“Hammer, well he saw you workin’ out. He recognized you from Jaime’s painting,” he said, brushing off his clothes. “He figured if Jaime made a picture of you he must have known you real well, and maybe he told you,” said the handsome younger version of Jaime, or he would have been handsome but for the tat on his right cheekbone proclaiming his gang. “I didn’t tell them I knew you.” He wiped his eyes and nose with his blue bandanna.

  “Told me what? What were you looking for in his studio?” I asked.

  “The flash drive I made. I put all the gang’s fiscals on it, and I gave it to Jaime. Kind of an insurance policy for myself.”

  “You gave your brother a copy of the gang’s business?” I asked incredulously. “Didn’t you know that could—did—get him killed?” I slapped him hard across the face. “Didn’t you, you stupid punk?” He backed away as I kept hitting and yelling, not trying to block me but just trying to get out of my reach.

  “I know, I know, you’re right,” he said. “But we thought it would give me some juice, you know, for gettin’ outta the gang,” he said. “If I don’t get it back, they’ll kill me. I came because I didn’t want them to kill you, too, you gotta believe me.”

  I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Three young bangers joined us in the alley. When I turned to see what was up, Hector grabbed me from behind, yelling, “I got her, I got her.”

  “Well c’mon then. Top Dog is very interested to see this white girl—hey, ain’t you s’posed to be dead?” He peered into my face. Then he twitched his shoulder to indicate we were to follow. I found something hard and unpleasant poking into my back. Hector had been shoved aside by one with a gun. They hustled me out to the street. We made a strange quintet. They frog-marched me, but it was daylight, and it was actually patrolled by an Asian gang—not quite their territory. Plus they wanted something from me, so I felt I had a chance.

  As we stumbled along the street, I heard the faint tune of an ice cream truck. I thought it an ironic comment on my situation, something as innocent as kids getting ice cream while I had a gun in my back. It got closer. Funny, I thought, how that tinny sound could get annoying after a few loops. OMG. Could it be? It was. I glanced toward the street. Hector saw me look. Again, I pretended to fall. Because it was broad daylight, and the gym had people coming and going, and as I mentioned before, we were not in their territory, my ruse worked. The homie sticking the gun in my back dropped it—they shouldn’t hold those things sideways— I kicked it into the gutter as I stumble-ran toward the ice cream truck which had stopped in the middle of the street.

  Cars started honking, Charmayne leapt her big self out of the driver’s seat and grabbed me by the arm. “As I live and breathe,” she said, with huge eyes, staring at me as if I had come back from the dead, which I had, to her, and hustled me into the truck.

  The three homies scattered. I was dragging Hector with me. “Wait, wait,” I said as she put the thing in gear and the tune started playing again.

  “Bethie, what are you doing here?” she said.

  “Bethie? Oh. Later, I’ll explain later, stop,” I yelled. I still had hold Hector’s sleeve and he was running alongside the truck. Out of nowhere one of the bangers came and yanked Hector away. I was left with his sleeve as he fell into the street. His homie picked him up and dragged him away. I leapt out and retrieved the banger’s gun from the gutter.

  Charmayne revved up. “Where to?” she said.

  I checked my phone and read the text from Bethie: Armand got plate info.

  “To Armand’s,” I said. “Can I borrow a hat?”

  Jeez Louise, I had been dead and in hiding for less than two weeks. I knew who or at least approximately who had killed Jaime, and now Hector was in imminent danger. Not to mention me. Possibly Bethie. Holy shit! A flash drive of the money trail, the banks, the laundering businesses. Ye gods. I called Bethie and told her to warn Armand that I was okay and coming to see him. I asked her to get him and meet me at my studio.

  “It is you, Belle, right,” said Charmayne as she made the truck peel around corners and screech until we got onto the 10 freeway.

  It felt great to be back at the beach. I knew gangs operated here, too, but it felt safer, maybe because it was home.

  Back on Electric Avenue, Charmayne, Bethie, Armand and I discussed the options. Armand’s long legged friend got us the address of the registered owner of the gangsta looking van involved in the theft at Jaime’s place. A quick check of the Internet taught us Marcos Suarez, alias Hammer, was known as a banger, arrested many times, but witnesses seemed to disappear before he was convicted of anything. I made a list of known confederates from the various news and court reports. Got a few addresses and sat with the group. “I wonder which one is Top Dog,” I said.

