"Cheers, again," Madeleine Jirac responded, clinking her drink against his pint. She was a handsome woman with light colored eyes and proportioned lips. The dark-haired woman was dressed casually in slacks and golden hued from an afternoon session on a tanning bed.

"No doubt." He leaned over and they kissed.

"So, Bruno," she smiled as their lips and tongues parted, "you think that Immanuel Kant would be a political consultant, a hack working for somebody like Mayor Fergardis, if he were alive today?"

The crow lines at the edges of Cortese's eyes became pronounced as his mouth crinkled into a half-moon. "'Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing can ever be made'. Now a guy who has that kind of outlook, what else could he be suited for?"

"Wouldn't want him wasting time teaching, now would we?"

Jirac sampled some of her drink.

"Smart ass."

She watched him over the rim. "You like it."

His beeper vibrated before he formulated a retort. Going out with a woman smarter and older than he was kept him alert. He clicked off the beeper without looking at its screen. "Gotta batter up, baby."

"No cowboying, right?" Her blunt fingers touched the back of his veined hand.

"Never." He got up, bent to kiss her again as he rubbed her back. "I'll call you later, okay?"

"You better."

He finally took a sip of his beer. Then Cortese walked toward the exit located through an archway. He rolled his shoulders like he always did to get loose, to work the tension from his neck down into his arms and lower regions. It was a habit from his days of high school football at St. Brigid's when he was a running back and made All-City one year. Peripherally he glimpsed someone in a corner booth and had to look directly to make sure.

The man he'd spotted, sitting underneath a wall of photos ranging from cop tournament poker games to darts, pretended he was more interested in the frizzed dirty blonde he was huddled against and hadn't noticed him. Cortese knew that wasn’t so, but what did it matter? He snorted a laugh through his nose and went on through the arch. The exit itself was at the back of the hallway from which the bathrooms and an office were located too.

Plastered on the rear door was a monochromatic poster warning kids of the dangers of drugs. The waif-like teenage girl staring out from the announcement had a hand drawn word balloon attached to her mouth stating "Discount blow job for cops." Cortese leaned a shoulder against the door as he simultaneously pressed against the release bar. He went outside to the usual tableau of busted up crates and plastic trash bags found behind countless taverns, fast food stands and restaurants across the city.

He paused, put a hand to an ear as he cocked his head into the humid night air. The theatrical actions were unnecessary as the moaning was steady and audible. Another half-moon materialized on his face as he trudged to where he knew the sounds originated. He stuck a toothpick in his mouth as he went across over the warped blacktop of the back lot. To the rear end of this was a series of stone steps older than Joan Collins leading up to a tier of brush and dirt paths. The paths wound their way into Elysian park and part of Section D of Dodger Stadium.

"Goddamn, Rafe," Herlinda Delarocha murmured pleasurably.

She was bent forward, her hands gripping a rusted pole. The woman's panties were half way down her spread thighs, and her jeans collapsed around her Doc Martin’s. The pole she held onto went upward to a dilapidated wooden overhang that was part of small building on the back lot that once, many decades ago, housed city fire hydrants. And now it was used as a storeroom. A lone floodlight, barely giving off illumination, washed the lovers in cream yellows. There was a pair of handcuffs snapped around the woman's wrists.

Cortese worked the pick in his teeth. He leaned on the corner of the shed watching the two for several beats, listening to their rough lovemaking. Then he said, "We got to hook and book, pardner."

"Can't you see he's busy, cheddar dick?" Delarocha said hoarsely.

"Can't you see I don't give a fuck?"

"Cabrón."

"Ho."

"All right," Rafael Santián grunted. He ceased and straightened up behind Delarocha. "You two ought to take that act and get a radio show." He stepped back, shook his now limp penis, and hiked up his jeans and boxers.

The pretty young woman stood erect and glared at Cortese. "What you lookin' at, mothefuckah?" She was a tall Latina with pronounced cheekbones and a tear drop tattoo in the corner of her heavily mascaraed right eye.

