Free Fall

Two blocks shy of Martin Luther King Boulevard we turned into an alley past a '72 Dodge with no rear wheels and stopped at a long, low unpainted cinder-block building that probably used to be an auto repair shop. The alley ran behind a row of houses along to a train track that probably hadn't been used since World War II. Most of the railroad property was overgrown with dead grass, and undeveloped except for the cinderblock building. The houses all had chain-link fences, and many had nice vegetable gardens with tomato plants and okra and snap beans, and most of the fences were overgrown with running vines so the people who lived there wouldn't have to see what happened in the alley. Pit bulls stood at the back fences of two of the houses and watched us with small, hard eyes. Guess the pit bulls didn't mind seeing what happened. Maybe they even liked it.

The guy in the long coat got out of the Monte Carlo and went to one of four metal garage doors built into the building and pushed it open. No locks. There were neither cars nor signs nor other evidence of human enterprise outside the building, but maybe inside was different. Maybe this was the Eight-Deuce clubhouse, and inside there would be pool tables and a soda fountain and clean-cut kids who looked like the Jackson family playing old Chubby Checker platters and dancing like the white man. Sure. Welcome to The Killing Zone.

When the door was open the Bug drove into the building.

Bone Dee said, 'Follow him.'

I followed. The Monte Carlo came in after me and then the guy in the long coat stepped through and pulled the door down. Nothing inside, either. The building was as empty and as uncluttered as a crypt.

When the door was down Bone Dee reached over, turned off the ignition, and took the keys. The guy in the long coat came over with the double-barreled twenty. There were no lights and no windows in the place, and the only illumination came from six industrial skylights built into the roof. No one had washed the skylights since they had been installed, so the light that came down was filtered and dirty and it was hard to see. One of the skylights was broken.

The guy in the coat made a little come-here finger gesture with his free hand and said, 'Get outta there, boy.'

I got out. Bone Dee got out with me.

The guy in the coat said, 'I like that old Corvette. You get dead, can I have it?'

'Sure.'

He ran his hand along the fender as if it were something soft, and would appreciate tenderness.

The doors on the Beetle opened and the two guys in there got out with James Edward Washington and pushed him toward me. The Monte Carlo opened up at the same time and three guys came out of there, two from the front and one from the back. The guy from the Monte Carlo's backseat was holding a Benelli combat shotgun and the two from the front were carrying AKs like Bone Dee. The guy who'd been in the backseat of the Beetle had put away the Taurus and come up with an old M-l carbine. You count the double twenty and figure for handguns, and these guys were packing serious hurt. I spent fourteen months in Vietnam on five-man reconnaissance patrols, and we didn't carry this much stuff. Of course, we lost the war.

I said, 'Okay, are you guys going to give up now or do I have to kick some ass?'

Nobody laughed. James Edward Washington shifted his weight from foot to foot and looked as tight as a hand-me-down shirt. A fine sheen of sweat slicked his forehead and the skin beneath his eyes, and he watched the Monte Carlo like he expected something worse to get out. Something worse did.

A fourth guy slid out of the back of the Monte Carlo with the lethal grace of an African panther. He was maybe a half inch shorter than me, but with very wide shoulders and very narrow hips and light yellow skin, and he looked like he was moving in slow motion even though he wasn't. There was a tattoo on the left side of his neck that said Blood Killer and a scar on the left side of his face that started behind his eye, went back to his ear, then trailed down the course of his cheek to his jaw.

Knife scar. He was wearing a white silk dress shirt buttoned to the neck and black silk triple-pleated pants and he looked, except for the scar, as if he had stepped out of a Melrose fashion ad in Los Angeles Magazine. Bone Dee handed him the Dan Wesson. The other three guys were watching me but were watching the fourth guy, too, like maybe he'd say jump and they'd race to see who could jump the highest. I said, 'You Akeem D'Muere?'

D'Muere nodded like it was nothing and looked at the Dan Wesson, opening the chamber, checking the loads, then closing the chamber. 'This ain't much gun. I got a nine holds sixteen shots.'

'It gets the job done.'

'I guess it does.' He hefted the Dan Wesson and lined up the sights on my left eye. 'What's your name?'

'Elvis Cole.'

'What you doin' here?'

'My buddy and I were looking for a guy named Clement Williams for stealing a 1978 Nissan Stanza.' Maybe a lie would help.

Akeem D'Muere cocked the Dan Wesson. 'Bullshit.' Nope. Guess a lie wasn't going to help.

I said, 'Why'd you force the Washington family to drop their wrongful-death suit against the LAPD?'

He decocked the Dan Wesson and lowered it. 'How much you know?'

I shook my head.

D'Muere said, 'We see.' He wiggled the Dan Wesson at Bone Dee and the other guy with an AK. 'Get on this fool.'

Bone Dee hit the backs of my knees with his AK and the other guy rode me down and knelt on my neck. Bone Dee knelt on my legs. The guy on my neck twisted my head around until I was looking up, then put the muzzle of his AK under my ear. It hurt.

Akeem D'Muere stood over me. 'It be easy to kill you, but easy ain't always smart. The people I know, they say you got friends at LAPD and you turnin' up dead maybe make'm mad, maybe make things even worse.'

Something moved across the skylights. Pike, maybe.