See Them Die

"He shouldn't have tried nothing with me," Miranda said. "He could have got killed. I could have killed him."

"Butyou didn't. So what do you say? Yes or no? You coming out?"

"No!" Miranda shouted, suddenly and viciously. "You think you got some cheap punk up here? This is Pepe Miranda!" His voice rose. "You hear me? You want me, you come in here and get me!"

"That's telling them, Pepe!" Zip yelled, and he poked Sixto in the ribs, and suddenly the street was alive with cheers of encouragement.

"Yea, Pepe!"

"Bravo, Pepe!"

"Tell 'em, tell 'em!"

"Quiet!" Byrnes roared. "Everybody quiet!" Patrolmen moved quickly into the crowd, and the people in the street fell suddenly silent. But the rooftops still rang with cheers for the trapped killer in the apartment. Byrnes waited for the sound to die out. He put the megaphone to his mouth and said, "All right, Miranda. No more talk. We're coming in."

"Then stop talking and come get me, you yellow bastards!" Miranda shouted, and suddenly the shade on one of the windows snapped up, and there he was, Pepe Miranda the killer, a short, wiry man standing in his undershirt, his lips pulled back into a snarl, a three days' growth of beard on his face, a gun in each hand. He pulled back his head, and then snapped it forward with a short jerking motion, spitting into the street. And then he began firing blindly, both guns blazing as if he were trying to prove he was the marshal of a tough Western town.

Byrnes waved at the rooftops, and an ear-splitting volley shattered Sunday like a piece of crystal. He scooted for cover behind the squad car while the guns roared down from the rooftops. In the crowd, women were screaming and men were ducking behind each other for cover. Byrnes waved his hand again. The volley stopped, Miranda was no longer at the window.

He gathered Carella, Parker and Hernandez around him. "Okay," he said, "we're moving in. This time Miranda bit off too big a piece." He paused and looked at the faces of the men around him. "Has Captain Frick arrived yet, Steve?"

"Yes. I saw him a little while ago."

"Let's find him. I want this to be right."

Frederick Block was on his way home when he suddenly found himself in the middle of a traffic jam. Block hated traffic jams, and he especially hated them on weekends. He had gone to his office downtown to pick up a carton of eyelets which a factory in Riverhead needed instantly. He had made the delivery himself — "When you deal with Block Industries, you get service," he had told his client — and had then taken the shortest route he knew from Riverhead to the Calm's Point Bridge, and that route happened to take him through the heart of Isola and the 87th Precinct. And now he was in the middle of a traffic jam, on a Sunday, sweating inside his automobile when he should have been at the beach. Block was a fat man. Not one of those fat men who try to kid themselves by applying euphemistic terms like "stout" or "chubby" to their obesity. He was fat. F-A-T. And being fat, he sweated a great deal. And being a person who sweated — fat men, Block knew, never perspired — he did not appreciate being locked in a parked car in the middle of Isola on a day like today.

He bore the heat with tolerant malice for as long as he could. Then he got out of the car and tried to find out just what the hell was causing the tie-up. As far as he could see, there had been no accident. It always annoyed the hell out of Block when there was an accident. In the first place, careful drivers didn't get into accidents. And in the second and more important place, even if the wrecked car itself didn't block the road, traffic always slowed down to a snail's pace because every passing motorist wanted to study the extent of the damage.

Today, there had been no accident. And yet traffic was tied up on the avenue in both directions. Now why? Block wondered. With the instincts of an old bloodhound, he followed the crowd. They all seemed to be heading in the same direction, and he assumed the prime attraction was in that direction. Waddling along, mopping his brow with a big white handkerchief, cursing mildly under his breath, Block made his way up the avenue, and stopped at the luncheonette on the corner. A sailor was sitting at the counter. Block sidled up to him and said, "What's going on, mate?" He had never been in the navy, but he was a born salesman who adapted his speech to fit any and all occasions. "Why can't I get my car through here? What's going on?"

The sailor did not answer. The sailor kept dabbing at his face with a wadded handkerchief. Block didn't see the blood on the handkerchief, so he assumed the sailor was hot and wiping away sweat. He sympathized with the sailor and turned to the man behind the counter.

"Can you tell me what's going on?" he asked.

"The traffic's tied up," Luis said.

"You're telling me it's tied up?" Block said, and he began chuckling, his layers of fat jiggling. "Say, what kind of answer is that? It's tied up downtown and uptown and probably crosstown, too. What's going on? A parade?"

"There's a gunman in the apartment up there," the sailor said suddenly.

"A what?" Block wiped his brow. "A gunman, did you say?"

"Pepe Miranda," Luis put in, nodding.

"I never heard of him. What'd he do, rob a bank?" Block said, and he began chuckling, the fat jiggling all over him again. He didn't look at all like Santa Claus.

"You live in this city?" Luis asked.

"Sure, I live in this city. Not around here, though. I live in Calm's Point. What is this Miranda, a celebrity?"

"He's a killer," the sailor said quietly.

"Yeah?" Block opened his eyes wide in appreciation. "Yeah? A killer?"

"That's what he is," Jeff said.

"They going up there to get him?" Block said.

"That's what it looks like. You better go back to your car, mister. There might be shooting around here."

"No, no," Block said, very interested now. "I want to watch this. I want to see him die."

He shoved his way through the crowd, using his huge stomach like a battering ram.

"Louise," Jeff said, "what time is it?"

"I don't know. Eleven-thirty, something like that. Why?"

"I'm ... I'm supposed to meet a girl here. At noon."

"Sailor, why don't you take your own advice? Get out of here before you run into more trouble. Take a walk over to the park, eh? When the girl comes, I'll tell her you're waiting there for her. What's her name?"

"China. That's a funny name, ain't it?"

"Not for a Spanish girl. Only in Spanish, it's pronounced Chee-na." Luis shrugged. "A lot of the girls today, they give it the English sound. Or maybe people do it for them, and then they decide it's easier that way." He paused. "Go. Go to the park. I'll tell her where you are."

"I thought she was a whore when I first met her, Louise. That's a damn rotten way to start off, isn't it?"

"Well, I know many men who have married prostitutes," Luis said. "They make good wives."

"Oh, she ain't!" Jeff said, almost shouting the words in his haste. "I didn't mean to give you that impression. I mean, you can see that, once you know her. She's got this ... this real sweet face, you know?"

Luis smiled. "Si."

"Yeah, like a little girl, you know?" He grinned at Luis and then quickly said, "Not that she doesn't look womanly. I mean, she certainly has all the ... the ... things a ... woman has."

"I have never seen an ironing board among Puerto Rican women," Luis said.

"Huh?"

Luis curved his hand through the air, pantomiming a woman with uncommonly pronounced curves.

"Oh, yes," Jeff said. "Sure. But she doesn't look sloppy, you understand that, don't you? I mean, she's not one of these..." He used his hands to indicate a woman whose upper portions were mountainous.. Both men nodded in solemn agreement on the proper size of a bosom. "She talks nice, too," Jeff said. "I like a girl with a good voice and ... and eyes that look at you. When she talks, I mean. She looks at you. That's good. It makes you feel like ... like you're important."

"Si, a man must feel that he is important."

"That's what I didn't like about Fletcher, Louise. I just felt like anybody else there. It's funny but, well, meeting her I feel like -1 don't know -1 feel like me! That's pretty stupid, ain't it? I mean, like who the hell else would I feel like? And I hardly even know her. I mean, she's just another girl, isn't she?"

"Sure," Luis agreed, "she's just another girl. You can find girls anywhere."

"Well, now she's not exactly just another girl," Jeff said hastily. "She's prettier than most, you know."

"Pretty girls are easy to find, sailor. The world is full of pretty girls. And for every man in the world, there is one girl who is pretty."

"Sure, sure. But she's, well, I guess you could call her beautiful. I guess you really could, Louise." He paused. "Do you ... do you think she'll come?"

"I don't know," Luis said. "Perhaps."

"I hope so. Gee, Louise, I hope so."

From Zip's vantage place on the packing crate, he saw her at once, working her way through the crowd. He waved to her instantly, and then shouted, "Elena! Hey, Elena, over here!" He poked Sixto and said, "Hey, Sixto, it's Elena."

Softly, Sixto said, "I thought China wass your girl."

"Variety, huh?" Zip said, grinning. "Hey, Elena!"

The girl waved back. She was sixteen years old, an attractive girl with dark hair and dark eyes, wearing a skirt and blouse. The girl with her, slightly shorter than she, was wearing black tapered slacks and a boy's white shirt. "Hello, Zip," Elena called, and then said to her friend, "Juana, it's Zip and the boys."

Flatly, Juana said, "He's a terrifying creep."

"He's not so bad," Elena said. "Come on."

They walked over to the crate. Zip offered his hand to Elena and pulled her up beside him. Papa studied the chivalrous gesture, and then repeated it, offering his hand to Juana who took it with the disdain of a countess accepting aid from a doorman.

"You ever see anything like this, Elena?" Zip asked excitedly. "He shot one of them."

"Who shot one of them?" Elena asked.

"Pepe Miranda!" Papa said.

"Who?"

"Pepe Miranda," Zip said. "He's got a whole arsenal in that apartment with him. The cops can't figure how to get him out. Man you shoulda seen him. He come right up to the window and spit at the bastards!"

"Who's this?" Juana asked, turning her attention to Zip.

Papa, as if repeating a lesson he had learned, a lesson he had indeed learned earlier from Cooch, said, "He the grays thin' ever happen this neighborhood."

"Yeah?" Juana said aloofly. "I never heard of him."

"So that's what this is all about," Elena said. "We were walking over on the next block and everybody was heading here like somebody hit the numbers for a million dollars."

"There ain't no numbers on Sunday," Juana said distantly. She was not a very pretty girl, but she had learned somewhere that her eyes were very attractive and had further learned how to use make-up on them. Her eyes were the focal point of her face, as green as jade and, combined with her jet-black hair, they created an instant impression of desirability which overshadowed the true facts of her plainness.

"You came through the next block?" Zip asked Elena.

"Sure. Why not?"

"No reason." He paused. "That's Royal Guardian territory."

"So what?"

"Nothing. Nothing."

"Royal Guardians or not," Elena said, "this is a free country."

"We walk where we want to," Juana added.

"That's because you're a chick. It ain't so easy when you're a guy," Zip said.

"Why not?" Juana asked.

"Because it ain't, that's all. You can't go messing in another club's territory."

"That's nuts. Haven't you got anything better to do than play war? That's kid stuff."

"There's nothing kid stuff about it," Zip said. "You just don't know."

"I know plenty," Juana said. "You haven't got anything better to do, that's all. That's why you've got these territories and these street bops and..."

"I got plenty to do," Zip said. "We always got plenty to do, ain't we, Sixto?"

"Sure, he's got plenty to do," Elena said. "He's got China to chase after."

"Hey, listen," Zip said, grinning. "How about a hug, Elena?"

"If you had things to do," Juana persisted, "you wouldn't get involved in this childish nonsense. What you are is an acting-out neurotic."

"A what?" Zip said.

"An acting-out neurotic," Juana said professorially.

"How come you're so smart, huh? Where'd you get your medical degree, huh?"

"I read an article in the newspapers," Juana said smugly.