Cortese flicked his toothpick at her exposed leg.

"Bitch," she flared.

Cortese ignored her. "The Gargoyle has landed, Saint."

"Righteous." Santián stepped from around De la Rocha as she hitched her clothes around her wide hips. Patting her on the butt he said, "See you later, Linda." He started to step away with Cortese.

"Yo." Delarocha rattled the cuffs still keeping her bound.

"Leave her ass like that," Cortese chided.

"Be cool, Cheese." Santián tossed a key to the woman.

"Sorry about that."

"That's okay, baby, I know you got to run off with your bunghole buddy and fight crime and shit." She undid the cuffs.

"What a mouth," Cortese remarked.

"Don't she though?" His partner observed admiringly. They turned to leave again.

"Ain't you gonna need these?" De la Rocha held the cuffs and key aloft.

"Keep 'em." His back to her, Santián performed an imperial wave of his hand. "We got plenty."

"I'll save 'em for next time, honey," she chortled. The weak flood gleamed on her darkly lipsticked mouth lined in black.

She puckered her lips and blew Santián a kiss.

He looked back at her upon hearing the smack and grinned.

"I don't know what you see in an eightball chick like her." Cortese idly scratched his muscled belly.

"I'll pick my own route to ruin, padre." Santián was an inch shorter and not as wide as Cortese. Where his partner was built like a slumming WWE wrestler, Santián had the body of a baller. He was solid, but lean with bulked up triceps and biceps. The two ambled side-by side around the corner of the Code 7 to the parking lot. Santián beeped off his Malibu SS's alarm and unlocked the driver's side door.

"Hey, guess who the fuck was playin' slap and tickle inside?" Cortese sat on the passenger side of the cherry '72 Chevy.

Santián juiced the ignition and the big block 420 rumbled alive on the first crank. "Who?" he asked, unlatching the emergency brake.

"Mr. Motto and some hard lookin' white trash broad I've seen somewhere before."

Santián had backed the car up and then got the shifter into first. Wearily he said, "You know Ahn is a 1.5er, Cheese, a Korean-American born in Korea and raised in America."

Cortese grinned. "Whatever, Mister PC. Anyway that fuck carried on like he hadn't eyed me but we both know we peeped each other."

"Maybe McGuire's got him working 24/7 since she decided to run for mayor. If she can get some real dirt on the squad, her handlers must figure that's good for a ten or fifteen point boost in a dead heat."

"Who's doing her campaign?" Cortese had rolled the window down and gazed into the side mirror.

"I heard she's been meeting with that slick prick Pablo Pastor."

"She's going for the nuts, that’s for sure."

"Don't she always?"

They drove along. "What's up with Curtis?" Cortese asked to break the silence as they passed Eisenhower Park.

Grooves appeared in Santián's brow. "Man, that kid's gonna kill me quicker than the goddamn Crazy Nines. If it wasn't for hoops and girls, he'd have no reason to be going to school."

"I guess I shouldn't crack about chickens and how they always come home to roost, huh?"

"Have I mentioned lately just how funny you are, motherfuckah?"

The two laughed softly. Santián sped through an intersection against a light turning red. In less than fifteen minutes, the Malibu rolled through the core of the Venice Heights section, a dense 12-miles square area just west of downtown. The Heights -- or V-12 as the gang members called it –- was like a lot of neighborhoods that had gone through various ethnographic transitions over the years. There was still a Greek restaurant that did overflow business during the week. But the tailor shop it had been next to had been replaced in the last three years with a carneceria complete with a full scale plasticine bull statue on its roof.

There were also left overs of the black businesses that used to populate the topography. To be sure, the staple of African American ma and pa outlets, the three B's of barber, beauty and bar-b-ques, were not as plentiful these days anywhere in L... But the West Texas Palace of Savory Meats, a rib and hot links joint of citywide fame, was still owned and operated by a family who'd been around since Santián had been a kid.

"The Lanciliers." Cortese nodded at a seven-story building of a design from the Beaux Arts era. Behind the structure the cross-town MTA subway train thundered along the elevated tracks.

