by Ed McBain
"Then why are you hanging around here?"
"That's my business," Jeff said curtly.
"If you ain't interested any more, why don't you get out of the neighborhood?"
"You ask a lot of questions," Jeff said.
"Yeah, that's right. What about it?"
"Suppose you answer one," Jeff said.
"I don't have to an"
"Why'd you pass out those guns?"
Zip's eyes opened wide. "What?"
"You handed an arsenal to those two kids. Who do you plan on shooting?"
They sat side by side on adjacents stools, Jeffs fists bunched on the counter, Zip's eyes narrowing as the sailor's words penetrated. The other boys, with the exception of Sixto, had moved away from the jukebox, and advanced towards their leader.
"You got big eyes, Grandma," Zip said, as he suddenly struck Jeff full in the face with his closed fist. Jeff, surprised by the blow, tried to maintain his balance on the stool, realized intuitively that it would be a mistake to fall, a mistake to be on the ground. He clutched for the counter top, but the imbalance was complete and his hand slid over the Formica top as he went over and back, his foot hooked into the stool's rung, the asphalt tile floor coming up to meet his back. He caught the force of the fall with his shoulder blades, snapping his head so that it wouldn't collide with the floor. He was struggling to get his foot free of the rung when the first kick exploded against the side of his head.
He brought up his hands instinctively, trying to free his foot, squirming to get his foot loose from this ridiculously foolish position, and the second kick caught him in the rib cage, and he felt all the breath in his body escape from his mouth in a grunt, and then another kick caught the side of his neck, and now the kicks were coming with methodical precision and his foot was still hooked into that goddamn rung, a boot connected with his right eye and he felt shocking, stabbing pain and then the warmth of blood and he thought I'm going to be kicked to death on the floor of this goddamn luncheonette and then he heard Luis shouting, "What are you doing? Bastards, what are you doing?" And above that, or beyond it, around it, circling it, filling the air, the high penetrating wail of a police siren.
8
Hernandez had seen this apartment before, had been inside it. Not this one, exactly, but countless others like it in buildings of the precinct This could have been the very apartment he had lived in as a boy.
The front door opened into the kitchen. There was the usual police lock; the first plate screwed to the door, the second plate embedded in the floor, and the unbending steel bar which, when wedged into its triangular place between the two, made forcible entry impossible. A window was at the far end of the kitchen. It opened on the interior shaftway of the tenement. There was linoleum on the kitchen floor, a spatter pattern. It had been scrubbed clean but left unwaxed. It had worn through in patches near the door, the icebox, and the stove. A white enamel-topped table was on the wall opposite the stove. A picture of Jesus in supplication was above the table. The walls were painted a pale green, but the grime of countless meals in preparation had worn itself into the walls so that the green seemed darker, bile-like. The paint, too, was beginning to flake off in several places on the walls and on the ceiling. A toaster was on the table. A plastic shield covered it. The room seemed shoddy but clean. It was a room he remembered well.
On winter days, when he was a boy, he would sit on the floor by the stove, playing with his soldiers on the clean worn linoleum. His mother had miraculously managed to cook her meals with him underfoot. The smells of arroz con potto would fill the kitchen, and it was cozy by the stove where he endowed each of his metal men with a personality and an identity. There was warmth in the kitchen of the Hernandez home, warmth from the stove and the smell of cooking food, warmth in the gentle voice of his mother as she went about her work, warmth in the monologues the boy Frankie addressed to the metal men surrounding him.
There was no warmth in the Gomez kitchen on that day in July, no warmth but the suffocating heat of summer. Outside, they could hear the wail of the siren. Mrs. Gomez went to the window and closed it. The sound withdrew.
"Always fires," she said. "Always the sirens. Never a day without a fire." She shook her head. "And it's worse in the winter."
"Where's the boy?" Hernandez asked.
"In the bedroom. Frankie, please go easy with him. This thing he is in, it is great trouble. But... he is hard to know."
"I'll go easy," Hernandez said.
