by Ryan Gattis
Gambling is a nice side. You’d be surprised how much money we make on it in a month. The whole block can’t get enough of it. People even come from other neighborhoods to check it out because they hear about it. There’s twelve machines in here altogether. Ten are slots and two are card games. We call it Mini Vegas. There’s a moneychanger machine in the back corner, right next to an iron and an ironing board with a box of wax paper on it because the change machine is picky. Sometimes, people need to iron bills out flat by sandwiching them between two sheets of wax paper. That was Lu’s idea, and it works. After the cash is crisp enough, you put them in and it spits out quarters so you can play Gold Rush with its little miners on it holding up full pans, or Star-Spangled Winner, or any of the other ones.
Nobody’s playing the bandits because we cleared the place over a day ago, but still the machines sit there and flash. We’re all just sitting in this room, me, Lu, Fate, Apache, Oso, and a couple soldiers here and there. Everybody’s strapped up good. Sherms aren’t allowed tonight because Fate said so. He wants us sharp, so no drugs. A Cypress Hill tape is playing so low in the background that I only hear guitar squeal samples or snares coming from the boom box.
So this is how we wait, how we’ve been waiting. Lu’s quiet, staring out the window, a little sawed-off across her lap. She’s got a good purple shiner on her eye now. On the other end of the room Fate’s reading a book called The Concrete River by Luis J. Rodriguez, only really stopping to turn the page or take a swig from a beer he sets down between his chair and an AK-47 he’s got propped against the wall. Oso’s pacing back and forth, but he’s careful to avoid Apache, who’s flat on his back in the middle of the room, catching some zees. That’s how calm he is. The other two are just posted up on chairs, looking at their guns. We’ve all got sunglasses hanging off the front of our collars, even sleeping Apache, because they’ll be important later.
Normally we’re not this quiet, but there’s a lot weighing on this room. Not only are we wondering when Trouble is going to get it into his head to do something stupid, but by now we’re all pretty sure Lil Mosco is never coming back, and that’s not something that will ever get talked about. The aftermath of a disappearance like that is always quiet. It’s not like you have a heart-to-heart and find out exactly what went down, before the right party apologizes and everybody cries and understands like on TV. Around here, sometimes things have to go unsaid if you want to stay alive.
Nobody’s asking me, but I’m okay with Lil Mosco going. I’m not saying I’m good with it, but I’m okay. He was too out of control, to the point where you couldn’t always count on him, but even though that’s true, I know the only reason it would ever happen was if it was an us-or-him-type situation, a trade, almost, like in baseball. You send one guy and get another in return. Fate gives the big homies Lil Mosco, and we get to keep Fate, or the other scenario is we trade Lil Mosco and the whole click gets to stay alive. I’m fairly certain it’s one of those two options, so I convince myself that’s how it went down, because right now, there’s bigger stuff to deal with.
“Trouble ain’t coming,” Oso says. “They didn’t come last night neither and that’s cuz nobody’s that stupid to come in here and try to shoot us up. I mean—”
He shuts up quick when Fate looks at him and gestures toward Apache, in a reminder to Oso to be a little more considerate. It’s too late though, Apache’s blinking awake. He’s yawning.
“Sorry, Patch,” Oso says. The only person on earth who can get away with calling Apache that is Oso. That’s family, I guess.
Apache shrugs. He doesn’t take it personally. Oso, the big dumb bear, is his cousin and really only here to lift heavy stuff if this goes right. We all know he’s jumpy. We all are in our own ways. He’s never been through a stakeout like this before, and waiting to kill or die can wear you out. It’s exhausting being eyes-up on the block for hours. Which reminds me, have you ever noticed how the loudest sounds seem to be when people are trying hard not to make noise? I think that’s because you’re tuned in. You’re listening hard. You’re aware. That’s how it is in Mini Vegas right now. And I guess that’s what’s making Oso so nervous, because he starts talking just to talk, just to hear something other than silence.
“Hey, Patch,” Oso says, “tell us again how you scalped that fool.”
