Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here! Page 9

  “No, that was Delgado over on South Sixth. Guy was on his way to church, four other guys grabbed him as he came out of his building, damn near killed him. Delgado’s on it now.”

  “Right. The hospital call back on Parker?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Who’s that in the holding cell downstairs?”

  “A burglar Simms picked up on Fifth and Friedlander.”

  “You’d better get over to that grocery store, Artie.”

  “That’ll leave Kapek all alone here.”

  “I’ve got some men coming in. They should be here anytime now.”

  “Okay then.”

  “I want some meat on this, Artie. I don’t like my squad getting shot up.”

  Brown nodded, opened the top drawer of his desk, and took from it a holstered .38 Detective’s Special. He fastened the holster to his belt just slightly forward of his right hip pocket, put on his jacket, and then went to the locker room to get his coat and hat. On his way out of the squadroom, he stopped at Kapek’s desk and said, “I’ll be at that grocery store, you need me.”

  “Okay,” Kapek said, and turned back to the Marine. “I still don’t understand exactly how you got beat up,” he said. “You mind going over it one more time?”

  The marine looked even more embarrassed now. He was short and slender, dwarfed by Kapek, who sat beside him in his shirtsleeves with his tie pulled down, collar open, straight blond hair falling onto his forehead, wearing a shoulder holster from which protruded the walnut butt of a .38.

  “Well, you know, I got jumped, is all,” the Marine said.

  “How?”

  “I was walking along, and I got jumped, is all.”

  “Where was this, Corporal Miles?”

  “On The Stem.”

  “What time?”

  “Must’ve been about three in the morning.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “Just walking.”

  “Going any place in particular?”

  “I’d just left this bar, you see? I’d been drinking in this bar on Seventeenth Street, I think it was.”

  “Anything happen in the bar?”

  “Well, like what?”

  “Any trouble? Any words?”

  “No, no, it was a real nice bar.”

  “And you left there about three o’clock and started walking up The Stem.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Where were you going?”

  “Oh, just for a little walk, that’s all. Before heading back to the ship. I’m on this battleship over to the Navy Yard. It’s in dry dock there.”

  “Um-huh,” Kapek said. “So you were walking along and this man jumped you.”

  “Mmm.”

  “Just one man?”

  “Yeah. One.”

  “What’d he hit you with?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “And you came to just a little while ago, is that it?”

  “Yeah. And found out the bastards had taken my wallet and watch.”

  Kapek was silent for several seconds. Then he said, “I thought there was only one of them.”

  “That’s right. Just one.”

  “You said ‘bastards.’”

  “Huh?”

  “Plural.”

  “Huh?”

  “How many were there actually, Corporal?”

  “Who hit me, you mean? Like I said. Just one.”

  “Never mind who hit you or who didn’t. How many were there altogether?”

  “Well…two.”

  “All right, let’s get this straight now. It was two men who jumped you, not—”

  “Well, no. Not exactly.”

  “Look, Corporal,” Kapek said, “you want to tell me about this, or you want to forget it? We’re pretty busy around here right now, and I don’t have time for this kind of thing, I mean it. You want us to try to recover your stuff, then give us a little help, okay? Otherwise, so long, it was nice meeting you, I hope you get back to your ship all right.”

  Miles was silent for several moments. Then he sighed deeply and said, “I feel like a goddamn jackass, is all.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “There was this girl in the bar…”

  “I figured,” Kapek said, and nodded.

  “In a red dress. She kept wiggling her ass at me all night long, you know? So I finally started a conversation with her, and she was real friendly and all, I mean she didn’t seem to be after nothing, I think I maybe bought her only two drinks the whole night long.”

