When Bill's family moved from Texas to Los Angeles in 1950, South Central Los Angeles referred to an area bordered by Washington and Main along the north and west, and by Slauson Ave and Alameda on the south and east. By now though, the boundaries had expanded to include all of the areas of Los Angeles lying south of the Santa Monica Freeway, east of Inglewood and Culver City, and north of the Century Freeway.
The area was initially populated largely by blacks but lately immigrant populations from Latin America and Asia had begun moving here. Despite its reputation, the area wasn't all poor, not by a long shot. But it did have more than its share of poor people and far more than its share of crime. Two new street gangs called the Crips and the Bloods had been fighting over turf in this area in the past few years, and their wars were public and bloody and fraught with unintended victims. The police had been unable to control the rising violence, and many of the residents, still stinging from the Watts Riots ten years ago, harbored deep resentment and distrust toward law enforcement.
Still, as Bill turned the car onto South Central Ave and headed toward Hyde Park, a neighborhood smack in the middle of South Central Los Angeles, his eye noticed that the renovations and neatly-kept yards outnumbered the down-on-their-luck lounging on street corners. The people who lived here were, by and large, honest and hard working folks who were doing the best they could for their families.
The Bethlehem Baptist Church was on the single block of East Gage Avenue that, for some unfathomable reason, was renamed East 64th Street. According to the schedule provided by Florence Hinton, Albert Hinton, however, was a block away at a county park, holding a "prayer meeting and faith healing." As Bill and Pepper drew near, it was easy to see why they'd chosen the park instead of the church for the meeting. Despite the mid-day, mid-week hour, literally hundreds of people had gathered for the spectacle, a sea of bodies pressing into a central pavilion from all sides.
Bill scanned the area, noting the tall buildings along the sides of the park and the high ceiling and open sides of the pavilion itself. A platform had been built to make the speaker more visible to the crowd and more visible he was - Bill could see him from the road. "This guy really does have a death wish," he muttered. "If someone is trying to kill him, he's a sitting duck out there."
A flash from a rooftop caught his eye. Pepper must have seen it too, because before he could speak, she yelled "Gun!"
Bill floored the accelerator, careening their car around a corner, then slammed on the brakes to skid to a stop directly in front of the building where the shooter lay in wait. "Call for backup," he yelled, already half out of the car. "And get Hinton off that platform!"
.
It took less than fifteen seconds to relay their location and the request for backup to Dispatch, but with a gunman on the roof, it was a long fifteen seconds. An instant later, Pepper was out of the car, gun drawn, assessing the situation. High above her, she could see the barrel of a rifle extended over the edge of the roof, still, focused on its target.
She didn't have to follow its trajectory to know where it was aimed, but she looked toward the packed pavilion anyway. There was no way she could get to Hinton in time, and he'd never hear her over the crowd. Something… there had to be something…. She dove back in the car and switched on the siren. The piercing sound didn't cause even a ripple in the crowd, but the gun barrel above her wavered.
That was the chance she needed. Pepper ran toward the pavilion, gun pointed at the ground, calling, "Police! There's a gun! Clear the area!" The crowd didn't move at first, so intent the people were on Hinton's show. The second time she yelled, they began to stir. The third time, someone finally saw the weapon in her hand and shouted, "Gun!"
The crowd broke and ran in a panic. Not what she'd intended exactly, but it cleared a path to the pavilion and, she confirmed looking over her shoulder, the gunman was no longer visible on the rooftop. Gone where? She paused long enough to scan the building but saw nothing. Until she knew, Hinton wasn't safe. She took off at a run again.
The chaos of the park ended at the pavilion. The people inside hadn't moved and seemed oblivious to the panic outside. The sea of bodies parted to let her in, but after a curious glance toward her, they focused on the black man standing on the podium. She hesitated. The air was different here. A soporific calmness enveloped her like a warm blanket. Her fingers loosened around her gun, and she would have dropped it had she not in the next moment remembered why she was there. Hinton. The gunman.
