Chapter 44: After The Flames, Deals

Saturday Morning and Afternoon.

Sara started a number of deals early Saturday. Essentially, everybody but the Driver pleaded for a deal. They made promises. She promised only that if they were forthcoming, they would not get necklaced Saturday night.

The Driver was given a chance, which he refused. Even when he was told that he was to be tonight’s necklace he was still defiant. He was insane, burning him alive would make the world a much better place.

Second on Sara’s list was the small Shark, Pat Koch. He had been weeping in his cell all night, totally broken. At soon as he was seated in a chair he gave it all up, anything Sara wanted, he had lots. First news flash, he was Darnel’s “brain” or “human note book,” meaning he memorized numbers and facts. He had all Darnel’s bank accounts along with the codes to access them. We drained them by 10:05 Saturday morning, yielding over $3 million that was shipped electronically to New Delhi, Macao, Geneva and the Caymans.

By 10:06 an ATM in Alhambra made rude noises when Darnel asked it for lunch money. Darnel’s response is not recorded; he did beat the machine but got away before the police showed up.

We would divide the money when Darnel died: one part to the soldiers, one part to the 49 and the gangers who helped (which would include Tonto - he had fixed a stingray), one part to me with a share to Sara, and a half part to Toad as rent for the facility. Koch also claimed to know all Darnel’s safe houses - and his coke safe house. We put eyes on that last, the others could wait.

Next was the story. Darnel had started putting his spies (we got a list) in gangs over a year ago. He planned to form a “Supergang” with his charming self on the High Throne as the boss. He would take Doria Smith from the Sharks to his bed, with charm or chains, he didn’t care. Part of it was survival, charming as he considered himself Darnel had good reason to believe he had risen as far as he could in the Sharks, and none of the current potential replacements for the boss would let him live. The Black Kings were to be his seed group, along with the Chinese Scorpions and LaBrea Black Tigers. Pat made a diagram of Darnel’s expansion plan. The Aztexs and the Vudus wiping out the Black Kings in days was like a 500 pound bomb dropped on Darnel’s fragile apple cart.

He went mad and paranoid, stole close to $3 million in coke from the gang, and started a vendetta. Darnel was convinced was a “Magnum Force”-type opposition group within law enforcement was targeted on him with exotic surveillance equipment and satellites. Why else would the first overt act of his new regime, after over a year of planning, go wrong so very quickly after last Friday? With an undercover cop involved? When he heard what had NOT happened Friday night he flew into a rage and struck his leader’s daughter Doria repeatedly - he was one of her regular escorts and she had the bad fortune to be with him at a weapons warehouse when he got the news. There was a gunfight between her bodyguards, his bodyguards who were in on the plans, and miscellaneous uninformed Shark bodyguards who had no idea why Sharks were shooting at Sharks, but had to make a choice fast. It turned out Darnel was not that popular with bodyguards, but they were all lousy shots. Doria got away and called her daddy. Darnel went for the powder. At that point he was operating on his own, taking about a half dozen gangers from the Sharks, including Chiggs and Koch. But none of the people he took was really loyal, they just figured he was the safer bet then getting shot on the spot, which was the option presented. That is never a basis for trust.

They were already marked for death by the Sharks.

Because Darnel had so few people he could trust he needed to hire expensive killers like the Ninos and the Tuccos, that explained his move on the Shark’s coke supply. He had more coke than he had people he could trust. Some of his so-called people decided to grab some coke and make for a border - any border - which pissed Darnel off some more. At that point he was beyond paranoid.

Last Monday the Sharks posted a $1 million bounty on Darnel’s head, double if taken “alive enough to torture for answers.” Friends of the Sharks had a 10 days to hunt Darnel, but next Wednesday the bounty went public, to all LA gangs and rogue cops. For Darnel his money (cash stashes), drugs, contacts and safe houses kept him in the LA area, but we would close a lot of those doors and at some point the heat would get too high. Then his black ass was off to Africa, with open one-way tickets to Egypt and Nigeria. He had contributed to some religious radical groups in those countries and was ready to go for a dashiki lifestyle as long as in meant living.

