Donny parked the sedan in the parking lot of the little market where it would be out of sight. He and Rose walked the two blocks to the back of the office building they were going to use to watch the gang. It was a rundown neighborhood that had seen better days, but those days had been long in the past. They passed a house in which the lawn was littered with used condoms and broken syringes.
The building was just like Dan and Joe had described. There was an employee entrance in the back with stairs leading up to the second floor and then the roof. The door to the roof was closed, but the lock had been busted by Joe, the previous day. It was a simple matter for them to get onto the roof.
The roof was flat with the stairwell and a large air conditioner unit standing up like mesas in the desert. Off to the side was a ladder that led down to the roof of the building next door. That would be how they would have to leave once the office building had been locked up for the night.
The pair moved over to the air conditioner unit and sat down facing the main street with their backs resting against the casing of the A/C unit. Donny put the food they had packed over to the side. They took a moment to study the strip joint. Dan had been right in saying that this location gave a good view of the strip joint.
The building sat at the corner of the main road and a narrow two lane dead-end street. The long front of the building faced the main road and was set back from it by about forty feet. The space between the building and the main road was used as a parking lot. The area had once been covered with asphalt, but time and use had destroyed it to where the asphalt had become little more than chunks of black mixed in with the dirt. There were drums set around the parking lot filled with beer bottles, cans, and litter. A dumpster sat in the back corner of the lot. The broken remains of a neon sign advertising, 'Girls Girls Girls', with what might have been a go-go dancer under the words graced the corner. Not enough of the dancer remained to be sure what it had looked like.
The side of the building was set back from the dead-end street by fifteen feet. There was just enough room for three cars to park, a small walkway next to the building, and a sidewalk. The space for the cars was bare dirt, which might have been planted with grass at one time.
The stucco building had seen better days. The main part of the building had been painted a pale green, but the building was dirty enough that it now looked grey. What had once been windows had been filled in with pale brown bricks. The metal door in the center of the front of the building was painted black. There were signs of bullet holes in the door that had been patched. There was a sign that ran along the top of the building giving the name of the place along with an announcement of full nude girls. One panel of the sign was missing. The metal door facing the side street was painted black.
Looking over the sad tableau below, Rose said, "Dan's description of the strip club was very accurate."
"We'll have to take his word on what is on the other side and back," Donny said. He looked around to see if they would be visible to anyone in the other buildings around them. As near as he could tell, they were on one of the tallest building along the main street.
"I wonder how many women's lives have been ruined inside that place," Rose said pointing to the strip club.
Donny shrugged his shoulders before he replied, "I figure that their lives were ruined before they ever got into the building. Going in there just made it official."
"You're probably right," Rose said. She was quiet for a while and then asked, "What do you think of them sending us back home?"
"I don't like it," Donny said. "I am angry that those two guys who shot Sonny will get away with it if we don't do anything about. I can't even describe how I feel thinking that Sonny is liable to get charged with murder for killing those three men that came to the hospital to kill him."
"I don't think they'll charge Sonny with murder. It was obviously self-defense," Rose said.
Donny said, "The way that Sonny was talking suggested that self-defense is not a legal excuse out here. I tend to believe him. He did say that he might get away with a defense of impaired judgment due to painkillers. The people out here are crazy if you have to be insane or mentally impaired to defend yourself."
"I'm sure the people out here aren't all that bad," Rose said. She didn't sound like she actually believed what she was saying.
"Did you see that woman climb all over Dan for smoking in the restaurant this morning? She was foaming at the mouth the whole time she was hitting and scratching him. How was he supposed to know that you can't smoke after eating a meal in a restaurant in California? " Donny asked. At home, folks sat around after eating breakfast in the local diner talking about crops, work, politics, sports (as in football and baseball), hunting, and fishing. It was one of Donny's favorite things to do when he went into town. At least a third of the men smoked, while talking. It wouldn't seem right if they all got up and left to smoke right after eating.
Rose laughed thinking about the scene at the restaurant and said, "I'm a little surprised Joe didn't shoot her thinking she had rabies."
"If Calvin hadn't pulled her off of him, I was ready to put her down," Donny said. He had never seen anything like it in his entire life. He said, "The whole place was mad at Dan. You would have thought he had been sprayed by a skunk by the looks people were giving him."
"You're right about that," Rose said shaking her head. "Some woman was screaming that Dan was murdering her by smoking."
"There was that guy who yelled at him when he lit up outside the restaurant," Donny said shaking his head.
