Ed McBain (7 page)

"What do you mean, Harry ain't nothing to you?"

"He ain't," Aiello said.

"A," I told him, "you're looking for a cracked head."

"I ain't looking for nothing. What the hell, he's a killer. He's wanted everywhere."

"So what?"

"So that don't make him my brother, that's all. I never killed nobody."

"He's from the neighborhood," I said, and I tried to put a warning in my voice, but Aiello didn't catch it.

"So it's not my fault the neighborhood stinks."

"Stinks!" I walked away from the window and over to Aiello. "Who said it stinks?"

"Well, it ain't Fifth Avenue."

"That don't mean it stinks."

"Well, a guy like Harry..."

"What about Harry?"

"He ... well ... he don't help us none."

"Help us with who? What're you talkin' about?"

"Help us with nobody! He stinks just the way the neighborhood..."

I was ready to bust him one, when the shooting began again outside.

I rushed over to the window. The shooting was all coming from the streets, with Harry not returning the fire. It seemed like every cop in the world was firing up at that window. The people on the roofs were all ducking because they didn't want to pick up no stray lead. I poked my head out because we were on the other side of the alleyway.

"You see him?" Beef asked.

"No, He's playing it cool."

"A man shouldn't walk around free after he kills people," Aiello said.

"Shut your mouth, A," I told him.

"Well, it's the truth."

"Shut up, you dumb crumb. What the hell do you know about it?"

"I know it ain't right. Who'll he kill next? Suppose he kills your own mother?"

"What's he want to kill my old lady for? You're talking like a man with a paper..."

"I'm only saying. A guy like Harry, he stinks up the whole works."

"I'll talk to you later, jerk," I said. "I want to watch this."

The cops were throwing tear gas now. Two of the shells hit the brick wall of the building, and bounced off, and went flying down to the street again. They fired two more, and one of them hung on the sill as if it was going in, and then dropped. The fourth one went in the window, and out it came again, and I whispered, "That's the boy, Harry," and then another one came up and sailed right into the window, and I guess Harry couldn't get to it that time because the cops in the hallway started a barrage.

There were fire trucks down there now, and hoses were wrapped all over the street, and I wondered if they were going to try burning Harry out. The gas was coming out his window and sailing up the alleyway, and I got a whiff of the apple blossoms myself, that's what it smells like, and it smelled good, but I knew Harry was inside that apartment and hardly able to see. He come over to the window and tried to suck in some air, but the boys in the street kept up the barrage, trying to get him, and I felt sorrier'n hell for the poor guy.

He started firing then and throwing things out the window, chairs, and a lamp, and an electric iron, and the cops held off for just a few sees, and Harry copped some air, but not enough because they were shooting more tear gas shells up there, and they were also firing, and you could tell they had some tommies in the crowd because no .38 ever fired like that, and no carbine ever did either. I was wishing I had a gun of my own because I wanted to help Harry, and I felt as if my hands were tied, but what the hell could I do? I just kept sweating it out, and Harry wasn't firing through the window anymore, and then all of a sudden everything in the street stopped and everything inside the apartment was still.

"Manzetti!" the cop in the hallway yelled.

Harry coughed and said, "What?"

"You coming out?"

"I killed a cop," Harry yelled back.

"Come on out, Manzetti!"

"I killed a cop!" Harry yelled, and he sounded as if he was crying from the gas those bastards had fed him. "I killed a cop, I killed a cop," he kept saying over and over again.

"You only wounded him," the cop yelled, and I shouted, "He's lying, Harry."

"Get me a priest," Harry yelled.

"Why he wants a priest?" Beef asked.

"It's a trick," I said. "He wants a shield."

"No dice," the cop answered. "Come on, Manzetti, throw your weapons out."

"Get me a priest."

"Come on, Manzetti."

"No!" he screamed. "You lousy punk, no!"

"Manzetti..."

"Get me a priest," Harry shouted. "I'm scared I'll ... get me a priest."

"What'd he say?" I said to Beef.

"I didn't catch," Beef said, and then the firing started again. It must have gone on for about ten minutes, and then all of a sudden, just the way it started, that's the way it stopped again.

