A Matter of Conviction

Eleven

With the trial only three days away, with his face still covered with adhesive plaster even though he’d been released from the hospital, Hank received a call at the office that Friday.

“Mr. Bell, this is Lieutenant Canotti.”

“Hello,” Hank said.

“I’ve got that report you wanted.”

“The report? What report?”

“On those knives.”

“Oh, yes. Yes, of course. I’d almost forgotten.”

“What’s the matter, Bell? Losing your pep? You were ready to go in to your boss on this, remember?”

“I remember.”

“So where’s the fighting assistant district attorney now?” Canotti paused. “That street beating take the starch out of you?”

“I’m busy, Canotti,” Hank said. “Make it short, and make it sweet, and cut the bull. I don’t know you well enough to start a feud.”

Canotti chuckled and then said, “We ran a lot of tests on these knives. No good latent prints because they got smeared when this Rugiello girl handled them. But there was something else that was interesting. At least, I think it was interesting.”

“What was that?”

“Well, you’ll see when you get the report. I’m sending a copy over together with the knives. Don’t forget to sign for receipt, will you?”

“When will this be?” Hank asked.

“I’m sending them over right now. The trial ain’t till Monday, am I right?”

“That’s right.”

“Sure. So you got all weekend to think about it.” Canotti chuckled again. “I hope it don’t upset your case, Mr. Bell.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you read the report. Like I said, it’s pretty interesting.”

“Okay, I’ll read the report.”

“Sure. So long, Mr. Bell. It was nice dealing with you.” And Canotti hung up. Hank replaced the receiver on the cradle. The instrument erupted into sound again instantly. He picked up the receiver again.

“Hello?”

“Bell? This is Lieutenant Gunnison of the twenty-seventh. I got something that might interest you. Can you run up here?”

“What is it?”

“It’s connected with the Morrez case. It might give you a new slant.”

“I can’t get away right this minute,” Hank said. “After lunch sometime?”

“I’ll be here all afternoon. Come whenever you can. There’s somebody I’d like you to talk to.”

“Okay, I’ll see you later,” Hank said, and he hung up.

The report from the police laboratory did not arrive until two-thirty that afternoon. Hank, packing his briefcase to leave the office, stuffed the report in with his other papers, locked the enveloped knives in his desk drawer, and then signed the receipt while the messenger waited. His plan was to stop in on Gunnison and then go directly home, where he would put the finishing touches to his case before beginning the selection of jurors on Monday.

He did not reach the precinct house until a little after three. He looked up at the green lanterns flanking the wide stone stoop and then climbed the steps into the muster room. A sign at the desk read: “All visitors must state their business to the desk officer.” He walked to the high desk, caught the sergeant’s eye and said, “I want to see Lieutenant Gunnison. I’m from the district attorney’s office.”

“Upstairs,” the sergeant said, and he went back to his work.

Hank followed the pointing DETECTIVE DIVISION sign into the upstairs corridor. A man in shirt sleeves, a .38 hanging from a shoulder holster, stopped him just outside the squad room.

“Help you, sir?” he said.

“I want Lieutenant Gunnison,” Hank said.

“The loot’s busy just now. Somebody else help you?”

“Gunnison called me this morning, asked me to stop by. I’m from the D.A.’s office.”

“You Bell?”

“Yes.”

“Hello. I’m Detective Levine. Come on in and have a chair. I’ll tell the loot you’re here.”

Hank passed through the slatted rail divider and sat at one of the desks. Levine went into the lieutenant’s office and emerged a moment later with Gunnison.

“Mr. Bell?” Gunnison said.

“Yes, how do you do?”

“I’m Lieutenant Gunnison. You got a few minutes?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I had a visitor this morning. An eighteen-year-old kid named Dominick Savarese. Ring a bell?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“He’s a punk, they’re all punks. But he’s also the leader of the Thunderbirds. They call him Big Dom.”

“Oh yes. I’ve heard of him.”

“Yeah, well, he told me something interesting, not that I didn’t suspect as much all along. They’re all punks, believe me.”

“What’d he tell you?”

“I’d like you to hear it from his own mouth. I know where we can find him if you’ve got a few minutes.”

“I’ve got plenty of time.”

“Fine, let me get my hat.”

There was, Hank noticed as they walked through Harlem, a perpetual look of sourness on the face of Richard Gunnison. It was as if he carried garbage in his back pocket but, rather than put it into the nearest garbage can, he preferred to bear the smell stoically and with great malice. His eyes flicked over the streets as they walked, and the look of sourness claimed his face completely.

“Harlem,” he said at last. “Beautiful, ain’t it? I been stuck in this lousy squad for twenty-four years. I’d rather be in a Russian concentration camp in Siberia. Look at them!”

“They don’t look too bad,” Hank said.

“That’s ’cause you don’t know them. They’re all thieves, every single one of them. Or pimps. Or whores. Or gamblers. Or junkies. You see that old lady there with the shopping bag?”

