Chapter 3: Skinny Girls Knock Me Out...Or Sometimes...

I exited the front swinging doors, headed for the main sidewalk on the way to my car. I was assailed by light from the huge number of mercury and sodium lamps shining down on the parking lot. Billions of insects swarming around them tried to mate before hundreds of starlings ate them. By contrast there was softer lighting built into the roof overhang and awning over the walkway. It would have been a photographer's nightmare of multicolor lighting.

Leaning against the hitching rails on either side of the walkway were two of the Vietnamese girls from the van that passed me on Lake Avenue. They looked so much better now that there weren't two windows between us. About five foot three each, very slim, and wearing painted on, skin-tight, low-slung, black leather pants, they were both incredibly beautiful. The one on my right wore a long sleeved black silk blouse with a straight hem, worn outside her pants, and the other one wore a white silk blouse made with the same cut but so transparent it was obvious she didn't wear a brassiere.

The resemblance between these girls made it almost certain they were sisters. My pace slowed considerably because I wanted to get a good look at the scenery, and shockingly enough, they both seemed to be very happy to see me. I am no "babe magnet" so my guard was up a bit. After a group of three women passed by, they walked over looking sad. Before I could get three steps out the door, they displayed their perfect teeth with huge smiles.Then, they both seemed to have "not happy" looks on their faces and they stopped me to blurt out their story in small birdlike tones.

"Oh please, please help us, big guy. Our van don't start, and we don't know what to do. Maybe you help us look at van and we party after? Oh please, please help us, big man." One sister looked sad while the other winked, and the come-on was unmistakable. "Sad sister" pointed off to a far corner of the parking lot at the same brown van I had seen before. I noticed there was no place to put pockets on their clothes, so they had dayglow pink cloth lanyards around their necks with tiny wallets clipped to the end. I was worried about underage entrapment, and I already had Mona visiting on Saturday, but, being Mr. Nice Guy, I thought I'd help. In a second, I had grabbed the wallet on the left-hand sister to look at the clear window displaying her driver's license. My right hand came out with the .357 to steady the wallet so I could read it, and the right-hand sister gasped and backed away. The left-hand sister tried to back away too but she bumped into a support pole and had nowhere to go.

"Now look, uh, Minh," (unsure of the pronunciation of the name I had read quickly on the license and then immediately dropped it), "don't worry about the gun; I'm just getting the holster fixed inside. I don't mean to be unhelpful, but I don't want to be accused of harassing underage women out here, so maybe I should get the staff to help." I started to back off and turn for the door when the left-hand sister picked up her wallet and pointed to her license, as the other sister approached with her license up to read also.

"Big man, I nineteen, see, I nineteen", she said happy and excited. Her sister was a bit more calm but just as determined to get my approval by pointing to her drivers license while I tried to read it. "I twenty, see." Anh giggled and turned her head in a coquettish way only to look back at me with a big smile as she spoke. "You help! We go to our place after and party." Her sister was now nodding eagerly, almost wiggling out of her pants. "Okay-y-y-y", I said as I decided to help. Before they could do anything I had backed up quickly to go inside to call the Auto Club. Hell, I never used all the road service visits I paid for each year anyway. Before I had turned completely around, I let them know what I was planning.

"I'm going to call the Auto Club, then I'll go look at your van. I'm no mechanic, but we'll see if it's something simple." They both clapped lightly, and bobbed up and down on their toes, shaking their heads in agreement. "We wait, you hurry; thank you so much, big man. We party." It just had to make you giggle the way those two sisters, Minh and Anh, were so agreeable and enticing with their singsong voices and cutesy behavior. I hoped the driver's licenses weren't fakes, but I also didn't care if they really wanted "to party". I still had stuff to do that evening. But who knew, maybe in three or four years Mona could get tired of me and maybe these girls would remember me. Then, it hit me.