"They got him," Aiello said.

"Bull," I answered.

I kept watching the street. It was beginning to get dark now, and the cops were turning on their spots and playing them up at Harry's window. There wasn't a sound coming from the apartment.

"They got him," Aiello said again.

"You need straightening, you jerk," I told him.

The streetlights came on, and after about a half hour a few more cops went into the building.

"Harry!" I yelled from the window.

There was no answer.

"Harry!"

Then we heard the shots in the hallway, and then quiet again, and then the sound of a door being busted, and then that goddamn telephone someplace in the building began ringing again.

About ten minutes later, they carried Harry out on a stretcher.

Dead.

We hung around the streets late that night. There'd been a big fuss when they carried Harry out, everybody yelling and shouting from the rooftops, as if this was the Roman arena or something. They didn't realize what a guy Harry was, and what a tough fight he'd put up.

"They got him, all right," Ferdy said, "but it wasn't easy."

"He took two of them with him," I said.

"A guy like Harry, it pains you to see him go," Ferdy said.

"Yeah," I answered.

We were an quiet for a little while.

"Where's A?" Beef asked.

"I don't know," I told him. "The hell with that little jerk anyway."

"He got an inside wire, all right," Ferdy said. "He was the first cat to tumble to this."

"Yeah," I said. I was thinking about the look on Donlevy's face when those slugs ripped him up.

"How'd he tip to it, anyway?"

"He spotted Harry in the hall. Going up to Louise."

"Oh." Ferdy was quiet for a while. "Harry see him?"

"Yeah."

"He should have been more careful."

"A guy like Harry, he got lots of things on his mind. You think he's gonna worry about a snot nose like A?"

"No, but what I mean ... somebody blew the whistle on him."

"Sure, but that don't..." I cut myself dead. "Hey!" I said.

"What?"

"Aiello."

"Aiello what?"

"I'll bet he done it! Why, I'll bet that little crumb done it!"

"Tipped the cops to Harry, you mean?"

"Sure! Who else? Why, that little..."

"Now, hold it, Danny. Now don't jump to..."

"Who else knew it?"

"Anybody could have spotted Harry."

"Sure, except nobody did." I waited a minute, thinking, and then I said, "Come on."

We began combing the neighborhood. We went down to the poolroom, and we combed the bowling alley, and then we hit the rooftops, but Aiello was no place around. We checked the dance in the church basement, and we checked the Y, but there was still no sign of him.

"Maybe he's home," Ferdy said.

"Don't be a jerk."

"It's worth a try."

"Okay," I said.

We went to the building where Aiello lived. In the hallway, Beef said, "Somebody here."

"Shut up," Ferdy said. We went up to Aiello's apartment and knocked on the door. "Who is it?" he answered. "Me," I said. "Danny."

"What do you want, Danny?"

"I want in. Open up."

"I'm in bed."

"Then get out of bed."

"I'm not feeling so hot, Danny."

"Come on, we got some pot."

"I don't feel like none."

"This is good stuff."

"I ain't interested, Danny."

"Open up, you jerk," I told him. "You want the Law to know we're holding?"

"Danny, I..."

"Open up!" I began pounding on the door and I knew that'd get him out of bed, if that's where he was, because his folks are a quiet type who don't like trouble with the neighbors.

In a few seconds, Aiello opened the door.

I smiled at him and said, "Hello, A."

We all went inside. "Your people home?"

"They went visiting."

"Oh, visiting, huh? Very nice."

"Yeah."

"Like you was doing with Louise this afternoon, huh?"

"Yeah, I suppose," Aiello said.

"When you spotted Harry."

"Yeah."

"And then what'd you do?"

"I told you."

"You went into Louise's apartment, that right?"

"Yes, I..." Aiello paused, as if he was trying to remember what he'd told me before. "No, I didn't go in. I went down in the street to look for you."

"You like this gang, A?"

"Yeah, it's good," Aiello said. "Then why you lying to me?"

"I ain't lying."

"You know you wasn't looking for me."