“Yes,” Hank said.

“Go over to her and ask her what number’s leading. She’ll tell you in a minute. The numbers racket is against the law, and everybody in Harlem knows it. But anytime in the afternoon, you can stop anybody on the street and say, ‘What’s leading?’ and they’ll tell you. They can’t feed their kids, but they can scrape up that two, three bucks to lay on a number.”

“I’m not for lawbreaking,” Hank said, “but those people probably feel that the numbers are a pretty harmless diversion. A lot of countries have legal lotteries, you know.”

“This ain’t a lot of countries, this is Harlem, and it’s against the law here, and half the goddamn police force is kept busy shagging ass after the offenders. Look at them! And half these people you see on the street are junkies, you know that? We got enough junk in Harlem to keep everybody in the world supplied for the next ten years.”

“Then why don’t you do something about it?”

“We try, all right. And the Narcotics Squad ain’t exactly asleep, either. But we ain’t got enough cops to go around. I’ll tell you something, Bell. I’ve never known a cop to take a bribe on a narcotics pinch. That’s the truth. I’m not saying you can’t fix anything else you’d care to in this city — including maybe murder. But junk, absolutely not. There ain’t a cop in this city who’ll take a nickel to square a junk rap. So you can’t say we ain’t trying. We just ain’t got the men. You know how many people there are in this precinct? Thousands! And we’ve only got a hundred and eighty-five patrolmen and eighteen detectives attached to the Twenty-seventh. And they’re supposed to keep all these people from slitting each others’ throats or taking dope or burglarizing apartments or selling stolen goods or mugging or pimping or whoring, and I tell you, my friend, it just can’t be done. You think we’d have these street gangs if we had enough cops? We’d rap these kids with a nightstick whenever they even looked at anybody cockeyed. That’s all half of them need, anyway.”

“Maybe,” Hank said.

“No maybes about it. A punk is a punk, and these kids are all punks. And I never yet seen a punk who didn’t begin blubbering the minute you cracked him one.” He paused. “We’re going to a poolroom on Second Avenue. We can find Big Dom there.”

“In your opinion, then,” Hank said, “all we have to do is get tough and we’ll wipe out the juvenile delinquency problem, is that right?”

“That’s right. A swift kick in the ass instead of all this mollycoddling. Since when have the psychiatrists become the ones who decide what’s right and wrong? A criminal is a criminal! We got enough nuts in the booby hatch now without trying to excuse every thief of his crime by saying he’s a disturbed personality. So who ain’t a disturbed personality? You? Me? We’re all a little nuts, but we’re also law-abiding citizens. Crack their goddamn skulls, that’s the answer. If a punk steps out of line, send him up and throw away the key. That’s the answer.” He paused. “Here’s the poolroom. You’re about to meet another punk who should have been locked up when he was six years old.”

They climbed the stairs leading to the second floor. There was the strong smell of urine in the hallway. Hank wondered, as they climbed, whether there was a single flight of stairs anywhere in Harlem which did not smell of human waste.

They found Big Dom at a table near the back of the pool hall. He nodded at the lieutenant, racked up the balls and then broke them. He’d been trying to knock one ball loose from the neat triangle. Instead, the balls scattered all over the table when the cue smashed into them. He looked up, shrugged and said, “Lousy break.”

“This is the D.A., Dom,” Gunnison said. “He wants to talk to you. He wants to hear the story you told me.”

“Yeah?” Big Dom studied Hank’s face. “Somebody beat you up, Mr. Bell?” he asked.

“Don’t get wise, punk,” Gunnison said. “You read the newspapers same as anybody else. Just tell Mr. Bell the story you gave me.”

“Sure,” Big Dom said.

He was truly a short boy, with wide shoulders and a thick neck and waist. He seemed to be having trouble now as he reached over the table for a long shot. He wore his hair very long, combed into a high black crown, with sideburns that dropped past his ears. In his left ear lobe he wore a circular gold earring. The ornament did not look feminine on him, however. If anything, there seemed to be a bull-like strength emanating from the boy. And immediately upon seeing him, Hank knew that Frankie Anarilles had been wrong in his judgment of this boy. For whatever his faults — and playing bad pool seemed to be one of them — this boy was definitely not lacking in leadership qualities. In the presence of a police lieutenant and a district attorney, he continued to shoot his solitaire pool as if he were an oil baron being visited at his estate in the California hills. He missed two shots in a row, studied his cue and said, “No wonder. The stick’s warped.” He went to the rack, held up a new cue, looked down the length of it with one eye closed and then went back to the table.

“So you want to hear my story, huh?” he said.

“Yes,” Hank answered.

“Mmm,” Big Dom said, and he triggered off another shot, missing. The new cue had not seemed to improve his game noticeably.

“You know who I am?” he said. “I’m Big Dom.” He paused. “Five ball in the side pocket.” He shot and missed. “This damn table is crooked,” he said. “The floor’s on a bias.”

“I’ve heard of you,” Hank said.

