by Ed McBain
They were both looking at Frederick Block, the fat man.
12
There are times when it must be nice to have a Cinemascope camera and stereophonic sound. There are times when it must be great to have a wide screen stretching across the front of the world, with things happening on every corner of that screen, with the eye gathering in all these things like a net sweeping the ocean floor. It isn't enough to say this and this were happening here, that and that were happening there. A city street is not a tiny canvas; a city street is not a page in a book. It is a tumultuous thing teeming with life, and you can't hope to capture life in a sentence or a brush stroke. The things that happened on that street, on that particular day in July, happened almost simultaneously, separate and distinct from each other, but nonetheless almost at the same time, so that there was a feeling of continuous motion, of one event overlapping and flowing into the next. The wide screen stretched the length of a city block. The life on that street stretched to the very edges of time.
Cooch stood on the steps of the building next door to the church.
China came down a flight of stairs and into bright sunshine.
A man selling ices entered the street at the opposite end.
Marge and Marie, the two prostitutes, approached Frederick Block.
Jeff Talbot looked at the wall clock and left the luncheonette.
Two boys wearing bright-gold jackets turned into the block.
The cops of the 87th rushed the doorway to the left of La Gallina.
These are the things that happened, minute overlapping minute, time lost and time replaced by the tireless eye of space. These are the things that happened...
Cooch stood on the steps of the building next door to the church. He had been standing there for ten minutes now, watching the people pour down the church steps and into the bright confused sunshine of the street. There were not many people left inside the church now. He looked at his wrist watch, and then studied the few stragglers again. He was certain that Alfredo Gomez had not left the apartment to attend mass this morning. But he would wait a few moments more, just to make sure.
Against his belly he could feel the hard, cold metal of the pistols he had retrieved from Chico and Estaban. The weapons made him feel very strong and very powerful. Too, he considered this independent reconnaissance an act of foresight worthy of a general. He would wait until everyone had come out of the church, and then he would go back to Zip with the guns and with a report on Alfie's whereabouts. This was acting above and beyond the call of duty. Zip would be pleased. And whereas it would not be as dramatic to catch Alfie in his house instead of on the church steps, Cooch didn't much care. The important thing was to wash the little bastard. That was the important thing.
Cooch had been thinking about it all week long, ever since Zip first got the idea. There were times when Cooch couldn't sit still, just thinking about it. There were two stimulating and contradictory feelings which rushed through Cooch's mind and body whenever he considered what they were about to do. The first of these was the very concept of killing. This excited him. He had fantasized the squeezing of a trigger many times, had imagined Alfie tumbling down the church steps, had wondered what it would feel like to know that he had killed another human being. He had convinced himself that Alfie deserved killing. He had, after all, messed with China.
This was the second idea, and this was as exciting as the first. A hundred or more times in the past week, Cooch had imagined Alfie messing with China. He wondered just what Alfie had done to her, and his imagination created new images each time. Alfie gently stroking China's full breast. Alfie unbuttoning China's blouse. Alfie thrusting both hands beneath China's skirt. Alfie...
The images continued to stimulate him. And they were images clouded with guilt. Lying alone in his bed at night, he would think of Alfie and China, and then he would roll over into his pillow and think The son of a bitch has to die for that.
Of that he was certain.
Alfredo Gomez had to die.
Standing on the steps of the tenement, he watched the last few stragglers leaving the church, and he thought again of Alfie and China, and he bit his lip and then thought of shooting the little bastard.
China came down a flight of stairs and into the bright sunshine.
The tenement hallway had been dark, and she blinked now against the sudden brilliance, knowing she still had at least five minutes before she was to meet the sailor, not wanting to get there too early or seem too anxious, and yet almost unable to control the forward motion of her feet as they took her onto the stoop. Jeff was his name. Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, her mind echoed, and her heart beat with the idea of the rendezvous, and she found herself gripping the shopping bag in her hand more tightly. She had wrapped chicken in wax paper, had put up some eggs to boil before going to church, had later packed the hard-boiled eggs, and salt, and fruit, and a thermos of iced coffee, all of which were in the shopping bag now. She wondered if he liked chick
"Hello, China."
