I don't get arrested because of anyone's schemes and machinations, this time, I get arrested because I'm fucking stupid. Yeah, sometimes even I can admit it to myself— I'm not always calculating right at Machiavelli's lofty level. Maria Teresa trying to claw my eyes out in the middle of the gas station, that's shaken me up more than a little, partly because I don't want to be brawling with no chicks, partly because I don't want to think about what that whole explosion says about the future of my outfit's continued existence. That sense of creeping dread is how I manage to hit close to a hundred on the dash, and how I manage to attract the attention of a certain someone who needs to meet his monthly quotas.

I recognize this guy on sight, Estrada, one of Tulsa PD's real bright ideas when it comes to patrolling the North side. Talk about being a traitor to your own kind, and trust me when I say he works twice as hard as any white cop at his job, to prove he deserves it; I can't even begin to imagine what you could bribe him with that'd be more appealing to him than his sense of self-righteousness. He makes sure to shine his flashlight right in my eyes, just as a little 'fuck you' before we even get started. "Ramirez, git your ass out of there," he says, no time for so much as a 'do you know why I pulled you over?' "You tryna rush a woman in labor to the hospital or what?"

That's not my legal name, not on any birth certificate or court record, but his daddy used to pal around with my daddy, back in the good old days. He knows exactly who I am. "What's in the trunk, huh, that you was speedin' so fast to deliver?" he demands the second I slam the door behind me, before I can get a word in edgewise, now that he can see I'm all by my lonesome. "Drugs? Weapons? Drugs and weapons?"

"None of your fuckin' business without a warrant, is it?" There ain't shit in there besides a spare tire and a cooler from our last trip to the lake, as far as I remember, but whether or not there's a joint in the console… that I'm less sure of. I don't need him jogging my memory by tearing this thing up. "You just write the ticket, don't start gettin' ahead of yourself now."

I have to give it to him on one count, and one count only— he wants to think of himself as a 'good cop', and he's not fixing to abandon that mental schema as quick as some of his comrades-in-arms. He won't start digging around anyway, but that doesn't mean he'll just write the ticket and let me go, either. His bottom lip curls up, making him look like a bad-tempered bulldog, as he examines me. "Think I saw your mama at Shaw's the other night, when I was bustin' up a deal," he says. "Tell Mary Magdalene she ought to wear longer skirts, next time she's out. I about slapped her with a solicitation charge before I remembered who she was."

As far as insults go, 'your ma's a whore' isn't one that should even register on my scale, but the shame of the fact that I coined 'Mary Magdalene', that he pulled that right out of my mouth, is what gets to me. I'll call her whatever the hell I want, that sure as shit don't mean I'm going to let some jumped-up chocoso, who thinks he's hot shit because Tulsa PD threw him a token badge and gun, bring no 'solicitation charges' into this. "Does your daddy actually tell people what you do for a livin', if anyone asks? 'Cause if I were him, I would've long since skipped town. Or claimed you died."

Estrada cracks me one across the smart mouth, which I expected, I guess I hit a raw nerve there. And because I just can't keep that mouth shut for love or money, I'm in the face down, ass up position getting cuffed on the hood of my own truck, when he follows that up with an elbow to my back. The real icing on the fuckin' cake comes when a couple of Brumly boys drive by, witness the whole sorry scene, and start whooping their heads off, 'cause Tim Shepard getting his shit wrecked isn't something you see every day. One of them even points, and with a jolt, I realize that's the same Clint whose jaw I broke for fucking my girl— yeah, the second I'm out of here, I'm coming back for round two if I so much as hear a word of this getting tittered throughout Tulsa. "Disrespectin' an officer ain't a crime, neither, last I checked," I grit through my bloody teeth.

"You're right," he says amiably enough as he yanks me back up. "Let's see if resisting arrest sticks, though."

First, before any revenge plot, I actually have to get out. And when Officer Friendly's got his hand on my head as he shoves me into the back of the cruiser, that's starting to seem like a hell of a lot less of a done deal.

