Chapter Five
Hunter knew exactly where he was going. He drove a mile south of Las Nuevas Espada’s territory. Hell, now he was in the middle of Crip’s turf. He ditched the windbreaker and pulled on a plain gray sweat jacket with a hood. He didn’t want to have anything making him stand out more than his size. He kept his head down as he moved silently down the streets, staying in the shadows. Once or twice, he saw someone glance his way, but they decided to leave him alone. Smart move.
Finally, he crossed the busy street that took him to the outskirts of the Espada’s. He grinned when he walked by Uncle Julio’s barbershop. It was the first place he’d ever had his hair cut. Mamie had taken him there right before first grade. Before then, someone had always picked up whatever scissors were handy and just chopped away. He looked in the window. There was a light in the back that allowed him to see the barber chairs. He wondered if Julio was still alive. He hoped so, he was an institution in the neighborhood.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone checking him out. When he turned, he realized it was just a prostitute trying to determine if he was a potential client. He shook his head. She walked on down the street. Had they always been that young?
He continued on, walking slowly, wanting to see if he recognized any familiar faces. It’s not like he’d be welcomed with open arms, but eventually, he figured there could be a meeting of minds. He came up to the ABC liquor store where Sonny had been killed when he was twelve years old. He’d been stupid enough to go in with his older brother, both of them carrying. Sonny had been in his grade at school. He wasn’t even in any of the gangs, nobody wanted him because he was too stupid. That was probably why he ended up dead. Hunter wondered how many of his other friends were now dead, the ones who had been smart enough to be recruited into the gangs, but not smart enough to get out. He crossed another street.
It was two o’clock in the morning, and he would guess the three kids on the upcoming corner couldn’t be more than fourteen. Apparently, school wasn’t a priority. They looked over at him, and one of them started texting on his phone. Hunter wasn’t surprised when an Escalade rolled up two minutes later, and he was surrounded by young, bald, tattooed Chicanos who eyed him up and down.
“Gotta name?” the youngest of the four asked in Spanish. Hunter pegged him to be in his early twenties, the oldest was maybe thirty. He looked at him carefully to see if he recognized him. He didn’t.
“Yeah. I gotta name,” Hunter said. “Who’s asking?”
He was shoved from behind. He’d been expecting it, he didn’t budge. Some things never changed. “Tell us your name,” the young guy demanded again.
“Is LL still running things?” On his trips up to visit Mamie, Hunter had learned his best friend had wrested the leadership from Red Blade.
The oldest guy eyed him up and down. “Just because you know a name, doesn’t mean shit. L.A.P.D. sends in people all the goddamn time. Give us a name.”
Now he was getting somewhere. No way was he going to talk to anyone but the highest ranking person in this little group.
“Hunter Diaz. LL knows me.”
“Well, you better be one hundred percent sure that’s true before we give him a call. Otherwise, this conversation ends with you dead. Understood?”
“Just call the man.” Hunter was sick of the posturing.
The man whipped out his phone and sent a text. The phone rang in less than a minute. He looked up at Hunter in surprise. “LL wants to talk to you,” he said, handing the phone to Hunter.
“That you Hunter? For real?”
“Yep.”
“Still a talkative bastard.”
“Yep.”
“Got to ask you a couple of questions to make sure it’s actually you, understand? Need to take precautions.”
“Understood.” LL had always been smart, that’s why he wanted to talk to him.
LL laughed. “If this is you, you’re still the same. So, what did you do when you left?”
“Enlisted in the Navy.”
“What name did you call your grandmother?”
“Mamie.”
“What was the last thing I told you?”
“You’d kill me if I ever showed my face again.” Hunter remembered it like it was yesterday. LL had been pretty serious. But then again, LL had been his best friend, and that counted for something. As mad as he was at for Hunter leaving, he respected him too.
“So, asshole, why the fuck did you return?”
“Need a favor.”
LL laughed. Kept laughing. Hunter wasn’t surprised. Even as a boy, LL always liked a challenge and had a quirky sense of humor.
“Okay, now that we’ve established you’ve got the balls of a bull, tell me why I shouldn’t have my boys kill you?”
“First, you’d want to do it yourself.” Hunter was taking a calculated gamble. But he knew people, and he knew LL.
“Truth.” LL was still laughing.
“Second, I can do you a favor.”
“I’m listening.”
“I’m going to do some damage to Los Demonios.”
LL started laughing again. “How much damage?”
“They fucked with Aliana. Tried to kill her. They’re going to pay. So it’s going to be substantial.”
“Shit, that’s a lot of words. But tell me friend, just you and what army?”
“I’ve got two friends with me.”
“God, man, you’ve lost your fucking mind. So what favor do you need from me?”
“Intel.”
LL sighed. “Give the phone back to Pablo.”
