A Matter of Conviction

Eight

This was McNalley’s jungle.

It didn’t look like a jungle at all.

Hank had come down the long street, starting in Italian Harlem and walking west, retracing the steps of the three young killers on that night in July. Now, on Park Avenue, he walked into the market beneath the New York Central tracks, listening to the babble of voices around him. He felt as if he had truly entered a foreign land, but he felt no fear. He felt again, and very strongly, that the idea of three Harlems existing as separate territories was truly a myth. For, despite the change of language, despite the change of color — the Puerto Rican people ranged from white to tan to brown — despite the strange vegetables on the stalls and the religious and mystic pamphlets printed in Spanish, he felt that these people were no different from their neighbors to the east, or the west. In fact, they shared a common bond: poverty.

And yet he could, in part, understand McNalley’s fear. For here was, on the surface at least, the alien. What ominous words were being spoken in this foreign tongue? What malicious thoughts lurked behind these brown eyes? Here among the botanical herbs on the stalls, the hedionda, and maguey, and higuito, and corazón, here where the housewives haggled over the price of fruit and vegetables — “How much the guenepas? The chayote? The ají dulce, the mango, the pepino?” — here was another world, not a jungle certainly, but a world as far removed from Inwood as was Puerto Rico itself. Here, in a sense, was the unknown. And McNalley, the caveman squatting close to his protective fire, looked out into the darkness and wondered what terrible shapes lurked behind each bush, and he fed his own fear until he was trembling.

He walked to the exit at the end of the long tunnel and came out into sunlight again. On the corner of the street a butcher shop nestled beneath the tenement, its Carnicería sign advertising the meats resting on trays in the window. Alongside it was a bodega, cans of groceries stacked in the window, strings of peppers hanging overhead. He walked past the grocery and into the street where Rafael Morrez had been killed.

The people knew instantly that he was the law.

They sensed it with the instinct of people who have somehow discovered the law to be not their protector but their enemy. They allowed him a wide berth on the sidewalk. They watched him silently from the front stoops of the tenements. In the open lots strewn with rubbish, children looked up as he walked by. An old lady said something in Spanish, and the crone with her began laughing hysterically.

He found the stoop where Morrez had been sitting on the night he’d been killed. He checked the address again and then walked past a thin man in his undershirt who was sitting outside on a milk-bottle case. The man was smoking a long black cigar. The undershirt was stained with sweat. Hank paused in the hallway and struck a match, examining the mailboxes. Four of the boxes had been sprung from their locks. None of the boxes carried a name plate. He walked out onto the front stoop again.

“I’m looking for a girl named Louisa Ortega. Do you know where I—”

“No hablo Inglés,” the old man said.

“Por favor,” Hank said hesitantly. “Dónde está la muchacha Louisa Ortega?”

“No entiendo,” the man said, shaking his head.

Hank stared at him. His Spanish had been slow and halting, but certainly intelligible. And then he realized the man did not want to tell him.

“She’s not in any trouble,” Hank said. “It’s about Rafael Morrez.”

“Rafael?” the man said. He looked up at Hank. His brown eyes said nothing. “Rafael está muerto,” he said.

“Si, yo comprendo. I’m investigating. Soy investigator,” he said lamely, wondering if that were the Spanish word. The man looked at him blankly. “Habla Italiano?” Hank said, in a desperate thrust at establishing communication.

“No,” the man said. He shook his head. Then, in English, he added, “Go ’way. Don’ bodder me.”

“Who you looking for, mister?” a voice said, and Hank turned. The boy stood at the foot of the stoop, his hands on his hips. He wore dungarees and a gleaming white tee shirt. His complexion was tan, his eyes brown, his black hair cut close to the scalp except for a high crown at the front of his head. His hands were square, with big knuckles, a signet ring on the third finger of his right hand.

“I’m looking for Louisa Ortega,” Hank said.

“Yeah, and who are you?”

“District attorney,” Hank said.

“What do you want with her?”

“I want to ask her some questions about Rafael Morrez.”

“You got any questions, you can ask me,” the boy said.

“And who are you?”

“My name’s Gargantua,” the boy said.

“I’ve heard of you.”

“Yeah?” A slight smile formed on his mouth. “Yeah, maybe you have. I been in the papers a few times.”

“I didn’t get your name from the papers,” Hank said. “I got it from a member of the Thunderbirds. A boy named Diablo.”

“Don’t talk to me about that stinking creep. I ever see him again, he’s dead. Wham! Dead.”

He clenched his fists when he spoke, and his face became transposed in that instant to a grimace of hatred, as if he were acting out the real murder of Diablo. His expression, the way his big hands tightened when he spoke, left no doubt that he truly wanted Diablo dead.

“Where do I find Louisa Ortega?”

“I told you. You talk to me.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Hank said, “but I really have nothing to say to you. Unless you happened to be sitting on this stoop the night Morrez was murdered.”

“Oh, you admit he was murdered, huh?”

“Cut it out,” Hank said impatiently. “I’m on your side. I’m prosecuting this case, not defending it.”

“A cop on my people’s side?” Gargantua said. “Ha!”

“Don’t waste my time,” Hank said. “Do you know where she is, or do I have to send a detective to pick her up? I can guarantee he’ll find her.”

“Don’t get excited,” Gargantua said. “What’d Diablo say about me?”

“Nothing more than that you were warlord of the Horsemen.”

“Was he straight?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t you know? Most of them Thunderbirds are on junk. You know what I mean? They’re addicts. They all take dope. One thing you never find on our club is a guy who’s hooked. We kick him off so fast, his head spins.”

“That’s interesting to know,” Hank said. “Where’s the girl?”

“Apartment fourteen on the first floor. She probably ain’t even home.”

“I’ll take a chance,” Hank said.

“Listen, I’ll wait for you. I want to talk to you.”

“I may be a little while.”

“That’s okay. I got nothing to do, anyway.”

“Fine,” Hank said, and he went into the building.

Tenements are tenements. There is no such thing as an Italian tenement or a Puerto Rican tenement or a Negro tenement. They’re all the same, he realized, and they all stink. The stink begins building in the outer lobby with the broken mailboxes and the shattered naked light bulb in the ceiling. It assails you as you climb the narrow stairs in the dark hallway, punctuated by feeble air-shaft light at each landing. The camouflaging Lysol stench is almost as overwhelming as the urine smell it attempts to cover. The smells of cooking reach out from every doorway, half a hundred apartments oozing the smell of fish, the smell of meat, spaghetti, arroz con pollo, cabbage, bacon, until all the smells unite into an unsavory stench which has no origin, and no association with food. It’s like a poison gas seeping through the hallways, invading the nostrils and the throat, a total assault wave designed to make you retch.

As he climbed to the first floor of this tenement in Spanish Harlem, he was aware of the mounting attack of smell, aware of the putrescent aroma of garbage coming from behind the steps on the ground floor where the garbage cans were stacked. He found Apartment 14 and twisted the bell set at shoulder height in the door. The door was painted to simulate natural-grain wood, the painter’s idea of this being to paint the door a deep brown and then smear erratic tan lines over the brown. The wood of the door itself was covered with a tin coating, and it was over this that the painter had exercised his artistic flair. The bell was loose. It did not sound with a clear sharp ring. It rattled noisily in its metal cup and then died. He tried it again. Again the bell issued its deathlike trembling.

“Sí, sí, vengo!” a voice shouted from inside the apartment.

Hank waited. He could hear the steel bar of the police lock inside the door being lowered to the floor. The door opened a crack, stopping sharply when the additional precaution of a chain caught it. Part of a face appeared in the crack.

“Quién es?” the girl asked.

“I’m from the district attorney’s office,” Hank said. “Are you Louisa Ortega?”

“Sí?”

“I’d like to ask you a few questions. May I come in?”

“Oh.” The girl seemed flustered. “Oh, not now,” she said, “I am busy now. There ees someone with me.”

“Well, when—”

“It will be soon,” she said. “You come back fi’, ten minutes, okay? I talk to you then, okay?”