"Dig the big reader!" Zip said, and he burst out laughing. Dismissing her, he turned to Elena, "Hey, come on, no hug for me?"

"Go hug China," Elena said coldly.

"Come on, come on," Zip said, still grinning. But his grin seemed to have no effect on Elena. Deliberately she turned to Sixto.

"Who's your cute friend?" she asked archly.

"Huh?" Zip said.

"What're you?" she asked Sixto. "The strong silent type?"

"Me?" Sixto asked, bewildered by her sudden attention.

"What's your name?" she asked, moving closer to him, smiling the way she had once seen Jane Russell smile in a movie.

"Sixto," he answered.

"The article said you're insecure," Juana said to Zip.

"Don't give me any bull you read in the newspapers," he said, turning on her angrily, miffed by Elena's behavior. "I don't believe nothing I read."

"You probably don't even know how to read," Juana said.

The thing that was happening on the packing crate was rather odd. Because despite Juana's protests that Zip was a terrifying creep, an acting-out neurotic, and insecure to boot, her conversational efforts had all been directed at him. And even though her approach took the form of an attack, it was clear that she was bidding for Zip's attention and no one else's. Elena, meanwhile, was doing exactly the same thing, even though she seemed to be addressing Sixto. A none-too-subtle tug of war was taking place on that crate. Whatever Zip's flaws, he was obviously recognized by the girls as the most desirable of the three boys. And, thanks to either his indifference or his stupidity, he hadn't the faintest idea of what was happening.

"So how come you're so quiet?" Elena said to Sixto. "Aren't you excited about your friend Pepe Miranda?"

"He's no' my frien'," Sixto said. "Pepe's no damn good!"

The girl caught the accent. She looked at Sixto for a moment and then said, "Hey, what are you? A tiger or something?"

"I no tiger."

"You sound like one. Can't you speak English?"

Papa had been thinking over Sixto's comment, and had finally fathomed the meaning of it. "What you minn, he's no good?" he asked now. "Hey, Zeep! Sixto, he say Pepe's no good."

Zip turned from Juana. "What? Did you say that?"

"I dinn say nothin'," Sixto said.

And now Elena, anxious to recapture Zip's attention, quickly leaped in. "That's what he said, Zip. That's what the Marine Tiger said, all right."

"I no tiger. I speak English good!"

"He speaks a well English," Zip said, chuckling.

"He said Pepe's no good," Elena repeated.

"Is that what you said?" Zip asked, and he shoved out at Sixto. "Is that what you said, huh?" and he shoved again. "Huh?" and again he shoved, pushing Sixto closer to the edge of the crate. "Is that what you said, Sixto?" and he pushed hard this time, sending Sixto over the edge of the crate, reeling backward into the gutter. Zip burst out laughing. Papa and Elena joined him. Juana seemed undecided for a moment, as if her natural instinct was to climb down and help Sixto to his feet. The indecision passed. She tittered nervously, and then burst into laughter with the rest of them. Zip put his arm around Elena.

"What's wrong with you, anyway?" he asked.

"Nothing."

"So how come the big freeze?"

"What's with you and China?"

"That?"

"That."

"Nothing." He shrugged.

"The word says you're after Alfie."

"Well, like he's got it coming, you know?"

"Why? Because of something with China?"

"What're you worried about China for, huh?"

"Is there going to be trouble?"

"With Alfie?"

"Yes," Elena said.

"Naw, no trouble," Zip answered. "Don't worry, huh?"

"Have you got a thing on with China?"

"Me?" Zip began laughing again. "Hey, you're jealous, ain't you? I'll be damned."

"She's old enough to be your mother," Elena said sullenly. "She must be nineteen, maybe even twenty."

"That don't make her old, only experienced. What's the matter, honey, huh?" he said sweetly. "You jealous, baby, huh?"

"No."

"You worried about poor little Alfie?"

"I don't care what you do to Alfie. Just answer me one question."

"Sure, what's that?"

"You got eyes for China or not?"

"Like, you know, doll, your interest gasses me, but don't start strong-arming me. I'll bust you right in the mouth, you know?"

Juana turned to him suddenly. "It takes a big man, don't it, to hit a girl?"

"Oh, get lost, zombie," he said to her. He wrapped his arms around Elena. "Come on, where's my hug?"

"Zip, cut it out," she said. "There's people watching."

"So let them, who cares?" He took one arm from Elena and pointed into the crowd. "Hey! Hey you! Fat boy!"

Frederick Block, who had shoved his way up to the barricade, looked up at Zip.

"You watching us, Fat Boy?"

Block turned away with a look of extreme disgust on his face. Zip burst out laughing.

"See, honey?" he said. "Nobody watching us." He pulled her closer to him. "Mmmm, you are the softest girl."

"I shouldn't let you," Elena said. "Not after this China thing."

"Somebody's got to protect little China, no?" His hands roamed her body. He touched her breast, and she pulled away from him quickly, embarrassed, but he drew her close again, and she stood unprotesting in the circle of his arms. Zip stroked her back gently.

"You going to hurt Alfie Gomez?" Juana asked.

"Drop dead," Zip told her.

"Big man," Juana said. "Everybody in this neighborhood's a big man. It's just you're insecure, that's all."

"Man, she sprouts that crap like as if she grows it in her mouth," Zip said. "I got news for you, zombie. I am a big man, now how about that? The Latin Purples ain't afraid of nothing or nobody!"

"Whoever heard of the Latin Purples outside of you and your mother?" Juana asked. "If one of those Royal Guardians came down the street right now, you'd pass out cold."

"I ain't afraid of no Royal Guardians," Zip said angrily. "I ain't afraid of nobody!" He searched in his mind for a clincher to his argument, and then blurted, "Why, one of my boys is out right now, rounding up a couple of pieces!"

"If one of them goes off accidentally, you'll run a mile."

"You better tell your pal to shut up, Elena," Zip warned.

"Juana, stop picking on..."

"A gun is a psychological symbol," Juana said. "You only want one because you're afraid."

"I ain't afraid to rap you right in the mouth," Zip said.

"Big man," Juana repeated, but she shut up.

Zip looked out over the crowd. "They're coming back," he said. "The bulls are coming back."

11

The plan was a simple one, but Lieutenant Byrnes had discovered in his years of police work that most feasible and practical plans were simple.

The plan was one of deception, a plan which would utilize every man's innate susceptibility to the expected, and then knock him flat by suddenly producing the unexpected. The plan, of course, undertook to presume what Miranda would consider "expected". But it seemed a reasonable guess to suppose that Miranda expected the cops to get him out of that apartment, and that one certain way to accomplish this was to bust into the joint. If a rush were made across the street, a rush which carried all the earmarks of a frontal attack, Miranda would brace himself for an assault on his front door. Actually, the assault would come from elsewhere. Such was the unoriginal and simple nature of the deception. Broken down into simple terms, the police plan could have been stated thusly: Hit him where he ain't.

"Have you got it straight?" Byrnes asked his men.

"I want the fire escape," Parker said.

"We'll see about that."

"I want to be the one who gets him," Parker said. "I want to blow his head off."

"Sometimes, Parker, you turn my goddamn stomach," Byrnes said.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Well, what do you want to say something like that for?"

"Skip it," Byrnes said. "Do you understand the plan?"

"I understand it," Parker said sullenly.

"Frankie?"

"I've got it."

"Steve?"

"Run through it once more, would you, Pete?"

"Okay, this is it in a nutshell. I'm going to tell Miranda we're coming in after him. A pile of us'll rush the stoop when the shooting starts. Miranda — I hope — will think we're going to force the apartment door from the hallway. But one of us will break away from the rest and flatten himself against the side of the building."

"Me," Parker said.

"Whoever it is, he'll pull down the ladder of the fire escape and climb up to the first floor. He may be able to get Miranda from the window. Otherwise, he'll have to enter the apartment and have it out there. It's tricky, but I'd rather risk one man than a dozen."

"Let's get started," Parker said.

"In a minute. I need a volunteer for that fire escape job."

"You've already got your volunteer, Lieutenant," Parker said.

"You've got two" Hernandez said.

"Keep out of this, Frankie. This is my baby."

"Why should it be?"

"Because I want it."

"I'll decide who..." Byrnes started.

"Lieutenant, you'd be crazy to send up a guy who's..." Parker cut himself short.

"Who's what?" Hemandez asked.

"Okay! Who's got a personal stake in this, okay?"

"Personal? What the hell are you talking about?"

"You grew up with Miranda!"

"What difference does that make? We want him out of that apartment, don't we?"

"We want him dead," Parker said. "He's a punk. He should have been killed a long time ago. He's the biggest stink in these streets."

"What the hell do you know about the stink here, Parker? Did you..."

"I seen plenty of it. I been in this precinct for..."

"Did you grow up with the stink in your nostrils, day and night? Did you live with it every day of your life?"

"You're telling me about this precinct? I know it like my own mother. There's nothing you can tell me about..."

"No, nothing! To you, this precinct is one big violation, one big crime being committed every hour on the hour. And you're scared of the place! You're scared out of your wits!"

"Scared? Who the hell..."

"Well to me it's people! And they deserve a goddamn break! They want to get that son of a bitch as much as you do!"

"They want him to hold off the whole damn city!" Parker shouted. "You know that! You know it's true!"

"They only want a Puerto Rican to win for a change. Okay, if I go up there, a Puerto Rican wins."

"If I go up..."

"If you go up, you purge yourself. You think killing him is gonna help you, Parker? You think that's the answer?"

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about."

"If you go up there, you accomplish nothing. Not for yourself, and not for the city. You'll be making Miranda a hero. I'm telling you that right now. You kill him, and this neighborhood has a martyr. The kids'll be playing Pepe Miranda and the Cops for the next six weeks."

"The hell with the kids. You think I'm interested in... ?"

"Who's gonna show them, Parker? You want a hundred more Mirandas ten years from now?"

"You gonna show them?" Parker asked sarcastically.

"If I kill him," Hernandez said flatly, "the neighborhood gets nothing but a dead punk."

"You've got him, Frankie," Byrnes said.

"Thank you."

"Get to the car, Parker. Radio the men on the next block to open up. I want to draw his fire away from these windows."

"You're sending Hernandez up there?"

"Yes. Any complaints?"

"Damn right I've got a—"

"Take it to the mayor!" Byrnes snapped, and he turned his back and walked toward the patrolman who was holding the megaphone. Parker stared after him, spat viciously into the gutter, and then walked around to the other side of the squad car.

A reporter behind the barricade caught at Hernandez's sleeve. "Hey, are you in charge here?" he asked.

"No."

"Well, who is? Can't we get some men in there for pictures?"

"The police department'll send out pictures," Hernandez said. He pushed past the reporter and walked to the luncheonette. "Look at these kids," he said to Luis. "Sucking violence from the same tits Miranda used." He shook his head. "He's waiting up there to die, Luis, you know that? He's waiting up there for us to kill him."

Luis nodded.

"And you know something? I think he wants to die. I think he wants to end it, once and for all."

