Florida Firefight (21 page)

Hayes Hill, shielded from the rest of the world by a high wrought-iron fence and twenty acres of rolling park, was a red-brick fortress through the summer trees.

The electronic gate swung open at Hawker's approach, then swung closed behind him as he wound his way down the narrow asphalt drive.

In the distance Lake Michigan shimmered like liquid sky.

Jacob Montgomery Hayes's formal English butler, Hendricks, let Hawker in.

“Mr. Hayes told me to come over, Hendricks.”

“What a novel way of saying you have an appointment.”

Hawker smiled. Hendricks was right out of a 1940s English movie, and he had a wicked sense of humor.

Hawker decided he could joke, too. “Hendricks—Mr. Hayes told me that you were a British spy during the war. MI-6. Espionage. What about it?”

For just a moment the butler's eyes flickered—he'd been caught off-guard. He soon recovered. “Men found a great many things to be done during the war, sir. We were among the very few who did not catch a venereal disease in the process.”

“Does that mean you were a spy?” insisted Hawker, grinning.

“On the contrary, sir. It means we wore our condoms like proper Englishmen. Steel yourself, sir. Mr. Hayes will think you've gone quite mad, laughing like that.”

Hayes was in his study. He was a stocky, middle-sized man, with wire-rimmed glasses and a fierce, honest face. Surprisingly, he wore a knit pullover shirt and a long-brimmed fishing cap.

He sat at a cherrywood desk near the massive stone fireplace. A breeze came through the window, moving the curtains. He was hunched over a thin vise, tying a fly. A briar pipe was clenched between his teeth.

He looked up only briefly when Hawker entered, then returned to his work. Hawker stood over his shoulder, watching him wrap green Swannundaze over white goose biots.

“A trout fly?” Hawker, who liked to fish, asked.

“Right. An Aigner peacock nymph.”

“Ah.”

“I didn't know you tied, James.”

“I don't. Not well, anyway. Sometimes I say ‘ah' to pretend I understand when I really don't.”

Jacob Hayes chuckled. Finished, he shoved himself away from the desk and motioned Hawker into a leather chair. Looking beyond Hayes's shoulder, Hawker could see an oil portrait of a yellow Labrador retriever, the gun cabinet filled with classic field guns, and a wall full of books.

“You've recovered from the Mahogany Key mission?” Hayes asked without preamble.

Hawker nodded.

“What do you know about California?”

“Not much. Let's see … the Beach Boys, Hollywood, earthquakes, Cannery Row, cocaine—”

“And street gangs,” Hayes interrupted. He pulled a file out of the desk and handed it to Hawker.

“Street gangs, as in
West Side Story?
”

Hawker was being facetious, and Hayes allowed a thin smile to cross his face. “Not exactly. I'm talking about Los Angeles street gangs. They don't have much time for singing and dancing. They're too busy blasting each other in the back with shotguns. Or beating up pedestrians. Or cutting the throats of the people they rob.”

Hawker opened the file as Hayes continued to talk. “There's a suburban community south of L.A. called Starnsdale. It used to be a nice place. A lot of minor actors and scriptwriters used to live there. It had some light industry. Good stores. Nice churches.”

“Sounds like Bridgeport,” Hawker said. He was referring to Chicago's Irish section, where he had grown up.

“Exactly. And just about the same thing happened. As the houses on the outskirts of Starnsdale aged, the wrong kind of people started moving in. It got worse and worse. The community began to rot at the edges. Soon they became full-fledged ghettos.”

“And now?”

“Now Starnsdale has one little strip of area, known as Hillsboro, which hasn't been taken over yet. The people in Hillsboro are the last holdouts. But they live in absolute terror. Within a ten-mile radius of Starnsdale there are fifty-seven different black and Hispanic gangs. It's been estimated they are responsible for nearly five hundred murders a year—half of those through gang warfare. They roam the streets at night like wolves. No one and nothing is safe in their path.”

“I'm surprised the people who live there haven't sold their homes and moved.”

