Season: After a suspicious wreck leaves a gun and burner phone in his sister’s tow yard, a watchful Los Angeles teenager uncovers a financier’s campaign to manufacture crisis, clear his neighborhood, and seize the route of a new bullet train—forcing him to choose between saving his family and becoming as ruthless as the man destroying it.
EXT. DESERT VIADUCT - DAWN
A boom lift rises through the last blue of night.
CARLOS VEGA, late forties, compact and sleepless, steps from the basket onto thirty feet of unfinished viaduct. Rebar runs ahead of him in a rust-colored grid. Beyond it, yucca and open desert.
He checks snap ties as he walks. A concrete convoy is due at noon. Two hundred yards of cement. After that, whatever is wrong becomes permanent.
A quarter mile ahead, the SURVEY TEAM drives stakes along the alignment.
Carlos's phone BUZZES.
ON THE SCREEN - a DESERT TORTOISE craning its neck toward the camera.
Carlos keys his radio.
CARLOS
How many?
RAYMOND (V.O.)
Twenty. Maybe twenty-five.
Carlos closes his eyes.
He kicks a half-full water bottle from the deck.
It drops thirty feet and lands without drama in the sand.
CARLOS
Get video. Geotag everything.
RAYMOND (V.O.)
Copy.
CARLOS
Then send your guys home.
A beat.
RAYMOND (V.O.)
One more you need to see.
Another image arrives.
The flat underside of a tortoise. Four legs splayed helplessly. Along the shell: a strip of ALUMINUM fixed with two small rivets.
CLOSE ON A BARCODE AND CHINESE CHARACTERS.
INT. CALIFORNIA SENATE CHAMBER - MORNING
A vote board glows above the chamber. The BULLET TRAIN REAUTHORIZATION has the numbers.
SENATOR RITTENHOUSE, sixties, expensive and damp, sits at his desk with the expectant air of a man waiting to be congratulated.
At the rear entrance, TASHA WILLIAMS, early forties, enters in heels and a dark suit. Carlos's tortoise footage is already open on her phone.
A FLOOR AIDE reaches her at speed.
FLOOR AIDE
Speaker's office says habitat hold.
Tasha crosses to Rittenhouse and puts the phone where he can see it.
TASHA
Tortoises on the alignment. Tagged. Video's out.
RITTENHOUSE
How many?
TASHA
Enough.
A PAGE hurries a folded note toward the SPEAKER. He reads it. Checks his phone.
The gavel comes down twice.
SPEAKER
The matter is held over until eight a.m. tomorrow.
The chamber erupts around them.
RITTENHOUSE
You told me the alignment was clean.
TASHA
It was clean yesterday.
Rittenhouse holds her look. Neither says Jones's name.
RITTENHOUSE
Don't let him get away with this.
INT. EAST VALLEY HIGH - PATEL'S AP ECON CLASS - AFTERNOON
Post-lunch narcosis.
One boy sleeps with his head against the wall, mouth open. Phones glow under desks.
At the front, MR. PATEL, fifties, strokes a large mustache sitting between two massive dimples.
ENRIQUE, seventeen, long-limbed and permanently amused, raises a hand with counterfeit sincerity.
ENRIQUE
Hold up. It's called a hostile takeover?
PATEL
That is what I said, Mr. Navarro.
ENRIQUE
But if they don't want you to take them over--
PATEL
That would account for the hostility.
A few laughs.
PATEL turns toward a photograph of himself ringing a stock exchange bell years ago.
PATEL
When I was with Halcyon Partners--
The class begins putting away notebooks. Enrique sits back, pleased with himself.
JAVIER JIMENEZ, seventeen, does not look at Patel.
He sits beside the only window in the room with a straight line of sight across the street.
Through chain link and heat shimmer: GAITHER MIDDLE SCHOOL.
On the rear bleachers, ALEX JIMENEZ, thirteen, sits between BETO and AUGUSTO, sharing a bag of chips.
Beside Javier, GIO draws a human jaw with astonishing precision. He is seventeen, almost Javier's double at first glance, except Gio wears a mop and Javier is high and tight. A quiet seems to have settled permanently around Gio.
Javier watches the middle school.
Two older boys cross the Gaither quad.
ITCHY wears a pristine cap with the sticker still on the bill. His smile is bright, vacant, practiced.
SCRATCHY follows in a hooded sweatshirt, hands deep in his pockets, expression tired enough to look dangerous.
