nine

Hawker knew he had to hurry.

The Panthers had gone to declare war on the Satanás. And the Satanás didn’t strike Hawker as the type to back down from anything.

So there would be a fight. A big fight—probably on neutral ground.

Hawker wanted to make it to the Satanás’ headquarters, break in, bug it, then get out before they returned.

It was ten forty-three P.M. by the green glow of his Seiko.

He drove quickly through the Sunday streets of Hillsboro, headed for the Latin section. He had left his bloodied leather gloves hidden in an alley garbage can. The steering wheel was slick in his hands.

He slowed and swung east on Ybor Avenue.

The customized low-rider cars cavorted in the slow lane. Hawker passed them without looking back.

Teen-agers roamed the streets, carrying their ghetto blasters—huge portable radios. They snapped their fingers as they half-walked, half-danced down their personal corridors of hell.

Hawker wondered what became of such teenagers—knowing what became of them even as he wondered.

Raised too often by unwed mothers who really didn’t give a damn about them, they did poorly in school and they fared even worse in the world’s work force. They grew up as vicious as the vicious slum society that produced them.

Their lives would become a series of easy choices on the road to social slavery: welfare, drugs, crime, and, most probably, the outlaw fellowship of a street gang.

So far Hawker had done battle only with adult members of the Panthers and Satanás. They were full-grown men; men old enough to know right from wrong. With them it was kill or be killed.

As he drove, Hawker wondered about the kids in the gangs—for he had seen kids in both groups, teen-age boys hardly old enough to shave.

If they came at him with murder in their eyes, would he be able to squeeze the trigger?

Hawker wondered. He also wondered if there wasn’t some way he could prevent it.

He drove past the Satanás’ headquarters twice. Lights were on inside, but no one was there. The outline of a hawk’s head, he noticed, was still seared into the wall.

They wouldn’t soon forget.

Hawker decided he had to make use of what little time he had. Instead of parking on the Hillsboro edge of the slums, Hawker pulled into a side street and got out.

He pulled the black watch-cap low over his head and patted the Colt Commander to make sure it was safely holstered beneath his shirt. He slung the canvas pack over his shoulder and moved off through the shadows.

It was eleven ten P.M.

Hawker wondered how long the two gangs would battle.

The door of the Satanás’ headquarters swung open easily. It surprised him—and made him even more cautious.

The main room was brightly lighted. The walls were covered with bold, bright placas—street graffiti, in elaborate script. There were seedy lounge chairs against the walls, a main table, a television, and a telephone.

It looked as if they had left in a hurry. An ashtray still smoldered. Half-full bottles of beer rested on the table and on the cement floor.

Hawker could picture the Panthers idling by in their “war wagons,” calling out a challenge, and then the Satanás racing off in pursuit.

If that was the scenario, they had probably been at it for nearly half an hour.

Hawker would have to hurry. If the whole gang came back at once, he would be trapped. And to be trapped by the Satanás meant death.

Quickly he unscrewed the mouthpiece of the telephone and connected a yellow disc-shaped three-wire listening device. He wiped his prints from the phone and placed it as he had found it.

From the canvas pack he took three more blue bugs and stripped off the adhesive covers. He stuck one under the desk, another under the middle lounge chair, and the third in the grimy, closet-size toilet.

There was a wooden door at the back of the main room. It was padlocked on a rusted hinge. Hawker drew the Commander, then kicked open the door.

The room was dark and musty. Hawker felt along the wall and finally found the light switch.

It was a storeroom. Like the Panthers, the Satanás had their own warehouse of stolen goods. Televisions and stereos were packed almost to the ceiling. There was enough stuff for Hawker to know that the street gang ranged a lot farther than Hillsboro to do their stealing. It looked as though they had been hitting every suburb in L.A.

Hawker made his way through the rows of merchandise. In the far corner of the room was an old steel file cabinet. Hawker jerked the drawers open, one by one.

Nothing.

That’s when he noticed the safe: an old khaki floor safe, as squat and heavy as a miniature bulldozer.

Hawker took a half-handful of the claylike thermate composition. He squeezed it into the seams of the safe, then added the pyrotechnic fuse. He ignited it and turned away.

The thermate burned with white-hot intensity—2,150 degrees Centigrade—for almost a minute.

The armor-plated door jolted beneath its own unsupported weight, then crashed to the floor.

Hawker knelt by the safe and looked inside. The bottom was covered with a small stack of folders. Hawker jammed them into his sack and then began going through the wooden drawers of the safe.

He expected to find money. He didn’t. Instead, he found five one-pound-sized bags of white powder. He sniffed it but didn’t taste it. Only amateurs and TV cops are stupid enough to taste an unidentified substance.

Hawker guessed it to be heroin.

He finished going through the rest of the drawers, then carried the bags of white powder to the toilet. He dumped them in and flushed twice.

He was about to shut off the light when he heard footsteps.

“Hey—who’s in there? That you, Hammer? Hey—Jesús?” It was a squawky, adolescent voice thick with a Spanish accent.

Hawker listened as the footsteps came closer. He hugged the wall, waiting.

When he saw the shadow cover the doorway, he reached out and rammed the intruder against the wall, the Colt Commander jammed against his left ear.

“Shit, mister, don’t kill me; please don’t kill me.”

Hawker realized that the voice came from a slightly built teen-ager. The kid was tall but thin—probably sixteen years old at the most. He had a bright, olive-colored face, and he wore the red bandanna of the Satanás.

The kid seemed to focus on him for the first time. His eyes widened, as if he were seeing his first big league ballplayer. “Hey, you’re him. You’re the gringo … the red-haired one who—” His eyes changed from wonder to terror. “You’re the gringo who pisses fire!”

Hawker released his grip. “I should kill you,” he whispered.

“No, no—please don’t kill me.”

“Then talk. And talk fast.”

“Anything, mister. I’ll tell you anything.”

“Tell me about your gang. Tell me about your leaders. Who are they, what are they like? Where do you fence the stuff you steal? And how many more kids your age are in the gang?”

Hawker didn’t have to prod him again. The kid told him all he wanted to know and more, in a rapid, rattling English.

When he had finished, Hawker backed a step away. The kid seemed to sag with relief. Hawker couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for him.

“What’s your name?”

“My nickname is Caña—it means ‘cane,’ ’cause I’m so thin. My real name is Julio Castanada Balserio.”

“You seem like a nice kid, Julio, so tell me: Why in the hell did you join the Satanás?”

He shrugged. “You fight them. Or you join them.” He shrugged again. “I am not stupid.”

Hawker nodded. “I’m not going to kill you, Julio. But tell your friends that I am looking for them. And tell your leaders that I’ll kill them if they don’t kill me first.”

Hawker went to the front door and glanced both ways. The road was clear. Hawker went out the door.

“Hey—gringo,” the voice of Julio Castanada Balserio called after him. “They say you are the devil. Is it true?”

Hawker turned down the street at an easy trot. His voice echoed behind him.

“It’s true.…”