Violent Spring (11 page)

Each one looked warily from side to side. The taller, beefier one's gaze settled on Monk for several seconds. Monk returned it with a baleful expression. Eventually he shifted his attention to the one Monk had noticed sitting in the rear booth. He wore the purple colors of a Dalton and had been intent on the three tacos before him. At least when Monk had last looked at him he had. But Monk was sitting with his back to the Dalton, the Scalp Hunters in front of him, standing near the order counter.

Monk stopped chewing and started calculating. He hadn't brought his gun and the only way out of the dining area, save a stupid stunt like trying to dive through the picture window, was out the open doorway.

“Say, homey,” the lanky Scalp Hunter began, talking to the other. “You got any money.”

The other one, working a toothpick back and forth on the side of his mouth, had his eyes riveted on the back booth. “Naw, sure don't”

The first one patted himself down dramatically. Suddenly he stopped, dove a hand into a pocket, and produced a wad of twenties. “Oh yeah, I forgot about my ho' change.” He flashed a twisted smile and turned to place his order with one of the cooks. Toothpick kept looking past Monk.

The Dalton strolled past the Scalp Hunters, holding his plate of tacos in one hand. The other was down at his side. Toothpick stepped into the doorway, blocking the Dalton.

“Why you in such a hurry?” Toothpick said in an unfriendly tone.

“It ain't none of your worry,” the Dalton replied.

“Well, we just wanted you all to know the Scalp Hunters is ready to sign up on this truce thang.”

“Is that right?” the young Dalton replied skeptically.

Monk continued to chew, listening, rather than heed his good sense and leave.

“That's right,” the lanky one said dryly. “But first the Daltons gotta agree to split up they shit.”

The Dalton put his plate of food on the table where Monk sat. He folded his arms across his chest and glared at the two. “Just how you mean that, my brother?”

“Well if we gonna be all for one and one for all, then y'all should divide that big money of yours up between all the ones that agree to this truce.” He looked at his huskier companion. “That's only fair, right?”

The husky one nodded in agreement. He disposed of his first toothpick and inserted another one, which he began to suck on with interest.

“And just what big money you talking about?” the Rolling Dalton responded. “A lot of them motherfuckers still slangin' product ain't down with this truce. The ones that is been puttin' what little money they got toward legitimate shit for their families.”

The lanky one grinned and raised his arms skyward in a pantomime of supplication. “Aw, home, we ain't stupid.”

“This ain't no scam, fool. We about tryin' to do something for our community. About trying to get jobs for these brothers and sisters out here so they don't have to go knock somebody upside the head. This is a black thing,” he said, his voice rising. “You just about trying to get over,” the Dalton said contemptuously to the two. He picked up his plate and started for the door again.

Toothpick feinted with a right and delivered a quick left, sinking it into the solar plexus of the Dalton. He must have been expecting they'd try something because he went with the force of the blow, his tacos spilling bright shards of cheese, tomatoes, and ground beef in a cascade of fast food minutiae. The Dalton's back slammed against the doorjamb and he came up with a foot into the husky one's groin.

The big one wasn't expecting that. He doubled over, holding his crotch. The lanky one's hand jerked into the space between his head and the Dalton's. A 17-shot Glock filled his fist and the void.

“Gat him, gat him, cuz,” the husky one screamed, fighting for his breath.

A clipped reel, loose on its sprockets, runs in Monk's mind, pictures his eyes see and his mind interprets in a rapid-fire herky-jerky fashion. His brain tells his hand to launch his plate of fries and half-finished root beer toward the Scalp Hunter with the gun. The food explodes around him, but it doesn't knock the pistol from his grip. Instead, he turns his attention, and the barrel of the gun, on Monk.

Monk hurtles forward on aging legs. Too old, too slow. The sick conclusion he'd be dead by the time he reached the Scalp Hunter. Goddamn. The Dalton tackles the lanky one and they go down. An eternity later, Monk covers that precious distance and plows a straight right into the bridge of the nose on the husky one's face.

“Fuck.” Blood gushes from his nose like water from a busted hydrant. The younger man grabs Monk in a bear hug, and they rock back against the shell of the booth. Scuffling with him, Monk hears the stand's owners yelling something about cops and insurance.

