Эд Макбейн - Learning to Kill - Stories

“Well, it ain’t Fifth Avenue.”

“That don’t mean it stinks.”

“Well, a guy like Harry...”

“What about Harry?”

“He... well... he don’t help us none.”

“Help us with who? What’re you talkin’ about?”

“Help us with nobody! He stinks just the way the neighborhood...”

I was ready to bust him one, when the shooting began again outside.

I rushed over to the window. The shooting was all coming from the streets, with Harry not returning the fire. It seemed like every cop in the world was firing up at that window. The people on the roofs were all ducking because they didn’t want to pick up no stray lead. I poked my head out because we were on the other side of the alleyway.

“You see him?” Beef asked.

“No. He’s playing it cool.”

“A man shouldn’t walk around free after he kills people,” Aiello said.

“Shut your mouth, A,” I told him.

“Well, it’s the truth.”

“Shut up, you dumb crumb. What the hell do you know about it?”

“I know it ain’t right. Who’ll he kill next? Suppose he kills your own mother?”

“What’s he want to kill my old lady for? You’re talking like a man with a paper...”

“I’m only saying. A guy like Harry, he stinks up the whole works.”

“I’ll talk to you later, jerk,” I said. “I want to watch this.”

The cops were throwing tear gas now. Two of the shells hit the brick wall of the building, and bounced off, and went flying down to the street again. They fired two more, and one of them hung on the sill as if it was going in, and then dropped. The fourth one went in the window, and out it came again, and I whispered, “That’s the boy, Harry,” and then another one came up and sailed right into the window, and I guess Harry couldn’t get to it that time because the cops in the hallway started a barrage.

There were fire trucks down there now, and hoses were wrapped all over the street, and I wondered if they were going to try burning Harry out. The gas was coming out his window and sailing up the alleyway, and I got a whiff of the apple blossoms myself, that’s what it smells like, and it smelled good, but I knew Harry was inside that apartment and hardly able to see. He come over to the window and tried to suck in some air, but the boys in the street kept up the barrage, trying to get him, and I felt sorrier’n hell for the poor guy.

He started firing then and throwing things out the window, chairs, and a lamp, and an electric iron, and the cops held off for just a few sees, and Harry copped some air, but not enough because they were shooting more tear gas shells up there, and they were also firing, and you could tell they had some tommies in the crowd because no .38 ever fired like that, and no carbine ever did either. I was wishing I had a gun of my own because I wanted to help Harry, and I felt as if my hands were tied, but what the hell could I do? I just kept sweating it out, and Harry wasn’t firing through the window anymore, and then all of a sudden everything in the street stopped and everything inside the apartment was still.

“Manzetti!” the cop in the hallway yelled.

Harry coughed and said, “What?”

“You coming out?”

“I killed a cop,” Harry yelled back.

“Come on out, Manzetti!”

“I killed a cop!” Harry yelled, and he sounded as if he was crying from the gas those bastards had fed him. “I killed a cop, I killed a cop,” he kept saying over and over again.

“You only wounded him,” the cop yelled, and I shouted, “He’s lying, Harry.”

“Get me a priest,” Harry yelled.

“Why he wants a priest?” Beef asked.

“It’s a trick,” I said. “He wants a shield.”

“No dice,” the cop answered. “Come on, Manzetti, throw your weapons out.”

“Get me a priest.”

“Come on, Manzetti.”

“No!” he screamed. “You lousy punk, no!”

“Manzetti...”

“Get me a priest,” Harry shouted. “I’m scared I’ll... get me a priest.”

“What’d he say?” I said to Beef.

“I didn’t catch,” Beef said, and then the firing started again. It must have gone on for about ten minutes, and then all of a sudden, just the way it started, that’s the way it stopped again.

“They got him,” Aiello said.

“Bull,” I answered.

I kept watching the street. It was beginning to get dark now, and the cops were turning on their spots and playing them up at Harry’s window. There wasn’t a sound coming from the apartment.

“They got him,” Aiello said again.

“You need straightening, you jerk,” I told him.

The streetlights came on, and after about a half hour a few more cops went into the building.

“Harry!” I yelled from the window.

There was no answer.

“Harry!”

Then we heard the shots in the hallway, and then quiet again, and then the sound of a door being busted, and then that goddamn telephone someplace in the building began ringing again.

About ten minutes later, they carried Harry out on a stretcher.

Dead.

We hung around the streets late that night. There’d been a big fuss when they carried Harry out, everybody yelling and shouting from the rooftops, as if this was the Roman arena or something. They didn’t realize what a guy Harry was, and what a tough fight he’d put up.

“They got him, all right,” Ferdy said, “but it wasn’t easy.”

“He took two of them with him,” I said.

“A guy like Harry, it pains you to see him go,” Ferdy said.

“Yeah,” I answered.

We were an quiet for a little while.

“Where’s A?” Beef asked.

“I don’t know,” I told him. “The hell with that little jerk anyway.”

“He got an inside wire, all right,” Ferdy said. “He was the first cat to tumble to this.”

“Yeah,” I said. I was thinking about the look on Donlevy’s face when those slugs ripped him up.

“How’d he tip to it, anyway?”

“He spotted Harry in the hall. Going up to Louise.”

“Oh.” Ferdy was quiet for a while. “Harry see him?”

“Yeah.”

“He should have been more careful.”

“A guy like Harry, he got lots of things on his mind. You think he’s gonna worry about a snot nose like A?”

“No, but what I mean... somebody blew the whistle on him.”

“Sure, but that don’t...” I cut myself dead. “Hey!” I said.

“What?”

“Aiello.”

“Aiello what?”

“I’ll bet he done it! Why, I’ll bet that little crumb done it!”

“Tipped the cops to Harry, you mean?”

“Sure! Who else? Why, that little...”

“Now, hold it, Danny. Now don’t jump to...”

“Who else knew it?”

“Anybody could have spotted Harry.”

“Sure, except nobody did.” I waited a minute, thinking, and then I said, “Come on.”

We began combing the neighborhood.

We went down to the poolroom, and we combed the bowling alley, and then we hit the rooftops, but Aiello was no place around. We checked the dance in the church basement, and we checked the Y, but there was still no sign of him.

“Maybe he’s home,” Ferdy said.

“Don’t be a jerk.”

“It’s worth a try.”

“Okay,” I said.

We went to the building where Aiello lived. In the hallway, Beef said, “Somebody here.”

“Shut up,” Ferdy said. We went up to Aiello’s apartment and knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” he answered.

“Me,” I said. “Danny.”

“What do you want, Danny?”

“I want in. Open up.”

“I’m in bed.”

“Then get out of bed.”

“I’m not feeling so hot, Danny.”

“Come on, we got some pot.”

“I don’t feel like none.”