“What... what was it?” Danny asked. He was beginning to perspire. He wiped sweat from his brow and his upper lip.
“Read back the question, please.”
“‘With this knife?’”
“Well, Danny?”
“What if it is my knife?”
“Answer the question!”
“Yes. Yes, it is.”
“Thank you. Now tell me what happened on the night of July tenth.”
“I already told you.”
“Tell the court.”
“We were out for a walk,” Danny said, almost by rote. “Morrez jumped us. He had a knife in his hand. So we protected ourselves.”
“Whose idea was it to go for a walk?”
“We just got the idea. All of us together.”
“Who was it who first said, ‘Let’s go for a walk’?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Was it you?”
“No.”
“Aposto?”
“No.”
“Then it must have been Reardon.”
“I suppose so. Maybe it was Tower who got the idea to go for a walk.”
“Did he say he wanted to go for a walk?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Or did he say he wanted to go into enemy turf to stir up a little trouble?”
“Objection!”
“It was his idea to go into Spanish Harlem and start a little trouble, wasn’t it?”
“Objection!”
“Your Honor, you just warned...”
“And I must warn you, Mr. Bell, against leading your witness. Objection sustained. Strike both those questions.”
“Did Tower Reardon,” Hank said, “when he first brought up the subject of a walk, suggest that you walk into Spanish Harlem?”
“I don’t remember. I think he just said, ‘Let’s take a walk,’ or something like that.”
“Didn’t he say where?”
“Maybe.”
“Did he say, ‘Let’s walk over to Park Avenue’?”
“Maybe.”
“Did he say, ‘Let’s walk into Spanish Harlem?’”
“Maybe.”
“All right, when you got into Spanish Harlem, what did you do?”
“We started up the street...” Danny turned to Samalson. “Do I have to answer that?”
“The question is acceptable. You will answer it, please.”
“We just walked up the street.”
“Who was the first of you to spot Morrez?”
“I... I don’t know.”
“Tower?”
“Yes, I... I guess so. I don’t know. What difference does it make? We all stabbed him!”
A murmur went up in the courtroom. Hank leaned closer to Danny, and the murmur suddenly died.
“Why did you stab him, Danny?”
“He jumped us. He had a knife.”
“He had a harmonica, Danny!”
“What?”
“Isn’t that true? Didn’t he have a harmonica? It wasn’t a knife at all, was it?”
“I... I don’t know. It looked like a knife.”
“Then you knew it was a harmonica?”
“No, no, I’m just saying it looked like...”
“What did?”
“The harmonica, I told you! You just said it was a harmonica, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but when did you realize it was a harmonica?”
“Just this minute. I didn’t know until you—”
“You knew it was a harmonica when you stabbed him, didn’t you?”
“No. No, I thought it was a knife.”
“Who stabbed him first?”
“T-T-Tower.”
There was not a sound in the courtroom now. For Danny and Hank, the courtroom did not exist. They faced each other with the sweat streaking their faces, each straining forward as if to establish a contact which was somehow denied them.
“And who next?”
“Batman.”
“And then you?”
“Yes, yes. I don’t want to answer no more questions. I don’t want to—”
“How many times did you stab him?”
“Four, four.”
“Why?”
“I told you. He...”
“Why, Danny?”
“I don’t know!”
“You knew it was a harmonica, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
“No!”
“You knew! You knew! Tell me the truth, Danny!”
Randolph leaped from his chair. “Just a minute here! Just a—”
“Tell me the truth! You knew it was a harmonica. You saw it!”
“Yes, yes, I knew,” Danny shouted. “All right? I knew.”
“Then why did you stab him?”
“I... I...”
“Why? Why, Danny? Why?”
“The... the... the others. Because the others... the others...”
“The others stabbed him?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“And so you stabbed him, too?”
“Yes. I stabbed him four times! What do you want from me? I stabbed him, I stabbed him, I stabbed him!”
“You didn’t stab him!” Hank shouted. “You’re lying!”
“What?” Danny said. “What?”
And then, before anyone fully realized what was happening, before the shock of Hank’s hurled words had worn off, he whirled to his table, snatched a blue folder from its top and thrust it at the court clerk. “I want this marked as evidence,” he said rapidly. “It’s a report from the New York City Police Laboratory on the weapons used in the Morrez slaying. The report states that the blades of only two of the knives were stained with blood. The blade of the third knife was clean. Only the handle of that knife had any blood on it.” He whirled back to Danny. “That was the knife you identified as yours, Danny! You turned the knife around, didn’t you? You only pretended to stab Morrez. You only struck his body with the handle of your knife!”
“No, no, I stabbed him!”
“Don’t lie, Danny! What the hell are you afraid of?”
“Order! Order!”
“I stabbed him, I stabbed him!”
“You’re lying!”
“I... I... I...”
And suddenly Danny Di Pace went limp. He slumped back into the chair, utterly resigned now, shaking his head over and over again, beginning to cry gently and quietly like a whimpering animal.
“Did you stab him?” Hank asked. His voice was almost a whisper.
“I never stabbed anybody in my life,” Danny mumbled through his tears. “Never, never, never. I never hurt nobody. Never, oh, Jesus, never, never.”
“All right, Danny,” Hank said gently.
“But I... I didn’t want them to think I was afraid. How could I let them know I was afraid? How could I do that?”
The reporters, led by Mike Barton, had already started their rush for the back doors. Mary Di Pace, sitting with her husband in the first row of benches, got to her feet and made an involuntary move toward her son.
“Order!” Samalson said quickly. “We will recess until two o’clock this afternoon. Will the district attorney and the defense counselors join me in my chambers immediately?” He rose.
“All rise!” the clerk shouted, and as Samalson swept out of the room, the court suddenly disintegrated into a rushing swirl of moving figures and raised voices.
On the witness chair, Danny Di Pace sobbed silently. Hank pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket and said, “Here, son. Dry your eyes. It’s all over.”
“I shouldn’t be crying,” Danny said, trying to hold back the racking sobs. “Crying is for cowards.”
“Crying is for men, too,” Hank said, and he was grateful when Danny took the handkerchief.
He was stopped by Mary and her husband, stopped by the defense attorneys, stopped by the reporters who had made their rush calls and then hurried back into the courtroom. And finally he reached the side of his wife and daughter, and he held them to him, and Karin kissed him swiftly and cleanly and then looked up into his face, her eyes sparkling.