See Them Die полностью

Now, easy, he told himself. Now just take'it easy, and don't panic. We are going to play this Miranda's way because there are a lot of people out there on the street, and we don't want them to be getting shot. So be cool. Your hand is shaking, and you are itching to pull that.38 so that you'll have something more than a set of prayer beads in your fist when that door opens, but be cool, Steve-o, be cool and…

The door opened.

A.45 automatic was the first thing Carella saw. The door opened just a crack, and there was the.45, its big ugly snout pointing into the hallway. Carella's mouth felt very dry.

"I'm… Father Donovan," he said to the automatic.

The door opened wider. Carella's eyes panned up from the.45, the hand holding it, the thin wrist, the black hair curling on the arm, the narrow shoulders, the sweat-stained undershirt, the sudden puff of black hair in the hollow of the throat, the wings of the man's collarbones, his thin neck, and high cheekbones, brown eyes, puffed lids, a balding head, and desperation. Add a man up, add the parts, form a total picture, and the total is desperation. It was there in Miranda's eyes and in his mouth and even in the way he held the.45, his head tilted to one side, his shoulder sort of leaning into the gun, the gun close to his body as if it were something he cherished, a tie to reality.

"Come in a minute," Miranda said.

Carella stepped into the apartment. The place was a shambles. The furniture, the floors, everything in the room bore the ravaging marks of gunfire. It was inconceivable to think that a human being had been in this bullet-pocked room and managed to escape getting shot.

"Looks like they dropped an atom bomb in here, don't it?" Miranda said.

"Yes," Carella answered.

"You're not scared, are you? They won't shoot with you in here, it's all right."

Carella nodded. He was not scared. It was only… he felt odd all at once. He did not feel like a cop. Miranda was not treating him as if he were a cop. Miranda was behaving as if he were truly a priest, a person he could talk to, relax with. He wanted to say, "I'm not what you think, Miranda! Don't show yourself to me!" but the words would not come.

"Boy, this has been murder," Miranda said. "Look, I didn't ask you up here to confess to you or nothing. I think we ought to get that straight."

"Then why did you ask me to come up?"

"Well…" Miranda shrugged. He seemed like a young kid in that moment, a young kid who is about to tell a priest that he took off a girl's underpants on the roof. Carella kept staring at him. Miranda held the.45 in his hand loosely, expecting no trouble from this man he thought was a priest, embarrassed because he was about to reveal something, dishonorable to him. "I'll put it to you straight, Father," he said. "I got to get out of this apartment."

"Yes?"

"So… so you're going to take me out."

"I am?"

Miranda nodded. "I know that's pretty crumby. But I got

to get out of here."-"Where do you go from here, Pepe?"

"I don't know." Miranda shook his head. "You know, Father, you reach the point where… where there ain't many places left to go." He laughed nervously. "Where…" He laughed again. "I don't know. I don't know where I'll go once I get out of here."

"There're a lot of cops out there, Pepe."

"Yeah, I know." He sighed. "Man, this kind of stuff… I hate this kind of Public Enemy Number One stuff, you dig? I just hate it. Oh man, it's like… like something is expected of me, you know what I mean? I've got to be the bad guy. I don't know if it makes any sense to you, Father."

"I'm not sure it does," Carella answered, puzzled.

"Well, like… like there are sides. I'm the bad guy." He shrugged. "I've always been the bad guy. Ever since I was a kid. So I'm still the bad guy. They expect me to be the bad guy. The people, I mean. It's like… I don't know if I can explain this. It's like sometimes I don't know who is the real Pepe Miranda, and who is the guy I… the pictures of the guy, you follow? The various pictures of the guy."

"I don't know what you mean," Carella said.

"The pictures," Miranda repeated. "Like the cops have a picture of me." He chuckled. "It's got a number right across the face of it." He chuckled again. "And the people in the street got another picture of me. And the kids got a picture. And you got a picture. But they're all different pictures, and none of them are really me, Pepe Miranda."

"Then who is?" Carella asked.

"I don't know."

"You've killed people, Pepe."

"Yeah." He paused. "I know." He shrugged, but it was not a shrug of indifference, not a shrug which said, "So I killed r people, so what?" If it had been that, Carella would have instantly felt like a cop again. But it was not that. It was simply a shrug which said, "I know I've killed people, but I don't know why," and so Carella still felt like a man who had come up here to talk to Miranda, not to harm him.

"Well, anyway," Miranda said, "I've got to get out of here."