My thoughts were whirling and it was a moment before I snapped out of thinking three steps ahead and realized we were back in the Javelin and rapidly leaving the Blades neighborhood.

  "Where are we going?" I asked.

  "We need some new guys, yeah? I have an idea where to find them. It's a bit sketchy, but most of the LSS guys were, are in prison or dead. And we never dealt drugs anyway," Flattop replied.

  Ten minutes later, we rolled into a giant parking lot, only half full of cars this Friday morning. At the other side of the enormous paved expanse was the giant safety yellow box store. DIY Dave's.

  "DIY Dave's? Are we going to buy some tools?" I asked.

  "Nah, you'll see in a minute," he said, pulling the javelin around to the side of the store. Lined up against the wall of the store were what I could only assume were mostly Mexicans. Day laborers, wearing a motley mix of work boots, flannel, and high-vis vests.

  "Home Depot," I muttered to myself.

  "What??" Pargo asked.

  "Nothing, don't worry about it," I replied.

  I didn't see how we were going to get a drug dealer out of this crew of construction workers, though, but Flattop was ahead of me.

  We slowly rolled down the line, Flattop closely inspecting all of them as he drove by. Once he saw whatever it was he was looking for, he stopped, waving a short, stocky, dark-haired man over. He was wearing old but clean jeans, a baggy white button-up shirt, and work boots. And his hands and arms were covered with blue ink tattoos.

  I identified him.

  Flaco. No job listed, but he was in shadow.

  The man approached Flattop, nodding as he got within five feet, stopping a respectful distance away.

  "What you need, Holmes?"

  "We need guys to do some sales for us. You bid in?" He asked.

  Flaco just nodded. "I'm straight now, Homes."

  "Not that straight, you looking for work here. You need a job or not? You're walking in shadow, not too many upstanding citizens going to hire a Mexican walking in shadow to work on their pool."

  Flaco looked like he tasted something sour at that, but didn't disagree. He looked over at me, giving me a quick glance and I assume identifying me.

  "LSS? I don't know you guys, you must be small time."

  "Yeah, we're a small organization. Coming up, though. You want the work or not?"

  "Sales?" Flaco asked, his voice doubtful.

  "Yeah, you got the corner boy job? Yeah, you got the dealer job? It doesn't matter if you don't. We need somebody who can handle themselves and isn't afraid to do the work."

  "What are you paying?"

  "We give you weight, you sell it, you give us 85% of the money back and whatever you didn't sell at the end of the night. You good with that?"

  I was glad Flattop knew what the fuck he was doing.

  "What about heat? You guys got turf to sell on? I don't need beef with Blades or Gats."

  I took the cue and enabled my victorious title again. His eyes widened when he saw it. And I turned off the display immediately afterwards.

  "Shit, I've heard of you guys. Okay, I'm down. Can I bring my brother? He needs some work too."

  "You vouch for him?"

  "Yeah. He's good. Last bid we did together. But he's not trying to go straight. I know for sure he's got the dealer job," Flaco replied.

  "Sure. We need a few more bodies. Meet us at our shop on [insert address of LSS shop here]. At 7 o'clock tonight, you got it?" Flattop asked.

  Flaco nodded.

  "Anybody else here we should talk to?" I asked.

  Flaco shook his head, and at the same time, Flattop also did. They'd both seen what I hadn't.

  "Nah, everybody else here is walking the light. Legit folks."

  I nodded, and a few minutes later, Flattop and Flaco shook hands, and we were on our way again.

  "That worked well. What's next, another DIY Dave's?"

  "Nah, the next one's almost an hour from here, and by the time we get there, all the guys will be gone. I am kind of stumped about where else, actually. Down by the library, maybe? Or maybe we ask the Nirvana guys if any of their dudes want to sell?" Flattop mused, merging back into traffic.

  The sun came through the open windows and made me remember just how much I loved driving around in L.A., well, San Tadeo.

  "Yeah, I don't know if they will. They don't seem like drug dealer types. Although if we need some guns, they can definitely help with that."

  We drove for a minute longer before I had an idea. I wasn't proud of it, but it might work.

  "I've got it. Turn down here," I said, indicating West Adams Boulevard.

  "Where are we going?" Flattop asked.

  "Give me a sec, I'll tell you. I think it's down here."

  Five minutes later, our destination came into sight as we crossed Figueroa. St Vincent de Paul, the church I'd walked past so many times on my way to a game store nearby. It was one of those typical community churches where things were always happening in the basement, and in the outbuildings. One in particular I was interested in was the morning meeting.

  "Right there, pull up. Let's see what we got."

  Flattop was looking like curiosity was going to kill him at this point but was following my lead without too much complaint and we opened a large wooden door covered in posters and notices to enter the basement of the church. It was a cool echoing space, long and wide hall with beautiful stone floors and magnificent but scarred wooden walls and ceiling. I followed the signs to the end of the hallway where I could smell burnt coffee, sweat, and stale doughnuts, if only in my imagination. Flattop and I entered, closing the door behind us. Only about 20 of the folding chairs were full, so we sat down near the back. Just as someone was applauded off the front and a new person came up to speak.

