebe still had her phone. Did she get something off before the cops confiscated it? 

“You keep using the word story.” I was in-between two worlds. “Makes it seem like you ain’t a believer in them.”

There was another message from a number I didn’t know. I looked up from my phone at Willie and caught him just as he was shrugging. He didn’t say anything because of some memory fidgeting in the back of his head. He was looking down at the broken concrete. Years of layered pavement, cracked and broken with potholes of all sizes. Yet, here and there green weeds stretched up through the cracks. 

“Everybody’s got they own story.” Willie finally said. “Maybe everybody’s is true, I don’t know.” He kicked some pebble around. “But if everybody’s is true. Who’s is false? Ain’t nobody telling lies out there then? You know that ain’t fucking true.” 

He could’ve been right. But I wasn’t sure what point he was arguing. And why die on that cross now? Something personal lay like a blanket over his words. I let it go and looked back to my phone.  

Going back to the message from Jackie’s phone.  

It read: “I swallowed it, don’t worry.” 

I stared at the words for too long. Long enough for Willie to wonder.  

“What?” He asked.  

I shook my head and went to the next message. The one from the unknown number, with a local prefix. It read: “Meet at Vet Park. NOW.” 

“The Vet Park.” I said out loud. 

“What?” 

“Somebody texted me. Some number I don’t know.”  

“Veteran’s Park.” Willie hooked a thumb over his shoulder, back towards Wilshire. “It’s right there.”  

“Whoever it is knows we’re close.” Putting my phone back in my pocket. “Which ain’t a good advantage.” 

“Somebody wanna meet?” Big Willie perked up.  

“It’s just a text.” I told him. “It’d be stupid to walk into something like that.” Thinking out loud. 

“What else we got to do?” 

We. Maybe sleep for one. But the big man had took a nap and now he had his second wind. “Besides we do exactly that. Walk in.”  

So, that’s what we did, we walked in to it, blind as bats and toting two guns. Well, Willie carried them most of the way, until we hit Eisenhower, and then he gave me the Glock he took off the Armenian goon.  

I took it in hand like I knew what I was doing. And maybe I did on some level. A primal sense of weaponry in hand. Just like picking up a bone or a stick. The thing fit right into my thumb and forefinger. It was made to be and extension. It was equally as calming as it was unnerving.  

We walked up San Vincente, until it turned into Bringham and took a right on Eisenhower. All the while, the park was to our right. Stout palm trees in rows. Big Willie said this was the back way in. He knew this because it was his neighborhood. The place he prowled at night. Or during the day. I wasn’t sure. He was still a mystery to me. He and Jackie’s history together bilked me.  

There was a line of tents set up along the sidewalk on Bringham, most of them with American flags strung up on the fronts of them. Veterans on the skids. L.A. was one big outdoor living space. Rents were too high. Just buy a tent and enjoy the year around weather.  

That was back on Bingham. Now we’d entered the park off of Eisenhower, through a small opening in a gate that led to a parking lot. It was three in the morning and the lot was empty. We moved across the lot, avoiding the light of the overhead lamps, sticking to the shadows until we found ourselves under those line of palm trees, on dark grass.  

We stood there for a moment and listened to crickets. The place smelled of cut grass and urine. Still, there were cars passing on Wilshire. A slight hum of some generator from one of the Veteran’s Affairs building behind us. The rows of perfectly planted palm trees rolled out like scruffy-haired sentinels in the night. A tank could hide behind the trunks of those things. Anyone or any number of people could be out there waiting. We had our guns drawn, down by our sides.  

A low whistle came out of the row of trees. It bounced off the trees in a lilting echo. A couple of shadows moved out amongst the bases of the palms. Our fingers touched triggers. A voice piped up.  

“We got guns, you got guns. Chill out homies.”  

I couldn’t place where it was coming from. Some shadow out there moved and peeled off from the rest. A band of light from the parking lot lit up a lower body and empty hands upheld.  

The man had on what looked like tan Dickies and a long-sleeved flannel shirt. His neck and head were still in darkness. “We ain’t trying to light the thing up. We just wanna talk.”  

“Who we talking to?” I asked.  

“Name’s La Pantera Rosa.”  

Laughter filled the night. All his homies having a good chuckle. Some inside joke that would hang in the night and haunt the unawares.  

“You guys a little far west, ain’t you?” Willie boomed, and the laughter died.  