“All right,” Hank said. The door closed, the girl’s face vanished. He could hear the bar of the police lock being wedged back into place. Wearily, he went down to the street again. Gargantua was nowhere in sight. Neither was the old man in the undershirt. Hank looked at his watch, lighted a cigarette and leaned against the wall of the building. A stickball game was in progress in the middle of the street. The game went on excitingly, with the usual number of temper flareups and arguments. But the players might just as well have been in Yankee Stadium performing before thousands of people. In fact, there was possibly more violence in a major-league game than was evident in this street game played by teen-agers who conceivably were capable of slitting another teen-ager’s throat.

Standing on the front stoop of the building, he realized that Harlem, on its surface at least, was as well-ordered and nonviolent as any other community in the city. True, you could not equate a Harlem tenement with an apartment building on Sutton Place. You could not simply discount the fire escapes cluttered with the paraphernalia of living, could not easily ignore the lots covered with rubble, the flies crawling over the meat in the window of the butcher shop, the poverty which sprang from every darkened doorway. But the tempo here, the feel, was not much different from what you would find anywhere else in the city. These were people going about their daily tasks. There was no trace of a violent undercurrent running through the life of the community — not now there wasn’t, not at ten o’clock on a sunny morning in midsummer. Then why did violence erupt here? Why did three kids from Italian Harlem, three blocks and three thousand miles away, stride into this street and take the life of an innocent blind boy? He could not lay it all at the doorstep of racial misunderstanding. He had the feeling that this was only a symptom and not the disease itself. Then what was the disease, and what caused it? And if the three boys who killed were diseased, were sick, was the state justified in eliminating them from society?

The question startled him.

What else can you do? he asked himself. You don’t allow lepers to roam the streets, do you?

No. But you don’t kill them either, he reasoned. And even though no cure is known, you nonetheless keep searching for a cure.

Come on, he told himself. You’re not a psychologist, and you’re not a sociologist. You’re a lawyer. You’re concerned with the legal aspects of crime. You’re concerned with punishing the guilty.

The guilty, he thought.

He sighed and looked at his watch. Five minutes had gone by. He lighted another cigarette. He was flicking away the match when a young sailor came out of the building, squaring his white hat.

“Nice day, huh?” the sailor said.

“Lovely,” Hank answered, and he thought he could now safely assume that Louisa Ortega was free to talk to him.

“Man, I’m hungry,” the sailor said. “I ain’t had breakfast yet. Any good places to eat around here?”

Hank shrugged. “You can try a Hundred Twenty-fifth Street,” he said.

“Thanks. Which way is that?”

“Uptown. That way.” Hank pointed.

“Thanks a lot, Mac,” the sailor said. He paused on the stoop. “You, uh, going up there?”

“Yes,” Hank said.

The sailor winked. “You better have breakfast first. You’re gonna need all the strength you got.”

“I’ve already had breakfast,” Hank said, smiling.

“Okay,” the sailor said. “Well, I be seeing you. Stay out of jail.” And he walked off toward Park Avenue.

Hank put out his cigarette and went upstairs again. This time Louisa opened the door for him. She was wearing a flowered pink wrapper belted at the waist. Her long black hair hung over her shoulders. She wore no make-up and no shoes. Her face was thin, but her body was well curved, and she smiled somewhat embarrassedly and said, “Come een,” and Hank entered the apartment.

“I’m sorry I keep you waitin’,” the girl said. She closed the door behind him.

“That’s quite all right,” Hank said.

“Si’ down,” Louisa said.

He looked around the room. A rumpled, unmade bed was against one wall. A rickety wooden table and two wooden chairs rested against the opposite wall alongside an old gas refrigerator and a sink.

“The bed is mos’ comfortable,” she said. “Si’ there.”

He went to the bed and sat on the edge of it. The girl sat at the other end, pulling her legs up under her.

“I’m tired,” she said. “I di’n get to sleep all night. He was bodder me every fi’ minutes.” She paused. With complete frankness, she said, “I’m a hooker, you know.”

“I assumed.”

“Sí.” She shrugged. “Iss nothin’ wrong with hookin’. I radder sell my body than sell dope or somethin’. Verdad?”

“How old are you, Louisa?” Hank asked.

“Nineteen,” she said.

“Do you live with your parents?”

“I got no parents. I come here from dee islan’ to stay with my aunt. Then I move out. I like it better to be free, entiende?”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Iss nothin’ wrong with hookin’,” Louisa said again.

“That’s your personal affair,” Hank said, “and it doesn’t concern me. I want to know only what happened on the night of July tenth. The night Rafael Morrez was killed.”

“Sí, sí. Pobrecito. He wass a nice kid. I remember once he wass up here when I wass with a frien’. He wass play his music. It wass very dark in the apar’ment, an’ my frien’ an’ me we wass on the bed, an’ Ralphie he wass play his music.” She chuckled. “I think maybe he got a little excited, Ralphie.”

Hank listened and wondered what weight the testimony of an admitted prostitute would carry with a jury.

“I give him one free one time,” Louisa said. “Ralphie, I mean. He wass a good kid. Iss not his fault he wass born blind, verdad?”

“What happened on the night he was killed?”

“Well, we were si’n downstairs on the stoop. Me, an’ Ralphie, an’ this other girl — she’s a hooker, too, her name is Terry. She’s a Spanish girl, too. She’s older than me, abou’ twenty-two, I guess. She wass suppose to meet one of her friens a little later. An’ it looked like it wass rain soon, you know? So we were si’n there, her an’ me, talking. An’ Ralphie was on the bottom step, jus’ listening. He wass a good kid.”

“What were you talking about?”

“Well, Terry wass tellin’ me what happened to her with a cop of the Vice Squad, how that happened that afternoon.”

“What did she say?”

“Well, let me see. I remember the sky wass gettin’ dark all at once...”

(The clouds are banking high over the Hudson, spreading in a black canopy over the tenements of Spanish Harlem. A wind is starting in the canyon, sweeping through the street. It lifts the skirts of the two girls standing on the front stoop, talking in Spanish. Louisa is fully made up now, but she does not look cheap or garish. Neither does Terry. Both are well-dressed, perhaps two of the best-dressed girls in Harlem. Both look fresh, both look passionate, with a dark-eyed, dark-haired exotic beauty that promises much to the seeker of erotica. It is common knowledge along this street that they are prostitutes. The boys have very little to do with Terry or Louisa, except to bandy sex talk about. The boys consider it beneath them to sleep with a prostitute, and even the virgin boys on the Horsemen would rather pretend to experience than to find that experience with a prostitute. The girls’ friends are usually men who drift uptown because they have heard you can find girls like Louisa and Terry in Spanish Harlem. They very often go home with something more than a gratified sex appetite. Muggings are common in the streets of Harlem, and a man who has come there for sex is not likely to complain later to the police about a criminal assault. The girls do not encourage the muggings, nor are they affiliated with the muggers. Theirs is a strict business operation, a body for a bill. They euphemistically, and in an unbusinesslike way, refer to their bed partners as “friends.” This applies to anyone with whom they commit the act of intercourse, except the man they happen to be living with at the moment, if they are indeed living with anyone. This person serves as part-time pimp and part-time lover. He is referred to as “my old man.” Some of the girls’ friends are respectable businessmen from New Rochelle or the suburbs of Long Island, but they are never entertained in Spanish Harlem. These men are visited at various places of assignation throughout the city. One of Louisa’s friends is a book publisher who maintains an apartment in Greenwich Village away from his large home in Roslyn. He likes the fresh young look about Louisa. Terry can remember going on a party in the stockroom of a machine-parts factory in the Bronx. There was no bed. She entertained twelve men, one after the other, on a blanket spread on the stockroom floor.

