Bad Night Is Falling Read Online Free

are the world’ at the Rancho to begin with, then this incident had to go down. The tenant organizing has stalled, and the association needs at least another four hundred families or so to even attempt to apply. Plus,” he added, pointing with the end of the fork again, “the city housing people are also getting jammed up and want to see the Rancho conversion go through.”
    â€œAnd if the tenants can’t get it together then the housing project is sold on the open market.” Monk ate some of his chicken fettucini. “A lot of these potential signatures are to be found among the Latino population?” Monk surmised.
    Absalla grinned. “You must study this housing jive in your off days.”
    â€œIt seemed obvious given the changing demographics of the Rancho.”
    The other man made a curt sound that sounded like a semi’s power brakes letting off air. “That and every other part of the city. Even a liberal like you has to admit this city is turning into one big Tijuana.” He gleefully attacked his vegetables once again.
    Monk searched for an offhand comment, but couldn’t find one. Presently he said, “What are your theories about the murders?”
    â€œI think it was those goddamn Domingos Trece. I think some of the Hispanic tenants living around the Cruzados know that, and are either too afraid to say it, or don’t want to.”
    â€œHow do you mean?”
    Absalla leaned forward, using his fork as teacher’s tool a third time. “Before the Ra-Falcons were brought in, the folks at the Rancho were catching hell, caught between the Scalp Hunters and the Domingos. Bricks through your car window to snatch a purse, muggings, dope dealin’ on your front stoop. The security company they had wasn’t doin’ shit.”
    â€œYour turning things around in other housing projects has gotten you a lot of press,” Monk commented. “I guess the tenants’ association at the Rancho had nothing to lose.”
    The security chief got going, waving the end of the fork as he talked. “We take those that many have given up on and give them something to believe in. Now don’t misunderstand me, Monk. I stand foursquare for my people, but I’m also the first one to come down on a brother when he’s doing wrong. The Scalps ain’t no Jehovah’s Witnesses. We came in, and with the aid of the tenants’ association, we put the squash on a lot of that action. At least as the Rancho proper is concerned. See, the Ra-Falcons don’t joke, and people know that.”
    Monk wanted to reel him in before he launched into one of the soliloquies he’d seen him doing at televised press conferences. Absalla would regale, to any who’d listen, his rise from car thief and dope dealer, then redemption as a convert to the Muslim faith. The successes his security services had achieved at several crime-plagued housing projects in various cities had received national press.
    However, his hip-hop Horatio Alger tale usually skipped the part about him being kicked out of the Nation of Islam due to some questions about bookkeeping at the mosque he ran in Philadelphia. His exile had precipitated his move west.
    â€œHow does all that get us to Los Domingos?” Monk abrasively cut in.
    Absalla seemed caught up short, like a pitcher called in just before throwing a no-hitter. “Sure, I was getting to that. Over the last year or so, there’s been some shootings and retaliations between them Central Americans and the Scalps. This despite the fact there’s been an unofficial detente between the two sets for years.”
    â€œI gather the escalation is over who will control the drug traffic in the area,” Monk concluded glumly.
    â€œYeah, mere’s that. But there’s also been threats against black residents who aren’t in any way mixed up with the gangs.” Absalla looked at him knowingly.
    Monk was adrift.