Southside (9781608090563) by Michael Krikorian

seventy-year-old woman, Betty Day, the godmother of Jordan Downs. Betty lived on Grape Street in a house three blocks from the projects. I’d known Betty for more than a decade and I know she don’t take shit from anyone. She’d call the mayor and the chief of police a motherfucker in a heartbeat if she thought they were bullshitting. I’d seen her do it, twice.
    Part of the respect she gets, aside for knowing everyone and having an open-door policy, was that her son, “Honcho,” was once the shot caller for Grape Street. The feds eventually got to him, and he did twelve years at Marion in Illinois, one of the toughest federal joints. He was recently paroled, but trying to stay out of the old life.
    â€œCome on in, you crazy black Armenian. How you feeling, Mike? I knew when I heard about you on the news, you was gonna be fine. But, boy, you had me a tad worried.”
    I hugged Betty and entered her neat, small three-bedroom home. Before I could even say a word, she was reaching for a bottle of Beefeater gin. “Betty, none for me. How you do?”
    â€œI’m fine. Come on. Have one to celebrate your health.”
    We did. Betty wasn’t a big drinker, but if she could find a reason to toast, she was all there. After some bullshitting, I got down to it.
    â€œYou know the shooter, my shooter, he had on a purple rag around his head.”
    â€œNegro, what you tryin’ to say?”
    â€œBetty, I’m just telling you what he was wearing.”
    I described him as best I could, which was rather vague, the key point being he was older, like I said, maybe forty-five, fifty. Betty dialed her cell.
    â€œWayne, where you at? Come over the house.” She took a sip. “You know Sal and Johnny already been here.”
    Ten minutes later, Honcho was having a gin on the rocks with us. I had known him before the feds got to him, when he ruled the crack empire in Jordan Downs. The FBI once called him the “Godfather of Watts.” He once had a house in Las Vegas and a Wilshire Boulevard condo, but he lived mainly in the projects. He was forty-nine years old, five foot nine, and solid as Half Dome.
    â€œMan, Lyons, whoever shot you, if he was anywhere between thirty and sixty, he was not from Grape. I can tell you that for a fact.”
    â€œHave you heard anything? Anything at all about my shooting?”
    â€œNot a word of fact. Just guesses.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œEighty-Nine Family.”
    â€œWhy Eighty-Nine?”
    â€œI might been locked up, but I kept up, you feel me? I had heard about that, ugh, what you call it, that uh, not a biography, a … a …”
    â€œA what?”
    â€œYou know when you write about someone and their life.”
    â€œA profile,” Betty cut in.
    â€œYeah, yeah, a profile. That profile you did on Big Evil.”
    â€œEvil loved that story,” I said.
    Betty Day burst into laughter. “Only you, Mike. Only you could write a story Big Evil would like.” She took a healthy sip. So did I.
    â€œI don’t know, man,” said Honcho. “Then maybe it was someone who didn’t like the story. Maybe one of Eighty-Nine rivals. Got pissed he got all the press. Became a legend.”
    A few minutes later I left, having gotten no closer to a suspect than I was before I got here. The only thing I did, besides get a gin buzz, was rule out one of the largest gangs in the city, something LaBarbera and Hart had already done.
    Twenty minutes later, I walked into the
Times
’s lobby at 2nd and Spring Streets for the first time since my shooting. No longer was entering though the impressive Globe Lobby on First Street an option for employees or guests. Budget cuts. A sign of the times, of the
Times
.
    I took the stairs to the third floor, the editorial heart of the paper. I didn’t want to chance being stuck in an elevator with editor Harriet Tinder or her kiss-ass bitch boy Ted Doot. As I