The man’s hands went down in front him, his right interlocking over his left wrist. He took a step toward us. The light from the parking lot hitting his face. Black hair short, like a two-week-old buzz cut. A handle-bar mustache on his lip.  

“Look here, big dog. We ain’t in just one neighborhood. This is a big city. Lots to see. We move around as we wish.” 

“Okay, Pink Panther.” I cut in. “What’d you want? How’d you get my number?” 

No one laughed at my translation. But the man in the light smirked. “My sister gave it to me.”  

There were only two guesses. “Beebe or Edwina?” 

We could hear whispers amongst the shadows. Pantera Rosa didn’t look surprised though. “That bitch Beebe ain’t no blood of mine.” He spit in the grass, casual though, not like he was mad at a grave or something.

“You and Ed have the same dad.” I stated, throwing darts into the night.  

That seemed to get the mustachioed man’s interest. “Yeah, we both Flores.” He had his head tilted back, nose in the air, like he was trying to sniff something out about me. We were just dogs in the dust.  

“Ed and Beebe have the same mom.” I was putting it together.  

“Putas, both of em.” He spit again, this time not so casual.

“This some genealogy class.” Willie cut in. “Can’t you do this on the internet? Give your credit card away and find out how you connected to Adam and Eve.” 

Seemed a bit undercutting, but somehow it was the right thing to say. Flores the Panther smiled, showing a gold tooth. “They charge you money to find out what, we all come from Africa.”  

“What I’m saying.” Willie agreed. 

“We all got some fucking Mongolian blood.”  

“Genghis-fucking-Khan and shit.”  

Motherfuckers were friends, suddenly.  

“Neanderthal too.” I put my two cents in.  

But no one acknowledged it in a jocular manner. Willie and Flores both looked at me like I crashed their party. Flores noticing maybe I’d brought some beer though.  

“Right.” Pantera, nodding his head. “Didn’t we kill them off.”  

“Or mated with em.” Willie added, coming around.  

“Huh. Ain’t that some shit.” Flores shook his head.  

Me and Willie kind of gave each other side-long glances. Both wondering what we were doing here. Three o’clock in the morning and talking Genghis Khan and Neanderthals in our blood with Mara Salvatrucha.  

“What did Ed tell you?” Deciding to cut to the chase.  

The was rustling behind Flores. Behind the palm tree trunks there were still shadows at play. At least five men. “I got a question for you.” Flores started. “Why the fuck she getting arrested, homie?” 

“I don’t know.” I told him. “Maybe because she’s snooping around her sister’s apartment while Beebe’s outside shooting a cop in the ass.”  

Flores’ jaw tightened. “She said to find you. That you were the one that knew it all.”  

Knew it all. What did that even mean? “I get the feeling you might know more than I do.”  

“This about that fucking stone?” 

“Why’d you guys steal it?” 

Flores shook his head and let out an audible breath. “Shit was dumb luck, bro.” He seemed done with it. “Thing’s worth, what, two grand. But it put me in with the fucking Armenians, dog.”  

“What’s that mean?” I asked, like a second-grader. 

Flores scoffed. Some shadows behind him laughed out right. “If you don’t know what them motherfuckers are up to, then Ed was wrong about you.”  

“Real estate.” I said, quickly.  

“Chicken dinner.” Flores pointed a gunned-finger at me.  

“What’s your interest. How’d you get in?” 

Some of the shadows were making more noise now. Not feeling the vibe of the question. Big Willie cleared his throat. We still had our guns by our sides. We were sure that the shadows were doing likewise.  

“That’s a dumb question, and you know it.” Flores calmed them down. “We ain’t gonna put our shit out there like that. But the thing is, you double your money when you actually own the property you fucking slang on. You know what I’m saying, homie. Like legitimately holding land is the biggest gangster shit ever. Thems that own mountains and the valleys and the fucking basin, are the true motherfuckers.”  

“Hosseini.”  

Big Willie gave me the evil side-eye again.  

“Who?” Flores asked.  

Me and Willie looked at the Panther with skeptical stares. Then it dawned on me. That strip mall in the valley.  

“You been to a place out in Sherman Oaks?” I asked him.  

That kind of froze everything. Even Wilshire was sans any cars passing. The shadows behind Flores stood very still.  

“Andrea in Sherman Oaks.” Flores stated, and you could see a little pull in the corner of his mouth.  

