Detective Bruno and I have been discussing the case, how it morphed from a simple slaughter of two upper-crust empty vessels to a sinkhole of corruption. I brought up Violet’s strange relationship with her twin, something I’d been sitting on. A couple of beats later, Lorena looked up from her paperwork, her jaw dropped.

“What twin, I don’t know of any twin. What the hell?” She was really caught off guard.

I remembered Violet telling me how infrequently her sister was around, and made a mental note to check it out. With all the latest happenings in the scummy netherworld where I operate, I came to the unavoidable conclusion that this free-spirited Khalika needed to be located. It wasn’t something I looked forward to telling Violet. But I knew it had to happen.

Why didn’t she tell Bruno? Something about Violet’s excuse was gnawing at me—that she didn’t see the point in bringing her sister up.

Then, something weird: one day while I was checking out a lead in the neighborhood around Violet’s loft, I thought I’d stop in and say hi, maybe see if she wanted to get lunch if she was up. I was about to park and just as I passed the building entrance, I spotted her exiting the loft and slipping her keys in her pocket.

Except, I realized, it wasn’t Violet.

And yet it was—an exact replica, except for the blond cornrows. There was something else, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Something about her attitude, the almost visible electricity around her, some negative charge. It was like she was breathing different air than everyone around her, getting high off it. I remembered Violet telling me Khalika sometimes wore a blond cornrow wig. She had big sunglasses on, and I couldn’t catch her eye. I tooted the horn, but she ignored it and started jogging north, moving at a good clip. By the time I could hang a U and catch up to her, she’d disappeared down a side street, and I gave up the chase.

When I told Violet about it later, she just said, “Uh-huh, welcome to my world.”

The lead I’d been chasing up had to do with my baby—I could never give that up. If you spend enough time at this job—this calling—life seems to take on all the elements of a really black comedy, one where some poor schmuck keeps getting hit with one sack full of shit after another, sliding down in it, doing a clown dance to stay upright.

Except, instead of the audience, the gods on Olympus are laughing. Laughing their asses off.

Fuck them all.