The transient customers, the ones who approach the girls in bars, generally satisfy their needs in Harlem. The girls will use an empty apartment which they will rent for the evening or for the hour from an old crone who derives her income alternately through supplying the apartments and through baby-sitting for mothers who work. Louisa maintains her own apartment, and she does not live with an “old man.” But she is afraid the Vice Squad will crack down on her one day. This is her constant fear. She has never had trouble with the police, but she knows that trouble will come one day. She talks freely about her profession to various cops she knows, and even to some she doesn’t know. But the Vice Squad cop is a shadowy figure to her, and she dreads picking up a man, taking him to her apartment, and then being arrested by him at the crucial, specified-by-law point when one “exposes her privates.”)

TERRY: He look jus’-like anyone you would meet. He wass wear a summer suit, an’ a straw hat. La mera verdad, era guapo.

LOUISA: Wha’ did he say to you?

TERRY: He said he wass lookin’ for a good time. He said I look like the kind of girl who could show him a good time.

LOUISA: So what did you tell him?

TERRY: I said it depends on what he consider a good time.

(Rafael Morrez sits on the bottom step of the stoop, half listening to Terry’s discourse. His eyes are black in his thin, sixteen-year-old face. He wears a sport shirt with a bright Hawaiian print. Despite the heat, he wears corduroy trousers, the color of which does not match the basic color of the shirt. He is not dressed sloppily, but he has about him the slightly askew look of a blind person which, on a person who can see, might indicate a hasty dresser. The sounds of the street are magnified to him. He knows, too, that it is going to rain soon. He can smell rain and feel it. He has been blind since birth, but every other part of his body is highly sensitive to everything happening around him. There are some who hold that Morrez can even smell danger. But there is danger coming within the next few minutes, and he does not seem to be aware of it. The skies are black and swollen now. It will rain soon. It will rain heavily.)

LOUISA: So what happened?

TERRY: Mama Teresa got me an apartment. I ask for the money first. He give it to me. La mera verdad, era un buen tipo. Until I took off my dress.

LOUISA: What did he do?

TERRY: He said he wass from the Vice Squad, and he is going take me to jail. Then he took back his money and put it in his wallet.

LOUISA: But di’n you ask for identification?

TERRY: He showed it, he showed it. No cabe duda, he wass a detective. I wass very scared. La mera verdad, I never been so scared in my life. Then he says to me maybe we can work it out.

LOUISA: What did he mean, “work it out”?

TERRY: What you think?

LOUISA (shocked): An’ did you?

TERRY: Seguro. You think I want to go to jail?

LOUISA: I would never have done thees. Never, never. Nunca, nunca, nunca.

TERRY: He had me caught! What you want me to do?

LOUISA: Quién sabe, but I would never have done thees. Nunca, nunca! I would rot in jail first!

(The girls fall silent. The street, too, has become silent, anticipating the storm. On the steps, Rafael Morrez tilts his head skyward, as if listening for something. Louisa turns to him.)

LOUISA: Ralphie, why you don’ play us some music?

TERRY: Ándale, Ralphie, some music.

(At the girls’ request, Morrez reaches into his pocket, and at that instant the three boys enter the street. There is trouble in their stride, and Louisa recognizes it instantly. She starts down the steps, and then sees that the boys have spotted Morrez.)

LOUISA: Mira! Cuidado!

TOWER: Shut up, you spic whore!

(Rafael turns toward the boys. He stands suddenly. Something glints in the hand he has taken from his pocket. He faces the boys blankly.)

TOWER: There’s one of them!

BATMAN: Get him!

(A blade flashes, penetrates, flesh rips in silent protest as the knife gashes upward from the gut. And now the other knives descend, tearing and slashing until Morrez falls like an assassin-surrounded Caesar, crumpling to the pavement. The knives withdraw. Blood spatters like early rain to the sidewalk. From the opposite end of the street four boys begin running toward the intruders.)

TOWER: Go, go!

(The three boys begin running down the street toward Park Avenue. Louisa comes off the steps, running to the felled Morrez.)

LOUISA: Ralphie! Ralphie! Madre de Dios! Virgencita mía!

(And suddenly it is raining.)

“What happened then?” Hank asked.

“I hold his head in my lap. He iss... iss bleeding everywhere, everywhere — they rip him all up. Then the police come. Police all over the street. Sirens going, police chasing the others, and police asking questions — always the police. When it is too late.”

“Did Morrez have a knife?” Hank asked flatly.

“A knife? A knife?”

“Sí. Un cuchillo.”

“Un cuchillo? Ralphie? Qué hace con un cuchillo? A knife? No, this iss not so. Who said this to you?”

“The boys said he pulled a knife and attacked them.”

“This is a lie. He stood up when I yell, and he turn to face them. But it is they who attack. No, he did not have a knife.”

“Then tell me something, Louisa. What was it he took out of his pocket? What was it that glittered?”

“Glit— Oh! Oh! The harmonica, you mean? You mean the harmonica on what he plays his music? This is what you mean?”

Gargantua was waiting downstairs when Hank came out of the building. Another boy was with him. The second boy wore dark glasses and a high-crowned, narrow-brimmed hat. His eyes were invisible behind the glasses. A straggly mustache clung to his upper lip. The suggestion of a Dizzy-kick formed a sparse triangle of hair between his lower lip and his chin. He was very fair, with the almost alabaster coloration of a high-born Spaniard. He wore a short-sleeved white shirt and a narrow blue tie and dark-blue trousers. A tattoo mark was on his right forearm. His hands were big, and he wore a wrist watch on his left wrist. He stood with his hands behind his back, surveying the sidewalk and the street. He did not turn to look at Hank as he approached.

“Here’s the D.A. now, Frankie,” Gargantua said, but the boy did not turn. “Did you find her?”

“I found her,” Hank said. “She was very helpful.” He stopped before the two boys. The one called Frankie was still looking off up the street disinterestedly, the dark glasses effectively hiding his eyes.

“This is Frankie Anarilles,” Gargantua said. “He’s president of the Horsemen. It was him who named the club. I don’t think I got your name, mister.”

“Bell,” Hank said.

“Frankie, this is Mr. Bell.”

Frankie nodded. “Nice to know you, man,” he said. “What brings you to the turf?”

“Rafael Morrez. I’m prosecuting the case,” Hank said.

“Oh, yeah. Gone. Good luck with it. Kill them, man.”

“We can tell you things about them goddamn Thunderbirds,” Gargantua said, “would make you lay down and die, believe me.”

“Listen, I don’t know about you two,” Frankie said, “but I’d like a brew. Come on. I’ll buy.”

They began walking toward Fifth Avenue. Both boys walked with a peculiar headlong shuffle, their hands in their pockets, their heads and shoulders erect, their eyes looking straight ahead. He felt emanating from the two the same casual security that Hollywood celebrities wear. They knew who they were, and they wore their notoriety with aloof indifference but with a measure of pride.

In an attempt at making conversation, Hank said, “Do you like Harlem?”

Frankie shrugged. “Yeah. I like Harlem.”

“You do?” Hank said, faintly surprised.

“Sure. Sure I like it.”

“Why?”

“What do you mean why? I live here. Everybody knows me here.”

“Don’t they know you anyplace else?”

“Oh, they know me when I crack somebody’s head, all right.” He chuckled. “The wops know me, all right. That ain’t what I mean, man. I mean, like when I’m here, when I’m walking the streets here, they know me, and I feel like myself, you dig? I’m Frankie. Everybody knows I’m Frankie. Everybody knows I’m president of the Horsemen.”

“That can get dangerous, can’t it?” Hank asked.

“Oh, man, like sure it can get dangerous,” Frankie said, and there was pride in his voice now. “I mean, it’s like with anything else. You get a rep, a name, then you got to watch out.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, man, it’s the same with everything, ain’t it? Like any big shot, not that I’m a real big shot. But anybody who makes it, there’s always people who are ready to knock them down. You know what I mean? So I’m president of the Horsemen, and there’s lots of people would like to knock me down. That’s all. It’s the same all over this country, ain’t it?”

“In a sense, I suppose,” Hank said.

“But they ain’t never gonna knock you down,” Gargantua said.

“You can say that again, man. They got to get up real early in the morning to jap this boy. Hey, how about here?” Frankie said.

