“If you’re wondering what Thunderbirds look like in their leisure time, you’re looking at them now,” Larsen said.
The boys looked entirely harmless. Sitting on the wooden newsstand outside the store, they chatted and laughed quietly among themselves.
“The girl lives in that building alongside the candy store,” Larsen said. “I phoned before I left the squad, so she knows we’re coming. Don’t mind the dirty looks on the faces of the yardbirds. They know I’m a bull. I’ve kicked their asses around the corner more times than I can count.”
The boys’ conversation tapered off and then stopped as Hank and Larsen approached. Tight-lipped, inscrutable, they studied the pair as they entered the tenement. The entrance hallway was dark and narrow. A stench hit the nostrils immediately, the stench of bodies and of body waste, the stench of cooking, the stench of sleeping and waking, the stench of life contained, confined.
“I don’t know how the hell people manage to live here,” Larsen said. “Some of them make good salaries, too, would you believe it? You’d think they’d get out. This ain’t good for people. You live like a pig, you begin to feel like a pig. She’s on the third floor.”
They climbed the narrow steps. He could remember climbing similar steps when he was a boy. The façade of Harlem might have changed, but the guts were the same. Even the stench was familiar. As a boy, he had urinated behind the first-floor staircase, adding to the stench. You live like a pig, you begin to feel like a pig.
“This is it,” Larsen said, stopping before an apartment marked 3B. “Both parents work, so the kid’ll be alone. She’s sixteen, but she looks a lot older and a lot harder. She seems to be a nice kid, though.” He knocked on the door.
The door opened almost instantly, as if the girl had been standing behind it waiting for the knock. She was a dark-haired girl with wide brown eyes and clean features. Lipstick was the only make-up she wore. She wore a red peasant skirt and a white blouse, and her hair was caught at the back of her neck with a red ribbon.
“Hello,” she said, “come in.”
They entered the apartment. The linoleum was worn, and the plaster was chipped and peeling, and an electrical outlet hung loose from the wall, its naked copper wires exposed. But the apartment was scrupulously clean.
“Miss Rugiello, this is Mr. Bell, the district attorney.”
“How do you do?” the girl said. She spoke in a low whisper, as if she were afraid of being overheard.
“How do you do?” Hank said.
“Would you like some coffee or something? I can put some on. It’d only take a minute.”
“No, thank you,” Hank said.
The girl nodded, as if, convinced beforehand that he would not accept her hospitality, she were now affirming her conviction.
“Well... sit down... won’t you?”
They sat at a kitchen table with an enamel top, the girl sitting at the far end, Hank and Larsen taking chairs on opposite sides of her.
“What’s your first name, miss?” Hank said.
“Angela,” she said.
“I have a daughter almost your age,” Hank said.
“Yeah?” the girl said in seeming interest, but she watched Hank suspiciously.
“Yes.”
“That’s nice,” Angela said.
“Mr. Bell would like to ask you some questions,” Larsen said.
“Yes?” She put the word almost as a question, but she nodded simultaneously, indicating that she knew why the district attorney was here.
“About what happened on the night Morrez was stabbed,” Larsen said. “About the knives.”
“Yes?” she said again, and again it was almost a query.
“Yes,” Hank said. “Can you tell me what happened in your own words?”
“Well, I didn’t see the stabbing or anything. You understand that, don’t you? I didn’t have anything at all to do with the stabbing.”
“Yes, we understand that.”
“Is it wrong that I took the knives? Can I get in trouble for taking the knives?”
“No,” Hank said. “Tell us what happened.”
“Well, Carol and I were sitting on the front stoop downstairs. Carol is my cousin. Carol Rugiello. It was, you know, early yet. Just after supper. You know. Quiet. And none of the fellows was around, but we figured that was because they were getting ready to go bopping. It was decided that afternoon, you see. About the stuff being on between them and the Horsemen, I mean.”
“The Spanish gang?” Hank asked.
“Yeah, the spies,” she said gently, nodding. “They had a truce on before, them and the Birds, but that afternoon the warlords met and decided the stuff was on again. So we knew they were going bopping that night. And there’s a lot of things they have to do before they go, so we figured that’s why none of them was around. Carol’s boy friend is the warlord of the Thunderbirds, so she knew all about it.”
“Do you have a boy friend on the club?”
“Well, no, not a steady or anything like that. I go to their jumps and like that. But I ain’t really interested in none of them. I mean, not for a boy friend. But they’re nice boys. I mean, they seem like nice boys, you know?”
“Yes, go on.”
“Well, we were sitting there on the front stoop, and it was very quiet. It looked like rain. I remember saying to Carol it looked like it was going to rain...”
CAROL: That’s what we need, all right, is a little rain.
ANGELA: I wouldn’t mind it. It’s been hot all day.
CAROL: I wouldn’t neither. It’s what I said, ain’t it?
ANGELA: I thought you were being sarcastic.
CAROL: No. (She pauses, sighs.) Listen, let’s take a walk or something. I’m dying of boredom here on the stoop.
ANGELA: All right, come on. The fellows won’t be back till late, anyway.
CAROL: They haven’t even started yet. It ain’t even dark.
(They rise from the stoop. They are both wearing blue flaring skirts and white sleeveless blouses. Carol is the taller of the two girls, and the older. They are dressed in what might seem good taste were it not for the high pointed thrust of their brassières. They walk, too, with an exaggerated femininity, as if anxious to emphasize their femaleness in what must seem to them a male-dominated society. They pass Second Avenue and continue westward. Some boys on the corner whistle at them, and they tilt their teenage noses to the sky, aloofly but not without a smug female satisfaction. They are pretty girls, and they know it. Carol knows, too, that she is good in bed. She has been told so. Angela is a virgin, but she tries hard to give an impression of vast sexual knowledge. As they approach Third Avenue, it begins to rain. Running, their skirts flapping about their legs, they duck into a doorway and then look up toward Lexington Avenue.)
CAROL: Hey! What’s that? Up the street! Look!
ANGELA (peering westward, where the thunderclouds are banked against the horizon): It’s Tower, ain’t it? Who’s that with him?
CAROL: Batman and Danny. They’re running!
ANGELA: But I thought...
CAROL: Oh God, they’re all full of blood!
(The boys break across Third Avenue in long loping sprints. Behind them is the sound of a police siren. Fear is mingled with the excitement on their faces. Their hands are drenched with blood. Each is still carrying a bloody knife.)
TOWER (spotting the girls): Hey... hey! Hey, c’mere, quick!
CAROL: What is it? What happened?
TOWER: Never mind, the cops are behind us. Take these! Get rid of them! Come on! Come on, take them! (The knives are offered. They ring the girls in dripping steel. Carol is frozen.)