See Them Die

by Ed McBain

  "Call him over," Tommy said.

  "What for?"

  "To tip him off. You want the cops to get him?"

  "Who cares they get him or not? He's a jerk."

  "Jerk or no, I don't like the cops to score. Call him over."

  Phil shrugged. "Hey! Hey, kid! Hey, you!"

  Cooch, who had been searching the crowd for Zip and the boys, stopped dead in his tracks, recognizing the gold jackets at once, hesitating.

  "Come here," Phil said.

  Cooch approached the crate warily. "You talking to me?"

  "Yeah, Hey, what's your name again?"

  "Me?"

  "Yeah, who do you think? I forget your name. What is it again."

  "Cooch."

  "Sure. Cooch. That's right." Phil nodded. "Cooch, this is Tommy Ordiz, he's war counselor for the Royal Guardians. He's maybe got a tip for you."

  "What kind of tip?" Cooch asked suspiciously.

  "On the fourth at Hialeah," Phil said, and he burst out laughing.

  "Don't clown around," Tommy warned. "You want this tip, Cooch?"

  "Who's clowning?" Phil said. "Rrrrrrracing fans..."

  "Knock it off!"

  "I was just..."

  "Knock it off!"

  Phil fell silent. He put his hands in his pockets and glowered at Tommy.

  "You want the tip, Cooch?" Tommy asked again.

  "Depends on what kind."

  "A good tip. I'm being nice to you." He paused. "Get rid of that purple jacket."

  Cooch was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Who says?"

  "I'm giving you good advice. Ditch the jacket."

  "Why?" Cooch said narrowly. "So you can say you busted a Latin Purple?"

  "Huh?"

  "You heard me."

  "Oh, man, don't be a worse meatball than you are," Tommy said. "I got better things to do than..."

  "Screw him," Phil said. "Let him find out for himself."

  "You don't get no trophy from me, pal," Cooch said.

  "Look," Tommy started, patiently trying to explain, "if you keep wearing that jacket..."

  "The jacket stays on! No goddamn Royal Guardian tells me what to wear."

  "See?" Phil said. "What'd I tell you? Let the creep find out for..."

  "No, wait a minute, Phil," Tommy said.' Something hard and cold had crept into his voice and into his eyes. He studied Cooch minutely, and then said, "You ought to watch your mouth, boy, you know?"

  "I don't have to watch nothing," Cooch said. He did not know whether or not he was afraid. Actually, he did not feel afraid. Not with four guns rucked into the waistband of his trousers. But at the same time, he knew that something was pushing him into sounding two members of the toughest gang in the neighborhood. He could only assume the force propelling him was fear. And yet, he did not feel afraid.

  Tommy climbed down off the packing crate. "You got a real loose mouth, boy," he said. "You ought to watch the way it spills over."

  "You take care of your own mouth," Cooch said.

  "You're really looking for it, ain't you, boy? Your day ain't gonna be complete until we break your arm, is it?"

  "You finished making big noises?" Cooch asked. "I'm in a hurry."

  Tommy stepped into his path. "Stay put, boy."

  "Tommy," Phil warned, "there's a million bulls all over the..."

  "Shut up!" Tommy said tightly, without turning his attention from Cooch. "I give you a chance to take off that jacket nice and polite, now didn't I, Cooch? For your own good, I asked you. Okay. Now you're gonna take it off because I'm telling you to take it off. Now how about that?"

  "How about it?" Cooch answered.

  "You take it off, or I cut if off your back!"

  "Sure. Try it."

  "You're the kind I like," Tommy said, taking a step forward, his hand reaching into his pocket. "You're the kind of spunky little bastard I..."

  "Hold it!" Cooch whispered. "Hold it right there, man! I got four pieces under this jacket, and I swear to God I'll use every friggin' one of them!"

  Tommy stopped suddenly, eyeing Cooch, wondering if this were just a bluff. It did not seem to be. Cooch's eyes were steady, his mouth tight.

  "So come on, hero," he said confidently.

  "Let it go, Tommy," Phil said worriedly, his eyes flicking to the cops swarming over the street.

