Earth Angels Read Free Page B

L.A. based on disputes over the sale of narcotics, retaliation murders committed by Hispanic gangs were based strictly on gang rivalry. It had been that way ever since the Mexican immigrants arriving after the turn of the century had settled in East L.A. and found themselves clinging to others from Zacatecas, Guadalajara, or Tecate. Gangs had formed and through the years loyalties had never weakened. Every building and every wall in East L.A. was tattooed with gang placas: coded challenges that glorified individual gangs and marked territorial boundaries: the graffiti of death.
    One of the last potential witnesses left to interview was a thirtyish Mexican man with a Fu Manchu mustache who was slouching in a pew close to the door. As Stepanovich sat next to him, the man opened his eyes and sat up.
    "May I have your name, sir?"
    "Albert Garcia."
    "Were you sitting here when the shooting occurred?"
    Garcia nodded.
    Stepanovich wrote his name on a fresh sheet of paper. "What did you see today, Mr. Garcia?"
    "I didn't see nothing," Garcia said, rubbing his eyes as if he'd awakened from a long nap. "I didn't see shit. "
    "Anything you tell me will be kept in confidence," Stepanovich said, noticing Garcia's grime caked fingernails.
    "That don't mean dick in East L.A."
    "Sitting here would give someone a wide open shot of anyone coming in the door. There's no way a person could miss seeing what went down."
    "I saw the same thing everybody else did," Garcia said. "The door flies open and this dude comes in shooting."
    "What kind of a gun did the man have?"
    Garcia looked about at the remaining wedding guests staring at him and shrugged. "I got my ass down. I didn't see nothing."
    "Did the man say anything?"
    Expressionless, Garcia shrugged.
    "How many shots were fired?"
    "Three or two, I think. The sound hurt my ears. That's all I know."
    "What was the man wearing?"
    "I don't remember."
    "What did he look like?"
    Garcia rubbed his nose. "Don't remember."
    "You couldn't have missed getting a good look at the guy."
    "He was a Mexican," Garcia said. "That's all I know." He exchanged a smirk with another man sitting across the aisle.
    "Would you recognize him if you saw him again?" Stepanovich asked coldly.
    "If I did, I wouldn't tell you."
    Because Garcia was the twenty seventh witness he'd interviewed, Stepanovich wrote the number twenty-seven in the upper right hand corner of the report form and drew a circle around it. As he did, a mordant thought occurred to him: tomorrow or the next day there would be another shooting somewhere and the numbering of another list of fruitless interviews would start all over again.
    "Can I go now?" Garcia asked.
    "Where can you be reached during the day?"
    Garcia recited the address of the gas station where he worked, and Stepanovich entered the information in the proper section on the report form. "You can go.”
    As Garcia stood up and sauntered down the aisle toward the door, Stepanovich made a final note by Garcia's name. It read: "Probably saw it all. Reinterview. "
    After the last of the witnesses had been interviewed, Stepanovich and the other three detectives gathered in the sacristy, the only place in the church where they could speak without being overheard. Captain Harger, standing in front of a tall armoire bursting with colorful vestments, waited patiently until the men had quieted down on their own rather than demanding order. As usual, Stepanovich was impressed.
    Harger aimed an index finger at Stepanovich. "What do we have?"
    Stepanovich took out his notebook and flipped to a page. "The shooter arrives in the bed of a red pickup truck. He fires once, blowing victim number one into the church. Shooter follows him inside, shouts 'Eighteenth Street,' fires twice more, and hits victim two. The shooter is described as a male Mexican wearing county pants and a white T-shirt. In his late twenties or early thirties, using a piece that is most likely a sawed off twelve gauge."
    "If anybody