  "Hi, my name is Loosy, and I'm an addict."

  "Hi, Loosy!" The crowd echoed back to him in a somewhat ragged manner. WIthout thinking I threw out an id.

  Loosy gave them a smile, and for some reason I immediately didn't like him. It took me a second to realize what had triggered that reaction. His teeth were rotten, just like the meth head in Mr. Kim's store.

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  "Now like a lot of you here, I've been in recovery for a while. For me, 18 months," he said, holding up a chip with 18 on it. There was scattered applause and a woo somewhere at the far right of the room.

  "Thanks. But the reason we tell our stories is so that other people can recognize our trials as similar to their own. So today I'm gonna share a moment when I hit what I thought was rock-bottom. One of the times I quit meth. My love. My addiction. My master."

  "Fuck, a meth addict, this was a mistake, let's go," I muttered to Flattop.

  "No, we still need guys, this was your stupid idea. Let's ride it out," he replied in a low voice.

  A somewhat insane-looking Karen, two rows up, turned around and glared at us, willing us to be quiet with only her mind and her sharp glance.

  Loosy was continuing.

  "I was in a squat, not that far from here. It was just me and my boy. We'd been doing shit together since high school, we had each other's backs, always. Meth had us both, though, but it had its hooks into me more than him. He still had a job. I was spending my days hustling, trying to get high any way I could. Begging, taking anything not nailed down and selling it. You know, the usual junkie shit."

  "That day, I'd just scored, and I'd come home to the squat, and my boy, Jake, wasn't there. He's at work, bussing tables or washing dishes or some shit. I never much paid attention. It was a restaurant job, I know that. He'd bring home Italian food every day, it was all we ate. He once joked we were going to be the only fat tweakers in San Tadeo," Loosy said, to scattered laughter before pausing, his eyes glistening a bit.

  "I'd promised I was going to wait for him so we'd get high together if I scored, but I'm a fucking junkie. I held out for maybe twenty minutes and then I smoked up half. I left the other half for him and I couldn't sit still. I started cleaning and organizing the squat. We didn't have much, but the one thing we did have was cleaning products. I made that fucking kitchen spotless, but then I thought I heard something. I checked where I left the half for Jake, and it's fucking gone. One of my goddamn junkie neighbors got in and ripped us off. I was furious. I was going to kill whoever'd done it."

  This was a twist in the story I hadn't expected, and I leaned forward, getting drawn into the story a bit. Flattop looked similarly engaged.

  "I checked the windows and the door. All still locked tight. Skinny fucker must've crawled in through a vent. I almost went and pounded on the neighbors door. I knew it was that fucker. I could almost smell him in the air, that kind of rotten yogurt smell some junkies get. Yelling at him through the door wasn't going to fix anything though, and my mind was sharp. Meth makes you a fucking genius with a supercharged brain. At least, it makes you think you are. I set a trap for the thief. He'd stolen once, he'd do it again."

  He paused and scratched his stubbly cheek, taking a sip of water before continuing.

  "The cleaning supplies I was using were old and crusty. Around the lid of one of the bottles some crystals had grown. If you were a stupid tweaker, you could even mistake them for shitty meth. I scraped them off, and put them in an empty little baggie on the table where the half I'd reserved for Jake had been. Steal that, mother fucker. Then, I waited. I mean, I cleaned some more, and tried to act casual, and stayed away from the vents that bastard must have used. But then the high started to fade, and my mind got fuzzy. I sat down to drink some juice and just passed the fuck out."

  "When I woke up the squat smelled like pizza. You know that smell. I remember my stomach rumbling, and I ran out to the living room. The pizza was there, and so was Jake. He was twisted up like a pretzel, his mouth covered in foam and vomit with a little blood. His eyes were open. His pipe was on the floor nearby. He'd smoked the crystal I left out for the thief and it had killed him. Now that I've got some distance from it I can admit that there wasn't a thief. I realized as soon as I woke up and smelled pizza that I'd smoked the rest of the meth in my cleaning frenzy when the high first started to dip. I'd just forgotten."

  "Anyway, I went fucking mad. I torched the apartment and almost died of smoke inhalation before I dragged my ass out into the street. I stayed sober after that for 6 months, just white knuckling it. It didn't stick though. My addiction got me again at a low moment. I let myself get really drunk, and I had a little money and was feeling good. It sunk its claws back into me, and it didn't let me go for another two years. It took another bounce off the bottom before I quit for good. But that's a story for another time."

  "That's all I got," Loosy said.

  He left the podium, sitting down in the chairs near the front.

  "Damn, that was fucked up," Flattop muttered to me.

  "Yeah, he murdered his friend," I replied dismissively. I still didn't like the man, and his story hadn't made him more likable.

  "Fuck that, Homes. Drugs can make you do some stupid shit," Flattop replied.

  There were a few more stories, but none of them were as dramatic as that. A few minutes later, the meeting broke up, the majority of the attendees streaming outside either to get on with their day or smoke a cigarette in the sun before doing whatever it is recovering druggies did during the day. Most of them didn't look like they had a job, and they were just there for the free donuts and coffee and interaction with people not pushing a shopping cart.

