Robert Crais - Free Fall

“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.”