See Them Die Page 6

  "Yes. You see, if we were back in Colorado, I'd take you up in the mountains. We'd pack a picnic basket and go up in the mountains. I'd drive you in my car. I've got a '37 Ford."

  "What color is it?"

  "Yellow. I painted it myself."

  "I knew it was yellow," she said.

  "Did you? How'd you know?"

  "Yellow or red. Those are the two colors I thought."

  "Hey, you know I was going to paint it red but Jenken's — that's the hardware store back home — was all out. So I took yellow."

  "Do you live in a very small town?"

  "Fletcher? Well, it's not so small, you understand."

  "Do you have apartment buildings?"

  "Oh, no."

  "Why did you leave home?"

  "I wanted to see the world," he said glibly, and then he knew immediately that glibness was not for this girl. With this girl you played it straight or you didn't play it at all. "I was going to get drafted," he said, "so I figured I'd rather be in the Navy. So I enlisted." He shrugged.

  "And the world? Have you seen it?"

  "A little of it."

  "Have you been to Puerto Rico?"

  "No. Have you?"

  "No. It's supposed to be beautiful there. I was born here. I've never been outside this city." She paused. "Oh, yes, I once went to a wedding in Pennsylvania."

  "You'd like my town," he said. "You really would."

  "Yes, I know I would."

  They fell silent. She stared up at him, and he felt terribly unsure of himself all at once, unsure and far younger than he actually was. In a very small voice, he said, "Meet me after church. Please."

  "If I met you, we could go to the park," she said. "There are no mountains, but we could take a picnic basket. There are trees there."

  "Any place you say. Only ... you know ... I've only got about eighteen bucks. We can go as far as that'll take us." He grinned tentatively. "Okay?"

  The girl nodded. "Okay."

  "Gee, that's— You'll meet me?"

  "Yes."

  "Look, I'll ... I'll meet you right here. Right on this spot. I won't budge from this spot until you come back."

  "No, not here. When La Gallina opens, the girls'll congregate here, on the sidewalk. Not here."

  "The luncheonette then, okay? On the corner."

  "Luis? All right, fine." . "What time?"

  "Mass'11 be over at about a quarter to twelve. I'll make the lunch now and—"

  "Hey, you don't have to—"

  "I want to."

  "Well ... okay."

  "And I'll stop home for it before I come. Twelve o'clock? Would that be all right?"

  "Fine. Hey, listen, I'm sorry I mistook you for..."

  "That's all right. Twelve?"

  "Twelve," he said.

  "All right." She stared at him for a moment and then said, "Wait for me."

  "Yes, I will."

  She turned and began walking up the street, walking quickly, not looking back, almost as if she knew his eyes were on her, almost as if she were waiting for him to call after her. When he did call, she whirled immediately.

  "Hey!"

  "Yes?"

  "Hurry! Please hurry, would you?"

  "Yes," she said. She gave a small wave, turned, and began walking again.

  "Hey!" he called.

  "Yes?"

  "I don't even know your name!"

  "What?"

  "Your name," he shouted. "What's your name?"

  "Oh," the girl said, and she giggled.

  "Well, what is it?"

  "China!" she called back, and then she ran up the street.

  7

  Heat is a strange thing.

  Like love, it can drive men to opposite extremes. Like love, it can be a persistently nagging thing, relentless, unwilling to budge, until one day it explodes in wild passion. "I hit him with the hatchet because it was hot." That is an explanation, a reason, and an excuse. It was hot. Everything is contained in those three words. It was hot, and so I was not responsible for my actions, I only knew that it was hot, that I was suffocating all day long, that I could hardly breathe, there was no air, it was hot, and he said to me, "This coffee is too strong," and so I hit him with the hatchet. It was hot, you see.

  A shrug.

  You understand. It was hot.

  And, like love, the heat can generate a different kind of feeling, a feeling which — had the slick paper magazines not defiled the word — could be described as togetherness, a knowledge that human beings on this day, on this insufferably hot day, are at least sharing one thing in common. The heat becomes a bond as strong as reinforced concrete. Do you hate the color of my skin? That is interesting, but God it is hot, God we are sweating together. Do you lech for my wife? That is unforgivable, but let's go have a beer together to escape this damned heat, and later we can work it out.

