She confessed this to Mr. Peters, her “companion,” as she introduced him to the officers. Mr. Peters was with her the day they saw Redford, though he was hardly a runner either. He had a “condition” that prohibited his moving about too quickly.
Mr. Peters sat on a matching canary-yellow chair at the opposite end of the windows, a cane held between his legs. His right foot was bound in gauze and an Ace bandage and it rested on an antique mahogany footstool shaped like an Indian elephant. He wore a maroon smoking jacket, silk with black lapels and maroon piping, and pajama bottoms that were black with a dark red paisley design shot through.
Mrs. Quent was English, upper-crust, elderly and extremely well-preserved. Mr. Peters was about sixty, with artfully cut silver hair and soft, pink flesh that spoke of haute cuisine exclusively and many decades of martinis. He drank one now. It was half-past three of a steaming hot afternoon.
A Puerto Rican maid of about fifty, wearing a long black dress, a starched white apron and sturdy shoes, admitted Officers Reece and MacDonald. Reece sat on the edge of an antique chair and opened a note pad full of forms. He picked out the robbery report form and waited, ballpoint pen clicked into position. MacDonald asked the questions.
“First of all, are you all right, Mrs. Quent?”
“We’re waiting for the doctor now,” she said, waving a paper fan in front of her face.
“That’s right,” Mr. Peters added. “I telephoned the doctor first, then the police second. You gentlemen were the first to arrive.”
“You look all right and I hope you are,” MacDonald said.
“Well, we’ll see.”
“Okay. Now, what’s missing?”
“Besides my purse, you mean?”
“Well, yes. Your purse and what was inside.”
“Oh, that purse was a lovely thing,” she said.
“The one we purchased in London last time?” Mr. Peters asked her.
“The very one.” She turned from Peters to the officers. “It was a French purse with a lovely clasp to it. I bought it for fifty pounds, I think, which seemed dear. But it was of very high quality and quite a bargain, actually …. But, oh well, you really don’t have time to hear about that, do you?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Well, now. What was in the purse?” She fanned herself.
Mr. Peters took up the task of detailing the inventory of the purse.
“There were the credit cards, mainly,” he said. He waited for Reece to find the line on the report form that had to do with the listing of missing property. “There was the Ferragamo card, then one for Bonwit Teller … Lord and Taylor … Bloomingdales, of course … Altman’s. … Let’s see now …”
“How do you spell Ferragamo?” Reece asked.
Mr. Peters, accustomed to spending a great deal of time coping with small matters, was patient with Reece and spelled out the name of each account slowly.
“I got to learn this paperwork,” Reece said.
“Yes, I quite understand,” Mr. Peters said.
MacDonald asked, “How old are you, Mrs. Quent?”
“Oh, I won’t tell you my age. Just put down, oh, sixty-five or maybe seventy. Oh! Well, I’m ‘over sixty-five.’ Can’t you just put that in your little form?”
MacDonald shook his head yes and Reece wrote, his pen hand sweeping over the form until he found the space for the victim’s age.
“Now tell us what happened,” MacDonald said.
“Oh, I really should wait until the morning to report this all. I’m not actually up to it now, you know, but Mr. Peters says one should get to these things immediately.”
“Just what happened, Mrs. Quent?”
“Oh, yes. Well, they knocked me.”
“Ma’am?”
“They knocked me about the shoulders and arms and then down I went, right on my bum.”
“And they stole your purse.”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“And where did it happen?”
“I was walking down Lexington Avenue, near Eighty-fourth Street, and they approached me from the opposite direction. And they knocked me.”
“There was more than one perpetrator?”
“Perpetrator?”
“More than one mugger?”
“Oh my yes. There were two of them.”
“Could you describe them?”
“Well, I should say I could. But then I would be describing half the good boys in the neighborhood.”
“Could you just describe them?”
“They were such wicked boys! I just want their mothers and fathers to know!”
She pumped her fan very rapidly.