She blinked and then shielded her eyes from the overhead sun.
"Oh, hello, Cooch," she answered, and she smiled and began to walk around him, but he stepped into her path.
"I was just thinking about you," Cooch said.
"Oh?" China glanced at her watch. "Cooch, I haven't got time to talk to you right now. I have to..."
"About what we're going to do for you today."
"What? I don't under"
"Alfie?" Cooch said, smiling.
"Alfie?" She paused, puzzled. "Alfredo, do you mean? Alfredo Gomez?"
'Uh-huh," Cooch said, nodding.
"What about him?" She looked at her watch. She would have to hurry. With all that police trouble up the street, she would have to cut around the avenue and that didn't leave much time to...
"We're gonna get him," Cooch said. "For what he done to you."
"What?" she asked.
"Alfie," he repeated.
"Yes, but what ... what did you say?" She studied his face. She was certain she had heard him correctly, and yet his words hadn't seemed to make any sense.
"For what he done to you," Cooch said.
"What do you mean?"
"You know."
"No. I don't know."
He had taken a step closer to her, and she had backed away from him slightly. Blocking her path to the steps, he moved closer now, so that she was forced to take another step backward, almost into the darkened hallway of the building.
"You know what he done, China," Cooch said.
She looked at his face. His face looked very strange. He was a very young boy with a ridiculously silly mustache over his upper lip, and she had always thought ... but now he ... he ... looked different somehow.
"I have a gun," he said suddenly.
"Sj?
"A gun, China."
"What ... what..." She was forced to back away from him again, into the hallway this time. He stood silhouetted in the doorway of the building, the bright sunshine behind him. His hand moved. For a moment, she didn't know what he was doing. And then she saw the dull glint of metal.
"It's a Luger," Cooch said.
"Wh-what are you going to do with that, Cooch?"
"Kill Alfie," he answered.
"Kill...? Why? What for?"
"For what he done to you?"
"He didn't do anything to me!" China said.
"You know what he done, China." He held the gun up close to her face. "You know what he done."
She was truly frightened now. She did not want to retreat further into the hallway, but he kept moving closer and closer to her, and there was no place to go but back. For a crazy moment, she wanted to turn and run up the steps to her apartment. And then it was too late. He had stepped between her and the steps and was moving toward her again so that, in backing away from him, she stumbled toward the garbage cans stacked under the steps on the ground floor.
"Cooch, I ... I have to go," she said. "I don't know what you're talking abo
ut. Alfie didn't do anything to me. If you're angry at him because you think..."
"This is what he done, China," Cooch said, and his hand reached out for her.
She felt his fingers tighten on her breast, and she screamed, pulling away from him. His fingers clung. She thought her blouse would tear. Blindly, she brought up the shopping bag, swinging it at him, screaming, and then shoving her way past him into the bright sunlight again, rushing down the steps, still screaming, into the crowd.
A man selling ices entered the street at the opposite end.
"Pidaguas!" he called. "Pidaguas! Come buy some pidaguas."
Zip, standing on the crate, turned to watch the man who pushed through the crowd with his cart. "Hey, you want some ices?" he asked Elena.
"You got any loot?"
"Sure," Zip answered. "What flavor you want?"
"Lemon," Elena said.
"I'll have a lemon, too," Juana said.
"Oh, now she knows me," Zip said, leaping down from the crate. "Now it's buying time, she knows me. Okay. I'm the last of the red-hot spenders. Everybody gets ices!"
From the crate, Papa said, "Me, too, Zeep?"
"You, too, Papa! Everybody! Everybody gets pidaguas today! Hey, Mac, slow down! Don't you want no business?"
He went over to the cart and placed his order. He seemed happy as hell. He paid no attention at all to the detectives who stood not six feet from him.
