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the dying man as two young hoodlums, dressed alike, pushed their way out of the crowd. The sounds of the distant sirens grew stronger as the street lamp's glare fell across the sinister looking R's on the backs of the men's jackets.

     

5

    THE STIFLING AFTERNOON heat began to carry foul odors up from the gutters and alleyways. Charles Morales, a detective from the homicide division, took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow. To a stranger, he could have passed for a well-dressed insurance collector, but to the inhabitants of this neighborhood, this short, powerfully built middle-aged man, with his bullneck and bowed legs, spelled cop, with capital letters.
    Morales, glancing up and down the street for his partner, missed none of the poverty with his piercing blue eyes. He saw his big, red-faced partner coming out of a tenement building, and from the way he walked he could tell his partner hadn't had any luck. Waving disconsolately, Detective Gazier went into the apartment building next to the one he had just left. Morales shook his head sadly. Gazier was a good policeman, but he was just too short-tempered. For homicide, a policeman had to have patience. He wondered again how long it would be before the captain finally transferred one of them to another partner. He wished he had a rookie to work with. That way, you didn't have any problems. A rookie would listen, whereas with an experienced man like Gazier, it was hard to do things any other way besides the ingrained way.

    The two officers continued to work the street, each man taking a different side. Half an hour later they met up at the police car. "The hell with it!" Gazier said, his voice rising from anger he had held inside all day. "These goddamn people down here don't want no help, Morales."
    The smaller officer watched his partner, half amused. "It's not that they don't want any help, Gazier, it's something else. I don't know why, but these people are scared."
    Both officers stared at each other. Neither man liked the way the other worked. Gazier believed that Morales was too easygoing, while Morales believed just the opposite of his partner. The days of cops whipping the people they arrested were in the past. Morales knew that Gazier still believed the best way to get a confession out of someone was to kick the shit out of him. But in his heart he thought this was an outdat ed policy.

    Gazier laughed sarcastically. "I don't know how in the hell that could have happened. This is black bottom, and these niggers down here don't fear God, let alone some person putting fear into them."
    Morales said heatedly, "Listen, I went to that boy's house and talked to his mother and father. From what I could gather, the boy's sister was standing at the top of the steps when those punks killed Dave. She was going to talk last night until somebody got a note to her father, and that was the end of that."
    "Did you get the note?" Gazier asked.
    "No, her father burned it, but he said they threatened to kill the girl if she talked, and that if they couldn't reach her, any of the other nine kids would do just as well."
    "That's a bunch of bull!" Grazier said. "These niggers are all alike; now they're trying to make a big play out of a damn gang killing."
    Morales managed to control his temper. He wondered just how in the hell did he happen to get such a fool for a partner when there were so many bright young officers working out of their station.
    "Well, Sherlock," Gazier said sarcastically, "where do we go from here?"
    Some children were crossing in front of the car. Morales waited until they had reached the sidewalk before pulling away from the curb. "We'll take a quick run back to the station and have us a small chat with those two punks we picked up last night. I still don't think we'll get any more out of them, but we can give it a try."

    "You're probably right, Morales, as long as you treat those punks like they're in church, you're never going to