They had walked up past 111th Street to a small bar on Fifth. The bar boasted its name in gilt letters on two front plate glass windows: “Las Tres Guitaras.”

“The Three Guitars,” Frankie said. “We call it Las Tres Putas. That means The Three Whores. That’s because you can usually find hookers hanging around in here. But it’s a nice place. They give you a good glass of beer. You like beer?”

“Yes,” Hank said.

“Good. Come on.”

They walked into the place. The bar ran the length of the room on the left side. There were booths opposite it, and a shuffleboard setup alongside the hot table at the far end of the room. Three men were standing at the bar drinking when Hank walked in with the boys. They downed their drinks instantly, sidled past Hank and left.

“They think you’re a T man,” Frankie explained. “Everybody in Harlem got the jitters about junk. They see a stranger, they automatically figure he’s a Fed looking to make a narcotics pinch. All the bulls in the barrio they know. But a stranger who’s dressed nice — bang, he must be a Fed. And they don’t want to be anywhere around if there’s going to be a narcotics pinch. Because sometimes the guy who’s pinched, he’ll like throw the stuff away, you know? The deck, I mean. The heroin. You know what I mean, or am I just talking?”

“I know what you mean,” Hank said.

“Okay, so they’ll ditch the junk, and it might land near you, near your feet or something. And the next thing you know, you’re arrested for holding, or maybe even for intent to sell if there’s enough of the junk in the deck. So if you spot a T man, the best thing is to get the hell out, man, go, go. Let’s sit in this booth here. Hey, Miguel, let’s have three brews, huh? Good beer here. You’ll like it.”

They sat. Frankie’s hands were immense on the table.

“So you’re working for Ralphie, huh?” Frankie said.

“That’s one way of putting it, I suppose,” Hank answered.

“It looks open and shut to me,” Frankie said. “The Birds ain’t got a chance.” He paused. Casually, he said, “Have they?”

“I think we’ve got a good case against them,” Hank said.

“Yeah, well, I hope you give it to them good. Between them and the niggers, there ain’t much choice who you should hate most. But that’s a contest I think the Birds win.”

“Do you have trouble with the colored gangs, too?” Hank asked.

“Man, that’s our middle name, trouble. And that’s where we are, right in the middle. The wops look down on us, and the niggers look down on us, and where does that leave us? It leaves us holding the sloppy end of the stick. It’s like we don’t belong to the human race, you dig? We’re something crawled out of the sewer. The niggers think they’re hot stuff because all of a sudden they’re wearing white shirts and ties instead of carrying spears in the jungle. Man, my people are a proud race. Puerto Rico ain’t no damn African jungle. And what makes the wops think they’re so high and mighty? What’d they ever have? Mussolini? Big deal! This guy Michelangelo? Okay. But what the hell have they done recently?” Frankie paused. “You ever hear of a guy named Picasso?”

“Yes,” Hank said.

“Pablo Picasso,” Frankie said. “He’s the greatest artist ever lived. I went all the way down the museum to see that show of his they gave. Man, he sings! And you know something? He got the same blood in his veins that I got in mine.”

“You went to the museum to see the Picasso exhibit?” Hank asked, surprised.

“Sure. Gargantua went with me. Remember?”

“Sure, I remember. That was the night we bopped with the Crusaders.”

“Yeah, that’s right. When we got back from the museum.”

“Who are the Crusaders?”

“This gang from the West Side,” Frankie said. “Colored guys. A bunch of bananas. We sent them home crying that night.”

“I tell you the truth,” Gargantua said, “a lot of them Picasso pictures I didn’t understand.”

“You’re a meatball,” Frankie said. “Who says you got to understand it? All you got to do is feel it. This guy paints with his heart. He’s got his heart spread all over the pictures. You can feel it. Hell, he’s Spanish!”

The bartender brought the beers to the table, eying Hank curiously. He wiped his hands on his apron and then went back to the bar.

“Did you know any of these fellows personally?” Hank asked. “The ones who killed Morrez?”

“I know Reardon and Aposto,” Frankie said. “That bastard Reardon is the one I really hope you get.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Well, Aposto’s — you know — not all there. I mean, this is a kid you tell him to push his mother in the river, like he’ll do it. He’s a little... feeble-minded? Retarded? You know.” He tapped his temple with a circling forefinger. “This is legit because my kid brother’s in his class at school, so he knows.”

“What school is that?”

“S.A.T. Manhattan. The School of Aviation Trades, you know? My brother goes there.”

“And your brother’s in Aposto’s class, and he says Aposto’s retarded, is that right?”

“Yeah. But Reardon ain’t. Reardon is a shrewd son of a bitch. Tower, he calls himself. Tower. I’ll give him a tower, that bastard.”

“Why don’t you like him?”

“Because I don’t like punks who try to behave like wheels, that’s why. I mean, this guy is nothing,” Frankie said. “A real nowhere. But he’s always trying to make a name for himself. He’s got this idea, you know, that the big-time racketeers are watching him. He makes a name in a street club, and he thinks he’s going to control the waterfront next week. He’s got holes in his head. I mean, man, this bopping is sheeeeeet, you know. I mean, real sheeeeet, man. But he keeps trying to get a rep. So now he’s got one. Now he’s got a rep going to take him straight to the electric chair. You want to know something?”

“What’s that?”

“We had a bop scheduled for the night Ralphie was killed. The Birds knew all about it. Gargantua met with their warlord, this cat called Diablo, a Spanish name, how do you like that? So it was all set up. The project on a Hun’ Twenty-fifth. At ten o’clock. The Birds knew this. And if the Birds knew it, then Reardon knew it, too. He makes it his business to know everything that happens on that club. So what happens? Early in the night, he rounds up this idiot Aposto, and this kid Di Pace who I never heard of, and he stages his own private raid into our turf. Man, don’t you read it?”

“He was looking for personal glory?”

“Sure, what else? He’s trying to make a rep for himself. Naturally, he didn’t expect the cops to get him. Nobody expects to get busted. He figured he’d come in here and raise a little hell, and then go back to the Birds and get elected president or something. I’ll bet you a hundred dollars that was just how it happened. Reardon conned those two shmoes into coming in here. Hey, you ain’t touched your beer.”

Hank picked up his glass and drank from it.

“Good, ain’t it?”

“Yes, very good,” Hank said. “You talk as if you know Reardon very well.”

“I once give him a hole on the side of his head, I bet he’s still got the scar,” Frankie said.

“When was this?”

“In a bop. I hit him and he went down, so I kicked him in the head. I was wearing combat boots, I mean anybody goes bopping without combat boots is out of his mind. So I musta split his head wide open.”

“Why’d you kick him?”

“Because he was down, and I didn’t want him to get up again.”

“Do you kick anyone who’s down?”

“Anybody.”

“Why?”

“Because I know that if they get me down, they’re gonna kick me. You ever been stomped, mister?”

“No.”

“Well, it ain’t so much fun. Unless maybe you like getting stepped on all over. Me, I don’t like it. So I do it to the other guy first. This way, when he’s down, he stays down, and he can’t hurt me. Reardon hit me with a ball bat once, you know that? He almost broke my leg, that bastard. Man, I got a thing for him, believe me. If you don’t kill that son of a bitch, I’m gonna do the job for you some day.”

“And get busted?” Hank asked.

“Not me. Besides, if I got busted it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Then I could stop all this gang bopping. Maybe getting busted is the only way out. Or else getting drafted in the Army. ’Cause, man, this bopping is strictly sheeeeeeet.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“You got to live, don’t you? You got to protect your rights.”

“Which rights?”

“Your turf, man, your territory. Otherwise they be coming in here all the time — like they done with Ralphie. You got to stop them, don’t you? You can’t let them step all over you.”

“They seem to feel that you’re the intruders,” Hank said.

“Yeah, big intruders,” Frankie said. “All we try to do is get along, so all we get is trouble. With guys like Reardon around, you can’t even blow your nose. He’s a real troublemaker, that bastard. All the time. Right from when he first joined the Birds. You remember that time at the pool, Gargantua?”