“These wicked boys,” she continued, “smiled at me in the nicest way. And I thought they were so well-bred the way they smiled. You know, Officer, in my day, they would have worn caps and I suppose boys like that would have taken them off before a lady. You don’t have time to hear that, do you?”
“Well, no, ma’am.”
“They were blond boys, no more than fourteen years of age, I should say. And they had blue eyes. They were darling boys, so it seemed. But they were wicked, so wicked and diabolical!
“They were by no means ruffians. I should think their mothers and fathers are quite well off. They didn’t seem to be wanting for anything—except to knock me down and pinch my bag, that is.
“Both of them wore rugby shirts, one was red and navy and the other was blue and yellow. And those khaki mountain climber shorts, the sort I saw one day in the men’s shop at Saks.” To Mr. Peters, she added, “I almost bought a pair for you, deary.”
She asked MacDonald, “Do you know about skateboards?”
MacDonald did.
“They each carried a skateboard. Then when they knocked me, they got up on those contraptions and flashed clean away.”
MacDonald and Reece said their good-byes. Mr. Peters even rose to see them to the door. Mrs. Quent remained in her canary-yellow chair with her fan, waiting for the doctor.
Down on the street and once again in the ovenlike squad car, MacDonald told Reece, a rookie assigned him for the day, “I’ve heard something about these kids, I think. It happens in waves like this. We’ll see if it fits a pattern. And maybe we can spot them while we’re out today.”
Miguel arose at two-fifteen in the afternoon, alone and swimming in his own sweat in a filthy twin-size mattress on the floor of a tenement cellar. His head was throbbing from all the beer and the noise of the previous night, which, in Miguel’s case, had extended through dawn of this new day.
His pal Herman slumbered on, about eight feet away through the blackness of the cellar, on his own filthy mattress. Neither one of them had dared return home, for fear their mothers would scream at them, then slap them, and then, worst of all, begin their nonstop prayers to the blessed Virgin Mary for deliverance from the afflictions of the world and from those born of accursed wombs.
That’s what Miguel’s mother had said. “Accursed wombs.” She spoke both of her own and that of Herman’s mother, even though she didn’t know the woman. She knew Herman, though, and Herman was as bad as her own son.
Once, Miguel had argued the case with his mother. How would the Blessed Virgin know anything about an accursed womb, Miguel asked? After all, hadn’t her womb delivered the world its Savior? Miguel’s mother had slapped his face and then gone into the kitchen to pray all night and the next day, too. Miguel didn’t buy any of that Catholic stuff, though he still got the shivers when he saw a particularly gruesome crucifix hanging over someone’s bed, but he did have a moral sense that included a commandment against slapping his mother to make her shut up.
Miguel’s father wouldn’t say anything. He was no longer able to challenge his nineteen-year-old son physically anyway, nor did he any longer have the heart. What was the use?
Herman’s father had long ago given up on New York and returned to Puerto Rico for good, abandoning the family he had brought to New York in the first place. Herman wasn’t so b
ad, really, as everyone would later say. It wasn’t that. It was just that he was mentally slow and prone to admire a pal for the things he didn’t have in himself—quickness, strength, respect, machismo. He would follow Miguel to the ends of the earth. Miguel was several years older than Herman and already a legend in East Harlem, a man of destiny. A wise and good man, by Herman’s lights.
Miguel had promised to get Herman laid last night for the first time in his life. And true to his word, as Miguel almost always was, Herman got laid. It was a fairly sweaty affair and it had its moments of embarrassment, but on the whole it was well worth it, as Herman received the congratulations of all Miguel’s hot-eyed pals, now his pals, too. Herman was moving up in the world, as long as he stuck by his hero, Miguel.
The girl wasn’t one of the neighborhood punchboards, either. She had come from Washington Heights and she was very pretty.