The two girls who came around the avenue and stopped at the mouth of the street were apparently more interested in beginning something than in ending it. They were both tall brunettes. One was wearing a tight, bright-red silk dress. The other wore the identical dress in yellow. The dresses were designed to exhibit and reveal; they were incapable of keeping a secret. Every nuance of flesh beneath the skintight silk, every subtle hint of muscle or bone, every flowing curve, every dimple, every pucker, insistently shrieked its existence to the most casual observer. The girls were not the bashful type. They moved with a fluidity of breast, hip, thigh and leg that aided the dresses in their task of nonconcealment. They were, in fact, so much the Hollywood concept of what a whore should look like that at first glance they seemed to be imitations. If there was one quality which every prostitute in the 87th Precinct shared, it was the ability to look like anything but a street walker. In most instances, the precinct whore was the best-dressed girl on the streets. Her careful grooming, more than any other attribute, was usually the one clue to her occupation.

These two were either new at the trade, or else they'd canceled their subscriptions to Vogue magazine. In any case, they walked directly to the barricade and stopped there. The girl in the red dress touched the arm of the nearest patrolman who turned, ready to start yelling, and then looked as if a movie queen had wandered into his bedroom by mistake.

"Excuse me, officer," she said in a tiny little voice, "but can't we get through here? We work right across the street."

"Where?" the patrolman asked.

"At La Gallina."

"What the hell do you do there?"

The girl in the red dress seemed at a loss for words. She turned to her companion. The other girl smiled at the patrolman sweetly and said, "We're in ... ah ... public relations."

"Well, I'm sorry, girls," the patrolman said. "My orders are to let nobody through this barricade unless he's a cop or a fireman. Now you two girls ain't cops or firemen, are you?" He grinned politely, thinking how clever he was being, and making a note to repeat his comment to the boys in the locker room when he checked in later.

"No, indeed," the one in the red dress said.

They moved away from the barricade.

"What now, Marge?" the one in the yellow dress asked.

Marge shrugged. "Let's hang around. It looks like a lively crowd. There may be something in it for us, Marie."

Marie looked skeptical. Together, walking with a hip-swiveling, crazy-socketing, ball-bearing, thigh-thrusting, leg-strutting motion that turned every head on the block, they began appraising the potential customers watching the siege. Marie raised an eyebrow at Marge, and Marge glanced in the direction she indicated.

They were both looking at Frederick Block, the fat man.

12

There are times when it must be nice to have a Cinemascope camera and stereophonic sound. There are times when it must be great to have a wide screen stretching across the front of the world, with things happening on every corner of that screen, with the eye gathering in all these things like a net sweeping the ocean floor. It isn't enough to say this and this were happening here, that and that were happening there. A city street is not a tiny canvas; a city street is not a page in a book. It is a tumultuous thing teeming with life, and you can't hope to capture life in a sentence or a brush stroke. The things that happened on that street, on that particular day in July, happened almost simultaneously, separate and distinct from each other, but nonetheless almost at the same time, so that there was a feeling of continuous motion, of one event overlapping and flowing into the next. The wide screen stretched the length of a city block. The life on that street stretched to the very edges of time.

Cooch stood on the steps of the building next door to the church.

China came down a flight of stairs and into bright sunshine.

A man selling ices entered the street at the opposite end.

Marge and Marie, the two prostitutes, approached Frederick Block.

Jeff Talbot looked at the wall clock and left the luncheonette.

Two boys wearing bright-gold jackets turned into the block.

The cops of the 87th rushed the doorway to the left of La Gallina.

These are the things that happened, minute overlapping minute, time lost and time replaced by the tireless eye of space. These are the things that happened...

Cooch stood on the steps of the building next door to the church. He had been standing there for ten minutes now, watching the people pour down the church steps and into the bright confused sunshine of the street. There were not many people left inside the church now. He looked at his wrist watch, and then studied the few stragglers again. He was certain that Alfredo Gomez had not left the apartment to attend mass this morning. But he would wait a few moments more, just to make sure.

Against his belly he could feel the hard, cold metal of the pistols he had retrieved from Chico and Estaban. The weapons made him feel very strong and very powerful. Too, he considered this independent reconnaissance an act of foresight worthy of a general. He would wait until everyone had come out of the church, and then he would go back to Zip with the guns and with a report on Alfie's whereabouts. This was acting above and beyond the call of duty. Zip would be pleased. And whereas it would not be as dramatic to catch Alfie in his house instead of on the church steps, Cooch didn't much care. The important thing was to wash the little bastard. That was the important thing.

Cooch had been thinking about it all week long, ever since Zip first got the idea. There were times when Cooch couldn't sit still, just thinking about it. There were two stimulating and contradictory feelings which rushed through Cooch's mind and body whenever he considered what they were about to do. The first of these was the very concept of killing. This excited him. He had fantasized the squeezing of a trigger many times, had imagined Alfie tumbling down the church steps, had wondered what it would feel like to know that he had killed another human being. He had convinced himself that Alfie deserved killing. He had, after all, messed with China.

This was the second idea, and this was as exciting as the first. A hundred or more times in the past week, Cooch had imagined Alfie messing with China. He wondered just what Alfie had done to her, and his imagination created new images each time. Alfie gently stroking China's full breast. Alfie unbuttoning China's blouse. Alfie thrusting both hands beneath China's skirt. Alfie...

The images continued to stimulate him. And they were images clouded with guilt. Lying alone in his bed at night, he would think of Alfie and China, and then he would roll over into his pillow and think The son of a bitch has to die for that.

Of that he was certain.

Alfredo Gomez had to die.

Standing on the steps of the tenement, he watched the last few stragglers leaving the church, and he thought again of Alfie and China, and he bit his lip and then thought of shooting the little bastard.

China came down a flight of stairs and into the bright sunshine.

The tenement hallway had been dark, and she blinked now against the sudden brilliance, knowing she still had at least five minutes before she was to meet the sailor, not wanting to get there too early or seem too anxious, and yet almost unable to control the forward motion of her feet as they took her onto the stoop. Jeff was his name. Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, her mind echoed, and her heart beat with the idea of the rendezvous, and she found herself gripping the shopping bag in her hand more tightly. She had wrapped chicken in wax paper, had put up some eggs to boil before going to church, had later packed the hard-boiled eggs, and salt, and fruit, and a thermos of iced coffee, all of which were in the shopping bag now. She wondered if he liked chick—

"Hello, China."

She blinked and then shielded her eyes from the overhead sun.

"Oh, hello, Cooch," she answered, and she smiled and began to walk around him, but he stepped into her path.

"I was just thinking about you," Cooch said.

"Oh?" China glanced at her watch. "Cooch, I haven't got time to talk to you right now. I have to..."

"About what we're going to do for you today."

"What? I don't under—"

"Alfie?" Cooch said, smiling.

"Alfie?" She paused, puzzled. "Alfredo, do you mean? Alfredo Gomez?"

'Uh-huh," Cooch said, nodding.

"What about him?" She looked at her watch. She would have to hurry. With all that police trouble up the street, she would have to cut around the avenue and that didn't leave much time to...

"We're gonna get him," Cooch said. "For what he done to you."

"What?" she asked.

"Alfie," he repeated.

"Yes, but what ... what did you say?" She studied his face. She was certain she had heard him correctly, and yet his words hadn't seemed to make any sense.

"For what he done to you," Cooch said.

"What do you mean?"

"You know."

"No. I don't know."

He had taken a step closer to her, and she had backed away from him slightly. Blocking her path to the steps, he moved closer now, so that she was forced to take another step backward, almost into the darkened hallway of the building.

"You know what he done, China," Cooch said.

She looked at his face. His face looked very strange. He was a very young boy with a ridiculously silly mustache over his upper lip, and she had always thought ... but now he ... he ... looked different somehow.

"I have a gun," he said suddenly.

"Sj?”

"A gun, China."

"What ... what..." She was forced to back away from him again, into the hallway this time. He stood silhouetted in the doorway of the building, the bright sunshine behind him. His hand moved. For a moment, she didn't know what he was doing. And then she saw the dull glint of metal.

"It's a Luger," Cooch said.

"Wh-what are you going to do with that, Cooch?"

"Kill Alfie," he answered.

"Kill...? Why? What for?"

"For what he done to you?"

"He didn't do anything to me!" China said.

"You know what he done, China." He held the gun up close to her face. "You know what he done."

She was truly frightened now. She did not want to retreat further into the hallway, but he kept moving closer and closer to her, and there was no place to go but back. For a crazy moment, she wanted to turn and run up the steps to her apartment. And then it was too late. He had stepped between her and the steps and was moving toward her again so that, in backing away from him, she stumbled toward the garbage cans stacked under the steps on the ground floor.

"Cooch, I ... I have to go," she said. "I don't know what you're talking about. Alfie didn't do anything to me. If you're angry at him because you think..."

"This is what he done, China," Cooch said, and his hand reached out for her.

She felt his fingers tighten on her breast, and she screamed, pulling away from him. His fingers clung. She thought her blouse would tear. Blindly, she brought up the shopping bag, swinging it at him, screaming, and then shoving her way past him into the bright sunlight again, rushing down the steps, still screaming, into the crowd.

A man selling ices entered the street at the opposite end.

"Pidaguas!" he called. "Pidaguas! Come buy some pidaguas."

Zip, standing on the crate, turned to watch the man who pushed through the crowd with his cart. "Hey, you want some ices?" he asked Elena.

"You got any loot?"

"Sure," Zip answered. "What flavor you want?"

"Lemon," Elena said.

"I'll have a lemon, too," Juana said.

"Oh, now she knows me," Zip said, leaping down from the crate. "Now it's buying time, she knows me. Okay. I'm the last of the red-hot spenders. Everybody gets ices!"

From the crate, Papa said, "Me, too, Zeep?"

"You, too, Papa! Everybody! Everybody gets pidaguas today! Hey, Mac, slow down! Don't you want no business?"

He went over to the cart and placed his order. He seemed happy as hell. He paid no attention at all to the detectives who stood not six feet from him.

"Where are your men, Andy?" Byrnes asked.

"Coming, sir."

Byrnes turned to Hemandez who stood staring up at the first floor of the tenement. "You scared, Frankie?"

"A little," Hernandez answered.

"I don't blame you." He paused. "This is the damnedest thing ever, isn't it? The last one I remember like this was back in 1931 when this guy Nelson O'Brien was holed up in an apartment on the North Side. I was a patrolman at the time. He held off a hundred and fifty cops for two hours that day. We were chopping holes in the roof and dropping tear gas down on him, but the bastard wouldn't give up. We wounded him three times, but he was still standing when we went into the apartment to collar him. Standing and cursing — but out of amo. He'd hidden both his guns in his socks, hoping to use them later for an escape. A real prize, he was."

Byrnes paused and stared at Hernandez. "I didn't feel so hot that day, Frankie."

"Why not?"

"They guy in the apartment was Nelson O'Brien." He paused again. "I'm Irish."

"Yes, sir," Hernandez said.

"But I'll tell you something, Frankie. The guys like Nelson O'Brien don't stop me from marching in the St. Paddy's day parade every year. You understand me?"

"I understand you."

"Good." Byrnes hesitated. "Take care of yourself on that goddamn fire escape," he said. "I wouldn't want to lose a good cop."

"Yes, sir," Hernandez said.

Byrnes extended his hand. "Good luck, Frankie."

"Thank you." Byrnes turned to walk back to the squad car. "Pete?" Hernandez called. Byrnes faced him. "Thank you," Hernandez said again.

