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“Oh you have to go see it,” his sister said. “We kept it the same. Hank wanted to turn it into a billiards room but I knew you’d be back soon.”

  Jack leaned down and kissed his sister on the top of the head, feeling emotion swell up inside him as he heard her cell phone dial a number and his mother’s voice come on the line.

  Jack was stuffed by the time dinner was over. His entire family was at Nicole’s house, over thirty people including kids. Two of his brothers were arguing about the Democratic Party’s stance on the Second Amendment and Jack used it as an opportunity to sneak away and head upstairs to his old room.

  The photos in the hallway upstairs hadn’t been changed. Him in his martial arts uniforms, boxing, wrestling…and some of his father, who had passed four years ago. Jack had been on assignment in Japan and wasn’t able to attend the funeral.

  “He’s already gone,” he had told Nicole over the phone, “it won’t matter if I come back.” But, somehow, he knew it did matter. He was the eldest son and his not being at the funeral was a disappointment to his family.

  His siblings weren’t as athletic but a few photos featured Nicole at chess tournaments throughout California, something she gave up when she got married. He wished they had taken down the photo at the end. It was of him at three years old, sitting on the steps of St. Catherine’s Youth Home, waiting for his biological parents to pick him up. He didn’t remember what they looked like now and he was grateful. His family was here; in every way that mattered, this was his family.

  But he still thought about them. He remembered his mother in a white laboratory coat smiling and kissing him though her face was blank now. Faded with the sands of time. He wondered if she looked like him. He figured she must’ve been some sort of professional though he didn’t remember anything about his father.

  He went to his old room and stood at the doorway. The bed was exactly the same. They hadn’t even changed his sheets. He walked in and sat down on the bed. Posters of Michael Jordan and Miami Vice were up on the wall. On the small desk in the corner was a photo of him and Master Uyeshiba, his sensei when he had spent the few years after high school in Kyoto, training at the master’s academy.

  He thought of the little old man throwing two-hundred-pound students across the room as easily as one would pillows. He thought he was superhuman at the time. Age and physics didn’t seem to affect him.

  Jack rose and took in a deep breath, unable to suppress his smile.

  CHAPTER 5

  Despite the insistence of his sister and her husband, Jack bought a condo in Burbank twenty minutes from their home rather than stay with them. The place was empty and he didn’t have the desire to decorate it so he hired an interior decorator and told him to furnish it as well.

  Jack had no need of money, as his biological parents had left no heir upon their deaths. The executor of their estate knew about Jack, and tracked him down rather than letting the government get their hands on the family money. But he still wondered what he was going to do for work.

  He once learned about a thought experiment that said you should imagine yourself walking into a bookstore. The first section that you go to is the field you’re supposed to have your career in. Jack always went to the martial arts and then the science sections; his undergraduate degree was in mathematics.

  Though he didn’t need it, he understood that work occupied the mind and gave a person purpose. Without it, you would drift aimlessly and then adopt a nihilist stance that could lead to depression. He’d always wanted his own martial arts studio to pass down everything he had learned to others and decided he would go scout out locations today. But first, there was someone he had to visit.

  He took Santa Monica Boulevard for the view, and eventually, after an hour and a half of driving and watching the crystal-blue of the ocean spread out before him, he made it to the LAPD’s Hollywood Division. He parked in visitor parking and it hit him that he forgot to get an alarm installed on his Viper. Something else for the to-do list.

  He walked into the precinct and to the reception desk. A woman in a police uniform was helping a man make a report, and Jack waited patiently behind him. Hollywood Division wasn’t exactly South Central, but still, a good number of drunks and prostitutes and wife-beaters yelled from the holding cells and had fingerprints and photographs taken.

  When the man in front of him had finished, he stepped forward and said, “Officer William Yates please.”

  “Detective Yates is currently in a meeting. You can have a seat if you want and I’ll buzz him when he’s done.”

  “That would be great, thank you.”

