by Ed McBain
"The kid probably deserved it," Zip said.
"His lawyer got him off with manslaughter," Parker said.
"He should have got the chair," Luis put in. "They should have burned him."
"They sent him upstate, to Castleview, and he spent just enough time there to get out of fighting in World War II. When he was paroled, he came back here. Heroin was the big thing then. Miranda started pushing it."
"Poisoning children! Argh, what makes men do this!"
"Nobody starts on horse unless he wants to, dad," Zip said. "Don't go blaming Miranda."
"Okay by you if we blame him for all the people he's killed in this goddamn city?"
"You can't prove he killed anybody."
"That's what you think. There's a lady dying in General Hospital right now, and she identified a photo of Miranda as the guy who beat her up and took her purse."
"Miranda mugging? Don't snow me, cop."
"Miranda mugging, yes! Not such a goddamn big shot any more, is he? No more high-pay torpedo jobs now that the heat's on. Only little ladies to beat up. Believe me, when we get that bastard we're gonna throw away the key on him."
"Sure, when you get him."
"We'll get him. He's here someplace, that's for sure. Once we find out where, goodbye Miranda. One less hero in the neighborhood." He took a long draw at his coffee, finishing it. Putting down the cup, he said, "That was good coffee, Luis. Luis makes the best damn cup of coffee in the city."
"Sure, sure."
"He thinks I'm kidding him. Even if I didn't like you, Luis, I'd still come here to drink your coffee, you know that?"
"It's good having a cop for a steady customer. It keeps trouble away."
"And there's plenty of that around here," Parker said.
"Well, you don't die from being bored around here," Luis said, grinning.
"It's a hell of a lot different from the island, ain't it?"
"Oh, yes, yes."
"I was down there for a week once, had to bring back this punk who skipped the city after holding up a jewelry store on South Fourth. That's the life, all right. Lay in the sun all day long, suck sugar cane, go fishing. And at night..." He winked at Luis. "There's no holding down the Puerto Rican men at night, eh, Luis?"
"Andy, for a man who's a man ... the nights are the same any place, no?"
"Oh, brother, watch out for this guy!" Parker said, laughing. "He's got three kids already, and I think he's gunning for number four."
"At my age?" Luis said, laughing with him. "No, no, it would take a miracle."
"Or a boarder," Parker said. "Keep your eye on the boarder, Luis." He put his hand on Jeffs shoulder. "There are more boarders in this neighborhood than you can shake a stick at. We got areas called 'hot bed' areas, where guys rent out apartments on an eight-hour basis, three sleeping shifts, would you believe it?"
"We don't have any boarders," Luis said, still laughing. "Teresa is safe."
Parker sighed and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket. He wiped his face with it and then said, "Well, back to crime prevention, huh? Sailor, I'd forget that sick grandmother if I was you. Get out of here. This neighborhood ain't for clean-cut kids."
"Who's clean-cut?"
"You're liable to be, if you don't take my advice. From ear to ear, you're liable to be."
"I'll chance it."
"Sure, chance it. Famous last words. I hope you're wearing your dog tags. We'll want to know where to send the body."
"Send it to his grandma," Zip said, grinning. "She's expecting him."
"Kid, you're lucky I'm in a good mood today," Parker said.
He turned back to Luis. "Hey, pinga?", "Si, cabron," Luis answered, and both men grinned as if pleased by their intimate use of profanity in addressing each other.
"If you hear anything about Miranda, don't forget me, huh?"
"I won't," Luis answered.
"Good. Adids."
He walked away from the luncheonette, blinking his eyes against the sunshine. He wondered why it was that he could have such a good relationship with Luis Amandez and such a bad one with Frankie Hernandez. Weren't both men Puerto Ricans? Of course they were. But Luis was different. Luis was willing to accept certain things about his own people, whereas Frankie was a son of a bitch who was just deaf and dumb on the subject. How could you hope to discuss anything intelligently with a guy who had a chip on his shoulder? Where was the give and take in a relationship like that? There just wasn't any. Now with Luis, Parker enjoyed a give and take. That's why it was so good. Why couldn't Hernandez be that way, too?
Parker sighed heavily.