"Oh shit", I whispered quietly out loud, "Man, am I gettin' testosterone stupid or what?" I had completely forgotten to get the tag number on that brown van for AAA. Since I wondered if the girls even knew what the plate number was. I turned back and stood near the thick, glass windows on either side of the doors. Using my 8x monocular I tried to look around the wire in the safety glass to read the tag numbers. Minh had moved down to the end of the walkway on the edge of the parking lot, and Anh was walking way out towards the van and waving. A third Vietnamese girl came out of the driver's side door, and I recognized her from the drive-by earlier. She ran over to Anh, and the two talked excitedly for a few seconds. I had gotten the plate number by then, ZXM 978 Cal. Then, the new girl signaled again to the van by making a come-on arm motion. The new girl pointed at Minh, and I saw Minh turn half right and point towards the entry door with her left hand. The new girl was shaking her head 'yes' and making more pointing gestures as if to say, "Go inside". Then I saw Anh reach under the back of her blouse to pull what looked like a small automatic pistol out of her pants. Checking Minh, I saw she did the same thing but since I was closer I could see it was a very tiny black gun, probably a Beretta .25, with what looked like a small screw-on silencer. She put the pistol under the front of her blouse, inside her pants, and started for the door.

Then, more bad news. As I looked back to see Anh putting her pistol under the front of her blouse, the side door of the van opened. I knew the minute I saw the big baseball cap and the little man's head, that it was the same little, Vietnamese guy I had seen in the get-away car that morning. I couldn't believe they wanted to shoot it out in a gun store. This was totally psycho. Not only wouldn't they get away with it because of all the cameras, they'd likely get killed even trying a crazy stunt like this. But, there was Minh headed for the front door. I counted her steps for a few seconds, swore to myself, and took a position three steps behind the swinging front doors. There was no one going in or out, so I just waited for the door to move ever so slightly towards me then I charged into the door with my shoulder. 1-2-3 WHAM, I hit the door, and then BOOM I felt it make contact with Minh after it had moved about a foot, because she probably had her arm slightly extended to push through the door. Her ninety pounds of totally-surprised mass was no match for the two hundred and twenty pounds of hormonally-charged rhinoceros I had become as I blasted into the door.

I thought I heard a slight crunching noise and a squeak too, but the next sound I heard, as I crouched very low and held open the swinging door, was a bell-like bonging sound as Minh's head whacked into the steel support pole. She was crumpled up in a heap, out cold, and must have flown about eight feet from the door all the way to the pole. Besides having what looked like a second elbow on her very bloody right arm, her face was bloody, too, likely from a broken nose. She resembled the Batman villain, Two-Face, with one side of her face still pretty, and the other side smashed totally out of shape and already swelling up. I was a little bit freaked by the injury to my would-be-attacker, so I whispered to myself, "That is gunna leave a mark, for-r-r sure. My my my what a dental bill this girl is gonna have!" With weirdo thoughts like that, I knew I had to control myself better.

Her gun was on the ground where it fell out of her pants, so I swooped in to hook the trigger guard on her little automatic pistol with the cocked hammer of my .357. As I looked up, I could see Anh about two car rows back in the parking lot, trying to figure out what had just happened, while her two associates ran closer. I stayed down, almost on hands and knees scuttling, crab-style back into the store in a flash. Pausing by the front window for a moment to grab one of the gun store's plastic bags from the trash, I saw Mr. Pinhead trying to unzip his gun rug as he ran. So, how does the prey capture the attacking coyotes? By luring them into a bear trap.

With the silenced pistol in the plastic bag and my .357 stuffed back into my pocket, I walked as quickly as I could to the desk to be let into Tim's workroom again. Tim was ready to chat.

"Hey man, I got your holster fixed better than new, and wait til I tell you the story about this slug." I accepted the holster he offered me, but I wasn't listening and I began talking forcefully.

"Tim, just listen. You want to make five or ten thousand tax-free dollars then do what I tell you as fast as you can, okay?" Tim could see I was flushed and serious, so he became very businesslike and agreeable, and he spoke with no smile whatsoever.

"So, who do I have to kill?"

"Maybe nobody or maybe three people, but who do you know at the BATF and the sheriffs that you can get down here immediately?