She led him through the apartment, into the "parlor" furnished with a three-piece living-room suite, a television set, a floor lamp, the fixture in the ceiling boasting three light bulbs of different colors. When he was a boy, he had done his homework in the parlor, stretched out on the floor. There had been no television in those days. In those days, the "William Tell Overture" had announced the arrival of the Lone Ranger. In those days, there was Omar the Mystic, and The Witch's Tale, and Renfrew of the Mounted, and, of course, on Sundays the Shadow. He had grown up with the idea that Lament Cranston was the most glorious name in the entire world. He now laughed whenever anyone mentioned it and yet, despite his sophisticated laughter, the name still touched a core of envy and awe somewhere deep within him. Lamont Cranston the Shadow. Memories of a boy, the howl of a wolf and then the words, "Rennnnnnn-frew offfffff the Mounnnnnnn-ted," Dick Tracy every afternoon at five was it? five-fifteen? milk on the kitchen table and chocolate-covered graham crackers, the memories of a boy. And now, the same living-room, called a "parlor" as it was in Puerto Rico, the same colored lights in the ceiling fixture, the same peeling paint, the same long tred through a railroad flat, a man entering a bedroom which could have been the twin of the one he'd slept in as a boy, and a man coming face to face with a boy of sixteen, and seeing in that face pain and trouble, trouble in the eyes and the mouth, and Hernandez the man suddenly wondering where Hernandez the boy had gone. And wondering what had been lost somewhere along the way.
"This is Frankie Hernandez," Mrs. Gomez said.
The boy regarded him without hostility. But there was determination in his eyes, a stubborn committment to reveal nothing. Hernandez had seen this look before. He had seen it in the squadroom and it had been worn by hardened criminals and by docile housewives; it was the same look, it never varied. It was a look which plainly stated, "You are the Law, and anything I tell you will be held against me."
"Hello, Alfredo," Hernandez said.
"Hello," the boy answered warily.
"Your mother's worried about you."
"She hass nothin' to worry abou'."
"Well, she seemed to think so. Came all the way over to the police station because she thought so. What about it, Alfredo?"
Alfredo sighed deeply. "I'm goin' to church, Mr Hernandez," he said. "I got nothin' to tell you."
"Your mother thinks you've got plenty to tell me."
"My mother doesn't know. She don' know this neighborhood."
"I know this neighborhood, Alfredo," Hernandez said flatly, and their eyes met, and in the boy's eyes was a recalculation now, a quick estimate of Hemandez's knowledge of the streets, an appraisal of the extent to which he was a neighborhood boy, and the extent to which he was a cop like all the rest. "Now what's all this about?" Hernandez asked.
Alfredo made his decision in a single moment. The decision changed nothing. Hernandez could not help him, Hernandez was the law, there was nothing he could tell him. "It ain't abou' nothin'," he said.
"Your mother said somebody's going to kill you, is that right?"
Alfredo did not answer.
"Answer me!" Hernandez said, and he seized the boy by the shoulders and forced the contact, forced eyes to meet eyes levelly and honestly. "Answer me!"
Alfredo remained mute, his eyes probing Hemandez's. And then he nodded.
"Who?" Hernandez asked.
"The ... the boys," Alfredo answered. His shoulders ached where Hernandez gripped him. His eyes remained locked with the detective's.
"Why?"
"No reason," Alfredo said.
"Is there a girl involved in this?"
"Si."
Hernandez released his grip tiredly. This was an old story, and he had heard it many times before. "What'd you do to the girl?" he asked.
"Nothin'."
"Come on."
"Nothin'."
The room went silent again. Hernandez stared at the boy. Patiently, he asked, "Then why do they want to kill you?"
"To show they big shots, thass all," Alfredo said. "They tink iss big to kill." He paused. He was talking more freely now, but he still wondered how far he could trust Hernandez. In a very low voice, he said, "She am' even his girl. China ain' nobody's girl."
"You must have done something to the girl!" Hernandez said angrily.
"Nothin'! I swear! I swear on my mudder's eyes. Nothin'! I ony say hello to her. She a nice girl, smilin' an' everything, she smile at everybody. So I say hello. Iss somethin' wrong with dat? On the islan', you could say hello to girls, nobody bodder you. So now I am come here the city, an' now I cann say hello."
"How long have you been in this city?" Hernandez asked.
The boy shrugged and turned to his mother. "Mama?"
"He's a year now," she said. "We took the girl over first. His sister. Alfredo we left with his grandmother in San Juan. A year ago, we could afford to bring him here, too."
"Where's the girl now? Your daughter?"
"She .belongs to the Girl Scouts. Today, they went on a picnic. Honeyside Beach, you know that?"
