Free Fall

by Robert Crais

  Cool T shifted in his chair.

  Ray leaned back and laced his fingers behind his head. "Man, do you think I just fell off the watermelon truck?"

  "What I think is that you've got a pretty good life doing well by a lot of folks, and you're about to mess it up."

  Ray looked at Cool T and Cool T grinned. Ray didn't. He gave me lizard eyes. "That's what it is to you, that it?"

  I spread my hands.

  "So you come down here to point that out? Maybe set me straight?"

  "Nope. We came to help."

  "Well, we don't need the white man coming down here to solve the black man's problems. We can manage that just fine, thank you."

  Pike's mouth twitched for the second time that day.

  Ray gave the eyes to Pike. "What?"

  Pike shook his head.

  I said, "The DA would file if they thought they could win, and maybe there's a way we can give them that. Maybe not on James Edward, but on something."

  Ray Depente waited.

  "If you want Akeem, you're going to have to go to him. That means his home, and it used to be a crack house. It's fortified like a bunker. But once we're in, I'm betting we can find something that the DA can use to put D'Muere away."

  Cool T said, "Ain't no way we can get in there. Goddamn police use a goddamn batterin' ram to get in a crack house. Where we gonna get that?"

  Ray glanced at Cool T. "There are other ways." He looked back at me. "If it was worth it. If it would lead to that sonofabitch getting what he deserves."

  "We won't know until we get there, will we?"

  Ray nodded. "Why are you doing this, Cole?"

  "Because I liked James Edward, Ray. Hell, I even like you."

  Ray Depente laughed and then he stood up and put out his hand. "Okay. You want to help out on this, we'll let you help."

  Forty-two minutes later Joe Pike and I cruised past Akeem D'Muere's fortified home in Joe's Jeep. We parked six houses down on the same side of the street in an alley between a row of flowering azalea bushes and a well-kept frame house with an ornate birdbath in the front yard. Ray Depente and Cool T were one block behind us, sitting in Ray's LeBaron. Akeem D'Muere's black Monte Carlo and the maroon Volkswagen Beetle were parked at the front of his house, and a half-dozen Gangster Boys were hanging around on the Beetle. A couple of young women were with them. I wondered if they called themselves Gangster Girls.

  Pike said, "Brick house across the street. Clapboard two doors down, this side. Check it out."

  I looked at the brick house across the street and then at the clapboard house. A heavy woman with her hair in a tight gray bun was peeking from behind a curtain in the brick house and a younger woman, maybe in her early thirties, was peeking at us from the clapboard. The younger woman was holding a baby. "They're scared. You live on a street with a gang for your neighbors and I guess peeking out of windows becomes a way of life. Never know when it's safe to venture out."

  Joe shifted in his seat. "Helluva way to live."

  "Yes," I said. "It is."

  A tall kid leaning against the Bug's left front fender looked our way, but then went back to jiving with his buddies. All attitude, no brains.

  Pike pulled a pair of Zeiss binoculars from the backseat and examined the front of D'Muere's house. "Windows set close on both sides of the door. Bars on the windows."

  "What about the door?"

  "Solid core with a couple of peepholes. No glass."

  "Does it open outward?"

  "Yep." Pike put down the glasses and looked pleased. Dope dealers often rebuild their doors to open outward instead of inward. Harder for the cops to bust in that way. It was something that we'd been counting on.

  Fourteen minutes after we parked in the alley, Cool T turned onto the far end of the street in Ray Depente's LeBaron and drove slowly toward D'Muere's as if he were looking at addresses. He stopped in the middle of the street, and said something to the kids on the Volkswagen.

  I said, "Now."

  Joe and I rolled out of the Jeep and moved through the backyard of the near house and into the next yard toward D'Muere's. We moved quickly and quietly, slipping past bushes and over fences and closing on D'Muere's while Cool T kept the gangbangers' attention. Akeem D'Muere's backyard was overgrown by grass and weeds and thick high hedges that had been allowed to run without care or trimming. A creaky porch jutted off the back of the house, and a narrow cement drive ran back past the house to a clapboard garage. The garage was weathered and crummy and hadn't been used in years. Why use a garage when you can park on the front lawn? Ray Depente appeared from the hedges on the far side of the yard and held up a finger to his mouth. He was wearing a black Marine Corps-issue shoulder sling with a Colt Mark IV .45-caliber service automatic. He pointed to himself, then gestured to the east side of the house, then pointed at us and then at our side of the house, and then he was gone.

