He started firing then and throwing things out the window, chairs, and a lamp, and an electric iron, and the cops held off for just a few secs, and Harry copped some air, but not enough because they were shooting more tear gas shells up there, and they were also firing and you could tell they had some tommies in the crowd because no .38 ever fired like that, and no carbine ever did either.
I was wishing I had a gun of my own because I wanted to help Harry, and I felt as if my hands were tied, but what the hell could I do? I just kept sweating it out, and Harry wasn’t firing through the window any more, and then all of a sudden everything in the street stopped and everything inside the apartment was still.
“Manzetti!” the cop in the hallway yelled.
Harry coughed and said, “What?”
“You coming out?”
“I killed a cop,” Harry yelled back.
“Come on out, Manzetti!”
“I killed a cop!” Harry yelled, and he sounded as if he was crying — from the gas those bastards had fed him. “I killed a cop, I killed a cop,” he kept saying over and over again.
“You only wounded him,” the cop yelled, and I shouted, “He’s lying, Harry.”
“Get me a priest,” Harry yelled.
“Why he wants a priest?” Beef asked.
“It’s a trick,” I said. “He wants a shield.”
“No dice,” the cop answered. “Come on, Manzetti, throw your weapons out.”
“Get me a priest.”
“Come on, Manzetti.”
“No!” he screamed. “You lousy punk, no!”
“Manzetti...”
“Get me a priest,” Harry shouted. “I’m scared I’ll... get me a priest!”
“What’d he say?” I said to Beef.
“I didn’t catch,” Beef said, and then the firing started again.
It must have gone on for about ten minutes, and then all of a sudden, just the way it started, that’s the way it stopped again.
“They got him,” Aiello said.
“Bull,” I answered.
I kept watching the street. It was beginning to get dark now, and the cops were turning on their spots and playing them up at Harry’s window. There wasn’t a sound coming from the apartment.
“They got him,” Aiello said again.
“You need straightening, you jerk,” I told him.
The street lights came on, and after about a half-hour a few more cops went into the building.
“Harry!” I yelled from the window.
There was no answer.
“Harry!”
Then we heard the shots in the hallway, and then quiet again, and then the sound of a door being busted, and then that goddamn telephone someplace in the building began ringing again.
About ten minutes later, they carried Harry out on a stretcher.
Dead.
6
We hung around the streets late that night. There’d been a big fuss when they carried Harry out, everybody yelling and shouting from the rooftops, like as if this was the Roman arena or something. They didn’t realize what a guy Harry was, and what a tough fight he’d put up.
“They got him, all right,” Ferdy said, “but it wasn’t easy.”
“He took two of them with him,” I said.
“A guy like Harry, it pains you to see him go,” Ferdy said.
“Yeah,” I answered.
We were all quiet for a little while.
“Where’s A?” Beef asked.
“I don’t know,” I told him. “The hell with that little jerk anyway.”
“He got an inside wire, all right,” Ferdy said. “He was the first cat to tumble to this.”
“Yeah,” I said. I was thinking about the look on Donlevy’s face when those slugs ripped him up.
“How’d he tip to it, anyway?”
“He spotted Harry in the hall. Going up to Louise.”
“Oh.” Ferdy was quiet for a while. “Harry see him?”
“Yeah.”
“He should have been more careful.”
“A guy like Harry, he got lots of things on his mind. You think he’s gonna worry about a snotnose like A?”
“No, but what I mean... somebody blew the whistle on him.”
“Sure, but that don’t...” I cut myself dead. “Hey!” I said.
“What?”
“Aiello.”
“Aiello what?”
“I’ll bet he done it! Why, I’ll bet that little crumb done it!”
“Tipped the cops to Harry, you mean?”
“Sure! Who else? Why, that little...”
“Now, hold it, Danny. Now don’t jump to...”
“Who else knew it?”
“Anybody could have spotted Harry.”
“Sure, except nobody did.” I waited a minute, thinking, and then I said, “Come on.”
We began combing the neighborhood.
We went down the poolroom, and we combed the bowling alley, and then we hit the rooftops, but Aiello was noplace around. We checked the dance in the church basement, and we checked the Y, but there was still no sign of him.
“Maybe he’s home,” Ferdy said.
“Don’t be a jerk.”
“It’s worth a try.”
“Okay,” I said.
We went to the building where Aiello lived. In the hallway, Beef said, “Somebody here.”
“Shut up,” Ferdy said.
We went up to Aiello’s apartment and knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” he answered.
“Me,” I said. “Danny.”
“What do you want, Danny?”
“I want in. Open up.”
“I’m in bed.”
“Then get out of bed.”
“I’m not feeling so hot, Danny.”
“Come on, we got some pot.”
“I don’t feel like none.”
“This is good stuff.”
“I ain’t interested, Danny.”
“Open up, you jerk,” I told him. “You want the Law to know we’re holding?”
“Danny, I...”
“Open up!”
I began pounding on the door, and I knew that’d get him out of bed, if that’s where he was, because his folks are a quiet type who don’t like trouble with the neighbors.
In a few seconds, Aiello opened the door.
I smiled at him and said, “Hello, A.”
We all went inside. “Your people home?”
“They went visiting.”
“Oh, visiting, huh? Very nice.”
“Yeah.”
“Like you was doing with Louise this afternoon, huh?”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Aiello said.
“When you spotted Harry.”
“Yeah.”
“And then what’d you do?”
“I told you.”
“You went into Louise’s apartment, that right?”
“Yes, I...” Aiello paused, as if he was trying to remember what he’d told me before. “No, I didn’t go in. I went down in the street to look for you.”
“You like this gang, A?”
“Yeah, it’s good,” Aiello said.
“Then why you lying to me?”
“I ain’t lying.”
“You know you wasn’t looking for me.”