Suddenly, without warning, a bullet sailed from the house and struck the edge of Esteban’s shield.
The boy dropped back down behind the front gate. “Shit!” he whispered to Reyna. “They made us.” He put his fingers to his lips and whistled loudly.
Then all hell broke loose. His archers fired their smoke bombs, but gunfire simultaneously erupted from the house, sending Esteban’s team scrambling for cover. The gunshots had thrown off the archers’ aim, and most of the arrows went wild, striking walls rather than windows, and filling the yard with blinding, billowing smoke.
Esteban looked at Reyna. “It’s like they knew we was coming.”
They watched through the rising smoke as the front door crept open, and the barrel of a shotgun pointed out, straight at them.
“Fuck that!” Reyna exclaimed and stood to her full height, letting loose her own arrow. It sailed through the cracked-open door, and with a grunt of surprise the gun barrel disappeared. But the door remained open. Reyna whipped her head around to Luis, his arrow cocked and loaded with a smoke bomb. “Now!”
Luis leapt up and let his arrow fly. His aim was perfect, and it went straight through the open door into the house. There came a muffled explosion, and suddenly the house filled with dirty white smoke. Reyna ducked back down as windows burst open and more bullets flew at them along with the smoke. Crouching, Reyna took aim again and fired through the smoke and through the front window. A loud “Ugh!” was heard, and the bullets ceased.
“Now!” Esteban called out, and they surged through the gate toward the house, shields raised, swords ready to fight hand to hand. Esteban yanked open the door, and smoke poured out.
Damn, he thought momentarily, his boys sure built them smoke bombs good.
He coughed and spluttered but hung back from the entrance. He motioned the net carriers into place as he heaved yet another smoke bomb through the door. It exploded with a loud pop like a firecracker, and still more smoke poured forth.
“We gotta move fast,” he whispered to Reyna, “’fore someone calls the fire department.”
She nodded and then leapt back as a man burst from the house, blinded by smoke, bleeding from a wound to the shoulder, but still wielding the shotgun. Esteban smashed down on the man’s wrist with the flat of his blade. The man cried out in pain and dropped the gun to the walkway, staggering to his knees.
A woman stumbled toward them through the smoke, her arm wrapped in a bloody cloth, coughing and hacking, brandishing a handgun. The point of Esteban’s sword stopped her in midstep, and she gazed with stunned recognition at him through smoke-burned eyes before tossing her gun to the walkway.
Esteban glanced over his shoulder to a short, skinny boy named Ronaldo, who stood back a few paces, sword in one hand and cell phone in the other. “You getting all this, Ronaldo?”
The boy nodded, dipping the phone to get close-ups of the man and woman as they remained on their knees, coughing and spluttering.
“Anybody else in there?” Esteban asked.
The man shook his head. “Just two out back.”
But the woman glared up at him. “Fucking traitor!”
Esteban flinched but didn’t respond to her taunt. He was done with her and everyone like her. They were his old life. He waved over the net carriers. They tossed the large fishing net over the man and woman, forced them at sword point to roll over, and then secured them within the net like a couple of bluefin tuna.
Esteban and Reyna exchanged a nod and then headed around back with the others, leaving these two in the custody of Luis.
The situation in back was a bit more volatile. The two back houses—more like large sheds, really—had no windows through which to shoot the smoke bombs. A boy named Willie told Esteban that somebody was holed up in the bigger shed, firing out through a small slit in the walls every time they got close.
Huddling together beside the garage for cover, Esteban and his team considered their options. Time was running out.
These hits had been designed to be quick and dirty—slam, bam, in and out before the neighborhood even knew what had happened. Somebody had tipped these people off, Esteban knew. Did that mean the other teams were in trouble too? He couldn’t worry about them, he realized. They had to take these guys out, and they had to do it now.
“We don’t have time for this shit!” he whispered in frustration.
“What’re we gonna do?” Reyna asked, her bow cocked and ready for whatever he ordered.
