A Matter of Conviction

“I know what you’re thinking,” Diablo said. “They killed a guy. And he was blind. But there’s more here than meets the eye, Mr. Bell. I mean it.”

“Like what?”

“Like, for example, there was a bop scheduled for that night. Now, I’m talking to you like a goddamn brother, giving you inside dope I don’t have to give you, right?”

“Go ahead.”

“I know we were supposed to bop because I set the thing up with this spic they call Gargantua. He’s their warlord. The Horsemen’s, you know? He takes dope. I happen to know that for a fact. Half the guys on the Horsemen take heroin. I think that’s even where they got the name for their club. Horse, you know? H. Heroin. One thing for the Birds, we don’t touch any of that stuff. We break a guy’s arm, we find out he’s on junk. Ain’t that right, boys?”

The boys nodded in self-righteous agreement.

“Anyway, it was me set up the thing. So I know where it was supposed to be, and all that. And we decided there wasn’t going to be no sneak raid or anything like that. We was supposed to meet like there’s a project on a Hun’ Twenty-fifth. Right there. And that was where we was supposed to have it out, you know? At ten o’clock.”

“What’s your point?” Hank asked.

“My point is this. You think it makes sense that three of the Birds would go into enemy turf looking for trouble when we got enough trouble scheduled for later that night? It don’t make sense, does it? They were out for a walk, that was all. Just out for a walk.”

“Why’d they walk over to Spanish Harlem?”

“How do I know? Maybe they just wandered over there by accident. Maybe they were looking for a little shtupie, you know? Lots of guys, they fool around with the Spanish girls. They’re very hot people, the Spanish.”

“So they walked into Spanish Harlem, just wandered over there,” Hank said, “and jumped a blind boy and stabbed him to death. And you say they’re innocent.”

“Not of stabbing him to death. Oh, they killed that little spic, all right.”

“Then of just what are they innocent?”

“Of murder,” Diablo said.

“I see.”

“This kid pulled a knife on them, didn’t you know?”

“So I’ve been told,” Hank said wearily.

“It’s the truth. I been asking around. I mean, there are some spies I know who are coolies, and really, you know, okay.”

“Coolies?”

“They don’t belong to no club.”

“Like Danny?”

Diablo did not answer. “I talked to some of these guys,” he said, ignoring Hank’s question, “and they seen the knife themselves. How about that?”

“That’s very interesting,” Hank said. “Did Danny belong to the Thunderbirds?”

“I’ll tell you something,” Diablo said, ignoring the question again. “It was self-defense for Tower and Danny. For Batman—” he shrugged — “well, Batman is a little pazzo, you know?”

“Crazy, do you mean?”

“Well, not crazy. But... slow? Stupid? You know, like he needs somebody to wipe his nose for him. He ain’t really responsible for nothing he does.”

And that was it. The nonlegal mind of Carmine (Diablo) Degenero had just, all unwittingly, provided Hank with the line of defense the opposition would use. For Batman Aposto, they would try to show mental incompetency. The boy simply did not know what he was doing and could not be held responsible for his actions. For Tower Reardon and Danny Di Pace, they would try to establish a case of justifiable homicide. The boys had killed in self-defense. They would try, in short, to get all of the boys off scot free.

Thank you, Diablo Degenero, Hank thought. I’m a little slow this morning.

“Do you want to help your friends?” he asked.

“Naturally. They’re innocent.”

“Then tell me a few things I’d like to know.”

“Go ahead.”

“Tower belongs to the club, doesn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“And Batman?”

“Yes.”

“And Danny?”

“What difference does it make?”

“It may make a lot of difference.”

“To your case, you mean? You mean you can send him to the chair quicker if he’s one of us?”

“If he’s guilty, he’ll be convicted,” Hank said. “And it has nothing whatever to do with whether he’s one of you or not. This may come as a surprise to you, but I’m only interested in the truth.”

“It comes as a surprise, all right,” Diablo said. He grinned. “In fact, it comes as a surprise whenever anybody connected with the law is interested in the truth. Around here, they’re only interested in beating hell out of you every chance they get.”

“Was Danny a member?”

“Yes and no,” Diablo said.

“What kind of an answer is that?”

“It’s the truth. You said you wanted the truth. Okay, you got it.”

“Did he belong or didn’t he?”

“I told you. Yes and no. He wasn’t exactly a coolie, but he wasn’t exactly a Bird, either. He was like— I don’t know what the hell you would call him. Like if there was a fight, he went down with us. But sometimes he didn’t. And we never pushed him.”

“How’d he achieve this status?” Hank asked.

“Huh?” Diablo said.

“He sounds like somebody special. He enjoys the gang privileges, but he doesn’t necessarily abide by the gang rules. How’d he work that?”