Marge and Marie, the two prostitutes, approached Frederick Block. Block was pulling his handkerchief out of his back pocket, preparatory to mopping his face with it, when his elbow struck something very soft. He turned casually. The something very soft was covered with bright-red silk.

"Hello," Marge said.

"Well, hello," Block answered. "Quite a show, isn't it?"

"If you like this kind of jazz," Marie said.

"Well, it's pretty exciting," Block said. He studied the low-cut front of Marie's dress. Damn, if this girl didn't have the...

"There are plenty things more exciting than watching a cheap gunman get shot," Marie said.

"Like what?" Block asked, beginning to get the impression that this girl wasn't even wearing a brassiere.

"Can't you think of anything?" Marie said.

"Well ... I can think of a few," Block said.

"Whatever you can think of," Marie said, "we can manage."

Block studied the girls a moment longer. He mopped his face. Then, with a practiced eye, and a whispered voice, he asked, "How much?"

"For one of us or both?" Marie asked.

"Both? Well, I hadn't..."

"Think about it."

"I am." '

"Think fast," Marge said.

"We like to work together," Marie said.

"The Bobbsey Twins down on the Farm," Marge said.

"We know things they don't even know in Paris yet," Marie said.

"We know things ain't even been invented yet," Marge said.

"How much?" Block asked again.

"Fifty for the afternoon, including the stretcher bearers."

"The what?"

"The stretcher bearers. To carry you out when it's over."

Block chuckled. "How much without them?"

"Twenty-five for me alone. My name's Marie. It's a bargain, believe me."

"I'll think about it," Block said.

"Come on, come on," Marie prompted.

"Can't you just wait a minute?"

"Love don't wait a minute, mister," Marie said.

"Not in July it don't," Marge added.

"Twenty-five's too high," Block said.

"Make it twenty, sport. A double sawbuck, what do you say?"

"You're on."

"Or vice versa," Marie said dryly. She turned to her friend. "Well, I'm set Now what are you gonna do with all that love busting inside you, huh, Marge?"

Jeff Talbot looked at the wall clock and left the luncheonette.

It was fifteen minutes past twelve.

She wasn't coming. He'd been a jerk to think she'd keep the date. He went out into the street, thankful that he had worn his whites today. God what a hot day, why hadn't she kept the date, why in hell hadn't she kept the date? He wanted to hit somebody. He just for the hell of it felt like hitting somebody. You meet a girl like that maybe once in— Oh, the hell with it. Angrily, he stamped back into the luncheonette.

"I'm shoving off, Louise," he said.

"What?" Luis answered.

"She didn't show. I'm leaving."

"Good," Luis said, nodding. "You will be better off out of this neighborhood. There are other girls, sailor."

"Yeah, that's for sure," Jeff said.

He walked out of the luncheonette again. It was a damn shame, he thought, because ... well ... he'd almost found it. He'd almost, in the space of what was it, ten, fifteen minutes?

In that short a time, he'd almost found it, but of course he should have known. Nothing good comes easy. And yet, it had seemed so right, it had just seemed ... seemed right, where ... where eyes meet and ... and without touching ... without saying very much...

The hell with it!

He strode out of the luncheonette, and the first people he saw were Frederick Block and the two prostitutes.

Marge winked at him.

Jeff squared his hat and walked directly to the trio.

"Well, well, well," he said.

"Feel like a party, sailor?" Marge asked.

He hesitated for just a moment, his eyes roaming the street. Then he said, "Yes, goddamnit, I feel just like a party!" and he grabbed Marge's elbow, and the four of them turned the corner and went off up the avenue.

Two boys wearing bright-gold jackets turned into the block.

They stood with their hands on their hips for a moment. Both wore sunglasses, both wore their dark hair in high crowns. The bigger of the two, and the older — a boy of about twenty who stood a little over six feet tall — wore a silver identification bracelet on his right wrist. His name was Tommy. The other boy, nineteen and short by modern standards, was called Li'1 Killer. His real name was Phil. He had never killed anyone in his life, but the name made him sound like a guy who'd cut out your liver for the price of an ice-cream soda. The tall one, Tommy, nodded at Phil and they walked directly toward the crate where Papa and the two girls stood craning their necks.

"Hey, kid," Tommy said.

Papa turned. "You talk to me?"

"Off the box," Tommy said flatly.

"Huh?" Papa said. "Why?"

"You heard him," Phil said. "Off the box. We want a view."

Papa looked down to where Sixto stood near the side of the crate.

"Sixto, go call..." he started, and Phil shoved out at Sixto before he could move.

"Stay put, sonny," he said.

"Don't hurt him, Li'1 Killer," Tommy said. He chuckled. "Just cripple him."

"Listen, why do you want trouble for?" Elena said, looking past them to where Zip stood at the ices cart near the corner.

"Who wants trouble?" Tommy asked gently. "Li'1 Killer and me, we asked your friend very politely to get the hell off that box, that's all. That ain't no trouble."

"That ain't no trouble at all," Phil said.

In that instant, Lieutenant Byrnes waved his arm at the rooftops, and the police opened fire. The firing was a precise, methodical operation designed to keep Miranda away from the front windows. At the same time, the distant echo of guns could be heard in the back yard, and over that, like a triangle player in a hundred-piece orchestra, the sound of shattering glass. Miranda appeared at the front windows for just an instant, looked into the street, saw what he was supposed to see, and ducked back into the apartment.

The cops of the 87th rushed the doorway to the left of La Gallina.

Miranda saw them the second before he ducked his head. Lieutenant Byrnes led the charge, shooting up at the windows as he ran. Behind him were Steve Carella and Andy Parker and half a dozen patrolmen, all with guns in their hands. Frankie Hernandez brought up the rear. One by one, the cops entered the tenement. Hernandez seemed to be following them and then, suddenly, at the last moment, he swerved to the right of the doorway and flattened himself against the front of the building.

At the same time, Captain Frick — who commanded the uniformed cops of the 87th — brought the megaphone to his mouth and shouted, "We're coming in, Miranda! We're going to knock that front door right off its hinges."

There was no answer from within the apartment.

"We're coming in, Miranda! We're coming up those steps right now!" Frick shouted, and he hoped Miranda would buy it.

In the hallway, Byrnes, Carella, and Parker crouched on the steps. They could hear the gunfire outside, could hear shouts from the cops, screams from the crowd, the sound of glass breaking and wood splintering, the high whistle of slugs that caromed and ricocheted.

Outside, Frankie Hernandez stealthily moved past the glass front of La Gallina, working his way toward the fire escape.

The crowd was suddenly hushed.

The only sound on the street now was the explosion of the revolvers on the rooftops and in the windows facing Miranda's apartment.

She came around the corner hurriedly.

There were tears on her face, and her blouse had pulled free from her skirt, and she thought she could still feel the imprint of Cooch's fingers where he had touched her. It was twenty minutes past twelve, and she hoped against hope that Jeff would still be there, hoped he had at least the faith to realize ... to realize what? Tears streaking her face, she rushed into the luncheonette.

He was not there.

She looked at the empty stools, and then she turned to Luis and she said, "Luis, there was a sailor..." and Luis nodded instantly.

"He left."

"I ... I couldn't get away and then ... the crowds in the street..."

"He left," Luis said again.

She turned from him quickly and went into the street again. She could hear the pistol shots, thunder on a sunny day. "China, hey, China!" She wished it would really rain, she wished the skies would open and — "China, hey, don't you hear me?" — rain would come down to wash the streets, wash all the...

"Hey! China!'

She looked up suddenly. "What? Oh — oh, hello."

Zip was standing by the ices cart, grinning.

"Hey, how are you, China?"

"Fine," she said. "I'm fine, thank you."

"You want some ices?"

"No. No, thank you, Zip."

He studied her. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing."

"You look like you was crying. Was somebody bothering you?"

She shook her head. "No, no."

"If anybody bothers you, you just let me know," he said. "I'll take care of them the way I'm gonna take care of Alfie."

"You leave Alfie alone!" she said sharply and suddenly, her eyes flashing.

"Huh?"

"Why do you want to hurt him? You have no right to hurt him!"

"Hell, I ain't afraid of him!" Zip said.

"Nobody said you were."

"It's just, he's got this coming, that's all."

"You know he didn't do anything, Zip. You know that."

"He done plenty! I'm gonna bust him wide open. I'm gonna..."

She began crying suddenly and fitfully. "Why do you talk that way?" she shouted. "Why do you have to sound so tough? Aren't you ever yourself? Can't you be yourself?"

Surprised by her sudden passion, he stared at her, speechless.

"What are you trying to show?" she asked, the tears running down her face. "What are you trying to do? Make it worse here than it really is? What's wrong with you? What the hell is wrong with you?"

He stared at her, confused. He reached out to touch her, not knowing that the tears were something which had been building inside her from the moment Cooch attacked her, building on the wild run from the tenement to the luncheonette, building against the desperate hope that the sailor would still be there, kept in check by sheer will power, and now overflowing; he did not know these things, he only knew that she was crying. And in the face of such female vulnerability, in the face of anguish such as he had never known or seen, Zip pulled back his hand, unable to touch her in that moment, unable to establish a contact which seemed in that moment too intimate, too revealing.

"Hey ... hey. listen," he said, "don't cry. What do you want to cry for?"

"Promise me you won't do anything to Alfie," she said. "Promise me."

"Listen ... hey, you don't have to cry."

"Promise me."

"China ... everybody knows what I said I was gonna do. Like I told them—" He hesitated. "I told them you was my girl."

"You shouldn't have said that."

"I know. I mean, even I know you ain't my girl. Listen, can't you stop crying? You want my handkerchief?"

"No," China said, sobbing. "I'm not crying."

"Here, take it," he said, handing her the handkerchief. "I hardly used it yet."

She took the handkerchief and blew her nose.

"You want some ices?" Zip asked lamely.

"No. Zip, you won't hurt him, will you? He did nothing to me, believe me. He's a nice boy."

Zip did not answer.

"You'll be doing something very wrong if you hurt him."

"You ain't sore at me, are you?" His voice dropped. "Like because I said you was my girl?"

"No. I'm not sore."

"I won't say it no more," he said gently. He shrugged. "I don't even know why I said it." He thought for a moment. "Except maybe because you're so nice, you know?"

"Thank you," she answered, and she smiled weakly. She handed him the handkerchief. "I got it all wet."

"Oh, that's okay, that's okay." He shrugged. "You feel a little better now?"

"A little."

"You really shouldn't cry, China. It's a sin to cry unless like something serious happens, you know? Like unless you lost somebody or something."

"I did lose somebody, Zip." Her eyes clouded for an instant, and then she shook her head. "You promised? About Alfredo?"

"Well, I didn't exactly..."

"I wouldn't want you to get into trouble," she said.

He stared at her as if she had uttered the words in Russian. His brow furrowed. He kept staring at her. The concept seemed new to him. Nor could he understand her concern. It wasn't as if she was struck on him or anything, he knew lots of girls who were, but China wasn't. So what was it? Why should she give a damn about him one way or the other? And yet, he knew she wasn't lying. Standing with her, he knew that she was as much concerned for his safety as she was for Alfie's.

"I got to think about it," he said.

"Yes, think about it. Please." She touched his hand briefly, and started off toward the corner.

He watched her go, a frown on his face.