“You in on that place in Filipinotown?” 

More stillness. We’d hit a sweet spot where Wilshire was this calm, flat lane with nothing moving on it. The palm trees were standing placid with not a hint of breeze in the air. But still metal could and cordite could be smelled.  

“What place?” Flores playing it out.  

“That place on Temple.” I told him. “That brand new place that we saw Andrea walking into.”  

“You been following motherfuckers.”  

“It’s what we do.” Willie told him.  

We were friends again. Both with pieces in our hands, in the night, with the creatures. It all felt fine. With purpose you will travel.  

Flores gave Willie a hard, cold stare. “You talk to that one. You tell her she owes us money.”  

“What’d you need from us?” I asked. “You got some points in a real-estate deal you can’t recover, what’s that to us?” 

“That’s a good question.” Flores was as cool as they come. “But Ed gave me your number for some reason. She’s thinking something, right. Something beneficial. But I’m wondering why you homies still got guns in your hands.”  

Shadow guns moved in on us. We were outnumbered and outgunned, but Big Willie didn’t seem to care. He pointed the MP9 at Flores. His boys moved in closer, all makes of pistols covering us. I still kept mine down by my side.  

“I see five not counting you.” Willie laid it out. “But all I need to do is shoot you and these motherfuckers will blow away like plastic bags.”  

Rumbles in the shadows. Dudes saying the things they say when guns are pointed. But Flores held up a hand. These are everyday things. Guns pointed in your face and all. There were solutions to be gotten too.  

“Ain’t nobody trying get shot today.” Flores told him. “Ain’t nobody afraid to die today, either.” He shrugged. “So, what’s the fucking point?” 

“You need something from us.” I blurted.  

Flores the Panther pointed his finger at me. “You need something from us.”  

“What?” 

“Answers.”  

“What answers?” Willie asked.  

“You wanna know who killed your friend?” 

Willie and me, checking peripherals again. He lowered the Smith & Wesson. Some of those shadows relaxed a bit, but not much.  

“How would you know that?” I asked. 

Flores grinned. Gold flashed and cars started rolling again on Wilshire. Birds were chirping and the scent of Jasmine floated under noses. Just for a few seconds, and then the rush of axil-grease and exhaust fumes came hovering over us.  

“You don’t know Beebe very well, do you.”  

“You saying Beebe killed Jackie?” Willie was on him.  

Flores looked at the big man. “She flashing steel in Barnsdall. That’s what the cops want her for, right? Putting holes in Erik Agassi. Or the cops like you two for that?” 

Willie and me looked full on at each other then. How did he know that shit? Cops on the payroll, maybe. They got eyes everywhere. 

 “Well, the cops got the right one for it, then.” I stated.  

A wrinkle of surprise rose on Flores’ forehead and then quickly flattened into processed information to be used later. The man sure was cool. “Beebe and Ed get arrested on the same night, huh.” He kind of lightly scoffed. “Can’t say I’m surprised.” 

“You sure Ed got caught?” I asked.  

Flores shrugged and stayed mum. Some answers the man wasn’t giving us. “You saying Beebe did Jackie, don’t mean it’s true or any kind of answer, but say it is and you got some kind of proof. What the fuck is it you exactly need from us?” 

Flores just stared at me. His way of looking surprised at a mouthy mixed-race motherfucker. “Armenians owe us money. We want you to get it for us.”  

Jaws would’ve dropped, but we had to keep our teeth grinding at the bit. “What makes you think we can do that?” I asked, full of questions.  

The Panther smirked. “You two pretty resourceful homies. Taking guns off motherfuckers in tight spaces, I here.”  

His boys from Alvarado Terrace. Wonder what kind of slap on the wrist those fellas got. Then again, I didn’t really care. Maybe I should. Maybe I should go over to Alvarado Terrace after all this was over and buy those boys some beers.  

But I knew I wouldn’t.  

“You want, I can take all them guns off your boys.” Willie piped up.  

The gallery behind Flores didn’t like that at all. In fact, I don’t think they even wanted to be under those palms in the dead of morning. Could be passed out in some chola’s arms, belly full of barbacoa and Suprema. Instead, there were here with these two goons, taking insults.  

“They in the right hands.” Flores put a hand up and his homies relaxed some. “But I wouldn’t mind you taking a few more from them Armenians.”  

“What, you ain’t got enough muscle?” I nodded toward the shadows behind him.  

