Neon and Cordite. Summer, 1981.

The Sunset Strip choked on neon and cocaine. Bands climbed from the sleaze on ladders of eyeliner and Marshall stacks. The rock scene was alive, always hungry for the next big thing.

Detective Sergeant Jack Dalton stood over the open trunk, a cigarette burning his lips. Primer-gray Chevelle. Cold steel. Dawn couldn't break through the neon haze, leaving the alley to bleed a toxic pinkish-orange. Kids stumbled home. Guitarists dragged heavy amps across the concrete, and groupies hitched rides—all of them missing the corpses twenty feet down.

Dalton exhaled a gray cloud. Eleven years in LA homicide meant he knew the gutters. The Strip kept dancing until blood spilled. Then his phone rang.

He was tired of the cycle. Everybody was a fresh piece of evidence in a case he couldn't close—the permanent moral rot of the city.

5:44 a.m. Dalton stared at the bodies in the trunk. "Bad night, kid."

Johnny Riggs stood nearby. Ten years younger and wound tight, wearing cheap denim over a faded Led Zeppelin shirt.

Bass thumped, punishing the brick wall behind Gazzarri’s. Dalton scanned the alley: fresh spray paint, a tipped trash can, one black stiletto. Broken glass caught the rising sun. The Strip always stayed the same, smelling of stale sweat, cheap perfume, and piss.

"Jimmy Rat-tail," Riggs said. "Dime bags. Nothing worth a bullet."

"Wrong customer," Dalton said.

"Music?" Riggs asked.

"Always music."

Dalton struck a match. Riggs waved the busboy over. He was maybe seventeen, drowning in an oversized leather jacket.

The kid shook. "I just took out the trash."

"Time?" Dalton asked.

"Five."

"Company?" Riggs pressed.

“No. Heard yelling at four-thirty. A guy in a skull shirt. Tall, blond."

Dalton looked at Riggs. "That's half the zip code."

They spent the next hour working the scene, finding nothing but the usual filth until Riggs noticed the unique stamp on Jimmy’s dime bags—a tiny, stylized snake head. This wasn't local street trash. This was branded product, high-end cut. Dalton remembered hearing rumors of a new, organized crew tightening the Strip’s supply, calling themselves the Vipers.

The vinyl body bags zipped shut with a heavy rasp. James Rattaglia, aka Jimmy Rat-tail. Born 1958, Pacoima. Petty theft, bar fights, small bags. A career loser.

Back at the precinct, Dalton opened the file. The heavy paper rasped on his wooden desk as pale light cut through the blinds.

"Stiffed his dealers," Riggs said. "What about the girl?"

"Collateral." Dalton shut the folder.

The morgue ran bone cold. Bleach burned the nose, and the steel tables held the heavy weight of the dead.

Doctor Martinez lifted the first sheet. "Two close rounds. Clean execution."

"And the girl?"

Martinez pulled the second sheet. "Double-tapped."

Star looked even younger in death. Dalton stared at her pale face. Rachel. Nineteen. Waitress. She worked the graveyard shift at the Pantry diner, singing her original songs while she polished the counter. She had a crooked smile and dreamed of hearing her song played on the radio. Dalton had eaten burgers there—no pickles, no onions—and she always slipped him an extra slice of pie. Rat-tail had actively courted the gutter, but Star deserved to keep breathing. She had asked Dalton to hear her demo tape. He had made a promise. He broke it.

They hit the Strip. The name 'Widowmaker' kept popping up. A new band riding fast fame while crowds choked the sidewalks. Their guitarist was Lance Vega. Blond hair. The kind of guy who screamed in alleys.

They found the band at The Whisky a Go Go. The club bled red and green stage lights. Vega spotted them immediately.

"Cops?" Vega laughed, stepping up to the mic. "What?"

"Jimmy Rattaglia," Dalton said over the noise.

Vega shut up. He jumped off the stage, sweat ruining his heavy eyeliner. "I bought weed from him. Is he in trouble?"

"He's dead. Where were you at four-thirty?"

"Here. Rehearsing."

Riggs stepped up, invading Vega's space. "I hate metal, and I hate you. Lie to me, and I'll lock you up."

Riggs put a hand on Vega's guitar neck, stopping him from adjusting the strap. "We're not talking about weed, pretty boy. We're talking about a double homicide. Tell me who Jimmy was trying to score from."

"Jimmy found a score," Vega said quickly, his bravado cracking. "Big time."

"Where?"

"Crestview Hotel. Room 222." Vega swallowed hard. "Viper Crew. Victor Kane. He's a bad hombre."

Kane. Seventies dime bags turned eighties cocaine king. He was backed by Barstow biker muscle.

"Thanks," Dalton muttered.

The Crestview stank of stale smoke and cheap disinfectant. Dalton touched his hip holster, feeling the reassuring chill of cool steel. Riggs kicked the door. Wood splintered, and the deadbolt snapped.

Shadows choked the room. Three Vipers scrambled, snake patches flashing on heavy leather.