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  “So a little before three, she tells me she’s awful tired and wants to go home to bed, and she says good night to everybody and then goes to the door and winks at me and gives me a kind of a little come-on move with her head, you know? Like this, you know? Like just this little movement of her head, you know? To tell me I should follow her. So I paid the check and hurried on outside, and there she was on the corner, and she starts walking the minute she sees me, looking back over her shoulder and giving me that same come-on again, trotting her little ass right up the avenue, and then turning off into one of the side streets. So I turned the corner after her and there’s this guy standing there, and wham, he clobbers me. Next thing I know, I wake up with this fucking thing over my eye, and my money gone, and my watch, too. Little bitch.”

  “Was she black or white?”

  “Black.”

  “And the man?”

  “White.”

  “Would you recognize her if you saw her again?”

  “I’ll never forget her long as I live.”

  “What about the man?”

  “I only got a quick look at him. He hit me the minute I come around that corner. Man, I saw stars. They musta moved me after I went out because I woke up in this hallway, you see. I mean, I was laying on the sidewalk when…” Miles stopped and looked down at his hands.

  “Yes, Corporal?”

  “What gets me is, I mean, she kicked me, the little bitch. When I was down on the sidewalk, she kicked me with this goddamn pointed shoe of hers. I mean, man, that’s what put me out, not the guy hitting me. It was her kicking me with that pointed shoe of hers.” Corporal Miles looked up plaintively. “Why’d she do that, huh? I was nice to her. I mean it. I was only nice.”

  The ambulance had come and gone, carrying away the man who had been attacked as he was leaving his home to go to church. It was now 9:00 and there was still blood on the front stoop of the building. Detective 3rd/Grade Alexiandre Delgado stood on the steps with the victim’s wife and two children, and tried to believe they were unaware of the blood drying in the early-morning sunshine. Mrs. Huerta was a black-haired woman with brown eyes filled now with tears. Her two daughters, dressed to go to church, wearing identical green wool coats and black patent leather shoes and white ankle socks, resembled their mother except for the tears. Their brown eyes were opened wide in curiosity and fright and incomprehension. But neither of the two was crying. A crowd of bystanders kept nudging toward the stoop, despite the efforts of the beat patrolman to disperse them.

  “Can you tell me exactly what happened, Mrs. Huerta?” Delgado asked. Like the woman he was questioning, he was Puerto Rican. And like her, he had been raised in a ghetto. Not this one, but a similar one (when you’ve seen one slum, you’ve seen them all, according to certain observers) in the shadow of the Calm’s Point Bridge downtown. He could have spoken to her in fluent Spanish, but he was still slightly embarrassed by his accent when he was speaking English, and as a result he tried to speak it all the time. Mrs. Huerta, on the other hand, was not so sure she wanted to conduct the conversation in English. Her young daughters understood and spoke English, whereas their Spanish was spotty at best. At the same time, many of Mrs. Huerta’s neighbors (who were eagerly crowding the front stoop now) spoke only Spanish, and she recognized that talking to this detective in English might enable her to keep at least some of her business to herself. She silently debated the matter only
a moment longer, and then decided to answer in English.

  “We were going down to church,” she said, “the eight o’clock mass. The church is right up the street, it takes five minutes. We came out of the building, Jose and me and the two girls, and these men came at him.”

  “How many men?”

  “Four.”

  “Did you recognize any of them?”

  “No,” Mrs. Huerta said.

  “What happened?”

  “They hit him.”

  “With what?”

  “Broom handles. Short. You know, they take the broom and saw it off.”

  “Did they say anything to your husband?”

  “Nada. Nothing.”

  “Did he say anything to them?”

  “No.”

  “And you didn’t recognize any of them? They weren’t men from the barrio, the neighborhood?”

  “I never saw them before.”

  One of the little girls looked up at her mother and then turned quickly away.

  “Si, que hay?” Delgado asked immediately.

  “Nothing,” the little girl answered.

  “What’s your name?” Delgado said.

  “Paquita Huerta.”

  “Did you see the men who attacked your father, Paquita?”

  “Yes,” Paquita said, and nodded.

  “Did you know any of those men?”

  The little girl hesitated.

  “Puede usted decirme?”

  “No,” Paquita said. “I did not know any of them.”

