Earth Angels

EARTH ANGELS

GERALD PETIEVICH

First published in 1991 by Signet, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc.

Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street

New York. New York 10014, USA

All Rights Reserved

Copyright 1989, 2001 by Gerald Petievich

This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means without written permission

****

For Detective John Petievich:

Recipient of the Los Angeles Police Department

Star of Valor for his actions in a 1981 shoot out with gang members.

****

"When the Lord your God brings you into the land which you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than yourselves, and when the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them; then you must utterly destroy them; you shall make no covenant with them and show them no mercy...But thus shall you deal with them; you shall break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire."

DEUTERONOMY 7:1 6

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LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT

Levester C. Burrell

Chief of Police

TO: Chief of Police Levester C. Burrell

PROM: Captain Robert A. Harger, Central Bureau Detectives

SUBJECT: New specialized gang unit

1. This year's increase in gang murders-201 compared to 173 at this time last year-has made me rethink some of this bureau's organizational structure. With the increase in gang activity all over Los Angeles, it has become evident to me that the department would be well served by a new specialized unit targeted specifically against the perpetrators of the most heinous gang murders, particularly those receiving the heaviest media coverage. The sheer volume of gang homicides has this bureau bogged down, and I'm afraid we're losing opportunities to destroy the infrastructure of the most violent gangs because our homicide detectives are simply overworked.

2. I would appreciate thirty minutes or so of your time to discuss the details of a plan I have outlined for a new specialized unit that would work separate from, but under, the organizational aegis of, the C.R.A.S.H. (Community Resources Against Street Hoodlums) detail now operating under my command. This unit would focus on the hard-core East Los Angeles street gangs that have been active in L.A. for more than fifty years. If this concentrated enforcement effort is successful against these, the most impenetrable of street gangs, we could later form similar units to fight the black gangs in the south end of town. Because the gang issue has been all over the newspapers so much recently, I’m sure you’d have no problem selling this idea to the police commission. And with the election coming shortly, I predict the mayor would jump on the idea like a hobo on a hot dog.

(Signed by)

Robert A. Harger

Captain, Central Bureau Detectives

AN EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EMPLOYER

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LOS ANGELES POLICE DEPARTMENT

Levester C. Burrell

Chief of Police

TO: Captain Robert A. Harger, Central Bureau Detectives

FROM: Chief of Police Levester C. Burrell

SUBJECT: New specialized gang unit

New gang unit authorized from first day of next deployment period. Personnel: One detective sergeant + three detectives.

(Signed by)

Levester C. Burrell Chief of Police

AN EOUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY AFFIRMATIVE ACTION EMPLOYER

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SPECIAL ORDER # 57543 (FROM CRASH SPECIAL UNIT) DEPLOYMENT PERIOD 023

ATTN: CAPTAIN HOLLENBECK DIVISION, CHIEF OF DETECTIVES, ALL CRASH SUPERVISORS, PAYROLL

SUBJECT: CRASH SPECIAL UNIT

AS OF THIS DATE THE FOLLOWING OFFICERS WILL BE TRANSFERRED TO NEWLY FORMED CRASH SPECIAL UNIT:

1.STEPANOVICH, JOSE L., DET. SGT., SER. # 613845 (SUPERVISOR)

2.FORDYCE, TIMOTHY C., DET.,SER. # 423968

3.ARREDONDO, RAUL A., DET.,SER. # 257491

4.BLACK, CYRUS R., DET.,SER. # 992318

UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE, UNIT SUPERVISOR WILL REPORT TO CAPTAIN HARGER, CENTRAL BUREAU DETECTIVES, FOR CASE ASSIGNMENT AND CONTROL.

****

ONE

Twenty three year old Primitivo Estrada stood alone at the portaled entrance to the Our Lady Queen of Angels Church. Killing time, he rocked back and forth on the heels of his highly polished Stacey Adams shoes. Time was something he'd had plenty of ever since he'd been kicked out of high school in his sophomore year for having a gun in his locker. He had never held a job of any kind. Everyone called him Payaso.

Because of the August heat, the ruffled blue shirt and mothballed tuxedo jacket he'd rented for the wedding were soaked through. Above him, the sanctuary's multifoil windows reflected the surrounding jumble of apartment buildings, prewar bungalows, gas stations, taco stands, junkyards, and graffiti adorned public housing projects that was East Los Angeles.

Payaso moved closer to the sanctuary door and opened it a few inches. Inside, it was standing room only. Father Mendoza, who the other
vatos
believed was a fag because he lisped, stood at the altar chanting religious bullshit. Kneeling in front of him were Smokey Salazar, vice president of the White Fence gang, and his cross eyed bride Linda Medrano, whose gang nickname was Parrot. Careful not to make noise, Payaso eased the door closed again.

A loyal White Fence homeboy, Payaso had earned the rank of
veterano
, having served time in jail and reached his twenty-second birthday without being killed by an opposing gang.