Esteban looked over some of his old homies, now his fellow knights. He’d grown up with most of them, and most had been in the gang with him. He could trust them, he knew. Would they die for him? Yeah, they would.
“Guys,” he whispered to his team, “we gotta storm that shed. Swords and arrows ready. Frankie, you draw their fire to the side, Willie you toss a smoke bomb right in front of their little ass window. I’m gonna break down that door and we take those fuckers!”
Reyna’s mouth dropped open like a broken glove compartment. “Este, they got guns.”
He eyed her soberly. “You think we ain’t been shot at before? Welcome to my life, Reyna. If this ’hood ever gonna be free, we gots to do this. Now get ready—soon as we bust in the door, fire right into that place.” He tossed her a grin. “Maybe you’ll hit one of ’em in the balls.”
Frightened though she was, Reyna smiled.
Esteban gave the signal. Frankie dashed madly across the back driveway, zigzagging and tossing a smoke bomb right toward the shed. Bullets strafed the driveway, kicking up chips of concrete near Frankie’s feet and forcing him to dive for cover behind the side of the house. The bomb exploded, filling the driveway and backyard with billowing smoke.
“Now!” Esteban hissed, and they were up. Willie dodged the whizzing sounds of bullet fire to lob another smoke grenade right at the tiny crack where the shooting had come from. Like an enraged bull, Esteban charged the closed door at a run and slammed hard into it, just the way he used to hit the opposing players in tackle football games as a kid. The door cracked and groaned but didn’t fall in.
He bounded quickly to the side as bullets pierced the wood of the damaged door. Panting, his shoulder sore and throbbing, Esteban eyed the doorknob. The wood around it had splintered but held.
“Oh fuck it,” he cursed, raised his broadsword high above his head, and with every muscle in his thick arms and shoulders brought the blade down against the knob with a loud thunk. The sword sliced clean through the handle, and the knob clattered to the concrete.
Reyna lifted a well-toned leg and kicked the battered door inward, simultaneously firing her arrow. A shriek of pain roared from inside, and Reyna knew she’d made contact. She reloaded, saw movement in the darkness of the shed, and fired again. A scream and a thud could be heard, and Reyna grinned smugly at Esteban, who stood rubbing his sore shoulder.
“Show off,” he muttered and cautiously entered the small building. Two men lay moaning and twisting on the floor. Esteban felt a thrill of accomplishment knowing these guys that he’d worked with as a gang member would now be out of business because of him, hopefully forever.
Ronaldo entered with the phone, sweeping the video eye over bags of white powder on several tables and settling on the two wounded men rolling and groaning and writhing on the floor. Reyna flipped on the lights. One man had been shot through the upper thigh, the other in the right shoulder. She flicked a look toward Esteban and shrugged. “I missed.”
He grinned and quickly took action. “Wrap these guys up and collect all this stuff. We gotta bounce.”
His team went quickly to work netting up these last two and dragging them around to the front along with a net full of drug-manufacturing paraphernalia. Some of the drugs were left behind as evidence and the rest confiscated as a gift to the mayor.
As Esteban and the others reached the front of the house to deposit their load with the first two captives, Frankie pulled out a premade note emblazoned with Arthur’s A symbol. Every team had be
en given the same note. Each note was exactly the same, and each was to be left with the netted drug dealers.
The note read as follows:
To the good people of this neighborhood—The Round Table and King Arthur hereby deliver unto you some from among your number who have brought death and addiction and misery to this area. You may pass them onto the police and rid yourselves of their heinous influence, or untie them and allow them to continue. The choice doth be thine.
At last, Esteban’s team finished its mop-up and prepared to depart. The captives struggled and cursed from within their fishnets, but none could escape.
“We’re done, here, knights of the Table,” Esteban announced with pride. “Let’s get—” he turned as he was speaking and stopped dead. Many of the neighbors—his neighbors—stood in the street just outside the metal fence gazing in at them. Among them was his mother.
He and the others cautiously approached the people and stood on the other side of the fence, uncertain of the crowd’s intent.