  “And you?” Delgado said, turning to the other girl.

  “No. None of them.”

  Delgado searched their eyes. The little girls watched him unblinkingly. He turned to Mrs. Huerta again. “Your husband’s full name is Jose Huerta?” he asked.

  “Jose Vicente Huerta.”

  “How old is he, senora?”

  “Forty-seven.”

  “What does he do for a living?”

  “He is a real estate agent.”

  “Where is his place of business, Mrs. Huerta?”

  “In Riverhead. 1345 Harrison Avenue. It is called J-R Realty.”

  “Does he own the business?”

  “Yes.”

  “No partners?”

  “Yes, he has a partner.”

  “What’s his partner’s name?”

  “Ramon Castaneda. That’s how they got the J-R. From Jose and Ramon.”

  “And where does Mr. Castaneda live?”

  “Two blocks from here. On Fourth Street.”

  “The address?”

  “112 South 4th.”

  “All right, thank you,” Delgado said. “I’ll let you know if we come up with anything.”

  “Por favor,” Mrs. Huerta said, and took both her daughters by their hands and led them into the building.

  The black blouse found in Lewis Scott’s bathroom had come from a clothing store called The Monkey Wrench, on Culver Avenue. Since this was a Sunday, the store was closed. The patrolman on the beat spotted Willis and Genero peering through the plateglass window and casually ambled over to them.

  “Help you fellows?” he asked.

  Both Genero and Willis looked at him. Neither of them recognized him. “You new on the beat, kid?” Genero said. The patrolman was perhaps three or four years older than Genero, but since his rank was lower, Genero felt perfectly free to address him in this manner. The patrolman could not decide whether he was dealing with hoods or fellow law enforcers; the distinction was sometimes difficult to make. He debated whether he should answer smartass or subservient. While he was deciding, Willis said, “I’m Detective Willis. This is my partner, Detective Genero.”

  “Oh,” the patrolman said, managing to make the single word sound eloquent.

  “How long you been on the beat, kid?” Genero asked.

  “Just this past week. They flew me in from Majesta.”

  “Special assignment?”

  “Yeah. This is a glass post, you know, there’s been lots of breakage and looting lately. They almost doubled the force here, from what I understand.”

  “Where’s the regular beat man?”

  “He’s catching a cup of coffee at the diner up the street. Anything I can help you with?”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Haskins. You know him?”

  “Yeah,” Willis said. “Diner on the corner there?”

  “Right.”

  “See you later, kid,” Genero said, and both detectives walked off toward the diner. Behind them, the patrolman shrugged in a manner clearly indicating that he thought all detectives were nogood rotten bastards who were always pulling rank.

  The diner at fifteen minutes before 10:00 was empty save for Patrolman Haskins and a man behind the counter. Haskins was hunched over a cup of coffee. He looked as though he had not had much sleep the night before. Genero and Willis walked to the counter and took stools on either side of him.

  “Hello, Bill,” Willis said.

  Haskins looked up from his coffee. “Hey, hi,” he said.

  “Two coffees,” Genero said to the counterman.

  “You looking for me,” Haskins asked, “or you just happen in?”

  “We’re looking for you.”

  “What’s up?”

  “How you want those coffees?” the counterman asked.

  “Regular,” Willis said.

  “One regular, one black,” Genero said.

  “Two regulars, one black,” the counterman said.

  “One regular, one black,” Genero said.

  “He wants a regular,” the counterman insisted, “and you want a regular and a black.”

  “What are you, a comedian?” Genero said.

  “It’s all on the arm anyway, ain’t it?” the counterman answered.

  “Who says?”

  “The day a cop pays for a cup of coffee in here, that’s the day they give me a parade up Hall Avenue.”

  None of the policemen answered him. They were not, as a matter of fact, in the habit of paying for coffee in local eateries. Neither did they enjoy being reminded of it.

  “Bill, we’re looking for a kid about eighteen, nineteen,” Willis said. “Long blond hair, handlebar mustache. See anybody around like that?”