"And there's Big T." Santián made a left and guided the car toward a row of desultory Cypress trees alongside an auto parts store. He parked and the two lighted from the vehicle.

"Z'up?" Santián addressed Theo "Big T" Holton. He was an imposing black man a little over six one with a wide, beer truck carriage of a body. He was always in a rumpled suit with one of his stingy brim hats jammed over his cube of a head.

"My crackhead snitch says Villa snuck back into town from El Paso last night. Says this meet has something to do with the Nines and the Baja Cartel settin' up a new thing." He took off his hat and scratched at his greying, short-cropped thatch.

Santián got the Malibu’s trunk open to reveal several Remington 870 automatic shotguns and zippered duffle bags. "About what?"

"Nobody 'cept them locos up there in Lil Puppet’s crib," he pointed at the apartment house, "know for sure. But me and Ronk figure it's tied to what went down three days ago."

"The police chief of Juarez across from El Paso was driving back from mass in his supposedly bullet proof Suburban." The new speaker was Barry "Ronk" Culhane. He was Holton's running buddy, a naturally slender individual who maintained a serious regime of weights and bulking powders. His face was bristling with whiskers, and his thinning blonde hair glistened with a recent application of Rogain.

"This hombre was cut down by heavy duty ordinances a short two blocks from his headquarters."

"And Villa was made as one of the shooters?" Cortese racked the 20-gauge he'd removed from the Malibu's trunk.

Culhane shook his head vigorously. "Not a positive, no. But we understand our boy was down there to have a face-to-face with Rosario Del Fuego."

Santián processed the information. Rosario and his maniacal brother Felix ran the so-called Baja Cartel. In reality, the Cartel was not headquartered in Baja. But the legend went that the two brothers engineered the assassination of a key member of the Columbian Cali Cartel in a Baja whorehouse, thus solidifying the rise of their drug empire. "And he did this hit on the police chief on orders from the brothers?"

"The El Paso cops have issued an all points for him," Culhane added.

"So let's go ask him," a fifth man spoke. Alvaro Acosta, was in his dark blue patrolman's uniform. The younger man's black hair was cut military precise, and the brown skin of his face was unblemished.

"Okay, mister eager, we will." Santián shut the trunk then he reconsidered and extracted two mini Astro walkie-talkies out of one of the duffles. He also clipped a shell carrier on his belt. He used his back pocket for his two-way. He handed the other one to Culhane. "Let’s be cool and cautious," he said.

Ronk Culhane took the instrument and sniffed the air. "Smells like testosterone."

Holton displayed a gap-toothed grin. The other three gave quick nods. Acosta looked on, impressed. This was where he belonged.

"Okay," Santián began, "Lil Puppet's apartment is on the fourth floor, that corner with the blinds drawn," he pointed. "There's a side exit piled high with debris so they ain't goin' out that way, que no?. Ronk, you take the initiate 'round back and come in through the laundry room. Us three will take the front."

"Do we need a warrant?" Acosta said, a worried expression contorting his face.

The four glared at him as if fungus were spilling out of his ears. "We have probable cause," Cortese reminded the new man.

"We are in pursuit of an alleged cop killer. We have an eyewitness who saw Ramon ‘Gargoyle’ Villa enter said domicile on or about 2200 hours. Said domicile is home to one Chester ‘Lil Puppet’ Ochoa who is out on parole and who cannot consort with specific named individuals."

"Villa being one of them," Acosta piped in.

"Now you gettin' with the program." Holton slapped him on the back. "Don't let that high yella twist McGuire get you all knotted up. We're righteous." He took his shotgun in both hands and shook it. "The streets belong to us."

"Fuckin' A," Ronk said.

The team walked in a diagonal across the wide thoroughfare of Westlake Avenue toward the front of the Lancilier Apartments. A late model Passat drove by, the driver honking at the men.

"Our fuckin' fan club," Cortese said, waving at the driver.

