• • •
Alex watched as the transit bus hissed to a stop in front of him. It was the 11:30pm bus, the last one of the evening, a short ten-block walk from the “dojo”. The doors swung open and he boarded, paid his fair in cash, and took a seat behind the driver.
He closed his eyes, tired, not wanting to look at any of the other passengers. He knew if he did, he would be bombarded with the patterns of birth, death, anger, love, hope, choice, desperation, and countless other physically manifested details of all these strangers lives, and with the level of fatigue from training that currently took hold of his body, with this many people, all at once, it would be too overwhelming to control. It would leave him emotionally drained, as if he had been fed upon by rows of fearful vampires. It was an experience that before the discipline of his work with Master Winn had more than once left him sobbing in seclusion.
“I need you to deliver both a package, and a message for me.” Winn had asked, before Alex left the dojo.
“And they are very important.” He had added.
Not just a martial arts master, Master Winn was also an information broker for those who chose to live off the grid. It was a booming industry. As the number of people who lived off the establishment’s radar grew ever larger, so did the number of people who saw the increasing technological integration of society combined with the continued erosion of rights in America as a threat to their very survival. These people didn’t want their text messages, phone calls, emails, tweets, “Facebook statuses”, postal mailing routines, bank accounts, income statements and spending habits matrixed through and acted upon by a Corporate-Government computer in any way. They came from all walks of life, and they longed to go back to the beginning. Simply put, they wanted to be free.
Master Winn trafficked both information and light packages with a carefully constructed and handpicked network of couriers spanning across Southern California. Be it via handwritten notes passed or as minimal as words whispered, the rules were clear: No electronics whatsoever, under any circumstances. Anything written down must be destroyed upon receipt. No trafficking in criminal information or contraband that was harmful to others was allowed unless the intent was to prevent a specific act that would harm another. Couriers were honor bound to the death to keep all information secret. And all fees were to be paid in cash, as long as cash remained legal.
On the street, Master Winn had earned the nickname “Mr. Fed Ex.”
Alex was Master Winn’s most favored courier. With his unique skills of perception, he had become particularly adept at avoiding detection, and Winn had taken note of this early on in his training. Alex’s “district” was the West Coast, but if the message were important enough and the fee amount agreed upon, he occasionally traveled cross-country. He mostly stayed local however, as for some reason that was never explained, Winn always wanted him nearby. Alex always traveled either on foot or by public transportation, occasionally by cab or hitchhiking if he had the opportunity to read the life of the driver and certify that he was not a threat.
Most messages Alex delivered were benign; birth and death notices for illegal residents, records or receipts for cash transactions and so on, but tonight’s delivery was something different, something far more dangerous.
Master Winn told Alex he was to transport a duffle bag filled with two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in cash to a recipient in one of the roughest gang neighborhoods in Los Angeles, the notorious Imperial Courts housing project in the city district of Watts.
The Watts housing projects had always been a flash point for gang violence and racial tension in Los Angeles dating long before the Rodney King riots of 1992 and the race riots of 1965. Although a gentrification process that began not long after the 1992 riots had diluted the district’s reputation for violence, it still remained a place where the police rarely dared tread to this day. Both Crips and Bloods had maintained tight control of the area, along with a few other, newer tribes, mostly Latino, which meant a considerable chance of violence against any person who should choose to enter without welcome.
“Don’t you want to know what the money is for? Don’t you want to know why I am asking you to take this risk?” Winn had asked, as Alex picked up the duffle bag.
“No.” Alex had answered.
“Why not?”
“It’s simply enough that you ask, Sir.”
“Put the bag down.” Winn gently commanded.
Alex did as he was told, and looked at the Martial Arts Master.
“To not know what you carry and why you carry it would be the height of carelessness. Always be clear of another’s intentions, Alex, no matter how much you trust them. Otherwise, you put yourself, and therefore others for whom you are responsible to, at great risk.”
“Of course. You’re right, Sir. I’m sorry.” Alex backpedaled, catching himself. He pretty much knew already what was being brokered, and the risks involved, but sometimes he forgot that most other people had to ask.
He looked at Winn intently, allowing him his explanation.
“A deal has been agreed to regarding territorial rights.” Winn began.
“A one block section of 108th Street has been declared free of any violence, prostitution, drug trade, or crime of any sort, for a term of two years. This agreement includes usage rights of this territory as a safe zone for refugees. That message needs to be confirmed. The first payment for this is what is in the bag, and the man who you are delivering it to is the guarantor of the deal. It is very important that he receives this package tonight.” Winn finished, as he pointed at the duffle bag.
“I will see to it that he gets it.” Alex replied, as he picked up the worn grey sack by its fraying hand straps.
“And this is yours.”
Master Winn added, handing Alex one more thing: A letter-sized envelope that held two thousand dollars in cash. The courier’s fee.
Alex briefly set down the duffle bag, took the envelope and stuffed it in his backpack, the one that also held his Kali sticks.
He turned to exit the dojo. He hesitate a second, as if to say something, then thought better of it, and began again towards the exit.