  Pike took the back of the house and I moved up the drive along the side. The windows along the back and sides of the house were barred, and many had been covered on the inside with tar paper, but there were gaps and tears in the paper and I moved from window to window, trying to see inside. Cool T drove away as I made the front corner of the house, and then I faded back to the rear. The rear was so crummy we could probably pitch a tent back there and no one would notice. Pike and Ray and I crouched in the bushes beside the porch.

  Ray said, "Two rooms and a bath on my side. Three full-sized windows, all barred, and a half-sizer on the bathroom. Someone was in the bathroom but the other two rooms were clear." He looked at Pike. "Will the door work?"

  Pike nodded. "No problemo."

  "How about the front?"

  "No problemo."

  I said, "Kitchen and two rooms on my side. I made six people, four male, two female. No children."

  Ray nodded. "Any way out the windows?"

  "Not unless they can squeeze through the bars."

  Ray smiled. "This is going to work."

  Twelve minutes later Cool T once more turned onto the street and again stopped in front of the house. This time a couple of bangers slid off the Beetle and went toward him. When they did, Joe and I moved up the drive and across the front yard and Ray Depente trotted toward them from the opposite side of the house. One of the girls saw Ray Depente and said, "What the hell?" and then the others saw me and Joe. The second girl ran and a short guy with too many muscles clawed at his pants for a piece. Joe Pike kicked him in the head with an outside spin kick, and then Ray Depente and I were at the Beetle with our guns out. The two guys out in the street started pulling for hardware, too, but Cool T came out with an Ithaca 12-gauge and they put up their hands. Ray said, "Down."

  The Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys went down onto their stomachs.

  Ray said, "Make noise, and I'll bleed you."

  A tall skinny kid with a Raiders cap wiggled around and said, "Why don't you kiss my goddamn ass?"

  Ray punched him one time hard in the side of the head and he shut up.

  Cool T opened the LeBaron's trunk and tossed me a bag filled with plastic wrist restraints. I passed a couple to Pike, and we tied them off. We worked quickly, and as we tied I glanced at the surrounding houses. You could see faces in the windows and behind doors. Watching. Wondering what in hell these fools were doing.

  Ray gave two smoke grenades to Pike, kept two for himself, then pulled three ten-gallon metal gas cans from the trunk and four six-foot lengths of galvanized pipe from the backseat. When we finished with the tying, Pike took two lengths of the pipe and trotted to the back of the house. Cool T hefted the other two and started toward the front. When he was halfway there, the front door opened and a chunky guy with a thick neck and a thick belly stepped out and fired a Beretta 9 millimeter, bapbapbapbap. One of the rounds caught Cool T on the outside of his right arm. He screamed and went down, and then I had the Dan Wesson out and I was firing, and the heavy guy fell back. I said, "Guess they know we're here."

  Ray grunted. "Mm-hmm. Imagin
e that."

  Cool T scrambled behind the Monte Carlo and we went to him. Ray said, "How you doing, Cool?"

  "It burns like a sonofabitch."

  Pike examined the wound, then used part of Cool T's shirt to bind it. "You'll be fine."

  A couple of faces peeked around the jamb, and someone in the house yelled, "The fuck you doin'? Whatchu want?"

  Ray yelled back. "My name is Ray Depente. We came for Akeem D'Muere and we want to see his chickenshit ass out here."

  A second voice in the house yelled, "Fuck you." It was going to be one of those conversations.

  Someone pulled the heavy guy out of the door, then a guy in a duster jumped forward, fired two pistol shots, then pulled the door closed.

  Ray said, "You think they'll call the police?"

  We left Cool T sitting against the Monte Carlo's wheel and gathered up the pipe and the gas cans and went to the house. We put the pipes across the door and wedged them behind the window bars on either side. As we did it we could hear voices inside. They were trying to figure out what we were up to. Joe Pike came back around the house. "Back door is sealed."

  "How about the windows?"

  "No one's getting out."

