'That's right,' Carella said, 'she's in the hospital. And before that, she was up in the squadroom telling us all about what happened last Sunday night, when Eduardo and Constantina Portoles got killed.'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' Henry said. He was wearing thick glasses, and his eyes looked inordinately large behind them. Now that he was looking directly up at the detectives, he refused to take his eyes from them, as though this were as great a challenge as trying to balance the knife on its tip.
'What's the cover-up for?' Kling asked. 'We're trying to find who killed them.'
Henry did not answer.
'You know they're dead, for Christ's sake, you had to have seen those pictures in the paper.'
'I didn't see nothing,' Henry said.
'What're you going to do, Henry? Go after them yourself?'
'I ain't going to do nothing,' Henry said.
'Are you the leader of this gang now?'
'I'm the secretary. I thought Pacho told you that.'
'Pacho's full of shit, and so are you. You're the president now, or the acting president, or whatever the hell they choose to call you till they can elect a new one. Eduardo's dead, and if you don't know who did it, you've got some pretty strong suspicions. You're going to try to handle this yourself, aren't you?'
'I don't know anything,' Henry said. 'I got no suspicions about nothing.'
'Murder's murder, Henry. Whether somebody else does it, or you do it, it's still murder.'
'So?'
'He's saying keep your nose clean,' Kling said. 'Leave this to us. We're working on it, and we'll take care of it.'
'Sure you will,' Henry said.
'Be smart, Henry,' Carella said. 'Instead of causing a lot of trouble for yourself, why don't you help us?'
'I got no help to give you,' Henry said.
'Okay, fine,' Carella said. 'We're heading over to Gateside Avenue, to talk to the Scarlet Avengers. Maybe they'll feel differently about it. Maybe they're not as dumb as you are.' He turned his back on Henry and started for the door.
'They're even dumber,' Henry said behind him.
We got the bug from one of these mail-order catalogs. You can get all kinds of surveillance equipment just by sending away for it. We paid for the bug with funds from the clique's treasury. We put the bug in the Gateside clubhouse long before I ordered the double-hit, and we put it in because it was essential to know what the other side was doing. We tried to get a bug in the Heads' clubhouse, too, but their security was tighter. It was a good thing we had that bug on Gateside, though, because that was how we kept track of the Scarlets' movements. Also, we heard the whole conversation you guys had with their war counselor.
We sent three guys to put in the bug, all of them minors. The reason for that is we figured if they got caught, if the Scarlets decided to blow the whistle and bring charges or whatever, then you guys would be dealing with three little kids, you dig? Like the courts go easy on little kids. And we figured if just these little kids were involved, it would be considered nothing more than a caper, and also you wouldn't be able to hang nothing on the rest of us. Because we're of age, you see. We would have to pay if we got caught doing something like that. It's illegal, ain't it? Putting in a wire? Ain't that illegal? Anyway, that's what we figured, and that's why we sent Little Anthony and two other juniors. It wasn't easy, putting in that bug on Gateside, I can tell you. They took a tremendous risk. They did it because they knew our clique was trying to make peace, and that it was essential to get all the information we needed. Here's how we brought it off.
We stoned the building.
That was our diversion, to get the Scarlets out so we could get in. We already had the wire strung up over the roof. All we had to do was get in the clubhouse some way, and plant the bug. We done this just before Christmas. Man, we busted every window on the face of that building! Them Scarlets came running out of there, man, you'd think the place was on fire! They chased us up the blocks while meanwhile Little Anthony and the other two juniors rigged the wire. You know that big piece of cardboard they got nailed to the wall? With their club rules on it? They stuck the bug right behind their rules. I got such a laugh when they told me where they put it! That was adding insult to injury, am I right?
The bug was very valuable to us. It was through the bug that we found out the president of the Scarlets was staying home with his wife on the night we planned the hit. We didn't know they had a baby. Them Scarlets like to keep themselves secret and private, as if they got a lot to hide. The baby was just an accident. If we'd picked up anything about a baby on the bug, we probably would've tried to hit Atkins in the street. The hit wasn't designed to get no innocent bystanders. But you make a protective hit like that, you can't expect absolute accuracy all the time. Besides, like I told you, Chingo thinks maybe a wild shot from Atkins' own piece was what killed the kid. You should hear some of the stuff we picked up on that bug. I always knew those niggers were bums, but some of the things they done in their clubhouse were unbelievable. Dirty, you know what I mean? Just plain dirty.
The day you went to Gateside, I was listening personally. I heard the whole conversation you had with the Scarlets' war counselor, this guy who calls himself Mighty Man. He never wanted peace from the beginning. He kept saying he wanted peace, sure. But it was his kind of peace. And what kind of peace would that have been? Our clique wanted the kind of peace that would last forever. That's what we were trying to achieve. Right from the beginning. We didn't create what's in this neighborhood, you know. We inherited it. And it stunk, and we were trying to find a decent, honorable way out of it. If the Scarlets and the Heads had been trying to find the same kind of peace, we wouldn't be having all the trouble we've got now. I got nothing to be ashamed of. What I done was right. It was the other cliques who couldn't understand and who wouldn't cooperate. It's honor that was at stake. The clique's honor and my own honor as the president. But just try to explain that to some of these dopes.
Anyway, the day you went up there, I was listening. And it went just the way I figured it would. The Scarlets wouldn't have nothing to do with you, they wouldn't give you the right time of day. They knew who was responsible for what happened to their president, and they were going to take care of it by themselves, without no help from the fuzz. And I heard you when you told them you'd got the same reaction from this four-eyed kid Henry who's running the Heads, and I heard you when you said they were all being stupid and just asking for trouble. I don't like the Scarlets, and I don't trust none of them as far as I can throw them. But I got to admit they done the right thing that day when they told you to keep out of it, it was none of your business.
I didn't know at the time exactly how they planned to handle it, but I figured it would be some kind of retaliation strike. I wasn't worried. I knew we could take whatever the Scarlets and the Heads together had to dish out. We're a strong clique, man. We got the biggest arsenal in all Riverhead, second to none. There's a clique in Calm's Point just about as strong as us, but that's it in the whole city. We got the power, and we also got the restraint to know when to use it and when not. That's a big responsibility. When you left Gateside that day, I figured we wouldn't have no trouble from you, we wouldn't be linked in no way by anything either the Heads or the Scarlets had told you. We were clean and away, and we were capable of standing up to anything either of the two cliques could throw at us.