Itchy takes the bleachers two at a time.
He sits beside Alex without asking. Reaches into Alex's chips. Throws an arm over his shoulder -- easy street love.
Alex stiffens - then lets the arm stay.
Javier leans closer to the glass.
Itchy talks. We cannot hear the words, only see their effect. Alex laughs once. Beto and Augusto look down at their phones.
Scratchy stands below the bleachers and scans the quad.
The lunch bell rings.
Itchy gets up. Below the camera line, his hands flash three letters: S - R - V.
Alex gives him the dap.
PATEL (O.S.)
Mr. Jimenez.
Javier turns.
PATEL
Would you like to explain why economies of scale encourage consolidation?
Javier glances at the board.
JAVIER
Fixed costs spread across more units. Marginal cost drops. Competitors either sell or die.
PATEL
You see? Some of us can look out a window and listen at the same time.
Enrique looks toward the middle school.
ENRIQUE
What can I say, Wi-Fi sucks in our building.
The bell RINGS.
Students rise. Javier stays at the window until Alex disappears behind the middle school gym.
PATEL
Mr. Jimenez. Stay.
Enrique stops too.
PATEL
Not you. The world needs you somewhere else.
ENRIQUE
Finally somebody says it.
Enrique leaves. Gio closes his sketchbook, tucks it under one arm and heads into the hall. Javier follows.
INT. PATEL'S CLASSROOM - MOMENTS LATER
The room empties. Patel opens a plastic container and offers Javier a samosa.
Javier takes one because refusing would take longer.
PATEL
You completed this course last year.
JAVIER
Your room has a better view.
PATEL
I am not a window.
JAVIER
You got the mustache for it.
Patel smiles despite himself.
PATEL
You have enough credits to graduate in June. More than enough. Your counselor says you have not submitted a single final college application.
JAVIER
I'm doing the scholarship stuff.
PATEL
Scholarship stuff is not an application. It is how you avoid an application while appearing responsible.
Javier looks toward the window again.
PATEL
Your brother has a mother. He has a school. He has a police officer with a very theatrical program.
JAVIER
He has me.
PATEL
Yes. That is the problem.
Javier's look hardens. Patel lowers the line.
PATEL
Look out for Javier first. Your family will survive without you.
JAVIER
You don't know my family.
PATEL
No. I know young men who make themselves indispensable so they never have to leave.
Javier sets the uneaten samosa on the desk.
PATEL
Take it. You can disagree and eat at the same time.
Javier takes it.
INT. EAST VALLEY HIGH - HALLWAY / STAIRWELL - CONTINUOUS
Students flood the corridor.
Javier, Gio and RAFFA move with the current. Raffa is movie-star good-looking and, like Javier, could have graduated by now.
RAFFA
Relax. He tags three walls, gets caught on the fourth, Mendez brings in los veteranos, and one of them tells Alex Papi's gonna put salt on his ass. Maybe some Tapatío.
JAVIER
That's your plan.
Raffa plants his arm over Javier's shoulders.
RAFFA
Then you take him to Walmart for new chones. Whole thing over by spring.
Javier isn't laughing.
RAFFA
He's thirteen.
JAVIER
Those two mopes been working him since August.
RAFFA
All thirteen-year-olds are stupid. My sister belongs in a cage.
They reach the main office. Raffa pushes through the door.
RAFFA
I'll tell Mendez to save him an aisle seat.
Raffa disappears.
Gio works his jaw side to side.
GIO
Only double-hinged joint in the body.
JAVIER
What is?
GIO
Jaw. Mine mostly goes up and down. Still clicks, though.
He clicks it for Javier.
A knot of freshmen blocks the hall. Gio slips through without breaking stride. Javier follows him through.
Gio continues to wander down the hallway toward the abandoned end where kids go to vape and pee when the bathrooms are closed. At a trophy case, Gio stops. Old team photographs. Names under glass. Generations of kids who got to leave.
Javier heads toward the double doors to leave, then turns back.
JAVIER
Spring's coming faster than you think.
Gio looks over.
JAVIER
Needles sisters'll change the locks. Put your shit on the curb.
GIO
Emancipated.
He gives the word a private little smile.
EXT. STUDY HALL - ABANDONED LOT ABOVE DOGTOWN - LATER
A vacant lot on a rise above the dry basin.
Two abandoned ORANGE CORDUROY COUCHES face Dogtown. Between them, a wooden TELEPHONE CABLE SPOOL lies on its side as a table.
