See Them Die полностью

At the moment, Miranda's team seemed to have scored the first run. The cry of "Lieutenant! Lieutenant!" which had come from the hallway of the tenement was followed almost immediately by the sight of the man who'd shouted the words. He was a police sergeant, and he had a patrolman's arm draped over his shoulder as he dragged him into the street. The patrolman had been shot. The blood on his blue shirt was plainly visible even to the people who crowded the edges of the rooftops. The sergeant carried the man out and put him on the ground beside the radio motor patrol car. The cop inside the car immediately picked up the hand microphone and requested an ambulance. The crowd watched all this with the eyes of prophets who are noting an interesting development, but who are aware that the final outcome will have little or nothing to do with this minor incident. Miranda had shot one of the cops. That was interesting. But the fireworks were yet to come. Patiently, they awaited the fireworks. It is a rare year that has two Independence Day celebrations.

Standing alongside the wounded patrolman, sweating profusely, Lieutenant Byrnes asked, "How bad is it, Sergeant?"

"His shoulder, sir," the sergeant said. He paused, catching his breath. He was a big beefy man with graying hair. His uniform was a little too tight for him, but he didn't want to buy a new one because he expected to retire next year. When a man pays for his own working clothes, he's apt to consider replacements carefully. "Sir, you shoulda heard Miranda," he said, wedging the words in between his gasps for breath. "We was just making sure all the tenants was out of the building, sir. He began cursing in Spanish and shooting through his door. He must have fired about six shots. Two of them clipped Cassidy."

Byrnes stared at the man lying in the street. "Well, we're getting an ambulance, Sergeant. Stay with him, will you? Do whatever you can to make him comfortable."

"Excuse me," a man on the other side of the barricade said. He was a tall, thin man with penetrating blue eyes. He wore a tan tropical suit and a blue straw Panama. "Did I understand the sergeant to say…?"

"Who the hell are you?" Byrnes asked.

"I'm a reporter. I work for the city's largest afternoon tabloid. I couldn't help overhearing…"

"I know your paper," Byrnes said flatly.

"Did I understand the sergeant to say…"

"I'm busy, mister," Byrnes replied, and he went around to the other side of the squad car and picked up the hand mike.

"Nice guy, your landsman" Parker said to Hernandez. "Couple of inches lower, and Cassidy'd be dead."

"I didn't do the shooting," Hernandez said. "Miranda did."

"So who's blaming you? Listen, every race has its crumbs, ain't that so?"

"Knock it off, Parker."

"Ain't nobody blaming all the Puerto Ricans for a foul ball like Miranda. Look at yourself, for God's sake. Didn't you come from this neighborhood? So look at you now. A detective third grade. It took guts to do what you did. Hell, think of all your own people you had to arrest."

"I do my job, Parker."

"No question about it. You're a good cop, Hernandez. And it sure don't hurt to talk Spanish in a precinct like this one, does it?" He began chuckling. "Listen, who cares if you're taking unfair advantage of the rest of us poor slobs? You keep on the way you're going, and some day you'll be commissioner. Then your father can hang another picture in his candy store."

"Why do you needle me, Parker?"

"Who? Me? I needle you?"

"Why?"

"I don't needle nobody," Parker said innocently. "I'm just like you, pal. I do my job."

"And what's your job?"

"My job is keeping the streets clean. I'm a street cleaner with a gun. That's a cop's job, ain't it?"

"That's not all of a cop's job."

"No? Maybe you think I should go around holding junkies' hands, huh? I used to be that way, Hernandez. I used to be the kind of cop who felt sorry for people. Used to break my heart to tag a car even."

"I'll bet it did."

"You don't have to believe me. Ask any of the old-timers at the station. But I learned my lesson, all right. I learned my lesson."

"How?" Hernandez asked.

"Never mind," Parker answered, and he turned away.

He had been turning away for a long time now, for fourteen years, to be exact. He had been turning away from his duty as a cop, and from his duty as a man, but he excused his negligence by telling himself that he had once been the kind of cop who'd felt sorry for people, and that he'd learned his lesson since. There was a slight inaccuracy to his rationale. Andy Parker was not the kind of man who had ever felt sorry for anybody in his life. It was simply not in his make-up to exude sympathy for his fellow humans. What he probably meant was that one time he felt a closer identification with the people of the precinct than he did now.