"Those bastards, don't tell me you want me to deal with them? Before I bend over and beg for it, I got to know what is goin' on here."

"One of the gang who did those Spring Street killings today is coming into this store, and he wants to shoot me because I'm a witness to his getaway. I don't want him shot to pieces, and there might be no way to arrest him before he gets away, unless you can get BATF agents and sheriffs down here fast. You'll have to lie and bullshit all of them, but it will get you half the reward for information about this murderer and it will make you such a hero with BATF, they will probably let you get away with the next murder they find out you committed. So, what'll it be, a big, messy shootout that kills a bunch of customers, or do you want to be a hero?"

"Let's be heroes, sport; what's the deal?"

"Okay, here's the plan." I took him across his work area to the one-way mirror that looked into the store. I pointed out Mr. Pinhead and Anh. Tim and I went into action. At that moment, he other woman was likely trying to drag Minh over to the van. I took one of Tim's pencils, hooked the barrel of the pistol in the bag, and laid it on the workbench. Very quickly, we worked out the details. As we discussed what had to be done, we watched my pursuers. After one quick trip around the store together, Pinhead had asked a store clerk something; the guy shook his head and pointed at the front entrance doors. Anh went through the doors but kept peeking through the small windows in them to keep watch. Obviously, she was blocking the exit. Pinhead went to one of the men's rooms, then the other, and he started to look a bit mystified. He got Anh to go into each of the ladies, rooms before he reposted her as the exit blocker. When Pinhead started asking the range desk managers something, while making a description using his hands to show my height.

While my pursuers were busy, Tim called the range desk where my ticket and license were. He asked the manager on duty to come into the workshop with my license and to tell the relief manager that, if anyone came asking about someone, he was to be put off until the range manager returned. We pointed out Pinhead to the range manager from Tim's workroom and discussed the size of the gun rug he was carrying. He got his instructions clear from Tim, and then went back to the desk, but he carried a small covered carton holding Minh's automatic pistol, which he put in a cabinet under the desk. Pinhead had already made the rounds once and was now getting antsy. Our prepped range desk manager went over to Pinhead, acted very agreeable, then he made a sign with his hands showing my height. Pinhead was nodding excitedly. They went back to the desk together and the manager pointed to the range. By this time, the third Vietnamese woman had come into the front vestibule. Tim and I could see her head popping into view in the small windows along with Anh's. At first, Pinhead wanted to just go right into the range I had been in, but the manager stopped him and handed him a paper explaining the range rules.

The manager took his time very carefully filling out a range ticket. When he asked for Pinhead's drivers license, the guy set his gun rug down on the counter and reached for his wallet. In an unhurried but immediate manner, the manager unzipped the gun rug, wagged his finger at Pinhead, then pointed at the sign describing "small caliber handguns". What was in the gun rug was obviously a high capacity, .40 cal automatic. Frustrated, Pinhead left his license and range ticket and said, "be right back". He returned to the front of the store, pushed open one of the vestibule doors, and gestured to the new girl standing next to Minh. Even though we didn't understand a word of Vietnamese, we understood perfectly when she looked furtively around, then began reaching under the front of her blouse, as the door swung closed. I checked the driver's license the range manager was holding up to the window behind him, and took down the information about Jimmy Nguyen of Long Beach, California. Momentarily, I remembered Minh's license said her address was in Newport Beach, but who knew if any of this ID was real?

Meanwhile, Tim had been on the telephone to the BATF Agent on duty. Agent Gary Moore, not only knew who Tim was, but also acknowledged he and his fellow agents shopped at The Shooting Gallery all the time. I listened in on another line so Tim and I could have matching stories. First, Tim explained that one of the visitors in The Shooting Gallery, "Jimmy Nguyen", was carrying a pistol with a silencer. Being the good citizen he was, he felt it his civic duty to turn in this foreigner, especially since the foreigner had told him there were plenty more of those silencers in the van they had in the parking lot; then he gave Agent Moore the plate number. Tim further described the two women who were also carrying pistols with silencers. What was worse, he said, was this Asian guy using these silencers in his shooting range, and this just wasn't right.

