“I came out for old times’ sake.”

“Roland March,” he says, looking me over. “The suicide cop.”

“Don’t remind me. Anybody talking around here? Neighbors witness anything?”

He glances up and down the street, like he’s worried the nearby uniforms will overhear. “The lady down the way might be worth a talk. See the yellow house?”

“I think it’s supposed to be white.”

Nix isn’t a fat man, but whenever he shrugs, his head retracts turtle-like, giving him a double chin. “We got a statement off her already, but she sure was talkative. If you’re looking for the full canvassing experience, you might give her a try.”

Ducking under the tape, I head for the yellow-white house. The neighborhood must have been nice once, before it was sandwiched in by apartment complexes. In southwest Houston, the complexes serve the same purpose as inner-city housing projects in other parts of the country. They’re easy to secure, so gangs move in and start doing business. Colombian heroin and coke, Mexican meth, crack – it all comes through along the I-10 corridor, and the complexes serve as weigh stations.

A decade ago, there were places along here a patrol cruiser couldn’t go without taking fire from one gang or another. We cracked down, and the dealers got the message. Now they stick to doing business. Everybody gets along, more or less, except for the ones in neighborhoods like this, where the trouble can’t help but leak over. But there’s a tension out on the streets, a lot of rumors about the Mexican cartels and the kind of trouble that might be around the corner.

I adjust the badge around my neck. Give the door a good knock.

When it opens, I’m greeted by a ripe young thing in her early twenties, bursting out of a tank top and pink shorts, pushing the door open with her foot. Glitter polish on the toenails, a flip-flop dangling. Her features are two sizes too big for her face. Huge eyes, a terrifyingly wide mouth marked out in brown liner.