Five pairs of shoes rest on it. A small liberty.
On Javier's phone, the group chat is named STUDY HALL.
No books are visible anywhere.
Enrique sprawls across one couch. Chuey eats hot chips. Sergio has the back off an old portable speaker and is touching wires together. Raffa arrives late with a stack of misdirected school mail.
RAFFA
You guys smell like ass.
He daps down the row, then takes a cold slice of pizza from the cable spool.
Gio arrives and pulls up a milk crate. He takes a school burrito from his backpack and unwraps it. He puts both feet on the cable spool. The soles are dirty enough to make this feel illegal. Raffa follows.
Across the basin, tents and patched structures of DOGTOWN shimmer in the heat. A woman in work clothes leads a little girl toward the boulevard. ORAL-B, forties, crosses another direction brushing his teeth.
Sergio touches two wires. The speaker SHRIEKS. Everyone flinches except Gio.
SERGIO
There.
JAVIER
There what?
SERGIO
Found the bad wire.
Raffa opens an envelope.
RAFFA
Somebody named Jazmine Acosta got perfect attendance in 2009. The district's been mailing it to the office once a semester for fourteen years.
CHUEY
Maybe she died.
ENRIQUE
Then she still ain't missed a day.
A LITTLE GIRL in a school uniform emerges from one of the tents and crosses the basin with her mother. The mother checks her watch, hurries her along.
Javier watches Oral-B push a shopping cart with an air conditioner balanced inside, toothbrush still in his mouth.
ENRIQUE
Patel's skeleton needs a name.
GIO
McRibbs.
Enrique points at him.
ENRIQUE
There it is.
No one moves. Traffic hums below. The boys eat, argue, waste time.
INT. PACOIMA ABATTOIR - KILL FLOOR - LATE AFTERNOON
Steam. Stainless steel. Hooks moving overhead.
IMELDA JIMENEZ, late forties, works a boning knife along a hanging cut of meat. Her back catches. She waits for the line to hide it.
Beside her, MARTA falls behind. The FOREMAN taps his clipboard and points to the clock.
FOREMAN
Marta. Again.
MARTA
The line sped up.
FOREMAN
The line doesn't have a timecard.
Imelda reaches over and takes two of Marta's cuts without being asked.
FOREMAN
That's not your station.
IMELDA
Now it is.
He steps closer. His Spanish is managerial and careful.
FOREMAN
She misses quota, the minutes come off.
IMELDA
Then the line is stealing minutes. Dock the line.
A few workers hear. Nobody looks over.
Imelda's phone vibrates in a clear plastic sleeve beneath her apron.
ON SCREEN: JAVIER - Dinner? You coming home?
She types with blood-stiff gloves.
ON SCREEN: DOUBLE. NOODLES IN FREEZER. CHECK ALEX.
MARTA
Your boys eat frozen food every night because of me.
IMELDA
My boys eat. Keep cutting.
The foreman watches from the end of the line.
Imelda pockets the phone and takes the next cut.
EXT. VAN NUYS BOULEVARD / THE SHOE - AFTER SCHOOL
Javier walks past emptied storefronts and the places that survived them: MANTRAP NAILS, a windowless bar, a Salvadoran restaurant, DEEZ CUTZ.
VALLEY SAVINGS rises behind them, ten abandoned stories with strange steel arches on the roof like luggage handles.
LESLIE appears on Javier's phone by FaceTime. Seventeen, disciplined, pretty without arranging herself for the camera.
LESLIE
Check your calendar. Next month. Lupe's board meet-and-greet.
JAVIER
I don't know what a board is.
LESLIE
Rich people sitting down. You standing up. Scholarship happens.
JAVIER
Sounds natural.
LESLIE
She came out of the Gardens, Javi. She gets it.
Ahead, DOLORES wrestles a stainless pushcart over a broken curb. A wheel skews sideways.
Before Javier reaches her, DELILAH - a polished flatbed tow truck - eases to the curb.
BETZAIDA TORRES climbs down. Early thirties. Broad through the chest, close-cropped hair, work shirt buttoned clean. No wasted movement.
She crouches by the wheel. The weld is old, ugly and hers.
BETZAIDA
You broke my weld.
DOLORES
Your weld broke itself.
BETZAIDA
Metal don't break itself. People load five hundred pounds of ice on one side.
