Chapter 7

I must have called practically every new and used car dealership in the metro area before I found an SUV like what I wanted. Jenny and I went to take a look, but she noticed a used Ford nine-passenger van on the lot that was more nearly what we wanted. The color was a shade of orange, but, otherwise, it was exactly the kind of vehicle we wanted. We forgot the SUV and went for the van instead.

After some negotiation, I got the price down to something that I was willing to pay. I know, I know—I could have bought any vehicle I wanted without worrying about the price, but it was the principle of the thing. After I wrote the salesman a check and it had cleared, I asked him if he could recommend a place that could repaint the van a different color.

We drove away from the dealer and headed directly to a paint shop that the salesman had recommended. They were surprised at the color I wanted, but the fact that I would pay cash for the job made them go for it. I was promised that the job would be finished in two days, so I put down a deposit and left the van with them. Jenny drove us home in the pickup.

Two days later, Jenny drove me to the paint shop, and then I drove the van to a sign painter whose work I had seen and admired. I picked up the van the next day with a sign on each side and on the back doors: "Gray Ghost." That was it. All we wanted to do was to make sure that anyone who thought that he could pick up some valuable parts from a parked vehicle would know whose van he was messing with.

We took the van out that night on our patrol. I did park on a well-lit street so that the signs were easy to see. The van was untouched when we returned. We figured that the signs had done some good.

That evening was quiet. We only saw one mugging, and we dealt with that easily. It looked like it was time to hunt down a member of the Sharks gang and find out where their headquarters was located. We went back to the van and began cruising in hopes of finding a Shark. It just happened that I was driving when we finally spotted a Shark a block away.

Jenny jumped from the van and ran at her maximum speed to catch the guy in the wrong (for him) tee-shirt. He saw her coming and tried to escape by ducking down an alley, but Jenny had seen his maneuver and went into the alley after him. He was waiting for her with a knife in his hand and a frightened expression on his face.

Jenny skidded to a halt and said, "All I want from you is some information. I don't even care if you report on our discussion."

"What do you want to know?" was asked in a very tremulous voice.

"I won't hurt you if you will tell me the address of the local Sharks headquarters. On the other hand, I will extract the information very painfully for you if you will not simply answer the question."

"No way, Bitch! They would kill me if I told you that."

"Okay, then, we will do this the hard way." She struck like the proverbial snake and grabbed the very sharp knife by the blade. Of course, she was not cut, but the man tried to pull the knife from her hand. A deft twist of the wrist caused him to release the knife and leave Jenny holding it by the blade.

She made a point of letting the man see her snap the blade off and crush the handle in her hand. "Does that convince you that I can do anything I want to you?" It must have convinced the thug of something because he turned and tried to run away from her.

The man made only one step before Jenny caught him by the shoulder and flipped him to the ground on his back. That was when I showed up. "Sorry that it took so long, but it took me a minute or so to find a place to park. Where do we stand?"

Jenny explained the situation, and it was obvious that we would have to extract the information we wanted the hard way. I rolled the man over and tied his hands behind him with the usual nylon cable ties. I rolled him back over on his back, and Jenny stripped off his pants and underwear. I said, "If you jump around too much, I will break both of your legs, so keep that in mind."

It was important that Jenny did this because it put a lot of psychological pressure on the thug's macho self-image. She reached down and grasped his scrotum in her hand. "I'm going to squeeze hard enough to cause you considerable pain if you don't answer our questions or if you lie. Rest assured, we will know if you lie."

"What is the address of your headquarters?"

"Fuck you, Bitch!"

That engendered a squeeze and a twist, not enough to do any damage, but enough to hurt significantly. Naturally, the man screamed in pain. She repeated the question, and this time got an answer.

I commented, "Oh, my goodness, you lied to us. That address is out of your district. I'll bet it is the address of one of the other sector's headquarters. Is that correct?"

The man didn't say anything, but he did try to prepare himself for the next shot of pain. Naturally, that was impossible. Jenny squeezed and twisted again, and the man screamed again. I said, "Now, give us the right address this time, or she might slip and crush your balls. You know what that would be like. You would spend the rest of your life never able to satisfy a woman. We know that you wouldn't want that, now would you?"

The man said, "No, no, don't do that." He then gave us an address that we could believe. After that, I asked him for the addresses of the other seven headquarters, and he did not hesitate to rattle off seven addresses. I had the idea that he was so frightened by now that these were correct.

"Okay, my friend, you have been so helpful that we are going to let you go. We won't even tell anyone where our information came from, unless any of these addresses are wrong. Then we will tell anyone who will listen who we got the addresses from." We didn't know his name, but I was sure that he had forgotten that little fact.

I broke the cable tie holding his hands, and he grabbed up his clothes and ran. I assume that he put his pants back on as soon as he was out of sight, but that was only a guess on my part.

We left for home after this. We were hungry, and Matilda had promised to wait up for us to fix us a snack before she went to bed. I was not worried about forgetting the addresses we had just heard. I had an excellent memory, and it seemed to be getting better as I aged.

The attack on the headquarters sites could be interesting, so, with Jenny's approval, I called Phoenix and asked Mary if she would like to join us for some fun. I told her what we had in mind, and she bubbled over with joy at the invitation. Action in Phoenix had dribbled down to practically nothing, so she was bored out of her mind. I did tell her not to bring her boyfriend unless she was seriously planning to marry him. The problem would be that he would learn more about us than I thought would be a good idea if he was not going to join us.

Mary said that I didn't need to worry. She had dumped him when she found out that he was two-timing her and was staying with her only because of her money. Shit, I was sorry to hear that she had learned that about some men the hard way. Oh, well, maybe she could stay with us and find a boyfriend around here.

The next day, Mary drove up in her own pickup. She had everything she owned with her, and she announced that she was staying with us if we would have her. She had discussed this with Dad and Liz, and they had agreed that some new scenery might do her a lot of good. We were both glad to have her. We certainly had enough room for her, and she would be a help if we ran into more Sharks than we were expecting.

Not only that, she would have Carmen, a girl of nearly her own age, to talk to, and that was something she was missing in Phoenix. Besides, Mary was mature enough to be classed as an adult, no matter what local laws might say. We didn't know how California laws were written, but Mary could handle herself well enough to be trusted to do the right thing.