"Oh, sorry. Tell her I'm sorry."
Mickey pointed to Holly, and Jack Harris gave her a quick, embarrassed glance and muttered, "Sorry."
"So what's happening here? Who are these guys that are supposed to be friends of mine?"
"It was a robbery that went wrong. Three guys came into the store, one of them stood by the door to stop anybody else from coming in, the other two went up to Mr. Deh-Ta and told him to open the register."
"Were they armed?"
"Mr. Deh-Ta said that one of them was holding something black that looked like an automatic weapon. He said he was frightened for his life, so he took out his pump-action shotgun from under the counter and let the guy have it, point-blank range in the chest. The second guy ran for the door but Mr. Deh-Ta shot him in the back. Lucky for the second guy that Mr. Deh-Ta is a lousy shot: It only took half his shoulder off."
"That sounds like pretty good luck to me," said Mickey, looking at Holly. "Did you recover the automatic weapon?"
Jack Harris lifted his left hand. Dangling from his index finger was a black collapsible umbrella.
"You could do a lot of serious damage with that," Mickey remarked.
"Depends where you put it before you opened it up."
Mickey looked around. "So who said these guys were friends of mine? What did you say their names were?"
"Gerald Butler is the dead guy. Kevin McKenna is the guy with no shoulder. It was McKenna who said you were friends of theirs." Pause. "Well, obviously."
Mickey said to Holly, "Wait here a second, will you?"
He went into the store and edged his way through the cops and the paramedics. Holly could see him hunkering down beside the body. After a while he stood up and edged his way out again.
"August Moon," he said, with a peculiar cough.
"What?"
"Gerald Butler is part of a Chinese transvestite act who call themselves the Three Concubines. His stage name is August Moon. Kevin McKenna is Lotus Flower, and the third guy was probably Bruce."
Jack Harris took out his notebook. "You know something? The longer I live, the more I see, the less I don't fucking believe it."
"They wouldn't have hurt a fly. They'd had some bad luck getting bookings, that's all. This, ah Mr. Deh-Ta-he still around?"
"Sure. He's in the squad car over there."
"Mind if I talk to him for a minute?"
"Be my guest."
Mickey held up his wristwatch and tapped the crystal to indicate to Holly that he wouldn't be long. He went over to the squad car and climbed into the rear seat next to Mr. Deh-Ta. Holly couldn't see much of Mr. Deh-Ta because of the reflected light against the curving window, but he looked thin and fiftyish, with wiry hair sticking up.
Jack Harris suddenly turned to Holly and shouted,"You really that deaf? Like, ah, I don't want to be personal or nothing!"She could tell by the excited look on his face that he was quite pleased with himself for talking to her, as if he had plucked up the courage to have a conversation with somebody in a wheelchair.
"Totally deaf," she smiled. "So there's no need for you to shout."
"Oh," he blinked. Then, cunningly, "How did you know I was shouting?"
"Because your face went bright red and everybody else turned around to look at you."
"Oh."
She turned to see what Mickey was doing. Although the inside of the squad car was so dark, a curve of light illuminated Mickey's lips, and now and then Mr. Deh-Ta turned halfway toward her too. She couldn't pick up everything that Mickey was saying, but the expression on his face said it all.
"So how much did you have in the register?"
Head shake.
"How much did you have in the register, Mr. Deh-Ta? I want to know how much you had in the register."
"Hundred dollar. Maybe hundred twenty-five and change."
"You killed a guy for a hundred twenty-five and change? You fuckingkilledhim?"
"-gun-"
"What, are you blind? That wasn't a gun, that was a fuckingumbrella. Do you ever watch TV?"
Head shake.
"I said, do you ever watch TV? Do you watch cop shows? Ever seen a cop show?NYPD Blue,anything like that?"
"He ask for money. He say give me all your money."
"With anumbrella,Mr. Deh-Ta! You ever seen the bad guys inNYPD Bluepulling umbrellas? 'Give me all your money, or else I'll make sure that you don't get wet!'?"
Holly started to smile, but then she saw Mickey take hold of Mr. Deh-Ta's necktie and shake the Chinaman's head from side to side. She looked around for Jack Harris, but he had gone back inside the store.
Mickey's face was as hard as riven slate. "You killed a guy, Mr. Deh-Ta, and you took half another guy's arm off, because you didn't fucking look and you didn't fuckingthink.And do you know what's going to happen to you? Nothing, that's what's going to happen to you. In fact, they'll probably give you a fucking medal."
Mickey stopped for breath, and then he slammed Mr. Deh-Ta's head back against the headrest. Holly saw Mickey's mouth shouting, "He was a human being! He was a human being! You just don't get it, do you! He was somebody's son!"
She walked quickly over to the squad car and rapped on the window. Mickey immediately let go of Mr. Deh-Ta's necktie and made of show of tugging his shirt collar straight. At that moment Jack Harris came back out of the store, writing in his notebook.
Mickey climbed out of the far side of the car. He smoothed back his hair with both hands and buttoned up his coat. Holly stared at him and she didn't know what to say. He simply raised one eyebrow, as if to say "What?"
Jack Harris opened up the nearside door and helped Mr. Deh-Ta to climb out. Mr. Deh-Ta looked confused and bewildered, and when Mickey came around the car toward him he lifted one elbow as if to protect himself.
"Don't worry about a thing, Mr. Deh-Ta," said Mickey, slapping him on the back. "You're a hero."
On the way home, Mickey turned to Holly and said, "You're quiet."
"I don't know. I guess I'm a little shocked, that's all."
"Because I gave that guy a hard time?"
"Because I'm seeing a side of you I never saw before. First Elliot Joseph, now this guy."
Mickey thought about that for a while, and then he said, "I'm a cop, Holly. That means I get paid to uphold the law. But there's law and there's justice, and believe me, they're two different ball games.
"August Moon he was one of the gentlest people on the planet. You want to talk about law? Okay, August Moon broke the law. But you want to talk about justice? He was executed without a trial. He was executed for being different, and for finding it difficult to make a living. All over America, every day of the week, peoplemurderpeople and they don't get executed. But August Moon tried to steal a hundred twenty-five bucks with a collapsible umbrella and that was it. The death sentence."
He drew up outside Torrefazione. "I'm sorry. You shouldn't have seen what happened tonight. You did very good work at the Compass . You've probably saved a woman's life."
"I have to go in now. Daisy will be home soon."
All the same, she stayed where she was and looked at him for almost half a minute without saying anything, and he looked back at her.