  Jack sat down on some chairs set out as a waiting area and looked to the small, circular coffee table with old magazines piled on it. He sifted through them but found nothing interesting except a three-month-old copy of Sports Illustrated. He started flipping through it when someone screamed near the entrance.

  He glanced over and saw an officer holding his neck, blood running over his fingers, and two other officers jump on a man with dreadlocks. The man with the dreadlocks was laughing hysterically, blood dribbling down his chin, his teeth stained red. The two officers tackled him and one of them strapped a gag over his mouth to prevent any more biting. Lifting him by his arms, they carried him to a cell.

  “Jack?”

  He looked up to see Detective Yates standing in front of him. Yates’ hair was gray at the temples and the potbelly was new. He looks tired, Jack thought. Tired and burnt out.

  Jack rose and the two men slapped hands and embraced quickly.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “I’m now a former DEA agent. I quit a week ago.”

  “Seriously? Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I wanted to come down and see you—Detective.”

  “Oh, that. Yeah, got bumped up a few years back.”

  “What division are you in now?”

  “Robbery-Homicide. Pay’s good and I don’t have a huge caseload. Definitely better than busting hookers with Vice.”

  “Congrats, Will. I mean that. I can’t think of anyone that deserves it more.”

  “Thanks. Hey, what’re you doin’ for lunch?”

  “No plans right now.”

  “I know a place. You gotta come with. Lemme grab my jacket. Hang on.”

  Jack waited by the entrance. He could hear the man with dreadlocks shouting in his cell.

  “He’s comin’!” he yelled. “He’s comin’ and all you’s gonna pay! He’s comin’ for Armageddon.”

  One of the officers banged his nightstick against the bars. “Shut the hell up in there!”

  The man laughed. “You, I’ll remember you when Armageddon comes.”

  “Yeah? Remember this,” the officer said, jabbing the man in the nose with the tip of the stick.

  The scene made Jack uncomfortable and he walked outside through the double doors and waited off to the side. The sun was bright and a thin gray haze blanketed the sky. He remembered it from when he was a kid but it wasn’t like this. It looked like the clouds had been filled with dirt and clung to the sky from stickiness.

  “You ready?” William said, stepping out as he slung his suit coat on.

  “Lotta commotion in there,” he said as they walked to his Viper.

  “See that guy with the dreadlocks?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s them. They’re calling themselves Myrs. It’s a gang. All of ‘em have tats and dreadlocks; that’s kind of their thing. Looks pretty silly to me compared to the cartel or the Tres Locos but these guys are a level of violence we haven’t seen. They’ll shoot up an entire bus just to take out one person. And they don’t seem to care if they get arrested. One guy did a hit in a McDonald’s and then sat down and started eating the dead guy’s burger.”

  “Sound like tweakers to me.”

  “No, not at all. Not a single one, at least up here, has ever even gotten a drug charge. They seem to just sell the stuff, but never use. Holy crap, is that yours?�
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  “You like?”

  “I would give my left nut for a car like that.”

  Jack threw him the keys. “It’s yours.”

  “Jack, I’m not taking—”

  “You’re my oldest friend, William. You’re my only friend. Let me do this. Money sitting in a bank account is worthless to me.”

  “I can’t go around in a car like this on a cop’s salary, I’m sorry. Buy me a Honda or Buick and you got a deal.”

  “Well at least drive then.”

  “That, I will gladly do.”

  They peeled out of the parking lot and onto Hudson before getting onto Fountain Avenue. William hit the gas and they reached eighty miles an hour before he slowed down, a massive smile on his face. Jack decided he would leave the car on William’s driveway tonight with a bow on top.

  After going through various neighborhoods, they took a turn underneath a freeway bridge and passed a hospital and a strip mall before coming to a shack with a drive-thru. It had no more than four or five tables inside and only three employees but William swore it had the best burgers in Southern California.

