Free Fall

by Robert Crais

  Marcus began to wail. For a moment, everything was still, and then I stood. "Thank you for your time, Mrs. Washington. I'm sorry about your son."

  James Edward went to the door and followed me out. Mrs. Washington hurried after us, but stopped in the door. "Don't you go out there with him, James Edward. They'll see you, out there."

  James Edward said, "It's all right, Mama."

  He pushed her gently back into the house and closed the door. It was cooler on the porch, and the rose smell was fresh and strong. We stood like that for a moment, then James Edward went to the edge of the porch and peered out between the roses and looked at his neighborhood. He said, "I wasn't here when it happened."

  "The Navy?"

  He nodded. "Missed the riots, too. I was away for four years, first in the Med, then the Indian."

  "How long have you been out?"

  "Five weeks, four days, and I gotta come back to this." He looked at me. "You think it's the cops, huh?"

  I nodded.

  He gave disgusted, and moved into the shade behind the trellis. "The cops killed my brother, but a nigger named Akeem D'Muere made'm drop the suit."

  I gave him stupid. "Who's Akeem D'Muere?"

  "Runs a gang called the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys."

  "A black gang made your family drop the suit?" I was taking stupid into unexplored realms.

  "You're the detective. I been away for four years." He turned from the street and sat on the glider and I sat next to him.

  "So why's a black gang force a black family to drop a wrongful-death suit against a bunch of white cops?"

  He shook his head. "Can't say. But I'm gonna find out."

  "There has to be some kind of connection."

  "Man, you must be Sherlock fuckin' Holmes."

  "Hey, you get me up to speed, I'm something to watch."

  He nodded, but he didn't look like he believed it.

  I said, "This is your 'hood, James Edward, not mine. If there's a connection between these guys, there's going to be a way to find out, but I don't know what it is."

  "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 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."

  Ray said, "Uh-huh."

  An older woman pushed her head out of a little glass cubicle that served as an office at the rear of the gym. She called, "Ray, it's somebody from Twentieth Century-Fox. They say it's some kind of emergency and they need you to come over and show Bruce Willis how to do something for a movie they're making."

  James Edward grinned. "Bruce Willis. Damn."

  Ray didn't look as thrilled with Bruce Willis as did James Edward. "Now?"

  "They said right away."

  James Edward said, "These studio dudes hire Ray to set up fight scenes and teach his moves to their actors. Arnold been here, man. Sly Stallone useta come here."

  Ray shook his head. "I can do it tonight, but I can't do it now. I've got a class coming in, now."

  The woman said, "They said right away "

  Ray shook his head. "Movie people." He called back to her. "Tell'm I gotta pass."

  James Edward Washington gave impressed. "Is this fuckin' righteous or what? Tellin' Bruce Willis to pass."

  The older woman went back into the glass cubicle.

  Ray said, "Jesus Christ, James Edward. It ain't no big thing." Ray Depente looked my way and gave embarrassed. "These kids think this movie stuff is a big deal. They don't know. A client's a client."

  "Sure."

  "I've got a class."

  "Sure."

  A dozen little girls came in, shepherded by a tall erect black woman in a neat dress suit. Most of the little girls were black, but a couple were Hispanic. They all wore clean white karate gies and tennis shoes. They took off their shoes before they stepped onto the mat. Ray uncrossed his arms and smiled. "Here they are, now."

  James Edward Washington laughed and said, "Damn."

  Ray Depente squeezed James Edward's shoulder again, then told me that it had been a pleasure to meet me, and that if he learned something he would give James Edward a call. Then he turned away and walked out onto the mat to face his class.

  The little girls formed a neat line as if they had done it a thousand times before and bowed toward Ray Depente and shouted kun hey with perfect Korean inflection. Ray said something so quietly that I could not hear, and then he bowed to them.

  Ray Depente gets five hundred dollars an hour from movie stars, but some things are more important.

  CHAPTER 12

  James Edward Washington wanted to chill with Ray for a while, so he stayed, and I walked out to my car, making a big deal out of taking off my jacket so that I could look up and down the street and across the intersections. Joe Pike drives an immaculate red Jeep Cherokee, and I was hoping to spot him or the blue sedan, but I saw neither. Of course, maybe they weren't there. Maybe the blue sedan hadn't really been following me and I was making a big deal with the jacket for nothing. Elvis Cole, Existential Detective. On the other hand, maybe the guys in the blue sedan were better than me and I wasn't good enough to spot them. Not.

  I climbed the ramp to the 110 freeway and went west, changing lanes to avoid slower traffic and speeding up when the traffic allowed and trying to play it normal. Just another Angeleno in the system. It paid off. A quarter mile past the La Brea exit I spotted the blue sedan hiding on the far side of a Ryder moving van, two lanes over. The guy with the Dodgers cap was still driving and the guy with the butch cut was still riding shotgun.

  I took the La Cienega exit and went north, timing the lights to get a better view, but always just missing. They were good. Always three or four cars back, always with plenty of separation, and they didn't seem worried that they'd lose me. That meant they knew they could always pick me up again, or that they were working with a second car. Cops always use a second car.

  La Cienega is four lanes, but Caltrans was at it again, and as La Cienega approach
ed Pico, the two northbound lanes became one. There's a 20/20 Video in a large shopping center on the northeast corner, and the closer I got to the 20/20, the slower I drove. By the time I cleared the work in the intersection, a guy behind me in a Toyota 4x4 had had enough and roared past, giving me the finger. I stayed in the right lane as I crossed Pico, and the remaining two cars behind me turned. Then there was just me and the blue sedan. The driver swung right, making the turn with the two other cars as if they had never intended anything else, and that's when I picked up the slack car. Floyd Riggens was driving his dark brown sedan two cars back, sitting in traffic behind a couple of guys on mopeds. My, my.

  I stayed north on La Cienega and three blocks later the blue sedan sat at a side street ahead of me, waiting. As soon as they made the turn onto Pico they must've punched it like an F-16 going into afterburner, then swung north on a parallel side street to come in ahead of me. Floyd would've radioed that he still had me in sight, and that we were proceeding northbound, and that's how they'd know where to wait. Floyd hung back, and after I passed, the blue sedan pulled in behind me again. Right where I wanted them.

  I turned east on Beverly, then dropped down Fairfax past CBS Television City to the Farmer's Market. The Market is a loose collection of buildings surrounded on all sides by parking lots used mostly by tour buses and people from Utah, come to gawk at CBS.

  I turned into the north lot and made my way past the buses and about a million empty parking spots toward the east lot. Most of the traffic stays in the north lot, but if you want to get from the north lot to the east, you have to funnel through a cramped drive that runs between a couple of buildings where people sell papayas and framed pictures of Pat Sajak. It's narrow and it's cramped and it's lousy when you're here on a Saturday and the place is jammed with tourists, but it's ideal for a private eye looking to spring an ambush.

  When I was clear of the little drive, I pulled a quick reverse and backed my car behind a flower truck. A teenaged girl in a white Volkswagen Rabbit came through the gap after me, and, a few seconds later, the blue sedan followed. It came through at a creep, the guy in the passenger seat pointing to the south and the driver sitting high to see what he was pointing at. Whatever he saw he didn't like it, because he made an angry gesture and looked away and that's when they saw me. I jumped the Corvette into their path and got out of the car with my hands clear so they could see I had no gun. The kid with the butch bounced out and started yelling into a handi-talkie and the Hispanic guy was running toward me with his badge in one hand and a Browning 9mm in the other. Floyd Riggens was roaring toward us from the far end of the lot. Thurman wasn't with him. Thurman wasn't anywhere around.