“Sure, everybody has. I had my name in the papers a total of sixteen times. They got my address wrong one time.” He wiped his nose on his forefinger and squatted so that he was just peering over the edge of the table as he sized up his next shot. Then he said, “Eight ball in the corner,” shot and missed.

“You know why they call me Big Dom?” he asked, straightening up.

“Come on, cut the jazz,” Gunnison said. “Mr. Bell’s a busy man.”

“They call me Big Dom ’cause I’m a shrimp,” he said. He laughed. “But everybody knows if they ever really call me a shrimp, they’re dead.” He laughed again. “Dead. So they call me Big Dom.”

“You’re a very tough punk,” Gunnison said sarcastically. “Tell Mr. Bell the story before I bust that pool cue over your head.”

“These kids you’re trying to send to the chair, Mr. Bell. They’re all nice guys.”

“They committed murder,” Hank said.

Big Dom shrugged. “Lots of nice guys all through history have killed people. In a war, the more people you kill, the more medals you get. That don’t make them any less nice, does it?”

“What makes you say these boys are nice?”

“They all got heart,” Big Dom said. “Courage. You can count on them. They’re not going to turkey out when you’re supposed to go down on another club. They’re okay, every one of them.”

“Is Di Pace a Thunderbird?”

“No, man. He don’t swing with our club.” He studied the table. “Twelve ball banked up to this corner.” He shot and missed. “Not enough chalk on the stick,” he said. He began chalking the stick, the blue dust particles covering the front of his dark shirt. He didn’t seem to care very much. “We got a tight club here, mister,” Big Dom said. “Danny wasn’t one of us, but he never punked out of nothing, either. Whenever we jitterbugged, he was there with us. He never let us down.”

“Is he a good fighter?” Hank asked.

Big Dom shrugged. “Who gets time to notice when everything’s jumping? But he knocked the crap out of a kid named Bud when he first moved around here. I wasn’t around that day, but Diablo told me all about it. That night, we sent a little squad around to take care of Danny. But he’s all right. Take it from me. A good kid.”

“Who — with two other good kids — killed Rafael Morrez.”

“Maybe Morrez needed killing,” Big Dom said. “What do you think he was? An angel or something?”

“He was blind,” Hank said.

“So? Being blind makes him an angel?”

“What are you saying?”

“Tell him your story,” Gunnison said. “We haven’t got all day.”

“Okay, okay.” Big Dom put down the pool cue. “It happened like only this spring. There was this Spanish girl like a lot of the guys on the club used to make it with, you know. She was no prize package, but she was always available. So some of the guys from the Horsemen, they found out about it. Like this girl didn’t mean crap to them, you know what I mean? But all of a sudden, just because the Birds are making it with her, they get excited. So we had a meet. Me and Frankie, and Diablo and Gargantua. There was a cool on at the time, until this thing with the girl happened.”

“A cool?”

“Yeah, like no fighting. What do you think, we fight all the time? Man, don’t you think we got anything better to do?”

“All right, so what happened?”

“So we tried to decide where it was gonna be and all that. First, it was gonna be a fair one, like you know where two guys put on the gloves, but we decided the hell with that, so it was gonna be a real bop, only we couldn’t settle where, so we decided to have another meet the next night. Only you can’t trust those Spanish guys, I mean they’re all hopheads, how the hell can you trust them, they’d knock off their own mothers for some pot. So that very night, right after we had the meet, I mean with everything still up in the air about where the bop was gonna be, that very night...”

(It is a mild spring night in Harlem, and we can hear music on the air, drifting from the open windows of the tenements to find its way into the street. There is a peaceful feel to the block. We hear occasional laughter, an occasional baby crying from one of the apartments. But it is an idle night, heavy with the magic of spring, because spring comes to Harlem too, and the people of Harlem know her headiness, know her rare smile, know the beauty in her eyes and on her mouth. The Thunderbirds are sitting on one of the tenement stoops, seven of them: Big Dom, Diablo, Botch, Bud, Reardon, Aposto and Concho. Danny Di Pace is with the Thunderbirds, too. The boys are passing around a cheap bottle of wine. The girls with them do not accept the bottle, not because they don’t drink but only because they don’t want to drink on the front stoop, in public. Besides, the girls are playing it rather cool this evening. They have heard about the impending rumble between their boys and the Horsemen, and they know that the cause of the dispute is a fourteen-year-old slut named Rosie who is Spanish and probably diseased. Carol is particularly offended because she and Diablo are supposed to be going steady, and she understands that Diablo hasn’t been exactly reticent with that Spanish pig, either. In fact, Carol has not spoken to Diablo since she learned about the incident, and she is the one who sets the pace now for the other girls. The boys play the game in their own way. If the girls want to be cool, so be it. They can be equally cool. And the wine they drink, thirty-nine cents a quart, helps them to ignore the girls. It also helps them to drop their usual attitude of caution. For if there is one noticeable trait about all gang members, it is their constant vigilance. Walking down the block, sitting on a stoop, idling on a corner, their eyes constantly flick the streets, looking, watching, waiting for any sudden attack. Tonight their usual wariness is not present. Aided by the wine, drinking in retaliation against the coolness of the girls, they have dropped their guard — and this can be a fatal error in Harlem.