  Once they were inside, Jack ordered a chicken sandwich and a salad and William got two double cheeseburgers with fries. They sat down by the window and Jack watched the traffic outside. He was unaccustomed to being himself. Usually, he was playing someone else in a foreign country where nobody knew him or wanted to know him. Now it was just him and he thought about how odd it was that he should feel weird in his own skin.

  “So?” William said.

  “So.”

  “So why’d you quit the DEA?”

  Jack shook his head. “They focus on things they shouldn’t be focusing on while major things slip past them. The cartels murder dozens of people and the DEA doesn’t lift a finger. Some poor guy with cancer opens a medicinal marijuana dispensary and the feds raid it like he’s Al Capone. I can’t take the hypocrisy.”

  “What’dya think government work is, Jack? You think you go out there and do the most efficient thing to achieve your goals? No way. Government’s not run for profit so no one cares how much money you’re spending. At least until election time when the pinheads on the hill gotta start talking about budget cuts.”

  “This is different. They put me in places, Will, that you wouldn’t believe. It was almost like they wanted me to get killed. Like it boosts morale or something. I just couldn’t handle it anymore.”

  “Well, whatever the reason, I’m glad you’re home.” The burgers came and William took a large bite, grease mingled with mayonnaise dripping down his chin. “So,” he said with a mouthful of burger, “what you gonna do now?”

  “I was thinking of opening up a Hapkido dojo.”

  “No way? Really? I’d love to see that. I always thought you’d be good at running a studio. No money in it, though. Some of the other studios charge so little you can’t compete with them.”

  “It’s not about the money for me. It helped me when I needed it most. I think it can do it for other kids.” He took a bite of salad. “So what’s going on with you?”

  “Same old same old. I’m working the high-profile cases now. I don’t know why, but someone up in Command liked a few things I did. Hopefully I’ll get bumped to Lieutenant soon and can get outta RH.” He took another bite of his burger and then a bite of a fry before sucking down some soda. “This one case, though, I gotta show you the video; it is something else. The Myrs I was talkin’ about? The dreadlocks? They robbed a bank. First time ever I think. And their leader, or something like that, walks in. Well, ‘walks’ isn’t the right word. Barrels his way in. He bent the doorframe. There are holes in the stone floor where he walked. The guy had to be at least seven feet, seven five, somewhere there. And built like a tank.”

  “How much did they get?”

  “Quarter mil. Never seen anything like this guy, though. He was throwing around police cruisers like they were toys.”

  “I had a case once where I had to take down a distributor who was a PCP addict. When we went in for the takedown, he was so high he started running into a wall to get away. He threw his body into it so many times he finally broke through. Busted every bone in his body, but he got through.”

  William shook his head. “This is something different. I’ve never seen a guy like this before.” He waited a few moments and said, “I could sure use some help on this.”

  “William…”

  “What?”

  “I’m not LAPD.”

  “I bet the commissioner would be psyched if you got back on the squad. Look, opening your own dojo would be fun and all, but think how much good you could do out here. With the knowledge you got locked away in your head? You could clean this town up.”

  “I’m not a cop anymore, William. I don’t think I ever was.”

  He nodded. “Well, that’s a shame. For the city.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Jack spent the day taking his niece out shopping. He told her he would buy her whatever she wanted but their deal was that she had to catch him up on everything that had been going on with the family.

  After they were done shopping he took her to Universal Studios. He remembered the place vaguely from his youth. Something about seeing so many children running around comforted him. In the places he had been, there were no children. Or they were locked away where no one could see them.

  It was nearly evening by the time Jack dropped her off. He gave her a hug and she thanked him before running off to the door with her bags from Neiman Marcus and Tiffany’s. Jack waited until her mother answered the door, waved, and then sped off.

  He went to the car dealership and bought another Viper, telling them to drop this one off at an address uptown. With a colorful bow if possible. When Jack went home, he thought about taking a shower but was too tired so he lay down, and was asleep in minutes.