"Where are your men, Andy?" Byrnes asked.
"Coming, sir."
Byrnes turned to Hemandez who stood staring up at the first floor of the tenement. "You scared, Frankie?"
"A little," Hernandez answered.
"I don't blame you." He paused. "This is the damnedest thing ever, isn't it? The last one I remember like this was back in 1931 when this guy Nelson O'Brien was holed up in an apartment on the North Side. I was a patrolman at the time. He held off a hundred and fifty cops for two hours that day. We were chopping holes in the roof and dropping tear gas down on him, but the bastard wouldn't give up. We wounded him three times, but he was still standing when we went into the apartment to collar him. Standing and cursing but out of amo. He'd hidden both his guns in his socks, hoping to use them later for an escape. A real prize, he was."
Byrnes paused and stared at Hernandez. "I didn't feel so hot that day, Frankie."
"Why not?"
"They guy in the apartment was Nelson O'Brien." He paused again. "I'm Irish."
"Yes, sir," Hernandez said.
"But I'll tell you something, Frankie. The guys like Nelson O'Brien don't stop me from marching in the St. Paddy's day parade every year. You understand me?"
"I understand you."
"Good." Byrnes hesitated. "Take care of yourself on that goddamn fire escape," he said. "I wouldn't want to lose a good cop."
"Yes, sir," Hernandez said.
Byrnes extended his hand. "Good luck, Frankie."
"Thank you." Byrnes turned to walk back to the squad car. "Pete?" Hernandez called. Byrnes faced him. "Thank you," Hernandez said again.
Marge and Marie, the two prostitutes, approached Frederick Block. Block was pulling his handkerchief out of his back pocket, preparatory to mopping his face with it, when his elbow struck something very soft. He turned casually. The something very soft was covered with bright-red silk.
"Hello," Marge said.
"Well, hello," Block answered. "Quite a show, isn't it?"
"If you like this kind of jazz," Marie said.
"Well, it's pretty exciting," Block said. He studied the low-cut front of Marie's dress. Damn, if this girl didn't have the...
"There are plenty things more exciting than watching a cheap gunman get shot," Marie said.
"Like what?" Block asked, beginning to get the impression that this girl wasn't even wearing a brassiere.
"Can't you think of anything?" Marie said.
"Well ... I can think of a few," Block said.
"Whatever you can think of," Marie said, "we can manage."
Block studied the girls a moment longer. He mopped his face. Then, with a practiced eye, and a whispered voice, he asked, "How much?"
"For one of us or both?" Marie asked.
"Both? Well, I hadn't..."
"Think about it."
"I am." '
"Think fast," Marge said.
"We like to work together," Marie said.
"The Bobbsey Twins down on the Farm," Marge said.
"We know things they don't even know in Paris yet," Marie said.
"We know things ain't even been invented yet," Marge said.
"How much?" Block asked again.
"Fifty for the afternoon, including the stretcher bearers."
"The what?"
"The stretcher bearers. To carry you out when it's over."
Block chuckled. "How much without them?"
"Twenty-five for me alone. My name's Marie. It's a bargain, believe me."
"I'll think about it," Block said.
"Come on, come on," Marie prompted.
"Can't you just wait a minute?"
"Love don't wait a minute, mister," Marie said.
"Not in July it don't," Marge added.
"Twenty-five's too high," Block said.
"Make it twenty, sport. A double sawbuck, what do you say?"
"You're on."
"Or vice versa," Marie said dryly. She turned to her friend. "Well, I'm set Now what are you gonna do with all that love busting inside you, huh, Marge?"
Jeff Talbot looked at the wall clock and left the luncheonette.
It was fifteen minutes past twelve.
She wasn't coming. He'd been a jerk to think she'd keep the date. He went out into the street, thankful that he had worn his whites today. God what a hot day, why hadn't she kept the date, why in hell hadn't she kept the date? He wanted to hit somebody. He just for the hell of it felt like hitting somebody. You meet a girl like that maybe once in Oh, the hell with it. Angrily, he stamped back into the luncheonette.
