He'd seen her graduation photo in preparation for a ceremony she wouldn't attend. Red haired, green eyes, captivating smile, all wiped away by a piece of shit. He had an idea of who it might be, but no clear cut evidence. And he'd had the audacity to personally promise her parents that he would do everything in his power to bring justice for their daughter. Unfortunately, it didn't seem that it was likely that he would ever solve her case.
For Leanne and the others buried like garbage, both innocents and criminal, he had determined that the Demons had to be taken down. But he couldn't let tonight happen.
He stepped closer to Rez.
"Wouldn't it be better to keep the Jamaicans as buffers?" he offered. "Let them deal with the hassle of doing business with the cartel?"
Rez turned a scathing look on him. "Man, have you been drinking the stupid juice or what? What did I just say? We're getting rid of them damn Jamaicans and we're doing it tonight. If you're not damn stupid then you forgot to put on your balls tonight. Speaking of ball-less wonders, where's Roach? Haven't seen him since earlier today. Probably hiding out somewhere at one of the bars, drinking himself under the table."
"Or snorting some smack," Dele added taking the opportunity to redirect Rez's suspicions onto the now dead gang member. "After all, he's come into a big stash."
"Says you mutha," Rez mouthed bitterly but Dele could see by the change in the gang leader's expression that he had considered the possibility and not for the first time. Roach was seen by the crew as loyal but weak. Unfortunately for him, he'd picked up a habit that constantly kicked his ass. Rez knew at least this much. The thought that Roach had betrayed him couldn't be a new idea. The possibility that the missing-in-action Roach might have set up the new blood wasn't a farfetched conclusion either and his glaring absence might be a testament to that fact.
Dele knew that right about now there were a few cleanup guys moving Roach's body from beneath the bed where it would be placed on ice until matters could be settled. Only then would Roach's relatives be notified of his unfortunate demise, the nature of his death deliberately left open to speculation.
"Yeah, says me," Dele pressed on. "I'm simply telling it like you know it is. Especially about the stupidity of going after the Jamaicans. If you think they won't retaliate after tonight, you're underestimating them and that may get you killed. You're starting a full-out war Rez. What do you think is going to happen after tonight? Some of them will take some of us out when we're not expecting it. Then we'll go after them again and from there the fighting will just escalate until it's a full-on war. And you can be sure a gang war is going to bring in the Feds. Those of us not killed tonight will end up in Avenal or some other lockup."
Dele could tell by some of the faces looking on that his message was getting through to at least some of the crew. This move by Rez wasn't exactly going over totally with all of the gang. They knew some of them would probably die. And for what?
Mostly Rez's pride. He didn't like having to deal with the Jamaicans, considered them beneath him. And Corrall had pissed the gang leader off one too many times.
"Whaa, whaa, whaaa, get out the fuckin' violins! You chicken shit coward, you think you gonna stop tonight, you're gonna be the first one down, and I'll make sure of that!"
Dele knew better than to press the point. Tonight was going to go down, no matter how much he tried to make them see reason. He'd been stupid to think he could do this alone. He'd had his own selfish reason, including protecting Nailah. But he couldn't stand by and let this happen. Men were going to die tonight and it was his duty to prevent it any way he could.
Somehow, someway he was going to have to get word back to Judson at the precinct. Give him the lowdown and get some backup.
The logistics of how he was going to do that now escaped him though.
"Since chicken shit here has had his say, we're going to head on out. Are the rest of you chicken shits or are you men? Let me know now!"
Whoops and yelps went up in one accord, reverberating throughout the warehouse. Even Clare was yelping and screaming in glee, her face set with a vicious determination. If Rez allowed women on the front, she would be riding sentry.
Dele was on his own. Except when he looked toward the rear of the building, he could see Carolyn standing like a distressed doll next to a whooping Skeets. The black of her eye was startling against her pale skin. Looking around further Dele came across another face, reserved in its pique, not rejoicing like the others. Sid, one of the oldest crew member, and someone who had seen too many of these fights, too many of the deaths. Right now he seemed a tired old man, too tired to do this shit once again.
Dele knew from his file on the Demons that they'd had one other major war nearly two decades ago. After it was over, several hundred gang members on either side had made the coroner's roll call. And there had been extensive collateral damage. That was what was so wrong; it was one thing for a member to be shot down because he had chosen that life and its consequential death. However, innocent people sometimes got caught in the crossfire. Sometimes those people were nothing but kids.
The noise settled down as Rez turned toward the crowd and continued giving instructions.
"The Jamaicans don't know we're coming. When they see our numbers, they're gonna know there's no way out. We'll go in playing nice, like we want to renegotiate the terms of our previous dealings. When he ain't looking, I'm going to drop Corrall so fast he want get the chance to sing 'Day-O.' That's when the rest of you go after whoever is nearest. Once they realize we're attacking you can expect those sneaky muthas to double down. But we're Demons! They can't take us down! We're Demons!" he yelled and the whoops started up again.
"OK, men…" then looking specifically at Dele, "and chicken shit…let's head on out! Oh here chicken shit, this is for you." Rez tossed Dele a Glock, one of the weapons of choice for tonight.
