Chapter 7

Donny looked over at Rose who was fussing with her seatbelt, trying to get it fastened.

When he heard the click of the mechanism catching, he asked, “Are you ready to go?”

“I guess,” Rose answered.

Her father and brother stood beside her window. They were leaning down to watch her and Vincent. It was one of those awkward moments when everyone stands around a car waiting for it to leave. They were there for support and didn’t have much to say. The wishes to have a good trip had already been said.

Donny turned to look at Vincent in the back seat and asked, “Are you ready to go?”

“Yes,” Vincent said.

His voice carried the disgust he felt at having to leave.

“Let’s get out of this town,” Donny said starting up the car.

Rose and Vincent gave a last little wave to their father and brother, while Donny drove away. It was the middle of the morning and they were leaving late. Usually they would have left around sunrise, but Sonny and Dan had a little errand to run using the sedan before they could leave.

When they pulled out of the parking lot, Vincent said, “I hate leaving like this.”

“Me too,” Donny said.

“We could still turn back,” Vincent said.

Rose said, “Dad needs you to take care of our place, while Dan and Joe need Donny to take care of their places. Someone has to do it.”

There were so many things wrong in Los Angeles that it wasn’t funny. The police knew where the suspects in the robbery were and did nothing to arrest them. Hank witnessed the gang dragging some poor woman off to be raped. At least, that’s what it looked like to Hank and Calvin. The woman definitely didn’t want to go off into the alley with the men. Hank had to hold Calvin back so that he wouldn’t blow the surveillance.

Donny said, “They also need us here.”

“You can say that again,” Vincent said. He looked out the window and said, “Do you know that for four nights in a row, Dan called the police to tell them where the guys who shot Sonny were?”

“Yes,” Donny said. “I also know that the police made no attempt to arrest them. I can’t imagine letting someone walk around free when they committed armed robbery and attempted to murder someone. It’s almost like they can’t arrest them or something.”

“They sure aren’t the kinds of cops I grew up knowing,” Vincent said.

There were some who might have considered him naïve, but he had grown up believing in law and order. Watching police, who didn’t enforce the law on the lawless, had really bothered him.

“I don’t know what to think any more,” Donny said.

Rose was of a much more forgiving nature than either man.

She said, “The police are people, too. They’ve got families and they’ve got worries. They might have a good reason to be afraid. For all we know, the gang might go after the policemen like they went after Sonny in the hospital.”

“As long as the gang is around they are going to have that problem. If they take out the gang, then the problem goes away,” Vincent said.

To him it was cut and dried.

“You do realize what you are talking about,” Rose said looking over at her brother with concern.

Shrugging his shoulders, Vincent said, “I know. I’m talking about the wholesale killing of a hundred or so people. You two sat up on that roof and watched them train the next generation of gang members. That gang isn’t going away by growing up. It’s only going to grow larger.”

“You can’t think that way about people,” Rose said with a frown.

Donny said, “I saw how you reacted to watching those girls the other night. They were fifteen and sixteen years old and being treated like property. Those guys cared about them as much as if they were inflatable dolls. You wanted all of the men dead.”

“I know, but I can’t help think that they can still be saved,” Rose said.

Donny shook his head. He said, “They might be saved in twenty years. The problem is that they will have created replacements for their evil selves before they see the light.”

Rose sighed thinking about the future of the children growing up in the area. She said, “I know. I just can’t help thinking that at some time they were small innocent children who could have grown up to be anything.”

“They grew up and chose to be members of a gang. I don’t care whether they blame their parents or society. The fact is that they are now members of a violent gang that views itself as above the law. They are busy forcing kids into the same future,” Vincent said. “They made their choices. At some point in time they need to suffer the consequences.”

“I agree, completely,” Donny said. “It’s best if it just comes to an end all at once.”

Concerned about what was going to happen now that they were gone, Rose asked, “What do you think Dad, Dan, and Joe are going to do?”

“They’ll try to get those men arrested until we get home. After that, they’ll take justice into their own hands,” Vincent answered.