The lanky one is on the ground, a welt swelling under his right eye. He gropes for his lost gun. The Dalton scoops it up where it lies under the table. At the same moment, Monk and his opponent tumble over the bench seat, hit the table and fall to the floor, a tangle of arms and flailing legs.

“Who's gonna gat who, motherfucker?” the Rolling Dalton says, pointing the weapon at his lanky opponent's head.

Monk is aware of this in the background. A jab lands on his jaw and he grunts in pain. The two latch onto each other, then struggle to their feet. Monk spins around, his back to the Dalton and the other Scalp Hunter. The Dalton extends the Glock to the prone figure before him.

The kid he's fighting has raw strength and youth, but his technique is all charge, little deliberation. Monk drops his shoulder, shifts his weight to the balls of his feet and plows his fist into the kid's side, then follows with a flush clip to the side of his face. He goes down and stays there.

“No,” Monk shouts, turning his body, breathing heavily through his mouth.

The Dalton laughs harshly and the gun erupts once. Monk watches the shell jacking from the chamber, falling to the floor into the pile of cheese, lettuce and tomato. The inner city salad. The larger Scalp Hunter, spent but looking up, shifts wide-eyed orbs in that direction.

The disjointed film in Monk's mind's-eye catches and clicks into place, and the scene holds still before him.

On the floor, the other Scalp Hunter has curled up in the fetal position, a 3-D cut-out superimposed on a worn tile floor representing a universe of the lost hope of young black men just like him. Monk looked at the body then looked up. The Dalton stood, hands akimbo, a wicked smile showing off his uneven teeth.

“Pussy.” He snarled and kicked at the Scalp Hunter who drew himself up on the ground. A murmur issued from the inert form.

“Where did you shoot him?” Monk said, trying to decipher the Dalton's fierce countenance. Monk noticed the Dalton had two tears tattooed in the corner of his right eye, green and luminous against his dusky skin.

The Rolling Dalton pointed at the floor. A neat hole, singed black around its edges, bore into an area near the top of the young man's bowler which, oddly, had stayed on his head.

“You think I'm gonna ride a beef upstate for a chump like this,” the Rolling Dalton spat. Not too far away, the approach of sirens punctuated the air. “I got bigger things to accomplish than dealin' with this bullshit.” He wiped the gun clean with his T-shirt and tossed it to Monk. “There you go, hero.” He ran out of the dining area and hopped into a '68 lowered Cougar. The twin carbs spat fuel into the engine, and the car flew east on Pico.

Presently, two patrol cars arrived. Two sets of LAPD's finest tumbled onto the cracked sidewalk at the ready, shotguns and 9mm automatics bristling. Monk, the gun on the table of the booth, the clip in his pocket, stood with his hands up in plain sight. The lanky Scalp Hunter sat on the floor, his back against the counter. A look of embarrassment and self-contempt contorted his features. The larger one sat in the booth, his ringing head held in his hands.

The cops cuffed everyone and told them they'd sort the story out at Wilshire Station. There they threw them together in a holding cell smelling of stale body odors and old fried chicken. Monk told the uniforms he was supposed to meet with Keys and Seguin. One of the cops went away and came back after a few minutes. They took Monk out of the cell and hustled him into an interrogation room he'd been in before. Only the last time it was to watch his friend the lieutenant go to town on a suspected arsonist and murderer.

Monk sat and yawned and watched his hands swell—he'd managed to add to his bruises with another split knuckle on the left hand—for forty-five minutes before the door to the room opened again. A uniformed policewoman stuck her head through the sliver. “You can go home after we get your statement about what happened at Oki Dog.”

“What about Keys?”

“They're busy.”

“So am I supposed to come back or what?” he said, irritation surfacing in his voice.

She lifted a shoulder. “Give your statement to the desk sergeant.” She went away, leaving the door ajar.

Monk did so and went home, tired, pissed and wrung-out. He and Jill were supposed to go out but he convinced her to come over to watch a rented video instead. Before she arrived, Monk soaked in the tub, then plunged his hands into a pail of hot water and Epsom salts. His entire upper body was one big ache.