“Yeah, I remember that time, all right. They almost drowned Alfie.”

“When was this?”

“Last summer,” Gargantua said. “There’s a pool on First Avenue. The Jefferson Pool. It’s open in the summertime, you know? It’s near the school — only the school’s on Pleasant Avenue. This is on First, around a Hun’ Thirteenth. So we used to go over there sometimes. It gets pretty hot around here in the summer, you know.”

“Yeah, but we don’t go there no more,” Frankie said. “They made sure of that. We go over there, it’s like taking our lives in our hands. Even if we didn’t have to pass through their turf to get there. That pool is like a battleground. We step in there, man, there’s fireworks. Like that day last summer.”

“Di Pace was there, you know that?” Gargantua said to Frankie. “I remember that was the first time I seen him. He just moved in the neighborhood that winter, I think. Yeah, he was with Reardon that day.”

“I don’t remember him,” Frankie said. “Aposto was there, I know, because I remember he threw the first punch. But I don’t think I ever seen this Di Pace kid. It don’t matter, anyway, because it was Reardon started it all. He was the one.”

“What happened?” Hank asked.

“Well, it was a real hot day,” Frankie said. “Hotter even than today. We were hanging around doing nothing and somebody said let’s go over to the pool. So we got our trunks and towels, and we grabbed a cab to take us—”

“You took a taxi?”

“Sure, there was six guys, so what did it cost us, a dime each or something? Including the tip? We hopped in the cab and went right to the pool. Then we changed in the locker room and went outside. All we had on our minds was getting in that water...”

(The temperature on this August day is going to break all records previously set for the city of New York. It is now noon, with the sun at its apex directly overhead, and the thermometer on the brick wall of the bathhouse reads 100.6. As the Puerto Rican boys emerge from the locker room to the pool area, they are assailed by the hum of voices which seems to hover over all bathing places, indistinct, a rumble like the ocean itself, interspersed with the clearer sounds of water splashing, laughter, the reverberating deep click of the diving board.

The pool, a glistening blue rectangle, ripples with reflected sunlight. It is crowded on this Saturday, but then it is usually crowded on weekends. Most of the people in the pool and surrounding it are young. There is the usual amount of horseplay, the duckings, the shrieking girls being tossed into the water, the water fights with young girls sitting astride the shoulders of their mock stallions.

The entrance of the Puerto Rican boys does not evoke an immediate show of antagonism. They walk carefully and cautiously, because they are, after all, in enemy turf no matter how allegedly neutral the ground. But their entrance has gone largely unobserved. There are six boys in all. One is brown, another white, and the remainder range the tan spectrum. The dark boy, Mike, speaks only Spanish. He has no desire to learn English. He is afraid that if he learns to speak English well, he will be mistaken for a Negro. The fact that he speaks Spanish, then, is a badge of pride to him. He has resisted every effort of his schoolteachers to get him to learn English. Another of the boys, Alfredo, cannot speak English too well, either, but it is not through lack of trying. He is an intelligent boy who, being taught by born-and-bred New Yorkers who do not speak Spanish, finds it difficult to learn. He is also a devout Catholic, and he wears a slender gold chain about his throat, from which dangles a miniature gold cross. The boys enter the water. They stay close to each other, swimming in the tight formation of a convoy. The lifeguard glances at them disinterestedly and then goes back to chatting with a blonde who seems determined to lose the top half of her two-piece swimsuit.

Tower Reardon straightens up from the water fountain where he has just taken a drink. He is a tall, excellently proportioned boy who lifts weights. He ordered the weights from the back cover of a comic book. He worked in a grocery store for a full summer to earn the price of the weights. His father makes fun of his efforts. “I never needed to lift weights,” he says. “I worked on the goddamn railroad laying ties, and my muscles are real. Yours are fake. All weight lifters are muscle-bound.” He has warned Tower that he will throw out the “whole shooting match” the first time any of the neighbors complain. And so Tower is very careful when he’s working out. He works out with the weights every evening for two hours. He lifts them toward the ceiling, and then he deposits them very gently on the floor because he does not want the people in the apartment below to yell about his making noise. Sometimes he walks into the kitchen, spans his mother’s tiny waist with his powerful hands and lifts her off the floor. He enjoys exhibiting his strength to her. His mother makes a big fuss of being annoyed. “Put me down, you idiot,” she will say, but he knows she enjoys it, too. Secretly, Tower believes he is stronger than his father. He would like to test it someday. He would like to Indian-wrestle with him or something. But his father is always too busy watching the ball games on television. And besides, Tower is afraid his father might, just might, beat him in a test of strength and then he’d never hear the end of the goddamn railroad stories. And, too, he does not wish to lose face before his mother.

His mother does not know he belongs to a street gang. She constantly warns him about the dangers of Harlem. She cautions him against accepting cigarettes from strangers. “That’s how they get you started on dope,” she tells him. “You be careful, Artie. There are a lot of dope peddlers in Harlem.” Tower has not told her that he once tried marijuana. He has not told her, either, that the only reason he hasn’t tried the bigger stuff is because he is afraid it will milk his strength. He likes to be strong. He enjoys his nickname. Tower. He chose it himself and later pretended the gang members gave him the name.

He walks to the edge of the pool and looks out at the water, spotting the Puerto Rican boys at once. The only boy he knows is Frankie Anarilles, with whom he has had some close calls but never any real trouble. He knows, however, that Frankie is president of the Horsemen. He knows, too, that — by unspoken word — the pool is supposed to be neutral territory. In any case, there has never been any trouble here before. He is not now consciously looking to promote trouble. But seeing the Puerto Rican boys in the pool somehow makes him angry.

He gestures toward Aposto, who comes dripping out of the pool to where Tower stands.)

BATMAN: What’s the matter, Tower?

TOWER: Look in the water.

(Batman looks. He sees nothing. He does not very often catch things the first time around. He reacts slowly to thought and to suggestion. The only time he is really alert is when he is in a fight. He fights completely by instinct, and his instinct is that of an animal. He derives great pleasure from fighting because he knows he does it well. He knows, too, that it is possibly the one thing he does well. He has never been interested in school, but not because he realizes that his very low I.Q. sets him apart from other more intelligent boys. It simply doesn’t seem very interesting to him, and he would quit if he could find a good job, but nobody seems to want to hire him. He is a student at Manhattan Aviation Trades where he is totally inept in both his academic and manual-training classes. His teachers, however, do not consider him a “difficult” student. He never causes any trouble in the classroom. They have not the slightest inkling that he belongs to a street gang and that in the heat of battle he is capable of killing. They figure him for a slow child. When they are questioned a year later, after the killing of Rafael Morrez, they will all express honest shock and astonishment that a quiet kid like Anthony Aposto could “go berserk.” This quiet kid, Anthony (Batman) Aposto, does not want to go berserk. This quiet kid wants to fight because everybody tells him he is a good fighter. That’s all he wants to do. He would make an excellent soldier and would probably be decorated for valor in the field. Unfortunately, he is too young to be drafted. Unfortunately, he will kill another very real — to him — “enemy” long before he is old enough to be drafted.)

BATMAN: I don’t see nothing in the water, Tower. What is it? Something in the water?

TOWER: Over there. Spics.

(Batman looks. He sees the Puerto Rican boys, but he is not angered by the sight of them. He looks for some hidden meaning in Tower’s words but can find none. Are the spics peeing in the water or something? Is that it?)

BATMAN: Yeah, I see them. What’re they doing, Tower?

TOWER: You like swimming with them?

BATMAN (shrugging): Gee, I don’t know. I didn’t even notice them until you told me. Gee, what’re they doing, Tower?

TOWER: Get Danny.

BATMAN: Danny? Yeah, he was over there with a girl. I’ll get him, Tower. I’ll get him.

(He leaves Reardon. Reardon stands at the edge of the pool, his hands on his hips. He counts the Puerto Ricans. Six of them. He wishes there were more Thunderbirds around. But he knows that if there is trouble, they will materialize from nowhere. This is one of the advantages of gang membership. He knows now that there will be trouble. But in his mind he is not the person who is going to cause the trouble. The trouble, he feels, began the moment the Puerto Ricans came into the pool. They are the troublemakers; he is innocent; he is vindicated.