“Hello, mijo,” said his mother quietly. “You not bringing trouble here, are you?”
He shook his head. “No mama. You all know these people we got tied up back here and you know what they done to this barrio.” He looked out at the young and the old, the big and the small. His people all. “Our crusade is to rid our barrios of scum like this who done nothing good for the neighborhood and only brung bad. I know it, and you know it. But Arthur, see, he be about giving everybody choices. That’s why we be leavin’ ’em here with you. It doth be your choice, mama. You can let my sister grow up like I done, or you can call the cops and have ’em take this shit away. We gotta go meet Arthur.”
When he saw they weren’t making any threatening moves, Esteban opened the gate and allowed his team to exit the front yard and gather on the sidewalk. He and his mother gazed silently at one another. She knew she’d been a lousy mother, and he knew that she knew. She also knew she had a second chance with his sister, and she wasn’t gonna blow it this time. The sound of police sirens could be heard approaching.
“We already called ’em,” said the elderly abuelita who had threatened Ryan with the rolling pin at Round Table, “soon as we seen who you had tied up over there.”
Esteban’s mother smiled sadly at her son. “I’m sorry, mijo, for everything. It’ll be different now, for your sister. I promise.”
He nodded. Before he could turn away, she grabbed him in a crushing hug and held on. Mortified, Esteban squirmed out of her embrace. “C’mon, mama,” he hissed, “you be embarrassing me and shit!”
She let him go. “Sorry.”
Reyna stepped forward to stand beside Esteban, clearly indicating by her stance and by her look at the older woman that she was asserting her own claim on the boy.
His mother eyed Reyna appraisingly. “I met you before.”
“Yes,” Reyna replied, “during the cleanup.”
The older woman smiled and nodded. “So you’re his latest jaina?”
Reyna laughed and elbowed Esteban. “No, I’m his last jaina!”
Esteban actually turned a bit red and had to quickly cover his awkwardness. “Okay, team, cops’re coming, we’re outta here.” He turned back to his mother. “Give Rosa a kiss for me, ’kay?”
He didn’t even wait for an answer, but just sprinted off down the street, his team following closely behind. Reyna patted Esteban’s mother gently on the arm, smiled and handed her the phone Ronaldo had used to video the whole operation.
“Here, give this to the cops.” Then she followed the others into the darkness.
THROUGHOUT the city, in neighborhood after neighborhood, similar operations unfolded at the same moment. Because of Ramirez’s warning, his people were prepared for an attack. However, like all adults, they greatly underestimated the power of children when those children wanted something badly enough. Though not planned by Arthur, a number of the drug-house owners were wounded like those in Boyle Heights, some seriously, but none were killed. That had been Arthur’s directive. Bullets had grazed some of his knights, but none were badly hurt.
In placing former gang members as leaders of each team Arthur had ensured that his knights knew how to deal with gunfire, just as Esteban and his old homies had done. Jaime, Darnell, Duc, Tai, and all the others had achieved great success considering the odds against them. Some of the houses, upon receiving the heads-up from Ramirez, had cleaned everything out and taken off, leaving nothing for the knights to attack or confiscate.
But considering it was but a small salvo in a much greater war, Arthur’s operation was a resounding success. And contrary to what Mr. R. had told Lance and Jack, every neighborhood hit that night made the exact same choice—call in the cops to remove the drug dealers, and all felt empowered for having made that choice.
WHEN Arthur had given the word to begin, he and his own team were lurking within the shadows of a large industrial building directly facing Ramirez’s warehouse. A Hummer stretch limo had pulled out of an underground garage ten minutes before, but since then all had been still. Arthur and Jenny exchanged a look when the limo departed, as though the same sense of dread had come over them both simultaneously.
Despite that eerie feeling, Arthur dispatched a young knight named Norman to take care of the parking garage gate, which had descended once the limo departed. He sent a text to a splinter group to do the same on the opposite side of the warehouse. The large padlocks Arthur had purchased that very morning were perfectly suited to the task.