The agent thanked him profusely and said he would call back on his cell phone when he and a few other agents were nearing arrival at The Shooting Gallery, in three plain cars with roof IDs. No sirens were to sound, no flashers would be used. This was to be a quiet bust, because Tim insisted a nasty shootout could be dangerous for customers, as well as bad for business. The agent, who thought he would get a citation for this arrest, was totally agreeable to anything and everything. The BATF boys would be there in less than ten minutes. Tim and I knew a BATF bust like this wasn't going to hold up Jimmy for more than a few hours, so, we then activated the rest of the plan.

After calling Bernie on his cell phone number to have him contact the LA police switchboard, I hoped they would be ready to act when a call came through from the LA County Sheriff. Bernie was to call Lieutenant Rocker screaming that Tim and I had identified one of the gang who had done the killings that morning. Then, when Bernie confirmed to me that John Doe warrants had been issued for the four "known" gang members, Tim and I high-fived, because we knew we had hit the jackpot. Just in case Rocker hadn't seen the digiphotos Mona had sent him, Bernie was going to get a set of the composites and photo printouts on his way to the County Sheriffs' helicopter station in Glendale. He would ask Rocker to meet him there. Bernie was to warn Rocker that the murder suspect and his friends had pistols with silencers, and there might be three BATF cars in the parking lot with roof ID lettering. With Bernie out of the way Tim and I continued.

We wanted the Sheriffs in on this plot, because their helicopters could get to The Shooting Gallery in minutes. In addition, Lieutenant Rocker could bluster all he wanted, but he had no jurisdiction in Altadena because he was an LA city cop. The real law in the sticks was the LA County Sheriffs Department. They filled in all the policing gaps in the LA Basin and San Fernando Valley's patchwork quilt of little burgs which dotted the area. Tim had a good story for them. He said, a customer had complained that a guy with a bunch of silencers was acting threatening. This "guy" had brown van with plate number Cal ZXM 978 in the far Southwest corner of The Shooting Gallery's parking lot. He and his pals had thrown an unconscious woman's body into the back of the van. He had also been identified as one of the gang members involved in the shooting in LA that morning. The woman's life might be in danger, because, the murder suspect was heavily armed. The arsenal that he and his pals brandished included various caliber pistols with silencers. Knowing Tim, Sergeant Longo took all of this very seriously. He agreed Tim had to call the BATF about the silenced weapons, and the Sheriff's men would watch out for them. Longo suggested what Tim and I had hoped. There would be at least three helicopters coming, and one of them would block the entry road within a few minutes.

Tim and I had made answering machine tape recordings of the calls to the BATF and the Sheriff. We wanted back up material when we claimed the reward. The time was conveniently worked into each conversation. This made it a lock that we could be at the front of the line when we applied for the reward. I was always referred to as "this other guy", or "one of the witnesses who was at the scene of the Spring Street shootings", or, best, of all "a photographer who happened to have photographed the four murder suspects in their getaway car that morning". It was added that said photos had been sent to Lieutenant Rocker LAPD, and could the Sheriffs Department please contact him so he can bring these photos? Bernie was making sure Rocker would get only my name as the person identifying the murder suspect. The more confusion the better.

Jimmy Nguyen was in a big hurry to return to the range desk. Anh followed him. He had the big .40 cal sticking out of his pants pocket as he came back, with his hand inside the gun rug, twisting and twisting. When he stood at the desk, he continued to provide information for the range application form. The manager at the desk was playing this drama to the hilt. If Jimmy didn't have the required hearing protection on the range the manager would provide him with some, but everything took lots and lots of time, as if Jimmy were stuck in molasses. Eventually, Jimmy pulled his hand and a nice shiny Bryco .380 out of the gun case, then he handed the rug to Anh. She stuck her hand briefly into the gun rug, then put something into her pants under her blouse. The manager looked briefly at Jimmy and approved the gun as Anh handed Jimmy the empty gun rug. Then, the manager even tried to sell Jimmy a club membership while he waited for the next set of firing commands to cycle through on the range. Just before he allowed Jimmy to enter the range, the manager insisted the big pistol and its gun rug would have to stay at the desk until Jimmy came out of the range. Jimmy took the .40cal out of his pocket and put it into the gun rug. To bait the trap, the manager told Jimmy the guy he was looking for hadn't left because his shooting ticket was still there. Eventually the range backlights went dark, and the manager let Jimmy into the range. Anh was already back at the vestibule doors by then.