  Flattop was scanning the crowd and so was I. Almost everyone here was in shadow, and most of them looked like their lives were hard. It was only after everyone stood up that I realized how much me and Flattop stood out. We were wearing clean, intact clothing, shoes that weren't covered in dirt, and both of us had showered. My skull belt buckle was just the cherry on top.

  The meeting facilitator walked up to us as the room emptied out. "Can I help you guys? You got any questions?"

  I identified him, and his nameplate popped right up.

  "No, we're okay, thanks Richard. Some very moving stories," Flattop said.

  Richard's eyes narrowed as he looked at the both of us. Obviously seeing what I had just realized. "Listen, if you're here to sell, don't. Some of these guys are just barely hanging on. They don't need you pushing them over."

  I hadn't thought of that, my moral compass wasn't that broken, yet. He was right, selling drugs outside of an NA meeting would be like shooting retarded fish at the bottom of a very deep barrel.

  "Nah, man. You're good. We'll just be on our way," Flattop said.

  I nodded, following his lead out the door. Just outside the church, after the city enforced buffer space, were a good percentage of the NA members, desperately inhaling their cigarettes.

  Loosy was one of them, and Flattop went to approach.

  "Yo, what you doing? You thinking this guy, no way," I protested.

  "Your idea, we need guys, suck it up," he replied.

  "Yo," Flattop said as he squared up with Loosy.

  "Hey, guys," Loosy said, taking a drag to finish his cigarette before flicking it away in an orange blur.

  "That was a brutal story. Thanks for sharing it," Flattop said.

  I cocked my eyebrow at Flattop, not understanding where he was going here. Did he really find Loosy's story of negligent murder to be moving?

  "Thanks. You guys don't look like you're using, why are you here?" he asked.

  "We're hiring, you said you were a hustler, you still hustling?" Flattop asked.

  "No, not really. Trying to get some education, that's all. Anyway, not sure what you would need me for. I'm not much of a gangster," you said.

  "You don't need a lot of skill for this job. Just sell our product, be honest, don't get jacked. You got any problems with weed?" Flattop asked.

  "Nah, weed's cool. It's not like alcohol, if I drink too much I'll use again, but for some reason weed doesn't do that to me. It's not exactly the way you're supposed to do things, but it works for me. Any rules aren't set in stone."

  "So okay then, if you want the job, you just got to show up tonight at," Flattop started, but I'd had enough.

  "Hold on, you want this guy? He just told us a story about how he murdered his best friend," I protested.

  "For fuck's sakes, Mack," Flattop said, exasperated, but Loosy raised his right hand and tried to still the conflict, speaking up.

  "No, Mack, you're right. I did murder him. It was me, it wasn't the drug. It was me. I did it. That's the only way any of this works, is if I take responsibility for it. Yes, the drug was laced, and it made me do stupid shit, but ultimately, it was on me. I killed Jake. I didn't want to, and I cried every day for at least a month after I woke up and found him dead. It wrecked me, and it still hurts. But it was me. That's the only way you get anywhere, managing your addiction, is when you acknowledge your responsibility for your actions, and you ask for help from a higher power." With that, he lifted up an unobtrusive crucifix to his lips and kissed it, looking up at the sky.

  "God? You're religious now, Loosy?" I asked.

  "Yeah, I found God, or he found me, whichever it was. In any case, he saved my life. I'm not as worthless as I once thought I was, at least not in God's eyes."

  I must have snorted or otherwise seemed skeptical because Flattop spoke up in Loosy's defense.

  "You don't know what it's like, Mack. I've got a few cousins in NA. They did some heinous shit when they were using. If you can't forgive them, that's fine, but when they're family, you've got to."

  Loosy wasn't my family, and I wasn't feeling forgiving, but his seemingly genuine belief was wearing away at my instinctual doubt and hatred of him.

  "I don't know," I said, turning away a bit, trying to wash my hands of it. That was stupid, this was my idea, but it felt wrong to just say no to the guy because he looked like the scumbag that had shot me in the back.

  "Listen, give me a trial run. Without the meth in my life, people call me reliable. I'll do a good job for you guys, and I need the work."

  "Good enough for me. Mack?" Flattop said, looking at me. I got the impression that Flattop was treating this as my decision, which felt odd but also appropriate.

  "Fine, we'll give you a trial. But if you fuck us, you're going to find out how I got this belt buckle. Understand?" I asked, willing my Victorious title visible.

  There was a moment while his eyes unfocused and then sharpened as he must have ID'd me and read the title.

  "Understood. You guys are serious, got it. Where do I go, and when?"

  Flattop gave him the address, and the time - 7 p.m. sharp. "We'll give you transport wherever you need to go from there," he said.

  After that, Flattop and I spent another hour half-heartedly driving around and trying to find other N.A. meetings or construction workers, but time was running out.

  It still stuck in my craw a bit that we had hired an admitted meth junkie that had murdered his best friend. What kind of organization were we running here? If something ought to be disqualifying, wasn't that? Were my morals becoming so flexible?

  Time passed quickly, and as the sun was setting, we pulled up in front of the LSS garage. Time to sell, Friday night.