Ed McBain - See Them Die

Tommy and Li'1 Killer saw Cooch the moment he came around the corner.

"Hey, Tommy," Phil said. "There's one of them."

"One of who?"

"The Latin Purples. Man, if the cops spot that jacket..."

"Call him over," Tommy said.

"What for?"

"To tip him off. You want the cops to get him?"

"Who cares they get him or not? He's a jerk."

"Jerk or no, I don't like the cops to score. Call him over."

Phil shrugged. "Hey! Hey, kid! Hey, you!"

Cooch, who had been searching the crowd for Zip and the boys, stopped dead in his tracks, recognizing the gold jackets at once, hesitating.

"Come here," Phil said.

Cooch approached the crate warily. "You talking to me?"

"Yeah, Hey, what's your name again?"

"Me?"

"Yeah, who do you think? I forget your name. What is it again."

"Cooch."

"Sure. Cooch. That's right." Phil nodded. "Cooch, this is Tommy Ordiz, he's war counselor for the Royal Guardians. He's maybe got a tip for you."

"What kind of tip?" Cooch asked suspiciously.

"On the fourth at Hialeah," Phil said, and he burst out laughing.

"Don't clown around," Tommy warned. "You want this tip, Cooch?"

"Who's clowning?" Phil said. "Rrrrrrracing fans..."

"Knock it off!"

"I was just..."

"Knock it off!"

Phil fell silent. He put his hands in his pockets and glowered at Tommy.

"You want the tip, Cooch?" Tommy asked again.

"Depends on what kind."

"A good tip. I'm being nice to you." He paused. "Get rid of that purple jacket."

Cooch was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Who says?"

"I'm giving you good advice. Ditch the jacket."

"Why?" Cooch said narrowly. "So you can say you busted a Latin Purple?"

"Huh?"

"You heard me."

"Oh, man, don't be a worse meatball than you are," Tommy said. "I got better things to do than..."

"Screw him," Phil said. "Let him find out for himself."

"You don't get no trophy from me, pal," Cooch said.

"Look," Tommy started, patiently trying to explain, "if you keep wearing that jacket..."

"The jacket stays on! No goddamn Royal Guardian tells me what to wear."

"See?" Phil said. "What'd I tell you? Let the creep find out for..."

"No, wait a minute, Phil," Tommy said.' Something hard and cold had crept into his voice and into his eyes. He studied Cooch minutely, and then said, "You ought to watch your mouth, boy, you know?"

"I don't have to watch nothing," Cooch said. He did not know whether or not he was afraid. Actually, he did not feel afraid. Not with four guns rucked into the waistband of his trousers. But at the same time, he knew that something was pushing him into sounding two members of the toughest gang in the neighborhood. He could only assume the force propelling him was fear. And yet, he did not feel afraid.

Tommy climbed down off the packing crate. "You got a real loose mouth, boy," he said. "You ought to watch the way it spills over."

"You take care of your own mouth," Cooch said.

"You're really looking for it, ain't you, boy? Your day ain't gonna be complete until we break your arm, is it?"

"You finished making big noises?" Cooch asked. "I'm in a hurry."

Tommy stepped into his path. "Stay put, boy."

"Tommy," Phil warned, "there's a million bulls all over the..."

"Shut up!" Tommy said tightly, without turning his attention from Cooch. "I give you a chance to take off that jacket nice and polite, now didn't I, Cooch? For your own good, I asked you. Okay. Now you're gonna take it off because I'm telling you to take it off. Now how about that?"

"How about it?" Cooch answered.

"You take it off, or I cut if off your back!"

"Sure. Try it."

"You're the kind I like," Tommy said, taking a step forward, his hand reaching into his pocket. "You're the kind of spunky little bastard I..."

"Hold it!" Cooch whispered. "Hold it right there, man! I got four pieces under this jacket, and I swear to God I'll use every friggin' one of them!"

Tommy stopped suddenly, eyeing Cooch, wondering if this were just a bluff. It did not seem to be. Cooch's eyes were steady, his mouth tight.

"So come on, hero," he said confidently.

"Let it go, Tommy," Phil said worriedly, his eyes flicking to the cops swarming over the street.

Tommy studied Cooch an instant longer, and then backed away. "We got a big man with a piece here, Phil," he said. "You're real big with them pieces, huh, Cooch? Well, I got some more advice for you. Friendly advice. Don't never go walking about without a piece from now on, you hear? Because, buddy, you are going to need one. You are really going to need one."

"Thanks, you yellow bastard," Cooch said, grinning, and then he turned on his heel and ran off toward the corner.

"Cooch, huh?" Tommy said, smoldering. He nodded. "Okay, Cooch. We're gonna see about you, Cooch."

"A nut!" Phil said, shaking his head. "We try to help him, and he turns on us." He shook his head again. "It just don't pay to be nice to nobody." He looked up at the girls. "You chicks gonna stand on that box all day long?"

"What else is there to do?" Elena asked.

"Let's go up to my pad," Phil said. "My people are out. We roll back the rug in the parlor, and we have a little jump, what do you say?"

"I don't know," Elena said. "Juana?"

"I don't know. What do you think?"

"It's too hot to dance," Elena said.

"Okay, so let's go get a beer," Phil said. "What the hell's the sense in hanging around here? Don't you know what's gonna happen?"

"No. What's gonna happen?"

"Eventually, they're gonna shoot Pepe," Phil said simply. "What do you think? He's gonna get away?"

"He might," Elena said.

"Impossible."

"Why is it so impossible?"

"Because there's got to be a moral," Phil said. "The Bad Guy never wins. Crime don't pay. Otherwise the Breen Office don't let it through." He burst out laughing. "Hey, Tommy, you dig that? The Breen Office..."

"Yeah, I caught it," Tommy said. "The son of a bitch! I was trying to help him, can you imagine that?"

"Come on, girls," Phil said. "Let's cut out, huh?"

"Juana?" Elena said.

"Okay," Juana said.

"Great," Phil said, helping them off the crate. "Believe me, you'd be wasting your time hanging around here. Ain't nothing gonna happen to Pepe but he's gonna get killed.

If the police had been as confidently sure of the outcome as was Phil, they would not have bothered to arm themselves with tear-gas pellets this time at the bat. For whatever Phil might have thought about the inevitability of Hollywood-type gangland movies, Pepe Miranda had broken out of an apartment the day before, and today he had shot a patrolman and a detective, and the possibility existed that he might shoot a few more detectives — or even another lowly patrolman or two — before the festivites were over. And, granting this possibility, there was the further possibility that he could and might break out of this apartment today, foiling the police, the Breen Office, the brothers Warner, and even Anthony Boucher. In any case, this time the cops were playing it safe. One of their patrolmen had been carted away in an ambulance, and one of their detectives lay spilling his blood, drop by drop, to the sidewalk below, and those seemed like enough casualties for one day.

So they lined up across the street like Hessians on a Massachusetts field in 1777, and they put their tear-gas guns to their shoulders, and they awaited the order which would release a new volley of bullets against the windows across the street, driving Miranda back so that they could plop their triple tracer shells into the apartment. There was nothing as sad as a crying thief, and all those valiant men in blue would watch Miranda with aching hearts as he burst into tears, but that was the way the little tear-gas pellet bounced.