"Wha…" She stared at him, surprised. "You? You asked him to…?"
"Me," he said, and now he was grinning again.
Warily, she asked, "What arrangement are you talking about?"
"The arrangement with Gonzo and your brother."
"Go ahead," she said, "tell me more."
"Where you promised Gonzo you'd swear you saw your brother and this Byrnes kid arguing."
"Yeah?" she asked suspiciously.
"Yeah," he answered. "Gonzo was working on my orders. He gave you twenty-five dollars, didn't he?"
"Yes," Maria said.
"And he said there'd be more, didn't he, if you swore you heard them arguing."
"Yes," Maria said. She shivered and said, "I'm cold. I'm getting under the covers." Unselfconsciously, she slipped out of her skirt, and then ran to the bed in her brassiere and panties and pulled the covers to her throat. "Brrrrrrrr," she said.
"Did Gonzo tell you what it was all about?"
"Only that this would be a good deal, and that my brother was in on it."
"What about since your brother died? Has Gonzo said anything about that?"
"He said my brother fouled up the works. Listen, I'm cold. Come on over here."
"Do you feel any differently about the deal since your brother died?" he asked, walking toward the bed. He took off his overcoat and draped it at the foot of the bed.
"No," she said, "why should I? He committed suicide. So why should…"
The man was grinning. "Good," he said. "You keep thinking that way."
"Sure," she answered, puzzled by his grin. "Why shouldn't I? The deal had nothing to do with Aníbal's death."
"No," he said. "But just forget there ever was a deal, do you hear me? All you know is that your brother and this Byrnes kid argued, that's all. Do you understand? If anyone asks you—cops, reporters, anybody—that's your story."
"Who is this Byrnes kid, anyway?" He was sitting on the bed now. "Aren't you going to take off your clothes?" she asked.
"No, I'll leave them on."
"Well, Jesus, I…"
"Ill leave them on."
"All right," she said quietly. She took his hand and guided it to her breast. "Who is this Byrnes kid?"
"That doesn't matter. He argued with your brother."
"Yes, yes, all right." She was silent for a moment. "Now, that's not so small, is it?"
"No," he said.
"No," she repeated. "That's not so small at all, is it?" They were silent for several moments. He lay back on the bed, holding her.
"Remember," he said again. "Anyone who asks you; cops, anyone."
"I already spoke to one cop," she said.
"Who?"
"I don't know his name. A good-looking one."
"What did you tell him?"
"Nothing."
"About the argument?"
"No. Gonzo said I should wait until I got the word on that. He said I should keep quiet until then. This cop…" She frowned.
"What?"
"He said… he said maybe Aníbal didn't commit suicide."
"What did you say?"
Maria shrugged. "He must have committed suicide." She paused. "Didn't he?"
"Sure, he did," the man said. He held her tighter now. "Maria…"
"No. No, wait. My brother. He… he didn't die because of this deal, did he? This deal had nothing to do with… I said wait!"
"I don't want to wait," he told her.
"Did he commit suicide?" she asked, trying to hold him away from her.
"Yes. Yes, damnit, he committed suicide!"
"Then why are you so interested in making me lie to the cops? Was my brother killed? Was my… oh! Stop, you're hurting me!"
"Goddamn you, can't you shut your mouth!"
"Stop!" she said. "Stop, please, you're hurting…"
"Then shut up about whether he was killed or he wasn't killed, who the hell gives a damn about that? What kind of a whore are you anyway?"
"He was killed, wasn't he?" she asked, bearing his weight now, the pain disappearing. "Who killed him? Did you kill him?"
"No."
"Did you?"
"Shut up! For Christ's sake, shut up!"
"Did you kill my brother? If you killed him, I'll never lie. If you killed him for one of your deals…" She felt something warm on the side of her face quite suddenly, but she didn't know what it was and so she kept talking. "… I'll go straight to the cops. He may have been a crumb, but he was my brother, and I'm not going to lie to…"
There was more warmth on her face, and then her throat. She reached up suddenly and then, over his body, she studied her hand, and her eyes went wide with terror when she saw the blood. He's cut me, she thought. Oh God Jesus, he's cut me!
He backed away from her, arching his body, and she saw the knife in his right hand, the blade open, and then he slashed at her breasts and she rolled with all her strength, flinging him off her. He caught her arm and flung her back into the room, coming at her with the knife again. She held out her hands to ward off his blows, but he slashed, and then slashed back, and she began screaming as he continued swinging the knife, cutting the palms and fingers of her hands. She rushed to the door, groping with the lock, her fingers slashed, fumbling with the lock and unable to open it because her fingers would not do what she wanted them to do.
He swung her around, and she saw him pull back the knife, and then thrust forward with it, and she felt the blade when it tore skin just below her rib cage and then ripped across her body and slashed upwards. She fell back against the door, and he slashed at her neck and her face, and then he shouted. "You don't have to lie for me, you bitch! You don't have to say another word, anymore!" He threw her away from the door, and he unsnapped the lock, and then he scooped his coat from the bed, and went to her and stood staring at her for a moment, staring at the blood-smeared caricature that had once been Maria Hernandez, and then maliciously he thrust the knife deep into her breast and brought it across her body, sure he had struck her heart. He watched as she fell to the floor, and then he ran through the door and out of the building.
She lay in a pool of her own blood, thinking He killed my brother and now he has killed me. He killed my brother because of his deal, I was to lie, I was to say Byrnes and Aníbal argued, Gonzo told me that, a good deal he said, he gave me twenty-five dollars, more to come, he killed my brother.
And miraculously, she crawled to the open doorway, naked, running blood every inch of the way, and she crawled into the hallway, not screaming because there was no strength in her to scream with, crawling the long, long length of the hallway while her life drained out of her, running red into the bare brown wooden floor of the building, and then into the entryway with its mailboxes, and she reached up and managed to hold the doorknob in her tattered fingers, and managed to twist the doorknob, and then fell face forward onto the sidewalk, still bleeding.
A patrolman named Alf Levine found her a half hour later as he was making his round. He called an ambulance immediately.
Chapter Ten
There were four bulls in the Squad Room of the 87th on the night Maria Hernandez was stabbed.
Detectives Meyer and Willis were sitting at one of the desks, drinking coffee. Detective Bongiorno was typing up a DD report to be turned over to the Safe and Loft Squad. Detective Temple was sitting at the telephone, catching.
"I don't like coffee in containers," Meyer said to Willis. Meyer was a Jew whose father had a hilarious sense of humor. And since Meyer had been a change-of-life baby, which in a sense, had been a big practical joke on the old man, the old man had decided to play his own little joke on his son. And since his son's surname was Meyer, he could think of nothing more side-splitting than to make his son's given name Meyer, too. In those days, babies were born at home, delivered by midwives. There was none of the hospital pressure to name a child. Meyer's father withheld his choice of a name until the briss. He announced it just as the moile was performing the circumcision, and the resultant shock almost caused him to have a castrated son.