Her name was Rosalina and she was one of Miguel’s many female admirers. She met Miguel one day down in Washington Square Park in the Village after watching him for about an hour as he tossed a Frisbee back and forth with a friend. Miguel was nearly naked, wearing only a tiny pair of cut-off shorts and tennis shoes. His graceful, muscular body was very exciting for Rosalina, so exciting she was ashamed of herself and told the priest all about it the next day at confession.
But anyway, she was in love. In a matter of forty-eight hours, Miguel had managed to compromise her iron-bound rule against sexual intercourse with any man short of her husband, whoever that might be. If only it could be Miguel! Miguel had succeeded where so many other hot-blooded swains had failed. Miguel told Rosalina he loved her crazy. It had to be true!
And so they had become, in Rosalina’s term, “lovers.” And so they were, to Rosalina’s mind, engaged. Never mind about a ring.
She had come across town to meet Miguel on the night that she would, unbeknown to her, make Herman a man and herself something less than a lady. Rosalina splurged on a taxicab all the way from the Heights because she didn’t wish to run the risk of soiling her dress on the subway and bus combination she would ordinarily take. She had bought the dress and the new open-toed pumps and the white gloves on the occasion of Miguel’s asking her to a nightclub on East 103rd Street.
Rosalina was soon embarrassed to be so overdressed. The other girls wore the standard-issue female adolescent evening ensemble in East Harlem: sharply creased designer jeans, stiletto heels and tight-waisted white or yellow or beige blouses loose on top to show off round young breasts encased in black lace push-up bras. The “nightclub” turned out to be the back room of a candy store that did most of its business in pornographic comic books printed in Spanish, loose Kools three-for-a-quarter, nickel bags of marijuana and the occasional .22-caliber pistol at the bargain rate of $30.
The back room vibrated with rock music blasting from an enormous set of speakers attached to a stereo system Miguel had stolen, piece by piece, from shops down in the Nineteenth Precinct just below Ninety-sixth Street, the “DMZ” of the East Side, as the rich folks in singles bars joked. Miguel had heard the joke a million times. He was offended at first, but gradually his offense slipped away, each time he mugged someone with that attitude after sizing them up in the singles bars, after maybe charming a woman or two. He had to be careful about that, though. He knew he looked good, but he knew, too, that he didn’t sound good enough yet, not by a long shot.
There were drugs of every description being passed around and plenty of beer, which is all that Miguel ever took for himself. When Rosalina walked in, resplendent and out of place in her dress, she nearly cried. The girls laughed aloud and Miguel’s pals whistled and made obscene mouth noises. But when Miguel walked to her, the commotion ceased. He told her she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, took her lightly by the hand and introduced her to everyone in the room as if she were visiting royalty.
Rosalina never felt completely comfortable and she knew this night might begin the end of her engagement—how could she marry a man who would consider this den of thieves a place to take his fiancée? She was nonetheless charmed, as usual, by Miguel. He danced with her and everyone in the room stood back against the walls to watch them, the royal couple. She did not approve of the place, but Rosalina would enjoy of it what she could before returning home. She knew nothing of Miguel’s promise to Herman.
She drank a lot of beer that night, at Miguel’s suggestion, and she smoked a bit of grass. It helped. She would confess her sins, but Lord, it helped.
Rosalina had few defenses to guard against what Miguel promised was a “surprise” in honor of her presence, in an alleyway at the rear of the shop. She went with him, of course. Out in the alleyway, in a gypsy cab owned by a friend of Miguel’s, Herman waited, naked and highly aroused. Miguel had told him that Rosalina was finally ready to make him a man.
Miguel had also told his charge that he must understand the contradictory nature of women: you had to fight them always. No matter what, you had to wrestle with women, especially when it came to sex. They would scream, they would strike you, they would do anything to keep their legs together, but all of it was a lie. They wanted it. Herman shook his head in understanding of this deep mystery of life. He was ready.
Miguel opened the back door of the cab and slipped his hand over Rosalina’s mouth before she screamed, as he knew she would. “Just enjoy it,” he hissed into her perfumed ear, “or you’ll die.” Then he shoved her into the cab and Herman began wrestling her. She tried screaming again, but Miguel was quick with a leather sap and she was thus persuaded to suffer this hell.
