Chapter 12

We had gathered a lot of data on Greater Los Angeles. There were all kinds of demographics and statistics available, but what stood out the most was the number of Hispanics located in the many areas of the city and its surrounding areas. The last census had the population of Greater Los Angeles at nearly four million.

The area known as South Central Los Angeles, which we were concentrating on next, is made up of some twenty-seven neighborhoods and is divided in two by I-110. It is densely populated by the poor; many of whom are Hispanic, and included Watts – a previously predominately black neighborhood. We would be going to the Westside of South Central today and the Eastside tomorrow to listen and observe.

We were up earlier than usual on Tuesday morning to work out and shower, but skipped chanting to get an early start. Having slipped out of the hotel in our guise as Spanish Mexicans wearing appropriate clothing, we carried our clothing to return as the Appalachians with us. The walk to where the ‘beater’ was parked was uneventful, and traffic on I-10 was light this early in the morning. We followed it through several interchanges where the San Bernardino Freeway eventually changed into the Santa Monica Freeway, although the road remained I-10 all of the way. We eventually exited it onto I-110, the Harbor Freeway, going south into South Central Los Angeles.

We had previously decided to skip the northern areas of South Central, where the various colleges and the University of Southern California were located, feeling there wouldn’t be the kind of information there that we were seeking. Getting off of I-110 at exit 18B, West Slauson Ave., we worked our way through the area going south. We stopped at strip malls and other places where people were gathered to look and listen. We had breakfast at one location and lunch or dinner at another. Additionally, we stopped for coffee or soda at several places, always listening to people’s conversations and occasionally joining in if the conversation sounded like it might reveal something.

We were on Manchester Ave. just after 4:00 that afternoon when we picked up a tail. They were four young men dressed alike in what we believed were gang colors, but we had no idea which gang they belonged to. The list of gangs in the Greater Los Angeles area was quite extensive, and we hadn’t taken the time to check on them.

“We’re being followed,” Grace observed when we had stopped to look in a store window.

“Yes, I know. I detected them several minutes ago. Shall we do something about it?” I asked.

“Yes, let’s see what they know,” she replied, as we walked a bit further before coming to an empty space where a building had been torn-down. We walked out into the vacant lot and waited for the four to approach us. We didn’t have long to wait.

The four young men who approached us were typical of the young Mexican males in the area, being short, a bit thin, and having black hair. They were all dressed similarly.

“Why are you asking questions? What are you here for,” the one asked in Mexican Spanish. “You cops?” followed from another.

“Why would you think that?” Grace asked in much better Spanish, which set them off.

“They’re here spying for someone, get them,” the taller of the four shouted as the knives came out, and they started for us. By now a crowd had started to form to watch what was going on.

The four gang members were not prepared to face anyone who knew how to defend themselves, or who were practiced in the Martial Arts. They had split into two groups of two and charged at us. The two largest came at me expecting to easily take me out.

I sidestepped the first man’s knife thrust, grabbed him behind his wrist and swung him into the second man who stabbed the first man in his anxiousness to get to me. Releasing my grip on the stabbed man, I stepped inside the second man’s reach, grabbing him by his knife arm behind the wrist and kicked him in the gonads. He doubled up like a closing paper screen and I kicked him in the jaw as he went down. The first man also got a kick in the head, knocking him out as well.

By the time I turned to see if Grace needed any help, she had both of her attackers on the ground and bleeding also. She had brought one of her several knives with her and had used it to good effect.

“None of these turkeys would have lasted long on one of my crews,” the Pirate Queen of Connacht said with a smile, as she cleaned her dirk on one of the men’s shirts. The crowd had grown to a substantial size by now, and they were applauding on seeing the four thugs lying on the ground, bleeding and unconscious. This didn’t last long though as the sound of distant sirens could soon be heard, and the crowd quickly scattered.

