Ray finished with one can and started with another. Pike took the third can around to the rear. We could hear banging at the back of the house, but the pipes would hold. Across the street, a door opened and a man in his early seventies came out onto his porch and watched with his hands on his hips. He was smiling.
Inside, you could hear men moving through the house, and voices, and then the tar paper was abruptly torn off the front window and someone fired most of an AK-47's magazine out into the ground at full auto. Ray Depente looked at me and grinned. 'You think they gettin' scared?'
'Uh-hunh.'
He grinned wider. 'These pukes ain't met scared.'
Joe Pike came back. 'Ready.'
Ray Depente took a big steel Zippo lighter from his pocket, flipped open the top, and spun the wheel. He said, 'Welcome to hell, assholes.' Then he touched the flame to the gasoline.
The eastern front corner of Akeem D'Muere's fortified crack house went up with a whoosh. Ray and Pike moved around the house, tossing the smoke grenades in through the windows. The grenades had instant fuses, and in two seconds there would be so much smoke that you'd think you were in an inferno. The fire stayed at just one corner of the house, though, and didn't spread. We'd placed the gasoline so that it would smell, but we'd also placed it so that the fire would be small and controlled. The people inside didn't know that, though. There were shouts, and more shots, and someone banged on the front door, trying to get it open. Someone else started screaming for us to let him out, and smoke began to leak from windows and from around the front door. Across the street, more people came out of their houses to watch.
I shouted over the noise. 'The guns come out first.' 'We can't get the goddamn door open.' 'The window.' The smoke was making them choke. More tar paper was pulled off the windows, and handguns and shotguns and AK- 47s were shoved through the glass. Clouds of thick gray smoke billowed out with the guns.
Ray Depente found a garden hose, turned it on, and sprayed it on the fire. It didn't put out the fire, but it cooled it some.
Someone inside said, 'Let us out. Please.' I looked at Ray. He nodded. He and Joe took up positions at the corners of the house.
'One at a time. Hands on your heads.' 'Man, I'll put my hands up my ass you let me out of here.'
I unshipped the pipes, pulled open the door, and two men and two women stumbled out, jostling each other to get away from the smoke and the fire. Pike pushed them down and used the plastic restraints. Neither of the two guys was Akeem D'Muere.
Ray Depente yelled, 'You wanna cook, that's up to you.'
No one answered.
Ray looked at me and I held up three fingers and he nodded. Akeem, plus two others. They'd be hard cases, and they would've kept their guns. We could hear coughing.
Pike said, 'Maybe they doubt our sincerity.'
Pike stayed with Cool T to watch the others, and Ray Depente and I went in after Akeem. We went in low and fast, pushing through the oily smoke, and found them in a short hall between the kitchen and a back bedroom. Akeem D'Muere was with a dopey-looking guy with sleepy eyes and another guy who looked like he could have played defensive line for the Raiders. They were coughing and rubbing at their eyes. They heard us, but the smoke was too thick for them to see us. The big guy shouted, 'They're inside,' and started swinging wild. He didn't see anything, he was just swinging, and his first two punches hit the wall. I stepped outside and caught the joint of his left knee with a hard snap kick. The knee went and the big man made a gasping sound and fell. I followed him down and took his gun.
The dopey guy yelled, 'I see the muthuhfuckuhs,' and started firing a Smith .40 somewhere up toward geosynchronous orbit. Akeem D'Muere pushed the dopey guy at us and ran toward the front of the house. Ray Depente slapped the dopey guy's .40 to the outside, then hit him three fast times, twice in the chest and once in the neck, and the dopey guy fell.
Ray said, 'Take his gun.' Ray was already after Akeem.
I grabbed the dopey guy's gun, then used the plastic restraints as quickly as I could. I wanted to get to Akeem D'Muere before Ray got to him, but I didn't make it. Two shots came from the living room, then a third, and I got there just as Ray Depente came up under D'Muere's gun, twisted it free just as he had taught a thousand guys down at Camp Pendleton, then threw Akeem D'Muere through the open front door out into the yard. I went after them.
Akeem D'Muere was standing sort of bent to the side in the front yard, rubbing at his eyes and spitting to try to clear the smoke from his lungs. Ray Depente went down off the little porch, peeled away his shoulder sling, and said, 'Look at me, boy.' Ray didn't wait for him to look. Ray spun once and kicked Akeem D'Muere on the side of the head, knocking him to the ground.
I said, 'Ray.'
Up and down the block, doors opened and people came out onto porches and into yards. Pike and Cool T had the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys on the ground and out of the play.
Ray Depente went to Akeem and dragged him to his feet. Ray was a couple of inches taller, but thinner, so they probably weighed close to the same. When Ray was lifting him, Akeem tried to grab and bite, but Ray dug his thumbs into Akeem D'Muere's eyes. D'Muere screamed and stumbled back. Ray stood and looked at him and there was something hard and remote in his eyes. Ray opened his hands. 'Hit me. Let's see what you got.'
Akeem D'Muere launched a long right hand that caught Ray high on the cheek and made him step back, but when he tried to follow with a left, Ray blocked it to the inside and drove a round kick into the side of D'Muere's head. D'Muere stumbled sideways, and Ray reversed and kicked him from the opposite side, and this time D'Muere fell. I put a hand on Ray's shoulder. 'That's enough, Ray.'
Ray slapped away my hand. 'Stand away from me now.'
'Ray, you're going to kill him.' Akeem D'Muere struggled up to his knees.