  “I seen a hundred of them,” Haskins said. “Are you kidding?”

  “This one was wearing a jacket with the fur side inside, the skin side out.”

  Haskins shrugged.

  “Big sun painted on the back of it,” Willis said.

  “Yeah, that rings a bell. I think I seen that jacket around.”

  “Remember the kid wearing it?”

  “Where the hell did I see that jacket?” Haskins asked aloud.

  “He might have been with another kid his age, black beard, black hair.”

  “No,” Haskins said, and shook his head. “An orange sun, right? Like an orange sun with rays coming out of it, right?”

  “That’s right, orange.”

  “Yeah, I seen that jacket,” Haskins said. “Just the other day. Where the hell did I see it?”

  “Two coffees, one regular, one black,” the counterman said, and put them down.

  “Jerry, you ever see a kid in here wearing a fur jacket with a sun painted on the back of it?” Haskins asked.

  “No,” the counterman said flatly, and walked back into the kitchen.

  “White fur, right?” Haskins said to Willis. “On the inside, right? Like white fur?”

  “That’s right”

  “Sure, I seen that goddamn jacket. Just give me a minute, okay?”

  “Sure, take your time,” Willis said.

  Haskins turned to Genero and conversationally said, “I see you got the gold tin. Who’s your rabbi?”

  “I was promoted a long time ago,” Genero said, somewhat offended. “Where the hell have you been?”

  “I guess I don’t keep up with what’s happening around the station house,” Haskins said, and grinned.

  “You kno
w I was promoted.”

  “Yeah, I guess it just slipped my mind,” Haskins said. “How you like the good life, Genero?”

  “Beats laying bricks all to hell,” Genero answered.

  “What doesn’t?” Haskins said.

  “About that jacket…” Willis interrupted.

  “Yeah, yeah, just give me a minute, it’ll come to me,” Haskins said, and lifted his coffee cup in both hands, and sipped at it, and said, “That new kid covering out there?”

  “He’s doing fine, don’t worry about him.”

  “The Monkey Wrench!” Haskins said, snapping his fingers. “That’s where I seen the damn thing. In the window of The Monkey Wrench. Right up the street.”

  “Good,” Willis said, and nodded. “Got any idea who runs that shop?”

  “Yeah, these two dykes who live over on Eighth. Just around the corner from the store.”

  “What’re their names?”

  “Flora Schneider and Frieda something, I don’t know what. Flora and Frieda, everybody calls them.”

  “What’s the address on Eighth?”

  “327 North. The brownstone right around the corner.”

  “Thanks,” Willis said.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” Genero yelled to the kitchen.

  The counterman did not answer.

  Detective Arthur Brown was a black man with a very dark complexion, kinky hair, large nostrils, and thick lips. He was impressively good looking, though unfortunately not cast in the Negro mold acceptable to most white people, including liberals. In short, he did not resemble Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, or Adam Clayton Powell. He resembled only himself, which was quite a lot since he was six feet four inches tall and weighed 220 pounds. Arthur Brown was the sort of black man who caused white men to cross the street when he approached, on the theory that this mean-looking son of a bitch (mean-looking only because he was big and black) would undoubtedly mug them or knife them or do something possibly worse, God knew what. Even after Brown identified himself as a police detective, there were many white people who still harbored the suspicion that he was really some kind of desperate criminal impersonating an officer.

  It was therefore a pleasant surprise for Brown to come across a witness to the grocery store shootings who did not seem at all intimidated by either his size or his color. The person was a little old lady who carried a bright-blue umbrella on her arm, despite the fact that the day was clear, with that sharp penetrating bite in the air that comes only with October. The umbrella matched the lady’s eyes, which were as clear and as sharp as the day itself. She wore a little flowered hat on her head. If she had been a younger woman, the black coat she was wearing might have been called a maxi. She leaped to her feet as Brown came through the front door of the grocery, and said to him in a brisk resonant voice, “Ah, at last!”