DOLORES
People buy from the sunny side.
BETZAIDA
You break this axle again, I'm charging storage.
DOLORES
You been threatening storage ten years.
BETZAIDA
Interest been running.
Dolores gives Javier a paper cup of shaved ice without asking whether he wants one.
DOLORES
For the accountant.
JAVIER
I'm not an accountant.
BETZAIDA
Then quit opening my mail.
Betzaida works the wheel straight and locks it with a practiced kick.
BETZAIDA
They fix the elevator?
Dolores looks at her.
BETZAIDA
Right.
DOLORES
Six floors is good for the heart.
BETZAIDA
Not when you push that refrigerator up it.
DOLORES
I pull going up. Push going down. I'm not stupid.
Betzaida tests the wheel again, then wipes grease on her pants.
BETZAIDA
I'll come Saturday. Put a real axle under it.
DOLORES
You said that last Saturday.
BETZAIDA
Last Saturday you weren't blocking traffic.
Betzaida's phone CHIRPS. A CHP dispatch.
DISPATCH (V.O.)
Mission, 10-54. Northbound four-oh-five, south of Victory. Ambulance en route.
Betzaida opens Delilah's passenger door.
BETZAIDA
Ponerse las pilas, Javi.
Javier waves at Leslie's screen.
BETZAIDA
Later for lovergirl.
LESLIE
I heard that.
Betzaida gets in.
INT. DELILAH - MOVING - CONTINUOUS
The cab is immaculate.
Javier opens a stack of Mission Tow mail from the console. Insurance premium. Bank statement.
BETZAIDA
Lester usually leaves those closed.
JAVIER
Lester thinks APR is a radio station.
He scans the statement.
JAVIER
You're running payroll off your personal card again.
BETZAIDA
Front-wheel drive on this hook. Clip inside the bushings.
JAVIER
Ninety-day receivables are killing you.
BETZAIDA
You hear me?
JAVIER
I hear you avoiding me.
BETZAIDA
Good. Multitask.
She checks her mirror.
A BERGOSIAN TOW TRUCK appears two lanes over.
BETZAIDA
Fat Man's moving on it.
She signals, changes lanes, takes the opening from him without looking over.
BETZAIDA
Cocksucker ain't stepping in front.
EXT. 405 FREEWAY - HIT-AND-RUN SCENE - EARLY EVENING
Traffic pinches around a wall of emergency vehicles.
The Land Rover sits crushed against the K-rail. Passenger doors gone. Front suspension collapsed. It kneels on the asphalt.
Delilah threads past a BERGOSIAN rig and reaches the scene first.
A CHP MOTOR OFFICER sees Betzaida and waves her through.
MOTOR OFFICER
Need the two right lanes in eight minutes.
BETZAIDA
Give me six.
She jumps down, surveys the angle, the debris, the missing suspension.
Jones, bloodless and furious, is rolled toward an ambulance. A PARAMEDIC holds gauze to a shallow cut near his hairline. Jones keeps his eyes on the Land Rover.
Betzaida walks the length of the wreck once. She sees the missing passenger doors, the crushed suspension, the long black transfer along the median.
BETZAIDA
Bike hit him?
MOTOR OFFICER
Box truck. Kept going.
BETZAIDA
Box truck didn't panic.
MOTOR OFFICER
You writing the report now?
BETZAIDA
No. Just saving you embarrassment later.
She directs Javier under the front end.
BETZAIDA
Inside the control arm. Not the tie rod.
JAVIER
I know.
BETZAIDA
Then surprise me.
Javier crawls in with the chain. Broken safety glass grinds beneath his shoulder.
The wipers scrape uselessly across the cracked windshield.
Javier studies the hood: long compression wrinkles running with the body, not across it.
He looks down the scrape along the K-rail. One hundred yards of black paint and pulverized metal.
Not a sideswipe. A sustained shove.
BETZAIDA
Javi.
He clips the chain correctly.
JAVIER
Ready.
Betzaida works the controls. Delilah takes the weight. The first lift pulls the Land Rover crooked.
BETZAIDA
Stop.
She drops it six inches, walks around, shortens one chain and resets the angle.
MOTOR OFFICER
Four minutes.
BETZAIDA
Then quit talking to me.
The second lift brings the wreck square.
Javier opens the driver's door to put the transmission in neutral.
The interior is immaculate. No blood. Airbags still folded in the wheel and dash.
The burner blinks in the cup holder.