Her fingers tightened on her gun, and she swung her body partway around so she could guard against anyone coming from the building. "I'm Sgt. Anderson with the LAPD," she said in a crisp, no-nonsense tone. "There's a shooter on the roof across the street. Rev. Hinton, I need you to come with me!"
Her words sounded ridiculous, even to her own ears.
The man on the podium - Hinton, she presumed - met her eyes. For an instant, she glimpsed a profound sadness but it vanished so quickly, she wasn't sure she'd seen it at all. Then, incongruently, she thought she saw a faint smile ghost across his face. Rev. Hinton sighed and shrugged his hands in a gesture that was simultaneously welcoming and resigned. "Thy will be done," he said, lifting his eyes skyward.
"You have to get off the podium," she repeated.
He shook his head and motioned to two people in front of him. Sitting on pallets on the floor of the podium, they had been invisible to Pepper before. An older woman, body twisted with the effects of a stroke, and a painfully pale child regarded her with wide, frightened eyes. "These people can't run," he said in a soft southern accent that both soothed and brooked no discussion, "and I won't leave them."
He raised his hands to the congregation. "Let us pray."
.
The shooter had chosen an abandoned warehouse for his perch, not only because it afforded a good vantage point but also because it offered an easy way in and out without inconvenient witnesses. The front doors were chained shut, but on the loading dock, Bill found a door held open by a milk crate - put there by the gunman, he assumed. Inside the building, there was an elevator to his left and stairs to his right. Gunman would need the fastest trip down - stairs. Bill headed up two at a time.
He had just rounded the corner on the landing to the third floor when a man heading the opposite direction popped into view above him. Their eyes met for a brief, startled moment, then the man slid to a stop and scrambled back the way he'd come.
"Police! Hold it!" Bill yelled, but the man was already out of sight. Bill swore and took off in pursuit, already cataloguing the details: Caucasian male, mid-thirties, short blond hair and beard, approximately six feet tall, one hundred eighty pounds. And the most important detail of all - carrying a rifle.
At the third floor, Bill paused to assess his surroundings. No sign of the gunman on the stairs above him, nor was there the sound of running footsteps. Gun at the ready, he scanned the mostly vacant space. For the shooter, the empty building had only one drawback: the vast open spaces provided few hiding places, but for that, Bill was grateful.
"There's nowhere to hide up here," he yelled. "Throw out that rifle and give up before you get yourself shot." His voice echoed hollowly across the space. No reply. He slid into the shadows, hoping to make himself a less visible target.
Scaffolding was erected near the stairs, but after a cursory scan, he disregarded it as a possible hiding place. Only a monkey could have gotten up the first platform fast enough that Bill wouldn't have seen or heard him. A stack of abandoned crates provided the most likely hiding places. He edged his way to them, swinging around corners gun first, but there was nothing. His own breath sounded overloud in his ears and sweat ran down his forehead. The air, thick with dust, was hot and hard to breathe.
A creaking near the stairs whirled him around again. He ducked around a crate and then peered cautiously around the corner. Nothing. There was nothing.
There.
Dust swirled in the light cascading through one dirty window. Dust near the scaffolding adjacent to the stairs. Bill slipped behind the crates and made his way along the wall. He kneeled and paused at the opening to the space between the crates and the stairwell. If the shooter were on the scaffolding, he would have a clear shot at him out there. He searched the shadowed platforms but it was too dark up there to see more than vague shapes. He had to risk it.
Three steps - four - and he was against the stairwell. He peered around the edge. Still nothing. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe the gunman had gotten to another floor. Even as he had the thought, he discarded it. The shooter hadn't had time. Bill inched along the railing toward the scaffolding. If he climbed up there, he'd have a good vantage of the whole floor.
Something clattered behind him, and he spun instinctively to face it. An instant later something heavy smashed into his right side, sending him hard against the stair railing. There was a massive crack, and for a moment he was suspended in space. He came down hard on his left shoulder. The shooter landed across him, knocking the wind out of him. The guns - both his pistol and the rifle - flipped down the stairs to the landing below.
