The smell of the grease from the taquer�a downstairs overwhelmed me as I tried to review thirty pages of legal documents. I rented a small office � about the size of a walk-in closet � on the second floor of an old building on East Colfax in Aurora. The price was right, but my space was directly above the restaurant�s trash can and oil bin.

I�d landed in Aurora because it was cheap and because that�s where my clients lived. Driving under the influence, possession of narcotics, divorces, and custody actions � these cases were my bread and butter. A far cry from my dreams as a kid on the Rosebud Reservation of pursuing social justice for Native Americans, but I�d learned back in law school that a white knight job as a public interest lawyer required a trust fund or wealthy spouse, especially when your monthly student loan payments rivaled the GDP of many small countries.

But I�d made my peace with the loss of my ambitions to change society and argue Native cases at the Supreme Court. Now I focused on helping people with their legal problems so they could go on with their lives. That�s what I told myself, anyway. After I negotiated plea bargains with the prosecutor, I often saw my former clients back at Las Adelitas or El Metapan, drinking and drugging again. They�d send over a shot, and I�d toast their freedom to pursue the American dream of titanic inebriation.

Yeah, Aurora suited me. This part of the sprawling suburb consisted of modest single-family homes, scores of low-rent apartment buildings that resembled army bunkers, and dozens of Mexican restaurants, bakeries, and markets. Because of my brown skin and black hair, my clients assumed I was Latino, which worked in my favor. Not to mention, in this part of town, there was little chance of running into former law school classmates with their expensive suits and cars. I didn�t have to witness their barely concealed pity as they learned about my downward trajectory from Native social justice warrior to small-time street lawyer.

The directory panel in the hallway stated, LAW FIRM OF GRIFFIN GERMAINE, but it was only me. No receptionist, paralegal, or junior attorneys. The only extravagance in the office complex was a battered old Ricoh copier in the shared common area, for which I paid an extra twenty dollars per month, so long as I didn�t make more than three hundred copies. I used my own ancient Dell laptop, tiny laser printer, and off-brand scanner. A generic K-Cup coffee machine rested on top of some old Pacific Reporters. My diploma from the University of Colorado Law School hung on the wall, encased in a fancy cherrywood frame, a gift from the Native American Law Student Association, of which I�d been president.

I got up and closed the small window, even though it was hot. I needed my full focus for the legal papers that had just arrived on my computer screen. My former DUI client Nestor Vega had been hit by a delivery truck while crossing Havana Street on foot, and the doctor had said he might never walk again. The driver�s insurance company � known among lawyers by its nickname, Snake Farm � had refused to pay his medical bills or any pain and suffering compensation, arguing that he was intoxicated at the time of the accident and therefore responsible for his own expenses. Nestor had called me, asking if I would represent him again, and I�d jumped at the chance to handle a personal injury case.

Even though Colorado tort law was biased in favor of businesses and corporations, Nestor was looking at a million-dollar case, of which I�d collect one-third of the total settlement, more if the case went to trial. If I played my cards the right way, I�d be able to approach Snake Farm with a settlement offer by the end of the year. A payout of that size would mean that I could stop picking up small cases and volunteer for some pro bono work at the Native American Rights Fund. I could hang out at their cool office in Boulder and talk about Indian law again. Maybe even turn that into a full-time position if I did a good job on the pro bono work. Nestor�s case was the break I�d been hoping for.

But Snake Farm�s defense counsel � some meathead named Colt Jackson � was playing hardball, filing ridiculous motions, refusing to provide documents I requested, and not responding to my messages. There were a lot of these types in the legal profession, but this guy was one of the worst. I opened up Nestor�s folder on my computer, then my cell phone started vibrating.

�Germaine Law Office.�

A pause. �Griff, is that you?�

�Yes?� I didn�t recognize the woman�s voice.

�Hey, it�s Louise. From the Zephyr?�

The bartender from the Zephyr Lounge out on Colfax and Peoria. The place where I�d drowned many sorrows when I�d first moved to Aurora a decade ago. Louise had been in her thirties, tall with light-brown hair, porcelain-white skin, and a vintage thrift store sense of style. I remembered that she wore cool cat�s-eye glasses and a faux fur coat that looked like a leopard. She�d been kind to me, spotting me drinks when I didn�t have any cash. We�d even had a few sodden flings after some of her shifts. But there was never any weirdness between us. I�d moved my drinking down the street and lost touch with her.

�Louise, wow. Long time. How you been doing?�

�Well, you know, I�ve been better. But hey, I�m glad I found your number. I still had your card in my purse. It was buried at the bottom.�

Story of my life. �You still at the Zephyr?�

�Yeah,� she said, �but it�s not going so well. Ever since the med school opened, people don�t want to drink there. I got my regulars, but they�re dying off.�

The University of Colorado had moved its medical school to the old Fitzsimons Army Hospital facility awhile back, ensuring that a horde of doctors, medical students, and college administrators were just a couple of blocks from the Zephyr. But those folks weren�t interested in the bar�s 1970s art collection and dicey clientele. I felt guilty that I hadn�t been there in so long.

�Sorry to hear that. I�ll stop by soon, promise.�

She cleared her throat. �Actually, I was wondering if I could come by and see you.�

�What�s up?� I suspected she was gearing up to ask for money, but this well was dry. Bone dry.

�Well, I�ve got a divorce thing. So, do you still have your law degree or whatever? I mean, you�re a lawyer, right? Not selling cars or mowing lawns.�

This stung. �Sure am. What�s going on?�

Another pause. �It�s kind of embarrassing, but my ex-husband stopped paying his child support. For my daughter, Lily?�

I�d forgotten she had a daughter. I�d seen her once or twice at the bar, back in the day. A quiet little girl, sitting in one of the booths. She�d have to be a teenager by now. �Lily, right. Does he send the child support to the state office or to you directly?�

�Well, he�s supposed to send it to me. But I haven�t gotten a check in nine months, and I can�t reach him. You know, tips are really down right now, and I can�t make it without that money.�

I�d heard this story too many times. Child support in Colorado was usually not disputed, as it was determined by a formula based on the parents� incomes and number of overnight stays. But the flaw in the system was collecting the money from those who were determined to dodge making their payments. A truly stubborn asshole could sometimes beat the system.

�I�m sorry to hear that,� I said. �I�m guessing you need some help.�

�God, yes. We�re about two months from being evicted, and that bastard won�t pay what he owes for his own kid. I can�t even afford Internet service anymore � Lily is going crazy.� Her voice was beginning to crack.

�Look,� I said, �why don�t you come to my office tomorrow and we can talk this over. I�m free in the morning; maybe ten a.m.? Bring all of the divorce paperwork you have.�

�Yes, absolutely! I can make that. Lily will be in school and I don�t work until two. Thank you, Griff. You�re a good guy.�

A good guy. It had been a long time since anyone had said that to me. Maybe things were changing.

By the time LaVonda returned from setting the table, the two men had nearly traversed the length of her block. She had watched them for over an hour and now it was dusk. As they approached her walkway, she closed her book and rose from her chair.

�You�d best come in,� she said, before either of them could speak. She ignored the screech of her screen and turned back into her apartment, settling herself in the middle of her slate-gray sectional. Even though she was wearing jeans, she crossed her legs delicately at the ankle.

The taller of the two men mounted the porch and stopped at the screen door. He was a large man, blond, with close-cropped hair that marked him as ex-military, but the fleshiness of his face and the protuberance of his gut told her that had been some years ago.

�We�re with the Denver Police Department,� he said, holding up the badge around his neck.

Don�t be nervous, LaVonda thought. She filled one of the coffee mugs from the carafe on her coffee table. �Black, or do you take sugar and cream?�

�I�m Detective Niedermeyer and this is my partner, Detective Delgado,� he said, inclining his head toward the other man, who followed him into the apartment. �Um, black is fine.�

�And you?� she asked the younger detective as she handed a cup of coffee to Niedermeyer.

Detective Delgado glanced at his partner before sitting on the chaise at the opposite end of the couch. �If there�s sugar, I�ll take some.�

LaVonda hoped her hands didn�t tremble as she filled the second cup. Delgado was maybe forty, with thick black hair and a neatly trimmed mustache above full lips. Dark tendrils curled above his collar. Thin trails of sweat trickled down his neck and his long-sleeved shirt clung wetly to his body. The tang of his musk teased her nostrils as he leaned forward and took the mug from LaVonda�s hands. She felt a slight quivering between her legs. Don�t get carried away, she thought to herself.

�We were hoping you might look at a picture for us,� Niedermeyer said.

Detective Delgado set his coffee on the tray, slid a piece of paper from the clipboard on his knees, and held it out to her. �Do you recognize this man?�

Don�t stare at him, she thought, turning her attention from the detective to the flyer in his outstretched hand. She took it and studied it for several seconds. An image, captured in black-and-white, looked back at her. The picture was a few years old and grainy, but the drawn face with the furrowed brow beneath an untidy Afro was clearly recognizable.

�Yes,� she said. �That�s Ronnie. But this looks like an old picture. He�s much older now.�

Niedermeyer flipped open his notebook and began writing on a large yellow legal pad. �How do you know him?�

How did she know Ronnie? He wasn�t a friend, not really. But he was more than an acquaintance. �He just hangs around the neighborhood,� she said. �Why? What happened?�

�He�s dead,� said Niedermeyer.

LaVonda pressed her fingers to her mouth and stared down at the picture. �Oh my. He�s dead. Really? But how?�

�Somebody killed him,� said Delgado as he took back the flyer. �Dumped his body in the schoolyard. Since he lived down the block, we�re just canvasing the neighborhood.�

LaVonda looked from one detective to the other. �But when? I just saw him yesterday.�

Yesterday, he had been with Toby, the live-in boyfriend of her upstairs neighbor, Allie. In the wee hours, when the pain in her back had forced her from her bed, LaVonda had gone to sit outside in the dark and had seen them, Ronnie and Toby, skulking about, getting into only god knows what kind of trouble. Toby spent more time with Ronnie than he did with Allie.

�Do you know who he associates with?� Niedermeyer asked.

LaVonda shrugged. �Ronnie knows everybody.�

�And you saw him yesterday?�

LaVonda nodded.

