"Once or twice. Like he try to shake me down at school, you know? We go the same school."
"What school is that?"
"A trade school. I'm learn a job."
"What kind of job?"
"Automotive. But thass not what I wann to be."
"What do you want to be?"
"I wann study radio. So when I wass in junior high school, I go the adviser, you know? I say, 'I wann study radio.' She tell me I should be an automotive. She says iss better for a Spanish kid. She says iss better opportunity. But I still wann study radio."
"Why don't you tell this to someone at your school?"
"Oh, I don' know. Who's to listen? Sometimes I feel… I don' know… like as if bein' here I'm jus'… not a real human bein', you know? Like I feel… secondhand."
Hemandez nodded. "What happened with this Zip? When he tried to shake you down?"
"Oh, I give him my lunch money," Alfredo said. "It wass ony a quarter. I dinn want bad blood with him."
"And that was the extent of it? And you haven't had any trouble with him since that time?"
"Never. Like he's ony new aroun' here, you know? Maybe he lives here fi', six months. He come from somewhere downtown, you know? So I don' bodder with him, I ony want to go my own way, thass all. I don' like this… I mean… look, they go aroun' stomping people… they have these street bops… what I got to fight for? For what? I'm here this city now, so here should be better, not
"Yes, Alfredo."
"Sure. But he's leader of the Latin Purples. So I don' belong no gang, no Royal Guardians, no Spanish Dukes, nothin'. So who's to protec' me?"
"You? What can you do? You tink they afraid of cops? If I don' show in the street, they call me turkey, they say I afraid of them. So den everybody laugh at me. So den how can I walk the street? If I be turkey, how can I walk the street?"
"It's not turkey to want to live, Alfredo. Every man wants to live."
"I tell you the truth, I'm tired," Alfredo said. "I'm tired of walkin' alone. You walk alone, they all pick on you. But I'm spose to join a gang? I'm spose to go aroun' shootin' people?
What for I want to shoot people?"
"Don't leave the apartment today, Alfredo," Hernandez said.
"You'll be safe here. I'll see to that." "And tomorrow?" Alfredo asked. "What about tomorrow?" "We'll see. Maybe this'll all be cleared up by tomorrow." "Will tomorrow be any better?" Alfredo asked. "Tomorrow I'm still here. I'm always here in this neighborhood." He began to weep suddenly and gently. "Always," he said. "Always here. Always."
There were four squad cars in the street outside when Hernandez got downstairs. They formed a loose cordon about the bar called La Gallina, and Hernandez immediately wondered if a Vice Squad raid was in progress. The street was filled with people who seemed to gather immediately at the sign of any excitement, who stood speculating in small knots outside the barrier formed by the squad cars on either end of the bar. Hernandez pushed his way through the crowd, saw that Parker was standing and talking to Lieutenant Byrnes and Steve Carella, who stood leaning against a fender of one of the squad cars. His first thought was
"When do we start, Lieutenant?" Parker asked. There was a glow in Parker's eyes. He reminded Hernandez of a Marine who had been in his outfit. The guy's name had been Ray Walters, and he had joined the company on the day before the Iwo Jima landings. He hated the Japanese, and he couldn't wait for the landings to begin. He was the first man out of the landing barge, his eyes glowing, a tight grim smile on his mouth. The smile was still there when the Jap bullet took him between the eyes.
"We're getting cars on the next block," Byrnes said, "so we'll have radio contact with the men there. We'll start as soon as they're ready. This isn't going to be a picnic. He said we wouldn't take him alive."
"Are we sure it's him?" Parker asked.
"Who knows? We got a telephone tip. If it