Danny approaches. He has been swimming at the pool all summer long. He is burned to a deep brown, and his red hair is lighter than it is in the wintertime.)

DANNY: What’s up, dad?

TOWER: Take a look. San Juan’s polluting the water.

DANNY: Huh? (He glances at the pool.) Aw, what the hell, let them swim. It’s hot enough to melt concrete.

TOWER: We let them in, they’ll be bringing over the whole West Side.

DANNY: They been here before. Relax, Artie.

TOWER (correcting him): Tower.

DANNY: Yeah. So relax, Tower.

TOWER: I don’t like the idea.

DANNY: So who are you? Head of the Immigration Department or something?

TOWER: I’m me, and I don’t like it, and I say we kick them out.

DANNY: So go ahead and kick them out. What the hell do you want from me? I was talking with a girl there.

TOWER: I didn’t know you were turkey.

DANNY: What?

TOWER: You heard me.

DANNY: What’s this got to do with being turkey? They want to swim here, who gives a damn?

TOWER: This pool is in our turf.

DANNY: But they always swim here! They’re always coming over. Look, I got a girl over there and—

TOWER: Sure, go ahead, turkey.

DANNY: Now wait a minute—

TOWER: I never knew you to punk put of something before. I thought you was a down cat.

DANNY: I am! I just can’t see any sense—

TOWER: Okay, forget it. You want me to go over and sound them all by myself, that’s what I’ll do. Me and Batman’ll take care of it.

DANNY: Look, there’s six of them. You go over there...

TOWER: Never mind. I shoulda known better than to ask somebody ain’t even on the club.

DANNY: What’s that got to do with it? I just can’t see—

TOWER: Forget it. Come on, Batman.

DANNY: Wait a minute.

TOWER: What?

DANNY: You go sound them, there’ll be a rumble. Right here. I can guarantee it. That’s it. I’m telling you.

TOWER: I ain’t afraid of a rumble.

DANNY: Neither am I.

TOWER: So? You coming or staying?

DANNY: I ain’t afraid. You know that, damnit!

TOWER (sarcastically): Sure, I can see you’re not afraid.

DANNY: All right, all right. Damnit, I was talking to a girl. All right, come on, let’s get it over with.

(They start around the edge of the pool toward the other side, where the Horsemen are emerging from the water. As they walk, we notice other boys watching them, and then getting to their feet to join them, so that the long march around the edge of the gleaming blue pool becomes a sort of recruiting march, as if the bugle has been sounded for formation of ranks and the Thunderbirds are massing. It is a terrible thing to watch them, because there is the silence of a vigilante committee about them, the menacing deadly purposefulness of a lynch mob. Tower, Batman, and Danny are in the front rank. As they walk, the other boys fall in behind them, not in strict formation, but nonetheless presenting the formidable appearance of an army on the move. The lifeguard on his high chair looks over to the boys. He is not a cop, and he doesn’t feel like getting involved with a bunch of hoods. He stays where he is, studying the water for drowning people, of whom there are none at the moment. The hum over the pool begins to subside, and then it is gone altogether. Barefoot, bare-chested, the Thunderbirds — at least a dozen of them now — cross the pool area. Trouble is in the air. The silence of trouble is a louder noise than the gay hum of voices which preceded it. Five of the Puerto Rican boys have gone over to the fountain on that side of the pool. Only one — Alfredo — remains by the edge of the pool, his feet dangling in the water. He does not see the Thunderbirds until they are almost upon him. He scrambles to his feet and looks frantically for the other members of his party, but he is surrounded before he establishes contact. The boys ring him in, and he faces them with his back to the pool.)

TOWER: What are you? A little girl?

ALFREDO: A gorl? What you minn?

TOWER: You’re wearing a necklace. I thought only girls wore necklaces.

ALFREDO: A neck— (His hand goes up to the chain and cross. He is trying to see past the boys to where his friends are, but the circle is tight and unbending.) Tha’s no necklace. Tha’s Jesús Cristo. Don’ you got no religion?

TOWER: Oh, you got religion, huh? He’s got religion, boys.

ALFREDO: Come on, wha’ you wann here, anyway?

TOWER: We want to see how religious you are, spic.

ALFREDO: Hey, don’ call me—

TOWER: We want to see if you can walk on the water, spic.

ALFREDO: Walk on dee—

(Batman shoves out at him, and Alfredo hurtles backward into the water. The Thunderbirds are in the pool almost instantly, splashing wildly as Alfredo surfaces. Alfredo is frightened now. He is surrounded by a dozen boys, and his feet are not on the ground. He has never been a good swimmer; he came here today only to be one of the boys. Now the boys have deserted him and...)

TOWER: Get him! Get him!

(The Thunderbirds reach for Alfredo. He strikes out at them, but his punches are ineffectual in the water. Batman seizes him from behind.)

TOWER: Shove him under!

(Batman pushes down on Alfredo’s shoulders, shoving him beneath the surface of the water. Alfredo pushes up again, his mouth open for air, and another boy strikes him, and then Batman seizes his hair and pushes down with all his might. Another boy closes in, adding the force of his arms to Batman’s. A bubble breaks the surface of the water. The pool is terribly still. The lifeguard weighs his responsibility — someone is likely to drown out there — and then decides his responsibility does not extend this far. He comes down off the chair, though, and sidles away from the crowd in search of a cop.)

DANNY: Okay, let him up. That’s enough.

TOWER: Hold him!

DANNY: You’re going to drown him! Let him up!

TOWER: I said hold him!

(Another air bubble breaks the surface. The boys stand in a silent circle. Beneath the water, held tightly by Batman and the other boy, Alfredo struggles, but he cannot break the grip. Then he stops struggling.)

DANNY: Let him go! He’s drowning, can’t you see?

TOWER: He’s faking! He’s holding his breath.

DANNY: Damnit, you’re gonna kill him! Tower, let him go!

TOWER: Shut up!

(Beneath the surface, Alfredo is beginning to go limp, his eyes opening wide in terror. From the water fountain, Frankie senses the sudden silence of the pool. He turns, takes one look and then says “Mira!” and the other Puerto Rican boys turn, and then they break into a trot toward the pool’s edge. They do not stop at the lip. Led by Frankie, they dive into the water, striking first at Batman and the boy holding Alfredo under. Alfredo, released, surfaces, grabs for the lip of the pool, and feebly sucks in air. In the pool, the boys are fighting now, cursing loudly. The girls around the edges of the pool are screaming. The lifeguard rushes back with a policeman. The sound of his whistle splits the air.)

“Then Tower started it all, is that right?” Hank said.

“Damn right, he started it,” Frankie said. “And we weren’t doing nothing, either. Just swimming. So he got us all hauled down the station house, that dumb jerk. And for what? Just so he could be a big man.”

“Did Danny actually resist Tower’s command?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did he try to save this boy Alfredo?”

“I didn’t even know he was there,” Frankie said. “I just found out today, same as you did.”

“He was there,” Gargantua said. “Some guys told me he was yelling they should let Alfie go. That’s what I heard around, anyway. He ain’t really a Thunderbird, you know. He just kind of hangs out with them.”

“He oughta choose his friends better,” Frankie said. “They all stink, every one of them. You ever meet the president of that club?”

“No. Who’s he?” Hank said.

“A guy named Big Dom. He’s really a little shrimp. You could fit him in your side pocket.” Frankie shook his head. “I don’t know where they dug him up, I swear to God. Ain’t a president supposed to have leadership qualities? Not that I’m a big leader, but this Dominick character is strictly for the sparrows. Argggh, they’re a nowhere club altogether.”

“You’d do good to send them three to the chair, Mr. Bell,” Gargantua said.

