nine-millimeter out of his inner coat pocket. He pulled out the magazine, which he placed on the dusty TV, and ejected the lone cartridge from the chamber. Then he wiped it down with a white handkerchief Steve handed him. With the gun encased completely in the handkerchief, he stepped behind Rudy and put the gun in Rudy's hands, which were still handcuffed behind his back. “Here. Grab this and get a good hold of it.” As he did this, Steve stepped in front of him with his gun drawn, barrel sighting down on Rudy's left eye.
This time, Rudy was the one who pissed his pants.
Daryl placed the gun in Rudy's sweaty palms, forcing it into the gangster's grip.
He smiled as the gangster's hands closed around the weapon, palm encasing the grip, fingers wrapped around the trigger guard. “That's my man,” Daryl said softly as he extracted the gun from Rudy's grip. He wrapped the gun in the handkerchief, along with the magazine, and placed both of them in a plastic evidence bag that Steve produced.
With the evidence bag sealed tight and resting in Steve's coat pocket, it was time to call it a night.
They herded the gang members to the front door and before they went out, Daryl turned to Rudy and Frankie. “You two know what you did was wrong. Firing a gun into a crowd of children is an unspeakable act, and you deserve to die a slow, painful death because of it. But thanks to bleeding heart liberal lawyers and judges, the most you'll probably get is twenty-five years in prison and both of your sorry asses will be out in ten years for some bullshit reason. I really don't give a shit what happens to you. What I don't want to hear is any ... deviation from what happened here tonight. We followed up on a lead that the cowards who killed that little girl might be Rudy, the both of you became belligerent during questioning, and Rudy produced a handgun during our arrest and Frankie attacked Steve. That's what happened."
Steve chuckled. “Yeah. And don't tell your fucking lawyer unless you want a size twelve asshole in prison."
Daryl grinned at Rudy. “You have a sister, don't you? A homegirl in Los Compadres?"
Rudy nodded, too afraid to even answer.
“I'd take Steve's advice very seriously,” Daryl mentioned. “You know how I feel about gang members. I hate all you fucking cockroaches. You say anything to anybody that is different than what we just told you and I will personally kill your slut of a sister.
But first I'll give her the best fuck she's ever had. I'll fuck her till she bleeds. And then maybe I'll kill your mother, too. I'd be doing the world a favor."
At the mention of the threat of violence to his family, Rudy's eyes narrowed in hate. His face twisted in a grimace of anger, and he looked ready to unleash with a fury of his own, but he didn't. He simply gave up. He knew what was best for him. All the homeboys knew that Detective Daryl Garcia was nobody to fuck around with. It was Detective Garcia you thought of when you thought about the LAPD; a man who would fuck you up just because he felt like it.
But there was more to it than that.
Daryl Garcia hated gang members with a passion. It was his hate of them that kept him going in his line of work. It was his hate that got him up every morning, ready to face another day. And it was his love of humanity in general, of a good life where one should be entitled to live free from the fear of gang violence and crime that drove him to do his work. For Detective Daryl Garcia, the work of a homicide detective was intensely personal. It pained him to see the broken, bleeding bodies of innocent victims of gang warfare. It pained him more to see the grieving of the families; the mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters of those that had been taken in such senseless violence. But more important, it was the victims of such crimes who were children that kept him going.
Detectives Daryl Garcia and Steve Howe herded Rudy “Psycho” Montego and Frankie a.k.a. “Flaco” past the