“What the hell happened to you?” Kodama asked, taking off her jacket and heels after entering the apartment.

Monk sat in his wing chair, staring at nothing, thinking of everything, the plastic bucket of Epsom salts by his feet. Toweling his hands dry, he related his day, blow by literal blow. Afterward he said, “And what's happening in the world of adjudication, baby?”

“Compared to kicking the ass of half of L.A.'s population, nothing, dear.” They sat side by side on the batik-covered couch. “Just the usual sentencing of some poor kid for holding up some other poor working stiff in a 7-Eleven parking lot.”

Monk rubbed her knee. “Did you bury him under the jail, baby?”

“Shit. The governor's cutting the hell out of the budget. These kids who should be going to youth camps where they can at least get some counseling, wind up being sent into prisons with hard-core bastards who only abuse and maim their minds and bodies until they can't help but be a stone gangster.”

“Oh you card-carrying, ACLU-supportin', family-value-destroying, faggot-loving liberal.” Monk shook his head in mock disapproval. “What happened to the kid?”

Jill took a sip of the tea he'd brewed for them. “I remaindered him to Chino over the objections of the prosecuter, a stiff prick asshole who wants to be the next D.A.”

“What about you?”

“Don't start that.”

“Look Jill, you're high profile. A reasonably young—”

She glared at him.

“Asian woman jurist who's been on the cover of national magazines and written articles for
The Nation
and
Newsweek
magazine.”

Jill clasped her hands together and looked heavenward. “Born in a log cabin, studied her law books by candlelight.”

“Who fights the good fight from the bench. The same bench that sent her parents to the concentration camps.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jill got up and turned on the TV. She got the tape Monk had rented, a comedy about a white CEO who wakes one morning to discover he has become a black welfare mother of four children. It grossed over one-hundred and fifty million at the box office. Jill assessed the dubious fare in her hands. “At least it's not
Point Blank, The Glass Key
—”

“The second version,” Monk amended.

“
The Naked Kiss, Kiss Me Deadly
, or those god awful Matt Helm films with Dean Martin. Or any of the other countless crime films you and Dexter have seen at least ten times.”

Monk drank his tea in silence. Jill crouched down in front of the set, slipping the tape into the VCR on the shelf below it. She was about to click the unit on when a burst of white light exploded in an aura around her head. She moved out of the way and Monk leaned forward.

Kelly Drier, the idiot-savant of yellow journalism emerged from the glare into the blare playing on the screen. He looked properly haggard. His collar hung loose, and a day's growth of stubble dotted his chin. Monk was willing to bet he'd had the make-up department add that touch.

The bright light receded as the camera pulled back. In reality a series of flares burned on a bare patch of ground. And Monk could make out men clad in black overalls dashing about, carrying semi-automatic rifles, while the intense beams from helicopters stabbed the ground in crisscross patterns.

“We are at an apartment complex in southeast Los Angeles,” Drier intoned in his best imitation of a newsman. “The police and FBI, operating on a tip, are here to capture one Antoine ‘Crosshairs' Sawyer. A known gang leader, and a man said to have information on the death of Bong Kim Suh.”

Jill sat next to Monk and they watched the cops and feds—on the backs of the overalls in big block white letters it either read LAPD or FBI—scramble around on the courtyard and upper deck of the apartment house, the camera a jittery recorder of their mission of search and seizure. Black men, women and children stood frozen next to the baked stucco walls of the complex, Edward Hopper renditions writ large in the grim fresco of urban drama.

“I believe,” Drier whispered, as if somehow by talking in a normal voice he'd disrupt the organized confusion, “if you point your camera that way, José, we'll see the cops make an arrest.”

The invisible camera operator did so and the lens zoomed in on an apartment door in the corner on the second level. The door was caved in and in the dark maw of its interior, lights flickered and anxiety-laced growls of men were heard on live TV. Presently, several men in black overalls emerged. An overhead beam swung into place, affording the camera an illuminated shot of a black man in his twenties being marched down the stairs in their midst. He was muscular and clad solely in 501 jeans. His hair was done in long cornrows and a small hoop earring pierced his left lobe.