  Tommy studied Cooch an instant longer, and then backed away. "We got a big man with a piece here, Phil," he said. "You're real big with them pieces, huh, Cooch? Well, I got some more advice for you. Friendly advice. Don't never go walking about without a piece from now on, you hear? Because, buddy, you are going to need one. You are really going to need one."

  "Thanks, you yellow bastard," Cooch said, grinning, and then he turned on his heel and ran off toward the corner.

  "Cooch, huh?" Tommy said, smoldering. He nodded. "Okay, Cooch. We're gonna see about you, Cooch."

  "A nut!" Phil said, shaking his head. "We try to help him, and he turns on us." He shook his head again. "It just don't pay to be nice to nobody." He looked up at the girls. "You chicks gonna stand on that box all day long?"

  "What else is there to do?" Elena asked.

  "Let's go up to my pad," Phil said. "My people are out. We roll back the rug in the parlor, and we have a little jump, what do you say?"

  "I don't know," Elena said. "Juana?"

  "I don't know. What do you think?"

  "It's too hot to dance," Elena said.

  "Okay, so let's go get a beer," Phil said. "What the hell's the sense in hanging around here? Don't you know what's gonna happen?"

  "No. What's gonna happen?"

  "Eventually, they're gonna shoot Pepe," Phil said simply. "What do you think? He's gonna get away?"

  "He might," Elena said.

  "Impossible."

  "Why is it so impossible?"

  "Because there's got to be a moral," Phil said. "The Bad Guy never wins. Crime don't pay. Otherwise the Breen Office don't let it through." He burst out laughing. "Hey, Tommy, you dig that? The Breen Office..."

  "Yeah, I caught it," Tommy said. "The son of a bitch! I was trying to help him, can you imagine that?"

  "Come on, girls," Phil said. "Let's cut out, huh?"

  "Juana?" Elena said.

  "Okay," Juana said.

  "Great," Phil said, helping them off the crate. "Believe me, you'd be wasting your time hanging around here. Ain't nothing gonna happen to Pepe but he's gonna get killed.

  If the police had been as confidently sure of the outcome as was Phil, they would not have bothered to arm themselves with tear-gas pellets this time at the bat. For whatever Phil might have thought about the inevitability of Hollywood-type gangland movies, Pepe Miranda had broken out of an apartment the day before, and today he had shot a patrolman and a detective, and the possibility existed that he might shoot a few more detectives — or even another lowly patrolman or two — before the festivites were over. And, granting this possibility, there was the further possibility that he could and might break out of this apartment today, foiling the police, the Breen Office, the brothers Warner, and even Anthony Boucher. In any case, this time the cops were playing it safe. One of their patrolmen had been carted away in an ambulance, and one of their detectives lay spilling his blood, drop by drop, to the sidewalk below, and those seemed like enough casualties for one day.

  So they lined up across the street like Hessians on a Massachusetts field in 1777, and they put their tear-gas guns to their shoulders, and they awaited the order which would release a new volley of bullets against the windows across the street, driving Miranda back so that they could plop their triple tracer shells into the apartment. There was nothing as sad as a crying thief, and all those valiant men in blue would watch Miranda with aching hearts as he burst into tears, but that was the way the little tear-gas pellet bounced.

  Lieutenant Byrnes waved his arm at the rooftops, and the volley began. There was no glass left to shatter, and even the window frames were so badly splint
ered that the new cascade of bullets seemed to seek out instinctively the relatively untouched brick surrounding the windows. Big chunks of red brick showered onto the fire escape and the pavement below. Hernandez, lying as still as a stone, was covered with red dust.

  "Okay," Byrnes said to the men in the street, "get it going. Aim for the windows and get as many in there as you can!"

  The men started firing. The triple tracer shells arced in lazy spirals toward the window. From inside the apartment, Miranda let out a roar like a wounded animal. There was a hiss, and then a cloud of smoke, and then more hisslike explosions and suddenly tear gas was pouring from the open windows. The pellets raced about the apartment like decapitated rats, designed to wriggle and squirm so that they could not be picked up and returned to the street. The scent of apple blossoms drifted into the street, a mild scent wafted over the heads of the crowd. Miranda was cursing a blue streak now, shouting and roaring. He appeared at the windows once, and was driven back by a Thompson gun which all but ripped away half the side of the building.

