Ричард Деминг - Manhunt. Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1953

“Blasco said, ‘The cops pulled a raid on him last night. Some pigeon tipped ’em off!’

“Figueroa got nervous and grabbed a chair. ‘What are you telling me?’ he yelled.

“Blasco came right back at him. ‘I say we got a pigeon in the house! I got my idea who it is!’

“Then Figueroa screamed, ‘You mean me? You calling me a pigeon?’

“Blasco bites his thumb and yells back, ‘Don’t make me stick a finger in your eye! You been pigeoning! I’m passing the word! We don’t want your kind around! You ask Jenny herself, she knows the whole story!’ Then Blasco talked some more against me and Figueroa began to turn purple. He could hardly breathe and I was afraid for his bad heart. Then he yelled like a wild man and threw a chair and the four sailors ganged him. I begged them to let the men fight fair, but no, they jumped him — four against one. They held his arms while Blasco busted his head open with a club. Then they threw him into a gutter like an animal. I found him there crying in the rain.”

“He went back for trouble,” Wiley suggested.

“No!” She shook her head. “He didn’t know what he was doing, he was so mixed up. He just wanted to go back to get his hat. But by then he was so wild he put his fist through the glass and cut himself. Then these four men came out to help Blasco gang him again and he ran home. When I got there, he was bleeding bad. Fie had to get to the hospital but he was afraid to go on the street. He thought they might be after him, so I promised to go with him. He finally took his small knife for protection and I carried his stick. It was dark, but before we took two steps, he whispered, ‘Watch out, Jenny, they’re back!’ I looked around. I got the picture right there. We were cut off on both sides. Two of them were right on top of us. Two others were circling us. They closed in and poor Figueroa had to defend himself. Then the big one gave Figueroa a beating before we could get away. The cops took us and they never once blamed the other side.”

Wiley drummed the table, then said pointedly, “The one he cut was the kid, the same one who lent you his jacket. That kid meant no harm.”

“How did we know that?” the girl said with a hard look. “We were just looking for the hospital. I warned them both to stay away. They just kept closing in. We wanted no trouble.”

“Did you give this warning in English?” Wiley asked pointedly.

The girl sat back and there was a moment of silence.

“When I’m excited, I use Spanish,” she said slowly. She knitted her brows and thought back. “I guess I made a mistake. I didn’t think of that. Now that you tell me, I’m sorry about that kid.”

Ricca coughed and moved his chair.

Wiley shaded his eyes. “Who is Esteban? Why should his name get Figueroa excited?”

“Esteban?” She laughed harshly. “He’s Blasco’s partner in this house the cops raided. That’s who Esteban is. Why isn’t he under arrest? How can he be operating? Esteban and Blasco!”

Wiley put the next question with care. “What did Blasco say against you just before the fight?”

The girl sat mute.

Ricca threw away a cigarette. “It’s obvious what Blasco said. He told Figueroa that Jenny works in that whorehouse for him. That’s why he was objecting to her going away. Am I right, Jenny?”

She said in a low voice, “Figueroa couldn’t stand to hear that said about me,” and turned to finish the cigarette.

Wiley asked, “Didn’t Figueroa know all this?”

“Sure he knew, but he couldn’t stand to hear it said.” She stared. “You’re a decent man. How would you feel?”

“If Figueroa feels that way about you,” Ricca said, “why wouldn’t you marry him? What’s the point?”

She said cynically, “Since I was twelve, I know too much about men. I won’t get tied to the best men alive. If he don’t treat me right, I want to walk out. I knew a girl got killed once just because a man thought he owned her.”

After a moment, Wiley said, “Stick around, Jenny. I’m sorry, but you’re a witness if there’s a trial.”

“What’s going to happen to Figueroa?” she asked huskily.

“I can’t tell until I know whether the kid dies. But I’ll do my best for him. You can tell him that much in Spanish.”

The girl looked at Wiley as though she saw him for the first time. There were hard lines about the lawyer’s mouth. Whether his eyes, cold and blue, had any sympathy, she could not tell. “Four against one!” she muttered. “The poor man!”

The interview was over and the girl left the inner office and gave the prisoner Wiley’s message. The prisoner kissed her hand and pressed it to his cheeks. “Pobrecito!” she murmured and he responded in Spanish. The girl looked up at Wiley. “He wants me to say ‘Thanks’.”

An hour of formalities passed. Other witnesses were questioned, then Corbin took the weeping prisoner downstairs and booked him for assault as a temporary measure.

They all left the precinct house together. Outside on the steps of the station house, Wiley paused to ask, “How old are you, Jenny? Do you mind telling me?”

“Nineteen.” She answered with a lurking hard smile as though she knew that he had expected her to say thirty.

The street was wet and steaming but the early sun was warm. The girl turned abruptly and walked off, her black evening dress attracting the gibes of urchins.

Wiley and the detectives got into the car and drove off.

At St. Vincent’s Hospital they got permission to visit the emergency ward. They found the young seaman in a corner bed under a dim light, screened off from the other patients. His face, they saw, was nothing like his laughing photograph. His eyes and lips were blue outlines in a waxy mask. His breathing was stertorous and shallow.

While Ricca took notes, Wiley explained his mission. The nurse kept stroking the boy’s damp hair with a soothing motion. His thin nose rose like a scimitar from the pillow.

“Do you want to talk, Porter?” Wiley asked.

The boy turned his eyes and his lips moved. “Will I die, sir?” he whispered.

Wiley did not answer directly. “Do you want to tell me how you got stabbed?”

The boy made an effort. His eyes were frightened. He managed a whisper.

“It hurts.”

Wiley paused to rub his jaw. His eyes were bleak. He hated this but he had to make an attempt.

“How do you feel about your chances?” he asked softly.

The boy whispered, “I’m all right, sir. I’ll be up soon. I’ve got to make my ship, you know.”

“Just tell me what happened in your own way.”

The boy said weakly, “A girl. I only meant to pass. I told her that. I was only—”

The whisper trailed off and the nurse intervened.

“He’s in a coma,” she said. “There’s nothing he can say now.”

The investigators trailed out, feeling relieved.

“That’s that!” Ricca lit a cigarette. “You go ahead, Dave. I’ll stick around, just in case.”

Wiley left and went directly to court to dispose of a lengthy sentence calendar. The hospital ward was in his mind throughout the day.

Toward evening he received a call from St. Vincent’s that the young seaman had died in coma. Wiley looked at his notes on the desk, then telephoned Goudy.

“I know about it, sir.” Goudy’s voice was remote arid, it struck Wiley, all the more desolate for being quiet. “They called me first thing. Thank you for calling.”

Wiley scrawled a change in his report to indicate that the assault had become homicide. “We’ll charge Figueroa with manslaughter, perhaps murder, but I can’t promise the result. A jury will probably acquit.”

“How can that be, sir?” Goudy cried.