  “It’s a no-brainer,” said Bethie. “Call the police and let them handle it.”

  “Can’t do that. If they hear sirens or see the cops, they’ll kill Hector for sure,” I said.

  “But what about the flash drive?” asked Charmayne, who had by now been brought up to speed. “They won’t hurt him as long as he has that.”

  “He doesn’t have it. And for damn sure they won’t let him make another copy,” I said. “And if he doesn’t have it, he’s only a threat if he’s alive.”

  “But isn’t he one of them?”

  “Not since they saw him trying to get away with me,” I said.

  “He could say he was still trying to get you,” Armand put in.

  “Maybe,” I said, “but they’ll still be suspicious. They know he gave the drive to Jaime, and Jaime never told them where it was. They’d have to doubt Hector’s loyalty anyway. They killed his brother.”

  “Maybe they already killed him,” Charmayne said. “Depending on how mad they got.”

  Armand started pacing. “Yeah, but they gotta prefer to have that drive. They don’t want it floating around to be discovered at some future point,” he said, pulling a beer out of his pocket. I walked to my little fridge and pulled out a few more and handed them around.

  “None for me,” Charmayne said. “I’m driving.” She winked at me.

  Armand reached into another pocket and pulled out a business card. “Here is the number of the detective working on the case. He came and talked to all of us about the theft of Jaime’s stuff. I told him what I knew about the van. I didn’t know about the plate number yet, so I guess I should call him.”

  “Wait. I think that’s too dangerous for Hector. Now that I know Hector was really trying to get out of the life, I want to be careful,” I said. “Read me his cell number.”

  I punched it into my phone. “In case we need it. Everyone, put his number in your phone.”

  “Are you game, Charmayne?” I said. She stood her whole tall self up and smiled really big.

  “Let’s go get ’em, sistah,” she said.

  “You are nuts,” screamed Bethie. “First a fake death and now you’re going to confront some gangbangers in their lair? Do you want to die for real?” She grabbed me around the waist as Charmayne and I started out.

  “Look, only I know where the drive is. I still have leverage. I’ll get Hector out in exchange for the drive, and it’ll be fine,” I said.

  “I’m coming, too,” said Armand.

  “Oh shit,” said Bethie.

  The four of us settled into the truck. “Can you turn off the damn music,” I said.

  “Sure.” We drove, me shotgun, Armand and Bethie in back with the coolers. “Hey, you still got some pops in here,” said Armand.

  “I’ll have one,” I said.

  “What flavor have you got?” said Bethie.

  “Gimme anything,” said Charmayne.

  I did have my doubts as we drove at a sedate pace toward East Los Angeles. We crossed the Boyle St. Bridge over the river, the shadows were lengthening and the trickle of water they called the L.A. River flowed silently below. Our Lady of Guadalupe’s halo still shone out of multiple murals, catching the last of the sun’s rays.

  “I know this neighborhood,” said Armand. “Pull over here. The house is two blocks east.”

  The streets were full of families enjoying the cooling air. As soon as we stopped we were swarmed by kids dragging their parents by the arm wanting ice cream. “Go ahead, it’s good cover,” I said. “Armand, how much ice cream you got back there?”

  “Enough for this bunch,” he said.

  “Okay. Charmayne and I will go see what we can see. If you don’t hear from us in fifteen minutes, use that number,” I said, referring to the detective’s that we put in all our phones.

  “Hey, mister, where’s the music?” said one kid.

  “Broken,” said Armand, handing out ice pops and collecting money.

  Charmayne and I found the nondescript little clapboard house. The small yard was chain-linked, and the windows were barred, but otherwise pleasant enough. There was a closed one-car garage, empty as far as we could see. I put my hat on and looked at Charmayne. She shrugged. I patted the banger’s gun, that I had stuffed into my waistband, and we climbed three steps to the porch.

  “Welcome,” said a tall Hispanic man. “We’ve been expecting you.”

