Ray Depente found a garden hose, turned it on, and sprayed it on the fire. It didn't put out the fire, but it cooled it some.

Someone inside said, "Let us out. Please." I looked at Ray. He nodded. He and Joe took up positions at the corners of the house.

"One at a time. Hands on your heads." "Man, I'll put my hands up my ass you let me out of here."

I unshipped the pipes, pulled open the door, and two men and two women stumbled out, jostling each other to get away from the smoke and the fire. Pike pushed them down and used the plastic restraints. Neither of the two guys was Akeem D'Muere.

Ray Depente yelled, "You wanna cook, that's up to you."

No one answered.

Ray looked at me and I held up three fingers and he nodded. Akeem, plus two others. They'd be hard cases, and they would've kept their guns. We could hear coughing.

Pike said, "Maybe they doubt our sincerity."

Pike stayed with Cool T to watch the others, and Ray Depente and I went in after Akeem. We went in low and fast, pushing through the oily smoke, and found them in a short hall between the kitchen and a back bedroom. Akeem D'Muere was with a dopey-looking guy with sleepy eyes and another guy who looked like he could have played defensive line for the Raiders. They were coughing and rubbing at their eyes. They heard us, but the smoke was too thick for them to see us. The big guy shouted, "They're inside," and started swinging wild. He didn't see anything, he was just swinging, and his first two punches hit the wall. I stepped outside and caught the joint of his left knee with a hard snap kick. The knee went and the big man made a gasping sound and fell. I followed him down and took his gun.

The dopey guy yelled, "I see the muthuhfuckuhs," and started firing a Smith.40 somewhere up toward geosynchronous orbit. Akeem D'Muere pushed the dopey guy at us and ran toward the front of the house. Ray Depente slapped the dopey guy's.40 to the outside, then hit him three fast times, twice in the chest and once in the neck, and the dopey guy fell.

Ray said, "Take his gun." Ray was already after Akeem.

I grabbed the dopey guy's gun, then used the plastic restraints as quickly as I could. I wanted to get to Akeem D'Muere before Ray got to him, but I didn't make it. Two shots came from the living room, then a third, and I got there just as Ray Depente came up under D'Muere's gun, twisted it free just as he had taught a thousand guys down at Camp Pendleton, then threw Akeem D'Muere through the open front door out into the yard. I went after them.

Akeem D'Muere was standing sort of bent to the side in the front yard, rubbing at his eyes and spitting to try to clear the smoke from his lungs. Ray Depente went down off the little porch, peeled away his shoulder sling, and said, "Look at me, boy." Ray didn't wait for him to look. Ray spun once and kicked Akeem D'Muere on the side of the head, knocking him to the ground.

I said, "Ray."

Up and down the block, doors opened and people came out onto porches and into yards. Pike and Cool T had the Eight-Deuce Gangster Boys on the ground and out of the play.

Ray Depente went to Akeem and dragged him to his feet. Ray was a couple of inches taller, but thinner, so they probably weighed close to the same. When Ray was lifting him, Akeem tried to grab and bite, but Ray dug his thumbs into Akeem D'Muere's eyes. D'Muere screamed and stumbled back. Ray stood and looked at him and there was something hard and remote in his eyes. Ray opened his hands. "Hit me. Let's see what you got."

Akeem D'Muere launched a long right hand that caught Ray high on the cheek and made him step back, but when he tried to follow with a left, Ray blocked it to the inside and drove a round kick into the side of D'Muere's head. D'Muere stumbled sideways, and Ray reversed and kicked him from the opposite side, and this time D'Muere fell. I put a hand on Ray's shoulder. "That's enough, Ray."

Ray slapped away my hand. "Stand away from me now."

"Ray, you're going to kill him." Akeem D'Muere struggled up to his knees.

Ray said, "And wouldn't that be a shame." He kicked Akeem D'Muere in the chest and knocked him backwards.

I looked at Pike, but Pike was impassive behind the dark glasses.

Ray walked around behind D'Muere, lifted him by the hair, and said, "You meet James Edward, you tell'm I said hi." He spun again, and kicked, and Akeem D'Muere snapped over into the ground.

I took out the Dan Wesson. "Ray."

"You wanna shoot me for a piece of garbage like this, go ahead."

He picked D'Muere up again. D'Muere's mouth and nose and ears were bleeding, and most of his teeth were gone. Ray held him up until D'Muere could stand on his own, then Ray punched him four fast times, twice in the solar plexus and twice in the face. Akeem D'Muere fell like a bag of wet laundry. One of the Gangster Girls screamed, "You're gonna kill'm."

Ray said, "You think?"

I aimed the Dan Wesson. "I don't have to kill you, Ray. I can do your knee. Be hard to teach after that."

Ray nodded. "You're right. But think of my memories." He lifted D'Muere's head by the hair, aimed, and punched him two hard times behind the ear. Then he let the head drop.

"Damn it, Ray." I cocked the Dan Wesson.

Pike said, "He means it, Ray."

"I know. So do I."

He reached down and lifted Akeem D'Muere once more.

As he brought D'Muere up, a dark blue Buick stopped in the street by the LeBaron and Ida Leigh Washington got out. She stood in the street, motionless for a time, and then she moved toward us. She was still wearing the clothes that she had worn to her son's funeral. Black.

Ray Depente saw her and let Akeem D'Muere fall to the ground. He said, "You shouldn't be here, Ida Leigh."

She stopped about ten feet from him and looked at the smoldering house, and then at the thugs on the ground with their hands bound, and then at me and Joe. She said, "I wanted to see where he lived. Is that the one killed my son?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Somewhere far off, a siren sounded. On the way here, no doubt.

Ida Leigh Washington stepped closer and looked down at D'Muere. His face was a mask of blood, but she did not flinch when she saw it. She put a hand on Ray's forearm and said, "What could turn a boy into an animal like this?"

Ray said, "I don't know, Ida Leigh."

She raised her eyes from D'Muere up to Ray. "This man took my last son. No one could claim my hurt, or my anger. No one could have a greater claim on this one's life." Her voice was tight and fierce. She patted Ray's arm. "There's been enough killing down here. We have to find a way to live without the killing."

Ray Depente didn't move for a minute. Ida Leigh Washington kept her eyes on him. Ray stepped back. He turned away from Akeem D'Muere, and as the police cars began to arrive he helped Mrs. Ida Leigh Washington back to her car.

Up and down the street, the people on the porches and in the windows and in the yards began to applaud. It would've been nice to think that they were applauding Ida Leigh Washington, but they weren't. At least I don't think they were. That far away, those people couldn't have heard one woman's softly spoken words, could they?

The cops got out of their cars and looked around and didn't know what to make of it. A Hispanic cop with a butch cut looked at Pike and me and said, "Weren't you guys at the Seventy-seventh last night?"

"Yeah. We'll probably be there again tonight, too."

He didn't know what to make of that, either.