It takes all kinds, he told himself. It takes all kinds.
5
Zip continued grinning until Parker had turned the corner and walked off up the avenue. Then the grin dropped from his mouth.
"You'd stool on Pepe for that rotten cop?" he asked Luis.
"Pepe Miranda is no brother of mine," Luis answered.
"A stoolie is a stoolie," Zip said. He swung around and walked to the jukebox. He studied the selections for a moment, inserted his coin, chose one, and then stepped behind the box and turned up the volume so that a mambo fairly blasted into the luncheonette.
"Lower that, lower that," Luis said.
"Shhh, man," Zip said, grinning. "I can't hear the music."
"I said lower that," Luis shouted, and he came around the counter, walked to the juke, and was reaching around to the back when Zip stepped into his way, laughing. The music screeched into the shop, trumpets bellowing, bongo drums pounding their steady beat. At the counter, Jeffs headache responded to the assault wave of sound. He turned toward the juke. The old man was still trying to reach the volume control. Zip, laughing, danced before him, blocking his path, stepping out of it, teasing the old man closer, blocking him again. The grin did not leave his face, but there seemed to be no humor in his laughing defense of the volume control. The old man lunged, and Zip stepped aside finally and danced into the street like a boxer moving away from the ropes. Luis located the volume control and turned it all the way down.
From the street, Zip said, "Not too low, you old bastard. That's still my loot in there."
Luis stamped angrily to the cash register He rang up no sale, took a dime from the cash drawer and threw it on the counter. "Here!" he shouted. "Take your money and go!"
Zip threw back his head and laughed, a loud mocking laugh which like his earlier smile was totally devoid of humor. "Keep it, dad," he said. "It probably took you all week to make."
"Puncture my eardrums!" Luis muttered. "On a Sunday morning! No decency, no decency!"
But the music, despite Luis' preference fcr comparative silence, seemed to have awakened the neighborhood all at once. The street had been as still and empty as a country road before the record started, and now it suddenly teemed with humanity. In the distance, the church bells had begun tolling again and, in response to the bells, the people of the neighborhood were coming out of the tenements, drifting down the steps leisurely because this was first call, and there was still time before the Mass would begin. The record spun to an end, but the church bells persisted, and the street was alive with color now, color which seemed appropriate to the heat of July, color so vivid, so tropical, that it assailed the eyeballs. Two young girls in the brightest pink came out of a tenement and walked arm in arm down the street toward the church. An old man in a brown silk suit, wearing a bright green tie, came from another tenement and began in the same direction. A woman carrying a red parasol to shield her from the sun walked with the dignity of a queen, trailing a boy in a short-trousered suit by her side. The people nodded at each other, and smiled, and exchanged a few words. This was Sunday morning. This was the day of rest.
From the other end of the street, rushing against the tide of humanity that swelled with a single mind toward the church at the far end of the block, Cooch appeared with two other boys. Zip saw them instantly, and went to join them.
"What the hell kept you so long?" he asked.
"We had to wait for Sixto," Cooch said.
"What the hell are you, Sixto? A man or a baby sitter?"
Sixto looked as if he were about to blush. He was a thin boy of sixteen with eyes that seemed ready to flinch at so much as an unkind word. He spoke English with a Spanish accent which was sometimes marked and sometimes mild. His voice was very soft, and he used it reticently, as if he were not ever certain that anyone wanted to hear what he had to say.
"I ha' to help my mother," he told Zip.
The other boy with Cooch was a six-footer with a face so dark that all personality somehow became lost in the overall impression of blackness. His features were a mixture of Negroid and Caucasian, a mixture so loosely concocted that even here there was an impression of vagueness, of vacuity. The boy was sixteen years old. He moved slowly, and he thought slowly. His mind a blank, his face a blank, he presented a somewhat creaking portrait to his contemporaries, and so they had named him Papa, as befitted a sixteen-year-old who seemed to be seventy.
"When my fodder go on a trip," he said, "I hep my mudder. He tell me to hep her." He spoke with a Spanish accent so marked that sometimes his words were unintelligible. At these moments, he would revert back to his native tongue, and this too added to the concept of a young boy who was old, a young boy who clung to the old language and the old slow-moving ways of a land he had deeply loved.
