Children of the Knight (2 page)

“Sergeant Ryan, any comment on this latest incident?” Helen asked with authority, her mic shoved professionally up under Ryan’s chin.

Ryan shoved it away. “Yeah, it stinks!” He turned and strode back toward his car. Gibson shrugged as Helen swung her microphone toward him and quickly followed his partner.

Helen turned back to the camera, flashing her very expensive, perfect, television teeth. “As you just saw, the police still aren’t saying much about this latest outbreak of gang violence.”

W
ITHIN
the Hollenbeck Station Gang Task Force Division, activity was at a premium due to this latest gang brawl. Paperwork was rushed through as gang members, some as young as twelve, were booked and carted off to juvenile hall while phones rang off the hook. No surprise to Gibson was the obvious lack of parents checking on the health and welfare of their kids. Nope, he’d noted upon entering the squad room, not a single one present and accounted for.

Ryan, chewing absently on a pencil, and Gibson sat watching a flat screen TV mounted on the wall above them. Other cops bustled past, a few stopping to glance at the broadcast before moving on.

On the screen, Helen’s blonde and curvaceous beauty shone through. Ryan figured she’d been hired for her looks, not her journalist talents, but he had to give her a smidgen of credit for being tenacious on this “tagger” case.

Helen spoke directly to the camera, the last of the police mop-up going on behind her. “This is the seventh large-scale gang fight in the past two weeks, and the police refuse to comment. The only connection seems to be this strange symbol.”

The camera cut to a close-up of the A symbol while she continued in that dispassionate newscaster tone, “or ‘tag’, as the graffiti artists call it. Is this—”

Gibson angrily clicked off the TV with a remote. Sitting in a straight-backed chair beside them, shackled at the wrists and ankles, Esteban chuckled.

“I think it’s you guys, Ryan,” the relaxed boy stated calmly.

Gibson leaned forward, right into Esteban’s face. “You think it’s us, huh, Gallegos?”

Esteban merely smirked. For a cop, Esteban knew,
this
guy wasn’t too bad, but Ryan was a real loser, like one of those old, burned out cops in movies who always get outsmarted by guys like him. He and Ryan had danced around the law for several years now, with Ryan usually losing. As far as Esteban was concerned, he was the smarter of the two, and Ryan would never nail him for anything serious.

Ryan put down his pencil and leaned forward. “Look, the only reason you’re up here, Esteban, is cuz you’re probably the only one a these punks who don’t got shit for brains.”

Esteban nodded. He and Ryan knew each other too well. “It all fits, man. You guys’re tryin’ ta get us ta wipe ourselves out. You makes us think each other’s doin’ it, we fight, and you win. End of story.”

Ryan sighed with exhaustion. “If it was that simple, kid, you an’ yer homies’d been dead long ago.”

Gibson tried the “good cop” routine. “You have any idea who’s doing this, Esteban?”

Esteban snorted derisively. “Like I’d say if I did? Don’t be a dumbshit.”

Gibson’s temper suddenly flared, and he made a grab for Esteban. “Watch yer mouth, punk!”

Ryan’s hand on his shoulder restrained him. Esteban merely continued smirking while Gibson pulled back his clenched fist.

“Not now!” Ryan barked. “Just get ’im outta here.”

Regaining control, the frustrated Gibson stood and roughly yanked Esteban to his feet, shoving him toward the exit, almost causing the boy to trip from the ankle shackles. “Back to the hall, Gallegos.”

Esteban retained his balance and just laughed. “Home sweet home.”

Ryan watched them exit, frustrated and angry. He snapped the pencil he’d been fiddling with and threw the pieces onto his desk. He reached for a sketchpad and picked it up, gazing in irritation at an artist’s rendering of the A symbol. What the hell was going on in his city?

L
ENNOX, a one-mile square unincorporated neighborhood between the cities of Inglewood and Hawthorne, much like Boyle Heights, seemed a magnet for Latino immigrants, both legal and illegal. Crime and poverty ran rampant in Lennox, with gunshots and police sirens practically a nightly ritual.

A small, lean Latino boy appeared at the mouth of an alley and darted quickly into the protective shadows behind a large dumpster. A sheriff’s car cruised slowly past the mouth of the alley and then continued on out of sight. The boy stepped from his hiding place and dusted himself off. Lance Sepulveda, a fourteen-year-old loner, warily glanced around him. Between avoiding gang members and cops, he lived a very cautious life.

The gang members liked to beat him up, and the cops just put him in juvy as a runaway. There was no place in Los Angeles for runaway kids like him who
didn’t
commit crimes, so they had to bide their time in juvy to wait for yet
another
group or foster home to take them. Since Lance was at that “difficult teenaged stage,” most foster parents wouldn’t touch him. So it was group homes—which sucked
big
time—or the streets.

A smart, clever boy with unusually green eyes—which drew derisive comments from other Hispanics—Lance preferred the freedom of the streets, living for a time with this friend or that friend, having no set rules or curfews, no ties to anyone. Getting close to people meant getting hurt.
Really
hurt. He’d been there, and done that. Not for him. He mostly went to school because he could get food and use the bathroom, and it was something to do to kill time. He knew the high school would never drop him, no matter that his attendance was shaky, because it got money from the state every time he attended.

What a stupid-ass system, he’d often thought. Getting money just for a kid showing up. Didn’t matter if he learned anything or not. And the classes? Everybody had to learn the same crap—no choices at all. Who the hell ever thought everyone was the same anyway? And who the hell ever decided that everybody should go to college? That’s all he ever heard!

His plan was to be a pro skater and compete in the X Games. He had the gift, and he knew it. He was vastly superior to everyone he skated with, and he had the right “look,” or so skaters at all the skate parks had told him. That’s why he kept his hair long. His hair was his good luck charm. It gave him strength, like that Samson guy from an old Bible story he’d heard as a kid. Not physical strength,
survival
strength.

Derisively nicknamed “Pretty Boy,” because of that long, flowing brown hair and soft facial features—not to mention the green eyes—Lance smirked at his easy evasion of the cops and strutted boldly along down the alley. Tonight there were no unusual sounds save the occasional plane practically landing atop Lennox on its approach into LAX.

Lance wore a pair of baggy overalls with the straps hanging down and a gray hoodie flipped up to obscure his face. He’d been given these relatively new clothes by a skater friend’s mom, who felt sorry for him and often let him crash at their pad. He lugged a bulging, ratty-looking backpack in one hand and an old skateboard in the other.

From the shadows around him suddenly loomed two large black youths. Dwayne and Justin were both sixteen-year-olds who ran the streets of neighboring cities slanging drugs for a pair of big-time dealers. Justin quickly snagged Lance from behind, gripping one strap of the overalls and spinning the much smaller boy around to face him. The skateboard flew from Lance’s grasp and clattered to the concrete. He gasped in surprise and fear.

Broad-shouldered, muscular Justin sneered at the fear flitting over Lance’s startled face. “What’s the hurry, Pretty Boy? We got business wit’ you.”

Reaching out one arm, he slapped the hood off Lance’s head, allowing the boy’s signature locks to tumble about his shoulders, and then snatched the old backpack away so hard it tore open with a loud ripping sound, scattering old clothes, candy, and other wrapped junk food onto the ground.

Taller and built more for basketball than boxing, Dwayne sneered at the junk. “Shit, man, what a loser!”

Lance fought down his fear and glared at both boys. Justin grabbed him by the front of his shirt and practically lifted him off the ground. Lance fought and struggled, but he was no match for the incredibly strong boy. “Mr. R. says he had a talk with you about workin’ these streets for him.”