"Police!" Riggs shouted.

A scarred Viper flipped the desk for cover. A thick ledger hit the floor, pages fanning out. Submachine gun fire immediately chewed the doorframe, sending pine splinters flying. Dalton dove, drawing his .45 in mid-air. He fired back, putting two blind rounds into the drywall.

Riggs laid down suppressing fire, pinning the second man. "Cover!"

Dalton emptied his mag, filling the room with smoke and drywall dust. Riggs slid, his cowboy boots tearing up the cheap carpet, and snatched the ledger just as the balcony glass rained down around them.

A shotgun pumped in the kitchen.

"Down!" Dalton yelled. He reloaded and fired twice into the dark. One round found a shoulder; the second killed the overhead light.

Everything went black in an instant.

Scarface broke for the balcony. Riggs fired a steady 9mm rhythm, but the Viper shattered the remaining glass and vanished into the alley.

Silence returned, heavy and ringing. Dalton shook off the dust. Riggs gripped the book tight against his chest.

"Got it. Let's move."

They hit the fire stairs hard, boot heels hammering the rusted iron grating until the back alley swallowed them whole. The primer-gray Nova waited in the neon shadows. They piled in.

The engine screamed as Dalton punished the concrete, clearing the pillars and hitting the street. Riggs yelled over the roaring V8, tapping the ledger. "Tijuana pipeline."

The pursuit hit the main drag. Dalton drifted the Nova around a van, tires fighting for grip. Two SUVs closed in fast—heavy brush guards, tinted glass. A passenger leaned out the window. Automatic gunfire shattered the Nova's rear windshield.

"Bridge!" Riggs yelled, shaking safety glass from his hair.

Dalton watched the mirror. The lead SUV pulled alongside. Dalton slammed the brakes, letting the heavy truck shoot past, then cranked the wheel hard. The Nova's heavy steel quarter-panel clipped the SUV's rear tire. The truck rolled, raining a shower of golden sparks across the pavement.

The second SUV swerved to avoid the wreck. Dalton instantly cut the headlights and drifted under the concrete bridge, weaving through the thick support pillars. Darkness wrapped the car. He killed the engine.

Silence descended, broken only by the ticking of the cooling engine block. Riggs put a penlight between his teeth. The narrow beam hit the ledger's pages, illuminating the ink. Dates. Coordinates. Cartel contacts. Ten years of distribution logic. Jimmy Rattaglia's frantic math filled the margins in red ink—blackmail numbers.

"He tried to squeeze Kane," Riggs said around the flashlight, turning the page. "Kane owes the cartel ten million."

Kane was dead meat.

"The Cartel wants their cut," Riggs muttered. "No ledger, no proof of where the product went."

"Kane just lost his lifeline," Dalton said.

The Nova sat in the industrial darkness, watching a corrugated metal warehouse down by the rail yards. Dalton lit a cigarette, the brief match flare highlighting the crook of his broken nose.

"Sloppy," Dalton said, exhaling smoke into the humid air. "Arrogant."

Riggs leaned forward over the steering wheel. "Look."

A Lincoln Continental with a mirror shine rolled up. Three Vipers stepped out, heavy in leather and silver chains. A Ford Bronco parked behind it. Four Cartel shooters with cold, spaghetti-western faces climbed out. The warehouse door rolled up, spilling yellow light onto the oily asphalt. They all went inside.

Dalton and Riggs moved through rusted dumpsters and stacked shipping pallets. Riggs boosted Dalton onto a pile of tractor tires so he could look through a grime-caked window. Inside, a folding table sat under a harsh bulb. Victor Kane drummed his fingers nervously on a metal briefcase. Across from him stood the Cartel boss in a bolo tie and polished black boots.

Four kilos wrapped in brown tape. Stacks of green cash.

"Now?" Riggs whispered.

"Wait. Let them trade."

Then hell broke loose. A Viper pulled a switchblade, looking to cut a kilo for a taste. A Cartel enforcer shoved him hard, and the knife clattered to the concrete floor.

"Watch the leather, Pancho!" the biker snarled.

The Cartel boss didn't argue; he just cleared a .45 from his waistband.

"Shit," Dalton hissed, dropping from the window.

The first shot cracked. An Uzi answered, tearing through the power box and killing the lights. Muzzle flashes strobed wildly in the pitch-black warehouse, bullets chewing through the corrugated metal walls and pinging off the dumpsters outside.

Dalton and Riggs returned to the Nova. Dalton popped the trunk. The steel groaned, revealing two heavy 12-gauge pump shotguns. Dalton racked his slide while Riggs stuffed extra buckshot shells into his denim pockets.

Dalton grabbed the radio and called for tactical backup.

"We should let them kill each other," Riggs muttered.

They flanked the rolling bay door, listening to the screams and the relentless automatic fire inside.

"LAPD!" Dalton yelled, kicking the pedestrian door wide open. "Drop it!"

Three Vipers spun toward the entrance.

"Cops!" Kane screamed, diving for the concrete.

