From the excitement in the Alpha’s tone, Pilgrim understood that it must have something to do with the change in their lives. Something to do with the loss of Jolene and Marla. And whatever it was, Pilgrim hated it. He hated it with his newfound hatred. Pilgrim would help the Alpha find whoever or whatever had taken Jolene and Marla from them. And when they found it, Pilgrim would allow the hatred its reign.
Tamera Sun watched the four men leave the apartment. They were young and tough looking, but they all paid great respect to Majoqui. On the table in front of her was a pile of money, over a hundred thousand dollars. More money than Tamera had ever seen in real life. In the last few weeks, millions of dollars had come in and gone out of her small apartment. And Majoqui was responsible for all of it. What a man he was. And he loved her. Goofy little waitress from Kansas, loved and protected by a man of wealth and power and courage. He was her knight in shining armor.
She saw that he was looking at her.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
"How much I love you."
"That is good," he said. "I will be out late tomorrow."
The smile drifted from her lips. "How late?"
"All night perhaps."
"Will you be… safe?"
He started stacking the money.
"I am always safe. But I like that you worry for me." He gathered together more of the loose bills. "I will have men watch over you. You will be safe."
The smile came back.
"I'm not scared."
"That too is good," he said. He looked up at her, reached over and took her hand. "The money can wait."
"Yes," she said, "it can."
37
Jim Black shook his head.
"I just can't do it, Gil," he said.
I took a sip of my coffee, sat the cup down.
"Look, Jim, I'm not asking to be lead or anything like that. I don't even have to be in on the arrest. But I am going to help catch this… this guy, one way or the other."
Technically I was still out on FMLA, and would be for a few more weeks, but I was actually feeling pretty strong again, although my endurance was low.
"You know I want to help, Gil. You and me go way back, but we've got to do this by the book. Otherwise it all gets thrown out in court. You know that better than anyone."
We were at a Caribous. Jim was drinking some foo-foo concoction that was supposed to pass for coffee while I had my usual, strong and black, just like back in the Corps.
"I do know better than anybody and I've got more to lose than anyone involved, so don't think for a second that I'll do anything to jeopardize the case. But I know this guy, I've seen him, I've looked into his eyes. And I've got boots on the ground looking for him. It was my snitch that almost tagged him at the club."
"I understand all of that, Gil, but what do you want me to do?"
I took another sip, looked straight at him.
"I want to see the file. I want access to everything you have. On him, on Mara, everything."
Jim shook his head. "I can't do it."
"Yes you can."
"No, Gil…”
"Yes you can. Look, it'll all be under the table. No one will know. Just you and me."
He shook his head again.
"Wait," I said, "just hear me out. Officially I'm not working. I've got twenty-four seven to devote to nothing but catching Majoqui Cabrera. I'll be undercover like no one else, because right now, I'm not really a cop. I can go places a cop can't go, fit in places a cop couldn't."
I rubbed the five day growth of stubble on my cheeks and chin.
"I don't have to shave. I haven't cut my hair since the… incident. I don't even have to shower. And everything I get goes straight to you."
I could see he still wasn't buying it so I pulled out the big guns.
"Jim, I know your career goals. You want to make at least captain before you retire. You crack this case… you catch Majoqui Cabrera and you're guaranteed chief, maybe even undersheriff."
He stopped shaking his head, picked up his coffee and took a slow drink.
"You don't make chief by breaking rules," he said.
"Yes you do," I said. "Sometimes, sometimes you do. You make chief by getting results. And I'm going to get those results. I'm going to get Majoqui Cabrera with or without your help. It will be easier, faster, with you, but I'm going to get him either way. The only real question here is are you going to be in on it or not?"
He took another drink.
"If this got out it could cost me my job."
"It won't," I said. "If it does, I'll say I stole the file. I won't leave you hanging, you know me better than that."
He set the cup down and looked me in the eye.
"We don't have a lot."
"Anything's better than nothing," I said.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a thumb drive and a cheap cell phone and slid them over to me.
"Don't put this on a work computer. Buy some phone cards. We won't use work phones or our personal cells, just these. My number's already programmed into it… only mine."
It was my turn to take a sip of coffee.
"You come prepared," I said.
He didn't smile.
"Yes, I do."
I pulled a cheap cell phone out of my pocket and looked at it.
"I guess I won't need this."
Jim smiled, but it was guarded.
"Great minds…” he said.
"I'm going to get him," I said.
He shook his head, finished off his coffee.
"I believe you. But don't kill him, Gil. I know you're thinking you want to, but that isn't the way. You have to let the courts take care of this. You want revenge, I understand that, I do. Let him go to prison where he'll get raped in the showers three times a week and end up with AIDS and maybe get shanked over a pack of cigarettes or a bad drug deal. Let that be your revenge. Let him suffer long and hard. Believe me, it's worse than a quick death, especially for a little pretty boy like him."
I looked into my coffee cup as I held it to my lips, letting the steam hide my eyes.
"Sure," I said. "That's what I'll do. I'll let the courts take care of it."
"I want your word."