“Would you buy a house in a place like Hillsboro? No. No sane person would. They can't move because they can't sell. These people are trapped, James. They live on a narrow peninsula of sanity surrounded by violence. But they want to fight back.

“Last year they organized a neighborhood watch program. But they were poorly equipped and poorly trained. They had a couple of minor confrontations with the two toughest gangs in the area and fared disastrously. In fact the gangs were so enraged by the confrontations, they've been systematically taking revenge on the neighborhood watch members ever since.”

Hayes leaned forward slightly, his big hands braced on the arms of the chair. “I want you to stop it, James. I want you to fly to L.A. and help the people of Hillsboro. The police have tried, but, as you well know, manpower and resources are never sufficient in a large city. Plus, you will have the advantage of being able to work outside the legal system. These gang members are brutal, James, and brutal methods will have to be used.”

“It's a double-edged sword,” said Hawker. “The gang members will be after me from one side, the cops from the other.”

“There are names of people to contact in the file.” Jacob Montgomery Hayes stood and held out his hand. “As before, I will supply whatever you need for the job. Except safety. I can't provide that. Be careful, James. Don't get caught. You understand my meaning?”

“Ah,” said James Hawker. “I do.”

Three days later Hawker descended through the clouds of the San Gabriel Mountains, and then the smog of L.A., landing at Los Angeles International Airport.

From the air the city spread away like a Monopoly board ablaze. He had never seen so many cars in such frantic motion.

Hawker rented a new Cutlass at the Hertz desk and used his pocket road-map to spirit him through the traffic jams and bustle to the San Diego Freeway—where there was an even worse traffic jam, and more bustle.

The air was like acid. The sun glimmered through the carbon monoxide fumes like a yellow light bulb. People screamed at each other from convertibles and flipped hand signs from low-slung Mercedes.

At the Manhattan Beach exit Hawker got off and headed east along Route 91, through the Quick Shop, topless bar and dimestore clutter of Torrance and Carson.

The ghettos began in Compton: broken windows, junked cars, and winos.

The few businesses that remained open were barred and locked like penal institutions.

It didn't get any better when he crossed into the corporate limits of Starnsdale. Bands of men and women roamed the streets in sweat-stained clothes, carrying bottles in brown bags. The streets were littered with trash. Emaciated dogs slept in the sun while winos curled up in the shade.

Two words were repeated over and over in the street graffiti:
PANTHERS
and
SATANÁS
.

The words were splashed on everything. Building walls. Stop signs. Cars and windows.

Panthers
was always written in black,
Satanás
in red.

The slums of Starnsdale changed abruptly as he turned onto Hillsboro Boulevard. Homes here were well kept, neat stucco and wood buildings with hedges and verandas. Palm trees grew in the middle of the boulevard, and sprinkler systems waved water over mown lawns.

Hawker had to turn around twice before he found the proper address. It was a small Spanish-style home with a smaller courtyard. Hawker noticed the bars on the windows and the alarm system wires as he knocked.

“Mr. Kahl? Virgil Kahl?”

“Yes?” A thin, ascetic man stood in the doorway, a book in one hand, a pair of bifocals in the other. Hawker guessed him to be about fifty-five.

“Jacob Montgomery Hayes suggested I contact you.”

“Hayes? Oh! Jake Hayes!” A shy grin flashed on the man's face. “Come on in …”

“Hawker. James Hawker.”

“Come right on in, Mr. Hawker. We weren't expecting you so soon.”

Hawker followed him into a well-furnished living room lined with more books. On the wall were several photographs of Kahl with well-known stars of the fifties and sixties. Hayes's file had told Hawker that Kahl was the organizer of the Hillsboro neighborhood watch program. It hadn't told him Kahl's occupation.

“Are you an actor, Mr. Kahl?”

The man's smile widened. “Good God, no—and call me Virgil, please. No, no, I'm a scriptwriter. I used to do quite a few film projects, but I'm afraid my stuff has gone out of style with the younger producers. Now I do free-lance television work.”

“Sounds interesting.”

“Only if you like to sit in front of a typewriter day after day.” Kahl brushed his thin hair back, as if anxious to abandon conversational pleasantries. He put on his glasses and sat up straight. “So! Jake Hayes says you're here to help us get the neighborhood watch going again.”