Koch also had the story of my Crown Vic’s plate. Koch and Chiggs were in the Mustang that Friday night, they were trailing the Darnel’s Caddy and had orders to call after the Black Kings were done playing with Gracie. Darnel would come with other folks to kill the Black Kings, make a messier scene out of Gracie’s body, then ambush me and Cosmo when our patrol route brought us by. We would be blamed by the Kings.

But when Koch saw my Crown Vic pull up, he panicked. They had booze, weapons and drugs with them in the Mustang with a busted headlight, and what looked like a police car was suddenly in their grill. So they decided the smart move was to drive real cool - not easy given their condition - and maybe get a pizza at their favorite place, over a half-hour away. (They had smoked all the pot so they had the munchies.) It was another half hour deciding what toppings to order, another half hour to cook, another half-hour to eat, then another half hour to get back. Koch is super good with numbers, but he cannot see well at night, plus there was the booze and the drugs he had ingested, so he did not lock the plate in his memory. When they got back the machete party was long over and the Aztexs were on the scene seriously looking for beating hearts to sacrifice on top of a really old pyramid in Mexico. So Koch and Chiggs beat feet and reported to Darnel. Who then beat Doria, because he went insane and he is that type of dedicated asshole underneath the warm fuzzy exterior.

Besides Koch not memorizing the plate, Chiggs also saw it and he thought it was different. That was how Darnel got all those different possible combinations. Darnel’s cop friend could not run all of them so Darnel punted. He gave all the combinations to Emily and Ron. But it was a lot on combinations. They spotted me in Vicky because my cop lights were on when I passed them, otherwise they might have missed me.

At one point Pat-the-slime told Sara in passing that he had often raped “whores and bitches who fought.” But now after prison he was weaker (he had several broken parts) so in the future he would go after younger targets (more helpless) and keep them longer. Sara did not react. But from then on Sara wanted him dead. She was ready to kill him herself, but she was preggers and I did not want that stain on her. So after Pat was dry of useful info we gave him the opportunity to end things on his own terms. I said she could see him burn, but she didn’t need a floor show, she just needed him dead.

We kept the slime creature for a week to confirm things, then let him have a rope and a short article on autoerotic asphyxiation with a reference to that INXS guy (no pictures); he did it poorly so he never did get off plus he took a long, painful time crossing over to the hereafter.

Sara had a special hatred for rape, she might have spent some private time during the week, and maybe shortly before the end, draining the battery on his shock belt.

Chiggs, the large Shark, confirmed the details of his fellow Sharks story. But it seemed that Koch had left one safe house off the list, a country place way up north, outside of San Clarita. As a bodyguard, Chiggs really knew locations if not much else. To show us, Sara used Google maps. Chiggs was confused, “Do you have a drone there?” he asked.

Sara answered. “We have drones, but this is a satellite, from space. It has lasers.”

“You have a satellite? With lasers? Who are you guys?”

“If you knew who we were, we could not let you go. So, do you still want to know?”

He had to think about that, he had a powerful curiosity. Then he said, “I am very curious, but I prefer to live.”

“I am starting to like you Mr. Martin,” Sara said with a smile. “I will do what I can to make sure you do go free.” She said he got very happy, from then on he was a puppy for her. He showed her the missing safe house and was very helpful in many ways after that.

After this conversation Sara knew we HAD to let Chiggs go, he would tell stories about us that would intimidate other gangs for a hundred years. I agreed, she played it perfectly.

We kept Chiggs for a week, then asked if he wanted to return the the Sharks or be turned loose but never return to Cali. He said he could not cope without his friends, so we gave him back to the Sharks. He knew none of our faces, names or locations except for the crispy critters; nothing that could cause us problems, except that we had a satellite. So we threw him back, compliments of Knife333.