"Yes," Hernandez said. "You like this city, Alfredo?"
"Sure. I come from La Perla, thass where my gran'mudder lives. La Perla, thass a big fanguito in San Juan. A slom, you know? Shacks."
"I know La Perla."
"It means The Pearl, but thass jus' a joke, you know? It's not sush a pearl. Here iss better. Not so poor, you know? There, it iss all dirty an' mud, an' iss poor all the time. Here iss better." He paused. "But what can you do here?"
"You can do a lot here, Alfredo."
"Yeah? You go outside the neighborhood, they call you 'spic.' It's my fault I cann speak English so good? How I'm spose to learn? There's only one teacher in all my high school who speaks Spanish!"
"Others have learned English, Alfredo."
"Sure, I know. I'm tryin', ain' I? I do pretty good, don't I?"
"You do fine."
"Still..."
"Still what?"
"Am I ... am I spose to join a gang or somethin'?"
"Do you belong to a gang now, Alfredo?"
"No, I don' belong no gang. In Puerto Rico, we don' have this bullshit, these gangs like here. In Puerto Rico, you can say hello to girls, you can hang aroun' like whoever you want, you know? An' there's none of these dope. The kids here take dope. So I don' wann take dope, an' I don' wann belong to no gang. I ony wann to go my own way, nobody should bodder me."
"So how'd you get into this mess?" Hernandez asked.
"I say hello! I swear to God, all I say is hello! So Zip, he..." Alfredo cut himself short.
"Who?" Hernandez said quickly.
Alfredo was silent for several seconds. Then, as if finally committing himself, he said, "Okay. Zip. He sees me an' he says I bodderin' his girl. He says I don' go to church or they wash me."
"You ever been in trouble with this Zip before?"
"Once or twice. Like he try to shake me down at school, you know? We go the same school."
"What school is that?"
"A trade school. I'm learn a job."
"What kind of job?"
"Automotive. But thass not what I wann to be."
"What do you want to be?"
"I wann study radio. So when I wass in junior high school, I go the adviser, you know? I say, 'I wann study radio.' She tell me I should be an automotive. She says iss better for a Spanish kid. She says iss better opportunity. But I still wann study radio."
"Why don't you tell this to someone at your school?"
"Oh, I don' know. Who's to listen? Sometimes I feel ... I don' know... like as if bein' here I'm jus'... not a real human bein', you know? Like I feel ... secondhand."
Hemandez nodded. "What happened with this Zip? When he tried to shake you down?"
"Oh, I give him my lunch money," Alfredo said. "It wass ony a quarter. I dinn want bad blood with him."
"And that was the extent of it? And you haven't had any trouble with him since that time?"
"Never. Like he's ony new aroun' here, you know? Maybe he lives here fi', six months. He come from somewhere downtown, you know? So I don' bodder with him, I ony want to go my own way, thass all. I don' like this ... I mean ... look, they go aroun' stomping people ... they have these street bops ... what I got to fight for? For what? I'm here this city now, so here should be better, not worse than Puerto Rico. So why I got to bodder with kids like Zip? He thinks to be big is to kill." Alfredo paused and then stared solemnly at Hernandez. "To be big is to live, no?" he asked.
"Yes, Alfredo."
"Sure. But he's leader of the Latin Purples. So I don' belong no gang, no Royal Guardians, no Spanish Dukes, nothin'. So who's to protec' me?"
"I'm to protect you, Alfredo."
"You? What can you do? You tink they afraid of cops? If I don' show in the street, they call me turkey, they say I afraid of them. So den everybody laugh at me. So den how can I walk the street? If I be turkey, how can I walk the street?"
"It's not turkey to want to live, Alfredo. Every man wants to live."
"I tell you the truth, I'm tired," Alfredo said. "I'm tired of walkin' alone. You walk alone, they all pick on you. But I'm spose to join a gang? I'm spose to go aroun' shootin' people?
What for I want to shoot people?"
"Don't leave the apartment today, Alfredo," Hernandez said.
"You'll be safe here. I'll see to that." "And tomorrow?" Alfredo asked. "What about tomorrow?" "We'll see. Maybe this'll all be cleared up by tomorrow." "Will tomorrow be any better?" Alfredo asked. "Tomorrow I'm still here. I'm always here in this neighborhood." He began to weep suddenly and gently. "Always," he said. "Always here. Always."
