The Renegades Read Free

stoplight. But when the Blood gun car had passed by, the human directional with the “New Homes” sign had six bullets in him and he died later in a hospital.
    “Speaking of dog bites,” said Laws. He unbuttoned his long-sleeved uniform shirt and showed Hood his left forearm, discolored and punctured, but healing. “That’s what I got for helping a guy out.” He turned on the dome light for a moment and looked at the wound as if it were a mystery he hadn’t yet solved.
    “Dog have shots?”
    “Yeah. Don’t worry, I’m not going rabid on you.”
    They pulled into the Legacy housing development. Big homes, two stories, peaked roofs with dormers and faux shutters on the windows. The tract was ten years old and some of the houses already looked like they should be condemned. The desert ages buildings and people twice as fast as anywhere else.
    Fourteen-eleven Storybook had a dead brown lawn, weeds eating through the driveway concrete and a broken window patched with plywood against the cold. There were signs of effort, too: a couple of shiny kids’ bikes up by the porch and a bird feeder swinging from a lemon tree in the middle of the dead grass, and a bed of wind-lashed rosebushes by the garage.
    A Housing Authority van was parked in the driveway, two men standing by the driver’s door. Hood and Laws pulled up to the curb opposite and parked just short of a peppertree thrashing in the wind. Hood heard the crunch and rattle of peppercorns when he stepped out of the car and crossed the street.
    The Housing Authority investigators were Strummer and Fernandez, both mid-forties, both wearing jeans and athletic shoes, Los Angeles County Housing Authority windbreakers and baseball caps. Strummer had lank blond hair and a long nose. Fernandez, who held a clipboard, was slope-shouldered and short.
    Strummer explained that they’d heard complaints of marijuana use and loud music, and rumors that the boys living here had broken into a neighboring home, stolen a flat-screen plasma HDTV and put the family’s Chihuahua in the freezer before they left. The dog was almost dead when the family found it, but it had survived. Nobody had filed a complaint with the Sheriff’s Department.
    “Single mom, Jacquilla Roberts,” said Strummer. “Sons sixteen and eighteen, down with the Southside Crips. Two young ones. She’s got a boyfriend, of course—a Lynwood felon who smelled the easy pickings up here in the desert. He’s not supposed to live here but he mostly does. Fine citizens all.”
    “We’ll see what we see,” said Hood.
    He and Laws followed the investigators up the walk. The porch light was on.
    “If you guys draw some iron we’ve got a better chance of being invited in,” said Strummer.
    “Draw your own iron,” said Laws.
    “Would if I could.”
    “That’s exactly why nobody will give you a gun.”
    “I’m trying to do my job.”
    “Then do it.”
    Strummer banged hard on the front door and waited. Then he banged again.
    A woman’s voice asked who it was and Strummer told her to open the goddamned door.
    She was a tall black, strongly built and angry. Hood guessed upper thirties. She had on white warm-ups and white athletic socks and a white sweatshirt. Her hair was straightened and pulled back from a handsome face. She looked at each one of the men with an unhurried hostility.
    “I don’t have to let you in.”
    “We’ve had reports of drug use and loud music,” said Strummer. “We want to talk to you and your sons.”
    “Come back with a warrant.”
    “We have the cops instead,” said Fernandez. “These are Deputies Laws and Hood. We have no warrant because we don’t wish to arrest you. We simply want to assess your status under Section Eight. We’ll be back with the paper tomorrow, or we can get this interview out of the way now.”
    She shook her head and pushed open the door. The house was warm inside and smelled of fried fish and vinegar and mentholated tobacco. By the time Jacquilla