“Yeah,” Frankie agreed, “you’d do real good.” He turned to face Hank. His eyes were still invisible behind the dark glasses, but suddenly he was no longer the Picasso-lover with the proud Spanish blood. His face seemed to go suddenly hard, and his voice, though issuing from his mouth in a monotone, was menacing. “You’d do real good, Mr. Bell.”

“It wouldn’t be nice for them to get away with this,” Gargantua said.

“No,” Frankie said. “A lot of people might not like it.”

They sat in silence for a moment. The two boys stared at him, as if trying to make their meaning clear without the necessity of further words.

Finally Hank rose. “Well,” he said, “thanks for all the information,” and he reached into his back pocket for his wallet.

“The beers are on me,” Frankie said.

“No, let me—”

“I said the beers are on me,” he said, more firmly this time.

“Well, thank you, then,” Hank said, and he left the bar.

The mother of Rafael Morrez did not arrive home from work until 6 P.M. She was a seamstress in the garment district. She had come to Harlem from a town in Puerto Rico called Vega Baja, where she had worked in a one-room factory that made children’s shirts. From the outside of the building, the place where she had worked had not resembled a factory at all. There was a grilled iron railing, and then a pastel-colored building set back from a small courtyard where wild orchids grew. Violeta Morrez would begin work at eight in the morning, and she worked through until six o’clock in the evening. She had better working conditions and higher wages in New York, that was true. But in Puerto Rico, at the end of the working day, she would go home to her son Rafael. In New York she could no longer do that. Her son Rafael was dead.

She had come to New York at the request of her husband, who had been a dishwasher in a restaurant on Forty-second Street. He had preceded her to the mainland by a year, living with some cousins of his and saving enough money finally to rent his own apartment and to send for his wife and his son. She had joined him reluctantly. For whereas she knew that New York was a city of opportunities, she was very fond of Puerto Rico and dreaded leaving familiar safe surroundings. Six months after she arrived in the city, her husband took up with another woman, leaving her and the boy to find their own way in the city.

Now, at thirty-seven — two years older than Hank’s wife Karin — Violeta Morrez looked like a woman of sixty. Her body was thin and her face was gaunt, only a slight hint of beauty lingering about the eyes and the mouth. She wore no make-up. Her black hair was pulled back severely into a tight bun.

They sat in the “parlor” of her fourth-floor walk-up, and there was a stillness to the room as they faced each other. Her eyes, wide and brown in the hollow face, stared at Hank with a frankness that made him uneasy. It was like looking into the eyes of immense sorrow, he realized, a sorrow too great for empathy, a sorrow that demanded solitude and resented solicitude.

“What can you do?” she asked. “What can you possibly do?”

She spoke English well, with only a trace of an accent. She had told Hank earlier that she’d studied the language for a year before joining her husband in New York. She had gone to school at night in Puerto Rico.

“I can see that justice is done, Mrs. Morrez,” Hank said.

“Justice? In this city? Do not make me laugh. There is justice here only if you are born here. For the others, there is nothing but hatred.” He listened to her voice, and he thought, There is no bitterness in her words, even though the words themselves are bitter. There is only an unutterable sadness, a despair, a surrender to sorrow.

“This is a city of hatred, señor. There is hatred in this city’s heart, and it is a bad thing to feel.”

“I’m here to help your son’s case, Mrs. Morrez. Anything you can tell me about—”

“To help his case, yes. But to help him, no. You can never help Rafael again. It is too late to help him. My son is dead, and the ones who killed him are still alive. And if they continue to stay alive, there will be more killings because these are not human beings, these are animals. These are animals full of hatred.” She paused. Her eyes held his. Like a child asking her father why the sky was blue, she said, “Why does this city hate, señor?”

“Mrs. Morrez, I...”

“I was taught love,” she said, and suddenly her voice was wistful, a tenderness creeping into it, a gentleness which for a moment overwhelmed the sorrow. “I was taught that to love is the best thing. I was taught this in Puerto Rico where I was born. It is easy to love there. It is warm there, and slow, and the people say hello to you on the street, the people know who you are, they know you are Violeta Morrez, they say, ‘Hello, Violeta, how are you today, have you heard from Juan? How is your son?’ It is important to be somebody, don’t you think? It is important to know that you are Violeta Morrez and that the people in the street know you.” She paused. “Here, it is different. Here it is cold, and here everyone rushes, and here there is no one to say, ‘Hello, Violeta,’ or to wonder how you are feeling today. There is no time for love in this city. There is only hatred. And hatred has robbed me of my son.”

“Your son will have justice, Mrs. Morrez. I’m here to see to that.”

“Justice? There is only one justice, señor. And that is to kill the murderers the way they killed him. It would be justice to put out their eyes and then come at them with knives, the way they came at my Rafael in his darkness. This is the only justice for animals. And they are animals, señor, make no mistake. If you do not send these murderers to the electric chair, there will be no safety any more. I tell you this from my heart. There will be only fear. Fear and hatred, and they will together rule this city, and decent people will hide in hallways and pray to God.

“My Rafael was a good boy. He never did a wrong thing in his life. There was the spirit of gentleness about him. His eyes were dead, señor, but there was great life in his heart. It is easy to feel, you know, that a blind person needs to be watched always. It is a mistake we make. I made this same mistake. I watched him, I cared for him, always, always. Until we came here. And then his father left, and I had to take a job. One must eat. And so Rafael went on the street while I worked. And it was on the street that he was killed. A good boy. Dead.”

“Mrs. Morrez—”

“There is only one thing you can do for me and for my Rafael. Only one thing, señor.”

“What’s that, Mrs. Morrez?”

“In this city of hatred, you can add my hatred,” she said, and there was still no bitterness in her voice, only an emptiness, a haunting preoccupation with cold facts too complex to grasp. “You can add this hatred I shall feel as long as I live. And you can kill the boys who killed my Rafael. You can kill them and rid the streets of animals. This is what you can do for me, señor.

“God forgive me, you can kill them.”

Karin was in the living room, talking on the phone, when he arrived home that evening. He went directly to the bar, poured a Martini from the waiting pitcher, kissed her briefly on the cheek, and then listened to her end of the conversation.

“Yes, Phyllis, of course I understand,” she said. “Well, babysitters are always difficult to come by, and I know I did give you rather short notice. We did so hope you could come, though. We wanted you to meet— Yes, I see. Well, there’ll be other times. Certainly. Thanks for calling. And give my regards to Mike, will you? ’Bye.”

She hung up and then went to Hank, putting her arms around his neck and giving him a real kiss. “There,” she said. “How’d the day go? May I have one of those?”

He poured a drink for her, sighed and said, “The plot sickens. I go into Harlem, and I feel as if I’m dipping my hands into a quagmire. I can’t see the bottom of it, Karin. All I can do is feel around with my hands and hope I don’t hit any sharp rocks or broken bottles. I talked with one of the girls who was with Morrez on the night he was stabbed. Do you know what it was he pulled out of his pocket? The thing the defense claims was a knife?”

“What?”

“A harmonica. How about that?”

“They’ll still claim their clients mistook it for a knife.”

“And well they might have.” He paused. “This Tower Reardon is shaping up as a real prize package, if I can believe his enemies.” He paused again. “Karin, I don’t think you’d believe the situation in Harlem unless you actually saw it. It’s almost too goddamn illogical. These kids are like armies massed to attack, with war counselors and armories — and the same blind enemy hatred. Their uniforms are their jackets and their cause is as meaningless as the causes that motivate most wars. They don’t even have an over-all theme to hold over their heads as a banner, no ‘Make the world safe for democracy,’ or ‘Asia for the Asiatics’ or any of the tried-and-true slogans used to inflame good patriots into anger. Their wars are just a way of life. It’s the only way they know. I mean, Harlem was a rotten place when I was a kid, but it’s more rotten now because something’s been added to the rottenness that comes with slums and poverty. It’s as if these kids, forced to live in a prison, have further subdivided their big prison into a lot of little prisons, creating arbitrary boundary lines, this is my turf, this is yours, you walk here and I’ll kill you, I walk there and I’m dead. It’s as if it wasn’t quite hard enough for them to begin with, they’ve had to make it harder by imposing a gridwork of minute ghettos upon the larger ghetto they were forced into. Do you know something, Karin? I think I could question them until I’m blue in the face, trying to find out why they fight. And I think they would tell me it’s because they have to protect their turf, or their girls, or their pride, or their national honor, or whatever the hell. And I think they really won’t know the answer themselves.”

