Southside (9781608090563) by Michael Krikorian Page A

nephew’s room that used to be his and took to the bed. It felt good to be in this bed and he slept for seven hours.
    On his cell phone he had nine messages, eight from well-wishers and one of much interest. It was from a street source about a shooting on Brynhurst. Some saint got strayed. Sounded like a good story. He couldn’t do the story, so that evening he called Hector Salazar.
    After hearing from Michael Lyons, Salazar felt the rush, knowing he had a powerful story on his hands. All he had to do now was convince his editors the bus driver-to-be was indeed a great story. It would seem on the surface to be a natural. But, assistant city editors at the
Times
were, for the most part, a cautious group, the type whose main concern was to not make waves and to continue to get their $2,000-$2,500 a week.
    Salazar approached night editor, Marcy Duval, and pitched her the story of Debra Sady Griffen. The night before she had dismissed the story as just another nonfatal shooting in Rollin Sixties ‘hood. But, now Salazar was armed with a hard-luck, against-all-odds tragedy. Salazar’s worrying was for naught as Marcy said, “That’s a good story. Let’s get the background, interview folks, the cops, bus people. Get me a sked. Say twenty to twenty-two inches. We need art of her. Let’s shoot for Wednesday, even Thursday.”
    Hector nodded and headed back to his desk. Marcy sent Hector an e-mail: “Maybe we can tie it into the Mike shooting—another big shooting and they get away with it. Where’s the LAPD?”
    Hector, energized by visions of the front page, fired off a “sonds goood ill get onit.”
    Two days later, Michael got out of Francesca Golden’s bed. Francesca was already on her daily morning exercise walk, three miles, always the same route in her tree-lined neighborhood—Van Ness to Clinton to Wilcox to Rosewood, back to Van Ness. That course never varied.
    On the LATEXTRA front page he read Hector Salazar’s article entitled “SAINT OF OUR GUTTERS GUNNED DOWN.” Lyons muttered to himself, “Gunned down?” To him that meant dead.
    And on it went, extolling Debra Sady’s virtues and decrying therandom gunfire. The local media had another field day. The LAPD looked bad again. So did the headline writer. Lyons thought Debra sounded like a good woman, but Mother Teresa?
    On most gang shootings, the chances that the cops will get any cooperation from residents are criminally slim. Witnesses fear for their lives. It’s that simple. But, Wednesday, one witness came forward for Debra Sady.
    As the gunfire that laid out Debra Sady briefly drowned out her television, seventeen-year-old Cardella Jackson calmly laid low in her bedroom.
    As the squeal of the tires was heard, she peeked out her bedroom window, got a good look at the Bronco and its rather easy-to-remember license plate, 069TDY. She laughed. The first—and last—time she ever tried 69ing was with a high school point guard named Teddy Jones who twisted and sprained his neck during the act and had to miss his Crenshaw High School basketball game vs. arch rival Dorsey. Dorsey won by four points. Anyway, she wrote it down, just in case.
    When Cardella heard that Debra Sady was the victim, she was torn. She liked Debra Sady a lot. Debra had on more than a few occasions brought over some “Sock It To Me” cake that was her specialty. She was quick with a sincere, kind word of encouragement. Debra had always treated Cardella with respect and when you don’t have anything and someone gives you respect, well, that’s one of the most precious gifts you can give in the ghetto, ranked not far behind giving up some of that cash.
    Consequently, Cardella was numbed by the shooting but scared to her core to go to the police, even with their promise of anonymity. Yeah, they say no names, but what about if and when the trial comes? They’ll pressure the shit out of you