"Pidaguas," the man at the cart said.

Zip nodded. The man had put the five cups of ices into a cardboard container. Zip paid him, and then picked up the container with both hands. He kept frowning, and then the frown disappeared, and his face broke into a grin as he turned back toward the packing crate.

Frankie Hernandez had reached the hanging ladder of the fire escape.

Be careful with those buttets, he thought. If you dumb bastards put them any lower, you'll hit me. And that would be the end of this Uttk caper.

Bracing himself, the gun in his holster now, he leaped up for the hanging ladder, missed, and dropped silently to the pavement. He flattened himself against the building and looked up. The volley from the rooftops was effectively keeping Miranda away from the windows. He moved out, jumped for the ladder again, caught it with one hand, reached up with the second hand, and then, hand over hand, began climbing. The ladder began to drop as he climbed, inching on squeaking, rusted iron hinges, drowned out by the roar of the guns from across the street. He drew his .38, hefted it in his hand, and began climbing the remaining rungs to the fire escape.

The people in the street watched him silently.

The guns showered destruction against the front of the building.

Zip was still smiling when he reached the crate, still thinking of what China had said. Somehow, he felt curiously relieved, as if ... as if something very heavy had been taken off his mind. And then he heard the voice.

"Well, now, ain't this nice? One of the darling Latin Purples bought ices for us!"

He looked up sharply. He recognized the gold jacket instantly, and the words "Royal Guardian" flashed into his mind, and he told himself not to be afraid, but he felt a tight knot of fear beginning in his stomach.

"H-hello, Tommy," he said.

"Hello, Zip," Tommy answered. "You're just in time. Get your boy off the box."

"Get ... but..." He paused, nibbling his lip. The carton of ices in his hands felt suddenly very heavy. "But it's ... it's my box," he said. "I brought this all the way over from the..."

"It belongs to whoever's using it," Tommy said. "And we want to use it"

"Aw look, Tommy," Zip said, "what do you want bad blood for, huh? Can't we...?"

Tommy reached up suddenly, twisting his face into Papa's trouser leg, pulling him off balance, and dumping him into the street. Zip, his hands full of ices, his mind whirring with the new thoughts China had put there, stood by helplessly, wondering what to do now, wondering why...

"Blow," Phil said to him.

"Aw, come on, Phil, can't we...?"

"Li'1 Killer," Phil corrected.

"Sure, can't we...?"

"Blow!" Phil said firmly.

He shoved out at Zip suddenly. Tommy, trained for the maneuver, stuck out his foot Zip tripped, staggered backward, the cups of ices leaving his hands and spattering over the street. He jumped to his feet instantly, his hand darting for his pocket. Nothing was in his mind right now but salvation. If China had said anything to him, he'd now forgotten it. All he knew was that he was being threatened by two Royal Guardians, that he was outnumbered and vulnerable.

As his hand closed on the switch knife in his pocket, he thought only I got to get out of this.

"Don't pull the blade, Zip," Tommy said gently.

Zip's eyes moved quickly to Tommy, saw that his hand was already in his pocket. They flicked to Phil who was ready to charge in on his flank. Undecided, he faced them. Elena, on the crate, began to laugh nervously. Tommy grinned and then picked up the laugh, and then Phil joined him, and their laughter was triumphant and, hearing the laughter, Zip began to tremble. He wanted to fight them, he wanted to destroy them, wanted to pull the blade and rip into them, show them who he was, show them who they were laughing at. But fear aawled in his belly like black worms, and he felt his fingers loosening their grip on the knife. In impotent rage, his eyes brimming with tears he did not wish to show, he whirled suddenly and kicked at one of the ices cups in the street.

And then he saw Hernandez on the fire escape.

Flat against the side of the building, edging silently past the first shattered window, and then the next, his gun in his hand, Hernandez hesitated for a moment, and then crouched beside the third window.

He brought up his revolver.

Zip understood what was happening in an instant.

Burning with shame and indignation, wanting to explode, wanting to show these rotten bastards they couldn't kick him around, wanting to shout, to rip, to gouge, to release the shame that growled inside him, wanting to show that he was Zip, Zip, ZIP!, he looked up at the first-floor windows and suddenly, without knowing why, he cupped his hands to his mouth.

"Pepe!" he bellowed. "The fire escape!"

13

When Hernandez heard the yell, he thought at first that his ears were deceiving him. His immediate reaction was to turn his head toward the street. And then he realized that Miranda, in the apartment, had whirled at the sound of the shouted words. And then he recognized the look in Miranda's eyes, and Hernandez tightened his finger on the trigger of the .38, and then he heard the explosions inside the apartment and then he was spinning backward and falling. He had been crouched outside the window, so he fell no more than three feet to the iron floor of the fire escape, but it seemed to him that he was falling through space for a very long time, and it seemed to him that he hit the iron slats with the force of a meteor slamming into the earth.

There were two bullets in his chest.

He had never been shot before, not when he'd been a Marine participating in the Iwo Jima landings, and not since he'd joined the police force. He had seen wounded men, a lot of wounded men, when he'd been in the service, but somehow he had detached the wound itself from the event which had caused the wound. He had been raised on the kid games of Cops and Robbers, Cowboys and Indians, bang! I got you! bang! you're dead! and there had always been something glamorous to the idea of getting shot. Even when he had seen the open gaping wounds, the notion of glamour had persisted.

He knew now that the notion was false, and he wondered which con man had ever sold him such a silly bill of goods. When the bullets slammed into his chest, he felt nothing at first but impact. He had been punched before, punched with hard driving fists that had knocked the wind out of him, and he knew what it felt like to be hit. He had once been struck with a hammer swung by a delirious building superintendent, catching the blow on his shoulder, feeling the sharp sudden pain of metal against flesh. But he had never been shot, and he knew now that when a man got shot he didn't daintily clutch his chest and say, "Uggggh!" and then do a fancy movie-extra dive. He knew that the force of a bullet was like the force of a steam locomotive, and he knew that when you got hit with a bullet, you got knocked off your feet. It was as simple as that. Maybe everyone didn't get knocked off his feet when he was shot, but the bullets that struck Hernandez spun him around from his crouch and then knocked him flat to the fire escape.

He felt only impact and shock at first, and then the cold sensation of falling through space, will-less, unable to control himself, simply falling, falling, and then colliding with metal, powerless to stick out his arms to cushion the fall.

And then he was on fire.

The fire engulfed him. It started with the two gaping holes in his back where the bullets had left his body, and then ran straight through his body like burning tunnels to the two smaller holes at the points of entry, and then suddenly flared up to consume his entire chest, and then his shoulders, and then his throat and his face, a roaring fire. He found it hard to breathe, he sucked in air through his parted lips, and he dimly realized that one of the bullets must have gone through a lung, and then blood bubbled out of his mouth, and he thought it was saliva until he saw its bright-red splash on the cuff of his shirt, and then he panicked.

Gasping for breath, his body on fire, pain lancing through him, he felt the panic rush into his head and settle behind his eyes like a pair of thumbs pressing outward. More blood bubbled from his mouth.

Giddily, he wondered if he were going to die.

The thumbs kept pressing against the backs of his eyes, spreading darkness which came in waves and retreated. He could hear shouting in the street below. He wondered if they'd collared whoever had done the yelling.

He wanted to puke.

He felt the nausea start deep in his stomach, tasted the vomit in his throat, and then the fire escape was spinning, the sky was spinning, the world was spinning, and he choked on his own blood and crashed into unconsciousness.

The boys had vanished like Arabian horse thieves.

Zip had begun running the moment he'd shouted the warning to Miranda, shoving his way through the crowd, dashing around the corner. Papa and Sixto, as soon as they realized what had happened, followed him. All three were gone before Byrnes, Carella, and Parker rushed from the doorway of the tenement.

Byrnes turned his head toward the fire escape instantly. "Frankie!" he yelled. "Frankie!" There was no answer.

"What happened?" Parker asked, struggling to catch his breath. "Is he dead?"

"I don't know. He's just laying up there. We got to get him down." He stared suddenly at the sidewalk beneath the fire escape. "What the hell is ... Jesus! Jesus Christ!"

"What is it?" Carella asked.

"That's blood!" Byrnes said, something like awe in his voice. "That's blood dripping down!"

The men watched the steady patter of drops to the pavement. The drops fell silently, as straight as arrows, one after the other, spattering to the pavement in an ever-widening stain.

"We got to get him off there," Byrnes said.

"It was a kid who yelled the warning to Miranda," one of the patrolmen said.

"Leave it to the kids," Byrnes said, shaking his head. "Sometimes I think the kids in this precinct are more damn trouble than all the professional thieves put together."

"It ain't them," Parker said, watching the dripping blood in fascination. "It's the parents. They come here without even knowing how to speak the language. What the hell can you expect?"

"My old man had a brogue you could cut with a knife," Byrnes said. "What's that got to do with..."

"What'd you say, Lieutenant?" a reporter behind the barricade asked. "About the kids?"

"Nothing for publication."

"You think the kids today will grow up to be like Pepe Miranda?"

"No. That's not what I think."

"What do you think, Lieutenant?"

"I think we've got a bleeding man on that fire escape, a man who may be dying. I think I want to get him off there while there's still a chance for him, and I think you'd better get off my back before I restrict the area to all reporters."

"Don't get touchy," the reporter said. "I've got to peg this story on something."

"On something? What the hell do you want? A Barnum and Bailey circus? Peg it on Miranda, peg it on Frankie Hernandez who may be up there dead, for all I know!"

"Life is cheap, Lieutenant," the reporter said.

"Is it? Then peg your story on your asshole! And leave me alone!" Angrily, Byrnes strode off toward the squad car.

"Boy," the reporter said, raising his eyebrows. "He's sure got a low boiling point, hasn't he?"

"He's been working in this precinct for a long time now," Parker said. "This ain't exactly the garden spot of the universe."

"I'm only trying to get some ideas about Miranda, that's all," the reporter said. "What the hell, nobody's job is easy."

"You want some ideas on Miranda?" Parker asked. "Then look around you. Miranda's only the end product. You don't have to be in that apartment with him to know what he's like. Just look around you, pal. You'll see Miranda in every stage of his development." Parker nodded sagely. "Just take a look," and then he followed Byrnes to the patrol car.

Tommy and Li'1 Killer saw Cooch the moment he came around the corner.

"Hey, Tommy," Phil said. "There's one of them."

"One of who?"

"The Latin Purples. Man, if the cops spot that jacket..."

"Call him over," Tommy said.

"What for?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Come here," Phil said.

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

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

"Me?"

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

"Cooch."

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

"What kind of tip?" Cooch asked suspiciously.

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

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

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

"Knock it off!"

"I was just..."

"Knock it off!"

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

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

"Depends on what kind."

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

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

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

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

"Huh?"

"You heard me."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"How about it?" Cooch answered.

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

"Sure. Try it."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I don't know. What do you think?"

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

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

"No. What's gonna happen?"

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

"He might," Elena said.

"Impossible."

"Why is it so impossible?"

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

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

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

"Juana?" Elena said.

"Okay," Juana said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

14

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

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

"Luis!" he shouted. "Luis!"

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

"Luis, where are you?"

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

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

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

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

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

"Luis?"

"Si."

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

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

"Hurry!"

