Free Slipping Into Darkness by Maxine Thompson

Venita’s, I decided to go and sniff around before I went to the doctor in Westwood.
    I called and scheduled the so-called quack doctor’s appointment for later that afternoon, but I wanted to check out a few leads. First, I planned to go to the jungle. I decided to contact F-Loc since he was an OG who kept his ear to the pulse of the streets.
    It was noon by the time I drove up Crenshaw Boulevard, heading for the jungle, which was off Martin Luther King Boulevard. Driving along, I took in the L.A. sights and sounds. The feel of an open African market was palpable. Black Muslim brothers from the Nation of Islam sold the Final Call magazine and the famous bean pies. Vendors had set up on street corners selling incense, cheap paintings, imitation Oriental rugs, and various goods. A few local authors were even selling their books from stands they set up on the corner. I couldn’t knock an honest hustle though.
    This was a neutral territory. First, you have to understand something. L.A. has an invisible grid covered with gangs. You have to know the streets, and the terrain, to know which territory you’re in or you could wind up in a world of trouble. Just one street in the wrong direction could mean your life. Thank goodness, I knew Bloods’ territory, Crips’ territory, and the different Mexican gang areas. You even had Asian gangs to contend with in L.A. Many of the foreign gangs started out as protection groups because they were immigrants, but they grew into gangs and cartels once the drug trade became involved. Each gang had its own loyalties, its own turfs to protect. Most of the turfs were to be protected for money and for commerce.
    Then you had the other 95 percent of working stiffs, people who, like me, lived out their lives in relative peace until a member of their family was killed or got on crack. This is how I became a PI in the first place: when Trayvon was murdered.
    Thank goodness, I knew the invisible map of L.A. like the lines in the palms of my hands. I learned some of the gang territory from growing up in it, some more of it as an LAPD officer; then, later, I learned the rest as a private investigator of the hood.
    F-Loc had unofficially become part of my street team, my off-the-record CI–confidential informant. Each person was like his own little CIA—central intelligence for the streets.
    I gazed up at the pigeons squawking and filling the sky as I entered the jungle–the place in L.A. they say has only one way in, and one way out. The pigeons or tumblers were being flipped as an announcement of my presence. Although I hadn’t been a policewoman in a couple of years now, the denizens still considered me “one time.” This was a game but also an announcement of a potential legal arrival.
    The smell of the large Dumpsters wafted in the air. Welcome to the jungle.
    I called F-Loc on his private cell phone number as I sat outside his gated apartment building. “Loc.”
    â€œWhat it be?”
    â€œZ, here. I need your help again. I’m out front.”
    â€œLet me come down.”
    Unlike in the past when he was always accompanied by his muscle, F-Loc came down alone. He had learned to trust me over the past two years and never brought his boys with him. He used to bring his bodyguards and frisk me for a wire. He’d learn that I would use information, but his name never got put up in the mix. He trusted that I could get jobs done.
    Once he came down, he plopped down in the car seat next to me. I got straight to the point. “My brother’s been kidnapped. You know anything about this?”
    â€œYeah, the streets is buzzin’. Sorry to hear about Mayhem. You know he was always a stand-up dude.”
    I panicked. “Why are you talking about him in the past tense? Have you heard anything? Is he still alive?”
    â€œNo, I don’t know. You know these Mexican cartels are beginning to kidnap and take over territory. They