  And then, suddenly, in the street, there was a pop and a hiss, and the scent of apple blossoms was unimaginably strong, and Andy Parker reeled backward from one of the patrolmen and shouted, "You stupid idiot! You goddamn stupid idiot!"

  14

  Well, you can't blame people for accidents. People have accidents all the time, and cops are only people, and if a gun misfires, it misfires, and that's that. And if a tear-gas pellet which is supposed to go zooming up through the air suddenly plops onto the asphalt and explodes there, those are just the breaks. Maybe Parker shouldn't have been standing so close to the patrolman firing the pellet. But accidents will happen, and Parker was standing close to the gun when it misfired, and close to the pellet when it exploded, so that he got the first mushrooming whiff of tear gas before the pellet went dizzily skipping into the crowd. Tear gas ain't Chanel Number 5. Especially when it goes off practically in your face. His eyes began to burn instantly. Blindly, he reached for his handkerchief, cursing the patrolman, and compounding the felony by rubbing the chemical deeper into his smarting eyes.

  Bawling like a baby, he staggered toward the luncheonette, the handkerchief to his face. Behind him he could hear the shrieking of the crowd as the pellet traced a crazy path among them. People began coughing and shouting. Byrnes was yelling orders at patrolmen. All Parker knew was that his face and his eyes were burning.

  "Luis!" he shouted. "Luis!"

  He groped his way to the counter, the handkerchief to his face.

  "Luis, where are you?"

  There was no answer. Parker took the handkerchief away from his face. He tried to see past the tears in his eyes, but he saw only blurred shapes, dazzling, shimmering tears of streaked light.

  "Luis!" he shouted. "Get me some water! I can't see." He was beginning to panic. Why didn't Luis answer him? Why wouldn't Luis help him? "Luis! Where are you? Help me! Get me some water! Luis! Luis!"

  Luis came running from the back of the shop, his eyes wide with concern. "Que pasa?" he said. "Que pasa?"

  And Parker shouted. "Where are you, you stupid spic!"

  The words stopped Luis as effectively as bullets. They slammed into his ears and ricocheted in his mind and then paralyzed him. He stood with his arms at his sides, staring at Parker.

  "Luis?"

  "Si."

  "For Christ's sake, get me some water. Please get me some water."

  "Si," Luis said. "Si." Dazed, he moved away from the counter.

  "Hurry!"

  In the street outside, the firing had stopped. Great billows of gas poured from the shattered windows of the apartment, hovered on the windless air. People were covering their faces with handkerchiefs and cursing at the police for unleashing this blight. Luis brought a bowl of water to the counter. Parker groped for it blindly, touched the rim with his hand, and then dipped into it. Luis watched him silently. Parker washed his eyes and his skin, sighing, repeating the motion over and over again. And finally he dried himself with the handkerchief and lifted his face. Luis was still staring at him.

  "Que pasa, maricon?" Parker asked, grinning, using a Spanish obscenity.

  "Nothing," Luis said. He shook his head wearily. "Nothing."

  "What's the matter, huh?" Parker asked, still grinning. "What's the matter, eh, cabron?" Another obscenity, but there was no answering smile from Luis.

  "De nada," Luis said. "Nothing."

  "You sore at me? 'Cause I was yelling at you? Is that it? Man, I felt like my eyes were on fire. You sure were a lifesaver."

  "St, I was a lifesaver," Luis said blankly.

  Parker felt suddenly uneasy. "Hey, come on," he said. "You going to let a little yelling come between friends?"

  After a long while, Luis said, "No, Andy, I would not let a little yelling come between friends."

  Outside, Lieutenant Byrnes lifted the megaphone to his lips. "Miranda? Can you hear me?"

  "What do you want, you son of a bitch?" Miranda shouted, coughing.

  "This is it, Miranda. Are you ready to come out? Or do we shoot our way in?"

  There was a long silence. Parker moved quickly out of the luncheonette. Luis was still staring at him as he left.

  "What the hell is he doing?" Parker asked Carella. "Why don't we move in right now? I'll bet he can hardly see in there."

  "Pete doesn't want any more shooting unless it's absolutely necessary," Carella answered.

  "Why give that punk a break? We can go in there and mop him up in two seconds."

