At my funeral, there were two of me.
One lay in a coffin—or so he was thought to lie in a coffin. The DEA's honorary flag was placed on the mahogany coffin lid, the Los Angeles Police Department's honor guard stood in two rows, and the trumpeter played "Rest in Peace". My former partner Daniel Cole stood in the front row, his eyes red and his shoulders slumped slightly, like a weathering stone monument.
Another me, holding a black umbrella, stood outside the crowd and looked at my name on the tombstone.
Qin Shi 1990-2025
No photos, no epitaph. A brand new marble monument stands at the edge of Rose Hill Memorial Park, like a hastily added footnote.
There was an unexpected rainstorm in Los Angeles. The stagnant water overflowed the lawn and formed a shallow stream among the tombstones. My Armani leather shoes were soaked, but I didn't move. I just stood there, watching the DEA plainclothes pretending to mourn but actually monitoring, watching the drug lord Liu Ye's men wearing suits and ties with expressionless faces, watching these two camps that were supposed to be fighting each other, living in peace at the same funeral.
They came to the funeral of the same man.
That person is me.
At the funeral of a DEA agent, a drug lord came. That's an answer in itself - it just took me dying once to figure it out.
