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week ago.”
    “Seriously? Why didn’t you call me?”
    “I wanted to come down and see you—Detective.”
    “Oh, that. Yeah, got bumped up a few years back.”
    “What division are you in now?”
    “Robbery-Homicide. Pay’s good and I don’t have a huge caseload. Definitely better than busting hookers with Vice.”
    “Congrats, Will. I mean that. I can’t think of anyone that deserves it more.”
    “Thanks. Hey, what’re you doin’ for lunch?”
    “No plans right now.”
    “I know a place. You gotta come with. Lemme grab my jacket. Hang on.”
    Jack waited by the entrance. He could hear the man with dreadlocks shouting in his cell.
    “He’s comin’!” he yelled. “He’s comin’ and all you’s gonna pay! He’s comin’ for Armageddon.”
    One of the officers banged his nightstick against the bars. “Shut the hell up in there!”
    The man laughed. “You, I’ll remember you when Armageddon comes.”
    “Yeah? Remember this,” the officer said, jabbing the man in the nose with the tip of the stick.
    The scene made Jack uncomfortable and he walked outside through the double doors and waited off to the side. The sun was bright and a thin gray haze blanketed the sky. He remembered it from when he was a kid but it wasn’t like this. It looked like the clouds had been filled with dirt and clung to the sky from stickiness.
    “You ready?” William said, stepping out as he slung his suit coat on.
    “Lotta commotion in there,” he said as they walked to his Viper.
    “See that guy with the dreadlocks?”
    “Yeah.”
    “It’s them. They’re calling themselves Myrs. It’s a gang. All of ‘em have tats and dreadlocks; that’s kind of their thing. Looks pretty silly to me compared to the cartel or the Tres Locos but these guys are a level of violence we haven’t seen. They’ll shoot up an entire bus just to take out one person. And they don’t seem to care if they get arrested. One guy did a hit in a McDonald’s and then sat down and started eating the dead guy’s burger.”
    “Sound like tweakers to me.”
    “No, not at all. Not a single one, at least up here, has ever even gotten a drug charge. They seem to just sell the stuff, but never use. Holy crap, is that yours?”
    “You like?”
    “I would give my left nut for a car like that.”
    Jack threw him the keys. “It’s yours.”
    “Jack, I’m not taking—”
    “You’re my oldest friend, William. You’re my only friend. Let me do this. Money sitting in a bank account is worthless to me.”
    “I can’t go around in a car like this on a cop’s salary, I’m sorry. Buy me a Honda or Buick and you got a deal.”
    “Well at least drive then.”
    “That, I will gladly do.”
    They peeled out of the parking lot and onto Hudson before getting onto Fountain Avenue. William hit the gas and they reached eighty miles an hour before he slowed down, a massive smile on his face. Jack decided he would leave the car on William’s driveway tonight with a bow on top.
    After going through various neighborhoods, they took a turn underneath a freeway bridge and passed a hospital and a strip mall before coming to a shack with a drive-thru. It had no more than four or five tables inside and only three employees but William swore it had the best burgers in Southern California.
    Once they were inside, Jack ordered a chicken sandwich and a salad and William got two double cheeseburgers with fries. They sat down by the window and Jack watched the traffic outside. He was unaccustomed to being himself. Usually, he was playing someone else in a foreign country where nobody knew him or wanted to know him. Now it was just him and he thought about how odd it was that he should feel weird in his own skin.
    “So?” William said.
    “So.”
    “So why’d you quit the DEA?”
    Jack shook his head. “They focus on things they shouldn’t be focusing on while major things slip past them. The cartels murder dozens of people and the DEA doesn’t lift a finger.