I pace around, the soles of my worn-out tennis shoes slapping against the floor of the holding cell, while I plot my next move— that's definitely what I'm doing, not wallowing in self-pity that I'm in this mess to begin with. Fortunately, this place is mostly empty on a weekday night, a couple of reeling frat boys slumped on the bunks and nobody I'd have to challenge for real. It's the one break I've been cut so far.

I hate being locked up, can't believe I haven't been out of the pen longer than a few months before I'm back again. It's not the violence of prison that I've ever been afraid of. Not the snarling wolf-pack outfits that form inside, or the way any provocation can blow up into a fight, or the donut-gut rent-a-cops, eager to exercise their petty authority, that they hire to guard it— hell, that's just part of everyday life for me, out on the street. It's the total lack of control, being trapped like a panther in a cage. I force myself to stay still for longer than a second at a stretch and think about how the hell I'll get myself out of this mess, but it's slow-going. Jesus, all this for my ma's honor? When she sits around talking shit about me with Lois Cade all day?

If disrespecting an officer was worth getting locked up for, we'd have an even bigger problem with prison overcrowding in this city than we already do, 'cause then the entire North and East side would be enjoying their stay at their local penitentiary. Even 'I arrested him for resisting arrest' is pretty damn dirty, by Estrada's standards, and not likely to hold up in court besides. The trouble is that I'm still on probation, and if word of this gets back to my PO, I'm up shit's creek, and fixing to wash up dead and bloated on the banks. All that goodwill I got out of him for holding down a job, supposedly keeping myself on the straight and narrow, yeah, I'm going to have to get on my knees and beg him not to report this— I've already been playing with fire, associating with known criminals, breaking curfew, continuing to sell on my usual corners. I need someone who can make this go away, period, and permanently.

And, well, that someone could be my uncle, except I can't guarantee he wouldn't try to beat the shit out of me right in the middle of the precinct. If Luis has to post my bail with his hard-earned drug cash, I'm fixing to be scrubbing the floor of our bar on my hands and knees until he's gotten it back out of my hide, forget serving drinks. Alberto likes me, but he couldn't keep a secret from Luis if his life depended on it the second he's got some liquor in him, which means we might make it twenty-four hours tops. Cousin Cisco? He's got the money, sure, but none of the intimidation factor. And what the hell's the point of having a family full of criminals if none of them are going to help me out when it's down to the wire?

Then an idea hits me the way a lightning strike hits a field it's about to set on fire. It's sure as shit not a good idea. Unfortunately, it's about the only one I've got left.

Joe has me out of there within the next twenty minutes, all charges, as flimsy as they were, dropped. Ten of those minutes involve him shooting the shit with another officer, Nelson, who he apparently went to high school with. "Tell me how you do it," I can't help but mutter, with something closer to awe than I'd like to admit. This guy literally just kidnapped a fucking cop a couple months ago, held him hostage, and now he's strolling into a police precinct like it's his neighborhood bar. Regardless of how much I don't love being in his debt right now, I can't deny that he's a master of his craft.

"Nelson's one of my best customers, lucky for you," he says with a bland smile, guiding me out the door with a hand on the small of my back. He ain't talking about no drugs, is he. "Lemme start teachin' you a valuable life lesson here, bribes, they only go so far." Right, a dread of punishment that never ceases, that's the way to go. "What you really need is leverage, then you'll have 'em eating out your palm. I didn't even have to pay him a dime, just dropped a little reminder that this upstanding family man's wife and kids— and church potluck— all depend on me keepin' quiet about how much he likes Belinda's charms, same as he's not gonna say nothin' about this to your PO."

I expect to be led into the passenger seat of his car, but it's occupied, and who other than Gabi is perched right there, fiddling with his cassette player and poking around the glove compartment. "You don't happen to have anything from this decade, do you?" she complains as he approaches, then notices who he's hauling out of there with him and loses all the teasing she had in her expression before. She looks real pissed at me, which isn't quite the welcome I was expecting, to be honest. Not that I was expecting any welcome from her at all, because—

"Why'd you bring her with you." I practically bite into each word, and it's not a question, though the saying about the hand that feeds you should really apply to me. "She don't need to be here."