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

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

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

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

"De nada," Luis said. "Nothing."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Suppose he starts shooting into the street again?"

"So what?"

"You want these people to get hurt?"

"All I want is Miranda."

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

"What do you mean?"

"When does your private crusade stop?"

"What the hell are you...?"

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

"What beating? What...?"

"You know what I'm talking about!"

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

"What lesson, Parker?"

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

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

"What?"

"You heard me. Afraid."

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

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

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

"By picking up the wrong garbage!"

"It's all garbage here!"

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

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

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

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

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

"What old lady?"

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

"That woman's still alive, Miranda."

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

"She's alive, I told you."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Hey ... hey, cop!"

"What is it?"

"Listen, I ... I want a priest."

"A what?"

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

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

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

"Why? Are you hit?"

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

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

"It's a trick," Carella said.

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

"I know," Byrnes said.

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

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

"Yeah?"

"I'm getting a priest for you."

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

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

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

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

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

"The jackets are hot," Zip said impatiently. "Can't you keep your mind on what we're doing here?"

"But I lak dee jacket. I don't see why..."

"You think this is the right time, Zip?" Cooch interrupted. "The streets are crawling with bulls."

"It's exactly the right time. Every cop m the city's got his hands full with Pepe. We can move in on Alfie and get him before they even know what happened."

"What's dee sense havin' a jacket if you cann wear it, huh?" Papa persisted.

Zip whirled on him angrily. For a moment, it seemed as if he would strike him. "You want to end up on Bailey's Island?" he shouted.

"Where's dat?"

"In the middle of the River Dix! It's a prison. You wear the jacket, and that's where you'll wind up."

"Wha' did I do, huh?" Papa asked. "Why I cann wear dee jacket? Why they put me in jail if I wear dee jacket?"

"Oh, man, try to explain anything to this moron! Why the hell don't you go back where you came from?" Zip said angrily. "Go to Puerto Rico, will ya? Do me a favor."

"If I b'long dee Latin Purples," Papa said logically, unfazed, "I shoul' wear dee jacket. Den ever'body knows who I am. Thass what you say, Zeep. So now I cann wear dee jacket. Why not?"

"Don't try to figure it out, Papa," Zip said. "Just take my word for it. Right now, we got Alfie to worry about."

"Cann we let it wait, Zip?" Sixto said. "Wha's the hurry? Maybe tomorrow..."

Zip's eyes flashed, and again he looked as if he were about to cry, and yet he seemed strong and determined at the same time. "Now!" he said. "Today! I'm sick of waiting for tomorrow! I'm gonna be somebody today!"

"You don' have to kill Alfie to be somebody," Sixto said.

"What's the sense talking to a tiger? You're like a goddamn foreigner. Look we ain't debating this no more. It's decided already."

"But who decided?" Sixto asked.

"I decided."

"Then why don' you go shoot him?"

The words came out of his mouth before he realized he was going to say them. They produced an instant silence. Zip clenched his fists and then unclenched them.

"What's your story, Sixto?" he said softly.

Sixto took a deep breath. "I don' think we should shoot him."

"You don't, huh?"

"No."

"Well, I think we should. And that's that."

"That's what..."

"That's what?" Zip said, his fists working. "Go ahead, finish it"

"Tha's what Pepe Miranda would do," Sixto blurted. "Tha's not what my fodder would do. My fodder woul'n shoot nobody."

"So what the hell is your father? A big shot? He works in a factory, for Pete's sake!"

"What's wrong wi' workin' in a factory?"

"You want to be a factory worker, go ahead. I don't wanna work in no damn factory!"

"What you wanna do?" Sixto asked, and again there was a silence. He was certain that Zip would begin crying this time. This time the tears seemed on the verge of eruption. "You wanna go aroun' killing people all the time? Is that what you wanna do?" Sixto persisted.

"Look..."

"You tink it's so smart to kill somebody? My people never kill nobody, not here, not on the islan'. So what's so special abou'..."

"You're looking for trouble," Zip said quietly.

"We kill Alfie ... wha's the sense? What does that make us?"

"You're looking for trouble," Zip repeated.

"You tink 'cause we beat up somebody, 'cause we..."

"Shut up!"

"... act like tough guys ..."

Zip slapped him suddenly and viciously. Sixto's head snapped back. He was shocked for a moment, and the blow had hurt him. But he stared at Zip coldly, and then wiped his hand across his mouth.

"All right?" Zip asked.

Sixto did not answer. Cooch watched his face, a slight smirk beginning on his mouth. Papa seemed confused, as if he did not know whether to smile or frown.

"All right?" Zip asked again. Again, there was no answer. "All right," he said nodding. "Let's map this out."

Cooch grinned. He was glad this nasty disciplinary business was out of the way. He was glad they were moving into action again. "What's the first step, Zip?"

"First, we gotta find out if Alfie's still in the apartment. Papa, you and Sixto'll take care of that. Go up in the hallway and listen outside the door. If he's in there, you'll hear him. Then you come back and report to me."

"How do we get him out, Zip?" Cooch asked.

"All we got to do is get him in the hallway."

"But how?"

"I don't know." He paused, thinking. "Ain't he got no buddies? Like Papa could call him out, makin' believe he was a buddy."

Cooch shook his head. "Alfie's a lone wolf."

"There must be somebody he trusts, somebody he'd come out in the hallway to talk ... hey!" He snapped his fingers. His face was suddenly alive. If ever he'd looked about to cry, he did not look that way now. "Sure," he said. "We say we want to be friends, see? That's the story we give. And the go-between believes it, and tells that to Alfie. When Alfie comes out in the hallway, bam!"

"Yeah, but who, Zip? Who's gonna be the go-between? Who we gonna get that Alfie would trust?" Zip grinned from ear to ear. "China," he said.

15

In the hallway of the building in which Alfredo Gomez lived, Sixto suddenly knew what had to be done. Perhaps he had known it all along, perhaps he had known ever since he'd gone into the drugstore, known without admitting it to himself. But he knew now that one could not stand committed by refusing to commit oneself. And he knew now that more than the mere presence of police on the street was necessary to prevent the senseless murder of Alfredo Gomez. He recognized that he must choose a side and choose it now, and that once he had made his choice he would have to defend it. He was very young to be finding himself at such a crossroad. Too young, perhaps, to be making a choice which would influence another's life as well as his own. But the crossroad was there, and he faced it, and he made his choice unheroically. He made his choice the way most choices are made, made it through a combination of character and conviction. For Sixto, no other choice would have been possible. The choice was as much a part of him as his hands. "Papa," he whispered.

'Wha's dee matter?" Papa said.

"Sit down. I wann to talk to you."

The boys sat on the steps leading to the first floor. It was dark in the hallway, and quiet. Most of the building's tenants were out in the street watching the siege. But even though he knew he would not be overheard, Sixto whispered. And because whispering is contagious, Papa whispered, too. Side by side in the darkened hallway, the boys talked.

"Wha's dee matter?" Papa asked again.

"Papa ... this ... this is all wrong."

"Wha's all wronn?"

"What we going to do. To Alfie."

"Zeep say..."

"Papa, please. Listen to me. Please."

"I lis'nin', Sixto."

"Iss wrong to kill Alfie, Papa."

"Wronn? But Zeep say..."

"Iss wrong! Papa, look ... look, you like it here? You like this city?"

"Si."

"We come here ... is nice here ... is better. We don' want to be like that Pepe Miranda up there!"

Papa hesitated for a moment, confused. Then he said, "Pepe Miranda's the grays thin' ever happen this neighborhood."

"No, Papa. No. He brings shame to us."

Papa shook his head. Gently, like a father about to explain something to a favored child, he covered Sixto's hand with his own. Then, with little patting motions characteristic of the slow movement which had earned him his nickname, he said, "No, no you wronn, Sixto. He the grays thin' ever happen aroun' here."

"Papa, he kills people!" Sixto said, pulling back his hand.

"St. He's brave."

"Papa, that's not..."

"He's a brave man," Papa insisted. "He hole off all dee cops, an' he..."

"He's not brave! He's no good! He don' care for you or me, ony for himself. He iss bad, an' he brings disgrace to us."

"No, Sixto," Papa said slowly. 'Wo es verdad. De ningun modo..."

"Don' speak Spanish!" Sixto said. "We here now, we speak English." He paused. "Papa, you understan' what I'm saying?"

"St, yo comprendo. Pero..."

"Don' speak Spanish!"

"Why I cann speak Spanish?" Papa asked, puzzled.

"Papa, listen to me," Sixto said desperately. "We not gonna kill Alfle."

"Sure, we gon' kill him," Papa said, nodding.

"No. No, we not. We kill him, then we doin' wrong. Like Zip. Like Pepe."

"Zeep bought me pidaguas, Sixto," Papa said.

"Papa, he iss bad."

"Zeep? Bad?"

"Yes, yes."

"An' Pepe?"

"Yes, him too."

"No," Papa said. He shook his head. "Zeep say he iss good."

Sixto was trembling. He did not want to play his trump, and yet he saw that Papa was still unconvinced, saw that more was needed.

"Papa, you think I am good?"

"Si."

"Would I do something bad, Papa?"

"No. I don' think so."

"Papa..."

He sucked in a deep breath.

"Papa ... the one who called the police ... the one who told them where Pepe wass ... it was me. I called them."

The hallway was silent. He felt at once that he had made a terrible mistake, that he had revealed something which should have remained secret. Papa studied him with blank eyes.

"You tole on Pepe?" he asked incredulously.

"Yes."

"How you know where he wass?"

"I saw him yesterday. I recognize his picture from the paper. All day, I wonder about it. Then I think ... I think it's best to tell."

"But ... but tha's bein' ... a rat, Sixto."

"No."

"But you tole on Pepe!"

"Yes."

"Why? Why you do this?"

"Because he iss bad."

Papa was silent for a long time. Then he scratched his head and said, "If Pepe iss bad, why does Zeep say...?"

"Zip only wants to be big. He thinks it makes him big to boss. But it's ony big when you let everybody live his own life. Papa, listen. Please. Please listen." He suddenly felt like crying. He clutched Papa's arm fiercely and said, "Papa, we go this way now, we never stop, you hear?"

"I hear. Si, si."

"We go this way now, we get like Zip, and then we wind up like Pepe. We bring more shame to the barrio. We hurt ourselves."

"Si, si, comprendo."

"Papa, quien adna al reves anda el camino dos veces. If we take the wrong road, we make the journey twice."

"But ... Zeep iss bad?"

"Yes, yes."

Struggling with this new idea, Papa said, "But he bought me pidaguas," and then fell silent. His brow was furrowed, his eyes puzzled. After a long time, he said, "An' Pepe iss bad too?"

"Yes."

"Sixto... iss you alone who thinks like this? Or ever'body?"

"Everybody, Papa. Everybody in the streets."

"I ... Sixto ... I wanna be lak ever'body in thees city. But Zeep say..."

"Papa, we are only strong if we do the right thing."

Again, Papa was silent, thinking. He shrugged and turned to Sixto.

"I ... I don' wann to be dee bad guy, Sixto."

"No."

"I wann to be dee goo' guy."

"Si, st."

He shrugged again. "I don' know how to say in English."

"You are with me, Papa?"

