Felix jolted when a hand landed on his shoulder. He spun around—only to see Mark, the bastard himself.
"Jesus, you trying to kill me? Scared the hell out of me."
He half-raised a fist but thought better of it when he saw Mark in full gear. Not worth it. He filed it away instead. Mark now owed him five dinners.
"This is my girlfriend, Rachel. Why are you even here?"
Mark replied. "I got called in for emergency support. Why are you stuck here in the holding zone? Didn't you get the call from the station?"
Felix sighed. "We came for the music. Then the shooting started. Phones got knocked out of our hands in the stampede. No calls after that."
"You two? At a gang-rap show?"
Rachel cut in, calm: "My professor assigned a project. I needed to compare East Coast and West Coast rap. That's why we came."
Mark nodded—then froze. "Hold up. You're telling me you were inside the warehouse, saw the whole thing?"
"Yeah," Felix said. "What about it?"
Mark let out a strangled yelp and bolted.
"Next time you see him," Felix told Rachel, "don't shake his hand. He's no good."
Rachel laughed and agreed.
Moments later Mark was back, dragging several others.
"Chief Mesa's here to take command," he whispered, winking.
Felix straightened at once. He hadn't seen much of Mesa, but watching the man come out at midnight to take charge still gave him a shot of pride.
He snapped to attention. "Good evening, sir."
Mesa gave him a nod. "At ease, son. I hear you witnessed the shooting from start to finish. Walk me through it." He gestured for a female officer to take Rachel aside.
Felix gave her a reassuring glance, then faced Mesa. "Sir, we came for the music. At first it was just loud. Then a rapper called MangoFoo got on stage. He barely made it halfway through a track when people started shouting—'Crips get out,' 'Bloods forever.' Then the shots began. We tried to get out. Inside, gunfire went on and on—dozens of rounds. Then rounds fired outward, into the crowd. Chaos outside. We couldn't drive anywhere. Then reinforcements arrived."
Mesa studied him. "You're Chinese. What were you doing at an East Coast gang-rap show?"
Felix repeated his line: "She's a UCLA student. Her assignment. That's the only reason."
"And MangoFoo's lyrics—do you remember any?"
"Not all. Just a phrase. Sounded like 'shout out the Klan.'"
"The Klan? You're sure?"
"Positive."
Mesa nodded. "That matches what we have."
Felix bit back the thought—then why ask me?
Mark grinned. "Come on, you don't think we're useless, do you? Look around—witnesses everywhere. We already had it. But you're one of us. That makes it credible. And you were here, so I had to let the boss know."
Felix felt foolish. He'd thought he was delivering something critical.
Mark leaned closer, voice low and cheerful, explaining why tonight had exploded.
"Klan means Ku Klux Klan. White supremacists. Formed in 1866. Lynchings, cross burnings, violence—infamous. Even had presidents and senators in their ranks. FBI spent years crushing them, but fragments still exist. And after 2016, with David Duke mouthing support for Trump and Trump dodging a clear disavowal, rumors kept them alive."
Felix finally understood. No wonder the crowd had turned the moment the lyric hit. A Black rapper invoking the Klan—pure suicide. Add his ties to the Crips, and with Bloods in the crowd… the powder keg lit itself.
Mesa seemed satisfied. "So. Small-scale gang conflict. Contained. That's manageable. What we feared was something orchestrated. This? Just another turf flare-up."
The dead were almost all Black. Which meant the narrative would stay simple: Black gangs killing their own. Easier to sell.
The female officer returned with Rachel's statement. It matched Felix's. Mesa returned the notebook, thoughtful. "Felix, did you bring your weapon tonight?"
"Yes, sir. My registered backup. It was collected earlier by patrol for residue testing."
Mesa nodded. "Correct procedure. You know why—we can't risk missing shooters who slip out and blend with the crowd. Without GSR tests, some would vanish. That's unacceptable."
"I understand, sir."
"Good. Then I'll ask one more thing. Would you submit to additional testing? Your girlfriend too."
There it was. The setup.
"Of course," Felix said evenly. "We've nothing to hide." Rachel nodded in agreement.
"Excellent."
An officer produced the test kit. Gunshot residue was tested two ways: the slow method—nitric acid swabs, later equipment analysis; or the fast one—a filter paper scrape from skin most likely to hold particles, followed by a dip in a sulfuric reagent. A flash of blue meant nitrates. And nitrates meant powder.