Uzi fire instantly chewed the doorframe, sending splinters into Dalton's cheek. Riggs stepped out and fired the 12-gauge, the thunderous boom echoing off the high ceilings. Return fire sparked wildly off the floor. A Viper screamed, dropping his weapon to clutch a shredded leg.

"Cover!"

They dove behind a stack of wooden crates. Pine shredded under the crossfire, filling the air with flying splinters and thick sawdust. Dalton fired blind over the top. A stray round chipped the concrete inches from his boots. Riggs was sweating, running purely on adrenaline. The script had flipped; the cops were pinned.

"Stay low," Dalton growled. "Make your shots count."

Automatic fire hammered their position, the bullets converging until the wood began to structurally fail.

"Two shells left!" Riggs yelled over the din, firing a blind blast to keep heads down. Bullets stitched the crate a foot above him.

Heavy smoke and raw cordite filled the warehouse. Across the floor, Kane hid behind a forklift, his bloody hands fumbling to jam a fresh magazine into his pistol. From the catwalk, two Cartel shooters moved down the metal stairs, flanking the cops.

Then, white light erupted.

Flashbangs hissed and cracked, shaking the foundation like thunder. The rear loading doors simply vanished as explosive breaching charges shattered the noise.

"LAPD SWAT! Drop your weapons!"

SWAT operators flooded the room in blue jumpsuits and heavy Kevlar, moving with surgical precision. The Cartel boss stubbornly raised his .45. A single, surgical round dropped him mid-draw. Kane threw his hands up and surrendered. Uzis clattered to the floor as the surviving gunmen hit the concrete.

Dalton stood slowly, raising empty hands. "Hollywood Division!"

SWAT swarmed the floor, boots kicking the dropped shotguns away from the suspects. An eerie silence returned to the warehouse, broken only by the thwack-thwack of police choppers cutting through the sky outside and sirens bleeding closer.

Dalton slumped against a forklift. He pulled out a crushed pack of cigarettes, his hands finally showing a slight shake. Riggs leaned next to him, rubbing a graze on his forearm.

"Cutting it close."

Dalton struck a match. "Welcome to Hollywood."

Parker Center. 3:00 AM. Red neon bled through the frosted glass of the interrogation room. Victor Kane sat cuffed to the table, heavy steel holding his wrists.

Dalton threw the Rattaglia folder down; it slapped the metal table with a sharp crack. "Jimmy and Star," Dalton said. "A trunk execution."

Kane smiled lazily. "No idea what you're talking about."

"We have the ledger," Riggs said, stepping into the light. "We found the drywall dust on your leather jacket, Kane."

Dalton dropped the crime scene photos between Kane's chained hands. Blood pooling on the pavement. Dalton blew smoke over the table. "Jimmy stole the book."

Kane's jaw tightened visibly.

Riggs stepped up, leaning close. "Every gram. Every kickback. It's all in there."

"A rodent can't blackmail me," Kane spat.

"He mailed page forty-two south to the border," Riggs said softly. "That page was the master distribution key, showing their cut and yours. You skimmed fifteen percent off the top."

Kane turned a sickly gray under the fluorescent lights.

"The Cartel came up to audit you," Dalton said. "And they count with bullets instead of calculators."

Rage twisted Kane's face, the veins popping in his neck. Riggs slapped the metal table hard. "And we have the original ledger."

"Checkmate," Dalton said.

"You're dead men," Kane hissed, rattling his cuffs. "That book will burn the Strip to the ground."

Dalton stood, adjusting his coat. "Call the DA."

Riggs left the room speechless. Dalton looked down at the ruined drug kingpin. "Central Jail awaits."

Smog choked the Los Angeles sunrise. By noon, the D.A. was reading the names. Ink spilled blood across the city. Kane never made it to his trial. A sharpened toothbrush found his throat in County lock-up, ensuring the Cartel balanced its books.

Riggs tossed the morning report onto Dalton’s desk. "Kane’s out of the picture. Someone in County gave him a new windpipe with a plastic toothbrush."

Dalton didn't look up from his coffee. "Saves the taxpayers a trial. The Cartel doesn't believe in appeals."

"Clean and simple," Riggs muttered, leaning against the doorframe. "The Strip just keeps on spinning."

A week later, The Whisky’s neon sign flickered as usual. Kids lined the pavement, chasing loud music and fast fame.

"The world's changing," Dalton said, watching from the primer-gray Nova. "The bodies will only stack higher."

Riggs leaned on the passenger door. Fresh Bondo and paint hid the recent bullet holes. "At least we still got the car," Riggs said, patting the hood.

The Strip screamed around them. Inside the club, Widowmaker played to a packed house. Dalton just watched the line of oblivious kids.

"You good?" Riggs asked, sensing the veteran's silence.

Dalton struck a match. "Ask me tomorrow."

"Star deserved better," Riggs said quietly.

Dalton flicked his cigarette into the gutter, the red embers shattering against the cold concrete. The neon burned overhead. He turned his back on the music and disappeared into the darkness.

End Of File

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