"She was cruisin' around with me before this, Timmy, relax." Only Luis calls me that, and I don't love hearing it out of his mouth, either, to be honest. I'm not so sure he's being honest, if this ain't some kind of two-faced punishment for inconveniencing him. "Get in the back, ain't about to make the lady change seats for you," he says, jerking his thumb towards a pile of garbage and drug paraphernalia I'm going to have to clear to figure out where to put my ass, like I would've ever asked to begin with.

We don't say a word to each other until he pulls the car over near Crutchfield Park and tells us to stay put, while he checks on some guys he has stationed there. My knees are bunched up near my elbows, and I'm picking a burger wrapper off my pant leg when she spins around to glare at me over the console. "You got arrested?"

I blink at her, a couple of times, just to be sure I've got the meaning of her words down. "You know I've been to prison, right?"

"I do know, as a matter of fact. I know you talk to a probation officer every week, too." Every couple of weeks, now, actually, but even I realize this isn't the best time to be getting pedantic. "Are you trying to get yourself sent back inside? What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?" I sputter. "He had a quota to fill before the end of his shift, that's what—"

"Oh, spare me, Joe says you were speeding, that's why you got picked up." She crosses her arms under her tits. "That you were talkin' back to him, too—"

"He was insulting my mama, did you expect me to just take that lyin' down—"

"You insult your mama twice a day, you're tellin' me you couldn't ignore him long enough to just get out of there? He hit you!"

I feel my mouth with my fingertips, where a bruise must be pooling by my busted lower lip; he didn't knock any teeth loose, which made me brush the whole thing off as just a matter of course, even Estrada wasn't by-the-book enough that he wouldn't slap around the dumb hood he got in his sights. And what comes out instead of an apology for worrying her, is me turning the tables on her. I'm not proud of it. "You shouldn't be hangin' around Joe. Ridin' in his car, especially, at night. What the hell were you thinking?"

She can be so naive sometimes, it borders on recklessness, she just doesn't get what any regular East side girl would without being told— that the way he eyes her spells the kind of trouble she won't get out of easy. And judging by the narrow-eyed, thin-lipped look she gives me in response, she's not fixing to get it any time soon. "Why, that I wanted to go on a date with him, of course. He was just about to take me down to a nice French restaurant, before you needed rescuing, really put a damper on the mood."

The thought of that makes me want to bend a crowbar in half. I never considered myself the caveman type before, but even I've got my limits. "He was drivin' me home from work, that's all that happened, so don't try to turn this around on me to defend your own behavior," she adds with an irritated sideways glance. "He doesn't want me on the bus at night, he doesn't think it's safe."

I shouldn't be snapping at her, but you know what, I'm bone tired, my head's started to pound against the side of my skull, and I just got arrested. I think I've earned the right to not have saintly patience for once. "You'd be safer on a city bus with your garden variety pervert, mark my fuckin' words, than cruisin' around alone with East Tulsa's best-known pimp."

"Joe is the only reason you're not in prison right now," she snaps right back at me, her mittens folded into her sleeves, "so maybe you should try toning down the insults. And don't be ridiculous, he's not pimpin' anybody."

I laugh at her. Out loud, and not very nicely, either. "So what exactly do you think those half-dressed girls at the House of the Rising Sun are doin' there, huh? Workin' as artists' models?" Between you and me, I'm pretty sure girls is the best description for some of them. Joe can slap as much makeup as he wants on their faces, and they can give you all the tough, dead-eyed stares in the world, but none of that's going to make no fifteen-year-old come off as a convincing grown woman.

"What half-dressed girls?" She rears her head up. "My brother's in his gang, you think I wouldn't know if something like that was goin' on, that he'd be involved in something like that to begin with?"