ON SCREEN: VDL PACKAGE DELIVERED.
Javier picks it up, glances toward the ambulance, then opens the glove compartment to put it away.
The Walther's muzzle points at his chest.
He freezes.
The Motor Officer shouts over traffic.
MOTOR OFFICER
We moving or decorating?
Javier places the burner beside the gun and closes the glove compartment.
JAVIER
Neutral.
Betzaida rolls the wreck onto the bed.
As the ambulance doors close, Jones looks through the rear windows at his Land Rover leaving in the opposite direction.
INT. AMBULANCE - MOVING - MOMENTS LATER
The paramedic shines a light in Jones's eyes.
PARAMEDIC
Follow the pen.
Jones follows it while dialing with his other hand.
DANA (V.O.)
Yeah.
JONES
My vehicle went to Mission Tow. Panorama City.
DANA (V.O.)
You okay?
JONES
There's a phone in the cup holder. Get it before the owner inventories the car.
DANA (V.O.)
What owner?
JONES
Betzaida Torres. Do not bring police into it. Do not touch the gun unless you have to.
The paramedic takes the phone gently from Jones's hand.
PARAMEDIC
No calls until we clear your neck.
Jones looks at him.
PARAMEDIC
Hospital rule.
JONES
Then clear it.
INT. DELILAH - TOWING THE LAND ROVER - NIGHT
The wreck fills the rear window, black metal riding high under the amber beacon.
Javier watches it in the mirror.
BETZAIDA
You gonna marry it?
JAVIER
Box truck kept him against the rail a hundred yards.
BETZAIDA
Maybe he owed the box truck money.
JAVIER
People swerve on impact. Driver held the line.
Betzaida checks the mirror once.
BETZAIDA
Passenger side opened like that and no blood.
JAVIER
No airbags.
BETZAIDA
So somebody wanted the car dead, not him.
JAVIER
Or wanted him scared.
BETZAIDA
You applying to colleges or homicide now?
JAVIER
Leslie put another board thing on my calendar.
Javier opens the insurance envelope again.
BETZAIDA
And that ain't your mail.
JAVIER
It's my payroll when you miss it.
BETZAIDA
I haven't missed payroll.
JAVIER
You moved it to your card. That's missing it with interest.
Betzaida drives a block in silence.
BETZAIDA
You keep one thing alive, people start calling it yours.
JAVIER
Mission is yours.
BETZAIDA
Then let me worry about it.
JAVIER
You don't.
BETZAIDA
I worry driving. Looks like work.
She turns into the yard.
EXT. MISSION TOW YARD - NIGHT
Delilah backs through the gate into a dirt lot filled with damaged and impounded cars.
At the center sits THE BOX, a hardened trailer with thick Plexiglass and a solid-core door.
Betzaida drops the Land Rover exactly where she wants it, rear to the fence, driver's side visible from the Box.
LESTER, wiry and grease-dark, starts toward it with a clipboard.
BETZAIDA
Not that one. Investigative hold. Photograph all four corners before you breathe on it.
LESTER
It's missing one corner.
BETZAIDA
Then three. You know how numbers work.
A CUSTOMER at the window pounds the Plexiglass.
CUSTOMER
You people stole my car.
BETZAIDA
We stole it with a city contract and a police officer watching. Makes us terrible criminals.
CUSTOMER
I got cash.
BETZAIDA
Then the sign with the hours should be easy to read.
CUSTOMER
My insulin's in there.
Betzaida changes immediately.
BETZAIDA
Which car?
CUSTOMER
Silver Accord.
BETZAIDA
Lester, escort. He opens the door, you stand where the camera sees both hands. Medication only.
The customer stops pounding. Lester takes him.
A Bergosian driver leans from his truck outside the gate.
BERGOSIAN DRIVER
CHP said split call.
BETZAIDA
CHP said clear lanes. You watched me do it.
BERGOSIAN DRIVER
Kristops is gonna call.
BETZAIDA
Tell him use a phone with the big buttons.
The driver leaves.
Javier checks the Land Rover's registration.
GEORGE JONES. An address in Beverly Hills.
He watches Betzaida juggle the customer, the radio and a ringing office line.
He almost tells her about the glove compartment.
She catches him staring.
BETZAIDA
Put it on the sheet or quit looking at it.
Javier looks at the tow inventory form.
JAVIER
You ever see a P-thirty-eight in a glovebox?