"That's different," Zip said. "When he's away, you're the man of the house. I'm not talking about a man's work."
Proudly, Papa said, "My fodder's a merchan' marine."
"Who the hell are you snowing?" Zip asked. "He's a waiter."
"On a boat! Tha' makes him a merchan' marine."
"That makes him a waiter! Listen, we've wasted enough time already. Let's lay this out. We're gonna have to move if we want to catch that eleven o'clock Mass." He turned suddenly to Sixto who had been staring blankly at the street. "You with us, Sixto?"
"Wah? Oh, yes. I'm ... I'm with you, Zip."
"You looked like you was on the moon."
"I wass thinkin' ... well, you know. This Alfredo kid, he not sush a bad guy."
"He's getting washed and that's it," Zip said. "I don't even want to hear talk about it." He paused. "What the hell are you looking at, would you please mind telling me?"
"The organ-grinder," Sixto said.
The organ-grinder had rounded the corner and stopped just outside the luncheonette. His parrot had bright-green feathers. The parrot perched on the instrument, accepted coins in his beak, gave them to his master, and then reached down to select a fortune slip from the rack of slips on top of the hand organ. A crowd immediately gathered around the organ-grinder and his trained bird. The crowd was a Sunday churchgoing crowd, bedecked in bright summer colors. The girls shrieked each time they read a fortune. The old men and the old ladies grinned knowingly. Jeff walked out of the luncheonette and handed the parrot a nickel. The parrot reached into the rack, peck, a narrow white slip appeared in his beak. Jeff took the slip and began reading it. The girls squealed in delight. There was an innocence surrounding the organ-grinder; the mechanical music he produced was countered by the skill of the bird and the faith of the crowd. For this was Sunday morning, and this was a time to believe in fortunes, a time to believe that the future would be good. And so they crowded the man and his bird, crowded around the sailor who read his fortune from the card and grinned, laughed again in delight as the parrot dipped his beak for another fortune. There was innocence here, and it shimmered on the summer air like truth.
Not ten feet from the organ-grinder, not ten feet from the crowd in their gay Sunday clothes, Zip stood in a whispering circle with three other boys who wore purple silk jackets. The backs of the jackets were lettered with the words the latin purples. The words were cut from yellow felt and stitched to the purple silk. The Latin Purples, The Latin Purples, The Latin Purples, The Latin Purples, four jacket backs and four young men who huddled close together and spoke in low whispers while the organ-grinder filled the air with the music of innocence and truth.
"I ... I wass thinkin'," Sixto said, "maybe we shoul' jus', you know, maybe warn him."
"For messing with one of the debs?" Cooch whispered, astonished.
"So, he dinn really do nothin', Cooch. He jus' ony say hello to her. Thass not so bad."
"He made a grab," Cooch said with finality.
"Thass not what she say. I ask her. She say he ony jus' say hello to her."
"What right did you have to go asking her questions?" Zip wanted to know. "Whose girl is she? Yours or mine?" Sixto remained silent. "Well?"
"Well, Zip," Sixto said, after long deliberation, "I tink ... well, I don' tink she knows. I mean, I don' tink she got no understanding with you."
"I don't need no understanding with a chick. I'm telling you she's my girl, and that's good enough."
"But she don' tink so!"
"I don't care what she thinks."
"Anyway," Sixto said, "no matter whose girl she is, if Alfie don' do nothin' to her, why we got to shoot him?"
The boys were silent for a moment, as if mention of the word, as if translation of their plan into sound, into a word which immediately delivered the image of a pistol, had shocked them into silence.
In a very low voice, Zip asked, "You going turkey?" Sixto did not answer. "I thought you was a down cat, Sixto. I thought you had heart."
"I do got heart."
"He gah heart, Zeep," Papa said, defending Sixto.
"Then why's he backing out? How'd you like it if this was your girl, Sixto? How'd you like it if Alfie went messing around with your girl?"
"But he dinn mess with her. He ony say hello. So wha's so bad about dat?"
"You in this club?" Zip asked.
"Sure."
"Why?"
"I... I don' know. You got to belong to..." Sixto shrugged. "I don' know."
