All Involved

by Ryan Gattis

  We leave the lights in the truck, along with the body of the little homie who flipped them on. Trouble took half his face with his last shot that put some lights out. I didn’t even know his name. Lu didn’t like seeing him where he was, half sitting up, propped against the back wall of the truck bed like he was playing hide-and-seek and still waiting to be found.

  She spits before she says, “Dumb lil one wanted to watch. Should’ve put his fucking head down, huh? Might’ve kept it that way.”

  But something else in the truck is bothering her, and it’s been bothering me too. The gun Momo used, the one with the tape on it, looks identical to the one Fate bought from Lil Creeper for her to use.

  “Do you think,” Lu says, “the one I used on Joker came from the same place? That it was Momo’s too?”

  “Wouldn’t put it past Lil Creeper to rob Momo,” I say and then sniffle. “But that doesn’t mean Trouble knew that. Might explain why Momo was with them anyway, and maybe even why he popped Trouble when he had the chance. They could have thought he helped us before, so they forced him to come.”

  “Don’t matter so much now though,” she says. “He’s done.”

  She’s right, so I shrug and we step to the side to make way for the other dead bodies of Momo, and Trouble, and Trouble’s crew to go into the bed of the truck. Oso, Fate, and the soldiers move all seven of them no problem, chucking bodies in the back like they’re just big bloody sacks of rice. Now Lu’s house is just a shooting scene. There are no bodies and no weapons.

  Apache, Lu, and I drag trash cans off the curb from where they were behind the city truck and open them. The smell overpowers us at first, but between us three, we pull out three sets of bedsheets that have been marinating in gasoline for days and get them into the bed for a little homie to spread out over the bodies. He holds his breath the whole time. It doesn’t help. When he jumps down all wobbly, Oso and Fate and the soldiers are there to throw firewood on top from the back of a pickup we got parked right next to the truck last night and then, on top of all that, Lu chucks in one more bedsheet set.

  Everybody strips down after that, chucking their clothes and shoes into a big black trash bag that Apache holds open. The only things they’re allowed to keep are boxers or chonies if they don’t have blood on them. If they do, those go in too. When they get down to skin, they get a blanket from the floor of the firewood pickup and fade away in all directions before sheriffs come. If caught, they’re to lie and say they got jumped for everything they had. If asked why they have blankets, though, they’re to say a neighbor lady took pity on them. It wouldn’t be the first time either one has happened around here. Nobody’s going too far, though, three blocks at most.

  For Fate, me, Lu, and Apache, though, it’s new clothes. Lu’s first, then Apache. When he’s done, he takes the black bag of used clothes with him and hops into the city truck. It takes off toward MLK, followed by the Cutlass. Lu’s driving that. I don’t hear sirens yet. We might have two minutes left.

  As I jump into a new pair of khakis, I’m glad to see four little homies I prepped earlier finishing up on the lawn with shoebox tops strapped to their feet and plastic hospital gloves on their hands. Without leaving fingerprints, they sweep up as many shell casings as they can in a minute before scattering old ones from all kinds of different weapons, weapons inconsistent with bullets the sheriffs’ll pull out of the house.

  Walking over the crime scene, the lil homies leave rectangular marks but nothing identifiable, no shoeprints. It’s ’hood, but this way, sheriffs get nothing. The footprints are gone and so are the shoes that made them. After that, the little boxtop homies turn on the hose from the side of the house and soak the lawn down good to destroy blood patterns, and I almost feel sorry for the guy who draws the straw on this scene.

  I got a professor, Sturm, he used to be in the military, and he says the word FUBAR all the time. I had to ask him what he meant, and he said it’s Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition. When I first heard it, I thought it would make a good name for a homie, but Sturm uses it to describe how natural events can ruin scene evidence, like rain or wind in some unforeseen way. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that I paid real close attention during those talks so that I could be one of those events someday.

