Let It Burn Read Online Free PDF Page B

were, all of them. Like go ahead, pick off a few of the kids. See how far that gets you.
    We finally brought down the gang in 1982. I say we, meaning the Detroit cops, the FBI, and the DEA, actually working together for once. One of the three founding members had already been killed, but the other two were put away for good, along with forty-one of their lieutenants. The kids, they all scattered to the wind, but nobody around here was naive enough to believe that new gangs wouldn’t form overnight to take the place of YBI.
    Then, on top of everything else this city had to deal with, some genius somewhere figured out how to make a cheap form of freebase cocaine using baking soda. Crack, rock, whatever the hell you want to call it. It hit Detroit just as hard as every other city in America. Maybe a little harder. We still didn’t have enough cops in this town, and now with a new, highly addictive form of coke that could get you high for five or ten bucks? It was starting to feel like a losing battle most days.
    Franklin and I got about a block down Woodward Avenue before we saw a half-dozen kids walking slowly down the sidewalk. We came up behind them, and Franklin blipped the siren. He was driving that day. As soon as we came to a stop, I got out and rousted the kids, asked them why they weren’t in school, dismissing with prejudice their claim that summer vacation had already started. Eventually I just sent them on their way, with me holding only their empty promises to wander over to school.
    Franklin was finally getting out of the car to come help me. I waved him back inside as the kids walked away.
    “Don’t tell me,” he said as he got back behind the wheel. “They were on their way to choir practice.”
    “Not quite. But no big deal. Just a bunch of knuckleheads skipping school on a nice summer day.”
    “How exactly do you know they weren’t up to something else? Did you take one ID from those kids?”
    “Did you see me take an ID? You were sitting right here.”
    “It was a leading question, Alex. Just like in the courtroom.”
    “I asked them what they were up to,” I said. “They answered me, I asked again, and then the second time I believe they told me the truth. So let’s go find some real problems to solve, all right?”
    “Oh, that’s right, I’ve got the all-seeing swami in the car with me. I keep forgetting that.”
    “It’s not even nine o’clock,” I said. “How many times are we going to do this today?”
    “That’s entirely up to you, Swami. Although I’m surprised you haven’t already divined the number in advance.”
    This is how it went with us. All day long. I had this unshakable belief back then, that I could ask a person a question and I could look in their eyes while they answered me and I could tell if they were lying to me. With absolute certainty. No doubt whatsoever. In the years since, I’ve found out that some people are gifted liars, and that my supposedly one hundred percent accurate lie detector can be fooled completely.
    Of course, if you think I’ve learned not to put such trust in my own instincts anymore, then you have no idea just how stubborn I am. Or maybe how stupid.
    “I need more coffee,” I said.
    He drove us down through the Wayne State campus, past the great stone edifices of the art museum on one side of the street and of the library on the other. There was a little coffee shop next to the hospital. I went in and got one with cream for myself, one black for Franklin, waiting for the inevitable joke about how he likes his coffee like he likes his women. He was happily married, but some jokes are still mandatory, I guess. And yes, we both had a doughnut. Two cops with two doughnuts.
    “What else can we do to fulfill the stereotype today?” he said as the powdered sugar dusted his nice clean uniform. “Too bad neither of us has a badass mustache.”
    “We could both get out and try to chase down some kid. Climb over a fence and throw him into