'I don't know,' Franciscus said. He had been listening to the incessant squawk of the car radio, and had been half asleep. He looked at his watch. It was only nine-thirty; his tour would not end till eleven forty-five. Two hours and fifteen minutes to go, and now maybe a busted gas main or something, which meant they would have to get out of the car in this damn freezing weather and start handling crowds and traffic.
'Sounds like it came from around the corner,' Jenkins said.
'Yeah,' Franciscus said.
'You know what it sounded like?'
'Yeah, a gas main.'
'No. It sounded like when I was with the Third Precinct downtown, this boiler went up in the basement of a diner on the corner. It knocked the whole front wall out of the building. That's what this sounded like.'
'I think it sounded like a gas main,' Franciscus said, and shrugged.
'Well, let's take a look,' Jenkins said, and turned on the siren.
The candy store was a smoldering wreck when they pulled up to the curb. Franciscus sighed; this was going to be worse than a gas main. Jenkins was already on the car radio, telling the dispatcher who answered his call that this was a 10-66. When he was asked to specify, he said there'd been an explosion in a candy store at 1155 Gatsby, cause undetermined. As Franciscus got out of the car, a black man with a patch over his right eye staggered from the candy store. His clothes were smoking, punctuated with a dozen bleeding wounds that gave his shirt a red-polka-dot effect. The flesh on his face hung from his cheeks and jaw in tattered trailing ribbons. As he stumbled toward the curb he brought up his left hand, presumably to wipe blood out of his one good eye, and then suddenly collapsed to the sidewalk. Franciscus said 'Jesus,' and yelled to Jenkins that they'd need a meat wagon, and then went into the candy store.
The floor was covered with paperback books and magazines, broken glasses and dishes, utensils twisted out of shape. The supporting pedestals of the counter stools had been bent almost double by the explosion, so that they resembled giant blackened toadstools ravaged by a storm. The mirror behind the counter had been shattered, and shards lay over the blistered counter top and on the floor behind the counter, where they lay submerged in a soupy mixture of ice cream and syrup. A partially naked teen-aged girl was standing leaning against the wall at the far end of the room, where a jagged, splintered door stood open and hanging on one hinge. Most of her clothing had been ripped off in the blast, and she stood with bleeding breasts and arms, panties torn to shreds, one shoe on her left foot, leaning against the wall, staring sightlessly at Franciscus as he came into the shop.
He went to her swiftly, and said, 'It's all right, miss, we're getting an ambulance,' and he took her arm to guide her out of the store, just gently closing his fingers around the elbow, and the girl fell away from the wall, face forward onto the floor, and Franciscus realized she was dead, and that he was still holding her arm, even though the girl was lying at his feet. His eyes opened wide in recognition, he dropped the severed arm, and turned away from the girl, turned his face into the corner where the door hung on its single hinge, and puked into his cupped hands.
Outside, Jenkins was on the radio ordering the ambulance when he saw six boys in blue denim jackets running out of the alley that led to the back of the store. As they came out of the alley and started up the avenue, he saw that the backs of their jackets were decorated with Confederate flags. He got out of the car, revolver in hand, and yelled, 'Police officer, halt!' but the six boys were moving swiftly toward the corner, and did not stop. 'Hey!' he yelled again. 'You hear me?' and fired a warning shot in the air. The boys did not stop. They rounded the corner and disappeared from sight. Jenkins got back into the car and told the dispatcher, 'We got six suspects, fleeing north on Toland, all of them wearing Yankee Rebel jackets.'
Then he went into the candy store, and found Franciscus standing in the corner of the room, the dead girl at his feet, his hands stinking of vomit and covering his face. Franciscus was crying. Jenkins had never seen a cop crying in all his years on the force.
'Hey,' he said, 'come on, Ralphie.'
But Franciscus could not stop crying.
Carella did not reach the 101st in Riverhead until a few minutes past ten. By that time Patrolman Jenkins's radio call had resulted in the street capture, four blocks away, of the Yankee Rebels he had seen running from the scene of the candy-store explosion. The six youths were gathered in the Interrogation Room of the 101st now, slouching in straight-backed chairs around the long wooden table. Charlie Broughan needed a shave; Carella suddenly wondered if he ever shaved.
'You I know, and you I know,' Broughan said, pointing to two of the boys. 'This is Big Anthony Sutherland,' he said to Carella, 'and this is Jo-Jo Cottrell.'
I've been looking for you,' Carella said.
'Yeah?' Big Anthony replied, and shrugged. He was an enormous young man, with huge shoulders and a weight lifter's pectorals bulging against the blue shirt he wore under the denim jacket. Casually bored, he brushed a hank of long blond hair off his forehead.
'You've been out of town, I guess.'
Big Anthony shrugged again.
'Who're you four?' Broughan asked the other boys. None of them answered. 'Your names,' he said.
'Go ahead, tell them,' Big Anthony said.
'I'm Priest,' one of the boys said.
'Your names, never mind the gang shit,' Broughan said.
'Mark Priestley.'
'And you?'
'Charles Ingersol.'
'Well, well, we got us a big fish, huh?' Broughan said. 'We got ourselves Chingo in person, the enforcement officer of the Yankee Rebels.'
'That's me,' Chingo said.
'And you?'
'Peter Hastings.'
'How about you?' he asked the last of the six,
'Frank Hughes.'
'Okay, boys, what were you doing running from the back of that candy store?'
None of the boys answered.
'I'll direct this all to you, Chingo, okay?' Broughan said. 'Since you're such a big man in the organization.'
'Better tell me my rights first,' Chingo said.
'What for? Did you do something?'
'Nothing at all.'
'Then why do you need to know your rights? Which you probably know already anyway.'
'I got a bad memory,' Chingo said. 'Tell me again.'
'We're not charging you with anything, we're only soliciting information regarding a crime,' Broughan said.
'Ah, excuse me, Charlie,' Carella said politely, 'but shouldn't we handle that matter for the Turman police first?'
'Why, certainly, Steve,' Broughan said, 'go right ahead.'
'Thank you,' Carella said, smiling, and then the Smile dropped from his face, and he pointed his finger at Big Anthony and said, 'You.'
'Me?'
'You.'
'Don't point, it's impolite.'
'The police in Turman have a warrant out for your arrest. They've authorized us to pick you up and question you regarding the murder of one Margaret McNally last Thursday night. You can consider yourself under arrest as of right this minute.'
'If the police in Turman want me, they better extradite me,' Big Anthony said.
'First things first,' Carella answered. 'You feel like answering some questions? This may all be a big mistake, and maybe we can clear it up in ten minutes. If it is a mistake, I'll call the Turman cops and tell them you're clean. What do you say?'
'I don't feel like answering no questions.'
'Well, just in case you change your mind, and in keeping with the Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. Arizona, I'm informing you now that we are not permitted to ask you any questions until you are warned of your right to counsel and your privilege against self-incrimination.'