“Gerry calls up a whoadie of his and tells him we’ll buy some pancakes if he come pick us up. And his whoadie sez okay but he’s with a bro so we has to buy him some pancakes, too. So Gerry sez okay, he’ll buy everyone pancakes. So we wait for ’round an hour and then Gerry’s buds come in Mel’s and I buy everyone pancakes with the money that Rudy gave me. I bought everyone pancakes and eggs and bacon and shit. It comes to like a hundred dollars. But that’s okay cuz I still had about two hundred left over even with buyin’ everyone breakfast. So we all ate pancakes and eggs and shit and then we went home.”

Martel shrugged.

“That’s it.”

The cell was silent.

Decker said, “Let me recap this very briefly. Rudy told you that he went to Ekerling’s office to get your CDs back.”

“Yeah.”

“Rudy said there was a problem. That he and Ekerling argued.”

“Yeah.”

“That Ekerling came at Rudy with a knife and Rudy shot Ekerling and stuffed him in the trunk of the Mercedes.”

“Yeah.”

“So you knew about the body in the trunk, Travis.”

“He was dead. I checked it out with my own eyes. He was already dead.”

“I understand that.”

“I didn’t do no murder.”

“I know,” Decker soothed. “Rudy said he needed you to get rid of the body. He gave you the keys to the Mercedes and told you to dump it in the hood.”

“Yeah.”

“You picked up Geraldo Perry and went to Jonas Park to get rid of the car. But then you realized that you had no one to pick you up from the park. So you took the car all the way back into Hollywood to dump it.”

“Yeah. Like I tole you, Gerry wanted to go to the Bitty Bit party, anyway. And I figure why not cuz Ekerling be already dead.”

“Got it,” Decker said. “So you drove the car back to Hollywood, to the Bitty Bit party, but by that time, the party was over and Gerry was hungry. He wanted pancakes.”

“Yeah, that’s why we dumped the Benzene where we did. We saw Mel’s and figured we’d get some pancakes. We bought everyone pancakes.”

“Why didn’t you tell us all of this in the first place?” Diaz asked.

“’Cause Rudy tole me that if somethin’ happens, that I shouldn’t talk. That he’d get me a white-assed lawyer and everything would be fine.”

“And you believed him?”

“He’s a white boy,” Travis said. “He sez he’s a lawyer.”

“That much is true,” Decker said.

“He knows the system. Besides, I knew that he weren’t goin’ be producin’ my shit if I ratted him out.”