"You know, the naive little schoolgirl act, it's gettin' kind of old." I hate myself for saying it and don't know why I can't seem to stop, feel as compulsively cruel as my mama— a decent amount of lower-level Kings, even, are fuzzy on the details of the prostitution ring he's got going on. You need the right stomach for that shit, and a mouth that's been padlocked shut. "And then you wonder why I ain't got you more involved with what I do, with the gang— 'cause you couldn't handle none of it, that's why. You ain't got the sense to even believe me when I tell you that you're puttin' yourself in danger."

"I think you're jealous, and that's what this is all about, though you won't admit it," she says with a mean scoff in the back of her throat. "I think Bonnie messed around on you, so now you don't trust any girl at all— you're just lookin' for an excuse. And I'm not so sure I like bein' tarred with the same brush when I ain't ever stepped out on you."

And I don't even know what's wrong with me, indeed, when I say, "if you want to piss your old man off, there's lots of small-time hoods that would be right up your alley— hell, that's half of the Brumly outfit. You can cry real pretty over one of them whenever some cop decides to slap him around, or he gets his eye blacked in a fight, okay, doll? 'Cause if you want to be with me, you get upset over some kinda nothin' like this, you're gonna run clean out of tears."

She grips the headrest like she's really about to start laying into me, and hell, baby, give it to me. I can take it, and I sure deserve it. But then Joe comes back and throws open the door to the driver's seat, tosses a package of something with the consistency of white sand into the back. It lands on my lap. "Y'all want to go down to the Ribbon, have some drinks?" he asks, oblivious to the tension in the car, or maybe just not caring. "I'm buying."

"You can just drop me off at the Dingo," Gabi snaps as she stares out the windshield, back ramrod-straight, and her tone of voice just dares me to object and tell him to take her straight home. "I need to talk to Diego."

I don't say anything at all. Not, baby, it ain't you I don't trust, it's him, or you think I don't know as much, that Estrada only said that shit about my ma because it was initially gettin' shoveled out my mouth?, or even I shouldn't have worried you, I'm sorry, okay? I trace a pattern in the condensation on the window— a gang symbol, that my finger makes automatically— and keep it zipped. Hope her brother's ready for all the questions she's about to throw in his face, and I'll try to be as magnanimous as I can be when she figures out I was right all along.

I'm a little less sure of my own righteousness once I get home, and by that, I mean that I'm starting to feel pretty sick to my stomach with remorse. Not enough to call her up and apologize, though, more's the pity. I try to tell myself that I'm not one who's been out of line here— that she's overreacting like hell to a police stop that was, at best, half my fault, and that any guy wouldn't be thrilled about his girl cruising around with another man, especially that man. I pull out a joint to help with this thought process, once my mind starts conjuring up images of him trying to slip his hand up her skirt, in the dark, push something more—

"Tim, some guy's on the line, and he's askin' for you." Angela's standing halfway in the doorway, straining at the cord for the phone in the hall. "Says his name's Diego?"

I really hope he's not fixing to come down here and kick my ass, for the way I was talking to his sister. I could probably take him, but I'm not so sure I want to test that theory out. "Tim?" he says once I give a hesitant bueno? into the receiver. "Uh… do you wanna come down here?"

"You still at the Dingo?" I cradle the phone between my shoulder and ear as I try to strike the match without burning this house down. Maybe she hasn't told on me after all, if he wants to get together. "Look, carnal, I'm not really in the mood to go out tonight, 's been a long day." I even fake a yawn, to try to bolster my point. "One I've worked too many probation violations into already."

"I'm at Saint Francis," he says. His voice sounds strange, like the way a strung-out string oscillates when you tweak it. "In emergency. I dunno how to say this."

"Can you spit it out already?" I ask irritably, but the irritation's more out of worry than anything. Man, emergency, not even the free clinic. Must be serious.

"Look, Gabi got shot, okay?"

He must endeavour only to avoid hatred.