Apache shakes his head. No way is he telling that now. I don’t blame him.
“Okay, so”—Oso keeps trying to avoid the quiet by running his mouth—“you guys heard that one about the O.G. homie that cut his Pachuco cross straight out of his hand with a knife? Was just like”—Oso makes his right two fingers straight and digs at the thumb web in his left—“ahhhh.”
I swear, Oso likes stories too much. I look at Fate and he looks at me. We know this story has gone around forever. It follows me, and maybe it should, because it’s about my dad. Nobody really knows that but Fate, though. Most just think it’s about some faceless homie, but my mom told me when he left his click in East Los, and when he left us, he cut his cross out of his hand so no one would know he used to be in. He left his click on good terms because he’d put in work and kept his mouth shut. All that bullshit you hear about people having to die to get out is just that. Somehow, though, the way my dad cut his tattoo out grew into this story of a dude who wanted out of the gang so bad he cut it out in front of everybody at a party just to show he was serious. That didn’t happen though. My mom says he did it in the garage with a kitchen knife he heated up on the stovetop first.
Fate knows all this. He also knows just by looking at me that I don’t want to hear it all over again, the Oso version, so he says, “Hey, Oso, how about you tell us about that one time you shot up all them Crips by yourself when your car stalled?”
Oso smiles and starts telling about how this one time, he was out driving and how, at this red light on Imperial, a car came up beside him with five blacks in it and they looked at him and he looked at them and the big motherfucker driving starts licking his chops like a cartoon wolf and Oso tries to floor it, his car stalls, and right at this big point in his story, right when he’s being all quiet for dramatic effect, I sniffle. Not on purpose. Because I can’t help it. The smoke has really been bothering my sinuses lately.
Oso jumps on that. “Damn, you still sniffling? You better not get me sick.”
“He ain’t sick and he won’t get you sick,” Lu says, coming to my defense without turning around in her chair. “He’s got allergies and the smoke’s been fucking his nose up ever since the city was on fire.”
“Oh” is all Oso says before he wraps his story with a sad little “so, you know, I just took care of business.”
Lu’s already shaking her head at that. She never did like Oso.
“New booty motherfucker,” she says under her breath.
I’ve known the Veras, and Lu in particular, since before they were involved, which is almost twelve years now, ever since we were next-door neighbors on Louise Avenue, across from Lugo Park. Well, it will be twelve years in August, because my mom moved us from East L.A. in 1980. Out of everybody, Lu is the person who has known me longest in the world. We got along right away and stayed tight all these years. When I joined up, she did too.
I’m pretty sure I’m not like most people. When homies are gone, I don’t miss them, even if we spent a lot of time together. For me, when they’re not there, they’re just not there. I don’t even think about it. I don’t know if that means there’s something wrong with me, but probably there is. As it stands, I know Lu’s going through something and I can’t imagine it. Ernesto was like my older brother too, but he wasn’t, not blood-wise. I’ve always been an only child, but she has gone from being the youngest to the only kid in the span of a couple days. That’s got to be rough.
I’ve been thinking about it, and my conclusion is Lu knows Lil Mosco’s gone for good. She knew on the street a few days ago when she shot up that car. She was sitting right next to me in the backseat and I was watching her as sh
e was breathing in, holding it, and biting her lower lip. I’ve seen her make that face a few times before: when her dad passed, when Fate told her the house was too hot and she had to move her mom out, and after she got robbed walking home once on Wright Street. She only ever does that face if she’s accepting something she doesn’t like, something she can’t change, and when she’s holding in breath like that, biting her lip, and before she needs to breathe out, that’s when the Lil Mosco thing must have clicked, because she said, “Shit.” She whispered it, really, like she was finally accepting it. I don’t think anyone else heard her say that.
Right at that moment, Lu sits straight up at the window like she sees something. She leans forward, almost pressing her nose to the glass, and her spine freezes like a predator’s when prey wanders into its zone.
“They’re here,” she says, but says it like the scary little blond girl in Poltergeist, hee-ere, and my heart spikes up in my chest. I grip my .32 Beretta, ready for whatever, because I know we prepared for every possible thing we could, but I’ve also been around long enough to know anything can happen.