�Did you see him with anyone in particular?�

�Well,� she said, �sometimes he hangs out with Toby. My neighbor. Well, sort of neighbor. Toby lives upstairs with Allie. He and Ronnie hang out together sometimes.�

Niedermeyer stood. �So, we can find this Toby upstairs?�

LaVonda shook her head. �I doubt it. At least, not right now. He doesn�t have a regular gig but he gets those day jobs � you know, where you show up for same-day work. He�s basically a temp.�

�And his girlfriend � your neighbor � is named Allie?�

LaVonda nodded. �She works full-time. She�s a few years older than Toby, in her thirties.�

Niedermeyer wrote steadily on his legal pad.

LaVonda turned to Delgado. �Ronnie wasn�t really a bad guy. I wish I knew more.�

Both detectives pulled business cards from their pockets, and LaVonda took them. �In case you hear anything,� Delgado said.

�We can see ourselves out,� said Niedermeyer, turning toward the door.

Delgado took a last swig from his coffee, then stood. LaVonda held out her hand. He clasped it and LaVonda squeezed. It was warm and slightly moist; his grip was firm. She realized he was looking beyond her, at the pictures on the wall of her with friends, most of whom she hadn�t spoken to for the better part of a decade. She released his hand and followed the men to the door.

�You both have a nice evening,� she said as they made their way down the weathered steps of her porch. She stared at Detective Delgado�s back.

Turn around, she thought. If he turns around, it means he�s thinking of me.

LaVonda watched as the two men left her yard. They headed toward the end of the block without turning around.

Digging graves is straightforward labor, involving little more than brute strength and a sufficiently sharp blade. The job can be done with relative ease by even the most doltish of common workhands.

But here�s something many do not know: exhuming graves, by contrast, is art. One cannot simply thrust one�s spade in the ground, hack around until one hits upon some solid object, then mercilessly subtract shovelful after shovelful of raw earth until the grave�s remains, treasure-like, are exposed. Nor can one wrest such treasure from the ground, haphazardly tossing fragments to the surface and flinging them into any vessel conveniently nearby.

No. Such practices would be immoral. Moreover, they would, as my Uncle August said, invite misfortune. August believed, as do I, that regardless of circumstances, the dead deserve to lie peacefully. They should be disturbed only in the most dire of situations. If a body must be moved, it should be done properly and with reverence.

�There�s no cause to uproot them, Sam,� Uncle August told me. �If you have to do it, you better have a damn good reason. And you better treat them with respect.�

I had, and continue to have, no argument with that. All bodies, in my belief � both the dead and the living � should be treated with respect.

Uncle August and I had this conversation last year while standing in an Iowa cornfield. Plowing a new field, we encountered a shallow grave under a meager scattering of stones. We found no coffin, no shroud, not even a scrap of clothing � just a full, adult human skeleton set into the thick Midwest soil, all flesh that once graced the bones returned entirely to the earth. That the grave was unviolated by an animal was nothing short of providence.

No one besides our family had ever homesteaded that land, so the skeleton was either an Indian�s or perhaps belonged to some white man who, decades earlier, had been making his way west and died en route. Uncle August said his money was on the latter, because Indians are smarter than that � they don�t leave their dead lying about like so much rubbish. I suspect he�s right.

Either way, Uncle August said we were obliged to move the body appropriately. We returned to the barn and hammered together a solid though simple coffin. We lugged it to the field and eased the bones into place, carefully reassembling those separated from their neighbors. Then we moved the entire affair under a willow tree � where it should have been all along, as was obvious to both of us � and ensured the box was set accurately, buried deeply. The task cost us nearly a full day of plowing, but we accomplished it with respect.

Well. What would Uncle August say about my first job in my new city of Denver, Colorado? What would he say about the merciless, hack-job labor into which I had embroiled myself?

I choose not to think about it. When such thoughts enter my mind, I hang my head in shame.

Entering the White Horse was like entering a dream. A dream of the past. My mother�s past. She had grown up here � in Denver, on Colfax, like a million other Indians, like her own mother. Now I was back to solve a crime. Another Indian woman dead, like so many others in our communities, no one but her mom giving a shit. Not the cops. Not her dad, who hadn�t been seen in a decade. No one else but me, a woman whose face, though allowed to grow much more cynical with age, so resembled hers.

�Naiche? Naiche Becente... of Apache PI?�

I nodded. �That�s me.�

�Thank the Creator!� The woman swiveled toward me on the old leather barstool. She looked to be in her early thirties, her eyes bloodshot with what I had to assume was lack of sleep.

I smiled cryptically. I had agreed to take her case, but that didn�t mean I was going to be able to solve it.

God, I needed a smoke.

The bartender was the only one in there besides me and my client � Betty was her name � and his eyes were riveted, fixed on the screen, the wild, colorful images of Fox News flashing, the sound turned all the way off, the jukebox blaring CCR�s �Up around the Bend.�

I sat down next to Betty and shook her hand loosely, and she thanked me profusely for coming, for agreeing to do the work for just the cost of travel and hotel.

�It�s fine. I got plenty,� I said. Which was nearly true. I made a decent living in Albuquerque where I had my practice, and I liked to do pro bono for other Natives. I loved Albuquerque � the original homeland of my people. Plus, rent was cheap, and I roomed where I worked, in a building downtown, a few doors from Java Joe�s.

�Nick!� Betty said, turning to the bartender, an edge to her voice.

It took him a minute to extricate himself, but he turned, a friendly smile on his face, his blue eyes the color of a small butterfly. �Beer for your pretty friend?� he asked.

I scoffed, and pulled my black motorcycle jacket closer, hooked my biker boots onto the metal of the stool.

Betty nodded and wiped at her brow. Took the last slug of her Bud, pushed it forward.

Nick swept it off the counter and replaced it with two more, settling back in front of the television.

�So,� I said, pulling my pack of cigarettes out of my pocket and packing it, hard, into my left hand. It helped me think. �Your daughter disappeared a month ago?�

Betty nodded. �Yes! And she�s sixteen, and a good girl. She doesn�t do nothing but stay at home and do her homework.�

�You said though that you suspected her friend... Macina Begay, she might know more than she�s saying?�

�Yeah, I told her to get that Macina out of her life. She�s a bad influence. I smelled alcohol on her breath more than once.� Betty sat back, crossed her arms over her chest.

�Huh.� I�d heard this kind of thing before. Mom sure that her girl was an angel being dragged down by some devilish friend. Turns out, it�s the other way around, but the parent just doesn�t want to see it. I�d been making some calls on my way up. Her girl � Jonnie � liked to party.

�I made some calls � school, where you said she likes to hang out. There�s been an older gentleman hanging around her, you know that?� I asked.

She sucked in breath. Then, �No.�

�You think of anyone that could be?�

She went silent, her dark green eyes moving rapidly. �My brother, he lives with us, he says he got some weird phone calls while I been at work. Says he don�t know for sure, but he thinks it�s my ex.�

�Why he think that?� I took a swig of my beer, wishing it was whiskey. I�d had a breakup of sorts a few days ago, and though it was another in a string of married men, this one had stung a little. More than a little.

�He says he can feel it. They were tight, back in the day.�

�Go on.�

�He picks up, it�s nothing but silence, then whoever it is hangs up.�

�You don�t think this is your daughter?�

�Started happening before Jonnie went missing.� She finished her beer in one quick swallow and sighed, heavy. I could tell she wanted another but was embarrassed to drink more in front of me. I ordered a whiskey for myself, a beer for her.

�You didn�t think to bring this up to me on the phone?� I asked, unhooking my boots.

�Well, I didn�t because there ain�t no proof. It�s just something my brother thinks. But then again,� she said, squinting, �it would be just like my ex. George Labont. He grew up near me, near the Fond du Lac rez, where my grandparents were from. When I was pregnant with Jonnie, George kept saying he couldn�t handle taking care of a kid, but he couldn�t handle not being in its life. He went on like that, getting drunk and disappearing for days, until finally he was gone for good. I�m lucky I had my brother, Michael. Would�ve been lost without him.�

�You mind if I ask your brother? What�s his last name?�

�Michael. Michael Cloud.� She peeled the label off the beer with a dark-brown finger.

�Mind if I ask Michael some questions?�

�Sure. Here�s his number.� She wrote it on a cocktail napkin. �He and Jonnie were close � been like a dad to her. He�s all broken up about it, says he wants to do anything to help.�

�Email me anything you got on your ex. Any pictures, old letters, anything. I�ll figure out if he�s back in town.�

�I bet it is him,� she said. �He was so screwed up. Maybe he kidnapped her. That bastard.� The shadow of old wounds gathered in her eyes.

�I�ll find out,� I said, not bothering to argue with her.

She dried her eyes, thanked me again, and I left her to drink alone. The White Horse was just my kind of bar, with its old booths, red-glassed chandeliers over aging pool tables, and various pictures of 1970s-style white horses everywhere, but I could tell she needed her space.

So did I.

Thing was, I already had a lead. A strong one.

And shit, I needed a smoke.

I live on a lake on the west side of Denver. Sloan�s. Three miles around with an island in the middle. I live in a small 1950s blond-brick ranch house whose walls are cracking because the water table is high and there is a stream running through my crawl space. But I wouldn�t trade it. I look out the window and I see grass, water, trees, mountains. The long escarpment of the Continental Divide. I�m really in the middle of a city but it doesn�t seem that way.

I am a novelist, with a lot of free time and not a ton of direction. I mean, I write. I drink coffee, and I spend a lot of my day outside. My debut thriller was a surprise best seller. I wrote it after I got fired from my job as editor of a national gym equipment trade magazine, where I�d been spending way too much time fantasizing about the ways I would kill the association�s communications director � a treadmill gone haywire was one of the most satisfying. Anyway, the book took off, but the three novels since have notched steadily diminishing sales. I am sensing that my publisher and I are about to part ways.

Kara is a pharmacist who works ten-hour shifts, so we try to see each other for coffee in the morning and at dinner.

I love where I live but here�s a confession: I have never really known what I was supposed to do in my life. Or whom I should listen to. Should I listen to myself? I always seemed to get in trouble that way. It seemed I could aim higher. God? How do you do it? I have tried praying, but I never get a clear message back. My wife? My friend Ted, who is a cop? Good compromises, but I noticed that when I listen to other people all the time, I begin to lose whatever sense of true north I still possess.

This not knowing is a little like tinnitus, a ringing in the ears that never ceases. I can still function and nobody knows I live with a constant drone, but... how clear and relaxed would life be without it? I discovered long ago that the best balm is to be outside and be physical. For a little while I forget.

