Wingin' It

We head south on South N Street, single file. We're dressed alike, all in some variation of the traditional Angels ensemble — black boots, black cargo pants with handcuffs on the belt loops (for making citizen's arrests), flashlights in the back pockets, white T-shirts with the angel emblem — an eye inside a red, winged triangle — on the front. Atop our heads are the signature red berets, puffed up on the left and sloping down over the right ear. Many of the Angels adorn their berets with various war pins and buttons that say things like "I Heart Guardian Angels" or "Just Say No."

Right off the bat, Siew points out a broken window at a vacant house. Probably a drug house, he says. That's the most suspicious thing we encounter. The runner-up is a woman walking her cat.

An ice cream truck makes the rounds as we jump in our cars and head out to Lantana Cascades, a trailer-park community in Lantana. There, we find just one example of graffiti. In red letters, someone has scrawled "Southside 13" on the side of an empty trailer. Siew snaps a picture on his cell phone, and we march on.

Although we do not meet any drug dealers or gangbangers, Siew assures us that our presence here has been noted. Sooner than we think, we will see action, he says.

You never know when the Razz family — which has reportedly "declared war" on the Angels and threatened the life of Curtis Sliwa — will strike.

The Razz family home on South C Terrace is fenced in with a "No Trespassing" sign at the entrance. It's meant to keep everybody out: the neighborhood's drug dealers; the police who seem to have it in for the family; and now, the Guardian Angels.

Inside the rusting fence, a boy scampers clumsily around the yard, his braids flying in every direction. Another speeds in circles on a motorized tricycle. As I approach the house, a boisterous woman in gold hoop earrings and tight, all-brown clothing rushes out and playfully scolds them.

This is the children's grandmother, Louise Razz, unofficial matriarch of the Razz family who was born in Lake Worth 39 years ago. Her father, Charlie Razz, had 17 children and recently retired after 25 years as a crane operator for the City of Lake Worth. Some of Charlie's children, including Louise, have had problems with drugs and the law. Some of their children have also had problems.

Five Razzes are incarcerated at the moment, Louise Razz explains at the dining-room table as chicken simmers in the kitchen. That includes two nephews, who were arrested on drug charges last year. But for the most part, the family members have cleaned up their act, she says. Gone to school. Gotten jobs. Played college basketball. Lord knows, Louise hasn't touched drugs in 20 years. She's seen what drugs do to people. The delinquent members of her family are either dead or locked up.

Members were appalled to find themselves referred to in the Palm Beach Post last month as a "drug gang" accused of declaring war on the Angels and threatening Curtis Sliwa. Before the story, Louise Razz insists, they had never even heard of Curtis Sliwa.

Peaches Razz, Louise's 26-year-old daughter and the mother of the children in the yard, reads the paper every morning at the leasing company where she works as a receptionist. She was the first to see the story.

"I just wanted to cry," she says, remembering her first reaction and shaking her head. Immediately, she called her mother, who didn't believe her.

Later that day — June 5 — the Guardian Angels showed up at the family's doorstep. Louise Razz says she went out and shook the hand of an Angel. "I said, 'Hi, my name is Miss Razz," she says. " 'I'm not a gang member. I don't sell drugs. And I would appreciate if you would keep off my property and away from my home.' "

Instead, the Angels took pictures of the pink house and placed fliers on Razz vehicles.

"We gotta walk right into the belly of the beast and run our patrols and deal specifically with this family that is, well, infamous for all kinds of criminal activity and drug-dealing activity," Sliwa explains at the Havana Hideout. "In fact, we were there again today."

Whether they had the right house, the Angels were at least in the general vicinity of some major problems. South C Terrace is two blocks from the site of the triple homicide in March, and Louise Razz knows the block has issues. She accompanies me around the neighborhood at 9 p.m., and it doesn't take long to meet the beast. Three of them.