Despite the pain lancing through his chest and down his arm, Bill grabbed at the gunman. The man swung his upper body desperately trying to break free. It was a lucky swing; his elbow caught Bill in the cheek. Bill's grip loosened, and the man slipped from his grasp and half slid, half rolled to the bottom of the stairs.
Not willing to give up, Bill threw himself toward the landing, knocking the man against the wall. Like a snake, the shooter slithered from his grasp, kicking hard at his chest to force him back. Bill started to lunge at him again, but suddenly the barrel of the rifle was inches from his face. He froze and looked past the barrel to the blue eyes of the gunman.
"Don't make me shoot you," the man said. "I don't want to kill you. Just him."
"You haven't done it yet. Just put the gun down, and we'll talk…."
"Shut up!" The man wiped sweat from his forehead and glanced down the stairs. With a swift slide of his foot, he kicked Bill's pistol to the first floor, then, warning Bill to stay put, he backed his way downstairs to the door. He paused long enough to give the pistol a second kick, sending it sliding into the darkness of the warehouse, and then he bolted outside.
By the time Bill recovered his gun, the shooter was gone. He swore and kicked the door, and then leaned against it, trying to catch his breath. Damn, his shoulder hurt. He kicked the door again.
He was halfway back to the car when he realized he didn't have his badge. He turned and trudged back to the building. The badge lay on the landing to the second floor where they'd grappled. When he bent to pick it up, a brightness in the corner caught his eye. He frowned and looked closer. A small, round piece of metal.
He picked it up and squinted at it, recognizing it immediately. A patron saint medal. Lots of police carried a St. Michael medal. "Give us cool heads, stout hearts, and uncanny flair for investigation and wise judgment." He murmured the traditional prayer to St. Michael automatically. This wasn't St. Michael though. He didn't recognize this saint. He dropped it in his pocket and headed back downstairs.
.
Sirens - backup, he assumed - drew close from the east side of the park, but Bill wasn't focused on them. Where were Hinton and Pepper? With the shooter still out there somewhere, Hinton wasn't safe yet.
The sea of people in the park had scattered but now groups here and there were merging around a center point once more. The pavilion? Surely they weren't still there. But, sure enough, he saw people in the center of the structure. A seething anger gripped his belly. What the hell was Pepper doing? He specifically told her to get Hinton out of there. With a last glance over his shoulder to be sure the shooter was gone, he jogged into the park, mentally rehearsing some choice words for Sgt. Pepper Anderson. The press of humanity was so thick he thought he would have to flash his badge and gun to be let through, but somehow a path opened before him, a path that took him right into the pavilion and right to his blond partner.
He felt a change as soon as he crossed the threshold of the wooden structure. His skin seemed to vibrate, as if the very air were electric. Although the pavilion was completely open on all sides, the sounds from outside became strangely hushed. Underlying that muted rumbling, he could hear a low hum. Or maybe he just felt it.
Pepper turned and met his eyes. He was struck by the softness in her face, the lack of tension in her stance. Her gun hung by her side. Didn't he have something he wanted to say to her? He couldn't remember, and it didn't seem very important anyway.
She frowned suddenly and glanced toward the building. Bill shook his head. Her gaze sharpened and ran from his bruised cheek to his mussed clothes, lingering on the arm he held protectively close to his body. He shook his head again, dismissing the question in her look; he was fine. With a jerk of her head, she directed his attention to the middle of the structure.
In the center of the platform had been placed a simple folding chair, and in the chair sat a middle-aged black man. Rev. Hinton was not what Bill expected. His body was slouched, as if the mere weight of it was too much. His skin was sallow, and he looked tired. No, not just tired. Ill. Florence Hinton had been in her late forties, but Albert Hinton appeared to be in his mid-sixties at least. Why was this old, sick man doing this? Maybe he was being forced to perpetuate this fraud by someone else.
On a pallet in front of Rev. Hinton lay an old woman. Her left side seemed drawn toward her, paralyzed perhaps, but it was hard to see well enough to tell. It seemed to Bill that the show would be more effective if they set up their stage so their main actors were more easily seen by the audience. He wondered briefly why the crowd hadn't complained, but clearly, despite the limited view, they hadn't. Everyone was rapt on the scene in front of them.
