Free Fall

raped her in the backseat of her MB. The second one was just getting ready to mount up when a couple of women came along and scared'm off. What you think would happen if those guys came back today?'

'Testicular transplant?'

'Uh-huh.'

I said, 'She's come along fast.'

'Motivation, baby. Motivation is all.'

James Edward said, 'Ray, this is Elvis Cole. He's a private investigator.'

'Do tell.' We shook. Ray Depente had a hand like warm steel. 'What do you investigate?'

'I'm working with something that's bumped up against a gang called the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys. James Edward says that you know about those guys.'

Ray peeled away the rest of his body pads and used his sweatshirt to wipe his face and neck. Everybody else in the place was wearing heavy canvas karate gies, but not Ray. Ray wore desert-issue combat pants and an orange Marine Corps tee shirt. Old habits. 'Bumping up against the Crips isn't something you want to do if you can help it. Crips got sharp edges.'

I gave him shrug. 'Occupational hazard.'

'Uh-huh. Be tough and see.'

'The Gangster Boys a Crip set?' People hear Crips or Bloods and they think it's just two big gangs, but it isn't. Both the Crips and the Bloods are made up of smaller gang sets. Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys, Eight-Trey Swan Crips, Rolling Sixties Crips, Double-Seven Hoover Crips, East Coast Crips, like that.

Ray nodded. 'Yeah. From down around Eighty-second and Hoover. That's where they get the name. You want to be a Gangster Boy, you got to do a felony. You want to be OG, you got to pull the trigger. It's as simple as that.'

James Edward said, 'O.G. means Original Gangster. That's like saying you're a made man in the Mafia.'

'Okay.'

Ray said, 'What are you messing around with that's got you down here in South Central with a goddamned Crip set?'

'Charles Lewis Washington.'

Ray's smile faded and he looked at James Edward. 'How's your mama doing, son?'

'She's okay. We got a little problem with the Eight-Deuce, though.'

Ray looked back at me. 'You working for the family?'

'Nope. But maybe what I'm doing gets us to the same place.'

Ray looked at James Edward and James Edward nodded. Ray said, 'I hadn't seen Lewis for a couple years, but when I heard about him dying, I didn't like it, and I didn't like how it happened. I worked with that boy out of youth services. It was a long time ago and he didn't stay with it, but there it is. Once you're one of my young men, you're one of my young men. Just like this one.' Ray Depente put a warm steel hand on James Edward's shoulder and gave him a squeeze. 'I tried to point this one toward the Marines but he liked the idea of ships.' Ray and James Edward grinned at each other, and the grins were as warm as the hand.

I said, 'The cops say that Lewis was a Double-Seven gangbanger. His mother says no.'

Ray frowned. 'Lewis used to mess around with the Double-Sevens, but that was years ago. That's how he came to me.'

'He ever have anything to do with the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys?'

'Not that I know.'

'The family filed a wrongful death after Lewis was killed, but James Edward here tells me that a guy named Akeem D'Muere made them back off.'

Ray looked at James Edward again. 'You sure?'

James Edward nodded.

I said, 'Why would Akeem D'Muere go to bat for a bunch of white LAPD officers?'

Ray shook his head. 'I know Akeem. Akeem D'Muere wouldn't go to bat for anybody unless there's something in it for him.'

'When Lewis Washington died, every news service in town was looking into it, smelling Rodney King all over again. Maybe Akeem D'Muere wanted all the looking to stop. Maybe there was something going on at the Premier Pawn Shop that he didn't want anyone to find out.'

'You think?'

I shrugged. 'I think there's a connection. I just don't know who to ask to find out.'

James Edward said, 'That's why I brought him here, Ray. Figured you'd be the guy to know.'

Ray Depente smiled at James Edward. 'You want me to ask around, young mister, I can do that. Know a man who'll probably be able to help. But you stay away from those Eight-Deuce. The Navy doesn't teach you what you need to know to mess with that trash.'

James Edward said, 'Hell, Ray.'

The strawberry-haired woman came out of the dressing room, showered and changed, and gave Ray a ten- megawatt smile as she bounced out of the gym and into the sunshine. I said, 'Pretty.'