With both garages secured against escape, Arthur eyed the quiescent building soberly. To think that such death and destruction of human life originated here on a daily basis. He scanned the few windows on the top floor, waved his hand at Lavern, and pointed to one window in particular. The small, wiry boy took aim and fired a smoke bomb. The window shattered, and smoke billowed out into the setting-sun-drenched sky.
Completely by chance, Lavern had struck at the heart of the dragon—Ramirez’s office. Arthur sent a text to his splinter team, and skilled archers on the opposite side began their assault.
Arthur pointed out the next window to Lavern. The boy fired. Another bomb. More smoke. And so it went until a smoke bomb had been fired through every upper-floor window. Smoke poured from the wounded building like blood from an animal that had been stabbed numerous times.
Arthur nodded in approval at Lavern’s expert shooting. The small boy, who admired this man more than anyone he had ever known, grinned back in gratitude.
“Now we wait,” Arthur whispered, and all eyes returned to the smoking warehouse.
MAYOR VILLAGRANA stood at his window watching the brilliant red and orange of the setting sun, the twinkling of city lights springing to life below him, and wondered what Arthur was up to, and would R. take care of it like he’d promised. All these kids running around the streets doing who knew what—it was a public-relations fiasco waiting to happen.
“Well?” came a harsh voice from behind him.
Villagrana turned to observe Council President Sanders with the usual scowl plastered to his craggy old face. Asshole is never happy, the mayor thought. Seated with Sanders was the rest of the city council—none too happy to be here by the looks on their faces, Chief Murphy, Sergeants Ryan and Gibson. Oh joy, the mayor sighed inwardly, the whole circus is in town.
Despite these thoughts, all he said was, “Nothing going on that I can see.”
Sanders “hummpphed” and exchanged a look with Vice President Sandra Gale. She was young and African-American and he old and Jewish, and they often clashed on policy issues. However, they were joined in solidarity in their contempt for this mayor, a contempt magnified by his handling of this Arthur business.
The phone rang suddenly, startling Villagrana with its harsh, tinny clang. The mayor snatched it up in annoyance. “Yes?” He listened but a moment and then held out the phone to Chief Murphy. “It’s for you.”
Murphy rose from his chair and took the phone from the obviously disgruntled
mayor. “Yeah?” He listened, then covered the receiver with his hand and turned back to the group. “911 calls coming in from all over the city.” Then he resumed listening to the report.
Villagrana and Sanders exchanged a look. Despite their mutual enmity, both men knew that whatever was going on probably wouldn’t be good for either of them.
ARTHUR and Jenny and their team watched as people attempted to exit from the underground garage. The padlock trapped them like the rats they were. Arthur looked at Jenny, who nervously gripped his hand. He squeezed it gently and then nodded to Lavern. The boy retrieved from his satchel another arrow, this one fitted with bound cloth. Enrique soaked the cloth in gasoline and lit it. Lavern notched the arrow, took aim at the first window he’d taken out, and fired. The arrow made a perfect arc up and into the office. Within moments, fire leapt from the window as the interior of Ramirez’s office went up in flames.
Arthur observed a moment as the fire took hold. Lavern shot several more flaming arrows in through the upper windows, and as the inferno quickly engulfed the entire top half of the building, Arthur signaled to Jenny. The prepaid phone she’d been given was already in her sweaty hand, and she hurriedly thumbed in 911.
IN THE mayor’s office, Villagrana, the council members, Ryan, and Gibson had all taken spots at every available window to observe the scene below. Smoke rose from all over the city. Sirens shrieked as the flashing red of fire trucks and the flashing blue and red of police vehicles ripped the twilight open like a wormhole might a galaxy of stars.
“What the hell is happening?” Villagrana practically shouted. “It looks like a war zone down there!”
Ryan and Gibson exchanged a frustrated look. They wanted to be out there with, well, whatever was going on. This was politics up here—down there was police work.
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