  Heat, like love, is no good unless you can talk about it. The adulterer seeks a confidante, the lecher boasts of his conquests in the pool hall, the sixteen-year-old cheerleader spends hours on the telephone describing a football player's kiss — you have to talk about love.

  Lieutenant Peter Byrnes came out of his office wanting to talk about the heat. He was a compact man with graying hair and steel-blue eyes. He liked to believe that he sweated more than men who were less chunky than he. He liked to believe that the heat had been designed in hell especially for him, sent earthward to plague him. He didn't quite understand why he'd been singled out for such torture, but he did know that he suffered more when it was hot than any man had a right to suffer.

  The squadroom was silent. Steve Carella, his shirt sleeves rolled up, was sitting at his desk, reading an FBI report on a suspected burglar. Hot sunlight covered the top of his desk like molasses. Bymes walked to the grilled window and stared out at the street. The cars, the people, all seemed to have been captured in transparent plastic, suspended in time and space, unmoving. Byrnes sighed.

  "Hot," he said.

  "Mmm," Carella answered.

  "Where is everybody?"

  "Barker's on the prowl, Hernandez is answering a squeal, and Kling..." Carella shrugged. "He's on a plant, isn't he?"

  "That drugstore thing?"

  "I think so."

  "Yeah," Byrnes said, remembering. "The guy who's passing phony cocaine prescriptions." He shook his head. "He won't turn up. Not in this heat."

  "Maybe not," Carella said.

  "I always choose the wrong time for my vacation," Byrnes said. "Harriet and I spend months figuring it out. I'm the senior officer around here, so I get first choice. So what happens? I always miss the good weather by a month. It's so hot you can't even think, and then it's time for my vacation, and it starts raining, or it rums gray, or we suddenly get a snowstorm from Canada. It never fails. Every year." He paused for a moment. "Well, every year except one. We went to the Vineyard once. We had good weather." He nodded, remembering.

  "Vacations are rough anyway," Carella said.

  "Yeah? How so?"

  "I don't know. It generally takes me two weeks to unwind, and the minute I start relaxing, it's time to come back to work."

  "You going away this year?"

  "I don't think so. The kids are too small."

  "How old are they, anyway?" Byrnes asked.

  "They were a year old in June."

  "Boy, time flies," Byrnes said, and fell silent. He thought about the passage of time, thought about his own son, thought how much Carella seemed like a son to him, thought how his squadroom seemed like a family business, a candy store or a grocery store, thought how good it was to have Carella working behind the counter with him.

  "Well, talking about the heat never helped it any," Byrnes said, and he sighed again.

  "Some day, they're going to invent..." Carella started, and the telephone rang. He picked up the receiver. "Eighty-seventh Squad," he said. "Detective Carella."

  The voice on the other end said, "I know where Pepe Miranda iss."

  They
saw Sixto as he came out of the drugstore. His face looked flushed. It seemed as if he were about to cry. He kept blinking his eyes like a person fighting to hold back tears.

  "What's the matter?" Zip asked. He studied Sixto impersonally, not as if he were truly concerned, not as if he really wanted to know what the matter was, but asking the disguised question, "How will your present state affect me?"

  "Nothin'," Sixto said.

  "You look like somebody hit you with a ball bat."

  "No."

  "What were you doing in the drugstore?"

  "Havin" a Coke. I wass thirsty."

  "I thought I told you to keep an eye on Alfie's pad."

  "I could see his buildin' from where I wass sittin'," Sixto said.

  "We gah dee guns," Papa said, grinning.

  "Come on," Zip told them both. "Cooch is rounding up some kids. We got to meet him near the luncheonette."