Payaso had volunteered to stay outside and perform lookout duty. He figured he might as well because he knew he always cracked up in church. He'd kneel like everybody else and it would be all silent and everyone would like be praying. Then for no apparent reason he would just get the urge to laugh like hell. It was weird. It would start with a giggle and it wouldn't stop. He would like really crack fucking up during any church service. He used to think he was the only person in history with this inexplicable urge until he saw a movie at the Floral Drive in Theater called
College Vacation
. In a scene he remembered vividly, all these college dudes laughed like motherfuckers during a church service and pissed off the minister. Payaso identified with this behavior and went back to see the movie four times.

Rocking back and forth, Payaso surveyed the line of customized lowriders parked at the curb in front of the church. The cars were all washed, polished, and decorated with paper flowers and streamers. At the conclusion of the church service the White Fence wedding party would be transported in fine style to the Knights of Columbus Hall on Soto Street for the reception.

Keeping his eyes on the street, Payaso lit a Marlboro. He took a long drag and gently blew a perfect smoke ring at the church door. He turned, aimed another ring at the wood framed house across the street, and for good measure, one more at the dingy El Cholo taco stand cater-corner from the church.

For no particular reason, he thought of his mama, a fiery-eyed woman who showed her love by lying to the cops when they came to their tiny one bedroom house on Ortega Street looking for him. At age thirteen, when he'd been a White Fence peewee, he'd learned his father really wasn't in the Army like Mama told him, that Madre, with her long raven black hair and her White Fence teardrop tattoo was full of shit. His father had most likely been one of the beer-bellied
cabrons
from the meat packing plant on Los Angeles Street she invariably brought home on Saturday nights.

He recalled years of being carted next door with his brothers and sisters to Mrs. Valladolid's place to spend the night huddled together on her rancid living room rug. On Sundays Mama always served menudo and treated the kids extra nice. Payaso eventually figured this was to assuage her guilt for getting laid.

His first trip to the L.A County Juvenile Hall had been when he was twelve years old. He and some other peewees had been dropping bricks onto cars from the Soto Street freeway overpass. When the cops came, he and the others ran. He took a shortcut through a backyard, but his T-shirt got caught on the edge of a chain link fence. A motor cop, whom he remembered as being ten feet tall, laughed when he found him, called him greaseball, and slapped him hard enough to make him see stars.

At Juvenile Hall, a bearded gringo counselor tried to reach Mama by telephone but, as luck would have it, it was Saturday night and she was off somewhere getting a piece of ass. So Payaso was placed in a padded isolation cell with a small window on the door and remained the night, intermittently jacking off to kill time. At about noon the next day Mama picked him up. Subsequently, he made six other trips to Juvie Hall and served both a thirty-day and a ninety-day sentence at the Fred C. Nelles Juvenile Detention Center in Whittier.

At eighteen, he was convicted of car theft and sentenced to a year in the Los Angeles county jail. He received a sentence reduction due to jail overcrowding and, with time off for good behavior, served three months and twenty-one days. While he was there, he used the guile he'd developed at Nelles and managed to negotiate a job in the jail kitchen.

Most of the mess duty was scrubbing institutionalized pots and pans and cleaning out the kitchen's overflowing grease pit, but the position had distinct benefits. He was able to steal spoons and other utensils easily whittled into shanks for other White Fence homeboys serving time. He even provided weapons to prisoners in other cellblocks in exchange for Marlboros. He always checked out these buyers, though, to make sure he wasn't selling to a member or associate of a rival gang, who'd use one of Payaso's sharpened forks or spoons against him.

Another benefit of mess duty was that he was able to spit or urinate into the food served to the deputy sheriffs on the jail staff. Everyone knew the deputies would beat him to death if they ever found out, so this gained him respect from his comrades and moved him several notches higher in White Fence gang hierarchy.

Bored, Payaso wandered out of the shade to his Chevrolet. Parked fourth in line behind Smokey's, the car was a highly lacquered blue and had been lowered to within four inches of the street. Its seats were covered with pleated leather upholstery referred to in East L.A. custom car circles as "tuck and roll." He reached through the window opening, unlocked the glove compartment, and took out a $1.98 spray can of Four Star paint and a cotton athletic sock. He looked about furtively to make sure no one was watching, then dropped down on his haunches to hide from passing cars. Holding the sock over the spray can nozzle, he pressed the trigger firmly and allowed the spray can to hiss a healthy amount of gold paint into the sock. He set the paint can down on the sidewalk and, using both hands, cupped the sock like an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth, and took deep breaths.

Toluene induced lightheadedness spread from his nasal passage to forehead, to his spine and the very center of his brain. Dope TV came on and his mind flipped through the channels. For brief, flashing moments he was relaxing comfortably in a dentist's chair with his mouth open wide, standing on the corner of Brooklyn and Soto streets watching the Cinco de Mayo parade, sitting anxiously in the principal's office at Castelar Elementary School waiting to get spanked with a thick wooden paddle, cavorting about while dressed as a monkey on Halloween, screaming while holding tight to the restraining bar in a roller coaster at the Magic Mountain amusement park.