"I guess the guy figured Dan was polluting the air," Rose said.
"I really don't think Dan is responsible for the fact that the air stinks here. It smells like rotten eggs, burnt tires, sewage, rotting food, and disease. The people who live here can't even smell it. They breathe this air every day thinking it is healthy. They get upset about one little cigarette and don't realize that they are getting killed with every breath of this air here," Donny said.
Rose said, "I noticed that smell when we first got here. Now I can't smell it."
"I know. That's because the air is dead here. It gets up in your nose and just stays there," Donny said.
"You get desensitized to it," Rose said nodding her head.
Donny said, "You can always smell the air back home. It is alive with scent. Healthy air smells of pine, grass, and animals. I can tell you where I am on my place just by the smell. Each place has a different smell based on what is there. You can sniff the air with your eyes closed and know where the pond is. You can take another sniff and know where the barn is. When the wind is right, you can smell Mom's cooking a quarter of a mile away. You can smell the weather in healthy air. You know if it is going be dry, raining, or snowing that day just by the scent in the morning air."
"What is your favorite weather smell?" Rose asked.
"I like the scent of fog. It is like rain, but it surrounds you closer while filtering out all of the other smells. It smells ... mysterious," Donny said.
"I like the scent of snow, particularly around Christmas time. I don't know why I like it around Christmas time and not February. Maybe it is because most of the other smells have disappeared by February," Rose said.
Smiling, Donny said, "When the temperature gets really cold and snow covers the ground, the air gets clean. You breathe it, and feel the air come in your nose, but there is no scent. You look up at sky at night and the stars are bright. There is nothing in the air to filter the starlight.
"Then along March and April it seems like all of a sudden it smells like mud and growing plants. You can smell the plants coming back in the air."
"I like the smell of spring," Rose said.
Sonny put an arm around Rose. He said, "The air at home is full of energy. It can carry sounds for miles. I can hear your car pull up and the car doors close at your place in the evening. That's a good mile and a half. I hear that and know that you are safe at home."
"That's sweet," Rose said opening her eyes and looking over at Donny.
Pointing to a kid kicking a can along the sidewalk, Donny said, "We're fifty feet from him and can't hear the racket he's making. The air is dead here."
Looking down at the kid, Rose said, "I don't like it here."
Noticing a little activity by the strip joint, Donny sat up and said, "What is this? Someone has pulled into the side parking lot."
"It is a little early for someone to be there from what Dan and Joe were saying," Rose said.
They watched the activity below. A middle-aged man, sporting gang tattoos, went into the building while leaving the side door open. He emerged a little later pulling a ramp that he set up in front of the side door. Donny said, "He seems a little old to be running in a gang."
"I don't know. He's about the same age as my daddy. I guess they are in the gang for life," Rose said.
They discussed the matter until a beer truck pulled up alongside the building. Donny said, "Beer delivery. I guess the old guy runs the bar."
They watched the deliveryman take a hundred cases of beer into the club, at the rate of ten cases a trip. Donny said, "That's a lot of beer."
"I don't know. How many guys did your uncles say hung around here?" Rose asked.
"Forty to fifty guys," Donny said. It was hard to get an accurate count since people came and went all of the time. Some were in the parking lot while others were in the building.
"A six pack of beers for each guy every night and that load would barely last a week," Rose said.
"You think they'd get kegs," Donny said watching the guy make another trip.
"Yeah," Rose said. "Maybe plastic cups of beer aren't macho enough."
Donny watched the beer man make a last trip and said, "That's a lot of money. I doubt they are charging the gang members for the beers."
"Drugs are big business. That's where these gangs get their money," Rose said.
"I think California deserves these gangs. They must like them because they let them do whatever the hell they want. I think that anyone that lets folks run amuck like that deserves what he gets," Donny said shaking his head in disgust.
"What can the people here do about them?" Rose asked.
Donny said, "Back home, Sheriff Greaves would deputize half the county one morning and by nightfall there wouldn't be one of those bastards left. For each gun firing at us, there would be a hundred guns firing back at them. You can't tell me there aren't enough law-abiding citizens willing to step up to the plate to take care of this trash in all of Los Angeles. They don't do it because they like having them here."
"I'm sure there are a lot of law abiding citizens out here, they just don't know how to use guns," Rose said.
"A hundred near-sighted fools can all point a gun in the same direct. Odds say that one of them is liable to hit something," Donny said.
Rose took the conversation back to where it had started, "Dad, Dan, and Joe aren't near-sighted fools. I'm sure with Sonny and Calvin here that they won't miss you or me."