  “Hammer, I presume,” I said as Charmayne and I were forced into the front room of the small house by two other known felons who came up behind us. The door closed and a lock snicked ominously. But they hadn’t frisked us. I recognized a bunch of half-finished art pieces from Jaime’s studio in the room already crowded with a massive flat screen and sound equipment. And there, in front of an apparently defunct fireplace, was I. At least my image in paint. Suddenly, I knew where the flash drive was hidden. I coerced my face into a neutral expression and let my eyes slowly glide from face to face and all around as if my seeing the portrait was just one stop among many as I surveyed the room. There were three of them and two of us. They didn’t know I had a gun. Could I use it? Good question. But they wouldn’t know of my doubts. Two youths who had been watching the TV on the sofa stood and faced us. There were several guns lying on the coffee table in front of the TV. Hammer was beside us so there was no chance of covering the three of them with my single pistol.

  “Where’s Hector,” I asked.

  “I think I be askin’ the questions, Miss Artist’s Model,” responded Hammer, with heavy emphasis on the Ts. I could identify Ramon Suarez, Hammer’s brother, from news photos I had seen. He faced me on my left, closer to Charmayne. He smirked at me. The other one was bored and kept craning his neck around to see the game on TV. “Like I wanna know right now where that flash drive is.”

  I continued my neutral look. Hammer positioned himself in front of me, and nodded to his brother. Marcos picked up a gun and came over to his brother. Marcos handed his brother the gun, which was instantly trained on Charmayne, and Marcos slugged me in the stomach. I folded forward from the blow.

  Charmayne reached for me and her arm was pushed away and whipped up behind her back, but Marcos, being about five inches shorter than Charmayne, was struggling with the grip. “Now why you wanna go and do that? That just makes me mad,” Charmayne said.

  “Stop, Charmayne. I’m all right.” I didn’t think she realized that, of the two of us, she was expendable. She caught on and went silent.

  I stayed bent over. It had hurt, but not that much. I stayed bent over to think. I did know where the drive was, but what was my best use of that? Could I get us all out? What about Hector? “Hey, which one of you is Big Dog,” I said, “I want to meet Big Dog. It’s not you, Marcos, ’cause you’re too little. Or is it ironic, like a bald guy named Curly?”

  Marcos shouldered me, and I fell back over the sofa, and turned the movement into a backward somersault, so that I finally had all three of them facing me. As I rolled to my feet standing between my portrait and the flat screen, I used the movement to pull out the gun.

  Charmayne vaulted over the sofa and grabbed a gun from the coffee table, and we had stasis. “I repeat, where is Hector.”

  “Stupid whiny little bitch, he ran. He was so pumped up, all educated. Thought he was better than us. He got away that day he tried to get you,” said Marcos. “Right, Jo Jo?” Marcos said to the one who wanted to watch TV. Hammer shot Marcos a venomous look. I thought I heard a car stop, but there had been so much going on I wasn’t sure.

  “Yeah, but we was gonna teach him his place!” said Jo Jo, showing some interest for the first time. I hoped they’d get so interested in their revenge fantasies that an escape plan could emerge.

  “Shut up, you two,” yelled Hammer.

  Behind me the door from the garage opened. A small, voluptuous Latina entered carrying an Uzi. She casually pointed it in my direction as if she usually gave it its head.

  Hammer said, “You said you wanted to meet Big Dog—there she is.”

  “On your knees,” she said, waving the machine gun to indicate her preference for where we knelt, “and drop ’em.” Hammer collected our guns.

  “I believe you were about to tell us where that flash drive is,” she said with a thick Mexican accent.

  “You’re Big Dog?” I couldn’t stop myself from saying.

  Charmayne said, “Quiet, Belle,” sotto voce. All I could think was that, since Hector was not here, it would be a good thing if Bethie’s fears got the better of her. Cops and sirens would be a good thing right about now. It was dark out, and the flickering shadows in the windows attracted my eye. Charmayne saw me look toward the window, and her eyes followed.

  “The drive,” said Big Dog. “You know, your cute whiteness may have an effect on men, but I don’t like you or your kind. What did you do to Jaime that he painted you?” She waved the Uzi toward my portrait. “Stupid hair,” she spat. I patted my locks defensively. “I have more to offer than any skinny white skank,” she said, arching her back and thrusting her bust forward.