What I do is: I carry my paddleboard across two hundred yards of grass and I launch where there is a gap in the willows and they have dug granite blocks into the bank and they make two high steps which are also great to sit on. I used to paddle in the evening. There are always a lot of birds � ducks and geese on the water, pelicans in summer, osprey hunting � but I got tired of the motorboats with wakeboarders kicking up waves and all the strollers on the bike path which follows the shore. Also there is a homeless couple under the pedestrian bridge at the lake�s outlet and sometimes they fight and yell. I have seen him strike her with a closed fist more than once, and seen her buckle and lie on the rocks sobbing. I called the cops twice. I saw an officer I recognized on the bike path later and he said she never talks, never testifies, always goes back to the man. Then I didn�t see her anymore.

I like it more quiet. So I started going in the morning. Motorheads tend to be partiers. They�re always blasting music as they tear by, and holding up plastic cups which I�d bet money are not filled with Hawaiian Punch, and so I imagine they are hungover a lot and they tend to sleep in. In the morning, except for the early dog walkers and joggers, I mostly have the lake to myself. Me, the muskrats carving their quiet wakes, the birds. I love it out there. As soon as I step on the paddleboard and am buoyant and free of the shore, all the normal, pedestrian laws of nature fall away and are replaced by a different rhythm, a different sense of gravity. And somehow I forget that I don�t know what I am supposed to do.

And I began to go earlier and earlier. Just at daybreak, when the sky is a crimson flush behind the Dickensian brick chimneys of the middle school; then I really am alone. There might be one or two runners. But if I go even earlier, in the dark, there is no one.

I walk across. Say it�s June. The dew on the grass wets my toes and I hear a night heron croaking on the shore and smell the sediment in the water. The water will be icy from the snowmelt in the tiny creek that flows under the pedestrian bridge at the west end, and as I get closer I can feel the chill. Most of the water in the lake, though, comes from a spring. That�s the legend. The legend is that this was farmland back in the 1800s and the farmer came out to dig a well and hit an artesian gusher and in a few days his cornfield was gone and he had a lake. Maybe it�s true. I like the idea. I like the idea that the lake bore herself into this world and that below the surface calm is a powerful animus of self-expression.

I push through the gap in the willow thicket and sit on the granite boulder. I let the short paddleboard rest on the ground beside me. The heron has ceased, but a redwing blackbird wheezes from a nest somewhere in the branches. No moon, good. Oh, there is one, a slender crescent hanging like a sinking boat over the jaws of the Divide, sallow and lost. Lights along the bike path on the other side of the lake, maybe a quarter mile across, but no movement. I can tell the water is very still and smooth because the ropes of light that extend across barely waver. The murmur of a duck, somewhere close. Are those shadows geese? Probably. They drift without sound. No pale shapes of the white pelicans that migrate here every summer to breed; they must be bedded down on the little island. I breathe. The lake breathes. It seems the wet silt and stone and algae at my feet, and the expanse of dark water, all exhale and I inhale them in. In this way we exchange breath. In this way I gain a little strength...

The only problem with going so early is that I miss Kara for our morning coffee. After a few days I got a note: I don�t know what�s gotten into you. All your spare time is on the damn lake! Miss you. XO. After a few more days she seemed angry when we met at night. She wouldn�t talk about it. I guess I was going out in the evenings too, and had missed a couple of dinners. She rolled away from me in bed when I tried to touch her.

Well, the lake is dependable. She always floats and rocks me, always has something new to say. If there is a wind before sunset and I paddle into it she sprays me happily as I hit each little whitecap. If there is a fog at dawn she embraces and covers me. Always.

Why is there fog? It was June, as I said. The nights were still cold but the water should have been colder. Makes no sense. But why would I ask? I love to get lost in it.

So that first morning of thick fog, I was alone at dawn, happily paddling blind. I felt disembodied in the mist as if I were paddling through outer space with no real up or down, and the fog parted a little before me, and on the glass of dark water there was a sudden suffusion, a glow, and then I clearly saw a man reclined, bearded, under... under a bridge. The picture pulsed once and was replaced by a figure, the same man, striking and striking a woman, until she buckled and fell. And then, like the shadow of a sudden cloud, the black water coalesced into kind of a cloak and blotted out the man.

I must not have been breathing then. I was shocked that a life might end with the toss of a cloak. That it should end. The image on the water looked exactly like the homeless man who slept under the bridge at the east end. For the first time in my life I knew exactly what I was supposed to do.

There are two bars in my neighborhood that aren�t terrible. Aren�t full of hipsters and liars, mostly lying to themselves but still not worth the goddamn words you�re wasting on them. I always walk to the bars, right up Broadway. If you can�t walk to the bar you shouldn�t go because you shouldn�t drive drunk. And if you�re at a bar and you�re not drunk, what the fuck are you doing? I mean, just what the fuck are you doing? I know what I�m doing and it�s not wasting my time in bars I haven�t been in before and driving around drunk. Jesus Christ.

Black Crown and BJ�s Carousel. One�s pretending to be new and going to die soon, and one�s old and dies next week. Even South Broadway is on the slate to get overrun by dog-loving craft beer drinkers, but you can still find pockets where you can get a good gay pour. But two bars, that�s where I go. Alternate nights. They�re both full of queens but they leave me alone. What the hell would they do with a drunk old lesbian?

In Denver there�s the Detour for lesbians, but I wouldn�t be caught dead there. Christ no. The only thing worse than all the queers in my bars are the dykes at the Detour. Washed-up assholes who think they�re tough, but what a bunch of pretenders. Used to be right on Colfax and ten years ago when I lived on Capitol Hill I�d drink there. I moved sometime around 9/11 and so did they. Now it�s to hell and gone all the way out on West Colfax. Shit. If I walked out there I�d be dead by morning.

Now as soon as I say this, of course, I get a call from Jackie. I�m sitting at home minding my own, but she�s all fired up about it being Friday night at the Detour because they�re going to have a draaag show. Not a drag show, but a draaag show, she says, because she�s excited. It�s kings, though, she says. Kings! What the fuck am I going to do with a woman dressed up like a man? Jesus Christ, now the baby dykes pretend to be men to get attention. I spend the best fifty years of my life trying to get it through our thick heads that men aren�t role models, and this is what it comes to.

But I never could do anything about Jackie. She�s a magpie and there�s always something sparkling somewhere. Used to be me, but Christ, that�s been a decade or more.

�Kings!� she proclaims. �Cheryl, you�ll love it. I know you will. They�re just so handsome. And they lip-sync, dance around, you know. The music is wonderful. Like drag queens��

�What the fuck business do I have with any of it? And I assume the gestapo is still up our ass about smoking inside. Do these kings do their thing on the patio? No? Then fuck off.�

�I�ll give you a ride,� Jackie replies, because she doesn�t know how to listen. No one knows how to listen. �I don�t drink anymore, you know, but I�m just so excited for the show.�

�No. You don�t drink anymore, and you can�t stop telling me about it. Now you smoke that damn douche flute, and I can�t stand it. Why the hell do you want to suck strawberry weed out of a mini dildo? Jesus Christ, Jackie.�

�Well, you�re clearly drunk, but it�s no use arguing about it. Eat something and I�ll come by and pick you up in a couple hours. I want you to come, Cheryl. It�ll be fun.�

Katy Cutler�s neatly trimmed right eyebrow arched like the top curve on a question mark.

�When I imagine private investigators, I picture them on long stakeouts, sitting in their cars eating greasy sandwiches out of paper bags. So perhaps you never��

�That�s kind of a movie-type clich�.� Wayne Furlong swallowed hard. He hoped she didn�t press the question. �Trope, I guess. Never quite sure of the difference.�

�The point is, we can�t afford to let this linger,� said Cutler. �The only ones who want to book a room in the hotel are the podcasters and amateur snoopers who treat murder cases like a ghoulish hobby. The wannabe investigators. The pseudo journalists. The sickos. Business is bad enough. The pandemic, of course, whipped our ass.�

�And most restaurants.�

Cutler, the general manager for the hotel and its embedded restaurant, shook her head in a sad combination of disgust and dismay. It had been two years since the pandemic put the economy on ice and one year since the return to �normal� began, albeit at a lethargic pace. �We started off even worse. Right before 2020, we got clobbered by a bad review. Vicious. And then all the others piled on too. Like jackals on a dead antelope.�

�I�m more than willing to look into it, but��

�But what?�

Cutler slumped against the leather of the high-backed booth inside Tang. The sensational murder had played out fourteen floors above, in the steel-and-glass obelisk hotel known as The Grange. Tang�s brutal critique had been delivered by restaurant blogger Timothy Powers. For two decades, Powers had served as a scourge to fine dining establishments across Metro Denver, with the occasional whack at swank pompous eateries in mountain villages too. Powers was a nom de food. When the newspaper industry shrank like a boiled chicken, Powers agreed to a buyout and took up work as a PI with his given name, Wayne Furlong. But Timothy Powers never stopped writing restaurant reviews. It was his gift to the universe. One well-protected anonymous blog page. One Instagram account with 45,000 followers. To Furlong/Powers, saving the masses from overpriced and artless cuisine was as important as helping wives nail cheating husbands or, every now and then, assisting in a murder case.

In fact, Furlong/Powers at that moment was sitting in the same booth where he had dined during one of three visits he made to confirm the fact that Tang was tasteless.

�But I�m not terribly optimistic about finding something, given all the scrutiny to date.� If Cutler had video surveillance of her austere dining room, as inviting as a Turkish prison, she could have spotted Furlong�s sizable frame on repeat visits and noticed that he had sent main courses back on the first two occasions and quietly shoved the contents of meal number three into a paper bag for further postmortem of the crisis-level m�lange back in his modest home kitchen. Except Cutler would have to see through a few disguises to spot the repeat customer. Thick glasses. A change of clothes. A hat. Etcetera.

�Glendale police,� said Furlong. �They brought in Denver police too. And the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. And all the reporters who��

�Reporters.� Cutler hissed it. She sat back up. �Leaches. Nosy fuckers.�

�Well, I��

�You can�t really think a reporter can solve a crime like this, do you?�

�Not necessarily, but asking the right questions��

�Oh, please,� said Cutler. �That�s like a mystery writer�s wet dream.�

At fifty-two, Katy Cutler was feisty. Furlong liked her edge. But, like the food at Tang, she was overly complex. Too many bracelets on one wrist, a tattoo of a fork on the other. Severely tweezed eyebrows. Chunky mascara. One thin gold necklace weighed down by a heart-shaped emerald stone that rested on her bony sternum and dared anyone to ponder the plunge in her neckline. When she had greeted him at first, the word stork popped into his head, given her height and angularity. She had a birdlike manner of shifting her head around, looking at him from different angles.

