See Them Die

by Ed McBain

  He seemed to be bleeding from a dozen places.

  The white undershirt seemed to sprout blood like poppies in an instant. His own gun kept bucking in his hand, but there was blood dripping from his face and into his eyes, and he just fired blindly and sort of groped out toward the crowd as if he were reaching for salvation and didn't know whose face held it.

  Parker came down off the crate, his service revolver trembling in his hand. The cops on the rooftops stopped firing all at once, and the men behind Miranda stopped firing as he stumbled blindly across the street, moving toward Parker who was similarly drawn toward him. It was almost as if someone had placed two magnetic figures on a long table. They moved toward each other inexorably, Miranda blinded by blood, and Parker drawn into that street by something he would never understand.

  Miranda's gun clicked empty, and he looked at Parker in supplication, blood dripping into his eyes and bubbling out of his mouth, the mouth open, the hands limp now, the head twisted to one side like a Christ who had climbed down from the cross.

  "Give me a break," Miranda whispered.

  And Parker fired.

  His shot took Miranda in the throat at close range, nearly ripping away the back of his neck. A fresh blossom of blood erupted, exposing Miranda's windpipe as he staggered forward again. His voice bubbled from his torn throat, a whispered voice that sounded as if it were coming from one of those trick underwater recording chambers, a voice directed only to Parker, a voice that sought out Parker on that spinning red street.

  "Can't you ... can't you give me a break?" And again Parker fired. And this time, he kept his finger on the trigger, tightening the pressure each time a slug roared from the barrel of the gun, watching the slugs rip into Miranda, watching Miranda topple into the gutter lifelessly, and then standing over him and pumping bullets into his body until his gun was empty, and then grabbing a gun from the patrolman standing next to him and beginning to fire at the dead Miranda.

  "That's enough," Carella shouted.

  Zip pushed past the barricade and flung himself at Parker's back. Parker brushed him off like a pesky fly, swinging his huge shoulders, knocking Zip to the pavement.

  "Leave him alone!" Zip shouted. "Leave him alone!"

  But Parker was hearing nothing. He fired the patrolman's gun at Miranda's head, and then he fired again, and he was preparing to fire a third time when Carella grabbed his arms and pulled him away from the body.

  "Somebody get up there to Frankie!" Lieutenant Byrnes shouted. "On the double!"

  Two patrolmen rushed into the tenement. Byrnes walked over to Miranda and stared down at him.

  "Is he dead?" a reporter called.

  Byrnes nodded. There was no triumph in his voice. "He's dead.'"

  "They killed him," Zip said to Cooch. "They killed him. The bastards killed him." He clutched Cooch frantically. "Where's Sixto? Where's Papa? We're gonna get him now, you hear me, Cooch? They killed Pepe, Cooch. You understand that? They killed him!" His eyes were wild. A thin layer of sweat covered his entire face.

  "What about China?" Cooch asked. "You said we needed China to..."

  "The hell with China! Alfie's gonna get his, you hear?"

  A patrolman appeared on the fire escape. The street went quiet. He walked to where Frankie Hernandez lay still and silent, and he knelt down, and Byrnes waited. The patrolman stood up.

  "Lieutenant?"

  "Yes?"

  "Frankie." The patrolman paused. "He's dead, sir."

  Byrnes nodded. He nodded again. And then he realized the patrolman was waiting for instructions and, still nodding, he said, "Bring him down. Off there. Off the fire escape. Would you ... would you bring him down, please?"

  The reporters had pushed past the barricade now, and they surrounded the body of the dead Miranda. Flash bulbs popped on the street, challenging the sunshine.

  "Where's Sixto and Papa?" Zip asked. "Didn't I say to meet me here?"

  "Look, Zip, calm down. Try to..."

  "Don't tell me what to do!" Zip shouted, shaking Cooch's hand loose. "I know what I'm..." and he stopped talking.

  Sixto and Papa had turned the corner, but it was not their appearance which had caused the sudden widening of Zip's eyes. He stared at the two boys and then he stared at their companion, and he balled his fists, because the person with them was Alfredo Gomez.

