The first of the boys was wearing dungarees and a white, sweat-stained T shirt. His nose was running, and he constantly wiped at it with the back of his hand, the mucus streaked there like a healed burn. He was eight years old.
The other boy was nine. He wore khaki shorts and a short-sleeved blue sports shirt. An Army sergeant's stripes had been sewn to the left sleeve of the shirt. He moved his feet constantly, as if trying to erase chalk from the sidewalk.
"These the kids?" Zip asked Cooch.
"Yeah," Cooch said.
Zip looked at the one with the snotty nose. "What's your name, kid?"
"Chico."
"And yours?" he said to the other boy.
"Estaban," the boy answered, his feet erasing invisible chalk.
"Did Cooch explain the picture to you?"
"You and Estaban, one on each side of the church steps. You keep the pieces under your shirts until we get on the scene. Then you give them to us and hang around until we blast. We give you back the pieces when it's all over, and you cut out. You got that?"
Zip looked at his watch. "Okay, the church bells should begin ringing any minute now. That'll be first call for the eleven o'clock Mass. You kids cut out as soon as you hear them bells. We'll drift up toward the corner around eleven-thirty. You be ready for us, you hear me?"
"Zip, when we grow up, me an' Estaban," Chico said, "we coul' go gang-bustin' wi' you?"
Zip grinned and touched the boy's hair. "Sure, when you grow up. Right now, you have them pieces ready for us when we need them."
"I know how to shoot, Zip," Chico said. "I know how to shoot good."
Zip laughed aloud. "Not this trip, Chico. You got time yet before you begin…"
The church bells rang suddenly, abruptly, and then were silent. Whoever was pulling on the cord had made an abortive start, perhaps the cord had slipped from his hands, perhaps he'd had a sudden cramp in his fingers. The heavy solemn bonnnnng of metal upon metal sounded, reverberated, and then died. The boys stood in silence, straining for the peal of the bells. And then the bells started again, ringing out on the still July air, calling the flock to Mass, reaching into the streets and into the open windows, summoning the congregation, summoning Alfredo Gomez to whatever waited for him on the church steps.
"That's it," Zip said tightly. He reached beneath his jacket and, one by one, began pulling the weapons from where they were tucked into his belt. Jeff, in the luncheonette, turned at the sound of the church bells, thinking of China, a smile on his face. He saw the first weapon pass from Zip's hand to Chico's snot-smeared fist, and he blinked as the other weapons changed hands, watched as the two youngsters tucked them into their waistbands, four guns in all, and then pulled their shirts down over them.
"Okay, go," Zip said.
The two boys grinned, nodded, and then ran off up the street. A frown had come onto Jeffs forehead. He swung his stool around and picked up his cup of coffee. The church bells had stopped now. An old man rushed from the mouth of a tenement, paused on the stoop while he pulled on his suit jacket, and then ran spryly up the street.
"Nice quiet Sunday," Luis said to Jeff, smiling.
Jeff nodded and said nothing. The four boys in the purple silk jackets had moved to a position near the jukebox. The street had gone silent again. It seemed to be a street of many moods and many temperaments, changing in the space of seconds like a vaudeville performer who snaps a wig into place and becomes a clown, discards the wig, puts on a black mustache and becomes Adolf Hitler. Now, the street in its sunbath seemed like a golden corridor leading to the high overhead arch of the elevated structure two blocks away, the sky a dazzling yellow-white beyond. Quiet, burning with light, the street was mute, the street waited. The boys lounged near the jukebox, their hands in their pockets. Occasionally they glanced in the direction of the church. Their eyes were squinted against the reflected sunlight.