Things you plan, they don’t always work out how you think.
3
Fate’s up and moving, tossing his book across the carpet like a Frisbee, putting on gloves, tucking his sleeves into them, and grabbing the AK. Apache’s right behind him, killing all the power in the place. The music from the boom box, “Hand on the Pump,” dies just as it’s starting. The gambling machines snap off at the same time and we’re in darkness. I hear Oso cock his borrowed Glock like he’s in the movies or something, pulling the slide all the way back, but he’s already got one in the chamber, and a bullet flies out, hits the carpet, and rolls to the baseboard with a tap.
“Fuck,” he says and gets down on the ground, looking for it.
“Good one, stupid,” Lu says.
I’m up at the window, on Lu’s shoulder. My heart’s going pretty steady as we see a line of seven fools drift in through the dark with serious gear. The best part is, they’re on the other sidewalk and they’re so focused, they don’t notice the extension cords we’ve strung out from this house to the curb and up into the bed of the city truck, which, right now, is parked directly across from Lu’s house and has two stolen trees of multiarmed construction lights in its bed, the megabright ones, hooked up. So far, things are going right, which is good, because I count four shotguns. Lu does too.
She leans back and stubs her finger on the glass right about the time Oso gives up looking for his lost bullet.
“Hold up,” she says, “isn’t that Momo right there? What the fuck’s he doing with them on a mission?”
I don’t like hearing that. Killing him might not go over well with the big homies because you know a guy like Momo pays his taxes, but it’s not like he’s giving us a choice if he’s here. If things went down with the big homies like I think over Lil Mosco, I’m sure Fate has some leverage to set it right after we do what we have to though.
“One way to find out,” Fate says as he undoes the deadbolt and opens the door real slow, steps out of the house, and looks up. He gives a little wave to the homie we got on the roof with a sniper rifle. Ranger, his name is, because he used to be in the army until he was dishonorably discharged for brawling with some other gang members in his unit. They were from Detroit. He put one of them in a coma and got stockaded for a year in Colorado first, but he’s out now. He’s the best shot we got, and he knows not to open up until the lights come on.
I’ve never seen Trouble close up before—I’ve had no reason to—but I’ve heard of him. Everybody has. His name rings out from all the suicide missions he did when he was coming up. He got known for running up in houses and shooting snitches on their couches, in their kitchens, whatever. One time, he even shot a homeboy when he was doing his business in the bathroom, on the toilet and everything. Word is, he got his name before people really knew who was doing those missions. People would say, Did you hear about such-and-such? And the response would be, Yeah, the fool that did them is nothing but trouble. Pretty soon, that just became his name, with a capital T.
They’re in the yard now, the seven of them, raising their weapons like they think someone’s in there, and that’s when a ripple of pride shoots through me because I know the trap worked. Fate knows too, because he hits me light on the shoulder. It’s our last calm moment before the night blows up.
It sounds like the Fourth of July when they start blasting on the house, except heavier. Here, there isn’t the sound of explosions sputtering out in the air. Instead, it goes boom and then ends in fast, hard thumps as bullets and scattershot bury themselves in walls and window trim. It ends in pings and pops when those same things hit the security door or the iron behind the windows, which smash out and go everywhere in a hurry.
We duck down in a line and head for the truck together. A little homie in there pops his head up when he sees us. Muzzle flashes light his eyes up and I can see he’s as scared as anything, but that’s okay, all he’s got to do is turn the lights on when Fate signals. He doesn’t, not yet.
The little homie keeps his eyes on Fate as one shooter with a shotgun stops firing and runs to the door. That has to be Trouble because of the way everybody follows him.
When he gets to the front door, he says, “Hell, yeah!”
He kicks the door hard and stumbles back, and all I can think is how much that must hurt, trying to kick a door with two hundred pounds behind it. It must be worse than kicking a boulder. Still, he kicks again, because he obviously didn’t figure it out the first time. And this is when Fate pulls his sunglasses off his front collar and puts them on, so we all do.