Betzaida stops entering the tow.
BETZAIDA
You ever decide when to mention a gun?
JAVIER
It was pointed at me. Took a second.
BETZAIDA
Then you closed it.
JAVIER
Yeah.
BETZAIDA
Good. Put it on the sheet.
Javier writes under PERSONAL PROPERTY: FIREARM IN GLOVE COMPARTMENT. CELL PHONE IN CUP HOLDER.
Betzaida reads over his shoulder.
BETZAIDA
Secured in vehicle. No make, no serial until we photograph.
JAVIER
Why not?
BETZAIDA
Because if it disappears, I want the report to say I knew there was a gun. I don't want it to say I handled the murder weapon.
Javier crosses out the specifics and writes: ITEMS SECURED IN VEHICLE.
INT. IMELDA'S APARTMENT - NIGHT
A small apartment carrying too many lives.
Rebelde plays muted on the television. A laundry cart holds folded towels beside the door. Medical bills sit in a red-letter stack.
Imelda stirs oxtail stock into instant noodles while speaking rapid Spanish into her phone.
IMELDA
(into phone)
No. If she worked the hours, you pay the hours. I don't care what he wrote--
Javier enters, kisses her cheek, starts sorting mail without being asked.
IMELDA
You smell like freeway.
JAVIER
Freeway smells like brakes. I smell like money.
IMELDA
Then put some on the table.
He removes two red notices and puts them in his backpack.
Imelda sees.
IMELDA
Those are mine.
JAVIER
They're addressed to the house.
IMELDA
My back, my bill.
JAVIER
My mailbox.
She gives him a look. He keeps the bills. This argument has happened before and ended the same way.
The microwave BEEPS.
Alex comes in, late, trailing anger. One pant leg is down now.
IMELDA
Donde estabas?
Alex drops his backpack on a chair.
ALEX
Around.
IMELDA
No text. Nada. I worry too much.
She reaches for his chin. He jerks away.
ALEX
What?
The word carries enough contempt to stop the room.
Javier steps close.
JAVIER
Grosero. Apologize.
Alex looks at him, not Imelda.
Imelda cuts between them with a dish towel.
IMELDA
Noodles tonight. Posole tomorrow. Real dinner.
ALEX
You said posole yesterday.
IMELDA
Yesterday I was lying. Tomorrow I have hominy.
Alex almost smiles. Imelda sees it and does not claim the victory.
She removes her apron and grabs her coat.
JAVIER
You're going back?
IMELDA
Marta's girl got sick.
JAVIER
You already did ten.
IMELDA
Then six more makes sixteen. See? All that school is helping.
JAVIER
Your doctor said no doubles.
IMELDA
My doctor has a chair.
JAVIER
Ma.
IMELDA
And health insurance.
She kisses Alex's head despite his resistance. At the door, she points to Javier's backpack.
IMELDA
Put those bills back.
Javier does not move.
IMELDA
Tomorrow.
She gives Javier a look that says DO NOT MAKE THIS WORSE, and leaves.
The screen door bounces twice.
Javier points at Alex's pant leg.
JAVIER
Not showing off the ankle now.
ALEX
Fuck you.
Alex disappears into the bedroom.
Javier divides noodles into two bowls and sets them on the coffee table.
Alex returns in a clean Primitive T-shirt and new Vans. He wipes an invisible speck from one shoe.
Javier notices.
JAVIER
Those new?
ALEX
No.
JAVIER
I got eyes.
ALEX
Congratulations.
Alex plays Candy Crush. Doesn't touch the noodles.
JAVIER
Those guys at lunch. Not Beto and Augusto.
ALEX
Here we go.
JAVIER
They're recruiting. They score points bringing you in.
ALEX
Sounds like somebody watched Blood In Blood Out again.
JAVIER
All that down-for-the-barrio shit--I get it, Alex. The homies know how to sell you feeling like you count.
ALEX
I count.
Javier breathes through it.
JAVIER
They did this experiment. Finland or someplace. Drop a frog in boiling water, it jumps out. Put it in room-temperature water and heat it slow--
ALEX
--frog never notices. Ends up boiling.
JAVIER
Exactly.
ALEX
Except frogs jump out. Google it.
Javier has no answer.
Alex stands.
ALEX
Sucks to be a frog. You done?
Javier looks toward the framed photograph beside the door: JAVIER, ALEX and YANIRA under a mango tree. Yanira gap-toothed, one hand hidden behind her back.