Winn called him on it.
“What is it?” He asked.
Alex turned back.
“It’s just…It may not work out that simple, sir.”
Winn gave him a brief smile.
“Nothing ever is, Alex. Karma is not always set. You cannot always believe what you see.”
Alex looked to the floor. If he only saw what I saw, he thought to himself.
He looked back up at his instructor, responded out of respect.
“Yes sir.”
• • •
The hiss of the bus’ brakes woke Alex from near sleep, and he got to his feet as the bus slowed to a stop. The doors swung open and he stepped onto the sidewalk, the cool night breeze providing a refreshing stimulant from the warm air and lull of the bus trip.
He looked up and down the deserted streets as the bus roared away behind him. Still in the black of night, he examined the closed sidewalk shops, black metal accordion gates closing off their entrances, behind them nothing but darkness. He eyed the steel rods and spiral rebar of the Simon Rodia Towers, more commonly known as the Watts Towers, an Italian immigrants rough dream of scrap metal and porcelain that now stood as a national landmark, less than three blocks to the east of where he stood.
He took a deep breath of cool night air to wake himself, and checked his watch. 12:17am. It was still several hours before the hustle of the day would begin. He flipped up the hood of his pullover sweat jacket as he headed north, his destination about a forty-minute walk away.
Alex preferred traveling by night, the lack of human activity being much more peaceful to him, but when acting as a courier, he usually traveled by day. Security cameras and satellite observation networks actually had more difficulty tracking targets during the day, the large and constant movement of people creating an added needle-in-the-ha
ystack level of difficulty. But whenever it was a local delivery in an economically depressed region, he felt safe enough moving in the night. He knew where the few recording cameras were, mostly at revenue generating traffic stops, and he easily avoided them. He also knew that right now, he was being followed.
Although he was perceptive to strong intent, allowing him to sometimes read people moments before he actually saw them, there was nothing but basic human awareness and common sense at work here. He was in a gang neighborhood. It was nighttime. And the gangs provided formidable security for all the local businesses. He was being watched the second he stepped off the bus.
This didn’t concern him at the moment, not just because of his ability to be one step ahead of his followers, or the pair of metal Kali sticks he had strapped to his back, but because couriers always had a “ghetto pass.” If confronted, a simple display of his weaponry, recognizable to all as handcrafted by Master Winn, would be all his would-be assailants needed to see. However he knew it would never come to that. Alex had walked these streets at night many times before, and the leaders of the security detail would know of him, and that tonight, he would be passing through to deliver a very important package.
He eyed a young man shrouded in a thick coat, sitting on a bus stop bench, the concrete seat on the sidewalk noticeably decorated with seemingly indecipherable yet artistically crafted swirls of grey spray paint. The elaborate pattern tagged the bench as a property marker, and the man seated on it was a scout at his post. Face hidden by a hood, all Alex could see was the lit ember of a cigarette. That ember nodded slightly at Alex, and Alex returned the nod as he passed by, never breaking stride. The exchange informed him that he had just been cleared, and his route would be safe. The final destination, however, would potentially be a different story.
A half hour walk later, he turned left at a street corner, and stood at the entrance to the Imperial Courts cul de sac.
Alex hesitated before entering the neighborhood. If there were a time that he would be most vulnerable, it would be within the next fifteen minutes.
Security tightened as he started down the street, to the building at the apex of the cul de sac. He noted the men watching him from doorways and rooftops, saw the small cluster of pigeons flying overhead, the trained flock of birds darting in the moonlight signaling his arrival.
He tucked his chin and kept walking, careful to keep his pace brisk but controlled, and not to make eye contact with his many observers. He approached the long since broken security door of a crumbling five-story stucco building that lay just left of center of the street’s end.
“Apartment 501” was where he had been told the package was to be delivered. He silently entered the structure, and made his way through the plaster-peeled hallway, silently bounded up stairs two at a time, until he reached the fifth floor. He entered the hallway and slowed.
For the first time this evening, Alex was nervous.
Standing in front of unit 501 were two large black men, both with AR-15 semi-automatic rifles slung over their shoulders. Alex nodded to the men and held up his free hand to show it was empty, the one hand holding the duffle bag. One of the men took the rifle from his shoulder and pointed it straight at Alex as the other nodded, signaling him to approach.
Alex did as he was instructed, holding the bag out at arms length. He slowly set it down at their feet and stood perfectly still as one man frisked him and the other kept the barrel of the AR-15 trained on his mid-section. The man with the rifle locked eyes on Alex, a hard, intense stare meant to intimidate. It worked. Alex’ heart raced. He tried his best to hold the gaze, to hide the fact that his body wanted to just turn and run. Reading these men at this point was simple but moot. Although he knew these were violent men who would die violent deaths, and much sooner than they thought, they could still opt to kill him at any moment, on instinct, with little or no perceptible impact on their fate, such was the consistent and vicious nature of their choices.
And there was no way Alex could know for sure if this would or would not happen.