His father had told him privately that he expected things to escalate quickly into a full out war.

“That’s vigilante justice,” Rose said.

“If you tell the police for a week straight where the bad guys are and they do nothing, you know that nothing is ever going to get done. Someone has to do something. What if the next guy isn’t as good or as lucky as Sonny? They’ll be dead, a family will lose a father, and there will be one less good person left to balance the bad,” Donny said.

Vincent said, “Donny’s right.”

Rose said, “I know, but I don’t have to like it.”

The three were quiet for the next two hours of the drive. Rose napped a little in the front seat while Donny drove. Vincent sat in the back looking out the window at the scenery they drove past. When they were halfway to Las Vegas, Donny pulled off the highway. He parked the car and said, “We better check on our passenger.”

Rose woke up when the car had stopped. She said, “I’ll get him some water.”

Donny opened the trunk of the sedan. Pepper was lying there with a gag in his mouth and his hands in restraints. Donny and Rose had spent a little time in a sex shop picking out something that wouldn’t be too uncomfortable for Pepper. They had found a bondage belt with leather wrist cuffs that would keep him helpless without hurting him. He was going to be living like that for the next few days.

Pepper glared up at Donny and made some noises through his gag. He was not happy about his situation. He had been in the store when Sonny had come in. The next thing he knew, he was trussed up and getting put into the trunk of the car.

Donny said, “Now now. Don’t talk that way to me.”

Donny and Vincent lifted Pepper out of the trunk and set him on his feet. Pepper nearly collapsed, but they held him up until he was able to stand on his own.

Donny said, “Vincent, why don’t you take Rose for a little walk? I’ve got to talk with Pepper here and I’ve got a feeling that the language isn’t going to be suitable for a lady’s ears.”

“No problem,” Vincent said with a smile.

Rose handed Donny a bottle of water and said, “I guess we’ll be back in a little while.”

Donny watched the brother and sister walk down the dusty dirt road. Once they were out of earshot, he turned to Pepper and said, “You done f•©ked up, boy.

“Sonny spent a little time in the store while Dan was bundling you up for this here ride. A lot of your customers were surprised to see Sonny at work. The stories they told him were very interesting. It seems that you were telling everyone about how Dan had made threats against the gang and that the gang was going to go after Sonny. You kept talking about how stupid Sonny was to stand up to the gang when they came in to rob the store.”

Pepper made some noises into his gag.

Donny held up a finger to his mouth and said, “Shush! I don’t want to hear a word from you. Your mouth has gotten you into a lot of trouble. You don’t want it to get you into more trouble.

“My uncle Dan wanted me to take you out here and shoot you for what you did to Sonny. Basically, we feel that you sent three men to kill him. You know how Dan feels about people who do things like that to his family. To tell the truth, I am all for the idea of shooting you out here. It sure would be easy to do.”

Donny spun Pepper around slowly while saying, “Take a look around you. This might be the last thing that you ever see. How do you like the view? There’s lots of desert and no people. It’s real peaceful. You could spend the rest of eternity out here.”

Pepper’s eyes had gotten huge. He stared at his captor.

Donny said, “Joe felt that killing you was too easy. He said that you’d suffer fifteen seconds of anticipation and then ‘bam’ and nothing. To tell the truth, I agreed with him, too. We talked about staking you out here and letting you die slowly, but that’s kind of risky for us. I mean ... someone could drive by and rescue you. Where’s the justice in that?”

Donny was silent for a minute letting Pepper think about it for a while. Finally, he said, “Here’s the deal. You can stay here or we can take you home with us where you’re going to work until Sonny gets home.”

Pepper didn’t look very happy with that deal. Of course, the alternative was worse.

Donny said, “Sonny could be home in a couple of days if Dingo and Taco decide to give themselves up or the police actually get around to arresting them. In that case, Sonny will come home and lay low for a year or two before going to a different school to finish college. After all, he hasn’t been charged with a crime and officially he wouldn’t be a fugitive from the law. You’d be home in no time at all.”