  They walked down the avenue together, Zip in the middle flanked by Sixto and Papa. He felt rather good with the boys on either side of him. He walked with his shoulders back and his head erect, setting the pace, knowing they would keep up with him, and feeling very friendly towards the boys as he walked, feeling a bond with them which he could not have described accurately if he'd tried. There was no logic to the bond because he admitted to himself that he didn't even particularly like either Sixto or Papa. One was a mama's boy and the other was a half-wit. And yet he could not deny the emotional satisfaction of walking down the avenue with these two by his side, like a general with his trusted aides. The bod, he knew, would become stronger once they had washed Alfredo Gomez. The word crossed his mind, washed, and he was instantly face to face with the other word, the stronger word. Kill. He did not flinch from it. Kill. He repeated the word in his mind. Kill. We will kill Alfredo Gomez. Kill.

  By the time they reached the luncheonette, the word had no more meaning to him than the word "wash". Cooch was there, waiting for them. Two small boys were with him. Parker, the bull, had taken off, but the sailor was still inside the luncheonette, probably waiting for La Gallina to open, waiting for a Spanish girl. The idea pleased Zip at first He felt a fierce pride in the knowledge that the sailor had come uptown to seek the passion only a Spanish girl could give him. And then the pride turned sour, and he thought darkly that the sailor had no right to be here, no right to be emptying himself into Spanish girls, the way sewers empty into the river. He frowned and cast a black scowl at the sailor's back, and then walked quickly to where Cooch stood with the younger boys.

  The first of the boys was wearing dungarees and a white, sweat-stained T shirt. His nose was running, and he constantly wiped at it with the back of his hand, the mucus streaked there like a healed burn. He was eight years old.

  The other boy was nine. He wore khaki shorts and a short-sleeved blue sports shirt. An Army sergeant's stripes had been sewn to the left sleeve of the shirt. He moved his feet constantly, as if trying to erase chalk from the sidewalk.

  "These the kids?" Zip asked Cooch.

  "Yeah," Cooch said.

  Zip looked at the one with the snotty nose. "What's your name, kid?"

  "Chico."

  "And yours?" he said to the other boy.

  "Estaban," the boy answered, his feet erasing invisible chalk.

  "Did Cooch explain the picture to you?"

  "Si," Chico said.

  "You and Estaban, one on each side of the church steps. You keep the pieces under your shirts until we get on the scene. Then you give them to us and hang around until we blast. We give you back the pieces when it's all over, and you cut out. You got that?"

  "Si, yo comprendo," Chico said.

  "Si, si," Estaban echoed, his feet moving nervously. He seemed undecided as to whether he should break into a dance or begin stamping the sidewalk in anger. Nervously, his feet continued moving.

  Zip looked at his watch. "Okay, the church bells should begin ringing any minute now. That'll be first call for the eleven o'clock Mass. You kids cut out as soon as you hear them bells. We'll drift up toward the corner around eleven-thirty. You be ready for us, you hear me?"

  "Zip, when we grow up, me an' Estaban," Chico said, "we coul' go gang-bustin' wi' you?"

  Zip grinned and touched the boy's hair. "Sure, when you grow up. Right now, you have them pieces ready for us when we need them."

  "I know how to shoot, Zip," Chico said. "I know how to shoot good."

  Zip laughed aloud. "Not this trip, Chico. You got time yet before you begin..."

  The church bells rang suddenly, abruptly, and then were silent. Whoever was pulling on the cord had made an abortive start, perhaps the cord had slipped from his hands, perhaps he'd had a sudden cramp in his fingers. The heavy solemn bonnnnng of metal upon metal sounded, reverberated, and then died. The boys stood in silence, straining for the peal of the bells. And then the bells started again, ringing out on the still July air, calling the flock to Mass, reaching into the streets and into the open windows, summoning the congregation, summoning Alfredo Gomez to whatever waited for him on the church steps.

  "That's it," Zip said tightly. He reached beneath his jacket and, one by one, began pulling the weapons from where they were tucked into his belt. Jeff, in the luncheonette, turned at the sound of the church bells, thinking of China, a smile on his face. He saw the first weapon pass from Zip's hand to Chico's snot-smeared fist, and he blinked as the other weapons changed hands, watched as the two youngsters tucked them into their waistbands, four guns in all, and then pulled their shirts down over them.

  "Okay, go," Zip said.

  The two boys grinned, nodded, and then ran off up the street. A frown had come onto Jeffs forehead. He swung his stool around and picked up his cup of coffee. The church bells had stopped now. An old man rushed from the mouth of a tenement, paused on the stoop while he pulled on his suit jacket, and then ran spryly up the street.

