Street Rules Read Online Free Page A

that the 52nd Street vatos didn’t make decisions without Placa’s council. That had happened once and the next day two Kings ended up at King/Drew with concussions and multiple compound fractures.
    Frank was glad when she got to the Alibi that there was an empty booth. She snagged it, noting Johnnie already at the bar, an empty shot glass and a beer in front of him. He was arguing with Hunt, and Frank swore if he got into a fight she wouldn’t help him. Even as she thought it, she knew her promise was empty. Johnnie could be a pain in the ass but at least his intentions were good. Frank had no such faith concerning Hunt. She was glad to see Nancy approach her booth. She and Frank had been flirting since Frank was in Homicide. Nothing ever came of it, Frank made sure of that, but it was an amiable routine.
    “How you doin’, hon?”
    “I’m good, Nance. You?”
    “I’m better now that you’re here. Coffee, scotch or stout?”
    “Scotch. Double. Cobb salad and fries. Busy tonight?”
    “Enough.”
    Frank allowed herself the simple pleasure of Nancy’s ample ass in motion before turning her attention to a legal pad stuffed with notes. She had to squint at the letters to make them stop jumping. She skimmed Noah’s report with the kid in the closet, Julio Estrella’s youngest.
    He’d been sleeping in his room before the shooting went down. When he’d gotten up to go to the bathroom he heard booming and yelling and ran into the kitchen. He saw his father and brother bleeding and a man in black clothes walking down the hallway. The kid had run into his mom’s closet. He thought it was a good place to hide because his sister couldn’t find him there when they played hide and go seek. When asked if he knew the man, the kid had said no. And when they asked if the man looked like his uncle Luis, the kid had been vague, but thought his uncle was smaller.
    She flipped through more pages, scanning copies of her detective’s notes from dealers and crackheads, neighbors and friends. No one had seen Luis Estrella more recently than Sunday afternoon. That bothered Frank. Everyone described Luis as a friendly guy, always ready with a joke and a smile. His nickname was Payaso, clown, and he was always looking for a party. He was a small man with a limp from a broken ankle that had never mended well. Where other men tattooed gang insignia and weapons, Luis had branded himself with stars and was known to coo poetry at pretty girls. The squad was sniffing out gang affiliations but that was looking like a dead end. They still claimed, as all veteranos did, but it had been years since either Julio or Luis was actively involved with the Kings.
    In a ‘hood where guns were as common as roaches, no one could recall Luis strapped and why should he be? Everyone liked him. It sounded like he’d made a good niche for himself — joker to the lords of the street, a threat to no one, loved by all. That he had suddenly disappeared meant two things to Frank, he was guilty or he was a witness. From all she’d heard about Luis in the last twenty-four hours, the latter seemed the most probable. He didn’t sound like a killer. In fact, the pit bull had been his. He’d rescued it as a puppy from a guy who fought dogs. The man was going to cut its throat because one of its paws was deformed. When Diego had told her that, she’d said, “Chalk one up for Johnnie.”
    Luis didn’t fit the profile of a man who’d shoot his own dog, nonetheless his own family; the killing spree didn’t square with anything she’d heard about him. That his car had been at the scene meant he might have fled after the shooting started. Or maybe he’d come in on the middle of it, then grabbed his own gun for defense. He might have run then or he might have looked into the house, seen the carnage and taken off. Luis was a clown, not a fighter. He had to have known the shooter grossly outmatched him. It made sense that he’d get in his car and fly.
    And that was