Papa beamed. "Si, I am wi' you, Sixto." He continued smiling. "Sixto?" He paused. "We dee goo' guys, Sixto?"

"Yes, Papa," Sixto said very softly. "We the good guys."

The other good guys came up the street.

There were two of them. One was a detective lieutenant named Peter Byrnes. The other was a priest named Steve Carella.

Carella felt rather foolish. He had felt foolish in the rectory of the church while arguing with Father Donovan who had, perhaps rightfully, insisted that the policemen were planning something which would make a mockery of a man's faith in God.

"This man doesn't have a faith in God," Byrnes had said. "He wants a priest up there for one reason and one reason alone. He wants to use him as a shield to get out of that apartment."

"How do you know that?"

"I know it," Byrnes said. "Take my word for it. The last time Pepe Miranda was inside a church was the day he was baptized."

"He may wish to make his peace."

"Father, I respect your attitude, believe me. But I think I know a little more about this man than you do. Now you can either let me borrow one of your black things, whatever you call them..."

"Cassock."

"Yes, your cassock, or else we'll have to root around someplace else and find one. That'll take time, and Miranda may shoot somebody else during that time. Now, it's up to you."

"And suppose his request for a priest is legitimate?" Father Donovan asked.

"Then I'll come straight down from the apartment, and I'll come straight here, and I'll give you back your hassock..."

"Cassock."

"Cassock, and you can go up and see him yourself. Is that fair?"

"It sounds fair." Father Donovan had studied Byrnes. "My garment would never fit you, Lieutenant"

"I'll squeeze into it."

Father Donovan shook his head. "No. You've got at least thirty pounds on me. The garment is cut tight to begin with."

"Father, we're in an awful hurry. Could we please...?"

"Besides," Carella said, "you can't go up there, Pete."

"Why not?"

"You've been our talk-man so far. If somebody else starts using the megaphone, Miranda'11 get suspicious. You've got to stay in the street and keep talking to him."

"I'm going up," Byrnes said. "I wouldn't ask any of my men to take a chance like..."

"The cassock doesn't fit you," Carella said.

"The hell with the ... pardon me, Father."

"And Miranda would smell a rat," Carella said.

"I don't care what he..."

"So I'd better go up. Father Donovan and I are about the same size."

"Steve, you can't..."

"That's settled," Carella said.

"Steve..."

"What?"

"I ... nothing." He paused. "He's a killer."

"I know."

"And it was my idea to..."

"It was our idea. We got it at the same time, Pete. Remember?"

"If you get shot, you damn fool..."

"I've been shot before," Carella said.

The men stared at each other.

"All right," Byrnes said, sighing, "where's the cassock, Father?"

Now, walking down the street, Carella still felt foolish. For if Pepe Miranda had not been inside a church since the day of his baptism, Carella hadn't been inside one — not to pray, at least — since shortly after his confirmation. That was a long, long time ago. Parading down the street now in a priest's long black apparel, feeling the cold hard snout of a .38 against his belly beneath the black cloth, trying to look pious as hell, he felt only foolish. A set of prayer beads was entwined around his right hand. He quickly shifted them to his left, so that his right would be free for a quick draw if it came to that.

"What's the plan?" he asked Byrnes.

"I'll tell Miranda we've got his priest. He'll probably check from the window. Then you go up."

"Then what?"

"If he wants to confess or something, let him confess. Watch for your chance, and slug him if he turns his back."

"But you told Father Donovan..."

"Yeah, I lied in church," Byrnes said. "Actually, Miranda isn't going to make any confession, Steve. He's going to grab you the minute you walk into that apartment, and he's going to use you as a shield when he walks out."

"What do I do? Wait for my chance and then..."

"You do nothing. Let him lead you out I'll have men on either side of the doorway. The minute he steps into the street, you'd better duck." Byrnes paused. "I'd feel a lot happier if I were doing this myself, Steve."

"Why?" Carella grinned. "Because I might get killed? My goodness, what a thing to be worrying about."

"You're not worried about it, huh?"

"Didn't you hear that reporter, Pete?"

"What do you mean?"

"Life is cheap," Carella answered.

They had come up to the squad car now. Byrnes reached into it for the megaphone. "You set, Steve?"

"As set as I'll ever be."

"Steve, we're going to begin blasting the minute he clears the front stoop. The shots will be coming from behind him, but I can't guarantee that all these bums learned anything at the police academy. When you clear the stoop, make a dive for the sidewalk."

"Okay."

"Good luck."

"Thanks." Carella paused. "Suppose he just wants to pray a little?"

Byrnes shrugged. "You've got a set of prayer beads. Use them." He paused. "Good luck," he said again.

"Let's get it moving," Carella said, "before I chicken out."

Byrnes picked up the megaphone and blew into it. "Miranda?" he called. There was no answer. "Miranda?" Still no answer.

"Maybe he slit his own throat," Carella whispered.

"Miranda, this is Lieutenant Byrnes. Can you hear me?"

"I hear you. What is it?"

"We've got your priest."

"Where is he? Get him out in the middle of the street. I want to see him."

Carella nodded at Byrnes, and then took a deep breath. Slowly, he walked to the center of the street.

"You can't see him if you don't look," Byrnes said.

There was a long silence. Suddenly, Miranda's head popped up above the window sill. He looked into the street for no longer than ten seconds, and then dropped from sight again. Even in that short a time, Byrnes and Carella saw that his eyes were puffed and his face was streaked.

"All right," Miranda shouted. "Send him up."

"Not so fast, Miranda," Byrnes said, thinking, I've got to make this look good. He knows we wouldn't send up a priest unless he makes some concession. He knows we're considering the idea that this may be a trap. He knows we're not stupid.

"What is it now?" Miranda said.

"The priest stays right where he is unless I get some promises from you," Byrnes said.

"Here we go," Miranda answered, and the people in the street began chuckling.

"Yes, here we go, Miranda. I'm not sending up a man you can use as a shield to get out of that apartment."

"What kind of a louse do you think I am?"

"Do I have to answer that one?" Byrnes said, and again the crowd chuckled. This was beginning to get good. None of that grim stuff any more. Just a plain old battle of wits, like a good television routine.

"All right, cop, what do you want from me?"

"Number one: we're sending up an unarmed man who insists he wants to see you alone as a representative of God. I want you to respect that, Miranda." God forgive me, Byrnes thought.

"All right, all right."

"Number two: I want you to talk to him. About coming out of there. I don't know why you want to see him, and I don't care. But I want your promise that you'll talk to him about coming out."

"Is that all?"

"Do I have your promise?"

"What makes you think I'll keep any promise I make?"

"This is a man of God, Miranda."

"Okay, okay, I promise."

"Did you hear him, Father?" Byrnes asked Carella.

"I heard him," Carella answered.

"You can enter the building any time you like."

Carella nodded, sucked in another deep breath, walked directly to the front stoop of the tenement, and entered the hallway.

Byrnes put down the megaphone, looked at his watch, and then told Captain Frick he wanted four of the best marksmen he could find. Then he began praying.

16

If you're God, you've got all these little things to take care of, you see. Oh, not the business of getting the sun to rise on time, or the stars to come out. And not riding herd on the seasons so that they arrive when they're supposed to, not things like that. Those are the big things, and the big things almost take care of themselves. It's those damn little things that get so bothersome. And if you're God, you can't just ignore them, you know. You can, of course, move in mysterious ways your wonders to perform. This means that you can leave a few loose ends here and there and nobody will question them because you are, after all, God. Maybe you've got a bigger design in mind which will not become apparent to us poor slobs until maybe decades from now. Or centuries. So who are we to question? Being God, you are perfectly entitled to occasional sloppiness.

Or maybe these things aren't even in your control, who knows? Maybe you just sort of set the universe every day, the way somebody sets a clock, and then let it run on its own, fast or slow, however it wants to, without touching it again until it's run down and needs another winding. Maybe that's the way you operate, and nobody's going to question that either, God, you can bet your life on that, God.

Only sometimes, no offense meant, you ought to work a thing out and not just let it happen, you know? Like take that Puerto Rican girl and that sailor, take them for example. Now, being God, you could fix them up real fine, couldn't you? Like, for example, Zip and Cooch could find her, you see, and Zip is dragging her down the street towards Alfie's pad when wham! who should appear? The sailor! How's that, huh? He didn't go off with the whore Marge, you see. He only started to, but then he changed his mind. And here he is back on the street, face to face with China. He looks at her, and she looks at him, and their eyes lock, and slowly they walk across that street to each other, and tolerance and understanding flash in the sailor's eyes, I love you, China, coupled with a little bit of honest lust, I love you, Jeff, wham they clinch, and we fade out on Zip who shrugs his shoulders and says, "Oh well, what the hell, easy come, easy go."

How's that, God?"

That's great.

But that isn't the way it happened.

The street was impossible. The crowd was anxious for the kill now, anxious for the die to be cast either way. They didn't much give a damn at this moment whether or not Miranda would kill the priest and the police lieutenant and the commissioner and the mayor and the governor and even the president. They didn't care whether or not a cop on one of the rooftops would fire a lucky shot and catch Miranda splank between the eyeballs. They only wanted it to be over and done with, either way. And so the crowd was restless, and a little mean, and hot, and uncomfortable. It was a crowd which was beginning to resent this tie game which had run into fourteen innings. The tenth inning had been a treat and the eleventh a distinct bonus and the twelfth a lovely dividend, but the thirteenth brought on thoughts of other things to be done. Watching a game was great fun — but life was real and life was earnest, and life was going on outside that ball park.

So the crowd resisted the shoving of Zip and Cooch, and occasionally the crowd shoved back at the two boys and cursed a bit, and did everything possible to make the task of locating China unimaginably difficult.

In fifteen minutes' time, Zip and Cooch gave up the search.

It was just as well that they had, because China wasn't in the neighborhood any longer. China had gone over to the park where she had sat by the lake and watched the people in the rowboats. That's where China was. She cried a little, yes. In the park, by the lake, watching the rowboats.

The sailor? Did he wander back to the street? Did he amble over to the park?

The sailor went to bed with a prostitute named Marge. Marge was a practiced whore, and she pleased the sailor immensely. The sailor paid her fifteen dollars, which was nearly every cent he had. Then he walked to the subway, got on a train, went downtown to where his ship was docked, started up the gangway, saluted the ensign on the fantail, saluted the officer of the deck, went to the rear compartment, took off his whites, put on a pair of dungarees and a chambray shirt, climbed into his sack, and went to sleep until the loud-speaker amidships announced, "Chow down." He ate a good dinner, saw a movie on the boat deck that evening, went to bed about eleven o'clock, and sailed for San Diego the next morning. He never saw the Puerto Rican girl named China again in his life. He probably went back to Fletcher, Colorado, eventually. Maybe she flashed into his mind every now and then — like once every twelve years. Maybe he remembered her dimly and wondered what had become of her. Maybe, married to Corrine and running an insurance business, he sporadically thought of China in an idealized way, the most beautiful girl in the world, exotic, that day in a strange city, far away, I wonder what became of her, I wonder.

She sat in the park and wept a bit and watched the rowboats.

You are God, and you can do it any way you want to. You can even get them married the next day before his ship sails. Anything you want to do. All the possibilities are there. And you're God, and there isn't anyone who's going to slap your wrist, no matter how you do it.