The attack comes swiftly and unexpectedly.

The automobile turns the corner and shrieks into the street. It careens onto the sidewalk, narrowly missing Bud, who leaps off the stoop. Another car follows it, chasing Concho, who has leaped off the front stoop after Bud and who is trying to cross the street to get to a cellar where he knows a gun is hidden. The doors of the cars open. Twelve boys spring to the pavement and then break into a trot. The drivers of the cars gun the engines and race off up the street. Many of the Horsemen are armed. Big Dom is the first to see this.)

BIG DOM: They got pieces! Scatter!

(The guns begin to erupt. The Thunderbirds, close to the edge of drunkenness, reel off the stoop and into the street, trying to escape the guns. The guns, fortunately, are zip guns — one shot to a customer, and that’s all. These particular zip guns were made with rubber bands, the filed hammers of cap pistols, wooden frames and the cylinders of automobile radio aerials. The rubber band activates the cap pistol firing pin, discharging a .22-caliber cartridge through the car aerial barrel. It is easy to come by real guns in Harlem and the Horsemen boast of three .38-caliber pistols in their armory. Tonight, however, for reasons of their own — largely centered upon the fact that they realize the basis for this quarrel is very thinly founded — they are using weapons which, in Harlem, are considered passé. It is unlikely that they even intend to do any real damage tonight. In fact, they have probably staged this sneak raid to avoid the impending rumble which — for a girl whom they know to be a pig — would be both senseless and costly.

But a zip gun, while lacking the accuracy or fire power of a professionally manufactured weapon, is not a toy. The .22 slugs which carom about the gutter are the same cartridges used in a real pistol. And they are equally capable of killing.

One of these slugs catches Big Dom in the leg, and he hurtles to the sidewalk and then begins crawling up the street, anxious to find the safety of a cellar. Tower Reardon and Danny Di Pace run to where Dom has fallen, each catching an arm and half dragging, half pulling him to the chain-barricaded steps leading to the basement of a tenement near the corner. The shots are becoming sporadic now. Only eight of the boys were armed, and seven have already fired the single-cartridge guns. The last boy shoots wildly into the street, and then the twelve rush for the corner, passing the hiding place of Big Dom, Tower and Danny.)

BIG DOM: The sons of bitches! The dirty jap bastards!

DANNY: Shhhh, shhhh, they’ll hear us!

BIG DOM: Do you think I’ll lose my leg? Oh God, will I lose my leg?

TOWER: Quiet! For the love of Mike, shut up!

DANNY: What are they doing?

TOWER: They’ve stopped on the corner.

DANNY: What’s that? Listen! (They listen.)

TOWER: A siren! The cops!

DANNY: Good! They’re all carrying pieces. Man, this’ll—

TOWER: Wait a minute. Look at that.

(The three boys lean forward. The Horsemen have stopped on the corner. Rafael Morrez is standing on that corner, his jacket open. One by one, the Horsemen quickly hand him the zip guns, slapping the weapons into his open hand. One by one, he tucks the guns into his shirt and into his waistband, moving with the tactile speed of a blind person. Frankie Anarilles is the last man to free himself of an incriminating weapon. The other Horsemen have already run off in pairs, in threes. Frankie gives his gun to Morrez.)

FRANKIE (clapping him on the shoulder): Good boy, Ralphie.

(He runs off. Rafael Morrez zips up the front of his jacket. Using a home-fashioned cane, he begins tapping his way up the street as a squad car pulls to the curb.)

FIRST PATROLMAN: You! Hey you! Hold up there.

(Morrez turns blankly toward the car. The first patrolman is ready to get out when his partner, closer to the curb, stops him.)

SECOND PATROLMAN: It’s all right, Charlie. He ain’t one of them. He’s a blind kid. I seen him around.

(The squad car pulls away. Morrez begins walking faster, his cane tapping rapidly as he continues up the long street to Spanish Harlem.)

“Don’t you see?” Big Dom said. “The kid was a gun-bearer for the Horsemen. They gave him the pieces, and he walked away safe. That way, if the bulls picked up any of the guys who staged the raid, they’d be clean.”

“It beats car aerials six ways from the middle, don’t it?” Gunnison said.

“What do you mean?” Hank asked.

“They use car aerials as weapons sometimes,” Gunnison explained. “They break them off automobiles. It makes a wicked whip, can cut a kid’s face to ribbons. And it has the advantage of being available at the scene and easily disposed of afterward. Car aerials are dispensable. Guns aren’t.”

“You’re hip to the car aerials, huh?” Big Dom asked.

“Sonnyboy, there ain’t nothing you can use that we ain’t seen already.”