JAVIER
You're wearing Ma out.
Alex takes his backpack and leaves.
Flaco, the dog, emerges from the bedroom and looks at Javier's bowl.
JAVIER
Every fool for themselves tonight, Flaco.
INT. CITY GYM - LOCKER ROOM - MORNING
A routine precise enough to be superstition.
COUNCILMAN JESSE DELATORRE, fifties, finishes at the sink. Same locker. Same bay. Same gray morning.
A PLUMBER in blue coveralls works beneath a touchless faucet.
Delatorre goes to the showers.
When he returns, the plumber is gone.
His combination lock faces the wrong direction.
Delatorre stops.
He works the dial. Opens the locker.
Wallet. Watch. Shirt.
A legal-size envelope falls forward.
Inside: surveillance photographs of his college-age son buying pills. Charging documents. POSSESSION WITH INTENT.
Delatorre sits on the bench in a towel.
He looks up at the ceiling as though asking it how much this will cost.
EXT. CITY GYM - MORNING
Delatorre's driver holds open the rear door of a city sedan.
Jones is already inside.
A butterfly bandage closes the cut at his hairline. He holds his neck a degree too straight.
Delatorre sees both before he gets in.
INT. DELATORRE'S CITY CAR - MOVING - MORNING
The divider rises as the car enters freeway traffic.
DELATORRE
False imprisonment is a felony.
JONES
So is possession with intent.
Jones reaches for the envelope. The motion catches somewhere in his shoulder; he continues as though it did not. He lays the photographs on the seat between them.
JONES
Second offense. No diversion. Three years minimum.
DELATORRE
He's a sophomore at USC.
JONES
Corcoran doesn't award transfer credit.
DELATORRE
What do you want?
JONES
Same thing you do. Make the people feeding your son's habit disappear.
JONES
Denker Park is an open-air pharmacy. Your son knows all five crews by first name. The supply sits across the street in Roscoe Gardens.
DELATORRE
My son had a football injury. Doctor gave him pills.
JONES
Then the doctor introduced him. Denker retained him.
DELATORRE
It's public housing. You can't take it down.
JONES
The HUD mortgage could have been prepaid five years ago. You blocked it twice.
Delatorre looks over.
DELATORRE
Westside money wanted the housing kept east.
JONES
And you obliged. Don't confuse corruption with restraint because you did it for liberals.
Delatorre turns toward the window.
JONES
The tenant association has to approve the move-out terms. Unanimously.
DELATORRE
There's an old woman been there since the place opened. Dolores. She'll fight every comma.
JONES
Won't be an issue.
Delatorre studies him.
JONES
Picture the Gardens gone. In their place, the Los Angeles terminus of a bullet train to Las Vegas.
DELATORRE
You're a fuckin' nut.
JONES
Stop pretending you don't want it. You remove the Gardens, you become the man who cleaned up drugs in the Valley. State office. Congress, maybe.
The car passes a woman applying mascara in the next lane.
DELATORRE
And my son?
JONES
You don't know that I can help him. That's the only honest thing anyone will tell you today.
DELATORRE
You think I haven't had people come at me before? Variances. Liquor licenses. Somebody's cousin needs a job.
JONES
And you think those were tests because no one ever gave you a real one.
DELATORRE
You don't know me.
JONES
You go to the same gym at five every morning because you like one hour where nobody asks you for anything. You take the diamond lane downtown and spend the saved twelve minutes reading state polling. You blocked the Gardens twice, then complained privately that the district would never change.
Delatorre's eyes move to the driver, then the raised divider.
JONES
You have wanted a larger life for twenty years. I am not asking you to betray yourself. I'm asking you to stop pretending.
Jones taps the divider. The driver moves toward the Alvarado exit.
JONES
A development plan will reach your office this afternoon.
DELATORRE
You pull this again, I open a RICO file.
The car stops at the curb.
Jones opens the door and steps out carefully enough for Delatorre to notice.
Delatorre remains with the photographs and the first image of himself cutting a ribbon.
Comments
Near perfect. I love this…
Near perfect. I love this. It's totally honest and believable in an incredible manner.
There's an awful lot going…
There's an awful lot going on in an excerpt that feels as though it's late for an appointment. and give the reader time to absorb what's happening. Too many characters being introduced too quickly. Concentrate on what matters most: the hook, the main character, the inciting incident. Get these right and deliver the story.