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partner to take a crack at the much-subdued Antonio. The three of them headed into the kitchen where I caught a glimpse of the kid angrily slumping in a ladder back chair before his mother smacked him upside the head and clearly told him to sit up. He did, glaring at us as though we were to blame for his predicament.
    I turned my attention on the banger proned out at my feet. "Want to talk to me, ese ?"
    " Chinga tu madre, " he growled.
    I tsked-tsked him. "And with su madre right there." I shook my head. "That's just plain nasty. You do know once we run ballistics on that little peashooter you tried to take Rover out with and we match it to the gun that killed Isaac Simpson, your ass will belong to the state for the rest of your life. No more sopas from momma." I sniffed the air pointedly.
    "No more bunuelos or good cervasa. You ready for that?"
    Miguel was coming back, looking smug. I jerked Ramiro to his feet. " Decir adios," I said softly for his ears only.
    We nearly made it to the front door when he pulled at my hold on his arm.
    " No se me. "
    "Then tell me who it was."
    " Consiga estos de mi ."
    72

    A Forest of Corpses
    by P. A. Brown
    I ignored his demand to take the cuffs off. Instead I kept pulling him out of the house. His mother and brother followed, the former squeezing her hands under her breasts, the latter continuing to hold his sullen look. Through the open front door I watched a pair of black and whites pull up and discharge four unis who swarmed the house. I went to hand my prisoner over to one.
    " Se Bala," Ramiro snapped doing his best to stay out of the other cop's grasp.
    "Who's he?"
    "Bala. Se Bala. Yo no se su nombre ."
    Liar. Someone knew his name. I looked at Antonio, then at mom. Mom answered.
    "Fideo Esteban Gutierrez, el es malo . He is not a good man," she said with clear bitterness. "I tell my sons to stay away from him. Do they listen? Now you see? You see what this ladron has done to us . "
    "Where can we find this Bala, Fideo, whatever?" I knew exactly who Fideo was. The asshole who capped that kid and Gillespie. I'd love a second chance at slamming the scrote into Quentin. Maybe I was about to get it.
    With a little help from his mother, he finally told us.
    Fideo had put the green light out on Simpson when he refused to pay Fideo's crew his tax. Word down from the Eme was to clean mayates off the streets. Sadly, that meant I was right about why an African-American was targeted. Clean the
    'hood of the undesirables.
    The unis stuffed him into their car, secured our evidence and sped away. The second patrol unit stayed behind. We 73

    A Forest of Corpses
    by P. A. Brown
    would go and write up a warrant and search the place, then we would go and find Fideo. This time, I wanted to make sure the charges stuck. Fideo was going down on my watch.
    All in all, a good day's work.
    I always felt revved to another level when I was hot on the trail of a killer. It was beyond an adrenaline rush. It was colder, more determined. I could taste it. Ultimately much more satisfying.
    Given what we already had, I knew we'd have little trouble getting a warrant. I left Miguel in charge of writing it and I went in search of Thomas Paige to get his take. He'd grown up in South Central L.A., his mother an El Salvadorian refuge and his father a steel worker back in the days when that meant something. Then it hadn't meant anything, which apparently was why they ended up in one of the poorest, most gang-ridden areas of a city riddled with violent gangs.
    We'd talked on a few occasions over the years when I had gang-related issues. He was a brusque man, not given to much small talk, but even with his reticence I had learned he had spent eight years within the sphere of the Cuatro Flats crew as a young man, and my impression has always been that he escaped being jumped in by the proverbial skin of his teeth. It wasn't something he talked about to this day. But whatever his past, it had made him our best gang expert