  6

  It was Fate’s idea to wait for the sheriffs on the curb, so it’s up to me to make sure he’s got nothing on him when they show up. He’s doing it because he doesn’t want them knocking on doors. He knows they’ll try to find him, knows they’ll want to talk to him, because they’ll probably be able to tell from the address that he was a target and he doesn’t feel like being on the run when he can just get it over with. It’s not like it’ll be the first time he’s ever been questioned.

  Truth is, we’re hoping the National Guard shows up first. We’d feel safer with them than Vikings. With Vikings, you never know how they’ll try to do you. They’re sneaky. And the worst part is you never know who actually is one. Sure, they got tattoos on them, but I’ve never seen one. It’s not like we can see those through socks, through a uniform. Basically, you only know them from their actions, and once you do, it’s too late.

  Which is why we want Fate waiting out in the open, with plenty of people watching. There’s still no guarantee he won’t be hurt, but you have to admire the courage of it. Before I send him out to do it though, I have to be extra sure he’s got no gunshot residue on his hands.

  It’s just me and Fate in the casino house now. There’s nobody else around because I can’t have them contaminating him when I test his hands. It’s unlikely there’s any present, but if there is, I’ll find it.

  When a gun kicks out a bullet, it sprays two potassiums in its tiny particles of gunpowder: nitrates and nitrites. But that’s the simplistic way of saying it. The chemical elements potentially present in GSR depend on the ammunition type. The major primers are lead (Pb), barium (Ba), and antimony (Sb), which are pretty much in everything, most of the time. To memorize those, I told myself that Peanut butter Barbers Steal besos. Does it make sense, haircutting dudes made out of peanut butter stealing kisses? No, but it helps me remember, so there must be something to it.

  Combinations of less common elements depend on bullet size (caliber) and manufacturer (and sometimes region of manufacturer because certain things are more available or cheaper in different parts of the world), so there can be any of these: aluminum (Al), calcium (Ca), chlorine (Cl), copper (Cu), potassium (K)—Al Called Clarita Cucumber Killer—and sulfur (S), silicon (Si), tin (Sn), and strontium (Sr), titanium (Ti), zinc (Zn)—Simon Silently Snitched, and Sheriffs Turn Zombies nightly.

  In the empty kitchen, I heat up some wax over one of the low gas burners on the stove and apply it to his hands. Fate grunts but doesn’t say anything. He knows the drill. When the wax cools enough, I peel it off, taking away whatever residue is left with it. This’s called an adhesive collection device, but really it’s just paraffin. If there’s anything left on his hands, anything that got through the gloves, I should be capturing all the substances they’d love to use for evidence to prove he was at the scene and shooting.

  In the old days, cops would collect it this way, and then they’d squirt a little diphenylamine and sulfuric acid on the wax. I do that now. If it turns blue, it means it has nitrates on it and Fate would be busted. Nowadays, most law enforcement agencies swab with a 5 percent solution of nitric acid and submit tabs to the crime lab, but even Sturm says it’s at capacity or overrun at the best of times. I can’t imagine how it is now with all the chaos going on.

  “Hey,” I say, turning around and showing Fate my back, “do I have a cut or something on my neck? Felt like I got hit with a little something back there.”

  “You got a red mark, a little burn. The skin’s not broken,” he says.

  I nod and hold the wax under the kitchen light above the sink and check for the kind of blueness that would indicate nitrates of an amount to suggest the recent firing of a deadly weapon, but it is
extremely faint. In my determination, it is not consistent, and if it’s not consistent for me, it will be the same for anyone else too.

  “Clean,” I say.

  Fate nods at me before heading out to the curb, to wait for whatever’s coming.

  7

  The timing couldn’t be better. In less than a minute, our street is flooded with National Guards, two Humvees’ worth, about six of them. We have no beef with them. I watch as they lock down the street. I’m sitting at the window of the casino house with the lights off still, but I’ve opened it a touch so I can hear what’s going on.

  “Holy shit,” one of the soldiers says when he sees how torn up Lu’s house is. “That was one hell of a firefight.”

  When they spot Fate and zero in on him, they ask him to step up with his hands out all the way to his sides so they can pat him down. When they determine he does not have a weapon, they ask him what he is doing there, sitting across the street from a crime scene.