I set the cup down, looked him in the eye.
"I give you my word."
Hating God made lying a lot easier.
38
The new car was a Cadillac Escalade, black like my coffee. I dropped the backseat to use it as a makeshift kennel for Pilgrim. I'd need him. The gun was a Beretta nine-millimeter that I'd bought off a banger in downtown Denver. The serial number was filed off, but that didn't matter to me. He'd tried to jack up the already jacked up price, but I let him see past my eyes into my real eyes… my dog eyes… like looking into my soul. My soul was a dark place just then and he backed off right away, took the previously agreed on money and beat feet out of there. Wise move. After all, I did have a fully loaded nine-millimeter with no serial number in my hand.
It was one-thirty in the morning and I was parked down the street from a bar I knew to be a hangout of the Crips in Aurora. I recognized at least three gangsters I'd arrested over the years, and a few more I thought I might have had contact with. I let them alone. I needed someone who wouldn't recognize me.
And then I saw him.
He was short, maybe five-five, with thick shoulders and rounded biceps. He had a gut, but it looked hard like the rest of him. He was black; not brown, but black black. Like a Nigerian. He was decked out all in blue. Blue baseball cap, the bill slid to the side, blue baggy mid-calf jeans that sagged halfway down his butt over blue boxers and a blue sleeveless silk shirt that was open to his belly showing his tats. Oh, and of course, blue Nikes. He was around twenty-five, with the unmistakable round puckered scar of a healed bullet wound over his right pec. Yeah, he looked to be hard all right.
I didn't spot any weapons, but that didn't mean he wasn't carrying. He was obviously an OG, which stands for Original Gangster,
which was exactly what I wanted. In normal life, twenty-five is young, but living the gang life is like dog years, which would make him about a hundred and seventy-five.
I followed his blue Honda Civic away from the bar at a reasonable distance, although not letting him know he was being followed at a quarter to two in the morning on a Thursday would be pretty much impossible, especially when one was following a righteously paranoid gang member that had been shot at least once in his life. But I didn't plan on letting him get far. Turned out he was better than I thought. He picked up that I was tailing him before we'd made the third light. He pulled into an ally off Chambers and Colfax and stopped the car. I pulled in behind him.
This was the dangerous part.
I exited the Escalade, closed the driver's side door, and stood next to it, watching him. I saw him seeing me in the rearview mirror, even in the dark of the ally. He looked very calm and that told me a lot about him.
Finally he opened the door and stepped out facing me. I still didn't see any weapons, but again, that didn't mean he didn't have any.
"Whatch you want, white boy?" he asked. His voice was even and calm, like his demeanor. He wasn't scared. Not a bit.
"I need some information."
He cocked his head like maybe I was crazy.
"And why would I give you information?"
"Because it will help you."
"I don't need no help from no cracker cop."
"Why does everything have to be about race?"
He just looked at me.
"Besides," I said, "I'm not a cop."
He snorted at that.
"You as cop as cop gets."
"Not right now," I said. "Right now I'm exactly what you need."
"I don't need nothing."
I almost told him that was a double negative, but decided against it.
He turned to get back into the Civic.
"I need some information on a group that's cutting into your territory and your profits. A south of the border gang."
That stopped him.
He gave me that head cock look again.
"And when I say 'cutting' I mean it both figuratively and literally."
"Oh, you think that's funny? Lil BB is a bro of mine. Him getting cut like that ain't funny."
"But you haven't done anything about it," I said. "And that's because Mara is hard and dangerous to deal with, not to mention secretive. I can help with that."
"Crips don't need no help from no honky cops. We know how to take care of the thirteens."
"I'm not saying you can't, what I am saying is, why not let somebody else do your work for you? Tell me what I need to know and I'll clear Mara out of your areas. Guarantied."
He did the head cock thing again.
"Why?"
"Why what?" I asked.
"Why you cops sticking your noses into a blood feud between the blues and the thirteens? And why you want to help us over them?"
I walked up close to him,
"They killed cops. And they're turning the streets into a war zone. That's got to stop and they've got to pay."
He was quiet for a while, thinking, so I let him be quiet and think.
Finally he said, "That's cool, I can believe that. Why you pick me?"
"Two reasons. First, I don't know you and you don't know me. Second, you're no punk kid. You're not in it just for the quick cash, drugs and girls. You're not even in it for the rep, not anymore anyway. No, you are loyal. Loyal to the crips and what they stand for. Now I don't agree with that particular choice, but I also am loyal and so I can relate. We belong to different gangs, you and I, but we both believe in what we are doing. And since, for the time being at least, we have certain goals that are the same, I say you and I, just us, agree to help each other to accomplish those goals."
"I ain't no snitch," he said.
"This isn't about snitching. This is about killing."
"Killing thirteens."
"Yes," I said. "Killing thirteens."
He nodded, thinking again.
"One thing," he said.
"What's that?"
"Thirteens is killing Bloods too, but they can't be no part of this. I ain't siding with no Bloods, not even to kill thirteens."
I held out my hands.