Tim and I had checked to make sure there would be no way to mistake me for any of the women or men in business suits on the range. We saw the range manager use his body to hide his next movements from the security cameras, as he gently put the small, silenced automatic into Jimmy's gun rug, using a pencil in the barrel to move it. He also took my range ticket and my pass off the range desk, and put them into the gun transfer chute to the workroom where I waited for them. On the range, Jimmy checked his pistol to be sure it was loaded. Then he went slowly down the line of shooters to check each person. Tim and I watched that range for a few minutes on the security cameras.

By then Tim had called the facility manager to get him over to the main building, because there was a major incident about to happen. He briefly mentioned the calls to the various law enforcement agencies, "'cause you never know what psychos like this could do". Momentarily the manager arrived from the trap range, and Tim suggested that, since there was going to be a lot of publicity for the range, and there could a lot of credit coming to The Shooting Gallery, he wanted to share the glory with the manager, Hal. Without much time to do anything but assist the soon-to-arrive police, Hal was agreeable, although he was on his cell phone calling the Gallery's owner as Tim and I showed him the "bad guys" involved. He agreed when the police helicopters became imminent that, "what the hell, this foreigner, Jimmy, wasn't even a club member, but he could definitely give the place a bad reputation, so why not throw him to the cops". But Hal insisted that, next time, he "really needed more notice from Tim before anybody did anything like call the police". Tim kept nodding in total agreement as well as he knew how, although he did feign a sneeze a few times to hide some giggles.

The BATF agents called back when they were on the entry road to The Shooting Gallery. There would be agents in the parking lot within three minutes. Tim thanked the agent and mentioned there was an injured woman in a van in the Northwest corner of the parking lot, and there was a security tape showing one member of the gang loading her unconscious body into the van. Tim said this was the same gang the BATF was coming to get. He asked the agents to watch out for the Med-Evac and Sheriffs' helicopters coming to take the woman to the hospital. Again, the agent said his men would be very careful. The agent thanked Hal for the help The Shooting Gallery was contributing, and he wanted Hal to know that the BATF would always remember this assistance. Hal was positively beaming.

Jimmy was about halfway down the shooting range stations when Tim, Hal, and I heard the sound of at least two helicopters overhead. Of course, since Jimmy was on the range, there was no way he could hear anything with the shooting and his ear protection. Anh heard those choppers too, and she rushed through the vestibule doors towards the range desk. Through the swinging vestibule doors, Tim and I could see her comrade ramming through the front doors, looking into the parking lot at the furious dust storm the chopper landing created. A few store customers also noticed the helicopter noise. Anh began to protest that she needed to contact Jimmy on the range. The manager was firm and wouldn't open the gate to the range doors no matter what Anh said. Finally, Anh's buddy came back through the vestibule doors, into the store, with a really sick look on her face. When Anh turned around in frustration during the argument with the range manager, she saw her gang partner pointing at her own stomach and twitching her head hard to one side. Anh was obviously still packing, but she didn't get the chance to move very far.

While Hal made the announcement on the store PA system for everyone to stay calm, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents came walking through the front doors, holding their badges up in the air for everyone to see. Only two agents had guns drawn, and they took up positions at the vestibule doors preventing anyone from exiting. It was a funny sight to see Hal and Agent Moore both talking to each other on their cell phones until they got close enough to talk directly to each other. Hal did a great job keeping things calm when he walked up, started shaking the lead agent's hand, then asking the customers to please take seats for a few minutes. All the ranges, except Jimmy's, were shut down, and a PA system announcement was made asking everyone to wait for a while before firing again. Hal had one of the range managers take an agent into the security office where Tim and I briefly introduced ourselves. We pointed out Anh while she was on camera pulling the silenced pistol and second silencer from inside the front of her pants, cleaning her prints off, then putting the gun and silencer into a handy gun rug hanging on a display rack. Tim and I went back to the workroom and watched as Jimmy was bent over very low, looking into every conceivable place on the range where I might be hiding.

