Эд Макбейн - Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here

“Hello, Blanca,” Delgado said.

“Hullo,” she answered.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m not holding, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I mean, if you’re looking for a cheap dope bust...”

“I’m not.”

“Okay,” Blanca said, and nodded. She was not an unattractive girl. Her complexion was dark, her hair was black, her eyes a light shade of brown; her lips were perhaps a trifle too full, and there was a small unsightly scar on her jawline, where she had been stabbed by a pimp when she was just sixteen and already shooting heroin three times a day.

“You want to help me?” Delgado asked.

“Doing what?”

“I need some information.”

“I’m no stoolie,” Blanca said.

“If I ask you anything you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to.”

“Thanks for nothing.”

“ Querida, ” Delgado said, “we’re very nice to you. Be nice back, huh?”

She looked him full in the face, sighed, and said, “What do you want to know?”

“Everything you know about Joe Huerta.”

“Nothing.”

“He ever come to visit you?”

“Never.”

“What about his partner?”

“Who’s his partner?”

“Ray Castañeda.”

“I don’t know him,” Blanca said. “Is he related to Pepe Castañeda?”

“Maybe. Tell me about Pepe.”

Blanca shrugged. “A punk,” she said.

“How old is he?”

“Thirty? Something like that.”

“What’s he do?”

“Who knows? Maybe numbers, I’m not sure. He used to be a junkie years ago, he’s one of the few guys I know who kicked it. He was with this street gang, they called themselves The Spanish Nobles or some shit like that, this was when he was still a kid, you know. I was only five or six myself, you know, but he was a very big man in the neighborhood, rumbling all the time with this wop gang from the other side of the park, I forget the name of the gang, it was a very big one. Then, you know, everybody started doing dope, the guys all lost interest in gang-busting. Pepe was a very big junkie, but he kicked it. I think he went down to Lexington, I’m not sure. Or maybe he just got busted and sent away and kicked it cold turkey, I’m not sure. But he’s off it now, I know that.” She shrugged. “He’s still a punk, though.”

“Have you seen him lately?”

“Yeah, he’s around all the time. You always see him on the stoop someplace. Always with a bunch of kids around him, you know, listening to his crap. Big man. The reformed whore,” Blanca said, and snorted.

“Have you seen him today?”

“No. I just come down a little while ago. I had a trick with me all night.”

“Where can I find him, would you know?”

“Pepe or the trick?” Blanca asked, and smiled.

“Pepe,” Delgado said, and did not smile back.

“There’s a pool hall on Ainsley,” Blanca said. “He hangs around there a lot.”

“Let’s get back to Huerta for a minute, okay?”

“Why?” Blanca asked, and turned to look at a bus that was rumbling up the avenue.

“Because we got away from him too fast,” Delgado said.

“I hardly know him,” Blanca said. She was still watching the bus. Its blue-gray exhaust fumes seemed to fascinate her.

“You mind looking at me?” Delgado said.

She turned back toward him sharply. “I told you I’m not a stoolie,” Blanca said. “I don’t want to answer no questions about Joe Huerta.”

“Why not? What’s he into?”

“No comment.”

“Dope?”

“No comment.”

“Yes or no, Blanca? We know where you live, we can have the Vice Squad banging on your door every ten minutes. Tell me about Huerta.”

“Okay, he’s dealing, okay?”

“I thought he had a real estate business.”

“Sure. He’s got an acre of land in Mexico, and he grows pot on it.”

“Is he pushing the hard stuff, too?”

“No. Only grass.”

“Does his partner know this?”

“I don’t know what his partner knows or don’t know. I’m not his partner. Go ask his partner.”

“Maybe I will,” Delgado said. “After I talk to his partner’s brother.”

“You going to look for Pepe now?”

“Yes.”

“Tell him he still owes me five bucks.”

“What for?”

“What do you think for?” Blanca asked.

Genero was waiting on the sidewalk when Willis came out of the phone booth.

“What’d they say?” he asked.

“Nothing yet. They’ve got a lot of stuff ahead of what we sent them.”

“So how we supposed to know if it’s grass or oregano?” Genero said.

“I guess we wait. They told me to call back in a half hour or so.”

“Those guys at the lab give me a pain in the ass,” Genero said.

“Yeah, well, what’re you gonna do?” Willis said. “We all have our crosses to bear.” The truth was that Genero gave him a pain in the ass. They had arranged for pickup and delivery to the lab of the plastic bag full of oregano/marijuana and had asked for a speedy report on it. But the lab was swamped with such requests every day of the week, the average investigating officer never being terribly certain about a suspect drug until it was checked out downtown. Willis had been willing to wait for the report; Genero had insisted that he call the lab and find out what was happening. Now, at twenty minutes to four, they knew what was happening: nothing. So now Genero was beginning to sulk, and Willis was beginning to wish he would go home and explain to his mother how tough it was to be a working detective in this city.

They were in an area of The Quarter that was not as chic as the section farther south, lacking its distinctive Left Bank flair, but boasting of the same high rentals nonetheless, this presumably because of its proximity to all the shops and theaters and coffeehouses. 3541 Carrier Avenue was a brownstone in a row of identical brownstones worn shoddy by the passage of time. They found a nameplate for Robert Hamling in one of the mailboxes in the entrance hallway downstairs. Willis rang the bell for Apartment 22. An answering buzz on the inner door sounded almost immediately. Genero opened the door and both men moved into a dim ground-floor landing. A flight of steps was directly ahead of them. The building smelled of Lysol. They went up to the second floor, searched for Apartment 22, listened outside the door, heard nothing, and knocked.

“Bobby?” a girl’s voice said.

“Police officers,” Willis said.

“What do you want?” the girl asked.

“Open the door,” Genero said.

There was silence inside the apartment. They kept listening. They knew that Robert Hamling wasn’t in there with the girl, because the first word out of her mouth had been “Bobby?” But nobody knows better than cops that the female is the deadlier of the species, and so they waited apprehensively for her to unlock the door, their coats open, their guns within ready drawing distance. When the door finally opened, they were looking at a teenage girl wearing dungarees and a tie-dyed T-shirt. Her face was round, her eyes were blue, her brown hair was long and matted.

“Yes, what do you want?” she said. She seemed very frightened and very nervous. She kept one hand on the doorknob. The other fluttered at the throat of the T-shirt.

“We’re looking for Robert Hamling,” Willis said. “Does he live here?”

“Yes?” she said, tentatively.

“Is he home?”

“No.”

“When do you expect him?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s your name, miss?” Genero asked.

“Sonia.”

“Sonia what?”

“Sonia Sobolev.”

“How old are you, Sonia?”

“Seventeen.”