  “Waiting,” Fate says.

  One of the guardsmen, a short black guy with a mustache says, “For what?”

  “Sheriffs,” Fate says.

  “Oh, you’re tough, huh? You know the drill?” The guard guy squares up to Fate. “How long you been in a gang?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. I just live here.”

  “Right.” The guardsman looks like he’s about to do something, but he backs off. “Well, you just sit yourself back down there till the law comes. I’m sure they’ll want to talk your ear off.”

  Since Fate isn’t acting unruly and does not have a weapon, they can find no reason to detain him, but they still hover close to him as neighbors from down the block filter out into the street and thank the National Guardsmen for coming so fast. We told them to do that, but they seem pretty sincere about it, which is a good sell.

  Within about a minute, sheriffs arrive. They come screaming up with sirens and lights, pop their doors, and pile out into the street. When there’s three or four black-and-white sheriff’s cruisers, the National Guards catch another call and caravan off into the night. By then, there’s at least twenty people out on the street. Sheriffs are establishing a perimeter around the house and keeping people back when an unmarked black car pulls up and a blond guy gets out.

  I recognize him because we’ve seen him around. His name’s Erickson and he’s a murder sheriff. Fate’s gotten hauled in a bunch to answer questions before. He’s known to them. One time, they even arrested him. The furthest they ever got was getting the D.A. to agree to file on charges saying that Fate was an accessory to murder, only to have a judge drop the charges for lack of evidence. They want him bad. They’ve wanted him for years. Erickson walks up to the fence of the house to look at what Trouble did, and I see Fate see him and stand up.

  It’s really weird Erickson’s here right now because it’s against protocol. Normally, he would only show if there was a body confirmed down. They’d have gotten reports of shooting, but without a known death determined by officers at the scene, there’s no reason to send murder detectives. They’ve got enough to deal with, especially in South Central. But seeing Erickson here, now, makes me think he knows something. He got here way too quick otherwise, and I can tell by the tilt of Fate’s head that he’s thinking it too.

  We don’t know for certain if Erickson’s a Viking, but he sure does have a Viking-sounding name. He looks torn up though, like he’s been pulling shifts since this whole thing kicked off and hasn’t had one moment of sleep. He’s tired looking, squinty, and licking his lips a lot, like he’s dehydrated from drinking coffee 24/7. He’s got messed-up hair and a messed-up blazer and messed-up jeans like he’s been wearing the same ones for a day or two and hasn’t taken a shower.

  Vikings will lie to you about what they have, whether witnesses or evidence or what. This isn’t unusual. Law enforcement is allowed to mislead in order to obtain confessions or further evidence, but these neo-Nazi motherfuckers go above and beyond. A lot of them still remember when Lynwood used to be a mostly white neighborhood, and they’d kill us all if they could get away with it. Some of them already have. We’ve lost six homies to Vikings so far. We’re putting some families forward for a class-action lawsuit against the Sheriff’s Department for racially motivated hostility, among other things. They’ll get theirs someday. I don’t know when, but someday.

  But I can tell you this right now: nobody’s doing that to Fate with so many witnesses out there, and even better, nobody’s framing him either. I drilled him good. He knows to tell his lawyer to ask for a particle count if they want to test him for firing a weapon. If they try to lie to him and tell him there’s a positive test, which I can tell you right now there won’t be, he knows to tell his lawyer he’s been working on his car, on the brake linings, because some of the particles for GSR can come from that too. He knows if they don’t bag his hands, we have grounds to argue cross-contamination. In that case, particles can come from the cops at the scene, or even the environment.

  Erickson spots Fate out of the corner of his eye, whips around, and walks at him fast. He’s pretty much foaming at the mouth the way he marches over, and Fate’s taller by about a couple inches, but Erickson works his belt on his hips and points his fucking finger in Fate’s face, all disrespectful.

  “You’re going to tell me what the high holy hell happened here, José, and you’re going to do it right the fuck now.”