“Come with me,” one of the men from the crowd said beckoning to us. He appeared to be a store manager or professional man from his dress, and we quickly followed him to a store down the block and then inside. It was a plumbing supply store.

“You don’t know how good it felt to see those ‘coyotes’ get what they had coming to them. They terrorize all of those in the neighborhood, and take what they want. You are lucky though that those four didn’t have guns,” the man, Juan, told us. He also told us that he was the manager of the store.

“It will be safe to leave in a bit. The police will have an ambulance take them to the hospital. No one will say anything against you,” he assured us. We left the store after a half hour, returned to our car, and headed back to San Bernardino. It was after 5:00 and the traffic was heavy.

When we reached the hotel that evening as the Appalachians, there was a package waiting for me at the reception desk. The label on it was that of a well know delivery service. On opening the package in our room, it contained the new title, registration, and a new VIN tag for the SUV. I installed the new VIN tag a few minutes later before going out to eat.

The following morning, Wednesday the 17th, we were again up very early, exercised, sparred, and showered before leaving the hotel. We had chanted for over an hour last night after returning to the hotel from dinner. Today we were going to the Eastside of South Central Los Angeles looking for information.

We again got off the I-110 at Slauson Ave., but going East this time and working our way south in the Florence neighborhood. We repeated what we had done the past two days, but again with little results.

When stopping for lunch in a small restaurant, we had a change of luck.

“Look over at the man sitting in the end booth,” Grace told me, as we waited in line to order. “He’s the guy who I punched out in the rest room when we were changing clothes on first arriving here,” she finished.

“Isn’t that interesting. Let’s get our meals and move over to his table. I’ll do the interrogating, since you would probably want to beat on him again,” I told her with a smile. On getting our meals, we moved over to the booth in the back, as the restaurant was quite crowded now, but no one had intruded on the man in the last booth.

“Mind if we join you, Senor?” I asked in my best Mexican. He looked annoyed, but Grace slipped into the booth opposite him, and I joined him on his side of the table. I had already taken control of his body and moved him over so there was room enough for both of us. Grace and I started eating while our subject of interest just sat there.

Part way through our meal, I released my hold on him, and he gasped in surprise.

“What do you want, and what did you do to me?” he demanded in a very upset voice.

“You don’t remember us, do you?” Grace asked.

“No, I’ve never seen either of you before,” he answered, still upset.

“Perhaps if Grace beat you to a pulp again, your memory would improve,” I suggested, and all of the color drained out of his face.

“You!” he started in shock, going for the gun that he had under his shirt, but I had already taken control of him again.

“He definitely remembers you,” I said to Grace with a chuckle. “Let’s see what else he remembers,” I added following that.

Turning on my seat and reaching over, I placed my fingers on his forehead and entered his mind. I found a number of interesting things there, and shortly began to laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Grace asked quietly in a vexed voice.

“His name is Alberto and he’s a cop. A Mexican cop up here undercover to track the movements of the Cartels. He also isn’t having a lot of luck, as it appears that the locals are on to him,” I told her, once I managed to stop laughing. “This is just too rich,” I added before releasing my hold on him.

“Alberto, forget about the Cartels and go home,” I told him in a serious voice. “This is way, way above your pay grade, and you’ll only get killed if you stay up here,” I added.

“How do you know my name?” he demanded in an indignant voice.

“I know your name, where you are staying here, your address in Mexico City, who your boss is, your Wife’s name, and the names of your two children. I know all of that and more, because I read your mind. I also know that you have developed few leads in the two plus months that you have been here,” I told him to a startled expression from him.

“No one can read minds,” he told me in absolute conviction, so I started naming names and dates of people and things that had occurred in his life. When he met his Wife, her name, when they were married, and where, plus when their children were born and their names. He turned even paler on hearing all of this.

“Maybe I should return home as you say,” he said at the end. We finished our meal and left him sitting there to think about what I had told him.