  "Nice quiet Sunday," Luis said to Jeff, smiling.

  Jeff nodded and said nothing. The four boys in the purple silk jackets had moved to a position near the jukebox. The street had gone silent again. It seemed to be a street of many moods and many temperaments, changing in the space of seconds like a vaudeville performer who snaps a wig into place and becomes a clown, discards the wig, puts on a black mustache and becomes Adolf Hitler. Now, the street in its sunbath seemed like a golden corridor leading to the high overhead arch of the elevated structure two blocks away, the sky a dazzling yellow-white beyond. Quiet, burning with light, the street was mute, the street waited. The boys lounged near the jukebox, their hands in their pockets. Occasionally they glanced in the direction of the church. Their eyes were squinted against the reflected sunlight.

  The girl turned the corner from the avenue and entered the street like a circus train. She was wearing a bright-red jacket, a bright-yellow silk shirt, purple spiked-heel shoes with ankle straps. Her hair was a mass of thick black, sticking out from her head in near-burlesque of a Bushman. She was carrying a bright-blue carpetbag, and she walked with a suggestive swagger, the yellow skirt tightening over plump, jiggling buttocks, huge breasts jutting from the V-necked opening of the red jacket. She seemed to be wearing nothing under her outer clothing, and she didn't give a damn who realized it Her buttocks begged to be pinched, her breasts beneath the white rayon blouse and the red jacket pointed sharp nipples like compass needles indicating north. Her walk did nothing to hide the pulchritude. This was what she owned, and if she preferred to exhibit her possessions, that was her business.

  But despite the suggestive swagger, despite the bobbing breasts and the fluid grinding motion of buttock against buttock, despite an apparent attitude of indifference, the girl seemed frightened and somehow hesitant. She stared up at the buildings, ogling the city, overwhelmed by the size, somewhat confused and a little lost.

  The whistles that came from Zip and Cooch did not help her at all. She suddenly clutched at the small red jacket in an attempt to close it over her thrusting breasts. The boys whistled again
, and Jeff turned to watch the girl, fascinated by the tautness of the yellow skirt and the bobble of her backside. The girl began walking faster, just as lost, just as confused, and the whistles followed her up the street until she was out of sight.

  Zip began laughing.

  And then his laughter stopped when he realized the sailor was laughing too.

  "What was that?" Jeff asked.

  "Argh, a Marine Tiger," Luis said.

  "A what?"

  "Marine Tiger. Fresh from the island, her first day here probably. Marine Tiger. That was the name of one of the first boats to take Puerto Rican immigrants to the mainland."

  "Boy, that was really something," Jeff said.

  "Did you see that hair?" Luis waved his hands around his head in demonstration. "And now she'll ride the subway, and everyone will think all Puerto Ricans are like her." He shook his head. "I need more soup out here," he said vaguely and went into the back of the shop.

  "I wouldn't have minded dumping her on her back, huh, sailor?" Zip said.

  "Well, she's not exactly my type," Jeff said. He turned back to the counter. He did not like talking to this boy, and he did not wish to encourage a friendship which, now that he was sober and now that he had met China, seemed hardly necessary.

  "Not your type, huh?" Zip said. "What's the matter? You don't like Spanish girls?"

  "I didn't say that."

  Zip lighted a cigarette and blew out a stream of smoke. He considered his next words carefully. He did not know why, but the sailor was beginning to annoy him immensely. At one and the same time, he wanted the sailor to desire a Spanish girl, and yet wanted him to have nothing to do with a Spanish girl. The conflict disturbed him. He frowned as he began speaking.

  "I've got a few minutes to kill. You still interested in a girl, I can fix you up with something real nice."

  "I'm not interested," Jeff said.

  "No?" The frown got deeper. "Why not? You got something against Puerto Rican girls?"

  "No. I'm just not interested any more."

  "What'd you come up here for? A girl, right?"

  "That's right," Jeff said.

  His answer angered Zip. "So why won't you let me get you one?"

  "I told you. I'm not interested any more."