There were four squad cars in the street outside when Hernandez got downstairs. They formed a loose cordon about the bar called La Gallina, and Hernandez immediately wondered if a Vice Squad raid was in progress. The street was filled with people who seemed to gather immediately at the sign of any excitement, who stood speculating in small knots outside the barrier formed by the squad cars on either end of the bar. Hernandez pushed his way through the crowd, saw that Parker was standing and talking to Lieutenant Byrnes and Steve Carella, who stood leaning against a fender of one of the squad cars. His first thought was Who's minding the store? and he realized instantly that this was no vice raid, that something big must have happened. Quickly, he walked to where the other detectives were standing.
"When do we start, Lieutenant?" Parker asked. There was a glow in Parker's eyes. He reminded Hernandez of a Marine who had been in his outfit. The guy's name had been Ray Walters, and he had joined the company on the day before the Iwo Jima landings. He hated the Japanese, and he couldn't wait for the landings to begin. He was the first man out of the landing barge, his eyes glowing, a tight grim smile on his mouth. The smile was still there when the Jap bullet took him between the eyes.
"We're getting cars on the next block," Byrnes said, "so we'll have radio contact with the men there. We'll start as soon as they're ready. This isn't going to be a picnic. He said we wouldn't take him alive."
"Are we sure it's him?" Parker asked.
"Who knows? We got a telephone tip. If it is him, we can't take any chances."
A woman came out of the tenement doorway to the left of La Gallina. She was carrying a baby in one arm and a bird cage in the other. A blue parakeet fluttered wildly about the cage. The woman came off the stoop, glancing over her shoulder to the windows above La Gallina. She seemed to sense that she was a star performer stepping into the spotlig
ht and that an impatient audience was waiting for the one line she had to deliver, a line which would suddenly solve and resolve doubts and uncertainties which would have been mounting ever since the curtain rose. She stopped in the middle of the street, faced the crowd that milled restlessly beyond the squad cars and, in her loudest voice, shouted, "Ees Pepe! Ees Pepe Miranda up there!" and then she extended the bird cage, pointing with it to the first-floor windows while the bird fluttered and screamed against the brass bars.
"Come on, lady," a patrolman said, "before you stop a bullet."
The woman rushed into the crowd where the whisper had already gone up, a confirming whisper passed from mouth to mouth, accompanied by a knowledgeable shaking and nodding of heads, "Pepe Miranda, Pepe Miranda, Pepe Miranda."
"Is that what this is?" Hernandez asked Byrnes.
"It looks that way, Frankie," Byrnes said.
"Who called in the tip?"
"Don't know," Carella said. "He gave the info and then hung up."
"I'm going to see what the hell's happening with those other cars," Byrnes said. He walked around to the other side of the squad car, sat with his legs out on the street, and picked up the hand mike. "This is Lieutenant Byrnes," he said. "We're about ready to roll here. Are those other cars in position yet?"
"So we finally cornered your landsman" Parker said, grinning. "And we're gonna kill him. I'm personally gonna see to that."
"He's no landsman of mine," Hernandez said.
"Of course not," Parker answered. "That's just a way of speaking. All I meant was you're both Puerto Ricans."
"Sure."
"Hell, you know me better than that. I don't care if a guy's Puerto Rican or even Chinese."
"Sure."
Parker looked around suddenly. "Boy, look at these kids, will ya? They think Miranda's a god."
"He's only a god to the ones who don't know any better," Carella said, looking at the kids who had joined the crowd around the squad cars. The kids ranged in age from toddlers to adolescents. Some of them tried to climb onto the squad cars, but the patrolmen swiped at them with their night sticks. None of the kids seemed certain as to what sort of behavior was expected of them. Some laughed, and some stood solemnly staring at the first-floor windows of the building. Some seemed on the verge of tears. It was curious to watch their faces and to study their fidgeting. Each of them knew that this was an occurrence of unusual interest, and each of them was quite naturally excited by it. But they had seen many things, these children, and their reactions to all of these things had always been mixed. They had seen sudden blood, and every fiber in their bodies had urged them to scream at the sight of a man leaking his life onto the pavement, but fear had coalesced in their throats and erupted into the laughter of bravado. For these children, the emotions had become confused, with vague boundary lines separating one from the other. Fear was a twin to courage; tears and laughter were interchangeable.