A Matter of Conviction

“I was taught love,” she said, and suddenly her voice was wistful, a tenderness creeping into it, a gentleness which for a moment overwhelmed the sorrow. “I was taught that to love is the best thing. I was taught this in Puerto Rico where I was born. It is easy to love there. It is warm there, and slow, and the people say hello to you on the street, the people know who you are, they know you are Violeta Morrez, they say, ‘Hello, Violeta, how are you today, have you heard from Juan? How is your son?’ It is important to be somebody, don’t you think? It is important to know that you are Violeta Morrez and that the people in the street know you.” She paused. “Here, it is different. Here it is cold, and here everyone rushes, and here there is no one to say, ‘Hello, Violeta,’ or to wonder how you are feeling today. There is no time for love in this city. There is only hatred. And hatred has robbed me of my son.”

“Your son will have justice, Mrs. Morrez. I’m here to see to that.”

“Justice? There is only one justice, señor. And that is to kill the murderers the way they killed him. It would be justice to put out their eyes and then come at them with knives, the way they came at my Rafael in his darkness. This is the only justice for animals. And they are animals, señor, make no mistake. If you do not send these murderers to the electric chair, there will be no safety any more. I tell you this from my heart. There will be only fear. Fear and hatred, and they will together rule this city, and decent people will hide in hallways and pray to God.

“My Rafael was a good boy. He never did a wrong thing in his life. There was the spirit of gentleness about him. His eyes were dead, señor, but there was great life in his heart. It is easy to feel, you know, that a blind person needs to be watched always. It is a mistake we make. I made this same mistake. I watched him, I cared for him, always, always. Until we came here. And then his father left, and I had to take a job. One must eat. And so Rafael went on the street while I worked. And it was on the street that he was killed. A good boy. Dead.”

“Mrs. Morrez—”

“There is only one thing you can do for me and for my Rafael. Only one thing, señor.”

“What’s that, Mrs. Morrez?”

“In this city of hatred, you can add my hatred,” she said, and there was still no bitterness in her voice, only an emptiness, a haunting preoccupation with cold facts too complex to grasp. “You can add this hatred I shall feel as long as I live. And you can kill the boys who killed my Rafael. You can kill them and rid the streets of animals. This is what you can do for me, señor.

“God forgive me, you can kill them.”

Karin was in the living room, talking on the phone, when he arrived home that evening. He went directly to the bar, poured a Martini from the waiting pitcher, kissed her briefly on the cheek, and then listened to her end of the conversation.

“Yes, Phyllis, of course I understand,” she said. “Well, babysitters are always difficult to come by, and I know I did give you rather short notice. We did so hope you could come, though. We wanted you to meet— Yes, I see. Well, there’ll be other times. Certainly. Thanks for calling. And give my regards to Mike, will you? ’Bye.”

She hung up and then went to Hank, putting her arms around his neck and giving him a real kiss. “There,” she said. “How’d the day go? May I have one of those?”

He poured a drink for her, sighed and said, “The plot sickens. I go into Harlem, and I feel as if I’m dipping my hands into a quagmire. I can’t see the bottom of it, Karin. All I can do is feel around with my hands and hope I don’t hit any sharp rocks or broken bottles. I talked with one of the girls who was with Morrez on the night he was stabbed. Do you know what it was he pulled out of his pocket? The thing the defense claims was a knife?”

“What?”

“A harmonica. How about that?”

“They’ll still claim their clients mistook it for a knife.”