Ed McBain: See Them Die

"You threaten me?" Luis said. "I am a friend of the police. I tell them..."

"Come on, come on," Zip said, and again the warm grin flashed on his face. "You can sue me later. Right now, give me the change, huh? Come on."

Luis shook his head, picked up the quarter, and reached into his pocket. He made the change, and Zip picked it up and started for the telephone. He began dialing. Luis, since money matters had been brought to mind, walked to the cash register, reached into his pocket, and put in his day's starting money, laying the bills into the register drawer. He was about to break open a roll of dimes when Zip yelled, "Hey! Hey, Cooch! Over here!"

Luis turned. The second boy was also from the neighborhood, also wearing one of the purple silk jackets, but he was younger than Zip. Luis studied him from the distance of age, and wondered if he too had sported such a ridiculously thin and boyish-looking mustache when he was sixteen. He decided that he had not. The boy was short and squat, with thick powerful hands. His complexion was dark. He spotted Zip from the middle of the street and shouted, "Hey, Zipboy!" and then broke into a trot for the luncheonette. Luis sighed and cracked the roll of dimes on the edge of the cash drawer.

"What the hell kept you?" Zip asked. "I was just calling your house."

"Oh, man, don't ask," Cooch said. He spoke, as did Zip, without a trace of an accent. Both were total products of the city and the neighborhood, as far removed from Puerto Rico as was Mongolia. Studying them, Luis felt suddenly old, suddenly foreign. He shrugged, went to his stove, and began putting up his pots of coffee.

"My people are the eeriest, you know that, man?" Cooch said. He had large brown eyes, and he used his face expressively when he spoke, like a television comic going through a famous routine. "I think my old man must be on the Chamber of Commerce, I swear to God."

"What's your old man got to do with your being late? I said a quarter to nine, so here it is..."

"He gets a letter from Puerto Rico," Cooch went on blithely, "and right away he flips. 'Come stay with us,' he writes. 'Come live with us. Bring all your kids, and your grandma, and your police dog. We'll take care of you.'" Cooch slapped his forehead dramatically. "So all our goddamn barefoot cousins come flop with us. And every time another one shows up at the airport, my old man throws a party."

"Listen, what's this got to..."

"He threw a party last night. Out came the goddamn guitars. We had enough strings there to start a symphony. You shoulda seen my old man. He has a couple of drinks, right away his hands head for my old lady. Like homing pigeons. Two drinks, and his hands were on her ass."

"Look, Cooch, who cares where your old man's..."

"Judging from last night," Cooch said reflectively, "I should have another brother soon."

"All right, now how come you're late?"

"I been trying to tell you. The jump didn't break up until four a.m. I could hardly crawl outa bed this morning. I still can't see too straight." He paused. "Where's Papa? Ain' he here yet?"

"That's what I'm wondering. You all think we're playing games here."

"Who, me?" Cooch said, offended. "Me? I think that?"

"Okay, maybe not you," Zip said, relenting. "The other guys."

"Me?" Cooch persisted, astonished and hurt. "Me? Who was it first showed you around the scene when you moved up here?"

"Okay, I said not you, didn't I?"

"Where'd you come from? Some crumby slum near the Calm's Point Bridge? What the hell did you know about this neighborhood? Who showed you around, huh?"

"You did, you did," Zip said patiently.

"Yeah. So right away you hop on me. A few minutes late, and you..." -"Ten minutes late," Zip corrected.

"All right, ten minutes, I didn't know you had a stop watch. Man, I don't understand you sometimes, Zip. Saying I think we're playing games here. Man, if ever a guy..."

"I said not you! For Pete's sake, I said not you! I'm talking about the other studs." He paused. "Did you stop by for Sixto?"

"Yeah. That's another reason I'm late. You give me all these stops to..."

"So where is he?"

"He had to help his old lady."

"Doing what?"

"With the baby. Listen, you think it's kicks having a baby in the house? I never seen a kid could wet her pants like Sixto's sister. Every time you turn around, that kid is pissing."

"He was changing her pants?" Zip asked, astonished.

"He was powdering her behind the last time I seen him."

"I'm gonna powder his behind when he gets here!" Zip said angrily. "See, that's just what I mean. He thinks we're fooling around here. Then you wonder why we ain't making a name for ourselves. It's because nobody on this club's for real, that's why. Everybody expects me to do everything."

"We got a name, Zip," Cooch said gently.

"We got balls! You guys still think this is a goddamn basket ball team at the Boys' Club. When you gonna grow up? You want to walk the streets in this neighborhood, or you want to hide every time there's a backfire?"

"I don't hide from nothing!"

"You think anybody on the Royal Guardians is scared of anything?" Zip asked.

"No, but the Royal Guardians got two hundred and fifty members."

"So how do you think they got them members? By being late when there's a wash job scheduled?"

"Hey!" Cooch said suddenly.

"What's the matter?"

"Shhhh."

A woman was coming up the street, her ample breasts bobbing with the haste of her steps. Her black hair was pulled into a bun at the back of her neck. She looked neither to the right nor to the left. She walked with a purposefulness, almost a blindness, passing the boys who stood in the open street side of the luncheonette, turning the corner, and moving out of sight.

"You see who that was?" Cooch whispered.

"That lady?"

"Yeah." Cooch nodded. "Alfie's mother."

"What?" He walked to the corner and stared up the avenue. But the woman was already gone.

"Alfredo Gomez's mother," Cooch said. "Man, was she in a hurry! Zip, you think he told her?"

"What do I care, he told her or not?"

"What I mean ... like this is his old lady ... like if he told her..."

"So he told her. How's that gonna help him?"

"You know how dames are. She might've got excited. She might've..."

"Stop crapping your pants, will you? You got nothing but small-time guts, you know that? You're just like my old man. He talks like a senator. A real wheel. Always telling me about Puerto Rico. Who cares about that damn island? I was born here, right in this city. I'm a real American. But he's always telling me what a big shot he was in San Juan. You know what it turns out he done there? I found out from one of my uncles. You know what he done?"

"What?"

"He fixed bicycles for a living. So that's the big wheel. Big talk that's all. But small-time guts."

"I got as much guts..."

"Sure, so you see Alfie's mother out for a stroll, and you start shaking. You know what you're gonna be when you grow up?"

"No. What?"

"A guy who fixes bicycles." , "Aw, come on. I..."

"Or a guy who shines shoes."

"I never shined a pair of shoes in my life!" Cooch said proudly. "I don't even shine my own shoes!"

"That's wflfy you look like a slob," Zip said, and then abruptly turned'his head. Someone was approaching.

2

The sailor had rounded the corner as Cooch spoke. He was a tall, blond man — well, not exactly a man, and yet not a boy. He was perhaps twenty-two years old, and he had reached that mysterious boundary line which divided a man from a boy, but he was still straddling the line so that it was impossible to think of him as a boy, and yet stretching a point to consider him a man. Man or boy, he was quite drunk at the moment He walked with the sailor's habitual roll, but the roll was somewhat frustrated by his erratic drunken weaving. His white hat was perched precariously on the back of his head, and his white uniform was spotlessly clean, reflecting the early-morning sunshine with a dazzling brilliance. He stopped on the corner, looked up at the sign over the luncheonette, mumbled something to himself, shook his head violently, and then continued up the street.