  “Big Dog, that’s not the problem right now. Focus,” Hammer said. He had noticed our glances and went to the door. I heard running feet and Hammer stepped out. “Stop, Hector, come back. Hey, we have your girlfriend,” he yelled. “Marcos, quick, go after him.” Marcos sped past, “Go on, you, too, Jo Jo, go get Hector.”

  Suddenly a loudspeaker erupted in the night. “Drop your weapons, and come out with your hands up. You are surrounded. Come out with your hands up. Slowly.”

  “What the f...?” said Big Dog. She strolled to the door, Uzi at the ready. The garage opened and Jo Jo and Marcos backed the gangsta truck out to the street, where it crashed into a black-and-white. Jo Jo got out and staggered to the ground. Marcos was trapped behind the wheel. “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” came from the truck bed.

  Cops emerged from all around. Big Dog dropped her weapon, as did Hammer. The jig was up.

  In the confusion of the police action, Charmayne and I remained in the house long enough to take apart my portrait. There, nestled securely in a niche of the stretcher bar, was the flash drive. I slipped it into my pocket just as the detective who had interviewed Maxie came in. “Don’t touch that picture, it’s evidence. Please step outside,” he said. We did.

  We spent many hours at police headquarters. Once I had turned over the flash drive, the police agreed to let Hector go, pending further investigation. Charmayne drove us all home, music off.

  Next day, we were all celebrating my resurrection with beer and pizza at my studio. It turns out that Maria Ortiz, AKA Big Dog, had a little gun concealed on her person, in addition to the Uzi. Ballistics matched it to the bullet in Jaime. “What’s with that Big Dog thing?” asked Armand.

  “What would you call yourself if you were a small woman running that bunch?” I said.

  Bethie played some lively tunes.

  “How did you know where the flash drive was?” asked Armand.

  “I just guessed if they searched everywhere else, it had to be there,” I said.

  The door opened and Maxie stepped in. Clearly he didn’t expect to see me. The cigarette holder went skittering across my floor as he looked helplessly between me and Bethie. “Oh.” He said in a very small voice, looking at me and Bethie and me again. “I heard music...”

  “Sorry to disappoint you, Maxie, but you only have one dead artist,” I said.

  “Darling, alive is better, although I must say prices were rising nicely on your work,” he said looking slyly at me. “Maybe you could stay missing a few more weeks?”

  The latest Argonaut. HEADLINE: “Presumed dead artist solves murder.”

  Back to TOC

  Flight Risk

  Micheal Kelly

  I was a homeless immigrant when Melissa rescued me. I stayed with some others in the darkness of a quonset hut one block south of Santa Monica Boulevard. You know—the seedy part of the boulevard where lost boys and girls find dinner and a daddy for the night. The windows of our dive stretched high along front and back walls, across the brow line of corrugated tin panels. The panes squinted outward at thirty degree angles, the galvanized steel screens caked with soot and decades of smog and pigeon shit had turned the glass the same gray as the Hollywood sky. In this crappy shack we shivered before dawn and tried to ignore sirens and police helicopters and grunts and moans coming from beyond the walls. Sleep came from late morning and on into mid-afternoon, when we’d get cranky and dozy from the suffocating August heat.

  Big stinking swarthy men would come. I tried to shrink and look small and sick when I heard padlocks rattle and chains scrape across tin patches. Inevitably they’d conquer the door and stand with hands on hips until their eyes adjusted. We did not understand their languages. The man who came to show us would point and say “this one you will like, she is beautiful” and the other men would say “masyadong mahal” or “muy caro”. We froze, motionless and silent as they surveyed the room. When they pointed at one of the others, I was relieved. It makes me ashamed to admit I felt glad when they took a friend away, but you would feel the same if you had smelled their sweat and saw the wet hair on the backs of their hands when they studied you with soulless eyes. No one who got picked this way ever returned. I didn’t know how I’d get out, but I didn’t want it to be like that. After the men left we screamed and paced and mocked and mimicked them. It took hours for quiet to return.