�Whether a reporter or a PI,� said Furlong, �it seems to me that all the questions have been asked. Asked and answered, as the lawyers say. Someone is lying. Goes without saying, even though I just did.�

Furlong caught a whiff of bleachy cleanser, not one of his favorite restaurant aromas. He glanced down at the white tablecloth and noticed a faint purple smear where a blueberry had once lost its life. Tang had just opened for lunch, yet an elderly couple in a booth across the way were turning to statues while waiting for a server to greet them. Not much had changed, despite the Powers savage review, which had been titled �Junk Feed: Tang Flat.�

�Podcasts too,� said Furlong. �One seven-part series already. I mean, going to the trouble of hiring actors.�

�And another producer came sniffing around last week.� Cutler shook her head, turned her mouth down in disgust, as if she had just had a bite of Tang�s indigestible matelote, with its chewy eel. �We politely told them to take their microphone and go, well, interview themselves. Though interview might have been a different verb.�

�Noted.� Furlong smiled. �It�s been seven or eight months of relative quiet in the media, especially once they got that first-year-anniversary story out of the way. Why now?�

�I want you to find the killer. That�s all.�

�What�s your theory?�

�The only one that makes sense.�

�The only one that makes sense,� said Furlong, �except for the superb alibi?�

�That one,� said Cutler. �Tyler Hyde. Golden boy. Ken Doll of the spreadsheets, I called him. Right? Nothing else makes sense, yet of course we are bound to look elsewhere. Right? If we want closure.�

�Bit of an elusive concept,� said Furlong. �Don�t you think?�

Cutler gave it some thought. �Not so sure. This is a whole different animal.�

I didn�t give it a second thought when the young white man was shot outside Gaetano�s at Tejon and Thirty-eighth. Way I saw it, that wasn�t news. People been shot in the Northside for years, didn�t matter that the Chicano barrio was quickly turning into something else, something whiter, something with more money.

I figured the dead guy was new to the neighborhood, part of what Petey, my cousin who went to college, said was gentrification, and that he�d crossed the wrong homeboy. Most of the time I didn�t understand Petey and this was one of those times. All I knew was that the Northside was changing, and white people were buying up houses, tearing them down, and building two or three ugly boxes on lots where gente like my Aunt Julia had lived in one house for fifty years and more, and where she�d raised five children, four cats, and about a dozen parakeets.

Some of us natives stayed, we weren�t totally gone, but no denying it was different. For years, brown had outnumbered white on the Northside, but now raza was back to being a minority. I didn�t recognize the old hood, and I felt like a stranger in my hometown.

Change ain�t never easy, conflict and drama and that kind of bullshit, and even I�d tangled with a couple of the newcomers stepping out of one of the remodeled breweries after last call over on Thirty-second. The drunks were loud and rude and belligerent, and it looked like it was chingasos time until Petey stepped in, risking his pretty face, and calmed down me and the two bearded jerks.

The guy who crashed through Gaetano�s plate-glass window must�ve tried too hard to win the argument, and without Petey�s negotiation skills in play, it wasn�t hard to imagine that the situation spiraled out of control until someone said, Hell with it, and concluded that only a bullet through the throat could end the conversation.

Like I mentioned, I didn�t give it much thought. I�d learned long ago to mind my own fucking business. Not that I wanted to intrude. Not my style. Not anything I needed. I didn�t mingle with young white boys or old-school bangers with guns. But when a second young white guy was shot a week later, this time coming out of Chubby�s with a beef-and-bean special in his hand, I admit it gave me pause. It looked like someone had declared war on gentrification, and odds were that I knew that someone. I�d probably gone to Horace Mann Middle School with the dude, and if he hadn�t dropped out or checked into juvie or knocked up some shorty and was hiding out from her old man, we might�ve sat in the same row of desks in Mrs. Calabrese�s history class at North High.

The second shooting caught everyone�s attention. �The Denver Shooter� became the hot topic at family dinners or when we watched the Broncos games. Old friends I ran into had wild opinions and speculations about the killer, and radio talk show hosts spewed even wilder conspiracy theories meant to explain the shooter. I never brought up any of my own ideas. My thinking got as far as a crazy dude with a gun, which, in my experience, was all anyone really needed to know.

TV news reporters flocked to the area, where they waited to interview people coming out of bars and restaurants in what they called the Highlands and LoHi � what we called the Northside. I heard one of the reporters talk about rising tensions, community town halls, and city council debates, and then ask a smiling couple pushing a baby carriage if they felt safe walking the streets of their new hometown. They kind of giggled and shuffled their feet and then they said, �Of course� � what else could they say, right? No way they wanted their mama and papa back in Chicago or their friends in Boston to think they�d made a mistake moving to a million-dollar house in Denver. So, hell no, they weren�t afraid.

They were lying, obviously. Shit, there�d been plenty of nights in the past when I felt anything but safe on the Northside streets, and I was born here. Downright vulnerable, truth be told. Looking over my shoulder, checking out everyone cruising. And that was way before any so-called gentrification. On the other hand, I wasn�t all that uptight about what was going down. After all, I didn�t fit the victim profile, right? Know what I�m saying?

I asked Petey about the shootings one Saturday afternoon when we were stretched out at his house, drinking beer, snacking on Taco Bell nachos and conchas from Panader�a Rosales.

�It�s crazy, no doubt,� he said. �Could develop into a mini race war if one of the hipsters returns fire, or just shoots the first Mexican he runs into, because he�s lost his cool, his mindfulness, like they say. Everyone thinks the shooter must be a Latino.�

�Always that way. That�s what I think, truth be told.�

Petey smiled in that way he had that made me nervous. �And you got no real reason for thinking that, right?�

I squirmed in my seat. Sometimes talking with Petey was complicated. I hadn�t learned how to outargue him, and he�d been in debate mode since the second grade. �I�m just saying that odds are that the shooter�s someone you and I probably know. That�s all.�

�Yeah, I get it,� he said. �Nothing changes. But what�s worse is that it�s stirred up the cops.� Petey talked between mouthfuls of beer and soggy tortilla chips. �That always means trouble for everyone but the troublemakers.�

�That can�t be good. There�s more patrols around here, for sure.�

Petey nodded. �Two skinny white boys get pegged and the blue army invades. Used to be that a Mexican kid was getting shot every other day and there wasn�t a cop anywhere within five miles of the Northside.�

�Yeah, like when the Inca Boys and the Northside Mafia were gunning for each other. Shit, I was in La Raza Park the night they lit it up with automatics and shotguns. I hid under a park bench like a punk. Not a cop in sight until the shooting stopped and Dogface had cashed out.�

�And Pony Boy ended up in a wheelchair.� Petey paused. Pony Boy had been his best friend when they were kids. He hadn�t seen him in years.

�Ah, the good old days,� I said, like a wiseass.

�Shit. You crazy, man.�

The dogs heard me coming before I could see them in the dark. Rex and Terror, my dad�s hunting dogs, a pair of black Labs. He�d raised them from pups, loved them like children; they were the only creatures around here he never hit.

The Labs roused themselves in the dog run and shook off the night�s chill � the sound of their feet padding on concrete guided me as I edged my way forward. I was moving from memory so I wouldn�t need a light. Fifteen steps from my window to the dog run with a slight angle west to reach the gate.

My fingers clasped the latch and lifted it. My heart was thunder in my chest, banging out, Run, run, run! But I eased through the gate and patted the dogs� rough fur, felt their noses warm and moist in my cupped hands. I fed them from the bag in the shed and knelt to whisper into their ears how much I�d miss them.

I�d thought about taking Terror with me. He was younger than Rex. Tougher. But if I took my dad�s dog, then he�d sure as hell come after me.

When I let myself out of the run, the dogs crowded after me, whining as I closed the gate. I wondered if they would miss me. I wondered if I�d see them again.

Seventeen steps to the side of the house. I was halfway there when the world turned a velvety gray, the stars morphing from diamonds to pearls. The house and the fence and the trees took form like a fade-in on a movie screen.

I picked up my pace. But as I cut around the side of the house and jogged past the porch, Mom called out softly, �Persephone.�

My name in her mouth was as soft as the rustle of silk. But it might as well have been a fist.

I stopped.

�Mom.� I hung my head so that my hair covered my face. I hadn�t wanted her to know I was leaving until I was long gone. So that he couldn�t ask her about it. So that she wouldn�t have to lie.

More than anything, I was afraid she�d ask me to stay. Because if she asked, I would. Which meant I�d never get either of us away from here. I�d disappear into the chaos of our home like wood surrendering to flame.

But Mom said, �I�m glad you�re going, Seph. Truly.�

I raised my head. She was on her feet on the porch, a white blanket around her shoulders. She hadn�t turned on any lights; all I could see in the spreading dawn was the swollen left side of her face, the mark of his hand still on her cheek. Last night, Dad�s rage had been a cyclone.

My eyes burned. �It�s not for long, Mom. Six months tops. I�ll have enough money saved by then. I�ll come back for you and we�ll��

�Stop.� Her gait had a sideways hitch as she hobbled to the top of the stairs. �Just promise me you�ll take care.�

�I will.� The knife�s leather sheath pressed hard against my ankle.

�You know how much I love you, right?�

�I know.�

�Don�t forget it. Now go. I�m just going to stand here and watch my last child walk away.�

�Six months,� I said again. Then I turned my back on the house and her and once I was walking, I walked fast, staying in the weeds and out of the gravel on the long lane that led to the road, avoiding even that small sound. I turned back once, but though the world was brighter, the ranch house was nothing but angled darkness.

Mom was a mere patch of white.

�Gota.�

Rogelio heard the whisper from his threadbare blue recliner, drowsy brown eyes opening to the feel of goose bumps creeping up his legs. The bedroom he shared with his second-youngest brother was vacant, save himself, as the whole two-story brick house should�ve been despite the rustling in the hall. He leaned forward, straining to listen, looking at his watch.

Only five minutes past nine.

His trim black eyebrows knit together. His mother, father, sister, brothers, aunt, uncle, and cousins should all be at Mass, praying with the rest of the parish that continued to gather. He couldn�t bring himself to go with them, a hesitance that boiled into heated arguments with his mother. No matter how much she guilted him, he couldn�t be persuaded into stepping foot inside another cat�lica after Archbishop Casey had every priest in Denver tell its people to vote for the bond that robbed Rogelio of his home.

