A Matter of Conviction

Hank looked up the street. The asphalt had grown gummy in the heat of morning. In the middle of the block, a group of boys had turned on the fire hydrant, and they ran through the stream of water in their clothes, tee shirts sticking wetly to their bodies. The water plunged upward, deflected by a tin can wired to the nozzle of the pump, cascading downward in a waterfall that was costing the city money. Farther up the block, a stickball game was in progress. The garbage cans were stacked alongside the curb, awaiting the D.S.C. pickup trucks. Women in housedresses sat on the front stoops, fanning themselves. Outside the candy store, a group of teen-age boys stood talking.

“If you’re wondering what Thunderbirds look like in their leisure time, you’re looking at them now,” Larsen said.

The boys looked entirely harmless. Sitting on the wooden newsstand outside the store, they chatted and laughed quietly among themselves.

“The girl lives in that building alongside the candy store,” Larsen said. “I phoned before I left the squad, so she knows we’re coming. Don’t mind the dirty looks on the faces of the yardbirds. They know I’m a bull. I’ve kicked their asses around the corner more times than I can count.”

The boys’ conversation tapered off and then stopped as Hank and Larsen approached. Tight-lipped, inscrutable, they studied the pair as they entered the tenement. The entrance hallway was dark and narrow. A stench hit the nostrils immediately, the stench of bodies and of body waste, the stench of cooking, the stench of sleeping and waking, the stench of life contained, confined.

“I don’t know how the hell people manage to live here,” Larsen said. “Some of them make good salaries, too, would you believe it? You’d think they’d get out. This ain’t good for people. You live like a pig, you begin to feel like a pig. She’s on the third floor.”

They climbed the narrow steps. He could remember climbing similar steps when he was a boy. The façade of Harlem might have changed, but the guts were the same. Even the stench was familiar. As a boy, he had urinated behind the first-floor staircase, adding to the stench. You live like a pig, you begin to feel like a pig.

“This is it,” Larsen said, stopping before an apartment marked 3B. “Both parents work, so the kid’ll be alone. She’s sixteen, but she looks a lot older and a lot harder. She seems to be a nice kid, though.” He knocked on the door.

The door opened almost instantly, as if the girl had been standing behind it waiting for the knock. She was a dark-haired girl with wide brown eyes and clean features. Lipstick was the only make-up she wore. She wore a red peasant skirt and a white blouse, and her hair was caught at the back of her neck with a red ribbon.

“Hello,” she said, “come in.”

They entered the apartment. The linoleum was worn, and the plaster was chipped and peeling, and an electrical outlet hung loose from the wall, its naked copper wires exposed. But the apartment was scrupulously clean.

“Miss Rugiello, this is Mr. Bell, the district attorney.”

“How do you do?” the girl said. She spoke in a low whisper, as if she were afraid of being overheard.

“How do you do?” Hank said.

“Would you like some coffee or something? I can put some on. It’d only take a minute.”

“No, thank you,” Hank said.

The girl nodded, as if, convinced beforehand that he would not accept her hospitality, she were now affirming her conviction.

“Well... sit down... won’t you?”

They sat at a kitchen table with an enamel top, the girl sitting at the far end, Hank and Larsen taking chairs on opposite sides of her.

“What’s your first name, miss?” Hank said.

“Angela,” she said.

“I have a daughter almost your age,” Hank said.

“Yeah?” the girl said in seeming interest, but she watched Hank suspiciously.

“Yes.”

“That’s nice,” Angela said.

“Mr. Bell would like to ask you some questions,” Larsen said.

“Yes?” She put the word almost as a question, but she nodded simultaneously, indicating that she knew why the district attorney was here.

“About what happened on the night Morrez was stabbed,” Larsen said. “About the knives.”

“Yes?” she said again, and again it was almost a query.

“Yes,” Hank said. “Can you tell me what happened in your own words?”

“Well, I didn’t see the stabbing or anything. You understand that, don’t you? I didn’t have anything at all to do with the stabbing.”

“Yes, we understand that.”

“Is it wrong that I took the knives? Can I get in trouble for taking the knives?”

“No,” Hank said. “Tell us what happened.”

“Well, Carol and I were sitting on the front stoop downstairs. Carol is my cousin. Carol Rugiello. It was, you know, early yet. Just after supper. You know. Quiet. And none of the fellows was around, but we figured that was because they were getting ready to go bopping. It was decided that afternoon, you see. About the stuff being on between them and the Horsemen, I mean.”

“The Spanish gang?” Hank asked.