There were two reasons for this, why, even with his abilities, he could not predict their next action. The first was that whenever the macro-patterns of someone’s life were strong, short, and simple, the end results clear, it often meant that the micro-patterns of any given moment were extremely hard to predict. Killing Alex meant nothing to these men, the act not a particularly impactful choice on their fate. In this environment, there would be no liability. It would be as if it never happened.
But the far larger reason why the next few moments were out of Alex’ perceptive range is because they directly involved him.
This was the one hole in Alex’s abilities. Despite his uncanny ability to read the countless patterns of a person’s behavior, physicality, environment, and despite how these details would form derivations and images in his mind of their fate that were near certain, there was one person whose life he could never see clearly, never predict the outcome of: his own.
“He’s clean.” One of the guards said to the other, as he examined Alex’s backpack, and one of his Kali sticks.
“And definitely Winn’s guy.”
The other guard kept his eyes locked on Alex but took his left hand briefly off the barrel of his AR-15 and gave a quick knock on the door to unit 501.
The door opened a crack.
A single visible eye looked Alex up and down a second before a deep voice from behind the door spoke.
“Let him in.”
Alex entered the unit as the door closed behind him. He handed over the duffle bag to the host as he did a quick scan of the apartment: he noted the large black leather couch, the sixty-inch flat screen bolted to the wall, the array of briefcases and duffle bags on the floor beside the couch. His eyes settled on a Mac 10 automatic pistol with three clips all laid out on the glass coffee table.
This was not a home, he thought to himself. This was a business office.
“Winn’s one crazy fucker.”
Alex looked at the well dressed, large framed black man who sifted through the cash in the bag handed to him by Alex. Satisfied, the man tossed the bag on the floor, next to the others.
“Rooker,” he announced as his name while he held out his hand.
Alex shook it, and noticed the diamond-laced, platinum Bentley watch on Rooker’s left wrist.
“Crazy I’m tellin’ ya. Shit that fool used to do. And now thinkin’ his brand a’ nonsense is gonna change things. But he is a man of his word. And so am I. So tell him he’s in the clear. No shit’s gonna go down on that turf. And he can bring people in and out if he wants. But…”
Rooker pointed a finger at Alex.
“If shit starts in that neighborhood, all bets are off. And I’m gonna shut it down. So you tell him that too. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Rooker sized Alex up a moment.
“You’re pretty brave for a white boy.”
He gave Alex an ominous smile.
“You have safe passage out. But you best get a move on, hear?”
Alex nodded.
As he looked at Rooker one last time he knew that in three months, a shotgun blast in the back of the head from a rival awaited him, and then the chaos would begin.
Rooker knocked once on the door, and it opened.
Alex exited the apartment, walking between the two guards, and never once looked back.
• • •
Once he was clear of Watts, Alex knew the walk home would be a little over eleven miles, and would more than likely take him until dawn. He would stay off the main thruways and stick to the side streets, in hopes that it would save him a little bit of time. He pulled his hood on tightly to protect himself from the cold night air when he heard the distinct rumble of a muscle car approach.
He stopped and watched as a 1971 gun metal grey Oldsmobile 442 coupe pulled up to the sidewalk just a few short yards in front of him.
The driver, a Vietnamese teenager, his head
wrapped in a blue bandana, immediately opened the door and stood up just outside his car, looking back at Alex.
“Need a ride, courier?”
Alex didn’t have to read the young man to recognize him as a fellow messenger, albeit a junior one. He nodded in the affirmative, approached the well-preserved vehicle and climbed inside. With the guttural roar of a large engine and modified exhaust system, the 442 pulled from the curb.
“Where to?” The driver asked as he pulled up to a streetlight.
“3rd and Western.” Alex answered.
That was still nearly half a mile away from where he lived, but that would be close enough.
The men sat in silence a moment. Alex took note of the small plastic St. Jude statue glued to the center of the black vinyl dash, the Rosary hanging from the rear view mirror.
“Joey Nguyen”, the driver finally spoke. “I know who you are.” He continued.
Alex remained silent.
“And I got a message for you.” Nguyen said, keeping his eyes on the road.
Alex looked at him.
“Two Black Hats were spotted downtown yesterday, asking questions.”
“Black Hats” was code for Government Operatives.
Alex sighed. He knew it was only a matter of time before they began to search for him in Los Angeles again.
Nguyen glanced over at Alex.
“Another thing. Tell Master Winn we gotta package we need to move from New York to L.A. Maybe it should be you.” Nguyen added.
“Thank you.” Alex finally replied.
He reached in his coat pocket for cash. There was a standing order among all couriers to inform Alex about Black Hat movement. It was intel Alex was happy to pay for.
Nguyen stopped him with a quick wave of his hand.
“We’re square.” He said.
Alex looked at him.
“That was my people’s money you just delivered.”
Alex nodded in response, and put away the C-note out of respect.
They drove in silence until they reached the corner of 3rd and Western.
The 442 pulled to the curb and stopped. Alex opened the passenger door. Nguyen reached for his arm. Alex stopped and looked at him.
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