"Don't underestimate the power of the public, my friend," Santián quipped.

"Especially if it keeps the dogs off of us," Holton put in.

The team split up as they got nearer. Culhane and Acosta trotted toward the rear along a narrow passageway alongside the apartment building. The trio arrived at the glass paneled front door, a brightly lit vestibule beyond.

"Hold this, Sarge." Holton handed his shotgun to Santián.

He then extracted a lock picking kit and removed the proper tools, a pick and tension wrench. He bent and went to work. "You'd think," the big man muttered, "that these old locks would be easy. But Yale really knew how to make 'em back in the day."

"You got to get some new hobbies, Big T," Cortese joked.

He got the door unlatched. "My only hobby is justice, son," he said in mock solemnity, straightening up.

Santián handed the shotgun back to the detective. He took the lead and plunged into the building. There was fresh paint on the walls, the latest gang pictographs having been brushed over by the tenants. In the main hallway was an elevator but these cops knew from experience that it seldom operated. The three got to the stairs in the rear, and began to ascend beside the old-fashioned banister.

.  .  .

"I used to say the same thing," her mother said, "and look where I am today."

...

"Don't say boo, motherfuckah." Holton had the shotgun leveled on the Crazy Nine who went by the name Boney. The apartment's front room wasn't large to begin with, and was particularly cramped with all the bodies shoved into it now.

"Yo, home, you ain't got no right." Lil Puppet's rangy frame was encased in khaki shorts and a Number 8 Kobe Bryant Lakers jersey. He was sitting on the end of a corduroy covered couch. The arms had numerous black stains from extinguished reefer blunts.

"What, you taking correspondence law classes?" Ronk had his Beretta 92FS out, his eyes darting all over the room. He and Acosta had already prowled through the rest of the apartment.

"Where's Gargoyle?" Santián demanded of his captive audience.

"Who?" Another Crazy Nine member named Hazy contributed.

"You smokin' so much kronik you gone simple, ese?" Santián moved a step back to better take in the four gang members they'd huddled together on the couch, each made to sit on their hands. The metal security door that faced out to the hallway had been quietly opened by Big T. Then the cops busted in the inner wooden door. This perfected "can opener" technique had been done in under a minute.

Hazy gave Santián a baleful glare. "Look," Santián continued, "we know his cocky self waltzed into this building earlier, and he ain't got no heinas up in this muhfuh, so where did he light to?"

Of course all he got was stony and sullen silence.

"Oops," Culhane said, sending his left foot, clad in a cowboy boot, out stiffly into the stacked stereo equipment on a low pedestal. The units crashed to the floor, its components skidding.

"Bitch," Lil Puppet hollered, "you better replace that with the money you steal from your hoes."

Acosta quickly looked at Ronk Culhane who now stood over Lil Puppet. The unshaven officer scratched his cheek with the barrel of his handgun. "The only thing I'm gonna replace is your asshole for my foot."

Santián zeroed his officer with a look and he backed off. "Here it is, almost the weekend," he said to the quartet, "and you slack dick pendejos don't want to spend all that time locked up...no pussy, no refer, no 40s."

Lil Puppet squirmed to get shoulder room. He was bunched in between Hazy and the fourth Crazy Nine member, a young man called Serenade. They called him that because he never had much to say.

Lil Puppet jutted his head up at Santián. "You the one been on the dank, Saint. Ain't nobody seen --"

There was a creak and Lil Puppet involuntarily stopped himself. "Like I said," he started again, louder, "Gargo --"

"Shut up," Santián commanded. The five squad members stopped breathing.

"Where'd that come from?" Cortese whispered.

There was another creak, and Santián looked up at the peeling ceiling. He was pointing with his shotgun when the first shot boomed. It flew through the ceiling, billowing a fine trail of plaster dust.

"Shit," Big T swore.

In a heartbeat, there was another shot. This bullet careened off the light switch and suddenly the room was dark. Only the weak bulb from the hallway burned. And by then everyone was scrambling and yelling.

TOP