Later that afternoon on East Century Blvd, things got interesting again, when we ran into more trouble. This time there were eight of them, but they were wearing different gang colors. They also approached us in two groups from opposite directions, forcing us into a narrow alley between buildings.

“This bunch appears to be better organized,” Grace quipped, as we turned to face them part of the way down the dead-end alley.

“Let’s see how much of a challenge they present. Don’t use your knife unless you need to,” I warned her.

“All right,” she agreed, as eight of them entered the alley. They were wall to wall in two ranks initially, but soon split up into two groups; one of five men and the other of three. Most of them had bats or steel pipes. Two more men followed them in from across the street. Those two had guns.

Before they could move in on us, using my control of the electromagnetic spectrum, I created a very strong static discharge in the area around those guns. It was strong enough to set off the primers in the ammunition of both guns, and they exploded as all of their ammunition went off at once like bombs. The shrapnel from the explosion severely injured the two men.

The alley that we were in was actually too narrow for the five men to attack me together, and they got in each other’s way trying to get to me. The first one swung a wooden baseball bat at me, but I had moved aside and he missed. I didn’t give him time to recover, but grabbed the bat and swung him into the man behind him who was swinging a piece of heavy walled steel pipe. He cracked the first man in the head with the pipe, knocking him out. I hit the second man with the bat which I now held, and grabbed his steel pipe as he went down to knock out the third man after dropping the bat.

The last two had seen what I had done, and dropped their pipes to charge into me and wrestle with me. Kicking the first one in the knee sent him stumbling into his partner, causing both of them to stumble. It was a simple matter then to knock each of them out.

I was turning to see if Grace needed any help, when she dropped the third man who had been attacking her.

“You okay?” I asked, as I checked the open end of the alley for any more assailants. The two with the guns were lying just inside of it, and both were dead from the shrapnel wounds caused by their exploding guns. There weren’t any sirens audible in the distance yet.

“It appears that we have a little time yet. Let’s read these gang member’s minds and see what they know about the Cartels,” I told Grace, and we both knelt down and began going through the minds of those who had attacked us. Most of them knew nothing about the Cartels, as they dealt with intermediaries, who were of no interest to us. One, however, had talked to someone who had mentioned that the drug Cartels now had a place in the mountains northeast or east of San Bernardino. It was the biggest tip that we had come up with so far.

“Did you come up with anything?” I asked Grace, as we finished with the last ones.

“No, not really, but I now know where to go to buy drugs in the whole Florence area,” she told me with a big grin. “You?” she asked.

“I have one lead. We’ll check it out tomorrow. Let’s get out of here before the police arrive,” I told her, and we left after checking that the street was clear of pedestrians and people in parked cars. We were soon on our way back to San Bernardino.

“Just what is this big break that you said we have?” Grace asked on the way back to our hotel.

“One of those whose mind I read had heard that the Cartels had a place in the mountains east or northeast of San Bernardino,” I told her.

“Have you looked at the map of this area? Those mountains cover a huge area, and much of it is National Forest or some other type of government land. How are we supposed to find them?” she asked.

“They certainly aren’t out among the trees, so they must have a building or buildings where they are hiding the device. It could also be in a cave or a mine. We’ll need to check all of those things as well as the areas where buildings were destroyed by forest fires in the last four or five years,” I told her.

“Why fire areas?” she asked a bit confused.

“They could have moved into burned out areas, rebuilt the buildings posing as normal civilians returning to rebuild their homes. Or they could have murdered those civilians and taken over their identities and homes,” I told her, to a surprised look from her.

“You have a truly devious mind. That’s why I like you,” she said with a grin.

After parking the beater in the parking lot of the big box store, we changed into the clothes of the Appalachians and walked back to our hotel. Once there, we used our SUV to check out a new restaurant some distance from the hotel. On returning to the hotel after a fine dinner, we were again in bed early, but only to sleep tonight, after a good shower and some chanting. Tomorrow we would need to do more research on the mountains around San Bernardino.