La alma de la comunidad, that�s what St. Cajetan�s was. And still those pillos used her to undercut their fight. The city would�ve torn the church down too if his people hadn�t managed to save it, something they couldn�t do for their own homes and businesses. He could still hear Father Garcia reading the archbishop�s letter. His chest burned, words cutting, mind reeling through confirmations, weddings, funerals, Easters, Christmases, all the life lived in and around that church.

�Gota.� Footfalls followed the voice that he couldn�t believe was speaking. Hot sunlight made the back of Rogelio�s head and neck itch, sweat. He tried to steady his breath, heart knocking against teeth, nails tearing into armrests.

�Dame una gota.�

He didn�t understand what the whistling voice was asking for. A drop? A drop of what? His eyes widened when a shadow darkened the lip of his door.

Light, insistent knocking. �R�o.�

��Qu-qui�n es?� Stupid question. Only one person shortened his name like that.

The bookcase by the door, dressers, bunk beds, the coffee table by his feet, they all rattled. A ringing in his head grew unbearably loud. When tunnel vision set in, he squeezed his eyes shut.

Loose black hair and braids cascading over shoulders, red lips curved up, brown skin creasing around dark, friendly eyes. He saw her standing outside his door, wearing la falda roja he loved to climb into so he could play with silver necklaces that dipped under the collar of white peasant blouses. Bangles on her wrist chimed as she reached forward.

The doorknob turned. The bedroom door creaked. His eyelids peeled back, and R�o stared, chest heaving, sweat pouring down his temples. At the threshold of the hallway, past his now open door, lay scattered pictures, a smattering of white feathers trailing from them, across his floor and into his lap.

He shot up, walked into the hall.

Every photograph at his feet was of her and him, his gaze landing on one with his younger, little body balanced on her hip outside the family home that had stood two blocks west of St. Cajetan�s. The Auraria home was now broken beams and rubble, lost two months after they lowered her body into the ground.

Tears beaded at the corners of his eyes. Heat in his face, down his throat, into his belly. �I�m angry about it too.� He wiped his cheeks. �No se que hacer.�

�Dame una gota.�

The sound of running followed the whisper this time, chills rushing down his spine. He grabbed the picture, chased after the footsteps until he rounded a corner. The chain was swinging from the ceiling. He took a deep breath and pulled, stairs to the attic lowering with one smooth yank. His feet clattered up worn, hollow steps and pattered across the gray planks he swept once his family moved out of public housing and into this place by Lincoln Park. They somehow managed to buy it after scrimping and saving when the city underpaid them for their former home.

A breeze swept past his face, rustling the hem of the white tablecloth he�d laid over the wooden table he�d waxed himself. The altar was coming together, albeit slowly, with R�o decorating it privately during the days leading up to D�a de los Muertos. She was the one who�d taught him how to prepare, how to honor and to celebrate. A woman standing in and out of time, she chose to reclaim traditions lost to their family. She was proud of what others said she should let go, held her head high when they saw her difference. He loved how she commanded respect, even if people scorned her for what she held sacred.

In the end, who did they seek when they were sick? La bruja. La curandera.

Her red lips curved into a knowing grin when they returned to her and their people�s wisdom.

R�o dug into his pockets, found a lighter and a plastic-wrapped disc of marzipan candy. His heart slowed when he peeled the powdery round free and set la ofrenda on her favorite porcelain dish. His fingers traced the raised, painted roses and green stems running the dish�s rim, his other hand lighting the tallest of the white candles on the table. Rogelio set down the photo he�d brought from the hall, propped it against the candle as it burned. His feet backpedaled until they hit the legs of the fold-out chair he�d taken from Casa Mayan after it closed. The metal creaked under his weight.

He already had her picture centered on the second level of the altar; he had painted the frame gold two nights ago. The metallic sheen glistened in the flame and in the speckled sunlight peeking through the attic�s shuttered, round window. Resting over the purple, red, pinks, and blues of el papel picado he�d crafted, the tissue paper created a colorful skirt under her face.

He was missing several things. His anger toward the church made it difficult to place the saints and crucifixes on the top level. He would wait until the night before D�a de los Muertos to put them up, leaving those supplies covered and stacked beside his chair. Her small plot of marigolds lay wasted under the rubble of the neighborhood. R�o wasn�t sure if he would be able to buy any, with how tight money was. Same with copal.

But as he sat there in the dim light, it didn�t feel like she minded.

He wrapped anxious hands around knees. How the days dragged on without her. His father always kidded about how much he was like her, not understanding how true that really was.

�T�a Paloma,� R�o�s soft voice floated onto the altar, stroked her picture, held up el dulce de cacahuate.

The house creaked and moaned.

�I�m listening, T�a.�

The white tablecloth billowed. He felt the cool breeze cutting through space like a knife, whirling around the tall white candle, red-orange flame dancing, R�o feeling a heat spread across his cheeks as the fire brightened. Footsteps creaked toward him, slow, deliberate, heavy. The candlelight changed direction, spotlighting the house in the picture of R�o and T�a Paloma until it felt like the fire was burning inside the windows.

And then he felt it, someone in front of him, the air dense and unmoving. Cold swept over his body like a hug, pushed him deeper into the metal of the fold-out chair. His vision blurred.

Blood in the streets. Blood in the ground.

He stood amid the rubble of the Auraria neighborhood dressed in a red skirt, huipil, and shawl, holding her hand, staring at the shape of the house they still saw silhouetted against moonlight.

She whispered in his ear and let go.

R�o opened his eyes when he heard the front door open, not realizing hours had passed since he sat down. His family poured inside, bodies filling the two floors below him. Laughing, singsong voices swam into brick walls and ceilings. Bedroom doors swung open. Closets peeled back to receive dress shirts, pants, and skirts. Pans and cutting boards clattered in the kitchen, and soon he heard his mother calling for help with Sunday�s meal.

The candles on the altar had gone out. He sat in the dark, watching speckled sunlight fall on the photograph of his little smiling self in front of his home.

�Rogelio,� his father called from the base of the attic stairs.

He stood up, body heavy and relaxed.

�Rogelio, will you come?�

He strode across the floor. Before taking a step down, he glanced over his shoulder, eyes peering at the dark shape of T�a Paloma�s framed photo. �I�ll be right there,� R�o said with a smile. �I�m coming.�

All he wanted to play was jazz, and to one day play trumpet to the First Lady of Song�s voice. So when the Miss Ella Fitzgerald walked into the Silver Sax one chilly November night in 1956, Morgan could hardly believe his dream might come true.

It was half past midnight, and the night was still young. Morgan swayed on stage, blowing a hypnotic tune on his trumpet and swinging with the rest of the fellows in the Sax�s house band. Along with his brass, piano and drums, alto and bass, jamming and jiving, thumping and thriving, just another weekend night down in The Points. The Harlem of the West. Welton Street in Denver was your last stop for jazz between St. Louis and California. And Morgan felt electric.

In between songs, Morgan pulled the yellow silk handkerchief from his tan cotton jacket, the best thing about his Sunday suit, and wiped the sweat from his face. Despite the cold outside, the room was sultry and thick with heat and tribal jubilations. Smoke and the aroma of beer hung in the air like fog after a snowstorm.

A smattering of couples sat at the round tables before the bandstand. Men in snazzy suits with carefully knotted ties, ladies in lovely dresses with strings of pearls, talking, laughing, taking sips from glasses of fancy cocktails or bottles of beer. Cigarettes perched on the edge of ashtrays or clasped between fingers, periodic drags producing tendrils of blue haze past parted lips.

A commotion broke out at the entrance, and people craned their necks to see what was happening. One of the bar girls hurried over to where the club�s owner, Charles, spoke with the bartender. He lowered his head so she could put a hand to his ear. Charles�s head snapped up, an incredulous look on his face. He peered over her shoulder as a statuesque woman walked in wearing her quintessential Edwards-Lowell sable coat. Charles rushed over to take it off her shoulders. They exchanged an enthusiastic greeting and hug. The buzz of voices in the club rose in pitch and volume, and Morgan knew what folks were saying without hearing their words.

That was the First Lady, and she had honored the Silver Sax with her presence.

Morgan�s ring finger paused midkey and his horn drifted from his lips. The note he blew hung in the air for the briefest of moments before vanishing from the ether. One by one his bandmates ceased playing.

Any of the greats could have walked into the joint, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday, but tonight it was Lady Ella herself. The woman who took her vocal cues from the horns and made them her own. The woman who Morgan had listened to all his life and dreamed of meeting. The woman who now elicited a silence in the Silver Sax so deep, it commanded spiritual deference.

After an eternal moment, Miss Fitzgerald said, �Don�t stop on my behalf, boys. Keep playing.� Her voice irresistible and smooth. Her smile irrepressible and kind.

Morgan brought his trumpet back to his lips and picked up the notes he�d dropped off. The rest of the fellows followed his lead. There was a new energy flowing in and out of the club until the place burst at the seams with all the people suddenly pouring in.

Word was getting around... Lady Ella was in the Silver Sax.

In all likelihood, she had performed at one of the fancier venues downtown. As famous and revered as she was, however, even she was not allowed to stay in the hotels there. Denver was as segregated as any city down south. Tonight, she would be staying at the Rossonian here in The Points, where all the jazz royalty were welcomed with open arms.

Charles escorted Ella to the high-back cushioned booth seating running the length of the south wall. He instructed the staff to block off the seats around them so Ella wouldn�t be disturbed.

Morgan blew into his horn and his fingers trembled as he pressed down, up, down along the valves. Goose bumps took over his body, knowing Ella was listening to him, and he tried not to stare.

Charles and Ella chatted intently; their heads bowed together. At one point, Charles pointed to the stage, and Ella nodded with a discerning gaze. Her glossy, high-wave bouffant shimmered in the glow from the wall sconce above her head.

When Morgan and the band finished their last song before taking their fifteen-minute break, Charles rose from the table and approached the stage. To Morgan, he said, �Ella likes your chops. I told her you�re Milton�s boy. Me and your father played a couple of times with Ella back in Harlem.�

Morgan knew this. Charles had told him stories on more than one occasion about the jazz greats he and Morgan�s dad had jammed with. It was one of the reasons he wanted to be good as � no, better than � his dad. Morgan not only wanted to play a song with the Queen of Jazz, he wanted to be first trumpet in her band.

Charles beamed as if he were Morgan�s father. �Ella is going to grace us with a song tonight.� He leaned in so that only Morgan could hear. �I also heard she might be in the market for a new trumpet player, so show her what you�re really made of, son.� Charles winked.