Big Dom shrugged. “The point is,” he said tiredly, “this Rafael Morrez wasn’t no angel.”

“You’re telling me he was a gun-bearer on one occasion?” Hank asked.

“On one occasion? Mister, I’m telling you he was a member of the goddamn gang!”

She knew all the signs of his restlessness.

Sitting opposite him in the silence of their home, she pretended to be working on last Sunday’s crossword puzzle, but she watched Hank over the edge of the newspaper as he reread his carefully typed notes, and she knew that something was wrong.

He had left the desk three times to go into the kitchen for water. He had been to the bathroom twice. He had sharpened four perfectly sharpened pencils and then sharpened them again not ten minutes later. Poring over the notes for his case, he fidgeted and squirmed in the chair.

“Hank?” she said.

“Mmm?” He turned to her, removing his reading glasses. His eyes were very pale, and she knew he was exhausted. He looked young and defenseless in that moment. A thin smile touched his mouth, and she felt quite maternal all at once, felt like going to him and holding his head against her breast.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes. I’m fine.” He smiled again.

“Nervous about the trial?”

“Usual jitters,” he said. He sighed. “Maybe I ought to knock off now. I’ve got all weekend to go through this stuff.”

“Why don’t you?”

“Well, I’ve got a report from the lab I want to read,” he said. “And then...” he shrugged. “Karin—”

“Yes?”

“Murder is— It is murder, isn’t it?”

“Darling?”

“Never mind. It’s just... Never mind.” He put his glasses on again and then dug into his briefcase, pulling out a report in a blue folder. She watched him as he leafed through it. She saw his back stiffen, and then he sat erect in the chair, and then he bent over the report and read it again, tracing his finger down the page, reading it line by line, like a beginning reader in a backward group. He shook his head and shoved his chair back, and then he began pacing the room, and she watched him helplessly.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said. “Let’s take a walk. Jennie won’t be back for a while, will she?”

“She went to a party. The neighborhood boycott seems to be easing.”

“Then let’s go. Please, Karin. I need some air. I have to think.”

They walked out of the house and down toward the river. It was a mild night, dark clouds scudding over a thin crescent moon. They walked through the woods and then sat on the flat rock overlooking the railroad tracks and the water. They lighted cigarettes. In the glow of the match, she saw his face — troubled, vulnerable, youthful. Again she wanted to touch him.

“What is it, Hank?” she said.

“The trial begins Monday,” he said.

“Yes?”

“I’ve got an airtight case for Murder One. I spent a month knocking the case together, a month tracking down every possible lead. And today, today I... tonight, reading over my notes, my carefully prepared notes, my meticulously prepared case, tonight I’m puzzled. Tonight, I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell to do.”

“Isn’t the case a good one?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. No, it isn’t. Damnit, it isn’t. It’s no damn good at all! Karin, I found out today that the victim was a gang member himself! I couldn’t believe it at first. How could a blind kid become involved with thugs, with hoodlums? But I had some members of the Horsemen brought in, right to the precinct, and I questioned them in the detective squad room, and they all admitted it. Rafael Morrez was a member of their gang. A highly valuable member, as it turned out. His blindness practically guaranteed immunity from the law.”

“So?”

“So where does it end, Karin? Where the hell are the boundaries? Not only was he a member of the Horsemen, but two of the boys who killed him had seen him on at least one previous occasion. Which means they might have recognized him on the night of the murder. And if they did, then they knew he was a blind boy when they killed him.”

“Then on the one hand you have the cold-blooded murder of a known blind boy, and on the other a victim who is not entirely blameless himself.”

“Well, it shouldn’t matter what Morrez was. I mean, what the hell, if a racketeer is killed, we still prosecute his murderer. It only matters in that... Karin, I’m just not sure what’s right or wrong any more. I’ve finally got a report from the police lab on those knives. The report — Karin, I’m supposed to convict those kids! I’m supposed to prove they’re guilty of murder. That’s what I’ve been working on. That’s the assumption I started with, and that’s what I’ve been building my case to prove. But when I talk to them, when I get the feel of them, when I know them, and their parents, and the whole damn gang structure, and the streets, those goddamn long, dark streets... Karin, Karin.”

“Darling, please don’t.”

“All of it has suddenly become something which defies my concept of right and wrong.”

“Murder is wrong, isn’t it?” Karin said.

“Yes, of course it’s wrong. But who committed this murder? Who’s responsible for this murder? Do you see what I’m driving at?”

“Not entirely.”

“The kids did the actual stabbing, yes. But is the final act the one to examine? Too many things led to this killing. If I blame these kids, I’ve also got to blame their parents, and the city, and the police — and where does it end? Where do I stop?” He paused. “Karin, I’m not a crusader.”

“The law tells you where to stop, Hank. Your only concern is the law.”

“As a lawyer, yes. But I’m also a person. And I can’t very well separate the part of me that’s a lawyer from the rest of me.”

“Nor can you separate the killer in these boys from...”