He paused and studied his glass.

“Maybe there’s something to this ‘compulsive behavior’ idea, after all. Maybe all these kids are just sick.”

“Sick, sick, sick,” Karin said.

“It’d be funny,” he said solemnly, “if it weren’t so goddamn serious.”

“I didn’t mean to...”

“Karin, if those three boys hadn’t gone into Spanish Harlem to kill Morrez that night, I’m sure that three Puerto Rican boys, sooner or later, would have strolled into Italian Harlem and killed one of the Thunderbirds. I’ve heard them talking about their enemies. This isn’t kid cops-and-robbers stuff, Karin. When they say they’d like to kill someone, they mean they’d like to kill him. You can see it in their eyes.”

“You can’t excuse murderers on the grounds that they one day might be victims.”

“No, of course not. I was only thinking of what Mrs. Morrez said to me this evening. The mother of the dead boy.”

“Yes?”

“She said they were animals, the ones who killed her son. Are they animals, Karin?”

“I don’t know, Hank.”

“And if they are, who the hell put them into the forest they roam?”

“The same could be said of any murderer, Hank. All human beings are a product of their society. But we nonetheless have laws to protect...”

“If we send these three boys to the electric chair, will we stop three other boys from killing?”

“We might.”

“Yes, we might. But we might not. In which case we’d be adding the senseless murder of Di Pace, Aposto and Reardon to the senseless murder of Morrez. The only difference being that our murder will have had the sanction of society.”

“Wow!” Karin said. “You’d better go easy, my friend.”

“Where the hell is justice?” Hank asked. “What the hell is justice?”

The telephone rang. Karin went to it, lifted the receiver and said, “Hello?” She paused. “Oh, hello, Alice, how are you? Fine, thanks, everyone’s fine.” She paused again, listening. “Oh?” she said. “Oh, I see. Yes, well, that’s understandable. No, I wouldn’t expect you to leave him. Yes, I understand completely. I hope he feels better soon. Thank you for calling, Alice.” She replaced the receiver, a puzzled look on her face.

“Alice Benton?” Hank asked.

“Yes.”

“What’s the matter?”

“She can’t make it this Saturday.” She hesitated, nibbling her lip. “I invited some of the neighbors for dinner, Hank. To meet Abe Samalson.”

“Oh. Something wrong at the Bentons’?”

“Frank has a fever. Alice doesn’t think she should leave him alone.”

The telephone rang again. Karin turned to it and then looked at Hank. Slowly, she crossed the room to answer it.

“Hello? Yes, this is Karin. Hello, Marcia, how are you? No, you’re not interrupting dinner. Hank just got home a little while a — What?” She listened. “Oh. That’s too bad. We were looking forward to— Yes, mistakes can happen, especially when two separate calendars are kept. Yes, I understand. Certainly, Marcia. I’m glad you called.” She hung up and then stood by the phone.

“Marcia Di Carlo?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t make it this Saturday?”

“Can’t make it this Saturday,” Karin said, nodding.

“Reason?”

“Joe had made a previous engagement. Put it down on his calendar. When I called, she didn’t realize they had this other date. She begged off. Said they’d see us soon.” Karin paused. “That makes three cancellations so far, Hank.”

“Mmmmm. Do I detect the fine hand of McNalley and Pierce at work here?”

“I don’t know. Would our neighbors...?”

“Would our neighbors assume we were threatening their way of life by trying to find justice for a dead Puerto Rican? Karin, I don’t know. I gave our neighbors credit for a lot more intelligence and tolerance.”

The telephone rang again. “I’ll get it,” Hank said. He put down his drink and went to the phone. “Hello?”

“Hank?”

“Yes, who’s this?”

“George Talbot. How goes it, boy?”

“So-so. What’s up, George?”

“Ran into a slight snag, Hank boy. Afraid Dee and I will have to pass up the festivities this Saturday.”

“What kind of a snag, George?”

“The brain trust at my sweatshop decided they ought to send me to Syracuse for the weekend. To talk to a prospective sucker about his breakfast cereal. So what can I do? I’m a slave to the hidden persuaders, only this time they’re not so hidden.”

“I’d say they’re not hidden at all,” Hank said.

“Sure. So what’s more important, lad, a drink in the fist or bread and butter on the table?”

“Sure,” Hank said. “When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow. That is, I think tomorrow. Be gone until Monday. Unless the big brass change their mind. In any case, I wouldn’t count on the Talbots.”

“Seen McNalley or Pierce lately?” Hank asked.

“Huh?”

“John and Fred,” Hank said. “Our good neighbors. Seen them recently?”

“Well, I always see them around. You know how it is.”

“I know exactly how it is, George. Thanks for calling. I’m sorry you can’t make it this Saturday. But then, a lot of other people in the neighborhood seem to have come down with the sniffles, or grandmothers dying out in Peoria. Maybe you can all get together and have a little party of your own.”

“What do you mean, Hank?”

“A sort of do-it-yourself party. You can make all kinds of interesting things.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Hank.”

“You can make a lovely wooden cross and then come set fire to it on my lawn.”

“Hank?”

“What is it, George?”

“I really do have to go to Syracuse. This has nothing to do with the junk McNalley and Pierce are spreading.”

“Okay.”

“Do you believe me?”

“What’s not to believe?”

“I just wanted you to know. I don’t ask your advice on how to write copy that sells cigarettes. And I don’t intend to tell you how to do your job.” Talbot paused. “Guilt by association is a sin, too, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry, George. But this telephone has been going like crazy.”

“I just wanted you to know I haven’t joined the barbarian hordes. My reason for not coming is legit. As a matter of fact, I was looking forward to meeting Samalson.”

“Okay, George. I’m sorry you can’t make it. Thanks for calling.”

“See you soon,” Talbot said, and he hung up.

Hank replaced the receiver on its cradle. “Who else did you invite?” he asked.

“The Cronins.”

“They haven’t called yet?”

“No.”

“Think they will?”

“I don’t know.”

He went to her and took her in his arms. “Are you angry?”

“No. Just a little sad. I rather liked this neighborhood.”

“Stop talking as if we have to move out tomorrow.”

“That isn’t what I meant. I didn’t think the people here...” She shook her head. “Is it wrong for a man to do his job the way he feels it should be done?”

“I always felt that was the only way to do a job,” Hank said.

“Yes.” Karin paused. “So the hell with them. I’m selfish enough to want Abe’s company all to ourselves, anyway.”

“Sure,” Hank said, and he smiled.

“Only it makes me wonder. If these high-minded citizens of Inwood, these pillars of the community, these people who are shaping thought — if these people can behave this way, can we expect any more from the kids living in Harlem? Maybe there doesn’t have to be a reason, Hank. Maybe people would much rather hate than love.”

“I doubt it,” he said, and he smiled again. “I’d much rather love, wouldn’t you?”

“You’re a sex fiend,” she said. “One day you’ll be exposed and locked up for the rest of your natural life.”

The telephone rang.

“That’s the Cronins,” Hank said. “That should make it unanimous. We now know that everyone on the street thinks we should bury Morrez in a hurry and forget all about him. And maybe we should put up a statue in the park to the three kids who killed him. Do you want to answer it, or shall I?”

“I’ll take it,” Karin said.

“Bury Morrez before he begins to stink. Pat the young killers on the back and say, ‘A job well done, lads.’ And thereby win the acclaim of McNalley and Pierce and all the pure-white Protestants in the neighborhood.”

“The Cronins are Catholics,” Karin said. “You’re beginning to sound like McNalley.”

“I was using a figure of speech,” Hank said.

Karin lifted the receiver. “Hello?” she said. She listened for a moment and then, still listening, she nodded knowingly at Hank.