Free Fall

'So what?'

'So they don't have a detective's-mate rating in the Navy, and maybe I can help you find out. I find out, and maybe we can get your mother out from under this thing.'

James Edward Washington gave me a long, slow look, like maybe he was wondering about something, and then he got up and started off the porch without waiting for me. 'C'mon. I know a man we can see.'

CHAPTER 11

We walked out to the Corvette and James Edward Washington gave approval. I got in, but James Edward took a slow walk around. 'Sixty-five?'

'Sixty-six.'

'I thought private eyes were supposed to drive clunky little cars like Columbo.'

'That's TV.'

'What about if you follow somebody? Don't a car like this stand out?' James Edward was liking my car just fine.

'If I was living in Lost Overshoe, Nebraska, it stands out. In L.A., it's just another convertible. A lot of places I work, if I drove a clunker I'd stand out more than this.'

James Edward smiled. 'Yeah, but this ain't those places. This is South Central.'

'We'll see.'

James Edward climbed in, told me to head east toward Western, and I pulled a K-turn and did it.

We drove north on Western to Slauson, then turned east to parallel the railroad tracks, then turned north again. James Edward told me that we were going to see a guy he knew named Ray Depente. He said that Ray had spent twenty-two years in the Marine Corps, teaching hand-to-hand down at Camp Pendleton before tendering his retirement and opening a gym here in Los Angeles to work with kids and sponsor gang intervention programs. He also said that if anyone knew the South Central gang scene, Ray did. I said that sounded good to me.

Four blocks above Broadway I spotted the same two guys in the same blue sedan that I'd suspected of following me two days ago. They stayed with us through two turns, and never came closer than three cars nor dropped back farther than six. When we came to a 7-Eleven, I pulled into the lot and told James Edward that I had to make a call. I used the pay phone there to dial a gun shop in Culver City, and a man's voice answered on the second ring. 'Pike.'

'It's me. I'm standing in a 7-Eleven parking lot on San Pedro about three blocks south of Martin Luther King Boulevard. I'm with a black guy in his early twenties named James Edward Washington. A white guy and a Hispanic guy in a dark blue 1989 sedan are following us. I think they've been following me for the past two days.'

'Shoot them.' Life is simple for some of us.

'I was thinking more that you could follow them as they follow me and we could find out who they are.'

Pike didn't say anything.

'Also, I think they're cops.'

Pike grunted. 'Where you headed?'

'A place called Ray's Gym. In South Central.'

Pike grunted again. 'I know Ray's. Are you in immediate danger?'

I looked around. 'Well, I could probably get hit by a meteor.'

Pike said, 'Go to Ray's. You won't see me, but I'll be there when you come out.' Then he hung up. Some partner, huh?

I climbed back into the car, and fourteen minutes later we pulled into a gravel parking lot on the side of Ray Depente's gymnasium. James Edward Washington led me inside.

Ray's is a big underground cavern kind of place with peeling paint and high ceilings and the smell of sweat pressed into the walls. Maybe forty people were spread around the big room, men and women, some stretching, some grinding through katas like formal dance routines, some sparring with full-contact pads. An athletic woman with strawberry hair was on the mats with a tall black man with mocha skin and gray- flecked hair. They were working hard, the woman snapping kick after kick at his legs and torso and head, him yelling c'mon, get in here, c'mon, I'm wide open. Every time she kicked, sweat flew off her and sprayed the mat. Each of them was covered with so many pads they might've been in space suits. James Edward said, 'That's Ray.'

I started fooling around with the martial arts when I was in the Army and I got pretty good at it. Ray Depente was good, too, and he looked like an outstanding teacher. He snapped light punches and kicks at the woman, making her think defense as well as offense. He tapped them on the heavy pad over her breasts and taunted her, saying stop me, saying Jesus Christ protect yourself, saying you mine anytime I want you. She kicked faster, snapping up roundhouse kicks and power kicks, then coming in backwards with spin kicks. He blocked most of the kicks and slipped a few and taunted her harder, saying he ain't never had a white woman but he was about to get one now. As fast as he said it she hooked his left knee and he stumbled to catch himself and when he did she got off a high fast spin kick that caught him on the back of the head and bowled him over and then she was on him, spiking kicks hard at his groin pad and his spine and his head and he doubled into a ball, covering up, yelling that he gives, he gives, he gives, and laughing the big deep laugh. She helped him up and they bowed to each other, both of them grinning, and then she gave a whoop and jumped up to give him a major league hug. Then she hopped away to the locker rooms, pumping her fist and yelling 'Yeah!' Ray Depente stepped off the mat, unfastening the pads, and then he saw us standing on the hardwood at the edge of the mat. He grinned at James Edward and came over, still pulling off the pads. He was two inches taller than me and maybe fifteen pounds heavier. 'Welcome back, Admiral. I've missed you, young man.'

He grabbed James Edward in a tight hug, and the two men pounded each other on their backs. When James Edward stepped back, he said, 'You ain't never had a white woman but you're about to get one now?'

Ray grinned. 'Thirteen months ago two assholes followed her into a parking lot in Rancho Park. One of them