See Them Die полностью

I will never again take a beating.

In the luncheonette on the corner, Jeff Talbot held the wet handkerchief to the cut on the side of his face, wiping away the blood. Some of the blood had spilled onto the collar of his jumper, and he was already looking ahead to the scrub job he would have to do on it to get out the stain. Luis, behind the counter, was more concerned with the sailor's condition than with the excitement in the street outside. He watched the sailor anxiously, almost like a father.

"You all right?" he asked.

"I'm all right," Jeff replied. "What's that kid supposed to be?"

"Zip?"

"Is that his name? Yeah. Him."

"I don't know."

"I mean, what the hell, who was giving him any trouble? I was minding my own business."

"His business is minding other people's business. He'll wind up no good. Like Miranda up there."

"What I'm trying to get at… well, what's he looking for trouble for? Is he hotheaded or something?"

Luis shrugged. "No more than most,"

"Spanish people are supposed to be hotheaded, ain't they?"

"Some are, some aren't," Luis said, shrugging again.

"We ain't got a single Spanish person in all Fletcher, you know that?" Jeff said, a touch of surprise in his voice. "I never even seen a Spanish person until today, how do you like that?"

"I never saw anybody from Fletcher until today," Luis answered.

"What I'm trying to figure out…" Jeff paused, studied the blood-smeared handkerchief, and then looked up at Luis. "Well, you seem all right."

"All right?"

"I mean… you ain't like him." Jeff paused. "That Miranda's Spanish too, ain't he?"

"Si."

Jeff said nothing. He nodded, and then seemed to fall into silent thought.

"If you figure that way, sailor, you will be making a big mistake."

"What way?"

"You know what way. That's the easy way to figure."

"This is pretty personal with me, Louise," Jeff said. "I got to know. I ain't doing this just for the fun of it. It's… it's important to me."

"Why is it so important to you?"

"Because, well…" He looked at the clock on the wall, and he wondered if China would keep her date with him. And then he wondered if he still wanted to see her. He frowned and said, "It's just important to me, that's all."

Everyone seemed ready for whatever might lie ahead.

The police in the streets and on the rooftops and in the back yard were ready. The people watching the show were ready. Zip and Sixto had obtained a large packing crate from the lot on the corner and had set it up just beyond the barricade; they were ready. And even Lieutenant Byrnes seemed ready now. He apparently had learned that his forces were deployed exactly the way he wanted them. He held a large, battery-powered megaphone, and he stepped out from behind the squad car, put the cumbersome apparatus to his mouth, blew into it several times to test the volume, and then said, "Miranda? Pepe Miranda? Can you hear me?"

His voice echoed on the silent street. The people waited for Miranda's reply, but none came.

"Can you hear me?" Byrnes said again, his voice booming out of the speaker. Again, there was silence. In the silence, the crowd seemed to catch its breath together, so that something like a sigh escaped their collective lips. "All right, I know you can hear me, so listen to what I'm saying. We've got this street and the next street blocked. There are policemen with guns in every window and on every rooftop facing that apartment, front and rear. You're trapped, Miranda. You hear that?"

Zip and Sixto clambered up onto the crate and peered over the heads of the crowd. "This is our box, you dig me?" Zip said. "Only for the Latin Purples. I don't want nobody else climbing on it."

"How about it, Miranda?" Byrnes said. "You coming out, or do we have to come in after you?"

"Why don't he answer?" Zip said impatiently. He turned to the first-floor windows, cupped his hands to his mouth, and shouted, "Answer him, Pepe!"

"If there's shooting around here," Byrnes said into the megaphone, "some of these people in the street might get hurt. Now how about it, are you coming out?"

There was another long silence. Byrnes waited.

"Okay," he started, "if you…" and the voice came suddenly from one of the first-floor windows. There was.no body attached to the voice, no one visible in any of the windows. The voice seemed to materialize from nowhere, a shouted voice which rang into the street, cutting off the lieutenant's words.

"Who did I shoot?"