“What’s his last name?”

I say nothing. What would Love say?

“Why does she hate this guy?”

I say nothing. What would Love say? I know Love and I have to believe in myself right now. I have to walk out onto the plank and I have to jump. I stop sweating. My heart resets and my pores rest. This is it.

“First of all,” I begin. “I barely know that Brian guy. And the thing is, Love doesn’t hate him.”

He swallows and it’s an unmistakable sign that I passed the test. Love told the cops the same thing and I remember her exact words in the pool that day, talking about Sam the work bitch, our conversation in Little Compton about Forty. I don’t hate anyone, she said. When you love someone, you listen. You remember it all.

“Truthfully,” I say. “Love doesn’t really hate anybody.”

He clenches his jaw. “Yeah,” he says. “So I heard.”

Inside, I pump my fist. I knew it. I know her. I love her.

But most people in love face obstacles and here is ours, Detective Carr, back again, firing away: “But you told Captain Dave that Love hates this guy. Why?”

“I didn’t want to go here. Ray and Dottie have been through enough . . .” I work up some tears. My lawyer asks for a minute but I say no. “Look, Detective, I can’t stress this enough. I’d rather Ray and Dottie not know that Forty was involved in this, but well, fuck. Brian was Forty’s friend,” I say, and it’s the money shot, my would-have-been-brother-in-law saving me from the great beyond. “I just met him in Cabo. He and Forty got really fucked up and Forty didn’t want to just leave him out there, but he was too fucked up to deal with it himself.” I shrug. “I was just trying to do him a solid.”

“Why not let him crash at the party? La Groceria has more than a few spare bedrooms.” Detective Carr is the one sweating now, drumming his fingers on the table. And this is the beauty of reasonable doubt. He may suspect that I’m making this all up, but at the end of the day, he can’t prove that and Forty’s not around to tell him differently.

“Because it was our wrap party,” I say. “It wasn’t a free-for-all.”

“Who else met this Brian? Anyone alive, I mean?” he asks.

I shrug. “I don’t remember.”

I was worried I would sound sarcastic, like a senator’s son at a date rape trial, but I didn’t. I pulled it off. I took a leap of faith and made an educated guess on what Love said and I guessed correctly. I did it. We did it. Detective Carr is standing, irritated. He says it’s odd the way I know so many people who don’t fucking exist anymore and I let him rant. I don’t tell him that the last person who said that to me wound up dead.

I have my priorities in order: Love comes first, above all. She is patient and kind as the Corinthians say and I bring patience and kindness into this room as I watch this poor bastard pace. He’s older than me, more tired; he probably lives in Torrance, in some house full of Bud Light and expired coupons and firearms and soiled diapers. It can’t be easy, being a cop in California and he’s not very photogenic or articulate. I bet he never wanted to be an actor and I bet he wasn’t even in love with his wife when he proposed to her. I bet he was just with her and I bet she was dropping hints and I bet he was one of those guys who proposes because he’s thirty, because he figures it’s time to get married and settle down. I bet there was no love in his heart when he got down on one knee and asked the girl to marry him, not any more than usual, I mean.

“You can’t tell me anything else about this Brian?”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “For all I know, that wasn’t even his real name.”

“Don’t fuck with me.”

“I’m not fucking with you,” I say. “I met him briefly. He was Forty’s friend and Forty knew some shady people, you know. He did drugs, he got around.”

“It’s bad luck to speak ill of the dead.”

“I’m not speaking ill,” I say. “I’m trying to help you guys out.”

Detective Carr sits in his chair. In a way I think it would be terrible to live in LA devoid of aspirations. How would you do it? How would you put up with the traffic and the monotony of the sun, the way people use the word hella and lie so freely? How could you stand it here if you weren’t striving for something better? Oh that’s right; he liked The Wolf of Wall Street. He aspires to take someone down like me, a serial killer. But he chose the wrong guy. I am done with all that. And I will not let my past dictate my future.

He rubs his forehead. “You know, Joe,” he says. “We have all of our officers looking for Brian. You do know that we will find him. We’re gonna make sure he’s okay. We’re checking hotel records and we’re gonna find out all of it, who he was, what you did with him, why.”

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay,” he says, and I feel bad for him. He’s so close. And he’s going to get closer. He’ll come in here tomorrow talking about The Godfather Part III and asking me if I heard about a cop disappearing in Mexico, a guy named Fincher who also visited the set of Boots and Puppies. But the thing is, it’s all circumstantial evidence. It’s not enough to keep me here. I was very good at killing people when I needed to be.

Was. The past tense. I’m retired.

And really, when you grow up, and get over yourself, when you fuck narcissism and leave the hashtags at the door, you see what really matters in life. What matters is what you do next. I get it. And this is America. You have to prove that someone did something and they can’t prove that I did anything.

In Fast Five, Dom is in a prison bus, glum. His friends force the bus to crash so they can free him. But my team doesn’t have to do that for me. They won’t be able to convict me or get me on a bus because there is no evidence of my past actions. Well, aside from the baby growing inside of Love.

Prison isn’t that bad and I treasure the solitude. From everything I know about parenting, I expect that in a few months, I’ll be glad I got to spend some time alone before becoming a father. We all need to be with our thoughts. Angelenos like to meditate and stare at expensive statues of Buddha, and I stare at the cement. Same difference. I learn to smile at everyone and I feel the world reciprocate.

The guards are polite. And then when I’m not alone, I’m in the room. I kind of like it in there, the way Detective Carr challenges me every day. My lawyer says I’m damn good under pressure. This is all great research for my screenwriting career and I can see myself writing a movie that takes place during a trial. I use this time to learn how to become the best possible father, to figure out how to provide for my family. One day Love and I will be buried together or cremated, I haven’t decided yet, and Detective Carr will undoubtedly spend eternity in a plot selected by his controlling wife.

“Don’t move,” Detective Carr says. He leaves and this is the most awkward time for me, when I am the most afraid for my safety, when I know they are watching me, studying my face, trying so hard to figure me out, talking shit about me, speculating. I have no phone to play with, no TV to watch. I look into the orb that connects me to them. I wait. In my head, I recite Corinthians; Love is patient, love is kind.

This is how you get away with murder, how you get out of the interrogation room—a woman cop comes for me okay, let’s move you back—and this how you get escorted into the safety of your cell, locked up, left alone to recover from the day’s needling, to dream of what might come tomorrow or the next day. You believe in love. It really is all you need, although yes, a solid defense attorney helps too. But I do believe in love, in Love, and when it’s time, I will hold our baby. The thought soothes me and the mattress feels softer.

Life puts you in cage so that you’ll treasure your freedom, how lucky you were to be running on a beach, the way your girlfriend looked over her shoulder at you, the ring you did not fashion out of a straw. All time is good. No time is hard, not if you think of it as time to celebrate love.