The bodies moved in a flow toward the door, pressing into each other. Dele stood still, but the motion of the men moved his resistant body with the wave. Outside, the sun had settled and there was only a bright line on the horizon. Night was moving in. Over a hundred men got on their bikes and Dele, knowing he was being watched, got on the Harley provided to him by the ATF working in conjunction with the LAPD to bring down this gang.
Dele slammed on the pedal, and the sound of his motor joined the chorus of a hundred more. A hundred bodies going into hell and pulling him along with them.
The silhouettes of Demon riders melded into the horizon as they headed to the highway that would take them to a showdown near the San Fernando Valley.
###
Nailah paced the neutral carpet, her rapid pulse refusing to allow her to sit down on one of the chairs and relax. The whole room was an easel of neutral colors: tans, browns and beiges. The beige silk duvet over the bed, the white walls, the tan entertainment center with the HDTV, everything put together to soothe the Elan's guests. It wasn't a high-end hotel and it was located on a less-than-ritzy side of Beverly Boulevard in West L.A. But they hadn't chosen it for anything but hiding her until after things get settled. What "things" Dele didn't elaborate about, but right now she didn't care so much about her safety.
Her pacing, her revved nerves, were all about him now. In her mind, a variety of scenarios played out, none of them good. In some of them, Rez knifes Dele in the back. Or one of the Jamaicans clips him with a bullet. Or a stray bullet pierces him right between the eyes. In this scenario Dele's face morphs into Roach's frozen visage, a clean hole in his forehead, his half-lidded eyes glazed over.
She imagined Dele on a coroner's table or in a casket.
The images were constant, relentless and they sickened her to the stomach.
On their way to the hotel Dele had stopped at Roscoe's where he picked up a chicken and waffles dinner for her. As delicious as it smelled, the dinner still sat in the Styrofoam container untouched; her stomach couldn't
handle anything right now. The bats were back along with butterflies, bees and a whole host of other creatures that made her insides flutter.
She looked over at the night stand, this one much nicer than the one back at Dele's hotel room. Nice wood, nice carving. On top of its surface lay the wallet Dele had handed to her earlier. She didn't know how much money was left inside but he'd said it would be enough for another night here.
Even that thought unnerved her. Another night in the hotel would mean that Dele wasn't coming back. Wasn't coming back to her. His words echoed in her mind.
As did that last kiss. It had taken her by surprise as well as her emotional surrender to it. It turned the earlier sex into something she hadn't anticipated.
She walked over and touched the wallet, thinking of his fingerprints on it, thinking that it might be all that she would have left after tonight.
Why couldn't she have met him before he joined up with the Demons, when she might have had a chance to talk him out of that horrible move and avoided all of this.
She spread open the leather case, not searching for money but something, anything, with his picture on it. But looking through its compartments she found nothing. No cards of any kind, no picture. Nothing even with his name on it. She realized that she didn't know his last name.
She guessed the deliberate absence of any identification was his safeguard in case he was pulled in by the cops. No names, no photos meant he would be that much harder to identify during an arrest. With that thought she was immediately taken aback about how her mind was working now. A few days ago, she would have shaken a reproachful head at the subterfuge, totally siding with the authorities against just another criminal.
Now she was thinking like a criminal, empathizing with a gang member in his quest to maintain anonymity.
She started to close the wallet and replace it on the nightstand when something caught her eye. Just the edge of a paper of some kind peeking from the seam. Not a regular compartment like the rest, but a compartment nonetheless. Sewn in such a way to hide whatever was in it. The constant handling as well as the jostling in his back pocket must have loosened the thread exposing the hidden partition.
She pulled out the yellow paper. It was lined and seemingly torn from a larger sheet of lined notebook. On it was just a number. No name to identify it.
The area code was not a California code that much she recognized. She started to put it back into its hiding place, then hesitated. Obviously the number might belong to someone he wanted to maintain contact with despite his risky activities. Maybe it was a relative…or even a girlfriend. It could be anybody.
If he died tonight this person might have the right to know, a right to claim his body. And that if wasn't just a theoretical one. The odds were against him surviving. He was already wounded which might throw off his fighting ability.
Even without the injury she knew in her heart that he wasn't the killer she'd first thought him to be. Every action since he'd been forced by the gang to snatch her had shown a humanity that was absent with the other members she'd been exposed to. He could have killed her several times over, taken sexual advantage of her when they were alone. Instead he'd done everything to prevent that.
She couldn't see him shooting or stabbing anyone in cold blood. Not that she didn't think he wouldn't do it to protect someone.
She knew that if she hadn't killed Roach when she did, Dele would have done so to protect her.
She looked at the number and picked up the hotel phone from its cradle. She dialed 9 to get the outside line and with trepidation keyed the digits, not sure she was doing the right thing.
Whoever's voice she had been expecting she certainly didn't expect to hear, "Eric, why are you calling this number on a general line? Man you know that's outside ATF protocol."
For a second she stood there in confusion, not sure she hadn't misdialed.
"Hello?" the man's voice queried, this time insistent. "Who the hell is this?"
ATF? Wasn't that the government department that went after criminals who dealt drugs and other illegal things like guns? Who was Eric?