  It’s not so smart to do that to a guy in his own neighborhood, showing him up like that. Still, Fate doesn’t blink.

  “Lawyer,” he says, and that’s all he says, one word that’s guaranteed to piss off all law enforcement everywhere, especially in South Central. Because around here, most fools will talk to law enforcement. They might even waive their rights. Not us though. We know there’s a system in place to protect us.

  “Oh, listen to this one,” some redneck sheriff on the perimeter says. “He already wants a lawyer! He’s guilty as sin.”

  Erickson puts a look on that guy that makes him shut his mouth and turn away.

  “Listen, I know who was here and why they were here,” Erickson says to Fate. “Odds are, this was probably self-defense for you and your homeboys, but you’re going to make me pick you up on proximity? On suspicion of involvement? Look, I just want to know what happened.”

  Fate just says, “Lawyer.” It’s the last time he’s going to say it.

  Erickson turns away, disgusted.

  “Somebody cuff this evil genius,” he says.

  And they do cuff him, but that’s when they screw up because they don’t bag his hands. If they ever wanted a GSR test to stand in court, they’d have to ensure contamination could not occur. The only way to do that is to bag him, but they don’t, the amateurs. They just put him in the back of Erickson’s unmarked and bounce.

  It takes twenty-three minutes for another detective to arrive and go over the house. I timed it. After he’s here, I watch him study the lawn, then the house, and then shake his head. You can tell he doesn’t even want to bother, and it makes me feel good. He knows all he can do is pull slugs from the house, whatever got stuck in there, but he knows he doesn’t have shit.

  They don’t know how many people were there, how many guns were fired, how many people were hit, much less who was hit, or where they stood, or if it was fatal. This is a blown scene and without the bodies, if there even are any bodies, they have nothing. There’s nothing even close to prosecutable here and it’s a waste of his time, but he still walks over the muddy lawn, laying his numbers for shell casings that likely won’t even match the ammunition in the house, photographing the bullet holes in stucco, all that. On this lack of evidence, they won’t even be able to hold Fate. Only way they could is if they had a witness statement, which they don’t, and never will.

  He’ll be out in a matter of hours.

  8

  I wait over an hour for the sheriffs to leave before I take Wizard’s little .22 pistol from its shelf in the clos
et and slip out the back into the alley. I need it just in case. I’m certain there’s at least a couple getaway drivers of Trouble’s out here somewhere. With any luck, they took off when they heard the AK and then none of their boys came back. But you never know, so I’m not taking chances.

  The alley behind Mini Vegas is empty except for a stray dog nosing around the base of a telephone pole at the end of the block. Black silhouettes of palm trees sway slow above garages. There’s not much wind, but there’s some. I’m aiming to go to my girlfriend Irene’s house to wait this out until Fate comes and gets me. I sniffle and spit on the asphalt as I go. For a second before I hit the Boardwalk, I smell magnolias, sweet and clean, a little lemony, but then my nose stuffs back up and it’s gone. That good thing, only with me for a second, is gone.

  I decide on a detour. I need to go by the alley where Ernesto got it to check and make sure they picked him up. I’ve been too busy since we started planning for Trouble, and I haven’t even asked if a little homie would run over and check, and ever since I lied to Lu’s face about Ernesto not being there anymore, it’s been picking at me. When we dragged a gas station manager out of his girlfriend’s bed to unlock a Unocal on MLK so we could steal a mess of gas to soak the sheets in, I thought of Ernesto lying out on the asphalt. That happened a bunch of times during our preparations. I’d be rummaging through the city truck looking for a twist-lock-to-three-prong adapter to make sure we could plug the construction lights into the house because they work on a different type of socket, and I’d remember, and I’d get a stitch in my stomach and I’d want to know if he was still out there, but then there’d be six other things to do to get ready and I’d forget. All this is odd for me. Like I said, I’m not accustomed to missing people or even thinking about them after they’re gone, but this is different. I need to know what happened. As I turn into the alley, my lungs get tight and I’m expecting him still to be there, lying flat, with his head wrapped up in Lu’s black-and-white flannel like a cowl.