We’re sitting in La Cage, a rooftop cigar bar on Sunset, which puts us at eye level with a billboard of two enormous models posed in a pouty stare-down. Their bodies are painted a gold that glitters in the upturned lights. It’s an ad for a scent that both men and women can wear and, sure enough, you can’t tell if these people are male or female or what. They’re teenagers, just like the boy sitting across from me, though he looks older than they do.

His brow creases skeptically and he looks around as if someone could hear, but we’ve got this corner of the rooftop to ourselves. He leans toward me. I have his undivided attention. Terry Laws is big news in L.A. Everybody knows what happened to him, or thinks they do. The boy across from me starts to say something, but I shake my head and put a finger to my lips.

“Picture a desert night in the Antelope Valley, August, two years ago. I’ll help you get started, my friend-it’s black and hot and windy. The tumbleweeds roll and the Joshua trees look like crucified thieves. Terry Laws and I are on patrol out of Lancaster substation, northern L.A. County. The wind bumps the cruiser, moves it around a little. The sand hisses against the windows and you can’t see a single star. And that’s when we spot the van, parked on the Avenue M off-ramp, halfway between L.A. and nowhere. Right where the tipster said he’d seen it. When I open the door of the cruiser, the wind tries to rip it off, and it takes me both hands to slam it closed before I pop my holster strap and follow Terry to the van. I’m whistling something because that’s what I do when a situation gets tight. Helps settle the nerves, okay? Even walking up to the van I see it’s all wrong-windows open, windshield smeared, liftgate up. Up close, there it is, two men inside shot dead, all sand and blood, sure, we check for life but it’s fucking pointless and we both know it. All this had happened minutes ago. Not hours, minutes-”