“I intend to.” I pull Cargill forward in his rolling chair and push him face down onto the desk. He groans with pain but doesn’t move. I keep my left hand on his back, planting him on the desk. With my right hand I reach into the pocket of my jeans and pull out a tiny round object, the size of a quarter, with a flexible wire sticking out of it. Being face down on the desk, Cargill can’t see what I’m doing. I reach over and drop the object into the narrow space between the end of the desk and the wall. I make sure the wire isn’t sticking out anywhere from behind the desk. Satisfied, I unholster my pistol and place the muzzle against the back of Cargill’s head.

“Gavin Lester is in the hospital for one day and you think you can start calling the shots?” I put as much menace into my voice as I can. With the twin howler monkeys in my brain, it’s not difficult. “You want to get in bed with the Sureños?” I lean closer. “You tell them they aren’t welcome. I know what you’re doing, Brandon. And it’s not going to happen.”

I leave him there, face-down and bleeding on his desk. Turns out the back door was locked from the inside, so I turn the bolt, holster my pistol, and step outside into a weedy lot behind the garage, letting the door swing shut behind me. I walk past the black truck and up Northside. Part of me wants to shoot out the windows and tires in Cargill’s truck just for spite, but that would be indulgent.

It takes me less than three minutes to get to my bike, which has a good view of the garage just down the road. I open an app on my phone that receives the transmissions from the bug I planted in Cargill’s office, then plug in a set of earbuds. I could listen on the helmet’s headset, but I’m conspicuous enough and don’t want to sit here for hours in my helmet. The specs on the bug say the range is a quarter of a mile, and I’m a little over half that and have direct line of sight to the garage. The signal is as clear as a cell phone call.

“—on the floor,” someone says.

“Fuck the lamp,” another voice says. Cargill. “And fuck Jerry, too. Why didn’t he jump her, or call your ass for help?”

“Just hold still, Brad, I gotta wipe off—”

“Ow! That hurts, motherfucker!”

“Sorry.”

There are some indistinct sounds, and then the other man speaks again. “Gonna prob’ly need stitches.”

“Just put the fucking butterfly bandages on. And then you and Jerry get out of here. Jerry? You paying attention? Christ, he’s probably got a concussion. How many fingers am I holding up?”