A thought occurred to her. Was Dele some sort of government informant? Had he been giving information to the ATF? Maybe that was the reason he was running with a gang. The more she thought about it, the more it made sense.
He wasn't a true gang member. But if that was the case, he could be in some serious trouble tonight, more trouble than she had anticipated.
The voice was wary as it asked for the second time, "Who is this?"
"I…I'm calling about Dele…"
"How do you know about Dele? Lady, identify yourself right now. Don't think you can get away either. We've got a trace already set up."
She knew from too much procedural television that it was unlikely they had traced her this quickly. And from the stern tone of his voice, he was obviously worried about whatever was going on being compromised.
"I'm a friend of Dele's. He's in a lot of trouble…"
"Yeah, what kind of trouble?"
"There's a fight tonight between the Demons and a Jamaican gang. They've pulled Dele into it. He didn't want to go. And he's already wounded, a knife wound. Please you have to find them, stop them." The words came rushing out in a breathless flood.
Seconds of silence passed and she wondered if she would have to repeat herself. When the man finally answered, his tone was one of guarded concern, not strident like before.
"Do you know where this fight is going down?"
"No," she moaned helplessly. "But if you're the ATF, don't you keep files on gang activity? Didn't he call it in?"
"No," the man said and she could hear the frustration behind the word. "Look, thank you for calling. You said the Demons were facing a Jamaican gang?"
"Yes, and the leader's name is uhm, let me think…something like Corrall," she said a little more hopefully.
"OK then. I want you to keep this information to yourself. Don't even call the police on this."
"But how are you going to…"?
"Don't worry about it," he said, cutting her off. "We've got ways of tracking down hideouts and regular gang venues. If what you say is true, we'll find them." The finality of his words comforted her some but she still had to say, "Please hurry."
He didn't answer. Instead she heard a click and knew that he had disconnected the call.
As she hung up the phone, she wondered if she had done the right thing. Maybe her assumptions were wrong about his working as an informant. Maybe she'd gotten Dele into worse trouble than what he was facing tonight. He could do hard time for all of this.
She sat down on the edge of the bed, cradled her head in her hand, second-guessing herself.
Then she raised her head, pushing away the guilt. In the end, she would prefer him in prison than in his grave.
Both choices were horrible, but one was much more permanent than the other.
In either case, she wouldn't be seeing him again. Even if he survived, he definitely wouldn't want to see her if he was sent to prison and discovered she was the one who ratted him out.
She closed her eyes, a headache brewing behind her temples. She smelled the chicken, knew that she should eat to stave off the pain. The bats and butterflies were gone; there was just emptiness.
The emptiness echoed all through her.
Chapter 16
San Fernando Valley was the headquarters of several California gangs including the infamous Familia Locos and The Green Lanterns, whose designation was an obvious trademark violation but when you're in the business of violating more serious laws pesky trademark laws hardly mattered. The ATF bureau working out of California had gleaned a lot of information on the various crews simply from reconnaissance by other undercover agents. The Jamaicans, however, remained an enigmatic group, undesignated so far with any name other than their country of origin, which w
as in some ways a smart move. Harder to track. The only thing Dele had been able to surmise about the gang was that they were stealthy dealers in various drugs and arms. They were also rumored to be ruthless killers.
This night wasn't going down as easily as Rez hoped.
They were on San Fernando Road. The chill air whipped Dele's face as his bike rode among the horde. Despite the chill, he felt he was on fire. Probably a fever starting up which meant that he was feeling the first signs of an infection.
Even if he survived the fighting, he might not make it through the next few days. Infections could get nasty. He'd seen them take out some big, fit officers after gun wounds went septic.
It was hard to maintain an adequate speed and he found himself falling behind on several legs. But he knew that even if Rez couldn't track him among the horde, there were other eyes checking him, making sure he didn't take any sudden detours.
He was basically a prisoner now. He'd shown that he wasn't down for this fight and to Rez and the crew that equaled disloyalty. And disloyalty equaled harsh recrimination, including death.
So in addition to dying by a Jamaican's bullet or an infection from his knife wound, he might take a deliberate bullet from one of "his own."
And there was no way he could stop it.
So he trudged on, maneuvering the Harley despite his weakness, mentally trying to stave off the inertia arising from his earlier loss of blood, trying to steel himself for the fight ahead. Thinking of Leanne Strauss, thinking of the nameless bodies buried in the Mojave, allowing those memories to embolden him.
But the one thing that made him really want to outlive this night and the nights after was the memory of that last kiss with Nailah and his promise to her. Maybe he was hoping for more than she was willing to offer, given the circumstances of their coming together.
But he wanted that chance. He wanted a better life than he had lived so far and he could see her in that life.
They continued for several miles until Rez sent up a signal with his hand. The tacit command traveled back along the queue of bikers. The bikes slowed, the smell of diesel strong in the wind. They had passed the rock quarries at the southernmost end of the Valley and the bikes sat beneath the San Rafael Hills just a distance from the San Gabriel Mountains. The La Cañada Valley separated the ranges and tributaries flowed west out of the Hills and emptied into the Verdugo Wash.
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