Morgan�s knees almost buckled, and he gripped his brass for emotional support. He couldn�t believe it.

�Okay, boys, let�s do this.� Charles clapped his hands and bustled back to the table.

Morgan�s pulse raced through his veins, and he reached under his jacket to pull away the sweaty shirt from his skin.

Tommy grinned from ear to ear. He played multiple instruments, but the saxophone was his baby. �Man, what a night this is turning out to be.�

Ray, on bass, intoned as only an old man could, �Did I ever tell you about the time I got to play with Billie Holiday and she��

�Yes!� they all chimed together, hooting with laughter.

Ray grumbled, �...young think they know everything.� He chomped on his cigar.

Heart thrumming, Morgan took a deep breath, brought his horn to his lips, but then lowered it. He needed to be smokin� tonight, because he had only one shot to impress the Lady and be invited to play in her band. One clunker and he was finished. There were too many other cats out there who would swoop in and snatch the prize.

Someone brought the microphone and set it out front.

Larry, the bartender, made his way over to Charles and spoke in his ear. Another whispered conversation, but this time the expression on Charles�s face changed from anticipation and pride to shock. He looked right at Morgan. He took a deep breath and marched forward. The solemnity on his face a frozen mask.

Morgan�s heart sped up to a staccato beat. Was Charles going to pull him from the set to put someone in with more experience? Nothing doing! He was going to play his trumpet for Miss Fitzgerald if it was the last thing he did.

�Morgan, I�ve got something to tell you.�

Morgan shook his head. �No, you�re not taking my chance. I have been waiting for something like this all my life.�

�Your Aunt Beatrice called. You�re needed at the hospital.�

Morgan furrowed his brow and shook his head. �I don�t believe you.� He turned away from Charles.

But Charles jumped onto the bandstand and grabbed Morgan�s shoulder. �Son, your mother had a heart attack. She�s dying.�

For a second, a horrible-terrible-Lord-please-forgive-me second, Morgan didn�t care. He looked around the stage and out at the full house. All those people waiting to hear Lady Ella, and he, Morgan Marshall, was going to play his trumpet with her. A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to distinguish himself, not live under the shadow of his father, and possibly his only chance to join the Great Lady�s band. He ran a calloused finger over the initials MM etched around the mouthpiece on his trumpet. The engraving originally stood for Milton Marshall, but now it was for Morgan.

He gritted his teeth and pressed, released, and pressed his fingers along the trumpet keys. His throat constricted, and he willed frustrated tears not to appear.

�You going to be all right, son?� Charles gripped Morgan�s shoulder tighter, his eyes shining with sympathy and pity. If anyone knew what Morgan felt right now, it would be Charles. He was the one who�d brought the trumpet to Denver ten years ago, after Morgan�s dad died in Harlem � shot on stage when a fight broke out in the audience. Milton Marshall had been gaining notoriety with his brass in New York and sending money to Rose, Morgan�s mother, every week � until one day, it stopped. Instead, a Mr. Charles Xavier Lewis, saxophonist and best friend to Milton, showed up on their doorstep. He gave Rose the trumpet, but she threw it away, saying, �I always told Milton that he was playing the devil�s horn and one day the devil would collect his due.�

Morgan had fished the horn out of the trash and taught himself to play it. He was ten years old then and had been playing ever since. After all these years, he was finally going to be heard and acknowledged in his own right, and not only as Milton�s boy. People would know him, Morgan Marshall, the best damn jazz trumpeter coming out of Five Points.

A hard freeze of deep, unabiding shame iced his veins. Jesus, what�s wrong with me? All he could think about was himself. His big break, while his mom lay dying, could have already passed away, for all he knew. What kind of selfish son was he?

And yet... was his mom right? Had he been playing the devil�s horn and now the devil was coming to collect his due? But instead of coming for Morgan, the devil was going to take Rose?

No. Morgan wouldn�t allow himself to believe that ridiculous claptrap.

He looked out at the crowd one more time, absorbing the energy. He brought his gaze back to the stage. Miss Fitzgerald conversed with Henry at the piano. A soul-crushing envy squeezed his heart. �Yes, yes, of course, I need to go.�

He jumped down from the stage and shoved his way through the crowd. He glanced back over his shoulder. Miss Fitzgerald had taken hold of the mike and the crowd cheered. The opening rendition of �Dream a Little Dream of Me� filled the room, another trumpet taking the lead. Morgan clenched his jaw. Tommy.

Miss Fitzgerald crooned out the first few lines and her voice followed Morgan onto the street. A bustle of people loitered outside and still, he could hear that voice, and worst of all, the trumpet accompaniment. His fingers played along the keys on the horn in his hand. He closed his eyes for a moment and imagined he was on the stage right now. Right there beside Miss Fitzgerald, and she�d turn her head, giving him an encouraging smile as she sang her words.

The chill wind bit him. He shivered and opened his eyes. He�d forgotten his coat and trumpet case. But he refused to retrieve them. He didn�t want to see the Lady on stage and know he was that close to being up there with her. Instead, he headed south down Welton Street. The snowfall increased, and strands of Miss Fitzgerald�s haunting voice faded behind him.

He strode past the multitude of shops and businesses on Welton, most of them shuttered because the night belonged to the bars, nightclubs, and after-hours joints. Pedestrians flowed around Morgan, bundled up for the cold Colorado weather. Men sported camel coats and overcoats, women were clad in furs and tweed swing coats, and all wore hats from fancy to plain. Nobody paid attention to the forlorn, coatless young man clutching a trumpet.

Morgan reached the corner of Twenty-sixth and Welton. Across the street, a crowd of people stood in line at the entrance to the Rossonian Hotel. Mostly white folks, a lot of them venturing into the area to hear jazz and rub shoulders with the greats. They could afford the cover charge and were let in first. Louis Armstrong, a Five Points favorite, stayed there a few weeks back, and people couldn�t get enough. Morgan didn�t understand what the fuss was about him anyway. Morgan vowed he was going to be even bigger than Armstrong. And he could, if he joined Miss Fitzgerald�s band and made a name for himself.

A Ritz cab drove past, and Morgan let out a loud whistle, flagging it with his free hand. The cab slammed the brakes, sliding in the slush. Morgan jogged over, opened the back door, and jumped inside. To the cabbie, he said, �Denver General.� The vehicle continued south and took him to the hospital, where his mother lay waiting.

The day they found her father�s body, Nithi�s feet moved on their own, carrying her out of her front door and down Louisiana Avenue, toward Washington Park. It was winter, and pale, leafless maple and oak trees twisted toward the sky like bleached bones. Renovated homes alternated with cleared plots of land, the houseless dirt turned up like freshly dug graves.

It�s over, Nithi told herself, it�s all over now. She waited to feel relief, but all she felt was the wind, cold and fierce and lifeless, beating against her cheeks.

I exit the number 12 bus at the corner of Forty-fifth Avenue and Camino de Frida Kahlo. Traffic rumbles above me. I�m under the Mousetrap, an immense concrete confusion straddling Globeville, where Interstates 25 and 70 intersect north of downtown Denver. I take a moment to catch my breath. The air carries a metallic tang and tastes of grit filtering from the rush of trucks and cars on the overpass.

My path is blocked by yellow tape and a battered metal placard: Detour Desv�o. Tire marks from construction equipment crisscross the sidewalk. To my left extends an immense pit where the highway will be broadened. Es el a�o de Nuestro Se�or 2027, and time for the politicians to pay back favors by diverting public money into more �infrastructure.�

I take note of the arrangement of square holes beneath the overpass where the footings for a new foundation will be poured. My gaze continues to the existing interchange. Street legend has it a lot of problems were solved when that part of the highway was built. Snitches and witnesses disappeared, buried beneath thick layers of concrete.

I shrug. Not my concern what happened. Nor what might happen.

In that mysterious way that rumors circulate through the barrio, I got word that Toro needs me, which is why I�m here. I want to hope I know why he summons me, but I know I�m wrong.

I amble north, taking it easy. If I walk too fast, the left side of my chest hitches, constricting my breath.

I pass the parking lot where bolillos queue up to take advantage of today�s specials at Sweet Buds Cannabis. Round the corner, cars, pickups, bums on bicycles wait their turn at the take-out window of Pato�s Liquor Drive-Thru. While the weed store looks as neat and slick as a Starbucks, Pato�s is a cinder-block shack flanked by walls of particle board, the surfaces coated by flaking house paint and tattered posters advertising cheap beer and whiskey. There�s little in my surroundings that isn�t tagged with graffiti. The posts of streetlamps litter the sidewalk like fallen timbers, mowed down by bad drivers.

Across the street stands the city�s latest attempt at solving the area�s crime problem. An electronic billboard cycles through a red X canceling a pistol, bullets transforming into doves, and the message: Stop the shooting! Love one another! The mayor says this billboard is a peace memorial to the victims of gun violence. She calls it �a compelling symbol of hope triumphing over despair, of virtue over lawlessness.�

But ask me and I�ll tell you we have enough symbols.

Every time it rains, this stretch of real estate, from here to Elyria-Swansea, floods like a motherfucker, the way it�s done for years, but the government never gets around to fixing that mess. Dolores Huerta Vocational closed due to lack of funding, which cut short both my GED studies and my chance for a certificate in applied electronics. Drug abatement and rehab counseling also got axed. Fiscal restraint and all that. Yet City Hall managed to cough up two and a half million dollars to shower on the media relations firm that designed this �symbol.�

If you want more irony, here�s some: The local gangster wannabes use the billboard for target practice, and the more brazen they are about it, the better to gain street cred. One chica � all preggers � was strolling past when she got clipped by a ricochet. She not only lost the baby, she wears a colostomy bag for life. Talk about bad luck, ese. So the word around here is, don�t get close to the Peace Memorial or you might get popped by a stray bala.

So why stick around?

Because you can run away to another town but as long as you live among raza, you�ll end up in yet another barrio. Go a thousand miles, it�s really just like you only got up on the other side of bed. The view is a little different but your situation hasn�t changed.

For sure, one way out is the military. Because of the war against terror, which never ends, and a lack of volunteers, the army dropped its recruitment standards so low even someone as rasquache as me is eligible (that is, prestabbing). Uncle Sam dangles all the bennies: steady pay, enlistment bonuses, job training, mierda, mierda, mierda. Of the eight vatos I know personally who signed up, four never returned � meaning they found new lives somewhere else; two did come back in coffins, and one came back covered in burn scars and missing most of the top of his head. That�s Tomas Sada � we used to call him Guapo. You�ll see him out shambling about in his walker, drooling and pissing all over himself.