"It feels wrong to leave them here," Donny said with a frown. "I know that I have long term responsibilities to the family, but they sure could use my help now."
"Dan has his ranch, Joe has his ranch, and you have your ranch. Someone has to take care of all three places," Rose said.
All three places had once belonged to Donny's grandfather. Back in those days, he had thirty ranch hands helping to take care of the huge spread. When the three sons had gotten old enough to take care of the place, he had divided it into three parts giving each son one part. When Donny's father had died, Sonny and Donny had stepped up to take care of the ranch along with the help of their mother. She had since given the place to her two sons. Donny had stayed behind to take care of the ranch while Sonny had gone onto college.
"My cousins would help out for a while, but none of them want to be ranchers," Donny said, "It would be a shame if Granddad's legacy was wasted because two idiots tried to rob Sonny."
"That would be a real shame," Rose said. Of course, not having a younger generation to carry on a ranch was a common story out in the country. It seemed to her like half of the old spreads were getting sold to city folk as summer homes because the kids didn't want to take care of a ranch. She sighed and added, "A lot of the kids we went to school with have moved away from home. There aren't many people our age who want to stay out in the country."
"Neither of Dan's kids wanted to stay on the ranch. John went off and joined the Army to see the world. Sally is married and lives with her husband in Atlanta. He doesn't know which end of the horse the manure comes out of," Donny said shaking his head.
It wasn't that he thought poorly of Sally's husband It was just that he wouldn't be able to do anything to help out on the ranch.
"Maybe John will come back to the ranch after he's had his fill of the Army," Rose said.
"Maybe, but I doubt it. Besides, it won't help us for the next two years," Donny said. "It's a shame Joe Junior didn't survive his stint in the Army. No one knows where Jack went. As much as I don't like him, the good Lord knows that he could run the place."
"You know that Jack and Joe didn't see eye to eye on anything," Rose said. She had watched Jack and Joe fight about whether the diner meatloaf was better than the spaghetti or not. They couldn't agree on anything. No one was surprised when Jack walked out of the diner one morning after breakfast and drove off without saying a word.
"Jack didn't really have a problem with Joe. His problem was with Sonny and me."
"I know that you and Jack used to fight all of the time, but I never understood why," Rose said.
"Jack was envious of every minute that Joe spent with us," Donny said.
His cousin wouldn't have admitted that in public since it would make him look petty. Instead, he found every excuse possible to fight with Donny.
He shook his head and said, "I don't know. Maybe he was right that Joe spent too much time with us. Uncle Joe took my Dad's death pretty hard. He wanted to make sure that we were okay."
"Junior didn't have a problem with it," Rose said.
Donny said, "He was older than Jack. Jack and I are the same age. I figure that he felt we were stealing his father away from him. Every time Joe would talk about family there would be a fight, within hours."
Rose said, "Despite the fact that we all went to school together, I never really knew Jack. He was so angry all of the time."
"That's because you were with me," Donny said. "Well, that is all water under the bridge. I doubt I could convince him to come home even if I knew how to contact him."
"So keeping the ranches running falls on your shoulders," Rose said making it sound half like a declarative sentence, and half like a question.
"That's right," Donny said.
Rose said, "I guess that we'll be going home."
Donny was silent for a minute and then asked, "Are you pregnant?"
"No. I just say that to let you know that I'm interested," Rose answered nudging him in the side. She added, "You hint about marrying me, but you don't come out and say it."
"That's because I figured it was a done deal," Donny said. He had an engagement ring back at the house.
"So why haven't you asked me?" Rose asked.
Thinking that atop a roof while watching a violent gang was not the most romantic spot in the world to ask a woman to marry him, Donny said, "I'll get around to it sometime."
"Right," Rose said dryly, "Don't wait too much longer."
"I understand," Donny said with a grin.
Rose looked down at the strip club and said, "The beer truck is leaving."
"I noticed," Donny said. "There are some more gang members coming from down the street."
"They probably have to stack the beer in a storage room or something. Too bad we can't see what is going on inside that place," Rose said.
"I'm not sure that we want to know what goes on inside there," Donny said.
The time passed with the young couple talking about their dreams of a family and his plans for the ranch. It was late that afternoon when more of the gang started arriving. Twelve of them showed up in three cars, which were parked in a pattern around the lot. Superficially, it appeared random.
Rose said, "Notice how those two cars are angled to the road. That far one is almost parallel. The near one is forty-five degrees with the road. The third car is parked nearly ninety degrees to the road."