“That's right. I'm at your full disposal.”

“I'm afraid it's not going to be easy, Mr. Hawker. Our last outing was not very successful. Two other men and I were badly beaten. That was six months ago. I spent a week in the hospital. Since that time a member of our watch group was murdered. His throat was slit with a razor. Two other members have had their houses burned.”

“The street gangs play rough.”

“Rough? Why, they're absolute savages,” Kahl said bitterly. “We're not safe on the streets; we're not safe in our homes, for God's sake.”

“Which of the gangs has been taking revenge on you?”

Kahl made a helpless motion with his hands. “Who can say for sure? The Panthers is a gang comprised mostly of blacks. They wear blue and black bandannas. The Satanás is mostly Latin. They wear red bandannas. One's as bad as the other. They're both killers.”

“Your watch group had confrontations with both of them?”

“Yes. And did badly each time.” Kahl dropped his book on the desk wearily. He looked at Hawker, as if trying to make him understand why he felt so defeated. “We thought our main strength as a group was our brains and our organizational ability. But during each confrontation they just completely overpowered us. We didn't have a chance.”

“The gangs are comprised mostly of kids? Teenagers?”

“That's an interesting point. Most of the active members—the ones you see wearing their bandannas on the streets—are almost all teen-agers. But I know for a fact that they get backing from adults. Full-fledged criminals. They use the kids to do their dirty work. Under the banner of gang loyalty the kids will kill, steal, anything. The adults sit back, keep their hands clean, and collect the money.”

“Who told you that?”

“One of the detectives in the Los Angeles Police Department.”

“The police are still trying to help you?”

“As much as they can—which isn't all that much. There are a great many street gangs in the City of Angels, Mr. Hawker. It would take an army of policemen to keep them under control. In other words we welcome your offer to help.”

“I'll do everything I can, Virgil,” Hawker said. “And I guess the best way to begin is to get a little more information. All gangs have headquarters, Virgil. Do you know where the Panthers and Satanás meet?”

“The Panthers, of course, hang out in the black section. That would be between Rosencratz and Blitz streets. The Satanás are on the other side of Hillsboro—the east side—on Ybor Avenue. I don't know any specific addresses.”

“Do the two gangs ever operate together? Do they get along?”

Kahl snorted. “Like fire and water. They kill more of their own kind than they do honest citizens—and our thanks for that. They call it ‘gang-banging.'” Kahl leaned forward to make an important point. “I've spent considerable time studying these groups, Mr. Hawker—”

“James.”

“James it is, then.” Kahl smiled. “I've watched and read extensively, trying to learn what makes these street gangs tick. I knew their activities resembled those of some other groups I've read about, but it took me a while to put my finger on it.” Kahl poked at his glasses. “Have you ever read some of the early observations on aboriginal behavior in Africa?”

“Do Tarzan movies count?”

“Oddly enough, yes. The aborigines in both history and fiction put great store in tribesmanship. They both love colorful, gaudy costumes, and they take special care in selecting or awarding nicknames. Both take pride in the theatrics they can lend to warfare—gang members call it being ‘cool.' Street gangs like to give their violence a style, a flair. The more unusual the form of violence, the better.

“You see,” he continued, “they are superstitious in that what they don't understand either infuriates them or terrifies them. They function on emotion, not intellect. I think it might be the one chink in their armor, James. They are brutal and fearless because they never have to fight alone. They can't be reasoned with, because they seem to lack any suggestion of morality. They understand only two things: violence and fear.”

“So you're saying the best way to beat them is to scare them?”

Kahl nodded quickly. “If we could just
find
some way to scare them. They laugh at police. And they actually seem to take pride in being arrested—perhaps because so few of them are ever sent to prison.”

“It's not going to be easy, then,” said Hawker, deep in thought, an absent expression on his face. He sat silent for a time, then his face slowly lightened. “But maybe … maybe it won't be quite as hard to scare them as we think.” He stood up quickly. “Do you think we could get your watch group together tomorrow night?”