“We work together now. One big happy, you see. But meanwhile they fucking us on deals. We just want what’s owed, you know what I’m sayin.”  

“You need a mediator.” I figured. 

Flores smiled without showing any teeth and nodded his index finger at me. “Ed was right.”  

I shook my head. “How much money we talking?” It was the first mention of it and we could feel the thing changing beneath our feet.  

“Two million bones.” Flores said, flatly, like it was two weeks worth of wages.  

Another look shared with Willie. This guy was shittin’ us. That was the look we both gave each other. Chains were being yanked. How else could we account for the feeling in our sphincters? That feeling of a plug being pulled from a drain.  

“Fuck you.” Willie told him.  

Nobody liked that remark but me. Flores and his shadows were in unison now. I finally pointed the gun at something in the dark. But Willie, in his contrarian way, kept his gun down by his side, making me feel all alone in this strange standoff.  

Where to start? “Two million dollars.” I started. “What’s our take?” 

“What?” Willie looked at me.  

“Ten percent.” Flores said.  

Two hundred thousand dollars. A hundred a piece, if we were being fair. But Willie was still defiant. “Fuck you.” He said again, still looking at me.  

I raised my eyebrows at him. Still with my gun pointed, I was interested in his negotiation tactics. “They just got two million, lying around.” Looking at Flores.  

“Wouldn’t that be easy.” He said. 

“If it ain’t just laying around, we want twenty percent.” Willie stated.  

Flores kind of squinted at him and a curt smile was a crescent on his face. “You want four hundred G’s.” He scoffed. “Get you off the streets, I bet.” He kind of looked over his shoulder and the shadows laughed.  

I wondered how he knew that about Willie.  

“You need us for what?” I asked. “For something you can’t do yourself. Somebody higher up won’t approve. Probably worth twenty percent, I bet.”  

The Pink Panther flowed with the logic and shrugged like it was no sweat off his balls. “Fuck it. If you can get it, you can have it.”  

The peanut gallery behind him rumbled out some rebukes. Flores just held up his hand again and the remonstrations stopped.  

“Where do we find it?” I asked.  

“That’s the hard part, ain’t it.” Flores’ nose snarled up. “Nobody deals in cash anymore. You go into a bar, a corner store, anyplace, they all dealing with iPads and fucking QR codes. Cash is queen. Zeros and ones is king.” He looked around and spit again. “But there’s some fuckers still like dealing in green.” He paused for effect. The man liking his position in life. “Shit on the streets still seem to stay the same.”  

Flores looked at Big Willie like they shared a private knowing. Something to do with rubber on concrete. Feets on the streets.  

“You talking some TV bullshit.” Willie spat. “Ain’t no money train out there.”  

This was all Greek to me.  

“Not talking about no money train.” Flores bit. “But there’s a storage shed down in Torrance ready to be fleeced.”  

“Storage shed.” I repeated. “Just got down there with some bolt-cutters.”  

The Panther raised his eyebrows and shrugged. 

“I’m saying. Send one of your boys.” I nodded at the shadows behind him.  

“They got cameras in this place.” Flores rebutted. “We don’t wanna be seen doing this, remember.”  

“Remind me again, how this gets us to Jackie’s killer?” I asked.  

Flores shrugged and shook his head. “It gets you paid, right. You can do a lot with four hundred G’s, like bail a certain person out of jail.”  

Beebe. If Flores was right about her. If she killed Jackie. “Why would she wanna kill her?” I wanted to see how much he knew. “I don’t get it. What was Jackie to her but a neighbor?” 

Flores gave me a vacant stare. “Who you fucking with?” He asked. “Who you trying to play?” His whole body tightened up. “That fucking stone. That’s what she wanted.”  

“It’s not worth anything, though.” I shook my head, trying to figure it.  

“Something to do with her and Erik.” Flores said.  

“Like what?” 

Pantera la Rosa pursed his lips. His shadows behind him were growing impatient. “That fucking thing is some old Armenian thing. Been in their family, going back to the motherland. Some shit like that.”  

He stopped and it was dead out there again on Wilshire.  

“Been in Beebe’s family too.”  

“What’d you mean?” 

“We all got different moms.” Flores looked uncomfortable for the first time. “Pops got around, know what I’m sayin.” 

We did.  

“Shit is fucked up.”  

Then he told us a weird tale.