Chapter 13

By our second week, it was getting harder and harder to find a gang in the neighborhood we had been working, yet, the crime rate in other neighborhoods had risen approximately in proportion to the rate ours had dropped. Then it dawned on us: the gangs were just moving to other places to escape our notice. OK, that was something that we could counteract.

We took our map of high-crime neighborhoods and numbered them in consecutive order. There turned out to be 27, based on our somewhat arbitrary original arrangement. We then set up a simple computer program to select a random number ranging from 1 through 27. Whatever number came up, that was the neighborhood we patrolled that night. That should keep the gangs from anticipating our next patrol area. It worked!

This night, we were working one of those low income highrise apartment building complexes that were saturated with drug dealers and protection rackets. The protection racket was the usual: "we'll keep your apartment from being ransacked and trashed for a small payment each week." The worst part was that the rate kept rising and the people most affected had the least amount of money to spare. Well, we set out to put a stop to the "protection."

We decided to start at the top of the building and work down. Something we didn't ordinarily do was to use the elevator, but this building was so tall that the elevator was the only practical way to go up. The elevator doors opened to the sound of screams and groans of pain coming from the apartment across the hall.

The door was open, and visible through there were broken furniture and the body of an old man lying on the floor. He was bleeding from the head, and he looked like he might be dead. We drew our batons and rushed into the apartment where we found a woman being held on the bed by three young men while another group of six was beating a boy of about 12. The boy was trying to fight back, but he really had no chance against the men beating him, since they were all bigger and heavier.

Obviously, he was the one most in need of help, so we waded in with our batons diligently at work. It took less than 90 seconds to overcome the six thugs beating the boy, and we turned our attention to the three men holding the woman on the bed. I can't imagine why he would do it, but one of the men was holding a knife, and he did not hesitate to cut the woman's throat! This was more than we could stand, and we attacked without reservation. The man with the knife was reduced to a mass of broken bones, though we tried our best not to kill him. The other two were easily subdued.

The woman was dead from a severed carotid artery, and there was no way that we could help her. I went into the living room and found that the man was dead, too. Shit, now what!?!

I wanted to crucify the man with the knife, but he had so many broken bones that it did not seem practical. However, we did staple him to the wall in a semblance of the position. To make sure that there was no doubt who had done the deed, I smashed his balls and cut off his cock, though I was sure that he would never have much use for it again, anyway.

The rest of the gang was stapled down with nails through hands and feet, and nails were driven through their elbows and knees before they were treated to the experience of crushed balls and a penisectomy.

The 12 year old boy was in pretty bad shape, but he was not that close to death. We calmed him as much as we could before calling 911. We didn't leave the boy until we were sure the EMTs were close. Phobos disappeared, and I changed into my disguise so that I could stay with the boy until medical help arrived. Phobos had distributed our cards before he left for the stairs, so I just acted the part of an innocent bystander when the EMTs got there. The boy was careful not to rat on me. I insisted that the EMTs take him first, and I found out where he was being taken.

As soon as the boy was moved, I rejoined Phobos and we dashed to meet Martha to race to the ER to make sure the boy had the care he needed. At this point, I am not sure why we took such an interest in the boy, but, somehow, we felt responsible for him. Anyway, we got in to see him by claiming to be cousins visiting from Upstate New York. Martha had that determined look, so everybody knew that she was not to be denied.

Actually, all we knew of the boy at this point was his name, Jeremiah Houston. When he recovered enough to talk, the first thing he said was to call him Jerry, he hated the name Jeremiah.

I said, "Jerry, can you tell us what happened? We are good friends of Nyx and Phobos, so we know what happened after they got to your apartment, but how did the trouble start in the first place?"

He said, "Three days earlier, two men had come by the apartment and had talked to my Grandmother. That night at supper, she told my Grandfather and me that they wanted money to protect us from attacks from roving gangs who worked our building.

"We were new to the project, so we didn't know what to do. We certainly couldn't pay the money they wanted. My Grandfather was a custodian at a furniture store, and he was paid barely enough for us to eat and pay rent. They decided not to pay, and Grandmother told that to the man who came around the next afternoon. He told her that she was going to regret her decision and left after punching her in the stomach, not very hard, but hard enough to knock her down.

"Nothing happened the next day, but today, right after we had finished supper, there was a knock at the door. Grandfather went to the door to see who it was, and was grabbed by some men as soon as he opened the door. Grandfather was the trusting kind and did not even have the chain-lock fastened.

"Two men held him while another one beat him on the head with a piece of pipe. He was down and bleeding by the third time he was hit. By this time, more men had come in and were tearing up the furniture. I ran to try to help Grandfather and to stop them from breaking our stuff, but I was just not strong enough to fight them off. Three more grabbed Grandmother and held her on the bed. They were still beating on me when Nyx and Phobos showed up."

Martha asked, "How did you come to live with your grandparents?"

"My dad ran off with some bimbo when I was about three years old. We haven't seen him since. My grandparents took us in because Mom had no place else to go. At the time, she didn't have a job. She was killed two years ago by a drunk driver while she was standing at a bus stop. You know this state, the murderer got a slap on the wrist because it was 'only' his second DWI (Driving While Intoxicated), and his lawyer made the judge feel sorry for him. He also had a lot of money to contribute to political campaigns.

"Anyway, I don't have anybody now!" At this point, Jerry began to cry, and Martha beat the other two of us in hugging him and trying to comfort him.

Martha startled us all by saying, "Jerry, you have us. We'll take care of you." That was enough to stop his tears long enough to ask if she meant it. She said that she did, and all of us started to cry then.

Shit, this was a complication that we had not counted on. How could we keep being Nyx and Phobos with a preteen in the house? Martha may have blown us right out of the water. This was going to take a lot of work and thought to resolve.

When they chased us out of the hospital and we went home, Martha apologized for the way she had committed us to something that we might not want to follow through on. All three of us realized that we had formed an attachment to Jerry, we just wondered how it had happened so fast. We decided to let things ride for now, since he was expected to stay in the hospital for at least two weeks. The doctors were worried about possible brain damage, and they wanted to check that out thoroughly.

However, it was not long after our third visit to the hospital that we started discussing how to go about adopting Jerry. He certainly seemed to be willing! We were sure that Children's Services would not argue, since they didn't have enough of a budget as it was.