Pablo stared darkly at Hunter the entire time he listened to LL. It was clear he wasn’t happy with what LL was telling him. He’d wanted to kill Hunter. “Okay, okay. I hear you,” he finally said. LL must have hung up because Pablo looked at the others in his group.
“We have to take this guy to LL.”
“For real?” the young guy asked.
“Shut up. I tell you something, you do it. No questions. Got it?”
The kid shut up and nodded.
“You,” the man said, pointing at Hunter. “You’re sitting in the back.” He turned to one of the other guys. “Tie him up and blindfold him.”
Hunter held out his hands in front of him, and the dumbass tied him that way. Then they tied a scarf around his eyes. Real amateur hour. They shoved him into the backseat of the SUV. Damn, it even had that new car smell. LL must be doing pretty good for himself. Wonder if the Los Demonios had Escalades?
They went eight blocks up and four blocks over. No real need for the wheels and the blindfold had been no use whatsoever, not that he was going to tell them.
Hunter pretended to scratch his head with his shoulder and was able to move his blindfold enough to watch as they pulled up in front of an auto body shop. One of the young men jumped out of the back seat, and someone appeared out of the shadows inside the gate. They talked a moment, then the guy from the inside unlocked and opened the chain link gate, and Pablo drove inside. They were locked back in.
“You can take off his blindfold now.” Hunter rolled his eyes as the guy next to him did. For fuck’s sake, he had his hands tied in front of him, he could have done it himself. LL needed a better crew.
Hunter looked around and saw they were at an auto body shop.
“The car doesn’t look like it needs body work,” Hunter noted.
He was met by silence. Seriously, these guys needed to buy a sense of humor. How did LL stand them? Just one more thing that went in the ‘Con’ column.
They all got out of the vehicle, Pablo untied him and motioned for Hunter to follow him. The guy who let him into the gate had it all—bald head, bandana, and neck tattoos—he couldn’t be more ‘gangy’.
“Howdy,” Hunter said in English. This guy actually grinned.
“Hey, Tex,” he replied in English. At last, a sense of humor, he could see why LL kept this one close. “You from Texas?” the man asked Hunter.
“Nah, just spent time with Texans. It rubs off,” Hunter replied.
Gatekeeper switched to Spanish. “Let’s hope you continue to keep LL amused, or you can deliver on your promise. I kind of like you. I’d hate to have to kill you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” Hunter replied in Spanish.
Gatekeeper turned to Pablo, “I’ll take him in to see LL. You wait here.”
“But―”
The gatekeeper shut him down with a look. It was a good look, something Gray had perfected over the years. Hunter could do it with new recruits too.
“Follow me.” Hunter followed him from the car bay doors into one of the grungiest garages he’d seen in a while. They bypassed the office doors on the left and went up the narrow staircase. At the top of the stairs, the gatekeeper knocked on the door.
“It’s open.”
He opened the door, and it was night and day. Except for the absence of a window, it looked like a high powered executive office. The desk was sleek glass and steel. There was a marble bar inset in wood-paneled walls. The floor was slate. There was a small conference table over to the side, and the seats all looked like leather. Hunter looked over at LL, who had an enthusiastic grin.
“Pretty swanky, right?”
“I’ll say. You’ve moved up in the world.”
“It pays to make a good impression. You wouldn’t believe what kinds of fools I have to deal with. One look at this office and they immediately realize I know things they don’t. They listen and fall into line.”
It wasn’t a bad idea on LL’s part.
“What’s your territory up to?”
“Took down The 15th Street Gang, The Machine, and took over El Fuego.”
“What happened to Herman? I can’t imagine you and he are co-managing the Las Nuevas Espadas unless of course, he got a lot prettier since I last saw him, and your tastes have changed.”
The air in the room turned ominous. “You know, sometimes you’re not as funny as you think you are, Man, you hearing me?” LL said.
“Got it. Now I know where the line is drawn. You still with Rita?” She and LL had a son before Hunter had left to join the Navy.
“Yeah,” LL smiled. “You remember Lorenzo Junior? Well, we have five more kids now. God’s blessed us.”
“Lorenzo in the life?”
“Damn right. He’s learning how to handle the girls. They love him.”
If he was anything like his father, Hunter didn’t doubt it, but it still made him sad. He couldn’t be any more than seventeen. What kind of life was he living, handling a bunch of prostitutes?
“I see that look. You think you’re all that because you’re a SEAL?”
Hunter stilled.
“What, you didn’t think I would keep track of my boy? You came in second in your BUD/S class. What was your problem? I expected first.”
So had Hunter. Still pissed him off that Dalton had beat him.
“How d’you find out about that?”
“I told you, we’ve been busy. For a while, we did a little credit card fraud, so we had a hacker. I had him look you up.” Hunter didn’t like the feel of that, he’d have to put Dex on the case.
“LL, I’m not judging how you’re raising Lorenzo.” Hunter paused. “Scratch that, maybe I am. Don’t you want your son to have something better? Something outside of this life?”
