"It's a Luger," Cooch said.
"Wh-what are you going to do with that, Cooch?"
"Kill Alfie," he answered.
"Kill...? Why? What for?"
"For what he done to you?"
"He didn't do anything to me!" China said.
"You know what he done, China." He held the gun up close to her face. "You know what he done."
She was truly frightened now. She did not want to retreat further into the hallway, but he kept moving closer and closer to her, and there was no place to go but back. For a crazy moment, she wanted to turn and run up the steps to her apartment. And then it was too late. He had stepped between her and the steps and was moving toward her again so that, in backing away from him, she stumbled toward the garbage cans stacked under the steps on the ground floor.
"Cooch, I ... I have to go," she said. "I don't know what you're talking about. Alfie didn't do anything to me. If you're angry at him because you think..."
"This is what he done, China," Cooch said, and his hand reached out for her.
She felt his fingers tighten on her breast, and she screamed, pulling away from him. His fingers clung. She thought her blouse would tear. Blindly, she brought up the shopping bag, swinging it at him, screaming, and then shoving her way past him into the bright sunlight again, rushing down the steps, still screaming, into the crowd.
A man selling ices entered the street at the opposite end.
"Pidaguas!" he called. "Pidaguas! Come buy some pidaguas."
Zip, standing on the crate, turned to watch the man who pushed through the crowd with his cart. "Hey, you want some ices?" he asked Elena.
"You got any loot?"
"Sure," Zip answered. "What flavor you want?"
"Lemon," Elena said.
"I'll have a lemon, too," Juana said.
"Oh, now she knows me," Zip said, leaping down from the crate. "Now it's buying time, she knows me. Okay. I'm the last of the red-hot spenders. Everybody gets ices!"
From the crate, Papa said, "Me, too, Zeep?"
"You, too, Papa! Everybody! Everybody gets pidaguas today! Hey, Mac, slow down! Don't you want no business?"
He went over to the cart and placed his order. He seemed happy as hell. He paid no attention at all to the detectives who stood not six feet from him.
"Where are your men, Andy?" Byrnes asked.
"Coming, sir."
Byrnes turned to Hemandez who stood staring up at the first floor of the tenement. "You scared, Frankie?"
"A little," Hernandez answered.
"I don't blame you." He paused. "This is the damnedest thing ever, isn't it? The last one I remember like this was back in 1931 when this guy Nelson O'Brien was holed up in an apartment on the North Side. I was a patrolman at the time. He held off a hundred and fifty cops for two hours that day. We were chopping holes in the roof and dropping tear gas down on him, but the bastard wouldn't give up. We wounded him three times, but he was still standing when we went into the apartment to collar him. Standing and cursing but out of amo. He'd hidden both his guns in his socks, hoping to use them later for an escape. A real prize, he was."
Byrnes paused and stared at Hernandez. "I didn't feel so hot that day, Frankie."
"Why not?"
"They guy in the apartment was Nelson O'Brien." He paused again. "I'm Irish."
"Yes, sir," Hernandez said.
"But I'll tell you something, Frankie. The guys like Nelson O'Brien don't stop me from marching in the St. Paddy's day parade every year. You understand me?"
"I understand you."
"Good." Byrnes hesitated. "Take care of yourself on that goddamn fire escape," he said. "I wouldn't want to lose a good cop."
"Yes, sir," Hernandez said.
Byrnes extended his hand. "Good luck, Frankie."
"Thank you." Byrnes turned to walk back to the squad car. "Pete?" Hernandez called. Byrnes faced him. "Thank you," Hernandez said again.
Marge and Marie, the two prostitutes, approached Frederick Block. Block was pulling his handkerchief out of his back pocket, preparatory to mopping his face with it, when his elbow struck something very soft. He turned casually. The something very soft was covered with bright-red silk.
"Hello," Marge said.
"Well, hello," Block answered. "Quite a show, isn't it?"
"If you like this kind of jazz," Marie said.
"Well, it's pretty exciting," Block said. He studied the low-cut front of Marie's dress. Damn, if this girl didn't have the...
"There are plenty things more exciting than watching a cheap gunman get shot," Marie said.
"Like what?" Block asked, beginning to get the impression that this girl wasn't even wearing a brassiere.
"Can't you think of anything?" Marie said.
"Well ... I can think of a few," Block said.
"Whatever you can think of," Marie said, "we can manage."
Block studied the girls a moment longer. He mopped his face. Then, with a practiced eye, and a whispered voice, he asked, "How much?"
"For one of us or both?" Marie asked.
"Both? Well, I hadn't..."
"Think about it."
"I am." '
"Think fast," Marge said.
"We like to work together," Marie said.
"The Bobbsey Twins down on the Farm," Marge said.
"We know things they don't even know in Paris yet," Marie said.
"We know things ain't even been invented yet," Marge said.
"How much?" Block asked again.
"Fifty for the afternoon, including the stretcher bearers."
"The what?"
"The stretcher bearers. To carry you out when it's over."
Block chuckled. "How much without them?"
"Twenty-five for me alone. My name's Marie. It's a bargain, believe me."
"I'll think about it," Block said.
"Come on, come on," Marie prompted.
"Can't you just wait a minute?"
"Love don't wait a minute, mister," Marie said.
"Not in July it don't," Marge added.
"Twenty-five's too high," Block said.
"Make it twenty, sport. A double sawbuck, what do you say?"
"You're on."
"Or vice versa," Marie said dryly. She turned to her friend. "Well, I'm set Now what are you gonna do with all that love busting inside you, huh, Marge?"
Jeff Talbot looked at the wall clock and left the luncheonette.
It was fifteen minutes past twelve.
She wasn't coming. He'd been a jerk to think she'd keep the date. He went out into the street, thankful that he had worn his whites today. God what a hot day, why hadn't she kept the date, why in hell hadn't she kept the date? He wanted to hit somebody. He just for the hell of it felt like hitting somebody. You meet a girl like that maybe once in Oh, the hell with it. Angrily, he stamped back into the luncheonette.
"I'm shoving off, Louise," he said.
"What?" Luis answered.
"She didn't show. I'm leaving."
"Good," Luis said, nodding. "You will be better off out of this neighborhood. There are other girls, sailor."
"Yeah, that's for sure," Jeff said.
He walked out of the luncheonette again. It was a damn shame, he thought, because ... well ... he'd almost found it. He'd almost, in the space of what was it, ten, fifteen minutes?
In that short a time, he'd almost found it, but of course he should have known. Nothing good comes easy. And yet, it had seemed so right, it had just seemed ... seemed right, where ... where eyes meet and ... and without touching ... without saying very much...
The hell with it!
He strode out of the luncheonette, and the first people he saw were Frederick Block and the two prostitutes.
Marge winked at him.
Jeff squared his hat and walked directly to the trio.