  Someone inside yelled, "The fuck you assholes want? Get away from here." The closed door muffled the voice.

  I stood to the right of the door, reached around, and pounded on it. A shotgun blast ripped through the door about where I should've been standing. I said, "Hey, Akeem. It's time to pay up for James Edward Washington."

  Another blast came through the door.

  "Gunfire is not meaningful discourse, Akeem."

  Another blast came through, this one very low.

  I said, "Here's the way it's going to happen. Everybody's going to put down their guns, and everybody's going to come out one at a time, and then we're going to tell the police what really happened to James Edward Washington. How does that sound?"

  Akeem D'Muere shouted, "Are you on dope? Get the fuck out of my face."

  I said, "Akeem, I'm going to move in and set up house on your face."

  "You can't get in here. Get the fuck away."

  "It's not a question of us getting in, Akeem. The question is, can you get out?"

  Ray Depente popped the top off of one of the gas cans and began splashing gas on the door and the windows and the sides of the house. The smell of it was strong and sharp in the still air.

  Akeem said, "What the fuck you doin' out there? What's that smell?"

  "We're pouring gasoline on your house. You told the Washingtons that you were going to burn them out, didn't you? We thought you'd appreciate the poetic justice of the moment."

  A different voice yelled, "Bullshit. You wouldn't do that."

  Ray Depente said, "Watch."

  Ray finished with one can and started with another. Pike took the third can around to the rear. We could hear banging at the back of the house, but the pipes would hold. Across the street, a door opened and a man in his early seventies came out onto his porch and watched with his hands on his hips. He was smiling.

  Inside, you could hear men moving through the house, and voices, and then the tar paper was abruptly torn off the front window and someone fired most of an AK-47's magazine out into the ground at full auto. Ray Depente looked at me and grinned. "You think they gettin' scared?"

  "Uh-huh."

  He grinned wider. "These pukes ain't met scared."

  Joe Pike came back. "Ready."

  Ray Depente took a big steel Zippo lighter from his pocket, flipped open the top, and spun the wheel. He said, "Welcome to hell, assholes." Then he touched the flame to the gasoline.

  The eastern front corner of Akeem D'Muere's fortified crack house went up with a whoosh. Ray and Pike moved around the house, tossing the smoke grenades in through the windows. The grenades had instant fuses, and in two seconds there would be so much smoke that you'd think you were in an inferno. The fire stayed at just one corner of the house, though, and didn't spread. We'd placed the gasoline so that it would smell, but we'd also placed it so that the fire would be small and controlled. The people inside didn't know that, though. There were shouts, and more shots, and someone banged on the front door, trying to get it open. Someone else started screaming for us to let him out, and smoke began to leak from windows and from around the front door. Across the street, more people came out of their houses to watch.

  I shouted over the noise. "The guns come out first."

  "We can't get the goddamn door open."

  "The window."

  The smoke was making them choke. More tar paper was pulled off the windows, and handguns and shotguns and AK-47s were shoved through the glass. Clouds of thick gray smoke billowed out with the guns.

  Ray Depente found a garden hose, turned it on, and sprayed it on the fire. It didn't put out the fire, but it cooled it some.

  Someone inside said, "Let us out. Please." I looked at Ray. He nodded. He and Joe took up positions at the corners of the house.

  "One at a time. Hands on your heads."

  "Man, I'll put my hands up my ass you let me out of here."

  I unshipped the pipes, pulled open the door, and two men and two women stumbled out, jostling each other to get away from the smoke and the fire. Pike pushed them down and used the plastic restraints. Neither of the two guys was Akeem D'Muere.

  Ray Depente yelled, "You wanna cook, that's up to you."

  No one answered.

  Ray looked at me and I held up three fingers and he nodded. Akeem, plus two others. They'd be hard cases, and they would've kept their guns. We could hear coughing.

  Pike said, "Maybe they doubt our sincerity."