Herman raised her dress and tore through heavy pantyhose, then through elasticized panties. Sweat poured from his brow. He squeezed Rosalina’s breasts and hurt her, though he didn’t mean to. When he caught sight of her black pubis, he started grunting incoherently. Then he heard laughter and looked up to see that everyone had stolen out of the candy shop to watch the show in the back of the cab. Rosalina wanted to faint, but fought against it, believing that if she lost consciousness Miguel or one of the savages watching her disgrace would murder her.
“Do it to her!” Herman heard Miguel shout.
So he did it. He was clumsy; he wasn’t so sure Rosalina wanted it as much as he did, but Herman did it. When he was through, everyone cheered and Herman grinned proudly.
When they were alone, Miguel kissed Rosalina on the cheek. He could not force any words from her, though. She would never speak to him again, of course. He put her into a taxicab and paid the driver enough to get her home. All the way across town, Rosalina prayed to God to strike Miguel dead.
That had all happened last night.
Miguel sat up on his mattress. He lit a cigarette and briefly his subterranean world could be viewed. Cans, mops, rat droppings, an enormous furnace, a rotting wooden stairway to the lobby of a decrepit tenement run by a super Miguel supplied with drugs for assorted favors in return, such as the use of the cellar and the super’s keeping his mouth shut about it.
Miguel didn’t like what he saw. It wasn’t nearly enough for him. He was wasting his time fooling around in East Harlem. There was nothing there of any value. Down in the Nineteenth was where a man of Miguel’s abilities should be. Down below Ninety-sixth, where the money and the glamour were.
He smoked.
When Herman woke, Miguel took him to breakfast and began telling him what they would be doing that night down in the Nineteenth.
“Me, I ran an elevator at a private men’s club, worked around the place at whatever there was and I learned to be a gentleman,” MacDonald was telling Reece as they drove around the streets of the Upper East Side, on the look-out for blond, well-fed teenagers on skateboards looking to rip off old ladies’ handbags. “It was pretty good work, then I took the police test and waited and got my assignment.
“I love the police work. I especially like working the Nineteenth. I’ve worked other precincts where most of the time you’re arguing with people on jobs. Here, you get a chance to d
o your work like a gentleman. How do you like the job so far?”
Reece shifted in the front passenger seat. He was a huge man, quiet and deliberate when he talked.
“Something like your work in the club,” Reece said. “I’m learning from the others here. I’m only twenty-three. I’m maturing real, real fast on this job.”
MacDonald stopped the squad car for a few minutes outside the Lebanese Mission to the United Nations on East Seventy-sixth Street. “I’m going to say hello to my regular partner. He’s working the box here today.”
MacDonald introduced Reece to Officer Seamus Weir, who stepped out of the police booth in front of the mission, pushed his hat to the back of his head and said, “What a drag tonight. Looks like a nice summer rain, so there’s no broads out. They’re afraid of getting their feet wet, I suppose.”
Weir stood between his box and the squad car at the curb. An exceptionally attractive young woman walked behind him, toward the avenue, wiping the tip of her nose with her finger.
“Oh, yeah. Go ahead and pick your nose in front of me,” Weir hissed. “Man, oh man, does it seem to you that there’s some sort of weird increase in the number of nice-looking chicks doing really disgusting things?”
MacDonald turned to Reece and said, “Listen to this guy. Working in the box all day makes even a guy like that frustrated. You’ll get your turn, all right. Just wait. My advice is to watch yourself when you get assigned to the Russian box around the side of the mission. It’s filled with lice.”
To Weir, he said, “Easy night, or what?”
“I hope, man. Today, they bombed some synagogue in Paris, so I suppose I might see some pipe bomb rolling down the street at me. At least I’ll know why. They’ve got a big do tonight here at the Lebanese. It’s ‘Feast of Fitur’ you know—”
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