"The enemy of my enemy…,” I said. "It only makes sense to hit them from both sides. It will go faster."
He shook his head.
"Bloods killed my baby's momma long time ago. The only use I got for Bloods is target practice. So it's me or them, you choose."
I had planned on using both the Crips and the Bloods to squeeze in on Mara, but this changed things. I had a choice to make.
"Deal," I said.
"Whach you want to know?"
"Majoqui Cabrera."
He nodded, a thin smile stretching his lips.
"The Crow," he said. "Bird of death. Yeah he's the one started the ball rolling. But you don't have to worry about him."
"Why not?"
He pulled out his cell phone and checked the time.
"'Cause in 'bout ten minutes he gonna be dead."
39
Majoqui Cabrera watched through the telescopic scope and saw the two Crips, dressed in blue and black, get out of the car. One of them held a silver briefcase. They were in the Bulls Eye parking lot in Gunwood and the place was well lit. Majoqui's contacts had told him of the drug deal going down. Six Kees of coke worth roughly two-hundred and fifty thousand dollars brought in from Mexico and fresh for the taking. The Crips had the money and whoever the cartel had paid to mule the money up from Texas had the drugs.
Some were afraid to steal from the cartels, but not Majoqui. Besides the blame would fall on the Crips anyway.
Ten minutes later, a white SUV pulled into the parking lot, circled twice and then stopped a short distance from the Crips. Two men got out and started talking to the them. Majoqui waited, watching through the high powered sight. Neither the weapon nor the scope were as good as the ones he had used to shoot the American police officer, Gil Mason. No, the police had those, but these would do.
All four of the men went to the back of the SUV. They opened the tailgate and looked in. They stayed there for a short time, talking and reaching inside the vehicle. Finally, the Crip with the briefcase handed over the case and some car keys to one of the two men from the SUV. The two men walked over to the car the Crips had come in and opened the front doors.
That was the signal.
Two groups of three broke from the bushes at the edge of the lot and ran toward the two vehicles. They were Mara and they were armed with fully automatic rifles equipped with suppressors. Majoqui knew of the Gunwood police and their quick response time and wanted to take no chances.
But as the two groups came within twenty yards of the vehicles, something strange happened. Flashes erupted from the back of the SUV and Majoqui's men began to fall. A barrage of gunfire exploded and sparks chipped and danced off the vehicles and asphalt. Glass shattered and metal thunked and plunked as heavy bullets punched their way home.
Majoqui took only a second to see what was happening. It was a trap and he had fallen into it. He sighted in on the driver, who was now out of the car and shooting at Majoqui's brothers.
Majoqui fired. A puff of red misted the air and the Crip dropped limply to the Tarmac. A slight shift and the second man fell just as swiftly. Four more piled out of the small car. Majoqui understood instantly that they had been lying down in the back seat, just as the men must have been in the SUV. How many were there he wondered? No time for that though. There was time only to kill.
He turned his attention to the SUV and started placing rounds through the back windows. The high velocity .308s slid through the glass effortlessly.
Five of his six men were down, but Majoqui was not known as The Crow for nothing. He planned for every contingency.
Three cars raced into the parking lot packed with Mara members. They opened up on the SUV with a variety of firearms. No su
ppressors here. They were the back up and noise was not their concern.
Majoqui turned back to the other car and sent a bullet through the forehead of the closest Crip. His next round missed its mark as the man moved at the last instant. He saw the hole that punched through the door frame just above the man's head. He re-sighted and was about to fire when something made him turn to the side. Four Crips were scrambling over a brick wall below him and coming his way. They must have been looking for him, and now that they had pin-pointed his position from the muzzle flash of his rifle, they were coming hard and fast. This he had not anticipated. The Crips were learning, adapting. He would have to be more careful.
He shot the closest man through the throat. The second man hesitated for just an instant at the sight of his dying comrade and then fell like a puppet with its strings cut as a copper jacketed slug passed through the top of his skull, through his brain, down his neck, to exit near the base of his spine.
The other two men were shooting at him now, their bullets whipping by at differing velocities, churning up grass and burning the air as they passed.
Majoqui ignored the flying pieces of death as though they were nothing more than bothersome insects and calmly shot both men.
Something stung the inside of his right thigh, and as he turned, a white hot streak of lead burned across his shin. Two more Crips, coming from behind. Majoqui dropped the rifle and pulled out the little .380 in his waistband. He shot the closest man five times, and saw small puffs of dust lift from the man's shirt with each shot. He fell, tripping the second man. The gun flew from his hand and landed close to Majoqui.
Majoqui could have shot him dead, but he didn't. It was time for a lesson. He snapped the sword belt from his waist, and as the Crip rose, swung it in a diagonal downward stroke that took off both of the boy's hands at the forearms. Blood sprayed in a geyser and the boy, no older than seventeen Majoqui guessed, stood there gaping at where his hands used to be. Majoqui swung again and the boy toppled as his left leg separated just below the knee. He hit the grass and now he was screaming, blubbering, begging for his mother.
Gil Mason/Gunwood USA Box Set Page 59