Akeem D'Muere stood over me. "It be easy to kill you, but easy ain't always smart. The people I know, they say you got friends at LAPD and you turnin' up dead maybe make'm mad, maybe make things even worse."

Something moved across the skylights. Pike, maybe.

"Still, I can't let you keep runnin' around, you see? Things gettin' outta hand and they got to stop. You got to stop. You see that?"

"Sure." It was hard to breathe with the guy on my back.

Akeem D'Muere shook his head. "You say that, but it just talk, so I gotta show you how things are." Akeem D'Muere went over to James Edward Washington, touched the Dan Wesson to James Edward's left temple, and pulled the trigger. The explosion hit me like a physical thing and the right side of James Edward Washington's face blew out and he collapsed to the concrete floor as if he were a mechanical man and someone had punched his off button. He fell straight down, and when his face hit the cement, a geyser of blood sprayed across the floor and splattered onto my cheeks.

I went as stiff and tight as a bowstring and pushed against the men on my back but I could not move them. James Edward Washington trembled and twitched and jerked on the floor as a red pool formed under his head. His body convulsed and something that looked like red tapioca came out of his mouth. The guy in the long coat who had opened and closed the big door went over to James Edward and squatted down for a closer look. He said, "Look at this shit."

The convulsing peaked, and then the body grew still.

Akeem D'Muere came back, squatted beside me, and opened the Dan Wesson's chamber. He shook out the remaining cartridges, then wiped down the Dan Wesson and dropped it next to me. He said, "The fuckin' bitch next. She started this."

I blinked hard five or six times, and then I focused on him. It was hard to focus and hard to hear him, and I tried to think of a way to shake off the men on my back and get to him before the AKs got to me.

Akeem D'Muere smiled like he knew what I was thinking, and like it didn't really worry him, like even if I tried, and even if I got out from under the men and past the AKs, he still wouldn't be worried. He looked over at the others. "You got the keys?"

Bone Dee said, "Yeah," and held up my keys.

Akeem sort of jerked his head and Bone Dee went to the guy with the carbine and they went out of my field of view to my car.

Maybe thirty seconds later Bone Dee came back and Akeem D'Muere went over to James Edward Washington's body. He touched the body with his toe, then shook his head and looked at me. "Don't matter none. This just another dead nigger."

I tried to say something, but nothing came out.

Akeem D'Muere turned away. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

Bone Dee and the guy with the carbine got back into the Volkswagen and Akeem D'Muere and the guy with the Benelli riot gun went to the Monte Carlo. The guy on my shoulders stayed there and another guy with an AK went to the Monte Carlo and stood by the open passenger door, ready to cover me. The tall guy with the double twenty opened the big doors. When he did, something outside made a loud BANG and the tall guy was kicked back inside and Joe Pike came through fast, diving low and rolling toward the Volkswagen, then coming up and snapping off one shot at the guy on my shoulders and two shots through the Volkswagen's driver's-side window. The bangs were loud and would've been Pike's.357. The first bullet rolled the guy off my shoulders and the two in the Volkswagen pushed the driver over into the passenger side on top of Bone Dee. Pike yelled, "Down."

I stayed down.

The guy standing guard by the Monte Carlo dove into the open passenger door, and the big Benelli came out over the top of him and cut loose, putting most of its pellets into the Volkswagen. Pike popped two fast shots at the Monte Carlo, and then the Monte Carlo roared to life and fishtailed its right rear into the Volkswagen and then into the side of the garage door and then it was gone.

I ran forward and pulled Bone Dee out of the VW. The driver was dead. Bone Dee screamed when I grabbed him and yelled that he'd been shot and I told him I didn't give a damn. I pushed him down on the cement and made sure he wasn't armed and then I went to James Edward Washington but James Edward Washington was dead. "Jesus Christ."

Pike said, "You okay?"

I shook my head. I took a deep breath and let it out and then I began to shake.

Pike said, "We're going to have company." He put his Python down carefully, so as not to mar the finish. "You hear them?"

"Yes."

I think Pike heard them before me, but maybe not. The sirens came in from both sides of the alley and then people were yelling and two cops I'd never seen before leapfrogged through the door. They were in street clothes and were carrying shotguns, and one took up a position in the doorway and the other rolled in and came up behind the Volkswagen's left front fender, much as Pike had. They screamed POLICE when they made their advance and told us to put down our weapons. Habit. Our weapons were already down. I said, "Guy by the Volkswagen is wounded. The other three are dead."

A third cop appeared in the opposite side of the door with another shotgun. "Keep your hands away from your body and get down on the ground. Do it now." He had long hair tied back with a blue bandana.

Pike and I did what they said, but they came in hard anyway, like we knew they would, one of them going to Pike and one of them coming to me and the third going to Bone Dee. The one who went to Bone Dee was short. More cars pulled up outside, and you could hear the whoop-whoop of the paramedics on their way in.

The cop who came to me put his knee into my back and twisted my hands around behind me and fit me with cuffs. You get knees in your back twice at the same crime scene, and you know it's not shaping up as a good day. I said, "My wallet's on the floorboard of the Corvette. My name is Elvis Cole. I'm a private investigator. I'm one of the good guys."

The cop with the bandana said, "Shut the fuck up."

They cuffed Pike and they cuffed Bone Dee and then the short cop said, "I got the keys," and went to my Corvette. The cop with the bandana went with him. They moved with clarity and purpose.

The other cop picked up my wallet and looked through it. He said, "Hey, the sonofabitch wasn't lying. He's got an investigator's license."

The cop with the bandana said, "Not for long."

A couple of bluesuits came in and said, "Everything cool?"

The cop with the bandana said, "We'll see."

The short cop fumbled with the keys, then opened the trunk and made one of the world's widest grins. You'd think he'd won Lotto. "Bingo. Just where they said." He reached into the trunk and pulled out a baggie of crack cocaine worth about eight thousand dollars and tossed it to the cop with the bandana. What Bone Dee and the guy with the carbine had been doing behind me.

I looked at Joe Pike and Pike's mouth twitched.

I said, "It isn't mine." I pointed at Bone Dee. "It's his."

The cop with the bandana said, "Sure. That's what they all say." Then he took out a little white card, told us we were under arrest, and read us our rights.

After that he brought us to jail.