felt suddenly invincible.
"orne on," she said.
swinging out ahead of her.
on, you cocksuckers!”
Spanish, so they'd know exactly what she was fe testing the air.
want it? Come get it! Come on/" handsome one was still whimpering.
kept his hands tucked in against his belly. His was covered with blood.
big one's eyes had naked murder in them. almost burst out laughing. He wanted to kill he couldn't. Anger twisted his features, caused his lips to quiver. His fury was ., a towering rage that set him trembling volcano about to erupt. His face was livid, clenched, mouth twitching, eyes blazing.
come on," she said.
he would come.
wishing he would come.
you, she thought.
out your eyes.
i backed away from her instead, guiding the one around her, his eyes never leaving the cautiously back and away from her, her toward the bedroom door, Marilyn that the knife was always between them, the air.
The handsome one could not stop whimpering. At the door, the big one whis, "Volverernos.”
Which meant "We'll be back.”
Nobody on Eleventh Street knew anything what had happened on Easter Sunday. This me that everybody in the neighborhood knew exac. what had happened. But around here, there was need to talk to cops ever. If somebody was you, you went to people who could do about it. The only thing cops could do was parking tickets and sit around with their thumbs their asses.
Around here, they told a story about these black guys went in the Capri Grot one night. was a restaurant on Ainsley, it was actually Grotto di Capri, but everybody called it the Grot, even the guys who owned it. So these guys walk in on a crowded Friday night, they're strapped with huge guns like .45s or Magnums, depended on who was telling the sto. And shove the guns in the cashier's face and announce this is a stickup, man, and the he just stands there with his arms folded across chest, shaking his head. Like he can't believe happening, man! Four dumb fucking walking into a place has Mafia written up one and down the other, they're here pulling a Amazing! So they clean out the cash register and off in the night, and the headwaiter is still there shaking his head at the wonder of it all.
Next day one of the niggers comes back to the restaurant. His arm is in a sling, and his right eye is half-closed and there's a bandage wrapped around his head from where somebody busted it for him.
He's carrying a briefcase. He asks to see the owner and then he tells him some friends of his made a terrible mistake last night, coming in here the way they done, and like, man, here's all the money back, let's let bygones be bygones, man, keep the briefcase, too, it's a Mark Cross.
People around here still laughed at that story.
Which is why nobody around here went to the cops when they had any kind of problem that needed solving. They went instead to the people who knew what to do about it. Which is why on any given Friday night, the customers at the Capri Grot could park their Benzes or their Jags outside and nobody would even dream of touching them. And if the cars happened to be double-parked in a clearly marked No Parking zone, that was okay, too, because some of the cops on the beat here were also in the pockets of the people you went to whenever you had a problem. Which is why you didn't tell cops a fucking thing around here, even if they asked you was your mother a virgin before she got married.
Nobody on the street knew who had busted that nigger's head on Easter Sunday.
Nobody on the street even knew there'd been trouble at all that day.
Except Angelo Di Napoli.
Di Napoli was thirty-seven years old, a cop family name (which translated as "of Naples" promised short and dark with curly black hair who was in fact an even six feet tall with blond and blue eyes. Di Napoli was a recent transfer to Eight-Seven from the CPEP Unit at the Five-One Riverhead. CPEP was an acronym for £ Police Enrichment Program, a law concept rudely imitative of the foot-patrol pro. in several other large American cities. Here in city, the centralized 911 emergency response s' had gone into effect some thirty years ago, brin with it the need for quick motorized response, leaving in its wake a reduction in the number of fo patrols. Then, as so often happened when became confused with quality, many police began thinking that motorized patrol was in a more diverse and interesting assignment, with attendant result that those poor souls assigned to foot beat approached the job with less than enthusiasm. All by way of saying that the officer was almost entirely eliminated in the scheme of law enforcement and crime prevention.
CPEP pronounced Cee-Pep by the department had been designed to correct was now perceived as an error. Its sole intent was re-establish the foot-patrol cop as an essential part the process of essential contact between police and community. Di Napoli had been a part of the highly effective Narcpoc Drive, a combined blues-and-suits operation aimed at narcotic pockets in the Fifty-First precinct and resulting in a total of some ten thousand buy-and-bust arrests. It was a measure of the man that he considered it a challenge to be transferred to the newly organized CPEP Unit at the Eight-Seven, under the command of a sergeant who'd initiated Operation Clean Sweep out of the notorious Hundred-and-First in Majesta. Di Napoli was a good cop and a dedicated cop. Like any good cop, he listened. And like any dedicated cop, he put what he heard to good use.
He would not have known that Carella was on the job if Carella hadn't introduced himself. Di Napoli couldn't recall seeing him around the station house, but then again he was new here. They exchanged the usual pleasantries... "How's it going?”
"Little quiet.”
"Well, give it time, it's Saturday.”
"Yeah, I can't wait.”
... and then Carella got straight to the point.
"I'm investigating the murder of that priest at St. Kate's," he said.
"Yeah, Thursday night," Di Napoli said.
"That's the one. I'm looking for whoever chased a black kid into the church on Easter Sunday.”
“I wasn't here then," Di Napoli said. "I only got transferred the first of the month." He hesitated then said, "I hear Edward-car panicked, huh?”
"Let's say they got out of there fast.”
"The people around here laugh about it.”
I'll bet.”
“Bad for the old image, huh?" Di Napoli said, raised his eyebrows. "I bust my ass out here day night and two jerks run when it gets hot.”
"Have you heard anything about who it have been?”
"That jumped the black kid?”
"Yeah.”
"I'll tell you," Di Napoli said, "there's a happening around here where they're starting to proud of it, you know what I mean? neighborhood people. They like the idea these beat up the black kid and got away with it. That cops cooled it, you know? For whatever reason, the hell knows, maybe Edward-car was afraid they'., have a riot on their hands, who knows? The point a kid got beat up, and nobody paid for it. Nobody.
around here they're saying Yeah, it served him n he shoulda stayed in his own neighborhood, wh he come around here, and so on, this is a neighborhood, we don't need niggers coming in...!
Di Napoli shook his head.
"I'm Italian, you know," he said, "I guess you too, but I can't stand the way Italians feel people. It's a fuckin' shame the way they Maybe they don't know how much prejudice there still around about us, you know? Italians. Maybe they don't know you say somebody's Italian he's supposed to be a thief or a ditchdigger or a guy singing 0 Sole Mio in a restaurant with checked tablecloths and Chianti bottles dripping wax.
I'm only a cop, I mean I know I'm not a fuckin' account executive or a bank president, but there're Italians who are, you realize that? So you get these dumb wops in this neighborhood ... that's exactly what they are, excuse me, they're dumb fucking wops .. they beat up this black kid and then they laugh about it later and all Italians suffer. All of us. I hate it. Man, I absolutely hate it.”