  Pike stayed with Cool T to watch the others, and Ray Depente and I went in after Akeem. We went in low and fast, pushing through the oily smoke, and found them in a short hall between the kitchen and a back bedroom. Akeem D'Muere was with a dopey-looking guy with sleepy eyes and another guy who looked like he could have played defensive line for the Raiders. They were coughing and rubbing at their eyes. They heard us, but the smoke was too thick for them to see us. The big guy shouted, "They're inside," and started swinging wild. He didn't see anything, he was just swinging, and his first two punches hit the wall. I stepped outside and caught the joint of his left knee with a hard snap kick. The knee went and the big man made a gasping sound and fell. I followed him down and took his gun.

  The dopey guy yelled, "I see the muthuhfuckuhs," and started firing a Smith .40 somewhere up toward geosynchronous orbit. Akeem D'Muere pushed the dopey guy at us and ran toward the front of the house. Ray Depente slapped the dopey guy's .40 to the outside, then hit him three fast times, twice in the chest and once in the neck, and the dopey guy fell.

  Ray said, "Take his gun." Ray was already after Akeem.

  I grabbed the dopey guy's gun, then used the plastic restraints as quickly as I could. I wanted to get to Akeem D'Muere before Ray got to him, but I didn't make it. Two shots came from the living room, then a third, and I got there just as Ray Depente came up under D'Muere's gun, twisted it free just as he had taught a thousand guys down at Camp Pendleton, then threw Akeem D'Muere through the open front door out into the yard. I went after them.

  Akeem D'Muere was standing sort of bent to the side in the front yard, rubbing at his eyes and spitting to try to clear the smoke from his lungs. Ray Depente went down off the little porch, peeled away his shoulder sling, and said, "Look at me, boy." Ray didn't wait for him to look. Ray spun once and kicked Akeem D'Muere on the side of the head, knocking him to the ground.

  I said, "Ray."

  Up and down the block, doors opened and people came out onto porches and into yards. Pike and Cool T had the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys on the ground and out of the play.

  Ray Depente went to Akeem and dragged him to his feet. Ray was a couple of inches taller, but thinner, so they probably weighed close to the same. When Ray was lifting him, Akeem tried to grab and bite, but Ray dug his thumbs into Akeem D'Muere's eye
s. D'Muere screamed and stumbled back. Ray stood and looked at him and there was something hard and remote in his eyes. Ray opened his hands. "Hit me. Let's see what you got."

  Akeem D'Muere launched a long right hand that caught Ray high on the cheek and made him step back, but when he tried to follow with a left, Ray blocked it to the inside and drove a round kick into the side of D'Muere's head. D'Muere stumbled sideways, and Ray reversed and kicked him from the opposite side, and this time D'Muere fell. I put a hand on Ray's shoulder. "That's enough, Ray."

  Ray slapped away my hand. "Stand away from me now."

  "Ray, you're going to kill him." Akeem D'Muere struggled up to his knees.

  Ray said, "And wouldn't that be a shame." He kicked Akeem D'Muere in the chest and knocked him backwards.

  I looked at Pike, but Pike was impassive behind the dark glasses.

  Ray walked around behind D'Muere, lifted him by the hair, and said, "You meet James Edward, you tell'm I said hi." He spun again, and kicked, and Akeem D'Muere snapped over into the ground.

  I took out the Dan Wesson. "Ray."

  "You wanna shoot me for a piece of garbage like this, go ahead."

  He picked D'Muere up again. D'Muere's mouth and nose and ears were bleeding, and most of his teeth were gone. Ray held him up until D'Muere could stand on his own, then Ray punched him four fast times, twice in the solar plexus and twice in the face. Akeem D'Muere fell like a bag of wet laundry. One of the Gangster Girls screamed, "You're gonna kill'm."

  Ray said, "You think?"

  I aimed the Dan Wesson. "I don't have to kill you, Ray. I can do your knee. Be hard to teach after that."

  Ray nodded. "You're right. But think of my memories." He lifted D'Muere's head by the hair, aimed, and punched him two hard times behind the ear. Then he let the head drop.

  "Damn it, Ray." I cocked the Dan Wesson.

  Pike said, "He means it, Ray."

  "I know. So do I."

  He reached down and lifted Akeem D'Muere once more.

  As he brought D'Muere up, a dark blue Buick stopped in the street by the LeBaron and Ida Leigh Washington got out. She stood in the street, motionless for a time, and then she moved toward us. She was still wearing the clothes that she had worn to her son's funeral. Black.