Somebody else on the lawn says, “What the fuck?”
Which must be when Trouble sees the iron, because he shoves the barrel of the shotgun against the door, and then puts his fingers on it and tears them away fast like it’s hot. He stands up straight right then.
And that’s when Fate signals the little homie inside the truck bed, and the six-foot-tall construction lights go on with a pop behind us. Almost immediately, the lights of both houses next door go on too. After that, Ranger’s fastest. He puts a perfect bullet through the left eyebrow of the one closest to us and I see the blood mist out the back of his head and into the air like someone spraying Windex. He goes down like a puppet with every one of its strings cut.
Trouble gets low right after, trying to shield his eyes. He tries to yell for his little crew to get the fuck out, but it doesn’t come out too loud, and besides, it’s already too late. Me and Lu, we’re down on one knee at the fence and sticking our guns through, steadying our barrels on the bottoms of the chain-link holes.
We open up at hip height on the runners. Lu shreds some kneecaps and pumps, and then she does it again. I aim for Trouble and miss high, but Fate’s behind me, walking up, unleashing the AK. Even from feet away, it shakes my whole body when he lets off a burst and sprays all the way across the front of the house, cutting people the hell down. That’s when the ones who can still do it start screaming and that sets something off in Trouble because he’s up and walking straight toward us.
“Shoot them lights out,” he yells, pumps his shotgun, and raises up blasting.
4
Buckshot piles into the truck behind me and I feel something hot bite the back of my neck, but I run my hand over it and there’s no blood, so right away I know it’s nothing. I’m more concerned with Trouble pumping again, firing high, and taking out one of the construction lights on the truck. He pumps again, but nothing happens. Trouble’s out of ammo and he knows it.
He says, “Come on, motherfuckers! You better fucking kill me! You better—”
Right then the guy behind him steps up and puts a gun under Trouble’s ear, on the black smudge of one of his neck tattoos, and fires. The bullet exits Trouble’s neck on the other side and for a big second, there’s a pause, because no one saw that one coming, not even Fate, as Trouble hits the deck.
Lu says, �
��Fucking Momo just blasted him!”
One of Trouble’s homies I shot in the side sees this and puts four bullets in Momo’s chest right after. The last thing Momo ever does is sneer at Trouble’s body on the ground like he’d wanted to do that since forever, and he smiles as his legs give out and he goes down hard on top of Trouble. That’s when Ranger snipes one through the neck of the guy who shot him.
Neck wounds are the ugliest way to go. With them, there’s nothing but coughing and sputtering and bleeding out. He trips over and hits dirt as Ranger’s next bullet smashes into the house where his head used to be.
“Jesus,” Apache says, steps up, and taps his gun to the guy’s skull and sends one through the dude’s brain with a crack.
His skull kicks up with a jolt and he stops breathing, but for a moment it’s so quiet you can hear the blood still coming out of his neck with little splashes as Oso and the two other soldiers go real carefully from body to body, taking guns away. There’s still a few breathing, enough for the little homies to step up and earn stripes by finishing them off with one to the head, but I’m already moving because we don’t have much time.
Sheriffs will be coming soon. Probably Vikings. Maybe National Guard too. Even with three houses cleared in every direction, somebody will be calling this in. To counteract that, we had homies with orders to speed to Montgomery Wards when this started and try to put an old Chrysler through one of the security gates there. We also called in six fake 911 calls in six different locations miles from here.
It’s safe to assume we have ten minutes at most to clean up, three at the least.
5
One of the O.G.’s who stole the city truck jumps in it and backs it up to us at the curb in front of Lu’s chewed-up house, and when it finishes beeping, I toss my gun in the bed, a little sad to see it go, but not sad enough to ever get caught with it. Everybody else who shot does the same. Those are my rules. Lu’s goes in next, then Oso’s, Apache’s, the soldiers’, and even Ranger’s rifle and the AK. After a few more pops when the survivors get what’s coming, those pistols go in too, along with all of Trouble’s crew’s gear.