"Sarcasm is a weapon of the intellectual, Savage. Everybody, especially your newspaper, knows that cops are just stupid, plodding beasts of burden."
"My paper never said that, Lieutenant."
"No?" Byrnes shrugged. "Well, you can use it in tomorrow's edition."
"We're trying to help," Savage said. "We don't like cops getting killed anymore than you do." Savage paused. "What about the teen-age gang idea?"
"We haven't even considered it This isn't the way those gangs operate. Why the hell do you guys try to pin everything that happens in this city on the teen-agers? My son is a teenager, and he doesn't go around killing cops."
"That's encouraging," Savage said.
"The gang phenomenon is a peculiar one to understand," Byrnes said. "I'm not saying we've got it licked, but we do have it under control. If we've stopped the street tumbles, and the knifings and shootings, then the gangs have become nothing more than social clubs. As long as they stay that way, I'm happy."
"Your outlook is a strangely optimistic one," Savage said coolly. "My newspaper doesn't happen to believe the street rumbles have stopped. My newspaper is of the opinion that the death of those two cops may be traced directly to these 'social clubs.'"
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"So what the hell do you want me to do about it? Round up every kid in the city and shake him down? So your goddamn newspaper can sell another million copies?"
"No. But we're going ahead with our own investigation. And if we crack this, it won't make the 87th Precinct look too good."
"It won't make Homicide North look too good, either. And it won't make the Police Commissioner look good. It'll make everybody in the department look like amateurs as contrasted with the super-sleuths of your newspaper."
"Yes, it might," Savage agreed.
"I have a few words of advice for you, Savage."
"Yes?"
"The kids around here don't like questions asked. You're not dealing with Snob Hill teen-agers who tie on a doozy by drinking a few cans of beer. You're dealing with kids whose code is entirely different from yours or mine. Don't get yourself killed."
"I won't," Savage said, smiling resplendently.
"And one other thing."
"Yes?"
"Don't foul up my precinct. I got enough headaches without you and your half-assed reporters stirring up more trouble."
"What's more important to you, Lieutenant?" Savage
asked. "My not fouling up your precinct—or my not getting killed?"
Byrnes smiled and then began filling his pipe. "They both amount to about the same thing," he said.
The call from Danny Gimp came in fifty minutes. The desk Sergeant took the call, and then plugged it in to Carella's line.
"87th Detective Squad," he said. "Carella here."
"Danny Gimp."
"Hello, Danny, what've you got?"
"I found Ordiz."
"Where?"
"This a favor, or business?" Danny asked.
"Business," Carella said tersely. "Where do I meet you?"
"You know Jenny's?"
"You kidding?"
"I'm serious."
"If Ordiz is a junkie, what's he doing on Whore Street?"
"He's blind in some broad's pad. You're lucky you get a few mumbles out of him."
"Whose pad?"
"That's what we meet for, Steve. No?"
"Call me 'Steve' face-to-face, and you'll lose some teeth, pal," Carella said.
"Okay, Detective Carella. You want this dope, I'll be in Jenny's in five minutes. Bring some loot."
"Is Ordiz heeled?"
"He may be."
"I'll see you," Carella said.
La Via de Putas was a street which ran North and South for a total of three blocks. The Indians probably had their name for it, and the teepees that lined the path in those rich days of beaver pelts and painted beads most likely did a thriving business even then. As the Indians retreated to their happy hunting grounds and the well-worn paths turned to paved roads, the teepees gave way to apartment buildings, and the practitioners of the world's oldest profession claimed the plush-lined cubby holes as their own. There was a time when the street was called Piazza Putana by the Italian immigrants, and The Hussy Hole by the Irish immigrants. With the Puerto Rican influx, the street had changed its language —but not its sole source of income. The Puerto Ricans referred to it as La Via de Putas. The cops called it "Whore Street." In any language, you paid your money, and you took your choice.
The gals who ran the sex emporiums called themselves Mama-this or Mama-that. Mama Theresa's was the best-known joint on the Street. Mama Carmen's was the filthiest. Mama Luz's had been raided by the cops sixteen times because of some of the things that went on behind its crumbling brick facade. The cops were not above visiting any of the various Mamas on social calls, too. The business calls included occasional raids and occasional rake-offs. The raids were interesting sometimes, but they were usually conducted by members of the Vice Squad who were unfamiliar with the working arrangements some of the 87th Precinct cops had going with the madams. Nothing can screw up a good deal like an ignorant cop.
Carella, perhaps, was an ignorant cop. Or an honest one, depending how you looked at it. He met Danny Gimp at Jenny's, which was a small cafe on the corner of Whore Street, a cafe which allegedly served old world absinthe, complete with wormwood and water to mix the stuff in. No old-world absinthe drinker had ever been fooled by Jenny's stuff, but the cafe still served as a sort of no-man's land between the respectable workaday world of the proletariat, and the sinful shaded halls of the brothels. A man could hang his hat in Jenny's, and a man could have a drink there, and a man could pretend he was on a fraternity outing there, and with the third drink, he was ready to rationalize what he was about to do. Jenny's was something necessary to the operation of the Street. Jenny's, to stretch a point, served the same purpose as the shower stall does in a honeymoon suite.
On July 26th, with the heat baking the black paint that covered the lower half of Jenny's front window—a window which had been smashed in some dozen times since the establishment was founded—Carella and Danny were not interested in the Crossing-the-Social-Barrier aspects of Jenny's bistro. They were interested in a man named Luis "Dizzy" Ordiz, who may or may not have pumped a total of six bullets into a total of two cops. Bush was out checking on the burglar named Flannagan. Carella had come down in a squad car driven by a young rookie named Kling. The squad car was parked outside now, with Kling leaning against the fender, his head erect, sweltering even in his Summer blues.
Tufts of blond hair stuck out of his lightweight hat. He was hot. He was hot as hell.
Inside, Carella was hot, too. "Where is he?" he asked Danny.
Danny rolled the ball of his thumb against the ball of his forefinger. "I haven't had a square meal in days," he said.
Carella took a ten spot from his wallet and fed it to Danny.
"He's at Mama Luz's," Danny said. "He's with a broad they call La Flamenca. She ain't so hot."
"What's he doing there?"
"He copped from a pusher a couple of hours back. Three decks of H. He stumbled over to Mama Luz with amorous intentions, but the H won the battle. Mama Luz tells me he's been dozing for the past sixty."
"And La Flamenca?"
"She's with him, probably cleaned out his wallet by this time. She's a big red-headed job with two gold teeth in the front of her mouth, damn near blind you with them teeth of hers. She's got mean hips, a big job, real big. Don't get rough with her, less she swallow you up in one gobble."
"Is he heeled?" Carella asked.
"Mama Luz don't know. She don't think so."
"Doesn't the red-head know?"