Rev. Hinton was leaning toward the woman, touching her forehead with one hand, conversing with her in a voice too low for Bill to hear. He nodded, and then turned his attention to the man sitting at her head. Bill hadn't noticed him until now. He was a few years older than the woman, and he rested a protective hand on her shoulder. Her husband, he guessed.
The reverend smiled at the man, and though the smile was weak, even Bill felt the reassurance in it. "Tell me about her," Rev. Hinton said to the man, and then he held his hands above the woman and closed his eyes. The hum in the room seemed to grow louder, and Bill felt the tiny hairs on his neck rise.
The man seemed oblivious to the change in the energy in the room. All that existed for him at that moment was his wife. He gazed down at her, a beatific smile on his face. "She's my life," he said, stroking her hair. "We met on the street one day when we were just teens. I'd seen her getting off the school bus, and I thought she was the prettiest girl I'd ever seen. I asked to walk her home, and she told me off good for being too forward. I walked her home anyway, that day and every day after. We got married the day after she graduated from high school, and we've been married for fifty four years. We've got six children, fourteen grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren, and she's still the prettiest girl I've ever seen.
"She had her first stroke six years ago, and it took away most of her speech. I do my best to take care of her. I cook and I clean and I help her get dressed and help her with… personal things. I know she gets depressed and frustrated sometimes because I have to do those things. She just doesn't understand that it doesn't matter. I'd spend eternity taking care of her, as long as it meant we were together. I don't think my heart would beat if she weren't with me."
Bill swiped at moisture in his eyes and glanced at Pepper. She had made no attempt to hold back her tears; her face was wet. He was so caught up in the man's story, Bill almost forgot to watch Rev. Hinton. As the man talked, the reverend murmured to himself, eyes closed. Bill expected something dramatic, but the actual change, when it came, happened gradually, slowly, and without fanfare. The woman's body began to straighten, the perpetually contracted muscles loosening for the first time in years. Her face changed, the slack muscles of her left side, relaxing and then spreading into a smile.
Simultaneously, the reverend's body began to curl into itself, one side of his face sliding into a tell-tale droop. "My God, he's having a stroke!" Bill thought. Yet no one around him reacted, at least not until he almost fell from his chair. Then a young black man stepped forward and wrapped his arms around him to hold him upright.
That somehow signaled the end of the show. The old man on the platform helped his wife rise to her feet, joyful smiles wreathing their faces. Hinton nodded to them but remained in his chair as they were shown off the platform. Then he managed to lift an arm and, in strangled, sometimes unintelligible tones, prayed aloud. "And now, O Lord God, thou art that God, and thy words be true, and thou hast promised this goodness unto thy servant: therefore now let it please thee to bless the house of thy servant, that it may continue for ever before thee: for thou, O Lord God, hast spoken it: and with thy blessing let the house of thy servant be blessed for ever. Amen."
With the final blessing came a palpable change in the pavilion. The hum dissipated, and suddenly Bill was completely aware of his surroundings. To his surprise half a dozen police officers had crowded into the pavilion behind him. The spectators began to murmur and shift restlessly, and some began to drift away. Florence Hinton knelt beside her husband and gripped his infirm hands in her own. It occurred to Bill, looking at them, that he'd never seen two more miserable people.
Bill stepped forward, the phalanx of officers behind him. "I'm Sgt. Bill Crowley with the Los Angeles Police Department. Rev. Hinton, do you need medical care?" The man shook his head. Bill glanced at Pepper. "Then we need you to come downtown with us."
Florence Hinton glared at him. "Can't you let him recover?" she snapped.
"The shooter is still on the loose, ma'am," Bill said. He leaned over to help support the reverend.
The man looked up at him, his dark eyes not angry like his wife's but, instead, impossibly sad. "Why didn't you let him kill me?" he asked in the peculiar strangled tones.
Bill stared at him, not sure how to answer the unexpected question. What had they gotten themselves into?