Free Los Angeles Noir by Denise Hamilton

not even a bad cop, should be murdered in his sleep.
    Folks recalled good things Yippie Calzone had done.
    He had mentored kids in South L.A.—black, brown, yellow, white. He was a good man.
    The dashing new mayor, Arturo Quijada “Miracle” Mendez, a man for whom Yippie Calzone had been a boyhood hero, gave a public address.
    “These are dangerous days,” the visibly shaken mayor told the people. “We ask for calm.”
    Willie Song, one of the top gun dealers in L.A., called Cash to confirm he’d sold not one, but four shotguns to the Flo Boyz and they’d tried to pay him with some shit called “butter.”
    Fast Al Townes, one of Central Detection’s top operatives, tracked the fibers that Cravitz had retrieved from the murder scene back to the Dream Closet, a Silverlake costume shop. A sales girl recalled renting four ninja costumes—now overdue—to some rude young men on Halloween eve.
    Diss ’N’ Dats Records, the Vegas label that first recorded the Flo Boyz, FedExed publicity stills of the quartet, and Vargas emailed them to all the local news outlets.
    A man named Francisco Hernandez called the L.A.P.D. crime hotline to report that he had sold a tan late-model Ford Falcon to una cabeza de quevo —a dickhead—named Monster P, from the Flo Boyz, the kids wanted on TV.
    Flagg Jackson, dumpster-diving out back of the Amarillo Bar on Lankershim Boulevard, was the first to drop a dime. He called the Château Rouge and told Hi-C he’d seen the punks go inside the bar. Their jalopy was stashed behind his favorite dumpster. He was sure they were packing. Cravitz called Vargas and told him to meet at the Amarillo in an hour.
    It took Cravitz fifteen minutes to drive the twenty miles to the Amarillo. Two dozen Harleys leaned against one side of the bar. At the end of the line of hogs, Flagg Jackson waved and pointed to the front of the bar.
    Cravitz took a long pull from his cigar, cocked his Berretta, and headed for the door.
    Behind a curtain of beads he saw four young men, each one at a corner of the bar, armed with shotguns.
    About twenty customers were lined up against the walls. In the center of the room there was a pile of wallets and jewelry.
    Cravitz pushed aside the curtain with his big Beretta and stepped in.
    “Well, well, well. If it ain’t that bitch from the Château Rouge,” said Monster P, training his shotgun on Cravitz.
    Cravitz could hear distant sirens, coming closer. He figured he could kill two, maybe three of the boys without any problem. That fourth would be tricky.
    “Drop the guns, boys,” Cravitz said.
    Now all four young men aimed their weapons at Cravitz.
    “Tha’s a bad idea, fella,” a voice growled from behind the bead curtain.
    Hi-C stepped in, his red satin top hat seeming to scrape the ceilings. He held a nasty-looking, TEC-9 assault weapon in his hands. Behind Hi-C was his boss, Cash Cravitz, followed by his crew, ready for a bloodbath.
    “You got shit in your ears, boy? Drop them gats,” Cash growled.
    All but Monster P complied. He cocked the shotgun and smiled. “I ain’t afraid to die. But I’m gonna kill you first, bitch.”
    Cravitz smiled too. Lazily, he strolled up to Monster P and flicked the drooping ash from his Cuban stogie onto the boy’s pretty new sneakers. He hurled his 6’5” frame forward and batted the shotgun aside with his Beretta. In the same lighting motion, he smacked Monster P across the face with his free right hand. Monster P saw the flash of a broad, shadowy palm, then felt the blunt imploding thud of his head crashing against the steel base of the classic country-andwestern jukebox twelve feet away.
    Uniformed cops took the other Boyz away in cuffs while the cops questioned Monster P and Cravitz at the scene.
    Cravitz said, “Why’d you do it, you little shit?”
    “That bitch was gonna cut me in,” Monster P replied.
    “Bennita put you up to this?”
    “Bennita? Hell naw. Some other bitch—” Monster P said.
    “Other