"I was."

"Look, tell me the truth. I'm a fair guy. What do I care if you done something you shouldn't have."

"I didn't do nothing I shouldn't have," Aiello said. "Well, you did do something then, huh?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, A, what'd you do?"

"Nothing."

"I mean, after you left Louise?"

"I went to look for you."

"And before you found me?"

"Nothing."

"Did you blow the whistle on Harry?"

"Hell no!"

"You did, didn't you? Look, he's dead, what do I care what you done or didn't do? I ain't the Law."

"I didn't turn him in."

"Come on, A."

"He deserved what he got. But I didn't turn him in."

"He deserved it, huh?"

"Yeah. He was rotten. Anybody rotten like Harry..."

"Shut up!"

"...should have the whistle..."

"Shut up, I said!" I slapped him across the mouth. "Did you?"

He dummied up. "Answer me!"

"No."

I slapped him again. "Answer me!"

"No."

"You did, you punk! You called the cops on Harry, and now he's dead, and you ain't fit to lick his boots!"

"He was a killer!" Aiello yelled. "That's why I called them. He was no good. No damn good. He was a stink in the neigh..."

But I wasn't listening no more.

We fixed Mr. Aiello, all right.

Just the way Harry would have liked it.

When I was twelve, and the family moved to the Bronx, my commute to school was a short one because we lived on 217th Street between Barnes and Bronxwood avenues, right across the street from Olinville Junior High School. Later, I would walk the ten blocks every weekday morning to Evander Childs High School on Gun Hill Road. But when I won a scholarship to the Art Students League and was later accepted as an art student at Cooper Union, subways and elevated trains from the Bronx to Manhattan became a routine part of my life. It was inevitable, I suppose, that a native New Yorker would one day write a story set in a subway car. This one was published in
Manhunt
in September of 1953. It carried the Hunt Collins byline.

S
HE WAS SHOVED INTO THE SUBWAY CAR AT
G
RAND
C
EN
tral. It was July, and the passengers reeked of sweat and after-office beers. She wore a loose silk dress, buttoned high on the throat, and she wished for a moment that she had worn something lower cut. The overhead fans in the cars were going but the air hung over the packed passengers like a damp clinging blanket.

She was packed in tightly, with a stout woman standing next to her on her right, a tall thin man on her left, and a pair of broad shoulders in front of her. The fat woman was wearing cheap perfume, and the aroma assailed her nostrils, caused her senses to revolt. The thin man on her left held a thinly folded copy of the
New York Times.
He sported a black mustache under his curving nose. The nose was buried in the newspaper, and she glanced at the paper and then took her eyes away from the headlines.

There was a slight movement behind her. She leaned forward. The broad shoulders in front of her shoved back indignantly. Whoever was behind her moved again, and she felt a knee pressing into the backs of her own knees.

She moved again, away from the pressure of the knee, and then she tried to look over her shoulder, turning slightly to her left. Her elbow brushed the
Times,
and the thin man lifted the paper gingerly, shook it as if it were crawling with ants, and then went back to his reading.

The knee was suddenly removed.

She thought,
No, I didn't mean you should...

She was suddenly aware of something warm touching the back of her leg. She almost leaped forward because the touch had surprised her with its abruptness. Her silk dress was thin, and she wore no girdle. She felt the warmth spread until it formed the firm outline of fingers touching her flesh.

A tremor of excitement traveled the length of her body, spreading from the warmth on her leg. She moved again, and the stout woman on her right shot her an angry glance, but the hand was taken from her leg.

The excitement in her ebbed.

She stood stock-still, wondering when it would start again. She almost didn't breathe.

It seemed as if there would be no more. She moved her leg impatiently, but the excitement that had flared within her was dead, and now she felt only the oppressive heat of the train. The car jogged along, and she cursed her foolishness in trying the subway to begin with. She thought of the thousands of girls who rode home every night and then the heat overwhelmed her again, and she was sorry for herself once more.

The train rounded a curve, and she lost her balance. She lurched backward, felt the smooth, gentle hands close on her, then release her instantly as she righted herself.