“I know I can’t. But what made them kill? Damnit, Karin, that’s my point. They killed, but does the simple fact of murder make them killers?”

“I think you’re involving yourself in semantics, Hank. If they killed, they are guilty of murder. That’s all you should concern yourself with.”

“Do you believe that, Karin?”

“I’m trying to help you, Hank.”

“But do you believe what you just said?”

“No,” she answered. Her voice was very low.

“Neither do I.” He paused. “I’m not a crusader.”

“Hank—”

“I’m not a crusader, Karin. I never have been. I guess maybe we can thank Harlem for that. I guess maybe I’m a coward at heart.”

“Hank, no. You’re a very brave person.”

“Karin, I’ve been afraid. I’ve been afraid for so long, so long. I think that’s the legacy of the streets. Fear. Fear that’s always there, always ready to explode inside you, a keg of gunpowder with a lighted fuse, waiting to explode, waiting to — to destroy you. I... I...”

“Hank, please don’t. Please, you mustn’t.”

“I carried it with me during the war, always there, always inside me, waiting, waiting, fear, fear! Of what? Of life! Of day-by-day living. Fear that started when I was a kid, until all I could think of was getting out of Harlem, getting away from the place that bred the fear, and when I did get out it was too late, because the fear was something that was a part of me, like my liver or my heart. And then I met you.”

She took his hand and she held it close to her face, and he could feel the wetness of her tears against his palm. He shook his head.

“You begin — you begin to doubt, Karin. You’re faced with the overwhelming terror of the streets, and inch by inch it eats away at you until you wonder who you are, what you are. Are you a man? If you were a man, why’d you lose your girl to someone else while you were away? Why’d you allow your grandfather to die? Why are you afraid all the time? What the hell are you? What are you?”

He pulled her to him suddenly, awkwardly. She could feel his body trembling in the darkness.

“And then you. You, Karin — warmth, and light, and wonder. And suddenly the fear left me for a little while, until — until I began thinking you’d loved someone before me, you’d known someone before—”

“Hank, I love you.”

“Yes, yes, but...”

“I love you, I love you!”

“...I wondered why there had to be someone else, why, why? And I was afraid I’d lose you, the way he’d lost you, what’s the matter with me, Karin? Don’t I know you love me, didn’t I know you broke with him, you wanted me, me, but it got all mixed up with the fear inside me until... until...”

He was crying now. She heard his tears, and she went weak with helpless terror. Her man was crying, and she did not know how to stop him, her man, her man, and there was no more pitiful sound in the universe than the sound of his tears in the darkness. She kissed his wet face, and she kissed his hands, and he said again, very softly, “I’m no crusader. Karin, it scares me. The enormity of it scares me. I know what I should do but I... I’ll go into that courtroom on Monday morning, and I’ll pick my jurors and I’ll try the case for first-degree murder because that’s the safe way, the easy way, because—”

“No. Don’t say it.”

“Because I’m—”

“Don’t!” she said sharply. “Don’t!”

They were silent for a long while. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket and blew his nose. The clouds had covered the moon completely now. The flat rock was in complete darkness.

“Shall we go back?” she asked.

“I’d like to sit here for a while,” he said softly. “If you don’t mind.”

“Jennie will be coming home.”

“You go back. I’ll be all right.”

“All right.” She rose and smoothed her skirt. She stared at him in the darkness, unable to see his face. “Shall I make some coffee?”

“Yes. That would be nice.”

“Hank?”

“Yes?”

“You’re not a coward.”

He did not answer.

“You’re very brave.”

Again, he did not answer. She reached into the darkness and touched his cheek. “I love you, liebchen,” she said. “I love you.” And then, almost in a whisper, she said, “You make me very proud,” and she turned and walked off quickly into the trees.

He put out his cigarette and stared out at the water.

What is a lawyer to do? he wondered.

I must blame them.

Who else killed? Can I blame a culture which robs parents of identity, pressuring them, compressing them, sealing them in vacuum cans on the rat treadmill so that fathers are no longer sure they’re males and mothers are no longer sure they’re females? Can I impose the neuroses of society at large upon three kids who killed? But goddamnit, they killed, they killed! What is a lawyer to do?

Suppose you went into that courtoom, he thought. Suppose you went in there, and picked your jurors, and then presented the case so that...

No.

I’d never get away with it. Abe Samalson would smell a rat and stop the trial at once. And then he’d drag me into his chambers and ask me who the hell I was representing in this case, the killers or the people?

Aren’t the killers part of the people?

They are the defendants, and I am the prosecuting attorney, and my job is to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they did willfully and with malice aforethought stab to death a boy named Rafael Morrez.

Aposto’ll be acquitted. You know that. He’s a mental deficient. You haven’t a prayer in hell of convicting him.

That leaves Reardon and Di Pace. And my job is to...

Does it? What about that report on the knives? Aren’t you forgetting something, Mr. Bell?