  "Suppose he starts shooting into the street again?"

  "So what?"

  "You want these people to get hurt?"

  "All I want is Miranda."

  "And after Miranda, then what?" Carella asked.

  "What do you mean?"

  "When does your private crusade stop?"

  "What the hell are you...?"

  "When are you going to forget that beating you took, Parker?"

  "What beating? What...?"

  "You know what I'm talking about!"

  "All right. I'm never going to forget it," Parker shouted. "Okay? Never. It taught me a lesson, buddy, and only a sap would..."

  "What lesson, Parker?"

  "It taught me you can't trust anybody in this lousy precinct, that's what it..."

  "And it also taught you to be afraid," Carella said.

  "What?"

  "You heard me. Afraid."

  "Look, mister, you'd just better stop right now, while you're winning. I still ain't forgotten the time you..."

  "When are you going to make a real arrest, Parker? When are you going to stop pulling in junkies and drunks? When are you going to tackle the real troublemakers?"

  "I do my job!" Parker shouted. "I keep the streets clean!"

  "By picking up the wrong garbage!"

  "It's all garbage here!"

  "And you're afraid of it! You're afraid to take another beating!"

  "You son of a bitch, I warned you to..."

  "I'm waiting, Miranda!" Byrnes shouted, and both men turned their attention to the lieutenant. Carella's fists were bunched. Parker glowered at him, and then walked to where Byrnes was standing.

  "How about it, Miranda? Give it up! You haven't got a chance."

  "What chance do I have if I come out? That old lady died, didn't she?"

  "What old lady?"

  "The one I mugged," Miranda said. He went into a fit of coughing which lasted for several moments. Then his voice came from the apartment again. "Tell the truth, cop."

  "That woman's still alive, Miranda."

  "I shouldn't have hit her," Miranda said. His voice faded. "I needed money. I had to..." He paused for a long time. "She's dead, ain't she?"

  "She's alive, I told you."

  "You're lying to me. You'll never get me out of here, cop. You think I'm coming out to face a murder rap?"

  "The woman's alive. If you force us to come in after you, you haven't got a chance."

  "I got news fo
r you, cop. I never did have one."

  "Okay, so make it easy on yourself now."

  "For what? In payment for all the crap I've taken from cops since I was old enough to walk?"

  "You dished out a bit yourself, Miranda. Let's cut the talking. Yes or no? Do you come out with your hands up, or do we blast you out?"

  "You want me, come and earn your salary."

  "Okay, you're calling it. There's just no talking to you, is there? Okay, we're coming in."

  "Hey ... hey, cop!"

  "What is it?"

  "Listen, I ... I want a priest."

  "A what?"

  "A priest. I ... I wanna talk to a priest."

  "Will you come out if we get you one?"

  "Send him up here. I gotta talk to him."

  "Why? Are you hit?"

  "No, I ain't hit. Goddamnit, do I need a federal warrant to get a priest? Can't I get anything in this friggin' city without having to beg for it?"

  "Just a minute, Miranda." Byrnes put down the megaphone. "What do you think, Steve?"

  "It's a trick," Carella said.

  "Sure," Parker said. "He don't want no priest. All he wants is a shield."

  "I know," Byrnes said.

  Carella stared at him. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking, Pete?"

  "Yes," Byrnes said. He put the speaker to his mouth. "Miranda?"

  "Yeah?"

  "I'm getting a priest for you."

  There was something in Zip's eyes which had not been there before. Sixto studied his face and tried to figure out what it was. Zip looked as if he might begin crying at any moment. His. face was red, and his lips were tight, and his eyes seemed to blink too often, as if he were struggling to hold back tears. But at the same time, there was a strength to the rigid thrust of his back, an impatience to the way he clenched and unclenched his fists.

  The boys were standing on the avenue opposite Alfredo's building. None of them wore the purple jackets now. Without the jackets, they seemed like four high-school kids discussing girls or baseball or swimming. But, of course, they were discussing murder.

  "What do you think, Cooch? Is he up there or not?"

  "I don't know," Cooch said, looking across at the building. "One thing for sure, he didn't go to church."

  "Why we deetch dee jackets, hey?" Papa asked. "I lak dee purple jacket."