  "Wha—?" he started, and in that instant two patrolmen came from the doorway of the tenement, carrying the body of Frankie Hernandez on a stretcher. The people in the crowd began murmuring his name as the body went past. Handkerchiefs appeared, and women sniffled into them. The men in the crowd were taking off their hats and holding them to their chests.

  "It's Frankie," Luis said. "Close the doors! For respect! For respect!" He reached up for the overhead door of the luncheonette and pulled it down. On the avenue side of the shop another man pulled down the door there, so that the shop faced the street blindly — We will not conduct business while you pass by, my friend — as the patrolmen carried the body of Hernandez toward the ambulance.

  "Can we get a few more pictures of Miranda, Lieutenant?" one of the reporters asked.

  "Take all the pictures you want," Byrnes said. "He's in no hurry. Not any more."

  Luis rolled back the doors. The shop was open again.

  "What happens now, Lieutenant?" the reporter asked.

  Byrnes sighed heavily. "We pile him in the meat wagon, and we cart him off. I get my men off the streets. Try to unsnarl the traffic. And then take up a collection for a good cop. I don't know. What happens next?" He turned to Carella. "Steve?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Who's gonna tell Frankie's father? Who's gonna go into that candy store around the corner, where he's got Frankie's picture pasted to the mirror, who's gonna go in there and tell him Frankie is dead?"

  "I'll do it if you like, Pete."

  "No," Byrnes said, sighing and shaking his head. "It's my job."

  "We really nailed him, didn't we?" Parker said, striding over. "We really nailed the son of a—"

  "Shut up, Parker!" Byrnes snapped.

  "Wh—?"

  "Shut your goddamn mouth!"

  "Wh-what the hell is wrong now?' Parker asked, his face taking on a hurt and astonished look.

  Sixto, Papa, and Alfredo stood near the luncheonette. Zip walked to them quickly.

  "What is this, Sixto?" he asked.

  "What do you think it is, Zip?"

  "I don't like guessing games. What are you up to?"

  "I tell you, Zip," Sixto said simply. "If you wann to kill Alfredo, you got to kill us all."

  "What the hell are you talking about, you meatball?"

  "I say it pretty plain, Zip."

  "You know me an' Cooch are heeled? You know we can blast you all over the sidewalk?"

  "Si, we know," Sixto said. "Go ahead. Blast us all ov' the sidewalk."

  "What do you...?" Zip stopped and looked into Sixto's eyes. Slightly unnerved, he said, "What do you — mean?"

  "Be careful, Zip," Cooch said quickly. "They got something up their sleeves. I can see it. They're too ... they're too sure of themselves."

  "Sixto's got them buffaloed," Zip said quickly. He turned his attention to Papa. "You're on the wrong side, Papa. You stick with Sixto, and it's like siding with the ones who killed Pepe. You'd be..."

  "Pepe brings disgrace to the barrio" Papa said.

  "All right, that's enough pictures," Byrnes shouted. "Let's get him out of here, huh?"

  Two patrolmen reached down and rolled Miranda onto a stretcher. Another patrolman threw a blanket over him. Gingerly, they stepped around the pool of blood in the gutter and began moving toward the luncheonette.

  "The doors!" Zip shouted. "Close the doors for him!"

  But no one moved toward the doors. Instead, the people in the street watched the body as it passed by, and slowly, one by one, they turned their backs to it, so that the body, as the cops carried it toward the luncheonette, was presented with a solid wall of denial.


  "The doors!" Zip shouted again. "We should close the doors!"

  But no one moved. One by one, they denied the body of Miranda, and then — silently, so silently — they began moving off the street. What had been a milling, shouting mob not ten minutes ago was suddenly a dispersing group of whispering people, and then not even a group any more, simply a few stragglers, people in twos and threes; and then the street barricades were carted away, and the squad cars revved their engines, and the street seemed to settle down into its Sunday niche again, quiet, peaceful. It almost seemed as if nothing had happened on that street that day.

  Zip stood before the opened doors and watched the body of Miranda shoved into the ambulance, and then he whirled toward Sixto and shouted, "You think you're gonna get away with this?"