"That's because the far one can't cover as much road because of the building next to it. That center car is parked perpendicular to the road to give cover from the side for folks that are at the cars. I'd bet they'll park two more cars where they can cover the far end with extra men," Donny said looking at the arrangements. It was obvious from above what they had done, but passing by it looked like cars randomly parked.
A panel van pulled into the parking lot and parked back in the corner near the dumpster. Rose asked, "Why did they park it there?"
"I've an idea but I'd rather not say," Donny answered. He figured that it was a place for the guys standing around in the parking lot to get a little entertainment with the females who weren't good enough to be indoors.
A couple groups of women showed up and went inside the strip club. Rose said, "I bet they are the strippers."
"They might be strippers, but I think it is more likely that they are gang property," Donny said. "I doubt anyone is earning any money in there by taking her clothes off on a stage. The sign might say strip club, but it is a gang hangout. The men in there are smoking, drinking, talking, and planning their next crime. The girls are heifers brought in to keep the bulls docile."
"Do you mean they are prostitutes?" Rose asked looking over the women.
She knew of only one woman who was a prostitute and she did it because she was a widow and couldn't afford to live in her home without bringing in some extra income. Half of the boys in high school had lost their virginity to the widow woman. People tended to look away when men came calling, but there were more than a few marital fights that resulted from visits to her house.
"No. That implies that they are getting paid. I'm saying that if the boss decides someone did some good, the guy is given one of the women for an hour or two. She is common property to be used by anyone in the gang," Donny said.
There might be a hierarchy among the women, but it would be a pretty flexible one. New girls were probably used by the leaders, before being handed down to the lower ranks.
"That's sick," Rose said. "I can understand a woman making money by being a prostitute, but to accept living a life where you are treated like property? No. That's slavery. That kind of thing doesn't happen here in this country. This is America."
"I'm sure those law abiding citizens down there are real concerned that they are breaking the anti-slavery laws," Donny said.
"They can't be doing this willingly," Rose said. She wanted to take the women out and have a nice long talk with them.
"I image that they view it a little differently than we do. They are probably getting fed, have clothes, a place to sleep, and a certain amount of protection from being raped. I'm not sure that all of the women in this neighborhood can make that same claim. A woman without family in the gang is probably very vulnerable around here," Donny said.
He noticed that there was a complete absence of women who were not with the gang in the area. There weren't even any couples.
Rose watched the action around the van for an hour.
Finally, she said, "There are three women down there by that van."
"So? Donny said.
"One of them has gone into that van with different guys on two different occasions. She spent about twenty minutes in there with each one," Rose said. She imagined that they had gone in and done the deed without any kind of foreplay. It had to be humiliating for the woman.
"That's about what I figured would happen in the van," Donny said.
"I bet she's only fifteen," Rose said.
Donny looked at the three women and saw that not one of them was older than seventeen. He said, "If I was her father, there'd be a lot of dead gang members down there."
"She probably doesn't have a father," Rose said with a sigh. No father would allow his daughter to live and act like that.
Shaking his head, Donny said, "That's what happens when you don't have family watching out for family. They'll take kids and turn them into something ugly."
Rose watched the girl go into the van with a different man. The guy hadn't even waited to get her in the van before he was lifting her shirt exposing her breasts to everyone in the parking lot. Rose felt sick watching the way the girl was being treated. Looking away, she said, "I want to get out of here."
"We've got to stay. We need to know what they do and how they do it," Donny said.
He got a weak nod of agreement from Rose.
Another man walked over to the van. He took one of the girls by the arm and led her around to the backside of the van. They couldn't see what the man was doing, but they could see a good portion of the woman. Based on the kneeling position taken by the woman and the movement of her head it was pretty obvious what was happening.
Rose's voice turned flat when she said, "All of those men have to die. Anyone who can treat a woman like that can't be allowed to live. What they are doing is a crime against God."
"I know," Donny said giving Rose a hug.
Donny spotted the two men who had shot Sonny. He sent a text message to Dan to let him know that the two men were at the strip club. The plan was for Dan to call in an anonymous tip to the police letting them know where the men were located.
Police cars drove past the strip club a dozen times that evening without stopping a single time. As far as Donny could tell, they never once looked at the gang members. It was well after midnight when he said, "The police aren't going to do anything."
"I know," Rose said.
"It is going to be up to us to get those two in jail," Donny said with a sigh.
"No. We will be going home soon," Rose said.