The Vigilantes (Badge of Honor 10)

The circle of angry teens instinctively took a couple steps backward.

Two of the older males pulled out knives. And another—Javier recognized him as the driver of the pickup, which he now saw was parked close by—came up to the circle carrying a baseball bat.

Xavier Smith jumped to his feet, but stayed in a crouch as he cradled his torso with his left hand.

They must have fractured or broke some ribs, Javier thought.

Smith waved the pistol at the crowd.

Then one teenage boy in the crowd laughed. He taunted him: “Woohoo! You crazy, Xpress!”

Smith aimed the pistol at him as the boy went on: “You got only five, maybe six bullets in that gun. There’s a whole lot more of us than that!”

“And you ain’t getting no chance to reload,” said another teenage boy.

Smith jerked the pistol to aim it at him.

Then a teenage girl added, “Yeah, you can’t shoot us all!”

He aimed the gun at her.

Then another laughed and said: “You must be snorting too much of your own shit!”

Suddenly, someone in the crowd behind Xavier Smith threw a broken red clay brick, one that had once been part of the old school building’s wall. It struck Smith square in the back of the skull, causing him to crumble to the cracked black asphalt. He dropped the pistol as he went down. The gun bounced twice but did not go off.

As the circle again closed in on Smith, a lone hand reached down and grabbed the gun. The pistol disappeared into the mass of teenagers.

Now they are going in for the kill! Javier Iglesia thought.

“That’s enough!” Javier shouted. “Stop, or you’ll kill him!”

“So?” one teenage male in the crowd shouted in reply.

“Yeah, after all the things this shit has done to people?” another voice added.

The beefy Javier started muscling his way into the circle, grabbing elbows and pulling shoulders. He forced open a path to the center. Just as he reached the limp and bloodied body, Javier saw an elbow swinging toward him. He failed to duck in time, and the elbow caught him in the corner of his right eye.

“Shit!” Javier screamed out in pain, instantly covering his injured eye with his right hand. He swung his left hand over his head. “Goddamn it, everybody just fucking stop! Yvette, get them to stop!”

Paco Ramirez stepped next to Yvette Iglesia and waved his arms at the crowd. “Hey, everybody stop! Who hit Javier?”

It took a moment for the momentum to slow—there were a couple last kicks at Xavier Smith—but finally the crowd stood still. And stared down Javier.

Javier said, “Listen to me! You kill him, you’re going to run from that the rest of your lives—”

“It’d be worth it!” a male teen in the crowd shouted.

Javier went on: “It’s not worth it, is what I’m telling you. You need to let him get arrested, get charged with murdering Principal Bazelon.”

“No cops,” Paco said. “No way.”

The reward! Javier suddenly remembered.

Let that rich guy Fuller turn him in. . . .

He said: “Take Xpress in and get that ten-thousand-dollar reward!”

Yvette looked at her brother, and her face lit up as she said, “That’s right!”