Then there�s Marco Paz, a drone technician who came back from the Air Force strung out on Modafinix (weapons-grade Adderall that jazzed his brain to work at computer speed) until the morning he stretched his neck across the track of the J-Line light rail. When the cops showed up, they had to chase away the raccoons playing tug-of-war with his severed head. That�s the image I think about every Veterans Day.

This afternoon I keep walking past St. Joseph Polish Catholic Church. Hard to believe the neighborhood was once home to Poles, Russians, and Slavs. Then the Italians came, followed by us gente. Actually, we were always here, but back then we didn�t count.

Funny name for a place, Globeville. This misshapen plot of land abuts the South Platte River (what Mark Twain once called a �yellow trickle�) and was named after a smelter. I wipe my nose, mindful of all the crap the government keeps finding in the soil. Cadmium, zinc, arsenic, lead. Don�t eat from vegetable gardens. If the air smells bad, don�t go outside. Don�t play in standing water.

Arriving at Reies L�pez Tijerina Acres (aka subsidized housing), I climb the outside stairs, slowly, to the third floor. The punteros on lookout give me the nod.

Toro answers his door on the second knock. His craggy face looms over me, and he glances to the tool bag in my hand. ��ntrale, Rafael.�

Thick kohl sets off Toro�s eyes, the color of rusted steel. The electro-ink on his thick neck dances like snakes on fire. A tank top drapes his broad chest and shows off biceps each as big and square as the business ends of sledgehammers. Gym shorts ride up on hairy thighs so muscular they seem powerful enough to bulldoze through a police roadblock. His massive, scarred hands are matching r�sum�s of every beat-down he�s given. Toro couldn�t be more intimidating if he had horns growing out of his head.

But he�s got his charms. I should know, me and him had a thing going for a while. Sometimes my vieja at the time, Delia, would join us. She and I used to watch Toro snooze after we�d worn him out, the tats on his wide back writhing and smoldering as they faded from neon yellow to a cool aqua color. Delia totally freaked out in a good way and she got herself inked up too. But then she overdid it like she does everything else, so balling her became like fucking one of those anime sex robots you can rent on Colfax.

Domestic Intervention Services peed their polyester pants in happiness when Toro came out about being bi (who isn�t these days?), thinking that would put him in touch with his feminine side. They also loved that he bleached his hair and dyed it bright pink.

Toro lays a big paw on my shoulder and the old feelings soak through me. My knees threaten to give and as I think about falling, I want to drag him on top of me. I pretend to believe that I�m wrong about how he feels about me. I pretend to believe that things between him and me can go back to the way they used to be.

�Un cafecito, hermano?� He steps back to let me pass. �Pan dulce?�

Hermano. Sigh. I used to be his pan dulce.

The disappointment stings, but I hide the pain behind a smile. �Gracias. Despu�s.� A snack can wait, as I don�t want to dribble coffee and crumbs all over my work.

Toro leads me through the cramped living room to the kitchen table. I pause once to catch my breath. The stairs about wore me out. Last year I got stabbed by Levon Spencer. No reason to carry a grudge though, Levon mistook me for Antonio Lopez � all us greasers look alike. I get it. Besides, Levon OD�d a couple of weeks later, so according to the school counselor, it�s best to forgive and forget.

Always look for the blessing, right, ese? The blessing here is that stabbing, the collapsed lung, and the resulting breathing problems downgraded my health mobility profile to a 2B, meaning no hard physical labor, and so my name is automatically deleted from lists when jales for roofer and warehouse technician circulate through Community Force Placement. Thanks to the injury, the toughest gigs I used to get were as a flagman at construction cone zones, but the robots have taken those jobs like they have most everything else. Though they�ve yet to make a robot that can do what I�m here to do for Toro.

In the living room, throw pillows decorated with la Virgen and copies of noir movie posters are scattered over a sofa cocooned in clear plastic. A cumbia murmurs from a speaker alongside unlit votive candles on a spice rack. A calendar for Jimenez Tortillas hangs on the wall. Through the sliding glass door I scope out the narrow balcony where an ashtray sits in the center of a small patio table. Toro seems alone.

��Y tu t�a?� I ask.

�Comprando sus frajos en el 7-Eleven.� He opens the kitchen blinds to let in more light. I set my tool bag on the table and hang my backpack on a chair. I pull out the chair and sit. After I zip open my satchel of tools, I arrange what I�ll need on a square of repurposed yoga mat.

As I do this, Toro digs into my backpack, curious, suspicious as ever. He stacks the books I carried onto the table: Remains of the Day. Paisaje de otoño. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. He fingers the book spines. �These any good?�

�I like them.�

He grunts in approval. �Me cae que estudias. No como esos grifos que caminan en nuestras calles. We need more bookworms and fewer junkies.�

From under the table, Toro retrieves a large canvas tote that he places in front of me. It�s an RF-blocking bag. Inside I count five heaters � three 9mms, a .380, and a .38 Super. The bag smothers any tracking signals from the �smart� guns inside.

Toro makes his bones in this neighborhood as el sicario n�mero uno. You need to settle a score or send a message, who you gonna call? Since violence is his stock in trade, he makes extra cash fencing guns and ammo.

Returning to the bag, with a signal detector (that I stole from my last day at Huerta) I check for an active GPS transmitter. I figure the guns have been in the bag some time, as the batteries are all run down.

�Can you do this one?� Toro handles a really nice PW-Pro 9mm stamped SFPD. �But I don�t want you to fuck it up.�

�Time me,� I boast.

He sets the stopwatch on his phone.

I steady the PW-Pro in my left hand. �Go.� With a portable drill I bore a small hole in the back of the frame to puncture the embedded microprocessor, which lobotomizes the gun.

Smart guns are designed to lock up without the necessary permission code � supplied by a special ring, or a matching smart watch, a fingerprint reader, some caca like that. But there�s gotta be a way to disassemble the gun in case things need fixing. I center a brass punch over the take-down pin in the slide, give a couple of taps with my plastic mallet, the pin falls out, and the slide... well, it slides off.

I disable the locking solenoid with liquid weld. In another minute, the grip panels are off and the frame lies bare on the yoga mat. More taps with the brass punch and mallet, some twisting with needle-nose pliers, the electronic interface between the firing mechanism and the trigger falls loose, and this PW-Pro is as high-tech as my abuelita�s cast-iron comal.

After fitting a small length of coat-hanger wire to replace the interface linkage, I reinstall the grip panels. I put the slide back on and rack it. Clack. Pull the trigger. Click. I repeatedly work the slide and pull the trigger � clack, click, clack, click � and every time, the trigger snaps crisp as it should.

�Listo,� I blurt out.

Toro announces, �Four minutes, thirty-three seconds.� He grabs the PW-Pro from me. As he examines the pistol, I take a workman�s pride in my craft, regardless of what consequences it brings to the community. I, a high school dropout, in less than five minutes, have outsmarted a gaggle of white-bread Silicon Valley engineers and their million-dollar solution to the epidemic of gun violence. It�s a misdemeanor to alter a smart gun and a felony to show anyone how to do it. But just go to the dark web and you can find all kinds of tutorials for things you shouldn�t do.

�Algo m�s.� I pick up a nail file. �I have to alter the firing pin.�

Toro lifts an eyebrow.

I explain: �The end of the firing pin is engraved with a code to trace the gun by imprinting the ammo it shoots. A quick swipe with the file and no more code.�

Toro squints down the sights. �Maybe I want the code. Let the world know que una arma de los marranos fue que mordi� un sopl�n.�

It�s not my concern what he does with the gun, but in this case, a snitch is gonna learn what happens when you cozy up to the law.

Toro loads the magazine with a couple of 9mm rounds he fishes from a pocket in his shorts, fits the magazine into the PW-Pro, and racks the slide. An icy chill freezes my nerves. What the hell is he doing?

He steps to the audio player and turns up the volume till it rattles the windows. Aiming the pistol at some books on a shelf, he fires lengthwise through the stack. Despite the loud music, the blast spanks my ears. The empty casing whirls toward me, bounces off the table, and rolls to the floor. The gun worked flawlessly.

He lowers the volume and, on the PW-Pro, thumbs the magazine release. The empty mag falls into his left hand. He cycles the pistol slide, catching the remaining cartridge as it flings out the ejection port. For a moment he bounces the pistol in his hand, appreciating its heft, smiling, smirking; it�s not just a firearm but a fiendish weapon, something evil, a talisman of bad tidings. Armed and dangerous.

I want him to acknowledge what I�ve done for him. That I�m special. His special.

Instead he says, �Te aventaste, g�ey,� then picks the spent cartridge off the floor and fits it like a hat on a nearby plastic Jesus.

G�ey, like we�re big buddies instead of ex-lovers.

Toro lays the gun on the table. He disappears down the hall, a door closes, I hear a shower run. I imagine the water spattering off his muscular body and recall when it was me soaping his smooth contours and the crevices between them.

I fumble my screwdriver and almost let it fall. The act of catching the screwdriver brings my mind back to task. During the next minutes, I take care of the other two smart guns. The last pair in the bag are ghost-gun knockoffs of Serbian Zastavas, which I inspect and deem okay.

He�s left his phone on the table, and it vibrates with incoming messages.

The shower squeaks off. After a moment, he returns to the kitchen. His pink hair is slicked back so it looks like an old-fashioned bathing cap. He�s changed into designer jeans, alligator cowboy boots. A nice shirt hangs unbuttoned over his chest, a fresh wife-beater plastered to his still-wet, hairy pectorals. Lingering at the hall mirror, he reapplies kohl around his eyes. He pulls a gold chain from his pants pocket and strings it around his neck. Stepping close to retrieve his phone, he smells of soap and cologne, and the fragrance makes my heart ache for things that will never return.

He thumbs through his messages. Furrows his brow. Nods. Grins. I don�t know what he�s up to; it�s not my place to ask.

Regardless, my imagination starts to gallop, dragging behind it jealous thoughts. Who�s Toro going to see? Melissa Chacon? Or Enrico �el Perico� Tellez? That diseased marica. Better wear two condoms when you fuck him.

I really want to ask, but asking means I care, and I don�t want Toro to think that I do. I can�t. It�s long over between us. Tears pluck at my eyes, and I focus on putting my tools away.

Just as I zip my tool bag, Toro brings coffee and a campechana. While I finish the pastry, I watch him tuck the PW-Pro into his pants and fluff the shirt over it. He poses in front of the mirror, turning this way and that, like a ruca checking her ass for panty lines.