But God, man, that is the way it happened.

Steve Carella knocked on the door. There were bullet holes in the door, and Carella remembered that Pepe Miranda had shot a patrolman through that door, and he suddenly wanted his .38 in his hand.

Now, easy, he told himself. Now just take'it easy, and don't panic. We are going to play this Miranda's way because there are a lot of people out there on the street, and we don't want them to be getting shot. So be cool. Your hand is shaking, and you are itching to pull that .38 so that you'll have something more than a set of prayer beads in your fist when that door opens, but be cool, Steve-o, be cool and...

The door opened.

A .45 automatic was the first thing Carella saw. The door opened just a crack, and there was the .45, its big ugly snout pointing into the hallway. Carella's mouth felt very dry.

"I'm ... Father Donovan," he said to the automatic.

The door opened wider. Carella's eyes panned up from the .45, the hand holding it, the thin wrist, the black hair curling on the arm, the narrow shoulders, the sweat-stained undershirt, the sudden puff of black hair in the hollow of the throat, the wings of the man's collarbones, his thin neck, and high cheekbones, brown eyes, puffed lids, a balding head, and desperation. Add a man up, add the parts, form a total picture, and the total is desperation. It was there in Miranda's eyes and in his mouth and even in the way he held the .45, his head tilted to one side, his shoulder sort of leaning into the gun, the gun close to his body as if it were something he cherished, a tie to reality.

"Come in a minute," Miranda said.

Carella stepped into the apartment. The place was a shambles. The furniture, the floors, everything in the room bore the ravaging marks of gunfire. It was inconceivable to think that a human being had been in this bullet-pocked room and managed to escape getting shot.

"Looks like they dropped an atom bomb in here, don't it?" Miranda said.

"Yes," Carella answered.

"You're not scared, are you? They won't shoot with you in here, it's all right."

Carella nodded. He was not scared. It was only ... he felt odd all at once. He did not feel like a cop. Miranda was not treating him as if he were a cop. Miranda was behaving as if he were truly a priest, a person he could talk to, relax with. He wanted to say, "I'm not what you think, Miranda! Don't show yourself to me!" but the words would not come.

"Boy, this has been murder," Miranda said. "Look, I didn't ask you up here to confess to you or nothing. I think we ought to get that straight."

"Then why did you ask me to come up?"

"Well..." Miranda shrugged. He seemed like a young kid in that moment, a young kid who is about to tell a priest that he took off a girl's underpants on the roof. Carella kept staring at him. Miranda held the .45 in his hand loosely, expecting no trouble from this man he thought was a priest, embarrassed because he was about to reveal something, dishonorable to him. "I'll put it to you straight, Father," he said. "I got to get out of this apartment."

"Yes?"

"So ... so you're going to take me out."

"I am?"

Miranda nodded. "I know that's pretty crumby. But I got

to get out of here."-"Where do you go from here, Pepe?"

"I don't know." Miranda shook his head. "You know, Father, you reach the point where ... where there ain't many places left to go." He laughed nervously. "Where..." He laughed again. "I don't know. I don't know where I'll go once I get out of here."

"There're a lot of cops out there, Pepe."

"Yeah, I know." He sighed. "Man, this kind of stuff ... I hate this kind of Public Enemy Number One stuff, you dig? I just hate it. Oh man, it's like ... like something is expected of me, you know what I mean? I've got to be the bad guy. I don't know if it makes any sense to you, Father."

"I'm not sure it does," Carella answered, puzzled.

"Well, like ... like there are sides. I'm the bad guy." He shrugged. "I've always been the bad guy. Ever since I was a kid. So I'm still the bad guy. They expect me to be the bad guy. The people, I mean. It's like ... I don't know if I can explain this. It's like sometimes I don't know who is the real Pepe Miranda, and who is the guy I ... the pictures of the guy, you follow? The various pictures of the guy."

"I don't know what you mean," Carella said.

"The pictures," Miranda repeated. "Like the cops have a picture of me." He chuckled. "It's got a number right across the face of it." He chuckled again. "And the people in the street got another picture of me. And the kids got a picture. And you got a picture. But they're all different pictures, and none of them are really me, Pepe Miranda."

"Then who is?" Carella asked.

"I don't know."

"You've killed people, Pepe."

"Yeah." He paused. "I know." He shrugged, but it was not a shrug of indifference, not a shrug which said, "So I killed r people, so what?" If it had been that, Carella would have instantly felt like a cop again. But it was not that. It was simply a shrug which said, "I know I've killed people, but I don't know why," and so Carella still felt like a man who had come up here to talk to Miranda, not to harm him.

"Well, anyway," Miranda said, "I've got to get out of here."

"Because the people in the street expect it?" Carella asked.

"No. No, I don't think that's..."

"Then why?"

"Well..." Miranda sighed heavily. "I ain't got a chance, Father," he said simply.

"Then give up."

"Why? Go to jail? Maybe the electric chair if that woman dies? Don't you see? I got nothing to lose."

He recognized in an instant that Miranda was absolutely right. Moreover, if Carella were in his position, in this apartment, surrounded by policemen, facing either a lifelong jail sentence or death in the electric chair, he would undoubtedly react in exactly the way that Miranda was reacting. He would try to get out of that apartment by fair means or foul. He would try to escape.

"Well..." he said, and he fell silent.

The two men faced each other.

"You see what I mean, Father?"

"Well..."

Miranda shrugged. The apartment was silent.

"So ... so I got to use you as a shield, Father. They won't shoot if I come out with you in front of me."

"Suppose they refuse to recognize ..."

"Oh, they won't. They won't try nothing. I'll tell them I'll shoot you if they try anything."

"And if they should try something? Will you shoot me, Pepe?"

Pepe Miranda frowned.

"Will you, Pepe?"

After a long while he said, "I got to get out of this apartment, Father. I got to get out of here!"

There were two patrolmen on either side of the stoop. Captain Frick had chosen them from his ranks, had chosen four of his best shots, and then they had gone to Lieutenant Byrnes for their instructions. Their instructions were simple. Shoot to kill.

And so they waited on either side of the doorway now, four marksmen with their pistols drawn, waiting for something to happen.

From the first-floor windows of the tenement, Miranda's voice came.

"Lieutenant!"

"Yes?"

"This is Miranda! I've got the priest. I'm coming out."

"What do you mean, Miranda? You're giving up?"

"Giving up, my ass! The priest is coming out with me. If you've got any cops in the hallway, you'd better get them out now. You hear me?"

"It's gonna work," Parker whispered to Byrnes.

"There are no policemen in the hallway, Miranda."

"There better not be. I want a clear path when I come out. This priest is staying with me all the way. Anybody so much as looks cockeyed at me, the priest gets it."

"I thought you made a promise, Miranda."

"Don't make me laugh! I'm coming out."

Byrnes put down the megaphone and quickly drew his revolver. He turned slightly, so that his body hid the revolver which hung in his hand alongside his right thigh. Parker drew his gun, too, and then looked around for a good spot from which to fire. Behind the squad car? No, no. There! There was a place! The packing crate over there. He pushed his way through the crowd and climbed onto the crate. He checked the chambers of his .38, wiped his upper lip, and then faced the doorway. The street was very silent now. Upstairs, inside the building, they could hear a door slamming.

"Any cops in the hallway?" Miranda shouted. "Any cops here?"

There was no answer. Standing, watching the doorway, watching the patrolmen flanking the stoop, Byrnes thought, All he has to do is turn his head. He'll see the patrolmen, and he'll put a bullet in Steve's back. That's all he has to do. Patiently, Byrnes held his breath.

"I got the priest," Miranda shouted from the hallway. "Don't try nothing, you hear?"

The crowd had turned toward the doorway to the building. They could see nothing beyond the door. The hallway was dark, and the bright sunshine did not reach beyond the flat top step of the stoop.

"Clear a path!" Miranda shouted. "Clear a path, or I'll shoot into the crowd! I don't care who gets hurt!"

The crowd could see a pair of figures in the hallway now, dimly. The priest was almost invisible because of his black cassock, but Miranda could be seen fairly clearly, a short thin man in a white undershirt. They hesitated in the vestibule, and Miranda peered past Carella's shoulder and into the street.

Zip pushed his way through the crowd with Cooch. The street was terribly silent, and he wanted to know why. What the hell was happening? He was angry because they'd been unable to locate China, angry because he wanted this Alfredo Gomez thing to end now, angry because things seemed to be going wrong, and he wanted them to go right. But, in spite of his anger, he was curious. The silence intrigued him. He pushed up to the barricade just as Carella and Miranda came onto the front stoop.

Miranda's eyes flicked the street. He was partially covered by the priest, so that a shot from across the street could not be risked. That left only...

And Miranda turned to look to the left of the stoop.

Carella was ready. He'd been waiting for the movement ever since they'd left the apartment. He'd been wondering where he would look if he were Miranda, and he'd realized that nobody could shoot from the other side of the street, and so any trap would have to be set on this side of the street, any shots would have to come from behind.

So Carella knew that Miranda knew, and he'd been waiting for the sideward movement of Miranda's head because he had further reasoned that Miranda would begin shooting the second he saw the cops on either side of the stoop.

Zip saw the cops the same moment Miranda did. It was too late to shout a warning.

Carella felt Miranda's head and eyes flickering to the left.

Go! he told himself.

He went.

No one said a word. Miranda turned toward Carella in the same instant that Carella threw himself headlong down the flight of steps.

And then the shooting started.

17

"Pepe!" Zip yelled. "Pepe!" But he was too late.

The crossfire was true crossfire. Miranda whirled to the left, and the bullets suddenly smashed into him from the right side of the stoop, spinning him around. He slammed into the railing and fired a shot at the patrolman who seemed closest to him, and then suddenly there were shots on his left, and he realized he was caught in a deadly crossfire, and he ran off the stoop toward where Carella lay sprawled at the foot of the steps. Byrnes began firing from the other side of the street, and Parker began firing from the crate, and then it seemed that every cop on that block had been waiting for just this moment because the street suddenly reverberated with ear-shattering sound as the bullets caromed into the gutter.

He seemed to be bleeding from a dozen places.

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

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

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

"Give me a break," Miranda whispered.

And Parker fired.

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

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

"That's enough," Carella shouted.

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

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

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

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

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

"Is he dead?" a reporter called.

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

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

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

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

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

"Lieutenant?"

"Yes?"

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

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

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

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

"Look, Zip, calm down. Try to..."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yeah?"

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

"I'll do it if you like, Pete."

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

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

"Shut up, Parker!" Byrnes snapped.

"Wh—?"

"Shut your goddamn mouth!"

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

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

"What is this, Sixto?" he asked.

"What do you think it is, Zip?"

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

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

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

"I say it pretty plain, Zip."

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

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

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

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

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

"Pepe brings disgrace to the barrio" Papa said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Yeah," Cooch said softly.

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

"I don't know," Cooch said.

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

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

"Yeah," Zip said emptily.

"Or play some stickball, maybe."

"Yeah."

"Maybe go for a swim at the pool."

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

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

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

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

"No, Andy," Luis said.

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

"It doesn't matter."

"Well, I'm sorry."

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

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

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

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

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

"Si."

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

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

"St', everything quiet," Luis answered.

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

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

Down the street, the church bells began tolling.