Ed McBain - See Them Die

"That's telling them, Pepe!" Zip yelled, and he poked Sixto in the ribs, and suddenly the street was alive with cheers of encouragement.

"Yea, Pepe!"

"Bravo, Pepe!"

"Tell 'em, tell 'em!"

"Quiet!" Byrnes roared. "Everybody quiet!" Patrolmen moved quickly into the crowd, and the people in the street fell suddenly silent. But the rooftops still rang with cheers for the trapped killer in the apartment. Byrnes waited for the sound to die out. He put the megaphone to his mouth and said, "All right, Miranda. No more talk. We're coming in."

"Then stop talking and come get me, you yellow bastards!" Miranda shouted, and suddenly the shade on one of the windows snapped up, and there he was, Pepe Miranda the killer, a short, wiry man standing in his undershirt, his lips pulled back into a snarl, a three days' growth of beard on his face, a gun in each hand. He pulled back his head, and then snapped it forward with a short jerking motion, spitting into the street. And then he began firing blindly, both guns blazing as if he were trying to prove he was the marshal of a tough Western town.

Byrnes waved at the rooftops, and an ear-splitting volley shattered Sunday like a piece of crystal. He scooted for cover behind the squad car while the guns roared down from the rooftops. In the crowd, women were screaming and men were ducking behind each other for cover. Byrnes waved his hand again. The volley stopped, Miranda was no longer at the window.

He gathered Carella, Parker and Hernandez around him. "Okay," he said, "we're moving in. This time Miranda bit off too big a piece." He paused and looked at the faces of the men around him. "Has Captain Frick arrived yet, Steve?"

"Yes. I saw him a little while ago."

"Let's find him. I want this to be right."

Frederick Block was on his way home when he suddenly found himself in the middle of a traffic jam. Block hated traffic jams, and he especially hated them on weekends. He had gone to his office downtown to pick up a carton of eyelets which a factory in Riverhead needed instantly. He had made the delivery himself — "When you deal with Block Industries, you get service," he had told his client — and had then taken the shortest route he knew from Riverhead to the Calm's Point Bridge, and that route happened to take him through the heart of Isola and the 87th Precinct. And now he was in the middle of a traffic jam, on a Sunday, sweating inside his automobile when he should have been at the beach. Block was a fat man. Not one of those fat men who try to kid themselves by applying euphemistic terms like "stout" or "chubby" to their obesity. He was fat. F-A-T. And being fat, he sweated a great deal. And being a person who sweated — fat men, Block knew, never perspired — he did not appreciate being locked in a parked car in the middle of Isola on a day like today.

He bore the heat with tolerant malice for as long as he could. Then he got out of the car and tried to find out just what the hell was causing the tie-up. As far as he could see, there had been no accident. It always annoyed the hell out of Block when there was an accident. In the first place, careful drivers didn't get into accidents. And in the second and more important place, even if the wrecked car itself didn't block the road, traffic always slowed down to a snail's pace because every passing motorist wanted to study the extent of the damage.

Today, there had been no accident. And yet traffic was tied up on the avenue in both directions. Now why? Block wondered. With the instincts of an old bloodhound, he followed the crowd. They all seemed to be heading in the same direction, and he assumed the prime attraction was in that direction. Waddling along, mopping his brow with a big white handkerchief, cursing mildly under his breath, Block made his way up the avenue, and stopped at the luncheonette on the corner. A sailor was sitting at the counter. Block sidled up to him and said, "What's going on, mate?" He had never been in the navy, but he was a born salesman who adapted his speech to fit any and all occasions. "Why can't I get my car through here? What's going on?"

The sailor did not answer. The sailor kept dabbing at his face with a wadded handkerchief. Block didn't see the blood on the handkerchief, so he assumed the sailor was hot and wiping away sweat. He sympathized with the sailor and turned to the man behind the counter.

"Can you tell me what's going on?" he asked.

"The traffic's tied up," Luis said.

"You're telling me it's tied up?" Block said, and he began chuckling, his layers of fat jiggling. "Say, what kind of answer is that? It's tied up downtown and uptown and probably crosstown, too. What's going on? A parade?"

"There's a gunman in the apartment up there," the sailor said suddenly.

"A what?" Block wiped his brow. "A gunman, did you say?"

"Pepe Miranda," Luis put in, nodding.

"I never heard of him. What'd he do, rob a bank?" Block said, and he began chuckling, the fat jiggling all over him again. He didn't look at all like Santa Claus.

"You live in this city?" Luis asked.

"Sure, I live in this city. Not around here, though. I live in Calm's Point. What is this Miranda, a celebrity?"

"He's a killer," the sailor said quietly.

"Yeah?" Block opened his eyes wide in appreciation. "Yeah? A killer?"

"That's what he is," Jeff said.

"They going up there to get him?" Block said.

"That's what it looks like. You better go back to your car, mister. There might be shooting around here."

"No, no," Block said, very interested now. "I want to watch this. I want to see him die."

He shoved his way through the crowd, using his huge stomach like a battering ram.

"Louise," Jeff said, "what time is it?"

"I don't know. Eleven-thirty, something like that. Why?"

"I'm ... I'm supposed to meet a girl here. At noon."

"Sailor, why don't you take your own advice? Get out of here before you run into more trouble. Take a walk over to the park, eh? When the girl comes, I'll tell her you're waiting there for her. What's her name?"

"China. That's a funny name, ain't it?"

"Not for a Spanish girl. Only in Spanish, it's pronounced Chee-na." Luis shrugged. "A lot of the girls today, they give it the English sound. Or maybe people do it for them, and then they decide it's easier that way." He paused. "Go. Go to the park. I'll tell her where you are."

"I thought she was a whore when I first met her, Louise. That's a damn rotten way to start off, isn't it?"

"Well, I know many men who have married prostitutes," Luis said. "They make good wives."

"Oh, she ain't!" Jeff said, almost shouting the words in his haste. "I didn't mean to give you that impression. I mean, you can see that, once you know her. She's got this ... this real sweet face, you know?"

Luis smiled. "Si."

"Yeah, like a little girl, you know?" He grinned at Luis and then quickly said, "Not that she doesn't look womanly. I mean, she certainly has all the ... the ... things a ... woman has."

"I have never seen an ironing board among Puerto Rican women," Luis said.

"Huh?"

Luis curved his hand through the air, pantomiming a woman with uncommonly pronounced curves.

"Oh, yes," Jeff said. "Sure. But she doesn't look sloppy, you understand that, don't you? I mean, she's not one of these..." He used his hands to indicate a woman whose upper portions were mountainous.. Both men nodded in solemn agreement on the proper size of a bosom. "She talks nice, too," Jeff said. "I like a girl with a good voice and ... and eyes that look at you. When she talks, I mean. She looks at you. That's good. It makes you feel like ... like you're important."

"Si, a man must feel that he is important."

"That's what I didn't like about Fletcher, Louise. I just felt like anybody else there. It's funny but, well, meeting her I feel like -1 don't know -1 feel like me! That's pretty stupid, ain't it? I mean, like who the hell else would I feel like? And I hardly even know her. I mean, she's just another girl, isn't she?"