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 sexed-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 bullshit 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 fuck 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 documentary 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 shit.'
'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.'
'Damn.' Garlan lowered his head.
'He couldn't act for shit. 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 pissed? 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.