"If you're in this club, if you wear that purple jacket, you do what I say. Okay. I say the Latin Purples are washing Alfredo Gomez right after eleven o'clock Mass. You want to turkey out, go ahead." He paused meaningfully. "All I know is that Alfie give China a rough time. China's my girl whether she knows it or not, you dig? China's my girl, and that means Alfie got himself trouble."
Cooch nodded. "Big trouble."
"And that don't mean a burn. I don't want him burned. I want him washed! You can turkey out, Sixto, go ahead. Only you better watch your step around here afterwards, that's all I'm telling you."
"I jus' thought ... oh, I jus' thought ... well, Zip, cann we talk to him?"
"Oh, come on, for Christ's sake!" Zip said angrily.
"Cann we jus' tell him to stop ... to stop talking to her no more? Cann we do dat? Why we have to ... to kill him?"
There was another long silence, for another word had been spoken, and this word was stronger than the first. And this word meant exactly what it said, this word meant kill, to take someone's life, kill, to murder. This was not a euphemism, a handy substitute like "wash." This was kill. And the word hung between them, the sentence hung between them on the still July air: "Why we have to ... to kill him?"
"Because I say so," Zip said softly.
"It be diff ren if he really was..."
"What else you going to do, huh? Get pushed around?" Zip asked. "Man, ain't you sick of all the time getting pushed around?"
"I dinn say that. I said..."
"Everybody in the neighborhood knows he made a pass at China!" Zip said plaintively. "Am I supposed to...?"
"He dinn make no pass! He ony say hello!"
"Am I supposed to go over and have a chat with him? How are you, Alfie old boy, how you been? I understand you was feeling up China the other day, was it good? Am I supposed to hold his goddamn hand, Sixto?"
"No, but..."
"Don't you want these other clubs to notice us? Don't you want them to know we got self-respect?"
"Sure, but..."
"So we going to let a creep like Alfie go around screwing our debs
?"
Sixto shook his head. "Zip, Zip, he dinn even..."
"Okay, listen to me," Zip said. "After we pull this today, we're in. You understand that? We wash this creep, and there ain't nobody in this neighborhood who don't know the Latin Purples from then on in. They'll know we don't get pushed around by anybody! Every damn kid on this block'll want to be in the club after today. We're gonna be ... something! Something!" He paused to catch his breath. His eyes were glowing. "Am I right, Cooch?"
"Sure," Cooch answered.
"Okay, Alfie's going to eleven o'clock Mass, like he always does. Mass'11 break around eleven-forty, a quarter to twelve. I want to get him on the steps as he's coming out."
"On dee!"
"On the steps! All four of us blast together, and nobody stops until Alfie's down. You better shoot straight 'cause there'll be a lot of innocent people around."
"Zip, on dee church steps?" Sixto said. His face was twisted in pain. "Ave Maria, cann we...?"
"On the steps, I said! Where everybody'll see him die. We've got fou'r pieces. I'm using the .45 because I want to blow that creep's head off."
The organ-grinder stopped his music. The street seemed suddenly silent.
"There's two .38s and the Luger," Zip whispered. "Take whatever you want."
"The Luger," Cooch said.
"You got it. Sixto, you and Papa'11 use the .38s. The pieces are up at my pad. We get them first, and then round up a couple of gun bearers." He paused for a moment. "Second thought, you better stay here, Sixto. Keep an eye on Alfie's house. Right around the corner. The first building."
"Okay," Sixto said blankly.
"Make sure he don't leave. If he does, follow him. If you ain't here when we get back, we'll start looking for you."
"Okay."
"What?"
"I said okay."
"Okay," Zip repeated. "Come on." He put his arm around Cooch as they began walking toward his building, Papa shuffling along beside them. "You excited, Cooch?" he asked.
"Huh? Oh, yeah, I guess. A little."
"Man, I'm excited. This day is beginning to tick, you know what I mean? Things are moving!"
"Yeah, that's true," Cooch said.
"Some Sundays, you can sit on that front stoop and go nuts. Especially like now in the summer. But today is different. Today, there's like a million things to do, ain't there? What I'm trying to say, Cooch, this makes me feel good. This action, you know? Man, it makes me feel real good!"