The Sheriffs Department officers were coming in quietly, showing their badges. One BATF agent pressed his earphone to his ear, then walked right over to the gun rug where Anh had stashed her pistol, while two others came over to Anh and her friend and read them their rights before cuffing both of them. Finally, one BATF agent, wearing a non-standard, red and black checkered coat over his bulletproof vest, and a sheriff, in a cowboy outfit covering the same body armor, entered Jimmy's range. They took positions on either side of Jimmy as the back lights came on. Even though Jimmy twitched and quivered for almost a minute, he eventually let one of the officers take the pistol out of his hand. Then, they read him his rights. Tim and I rushed into the security office to watch the spectacle unfolding on all fourteen wide screen security monitors.

With Jimmy's hands cuffed behind him, they all exited the range. The officers walked Jimmy over to the range desk and asked him if the driver's license on the range ticket was his. Once he said yes, he started to yell that everything was legal and he was innocent. Then, the agent asked if the gun rug and its content also belonged to Jimmy. He agreed again and said, in his back pocket in his wallet, he had a permit to carry the .40 cal pistol in the gun rug. When the agent unzipped the gun rug and spread it open, Jimmy screamed something in Vietnamese which could have been translated as "Intercourse", because there was Minh's little, silenced automatic in with Jimmy's big pistol.

As Jimmy was led over towards Anh and the other Vietnamese woman, all three set up a chorus about how they must have lawyers, and how they knew their rights. Tim and I were giggling because, in this situation, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court might not know what someone had for rights. Jimmy and his little gang would be getting booked on so many crimes, in so many jurisdictions, that the remanding and bail hearings alone would likely take over a week. Using Jimmy's keys and the registration found in his wallet, about a dozen various law enforcement officers were taking everything out of Jimmy's van, including the still unconscious Minh and a wide variety of pistols, rifle, silencers, tazers and stun weapons. Medics were trying to revive Minh and were treating her bloody arm and face. We watched on the security cameras as an LAPD helicopter arrived and Lieutenant Rocker got out with a large sheaf of papers in his hand. The fun was just beginning. Then, I had a different concern. How the hell was I going to get away from there so I could get some sleep that night without Rocker dragging my tired ass down to the station? He had my photos; why should be able to hassle me, too?

Tim had Hal come to the rescue. By now, Hal and the BATF Agent-in-Charge Moore were really buddying up to each other. Tim called Hal and asked if he could drive a car over to the truck gate used for warehouse deliveries. Hal asked Agent Moore if one of the employees could move a car to the back lot area. Agent Moore agreed and offered to help. Tim went outside where Hal and Agent Moore stood for a formal introduction. The vigorous handshake Agent Moore gave Tim told the story best. As Agent Moore and Hal directed traffic, Tim drove my car and used Hal's key to open the lock on the gate to the service road behind the main building. I watched as Lieutenant Rocker kept trying to get someone to pay attention to him, but all the busy agents just kept pointing at someone else to whom he could tell his story. Eventually, Tim walked back to the front of the building to chat with Hal and Agent Moore just before Lieutenant Rocker came up with his badge and pointed at the photos and warrants in his hand. I wasn't sticking around to watch any more, but I felt sure Tim would cover for me. The pizza box with the vest was under my arm. Tim agreed, until all the psychos stopped trying to shoot me, I might be a better test subject than Crash. As I got into my car and the key range manager opened the gate for me, I waived and thanked him mightily. It was only 7:30 pm, but I felt like it was midnight. Would this day never end? As I drove away, down a back road which dumped out through an automatic gate onto Lake Avenue, it was just me under the stars, heading home, somewhere.

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