Since he�s packing this particular gun, I figure he�s heading out to work and not play, and the jealousy fades.

My business done, I slip my books into the backpack and grab my tool bag. Standing, I gasp for breath, then square my shoulders and face Toro.

Unexpectedly, he drops a hand on my shoulder. �Change in plans, vato. Esp�rame.�

He walks out the front door and the dead bolt clicks. When will he return? How long am I supposed to stay here? I don�t leave, because he owes me money, and besides, when Toro tells you to stay, you better stay.

I busy myself with my phone until I toss it aside, bored. I hope for his aunt to arrive and keep me company but she never makes an appearance. Maybe she smells trouble. I click on the television and when the screen asks for the password, I click it off and drop the remote on an end table.

I pick up my books and read for a while. I daydream about being a famous author like Leonardo Padura. As he did, I�ll chronicle my life through a series of novels, make it a majestic tale. I know crime. I know survival. Hell, I even have the scars. Me, Rafael Mu�oz, the bard of the barrio. Maybe that�s my ticket out of here.

Afterward, I explore the cramped living room, analyzing the various trinkets Toro has collected since I was last here. My longing for him swirls in my head. I fantasize letting myself into his bedroom, crawling onto the mattress to luxuriate in his masculine scent clinging to the bed linen. I relive every delicious minute that we�d spent here, me taking each visit for granted, thinking there would always be a next time. And then, there were no more next times.

Twilight darkens the windows. I�m hungry and rummage the kitchen. I microwave a couple of tamales and help myself to a beer.

As the evening drags on, I stretch out on the sofa. The front door bangs open and I�m suddenly alert. I expect Toro�s aunt but it�s Ysidro Bustos, one of his gamberros. �Rafael, nos vamos.�

My mind scrambles to catch up. I gather my bags.

�Leave those.� He scowls. �Where�s your phone?�

I slip it from my pocket.

�Leave it in your backpack.�

After I comply, he nods toward the door. I follow him out. He shuts the door behind us, locks it with a key, and hustles toward the stairs. While he bounds down like a goat, I clasp the handrail and ease my way, step by step. Though the night is cool, each breath burns as it wheezes through my lungs.

Ysidro yells over his shoulder, ��Ap�rate, g�ey!�

I do my best to match his frantic pace. My chest tightens around the knot of my scar. In the pool of amber light beneath a corner streetlamp, a black SUV waits, its tinted windows sheets of obsidian. Ysidro hustles through the rear passenger door, leaving it ajar for me.

��Listos?� It�s Toro, in the front passenger seat, Pacho Ortiz driving. Toro gazes through his visor mirror. �Rafael, glad you could make it, ese.�

As if I had a choice.

We drive north, circle through Thornton, buy whiskey, stop someplace else for smokes, then turn back to Globeville. We halt by the Polish church and everyone but Pacho gets out. We�re not too far from where I�d arrived on the bus. Pacho continues south on Camino. I figure the runaround is Toro leaving a false trail in the SUV�s GPS.

The church looms dark and silent like a mausoleum. Small houses clutter the neighborhood, each a compact fortress. Porch lights outline wire fences and reflect the eyes of watchdogs. The Mousetrap blots out a swath of the night sky.

Toro explains nothing about why we�re here, only walks into the construction site. Ysidro keeps at his heels, whispering. I trudge along, trying to eavesdrop, but their words are smothered by the whoosh of highway traffic.

We make our way through a gap in the temporary chain-link fence and proceed to a dirt ramp that leads into the pit. Headlamps spilling from the overpass sweep the area, backlit by construction work in the distance, creating a panorama of bizarre sculptures. Toro and Ysidro trot down the ramp but for me it�s a grueling stop and go.

Our destination is one of the holes for a footing. Another vato emerges from the gloom, Chuy. Toro�s most trusted mat�n.

The reason why we�re here blooms.

The hole. Me.

My heart starts to race and my breath gets thick as glue.

Why me? It doesn�t matter. Maybe Toro is simply cleaning house.

Lightheaded, I want to turn and run, but I wouldn�t get far. A pressure builds against my temples. My mind somersaults, spinning with regrets and abandoned dreams. The scar in my chest feels like Death is clawing me with a bony finger.

Feet dragging, docile as a cow on the way to the slaughterhouse, I reach the plywood formers that circumscribe the square dimensions of the hole, about three feet square. Dizzy, nauseous, I force myself to gaze into the abyss, my grave.

I expect Toro, Ysidro, and Chuy to seize me and finish this business. Toro glances to acknowledge that I�m here, then goes back to chatting with the other two. His tats shimmer blue, then green.

Bastard! What�s he waiting for? It feels as though a rope tightens around my neck and I�m about to swing.

A pair of headlamps approach. It�s a small van, a 4x4 Prowler the construction crews use to haul whatever. The Prowler hums to a halt. The headlamps click off. The darkness swallows us again. Ysidro and Chuy open the back and drag free what appears to be a rolled-up carpet. But it�s not. It�s a man wrapped in a canvas tarp.

He�s dumped on the ground as the Prowler circles and leaves. Ysidro and Chuy yank on the tarp until the man emerges, rolling like a hot dog. He flops onto his belly, hands behind his back, wrists and ankles bound with duct tape. He squirms, still alive. Ysidro uses his foot to push the man over but keeps him on the tarp.

Tape also covers his mouth. His ruddy face is flushed red and his eyes radiate terror. Sweat trickles from his hairline. He�s wearing jeans, a golf jacket, trainers.

Toro crouches and searches the man�s pockets, withdraws an ID badge and a gold shield. He peruses the badge, then flips it into the hole. The shield is passed around. It�s heavy, quality stuff, and reads, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. The dreaded ATF. Feds.

�Este cabr�n estaba en la pista de mis negocios.�

This doomed gabacho is about to pay the price for getting too close to Toro.

Toro dumps the shield into the hole, then reaches under his shirt and pulls out the PW-Pro that I�d earlier fixed for him.

The ATF agent�s eyes latch onto the gun.

�Rafael,� Toro says.

I look at him confused.

�Dame tu mano.�

I present my hand.

He slaps the PW-Pro into my palm. Instantly, I know why I�m here.

�Eres m�s que tus pinchi libros,� Toro says. �Ya es tiempo que crezcas. Que dejas la ni�ez y te mantienes de pie con nosotros como hombre.�

He�s thrown everything noble about me back into my face. From this point, there�s only one way forward. At his side. As one of him. With this thought, the scar in my chest cracks open, becoming a drain that funnels every malignant thing in the world into my body.

The ATF agent shifts his gaze to me. His expression screams, pleading, begging for mercy.

But his fate is as sealed as mine.

The pistol, this instrument of death, feels heavy as though it were carved from a tombstone. I grip it with both hands, shaking. I try to rise above myself, to float in an altered state above this putrid catastrophe, but I can�t. Every detail remains in sharp focus, needles that etch this bleak moment into my conscience.

Toro snorts impatiently. His tattoos flare electric yellow. He cups the back of my neck and forces me to a knee beside the condemned man. Toro clutches my wrist and slews me forward until the pistol�s muzzle presses against the agent�s forehead.

The agent and I stare at each other � eyes misted with mutual fear and helplessness.

��Ya!� Toro barks.

I jerk the trigger, a loud bang cleaves my hearing, the gun bucks in my hand. Acrid smoke wisps, then vanishes. Ears ringing, trembling, I stagger to my feet.

Blood weeps from a puckered hole along the ridge of the man�s left eyebrow. The eyeball below is distended, clouded, and turning gray, black. I recoil, gagging, convinced the eyeball is about pop out. The other eye glistens like polished glass. More blood fans across the tarp, behind his left ear where the bullet exited. The agent quivers in a palsy of agony. Snot bubbles from his nostrils.

Toro clamps onto my upper arm, steadying me. �De este momento, estamos siempre empatados, tu y yo, el y tu. No hay salida.�

The dying gringo. Toro. Me. Our fates are locked together. Forever.

Toro takes the PW-Pro from my hands. Ysidro and Chuy bundle the agent in the tarp, then lift and upend him headfirst into the footing hole. He slides in and thuds against the bottom. I hear the rustling of fabric and a muted groan.

Toro picks up the spent cartridge shell and throws it in the hole. His fellow thugs grab nearby shovels and spend time tossing in dirt. Two minutes? Five? I don�t know. All I recognize is that my already broken life is now a pile of useless shards.

On Toro�s cue, we start back to the dirt ramp. A tractor rumbles from the adjacent construction area and parks close to the hole to angle a pneumatic rammer into the void. A percussive noise carries toward us as the tractor tamps the bottom of the hole. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa.

I imagine the ATF agent, limbs contorted painfully, blood squeezed from the pulp of his mangled face, suffocating as the earth packs around him. By midmorning, he�ll be buried under a pillar of cement and rebar. By the end of the week, the rest of the overpass will have been poured, entombing him beneath thousands of tons of concrete.

Is the agent forever disappeared? How long is the Mousetrap expected to last? A century? Longer? Perhaps it will outlive our government, our civilization, and our descendants will regard this structure as a historic relic, as inviolate as the aqueducts of Ancient Rome.

I struggle up the incline, so lost in my fugue that it isn�t until I�m confronted by the electronic babble from the Peace Memorial that I realize we�re back at street level.

On the sidewalk, we trek north. Toro lights a smoke. Chuy and Ysidro share a joint. Cars pass. No one sees nothin�. No one knows nothin�. Just another night in Globeville.

We arrive at the stop for the southbound number 12. The black SUV waits by the curb. Toro reaches into the rear seat and retrieves my backpack and tool bag. Up the street, a rectangular outline of yellow lamps heralds the approach of the bus.

Toro taps his phone. My backpack buzzes. It�s my phone. When I check it, the text reads: New deposit.

Toro says, �Lo que te debo, mil quinientos,� and then flashes a welfare debit card that he slides into my shirt pocket. �Un poco de propina. Loaded to the max, carnal. You and your mom are set for the month.�

With both hands, he cups my face. Our macho jefe leans close and kisses me gently on the lips. He pulls back but keeps his big taurine eyes on me.

I wait for him to say something, to reassure me that I mean something, that I�m more than a tool, more than his chew toy.

Wordlessly, Toro and crew hop into the SUV and motor away. The bus eases forward, sighs to a halt. I climb aboard, show my pass, and slide onto a vacant seat. Through the window, I read the message cycling on the Peace Memorial: Stop the shooting! Love one another!