The report meant nothing, a freak accident, something that had to do with the way the knife was held, or the rain perhaps.

Or perhaps something else? Perhaps something important?

Damnit, I’ve got to put the blame someplace! I can’t just exonerate...

Then put the blame, damnit! Stand up in that courtroom before the judge and the jury and the newspapermen...

Mike Barton’s newspaper would cut me to ribbons. He’d murder me.

...and the world and put the goddamn blame! For once in your life, do something, be something, take the chance, risk something, stop playing it safe!

And if I get killed? If they slaughter me? What then? Henry Bell goes down the drain. You remember Henry Bell, don’t you? That bright young lad — well, not really that young — who used to work in the D.A.’s office before he goofed on the Morrez case. Oh, there was a lot of public sentiment aroused on that one, don’t you remember? Open-and-shut case of first-degree murder, open and shut, three cold-blooded killers stabbing a blind boy to death, a blind boy, open and shut. And Bell muffed it. Stood up in court and presented his case as if he were...

...interested in justice?

I am interested in justice.

Then what about that report?

What about it? It means nothing.

Come on, Bell, you know what’s in that report. Will you try to suppress it?

There’s nothing to suppress. The defense won’t even bring it up, that’s how important it is. They won’t even mention the damn thing. They admit the stabbing. Their only hope is self-defense. That report isn’t important at all.

You know how important it is! You know because you’ve lived with fear, you’ve been kissed by that ugly bitch, she’s held you in her arms, she’s...

STOP IT!

Stop it.

Stop. Please.

I owe them nothing. I owe them nothing. I don’t even know them. They’re strangers to me. I don’t know them.

You know them, Bell. They’re not strangers. You know them very well.

I owe them nothing, he thought. I owe them nothing.

The night was quite still. He sat looking out over the water, and he thought over and over again, I owe them nothing. He was not sure at first that he heard footsteps coming through the trees. Suddenly alert, he listened. Yes, footsteps. Stealthy, uncertain, moving cautiously through the trees toward the rock where he sat.

“This way,” a boy’s voice whispered, and Hank felt a sudden chill race up his spine to raise the hairs at the back of his neck.

Another beating, he thought. Oh, my God, another beating.

He clenched his fists. He expected to be frightened, as frightened as he’d been when approaching that bench in City Hall Park, but instead there was no fear. He was surprised by his own reaction. Sitting with his fists clenched, he listened to the approaching footsteps, recognizing a rising determination inside him.

I will not be beaten again, he thought. Those bastards won’t do it to me again!

Like an animal crouched to spring, he waited.

The boy’s voice sounded in the darkness again. “Over here. This way. You’ve been here before, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” a voice said, and Hank’s brow furrowed in puzzlement because the second voice belonged to a girl.

“Here,” the boy said. “Let’s sit under this tree here.” There was silence. “Wait a minute. Let me put my jacket down.”

Lovers, Hank thought, and he was filled instantly with deep embarrassment. He unclenched his fists. There would be no battle; only a balcony scene. He smiled grimly. The thing to do now was to get away from here as swiftly and as quietly as...

“This is a nice spot,” the boy said. “Nice and cool. You get a breeze here from the river.”

“I love the river,” the girl answered. “I love to look at the lights. I always wonder where the boats are going.”

“Would you like a cigarette?” the boy asked.

“I’m not supposed to smoke.”

“I’ve seen you smoke,” the boy said.

“Yes. But I’m not supposed to.”

The boy laughed. In the darkness, Hank could barely make out the figures of the boy and the girl sitting on the ground. A match struck and then moved closer to the girl’s cigarette. Her back was to him. All he could see in the sudden illumination was the girl’s startling blond hair. And then the match died.

“I’m glad we got out of that place,” the boy said. “That was the draggiest party I’ve been to in years.”

“Death,” the girl agreed.

Lying flat on the rock, Hank tried to work out an escape route. He did not want to frighten the couple, nor did he wish to embarrass them. But at the same time, he did not want to be a captive audience to their adolescent patter. Unfortunately, the only way back to the street was past the couple who sat under the huge tree to the right of the path. Sighing, scarcely daring to breathe, Hank resigned himself to his fate.

“How old are you, anyway?” the boy said.

“Thirteen. Well, almost fourteen. I’ll be fourteen at the end of the month.”

“You’re still a kid,” the boy said.

“Not such a kid. How old are you?”

“Sixteen.”

“I know older boys.”

“You do?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I got to admit,” the boy said, “you look a lot older than thirteen.”

“Do I look older than fourteen?”

“As a matter of fact, you do.”

“How old would you say I looked?”

The boy was silent for a while. Then he said, “I’d say you looked at least fifteen.”

“That old?”

“Easy.”

“This is nice,” the girl said. “Sitting here, I mean.”

“Yeah. Do you like the summer better, or the winter?”

“Summer.”

“Yeah. Me, too. You can’t get out in the winter. I mean, you know, you’re stuck inside all the time.”

“Yeah.” The girl paused. “What’s your favorite color?”

