Manetti shrugged. “You’re asking me? Mister, I run a candy store.”
Hank turned to the rear booth. “How about it?” he said.
A boy with heavy shoulders and muscular forearms studied Hank with pale hooded eyes. He nodded imperceptibly. “Come on over,” he said.
Hank walked to the booth. The boys sitting there ranged in age from fifteen, he guessed, to nineteen. The one who’d called him over was the oldest of the group, and the biggest. He wore his black hair combed flat against his skull, the sideburns long. A silver identification bracelet dangled from his left wrist. There was a scar on the forearm, several inches above the bracelet. His brows were heavy and black, shading thickly lidded blue, almost gray eyes. When he spoke, his lips barely moved.
“Sit down,” he said. “Concho, get the district attorney a chair.”
One of the boys slid out of the booth and went through the curtained doorway at the rear of the shop. When he returned, he put the chair down at the head of the table and then took his position in the booth again. Hank sat.
“My name’s Diablo,” the oldest boy said. “You know what that means?”
“It means devil,” Hank answered.
“That’s right.” He smiled thinly and then looked to the other boys. One of them nodded.
“Are you Spanish?”
“Me?” Diablo said. “Me? Cut it out, willya?”
“Diablo is a Spanish word.”
“Yeah?” the boy said, surprised. “I thought it was Italian. I’m Italian.”
“Diablo Degenero,” Hank said. “Your real name is Carmine. You’re the so-called warlord of the Thunderbirds.”
“That’s right,” Diablo said. “Boys, this is the district attorney. These are some of the boys. Concho, Nickie and Bud. What can we do for you?”
“You can answer a few questions,” Hank said. “Either here or downtown. It’s up to you.”
“We’ll answer them here,” Diablo said. “If we like the questions.”
“If you don’t like the questions, you can answer them downtown. With a stenographer present.”
“You got a lot of courage, Mr. District Attorney,” Diablo said. “Coming in here without an escort of bulls.”
“I don’t need any detectives,” Hank said.
“No?”
“No. Do you think I do?”
Diablo shrugged. “Mr. District Attorney, I would say—”
“The name is Bell,” Hank corrected. “Mr. Bell.”
Diablo was silent for a moment. “Mr. District Att—”
“Mr. Bell,” Hank said.
Diablo stared at him. Then he smiled again, the same thin mocking smile. He shrugged. “Sure. Mr. Bell. Whatever you say, Mr. Bell. What are your questions, Mr. Bell?”
“Is Danny Di Pace a member of your gang?”
“What gang, Mr. Bell?”
“The Thunderbirds.”
“The Thunderbirds ain’t a gang, Mr. Bell. It’s a social and athletic club. Ain’t that right, boys?”
The boys in the booth nodded. They did not take their eyes from Hank.
“Is Danny a member of the club?” he asked.
“Danny Di Pace, did you say, Mr. Bell?”
“Yes.”
“Danny Di Pace. Now, let me see. Oh yes, that’s right. He lives on this block, don’t he?”
“You know he does.”
“Yes, that’s right, so he does. A very nice kid, Danny Di Pace. But I hear he got himself into a little trouble. He went over there to Spanish Harlem and got himself jumped by some little spic bastard. Is that the Danny Di Pace you mean, Mr. Bell?”
“Yes,” Hank said.
“Now what was your question, Mr. Bell?”
Hank paused for just a moment. Then he said, “You’re wasting my time, hotshot, and my time is valuable. Either I get straight answers, or you get dragged into my office. Now take it whichever way you want it.”
“Why, Mr. Bell,” Diablo said innocently. “I am answering you as straight as I know how. I just forgot your question, that was all.”
“Okay,” Hank said, “suit yourself.” He shoved back his chair. “I’ll see you all at Leonard Street. We may keep you there a while, so don’t make any extended plans.” He turned and started for the door. There was an excited buzzing at the table behind him.
Then Diablo called, “Hey!”
Hank did not turn.
“Mr. Bell! Mr. Bell!”
Hank stopped. Slowly, he faced the table. Diablo was smiling, somewhat sheepishly.
“What’s the matter? Can’t you take a little joke?”
“Not on the county’s time. Are you ready to talk to me?”
“Sure. Come on, sit down. Don’t get excited. We clown around all the time. Makes life interesting, you know? Come on, sit down.”
Hank went back to the table and sat.
“You want some coffee, Mr. Bell? Hey, Joey, coffee all around, huh?”
“Now what about Danny?” Hank said.
“I can tell you this. If you give that kid the electric chair, you’ll be making a big mistake.”
“I don’t set the sentence for anybody,” Hank said. “I only prosecute the case.”
“That’s what I mean. Can I talk frank, Mr. Bell?”
“As frankly as you like.”
“Okay. Them three guys are innocent.”
Hank said nothing.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Diablo said. “They killed a guy. And he was blind. But there’s more here than meets the eye, Mr. Bell. I mean it.”
“Like what?”
“Like, for example, there was a bop scheduled for that night. Now, I’m talking to you like a goddamn brother, giving you inside dope I don’t have to give you, right?”
“Go ahead.”
“I know we were supposed to bop because I set the thing up with this spic they call Gargantua. He’s their warlord. The Horsemen’s, you know? He takes dope. I happen to know that for a fact. Half the guys on the Horsemen take heroin. I think that’s even where they got the name for their club. Horse, you know? H. Heroin. One thing for the Birds, we don’t touch any of that stuff. We break a guy’s arm, we find out he’s on junk. Ain’t that right, boys?”
The boys nodded in self-righteous agreement.
“Anyway, it was me set up the thing. So I know where it was supposed to be, and all that. And we decided there wasn’t going to be no sneak raid or anything like that. We was supposed to meet like there’s a project on a Hun’ Twenty-fifth. Right there. And that was where we was supposed to have it out, you know? At ten o’clock.”
“What’s your point?” Hank asked.
“My point is this. You think it makes sense that three of the Birds would go into enemy turf looking for trouble when we got enough trouble scheduled for later that night? It don’t make sense, does it? They were out for a walk, that was all. Just out for a walk.”
“Why’d they walk over to Spanish Harlem?”
“How do I know? Maybe they just wandered over there by accident. Maybe they were looking for a little shtupie, you know? Lots of guys, they fool around with the Spanish girls. They’re very hot people, the Spanish.”
“So they walked into Spanish Harlem, just wandered over there,” Hank said, “and jumped a blind boy and stabbed him to death. And you say they’re innocent.”
“Not of stabbing him to death. Oh, they killed that little spic, all right.”
“Then of just what are they innocent?”
“Of murder,” Diablo said.
“I see.”
“This kid pulled a knife on them, didn’t you know?”
“So I’ve been told,” Hank said wearily.
“It’s the truth. I been asking around. I mean, there are some spies I know who are coolies, and really, you know, okay.”