Most people think about sweatshop labor and they think about a humming factory filled with feudal overlords and peon workers, mostly illegals.  Maybe it’s because these places are so cinematic, everyone can imagine them even if they’ve never been.

But there’s another kind of sweatshop labor:  the home factory.  Maybe it’s in a garage.  Maybe a living room.  Piece work plays a big part in LA’s garment industry, especially among high-end independent designers who need to produce things in smaller batches.

Piece work exploits people in different ways.  They’re maybe living off state aid, taking care of a kid.  They are only compensated by the piece and they’re penalized for shoddy work.  So they work longer for less pay.  Much less than a sweatshop worker.  They also supply their own factory spaces—their living rooms—where their children play at their feet.

Piece work.  I want that in my story.  But I’m not sure how it fits.  It’s certainly not as glamorous—can I use that term loosely?—as a real, honest-to-god sweatshop.  You can have a photogenic chase in a sweat shop.  There’s a hierarchy that can be exploited for good storytelling—an unscrupulous boss-lady who has witnessed an event but is afraid to share it with the police because of the grey nature of her business.  A higher-up boss man who only emerges from his office to whisper something to a bootlick nobody.  A young girl, recently imported from China, who only knows a few words of English and has already seen more than she can utter.

Maybe the serial killer is a bit more careless around people who don’t count.  They are witnesses who can’t speak.  Usually sweat shops are hidden but have ventilation that open up into alleys, nooks, crannies.

Most of the piece work takes place in Monterrey Park—the suburb of LA populated by Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants.  So it’s inconvenient unless there’s a story line.  I haven’t figured out that storyline yet.

But is inconvenience and feasibility enough to ax this story line?  Sometimes you have to be brutal in detective fiction.  Cut your babies.  Dump them in a burlap bag.  Drop them in a river.  Watch them float downstream.  Brutal makes good story, no?