"Lady, you don't know this city. Or South Central. The cops are petrified to come here after dark."
The driver returned to the map.
"Says here we should be on Compton Street," he said doubtfully.
"The sign says Compton," Cheeta pointed out.
"I know," the driver said bleakly. "I feel like I'm in The Twilight Zone."
"If we miss this speech," Cheeta warned, "I promise to cable you to a fire plug and leave you there after sundown."
The driver pulled out into traffic. "We're on the right street. We gotta be."
As he tooled his van further down the street, the driver began feeling light-headed. Gone were the graffiti. The gutters were immaculate. Even the air smelled good. He noticed air-wick dispensers located at strategic points, on window sills and storm drains.
And surreally, he saw two black teenagers scrubbing spray-painted profanity off the side of a church. One wore a blue Crips bandanna on his head, and the other had a bloodred Bloods bandanna stuffed into the back pocket of his jeans.
"I am in The Twilight Zone," he muttered.
The media had already set up cameras and microwave stations in front of the Ebeneezer Tabernacle Church, where Enrique Espiritu Esperanza was scheduled to make a speech. Rival anchors milled about. They were merely local anchors, but to Cheeta Ching all anchors were potential rivals. They were either clawing their way up to her slot, or they were sniping at her as their careers crashed and burned.
Cheeta saw that two of the female reporters were of Asian descent, and her eyes became catlike slits.
"Look at that," she hissed to her trembling cameraman. "Those sluts. Trying to steal my thunder. Why can't they be teachers, or work in restaurants, like the rest of their kind?"
The cameraman said a discreet nothing. He lugged his minicam out of the back of the van, saying, "Looks like we got here too late for a choice position."
"I'll fix that," Cheeta hissed, storming ahead.
Her red nails flashing in the California sun, Cheeta Ching waded into the crowd. She yanked cords from belt battery packs and hit fast-forward buttons where she could.
Instantly, cameramen began to curse and check their equipment for malfunctions.
Cheeta turned and waved to her cameraman to follow. The man dashed through the path Cheeta's sabotage had opened up. He made excellent time. He had been told his predecessor had been demoted to the mail room for being too slow.
By the time they reached the front of the pack, Cheeta had staked out a prominent position. From her handbag, she pulled out a tiny can of hair varnish and began applying it liberally to her crowning glory, turning so that stray bursts got into the eyes of selected rivals. That cleared even more space.
Her timing was perfect. The white Mercedes came around a corner while rival newscasters were still dabbing water into their smarting eyes.
It came slowly. Ahead, behind, and on either side of it was a mass of strutting teenagers. They wore the blue bandannas of the Crips and the red of the Blood, plus the caps of the Chicano gang known as Los Aranas Espana.
Gasps came from the reporters.
"What? What is it?" Cheeta demanded, craning her long neck to see over their heads.
The cameraman was just tall enough to manage this feat.
"It's Esperanza's car," he reported. "And it's surrounded by gang-bangers."
"They've captured him!"
"Looks like they're escorting him, if you want my opinion."
"I don't. Turn that camera on me."
The cameraman obeyed.
Picking up a mike, Cheeta screamed, "I'm broadcasting live from South Central L.A., one of the most crime-ridden areas of the city, where vicious teenage gangsters have surrounded the Hispanic candidate for governor, Enrique Espiritu Esperanza!"
Just then, voices rose: "Esperanza! Esperanza! Esperanza!"
"They're calling for his death!" Cheeta cried.
"I don't think so," the cameraman put in.
"Stay out of this!" Cheeta flared. "Cameramen shouldn't be seen or heard!"
"Esperanza! Esperanza!"
"What are they doing now?"
The cameraman said, "Looks to me like they're sticking their hands into the car windows."
"They're trying to drag him out!" she said, licking her lips. "A political assassination, and we're covering it live!"
"No," the cameraman corrected, "they're accepting cookies."
Cheeta Ching's pencil-thin eyebrows went for each other like vicious vipers. "Cookies?"
"They look like Oreos."
"Let me see," Cheeta said, jumping up and down.
"How?"
"On your knees, buster."
The cameraman obliged. He got down on all fours and grunted manfully as Cheeta Ching impaled his broad back with stiletto heels, designed to make her stand taller than any interviewee under six feet.
Over the bobbing heads of the crowd, Cheeta beheld a remarkable sight.
The white Mercedes coasted up to the church steps. Gang members were walking along either side. Out of a rear window, a brown hand was passing out dark Oreo cookies.
The smiling gang members accepted these eagerly and passed them around. A few shot clenched fists into the air.
"Esperanza's our main man! Esperanza's our main man!"