Or maybe I should go up to the squad now?
Maybe Steve'll be back earlier than he thought. I could surprise him. Yes, maybe I'll do that. Go up to the squad now and wait for him. I'll think about it.
He might like a surprise waiting when he walks into the squad room
The man walked with his head bent.
There was no breeze blowing, not a strong breeze in any case, only a mild caressing murmur of air, but he walked with his head bent because he never really felt quite like himself in this city, never really felt quite like a person. And so he ducked his head, pulling it into his shoulders as far as he could, almost like a turtle defending himself against any blow which might come.
The man was nicely dressed. He wore a tweed suit and a neat blue tie fastened to his white shirt with a tiny gold pin. He wore dark blue socks, and black loafers, and he knew he looked like any other man walking the streets, and yet he did not feel as if he were a real person here, an individual, a person who could walk with his head up and his shoulders back-the city had done that to him, the city had given him this feeling of not belonging, not being. And so he walked with his hands in his pockets and his head bent.
And because his head was bent, he happened to notice the blue sheet of paper lying on the sidewalk. And because he was in no particular hurry to get anywhere in this city of hostility which made him feel unimportant, he picked up the paper and studied it with curious brown eyes.
The blue sheet of paper was the original Detective Division Report which Meyer Meyer had typed and floated down from the second-story window of the precinct house.
The two carbon copies of the D.D. form were nowhere in sight on the sidewalk.
There was only the one blue sheet, and the man picked it up and studied it, and then walked to one of the big trash baskets sitting under the lamppost on the corner of the block. The trash basket read KEEP
OUR CITY CLEAN.
The man crumpled Meyer Meyer's message and hurled it into the trash basket.
Then he put his hands into his pockets, ducked his head, and walked on his way in this hostile city.
The man's name was Juan Alverra, and he had arrived from Puerto Rico three months ago. No one in the city had attempted to teach Juan the English language which Meyer had used to compose his note.
Juan Alverra read and wrote only Spanish.
Cotton Hawes unobtrusively closed first one window and then the other. Outside, the sultry night pressed its blackness against the windowpanes, filtered by the triangular mesh beyond the glass. The six hanging light globes, operated by a single switch inside the railing near the coat rack, feebly defended the room against the onslaught of darkness. A determined silence had settled over the squad room the silence of waiting.
Angelica Gomez sat with her crossed legs and high-heeled pumps, jiggling one foot impatiently. Her coat was draped over the back of her chair. Her peasant blouse swooped low over her confessedly unrestricted bosom. She sat with her own thoughts-thoughts perhaps of the man whose throat she'd cut, a man named Kassim whose friends had behind them the power of the vendetta; thoughts perhaps of the uncompromising arm of the law;
thoughts perhaps of an uncomplicated island in the Caribbean where the sun had always shone and where she had helped cut sugar cane in season and drunk deeply of rum at night with the guitars going in the velvet black hills.
At the desk beside her sat Virginia Dodge, solemnly dressed in black-black dress and black overcoat and black shoes and black leather tote bag. Thin white legs and a thin white face. The blue-black steel of a revolver in her fist. The colorless oil of a high explosive on the desk before her.
Nervously, the fingers of her left hand rapped a tattoo on the desk top. Her eyes, so brown that they toe appeared black, darted about the room, wild birds searching for a roost, settling always on the corridor beyond the railing, waiting for the apearance of a detective who had sent her man to prison.
Behind her, on the floor near the huge green bulk of the metal filing cabinets, lay at Miscolo, police clerk. Unconscious, gasping for breath, his Chest and head on fire, Miscolo did not know he might be dying. Miscolo knew nothing. In the void of his unconsciousness, he dreamt he was a boy again. He dreamt that it was Hallowe'en, dreamt that he was carrying bundles of paper to be tossed into the huge bonfire set in the middle of the city street. He dreamt he was happy.
Cotton Hawes wondered if the room were getting any hotter.
