Sure enough, Sastre pulls a hard left on 16th and hits the onramp for the 10 Freeway. Above us, helicopters dot the skies, surveying the fire. News, police, fire. Anybody who can get a bird in the air.

“How far does the Cleanup Crew go?” I say.

Letitia looks up through the windscreen at the helicopters. “Not nearly far enough to hide all this shit. This is all going live across the country. The YouTube videos are probably going viral.”

“I was thinking more about us,” I say. “Everybody knows you’re on this. You called it in.” I’m not crazy about the idea of being on national television in any capacity.

“That actually makes it easier,” she says. “A lot more control over things when it’s official. We’ll figure something out.”

We hit the freeway and it’s like Letitia had predicted. There’s very little traffic, most of it parked off to the side, people out of their cars taking selfies with a burning L.A. backdrop.

I wonder what they’ll call this. The Great L.A. Firestorm? Firepocalypse? I wonder how many churches are packed tonight thinking this is the actual End Times. How many mosques, how many synagogues?

And holy fuck, the cults this will create. The guys walking around with signs on Hollywood Boulevard yelling at everyone to repent for their heathen masturbatory ways or whatever are going to come out in droves. It’ll get blamed on climate change, gays and lesbians, the sex industry, the movie industry, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, Mexicans.

Dammit. As soon as anyone hears about Sastre’s involvement and her link to the cartels, the shit’s really gonna hit the fan.

“What kind of story you think they’ll spin?” I say.

“I don’t know. It’s not like anybody’s in charge. Whoever gets on it first. Hopefully it won’t be something stupid that gets more people killed. But it might.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

The Porsche puts on more speed, and starts to pull away from us. Letitia guns the Crown Vic to stay close, and has to brake hard when Sastre taps her brakes and closes the distance.

Something flies out of the driver’s side window, and just before it lands on the freeway in front of us we both recognize what it is. She’s got some of the tlepilli in the car with her and she just chucked a lit one at us.

Letitia slams on the gas and turns, the blue flaming torch bouncing past us and lighting the concrete of the freeway on fire. I look behind us to see a massive section of the freeway go up. Concrete’s not supposed to burn. But then, the Fourth Street Bridge shouldn’t have collapsed.