The day after I see Sugar Child, my bus is marooned at the Mill Street checkpoint. SWAT cops with F-19 rifles have eight men spread-eagled on the ground. The unprepossessing checkpoint has no razor wire, sandbags, or anti-truck barriers. No techs to process internal travel permits. It’s just a ramshackle glass-walled toll booth. But people have been shot here. I’m breaking out in hives—I would give anything to wash my hands. Finally, everyone is vetted. We get the go-ahead. Forward to the promised land.
I find a cluster of clergymen and street people standing by an altar of candles and wilted flowers in Pioneer Park. They’re honoring a homeless woman who died the night before. Someone says it was near El Pueblo.
The street people uncork bottles of wine and pour libations onto the pavement. To send the deceased into the afterworld with a taste of fortified port.
A priest intones: “Oh, holy father, in thy august and sacred name, receive this child of yours, as she has left the Southland to be in your arms. Love her and cherish her, as this city did not. Take her into your flock.”
While the priest finalizes his eulogy by saying, “Whether we are rich or poor, god in heaven will always console us,” gunshots erupt near the bus stop. Two shots from a large-caliber pistol. On its heels is the report of a smaller handgun. I look to my left. The bank robber that gave me the suitcase is highballing down E Street’s center lane. Without stopping, he lifts his .45 and fires a single shot—it wings a stoplight, killing it on yellow.
Right behind him are Dalton and Cassidy.
Dalton aims his service revolver at the robber’s back and squeezes off three rounds—the first slug clips a woman in the arm as she exits El Pueblo, the others gouge a palm tree’s trunk.
The robber dashes onto the curb, crouching near a fire hydrant. Pivoting, he steadies the .45 in the crook of his elbow and shoots. Cassidy is blown off his feet, a fountain of blood geysering from his neck. Fighting gravity—his knees buckle inch by inch—he capsizes to the pavement.
Dalton skids to a halt and levels his revolver. He fires: the bank robber’s head disappears in a nimbus of blood and bone fragments. The shot’s blast—riding high on the wind—echoes for a long second. Until Dalton’s triumphant falsetto cuts through it: “I killed the little asshole! Yes, I did!”
The winos in the park had been cheering the robber, exhorting him to make his escape. They shut up when Dalton wheels on them; the narc’s beard is speckled with blood.
“Fuck you, faggots! Fuck you! I’ll kill all of you!”
Within minutes E Street teems with SWAT vehicles. The block is quickly cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. Cassidy’s body is bagged and hefted into a coroner’s van. The robber is left in the road—one cop after another kicks his still-warm corpse until it’s just a heap of skin and rags festering in the December sun. His spirit, a near-transparent whirlwind of dust and frond bits, takes flight, lifting over El Pueblo. I shade my eyes against the smog’s glare and watch it disappear from view.
I learned to say the Pledge of Allegiance in kindergarten. I placed my right hand over my heart and repeated the sacred oath: one nation under god, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. But when I see the bank robber’s brains pooling in the gutter, and when I hear the priest cursing at my side, I know god is indifferent to us. I know the devil rules E Street.
Dalton strides back and forth in front of the coroner’s van. A uniformed officer throws an arm around the plainclothes man’s shoulders. Dalton nods, then wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.
I have to go before the maniac sees me.