“Red. What’s yours?”

“Yellow. Who’s your favorite singer?”

“Vic Damone.” He paused. “Oh, no, don’t tell me!”

“What?”

“It isn’t the Pretzel, is it?”

“Elvis? Oh, no. He needs a haircut.” The girl giggled. The boy laughed with her. “This is nice,” she said. “Talking like this. Do you find it hard to talk to people?”

“Sometimes. I find it easy to talk to you, though.”

“Well, I enjoy talking to you, too. It’s especially hard with older people, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Talking.”

“Oh, yeah. Man, I hate to talk to old people. They give me the creeps.”

“Well, I didn’t mean real old people. Like people who are ready to die or something.”

“Neither did I. I meant regular old people. You know. Forty, forty-five, like that.”

“Yes. How old are your parents?”

“Too old,” the boy said, and he laughed.

“Mine aren’t so old.” The girl paused. “But it’s awfully hard to talk to them, isn’t it?”

“Boy, I’ll say.”

“Do you tell them things?”

“Nope.”

“Why not?”

“Well, I remember once I was telling my father about how I was involved in this three-way deal where we were saving up to buy a car when we were old enough, you know? I mean, it was a very complicated thing because we were going to clean cellars on weekends and sell the junk and like that, you know? So I spent about a half hour explaining it to him, and then he looks up and says, ‘That’s a good boy, Lonnie.’ How do you like that? I knock myself out for a half hour, all excited about the big business deal we worked out, and he tells me I’m a good boy. I don’t even think he was listening to me, you know that? So after that, I figured the hell with this noise, and that was it. Lonnie the Clam, they call me.”

“My mother thinks I tell her things,” the girl said, “but I don’t really.”

“Well, there’s really no percentage in telling parents anything,” the boy said, “because if they understand it they usually raise hell about it; and if they don’t understand it, you might as well have saved your breath to begin with. That’s the way I look at it.”

“I used to talk to my father a lot,” the girl said. “When I was small. We used to have nice talks.”

“Yeah? What about?”

“Oh, everything. We just talked. I remember I was very proud of myself because I could have grown-up conversations with my father.”

“But you don’t talk to him now?”

“Not very much. He’s busy.”

“Oh, boy, are they busy!” the boy said. “Always running someplace.”

“Besides, I... I don’t have anything to say to him,” the girl said.

“Yeah,” the boy agreed. There was a wistful note in his voice.

“I wish I had something to say to him,” the girl said. “But I don’t. I just don’t.”

“Yeah.” The boy paused. “Well, they’re busy. You know.”

“Yes. Yes, I know.”

“I mean, what the hell, they brought us this far. Fed us and clothed us. We’ve got to give them a rest sometime, don’t we?”

“I guess so.”

“It isn’t as if they owed us anything, really. I mean, I don’t go for these guys who are always saying, ‘I didn’t ask to be born.’ All right, who did ask to be born? Does anybody have a choice? I didn’t ask to be born, either. But I’m sure glad I’m here.”

“That’s a very nice thing to say, Lonnie.”

“There’s nothing that beats being alive,” the boy said. “Aren’t you glad you’re alive?”

“Oh, yes, yes.”

“Sure. So they don’t really owe us anything, you see. They brought us into the world. They gave us life. That’s enough for me.”

“Lonnie?”

“Yes?”

“Do... do you love anyone?”

“How do you mean?”

“You know.”

“Like my mother? Or my father?”

“Well...”

“But that isn’t like real love, is it? That’s more like a habit.”

“Yes.”

They were silent for several moments.

Then the boy said, “Jennie?”

“Yes?”

“Jennie, could I kiss you?”

The girl did not answer.

“Jennie?”

She still gave no answer.

“Well, okay,” he said. “I’m sorry. I mean, I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind if I...”

“I wouldn’t mind, Lonnie,” she answered, and there was such a tender innocence in her voice that Hank, lying on the rock, felt like weeping. “But...”

“What, Jennie?”

“Could you... could you...”

“What, Jennie? What?”

“Could you please tell me you love me first?” she said.

Hank’s eyes suddenly brimmed with tears. He lay on the rock in the darkness while his daughter was being kissed, his hand over his face to muffle his sobs. He kept shaking his head over and over again, biting his lip, overwhelmed with his sudden knowledge, feeling small and insignificant and yet strangely powerful with knowledge that raced through his mind.

“I love you, Jennie,” the boy said.

“I love you, Lonnie.”

He listened to the words and suddenly he wanted it to be Monday, suddenly he wanted the trial to begin.

“What time is it, Lonnie?”

“It’s almost twelve.”

“Would you take me home, please? I don’t want them to worry.”

“Could I kiss you once more?”

“Please.”

They were silent, and then Hank heard them getting to their feet, heard them thrashing awkwardly through the bushes and onto the path. In a little while, their footsteps died out.

I don’t owe them anything, he thought.

I don’t owe them anything but the future.