“Look around you.” LL waved his arm. “I’ve made something of myself. What more could the kid ask for? He’s loving it. He’ll have a great life.”
“Or end up in prison or dead. You know you have a huge target on your back.”
“Quit your preaching. That’s not funny. You know I like it best when you’re funny. Or when you have information. So be funny or give me information.”
“How about this, you give me information, and I take down Los Demonios for you?”
LL looked at him, sizing him up. “Is this shit they say about SEALs for real?”
“We have our moments.”
“Damn, you should have never left. You and I could have ruled this city.”
“Again, you’re not hearing me. I looked it over, the odds were I would be in prison or dead. Where is our old group, LL?”
The man got quiet and sat back in his chair.
“Come on,” Hunter prompted. “There were seven of us. You ruled us. I was your second, we were little shits who reported up to Red Blade, but you led us. I got the fuck out, but what about the other five? What about Luther? Can you tell me what happened to him?”
“He’s dead. He OD’d.”
“What about Luis?”
“He’s serving thirty over in Lancaster.”
“The others?”
“Felix was shot, he’s in a wheelchair. Alberto, he died in prison. But Bautista is still going strong, he’s one of my lieutenants, just like you could have been,” LL said it like it was something to celebrate.
“Great odds, LL. Great fucking odds.” Hunter’s words dripped with disgust. “Aren’t you even sad about the others?”
“Aren’t you? You left them? Maybe all that shit wouldn’t have gone down if you’d been here to watch their back, you ever think about that?”
Fuck. Not this again.
“LL, it was their decision to stay. They could have left, same as me. As a matter of fact, I asked. No, I begged every fucking one of you to get the fuck out. To leave the life.” He had. He’d begged LL the hardest. He’d been like a brother to him.
“Yeah, you were crazy.”
“Sure I was, look at where they are today.”
“Tell me, what are the odds of making it home as a SEAL? Last I heard, each and every one of you has a bounty on your head.”
What the fuck? How did this guy know that kind of shit? It rarely made it to the public.
“I told you, I’ve been keeping tabs on you, Man.”
“Why?”
“I wanted to see if what you said was true. I wanted to see if you really would make a life for yourself.” LL eyed him, all humor gone. “Man, you only made half a life for yourself. Yeah, you’re all that as a SEAL, but where’s your woman? Where’s your kids? Where’s your family? You hardly even come home to see your grandmama.”
“My team is my family.”
“Do you fuck ’em?”
“Now who isn’t being funny?” Hunter growled.
“Just saying. You need a wife. You need kids. You’re missing out. That’s why I checked on you, I cared.”
God this trip was biting him in the ass.
“Well, if you’ve been keeping tabs on me, then you know that with a little help from some friends of mine, I can take care of your little rival gang.”
“God, you always were a cocky bastard.”
This time it was Hunter’s turn to laugh. He kept laughing. LL joined in.
“Okay, we were both cocky,” LL finally admitted. “Didn’t you miss us a little?”
“Maybe to begin with, but I wanted to do the right things, LL. I wanted to be on the side of the angels. I wanted to serve my country. My teammates I served with are my brothers. The other teams we go on missions with, those men I would lay my life down for. The things we do, LL, they’re important. We save lives.”
“Tell that to Osama Bin Laden.”
“And how many innocents are alive today because he’s rotting at the bottom of the ocean?”
“Fine, you’re a big bad SEAL. You’re kind of still funny. I’m kind of believing you can help me with my Los Demonios problem, so I won’t kill you.”
“I need more than that.”
“Want, want, want. Need, need, need. It’s never-ending.”
“I take it you have daughters?”
“Yep, you guessed it,” LL laughed. “Five of them. Lorenzo is my only boy. So, what do you need?”
“I need all the information you have on a guy named Mateo and how he fits into Los Demonios hierarchy.”
“I can get that information. I should have it tomorrow night, Friday at the latest.”
“Sounds good.”
“Do you need a ride somewhere? You grandmother’s place?”
Hunter hated that LL knew where Mamie lived, but that was the problem when you had people who’d known you since grade school. “Yeah, I could use a lift.”
“Martin!” LL yelled. The door immediately opened. The gatekeeper walked in, he must have been standing at the top of the stairs. “You drive my friend Hunter to where he wants to go. I don’t want those other idiots knowing too much about my old friend.”
“Got it, boss.”
“Hunter, give me your number. I might have some information about you, but that I don’t have.”
Hunter rattled it off, and LL gave him his.
“I’ll be calling,” LL said.
“Appreciate it.”
“If you come through, we’ll be even. Even for your desertion fourteen years ago.”
How was it that LL saw it as desertion, and Hunter saw it as the smartest move he’d ever made? The one in the wheelchair? The one in the state pen? The dead one? Or God forbid, LL’s lieutenant. Nope, it was the smartest move in the world.