  When he woke it was dark outside and the moon was out. It was nearly ten and he realized he was late. He quickly jumped in the shower, put on a gray pinstripe suit with no tie, and ran out the door.

  The Red Salamander—a bar in Santa Monica—was packed to the brim when he arrived. He had to find parking across the street before heading inside.

  The bar was dimly lit but clean. It had a post-modern feel to it, mostly glass and chrome.

  Jack spotted William and several other detectives at a large booth and he came over. William shouted something like, “This is the guy I’ve been telling you about,” and introductions went around before Jack sat down.

  Ricardo Hernandez walked in to the Red Salamander and noticed the ladies on the dance floor. The music was turned up so loud you couldn’t hear yourself talk and that’s the way he liked it. He stared at the women a while, his three men behind him waiting until he had his fill, and then they made their way to a bouncer guarding the entrance to the back offices.

  The bouncer nodded to them and let them through. Walking down a short hallway, they turned into a large office. A tall man with a bald head and a shiny shirt counted out cash behind a desk. A small amount of cocaine was laid on a mirror in front of him next to a straw cut in half.

  “Armand,” Ricardo said, holding out his arms. Armand rose and they embraced. “How are you?”

  “Bien. Y tu?”

  “Can’t complain. So, where are our guests?”

  “Not here yet.”

  Ricardo sighed. “This new generation, they have no respect for anything.”

  “You’re preaching to the choir.”

  After a commotion outside, the bouncer ran in. “They’re here. They wouldn’t give up their guns.”

  “That’s fine. Send them in,” Armand said.

  Within a few moments, several men with dreadlocks walked in. They were giggling and didn’t attempt to hide their guns at all. One of them had an assault rifle strapped to his back.

  “My friends,” Armand said, “welcome. Please, have a seat.”

  Although there were several couches and chairs around the office the men did
n’t sit down. One of them, a short white man with greasy blond dreads, stepped forward.

  “You wanted to talk. Let’s talk.”

  “And you are Agamemnon?”

  The men chuckled. “No, I am not Agamemnon.”

  Armand exhaled loudly. “I was hoping to speak to someone in charge.”

  “You can speak to me. I’ll tell him whatever you want me to tell him.”

  Armand’s face grew dark. Ricardo knew he had sent a personal invitation for Agamemnon so they could speak like civilized human beings rather than shoot it out on the streets. But if they didn’t want to be civilized, Ricardo also knew no one was better at being uncivilized than Armand.

  “I want you to tell him,” Armand said, “that if you filthy pieces of shit don’t stop selling glass in my neighborhoods, we’re going to have a problem.”

  “And how are they your neighborhoods?”

  The vein in Armand’s temple flared. The men did not know him well enough to know what that meant but Ricardo did. Ricardo took a step back and put his hand on the Smith & Wesson tucked in a holster on his hip.

  “They are my neighborhoods,” Armand said, walking around the desk, “because I say they are mine. I’ve seen a lot of filthy beggars like you come along and they all fizzle like oil in a pan. You are no different. I’m giving you one chance to leave. Not just the city, the county. I don’t want you anywhere near my people. You have one week to do as I say. If not, I will hunt you down one by one until this is finished.”

  The men chuckled again. Ricardo was amazed by the insolence.

  “I can tell you Agamemnon’s answer now if you like?”

  Armand held out his arms. “By all means.”

  The man flipped a sawed-off shotgun out from underneath his jacket. Before anyone could move the boom echoed through the office, as if a shelf had fallen to the floor. The other men spun around, turning on Ricardo and Armand’s men.

  Ricardo jumped behind a couch as the man with the assault rifle started firing. Bits of wall were flying off behind him and hitting him in the head. Ricardo covered himself, the gun by his temple. A small amount of space let light through underneath the couch and the floor and he pointed and shot at the man’s ankle, turning it into red, slick flesh as the man stumbled forward and fell.