"I'm shoving off, Louise," he said.
"What?" Luis answered.
"She didn't show. I'm leaving."
"Good," Luis said, nodding. "You will be better off out of this neighborhood. There are other girls, sailor."
"Yeah, that's for sure," Jeff said.
He walked out of the luncheonette again. It was a damn shame, he thought, because ... well ... he'd almost found it. He'd almost, in the space of what was it, ten, fifteen minutes?
In that short a time, he'd almost found it, but of course he should have known. Nothing good comes easy. And yet, it had seemed so right, it had just seemed ... seemed right, where ... where eyes meet and ... and without touching ... without saying very much...
The hell with it!
He strode out of the luncheonette, and the first people he saw were Frederick Block and the two prostitutes.
Marge winked at him.
Jeff squared his hat and walked directly to the trio.
"Well, well, well," he said.
"Feel like a party, sailor?" Marge asked.
He hesitated for just a moment, his eyes roaming the street. Then he said, "Yes, goddamnit, I feel just like a party!" and he grabbed Marge's elbow, and the four of them turned the corner and went off up the avenue.
Two boys wearing bright-gold jackets turned into the block.
They stood with their hands on their hips for a moment. Both wore sunglasses, both wore their dark hair in high crowns. The bigger of the two, and the older a boy of about twenty who stood a little over six feet tall wore a silver identification bracelet on his right wrist. His name was Tommy. The other boy, nineteen and short by modern standards, was called Li'1 Killer. His real name was Phil. He had never killed anyone in his life, but the name made him sound like a guy who'd cut out your liver for the price of an ice-cream soda. The tall one, Tommy, nodded at Phil and they walked directly toward the crate where Papa and the two girls stood craning their necks.
"Hey, kid," Tommy said
.
Papa turned. "You talk to me?"
"Off the box," Tommy said flatly.
"Huh?" Papa said. "Why?"
"You heard him," Phil said. "Off the box. We want a view."
Papa looked down to where Sixto stood near the side of the crate.
"Sixto, go call..." he started, and Phil shoved out at Sixto before he could move.
"Stay put, sonny," he said.
"Don't hurt him, Li'1 Killer," Tommy said. He chuckled. "Just cripple him."
"Listen, why do you want trouble for?" Elena said, looking past them to where Zip stood at the ices cart near the corner.
"Who wants trouble?" Tommy asked gently. "Li'1 Killer and me, we asked your friend very politely to get the hell off that box, that's all. That ain't no trouble."
"That ain't no trouble at all," Phil said.
In that instant, Lieutenant Byrnes waved his arm at the rooftops, and the police opened fire. The firing was a precise, methodical operation designed to keep Miranda away from the front windows. At the same time, the distant echo of guns could be heard in the back yard, and over that, like a triangle player in a hundred-piece orchestra, the sound of shattering glass. Miranda appeared at the front windows for just an instant, looked into the street, saw what he was supposed to see, and ducked back into the apartment.
The cops of the 87th rushed the doorway to the left of La Gallina.
Miranda saw them the second before he ducked his head. Lieutenant Byrnes led the charge, shooting up at the windows as he ran. Behind him were Steve Carella and Andy Parker and half a dozen patrolmen, all with guns in their hands. Frankie Hernandez brought up the rear. One by one, the cops entered the tenement. Hernandez seemed to be following them and then, suddenly, at the last moment, he swerved to the right of the doorway and flattened himself against the front of the building.
At the same time, Captain Frick who commanded the uniformed cops of the 87th brought the megaphone to his mouth and shouted, "We're coming in, Miranda! We're going to knock that front door right off its hinges."
There was no answer from within the apartment.
"We're coming in, Miranda! We're coming up those steps right now!" Frick shouted, and he hoped Miranda would buy it.