  "Move aside, Zip," Sixto said calmly. "We wann to get through now."

  "You won't be able to walk the street no more!" Zip shouted. "You think you..."

  "We'll see," Sixto said, and the three boys stepped away from the luncheonette, and walked past Zip and Cooch who did not move to stop them.

  "You're making a mistake!" Zip yelled after them. "You're making a big mistake!" But he did not run after them, and he did not try to stop them. "Why didn't you help me, Cooch?" he said suddenly, angrily. "For Christ's sake, we just let them walk away, for Christ's sake!"

  "They're ... they're too strong, Zip," Cooch said in a whisper.

  "We're the ones with the guns!" Zip protested.

  "Yeah, but ... they ... they were strong," Cooch said, and his voice fell.

  "Aw—" Zip made a meaningless little gesture with his right hand. "Aw—" He stared off down the street. The squad cars had pulled away now. Patrolmen were still lingering on the block, but most of the police were gone. The street stretched ahead in sticky blackness washed with hot sunshine. On the avenue, the traffic had started up again. "Jesus, what a ... what a miserable day this turned out to be," Zip said, and he looked at Cooch with troubled eyes.

  "Yeah," Cooch said softly.

  Zip looked back at the street, and then he sighed heavily. "Well ... what do you want to do the ... the rest of the afternoon, Cooch?"

  "I don't know," Cooch said.

  "Ain't you ... ain't you got no ideas?"

  "We could go to the flicks, I guess."

  "Yeah," Zip said emptily.

  "Or play some stickball, maybe."

  "Yeah."

  "Maybe go for a swim at the pool."

  "Yeah. Yeah, maybe we could do that." He turned his head suddenly and jerkily because he did not want Cooch to see the tears that had sprung into his eyes. Nor did he know why he was crying. It was just that, all at once, in the heart of one of the biggest cities in the world, Zip had felt all alone, utterly alone, and the enormity of the city and the inconsequence of himself had — had suddenly frightened him.

  "I guess — I guess we'll find something," he said, and he thrust his hands into his pockets, and the two boys walked up the sun-drenched street, their heads bent.

  Andy Parker passed them on his way to the luncheonette. He glanced at them, shrugged, and went in to say hello to his friend Luis.

  "You still sore at me, Luis?" he asked, as if this had been troubling him all along, as if it were important for him to know that Luis was not angry.

  "No, Andy," Luis said.

  "Everybody's sore at me," Parker said blankly. He paused. "Why's everybody sore at me?" He paused again. "I do my job." He looked up at Luis. "I'm sorry I yelled at you, Luis."

  "It doesn't matter."

  "Well, I'm sorry."

  He stared at Luis. And because Luis was a human being, and because apologies are never sincere unless they are tested, unless someone hurls into the face of "I'm sorry," the unforgiving reply, "who cares whether you're sorry or not? Go drop dead in a corner!" and gets one or two further responses. Gets, "In any case, I really am sorry," or gets, "Well if that's the way you feel, go to hell!" and knows by these further responses whether the apology was real to begin with, being human, Luis tested the apology.

  "You should have thought of that before you spoke," he said, and his eyes narrowed, and he waited for Parker's answer.

  Parker nodded. "I should have," Parker agreed. "I'm sorry."

  The men stared at each other. There was nothing further to say for now. Perhaps there was nothing further to say ever.

  "Well, I ... I better get back to the squad," Parker said.

  "Si."

  Parker waved, seemed to become embarrassed in the middle of the gesture, and let his hand drop. Slowly, he shuffled off up the street.

  A reporter walked into the luncheonette and took a stool. "Well, everything quiet again, huh?" he said. "Let me have a cup of coffee, huh?"

  "St', everything quiet," Luis answered.

  "Just like the island, huh?" the reporter said.

  Instantly, Luis answered, "No, not just like the island," and then he paused, and then he looked at the reporter, and then he said, "But maybe not so bad anyway, eh? Maybe not so bad."

  Down the street, the church bells began tolling.

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  Document ID: 5f702a5a-969b-45e8-8fed-3115251962aa

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  Document creation date: 10.10.2013

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  Document authors :

  Ed McBain

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