weeping. Immediately after the detectives introduced themselves, he seemed to be unaware of their presence. As if alone here on the roof, he kept shaking his head over and over again, weeping bitterly, clutching the rum to his narrow chest, knuckles white around the neck of the bottle. In the bitter cold, his breath plumed onto the night. 'What's the matter, Jose?' Hawes asked.
'I killed him,' Santiago said. 'Here in the dead of night, the pigeons still silent behind Santiago, both detectives felt themselves stiffen. But the man who'd just confessed to a killing seemed completely harmless, sitting there clutching the bottle to his chest, hot tears rolling down his face and freezing at once.
'Who'd you kill?' Hawes asked.
Voice still gentle. The night was black around them. Carella standing beside him, looking down at the sobbing man in the pink cotton sweater, ridiculous for this time of year, sitting with his knees bent, his back to the dark silent pigeon coop.
'Tell us who you killed, Jose.' 'Diablo.' 'Who's Diablo?'
'Mi herma no de sangue.'
'My blood brother.'
'Is that his street name? Diablo?' Santiago shook his head. 'It's his real name?' Santiago nodded. 'Diablo what?'
Santiago tilted the bottle again, swallowed more rum, began coughing and sobbing and choking. The detectives waited.
'What's his last name, Jose?'
Hawes again. Carella stayed out of it. Just stood there with his right hand resting inside the overlapping flap of his coat, where three buttons were unbuttoned at the waist. He may have looked a bit like Napoleon with his hand inside his coat that way, but his holster and the butt of a .38 Detective Special were only inches away from his fingertips. Santiago said nothing. Hawes tried another tack.
'When did you kill this person, Jose?'
Still no answer.
'Jose? Can you tell us when this happened?'
Santiago nodded.
'Then when?'
'Friday night.'
'This past Friday night?'
Santiago nodded again.
'Where? Can you tell us where, Jose? Can you tell us what happened?'
And now, in the piercing cold of the night, began a rambling recitation in English and in telling them it was all his fault here it wouldn't have happened if he hadn't allowed it, he had killed D as certainly as if he'd slit his throat with a Swilling rum, spitting, slobbering down the absurd cotton sweater, his hands shaking, then he'd always taken care of him like a brother, they were partners, he'd never done anything to harm him never. But on Friday night he'd killed him as sure he'd, oh dear God, he'd killed him, oh sweet he'd allowed the thing he loved most in the world to be slashed and torn... Carella was beginning to get it. to shreds, he should have stopped it then he realized... So did Hawes. how it would end, the moment he saw that other bird was stronger, he should have stopped the fight, climbed into the ring, snatched his prize rooster away from the ripping steel talons of the bigger, stronger bird. But no, instead he'd watched horror, covering his face at last, screaming aloud woman when poor Diablo was slain
'I killed him,' he said again.
And now he confessed that he'd suspected from the start that the other bird was on steroids, the sheer
size of him, a vulture against a chick, poor brave Diablo strutting into the ring like the proud champion he was, battling in vain against overwhelming odds, giving his life... 'I was greedy,' Santiago said, 'I had ten thousand dollars bet on him, I thought he could still win, the blood, so much blood, all over his feathers, madre de Dios! I should have tried to stop the slaughter. There are owners who jump into the ring during a fight, without the permission of the fence judge, there are strict rules, you know, but they break the rules, they save their beloved birds. I was greedy and I was afraid of breaking the rules, and so I let him die. I could have saved his life, I should have saved his life, forgive me,
Mary, mother of God, I took an innocent life.' 'What else did you take?' Carella asked.
Because all at once this was still the tale of a gun and a dead old woman, and not a sad soap opera about a dead chicken. People ate chicken every Sunday.
'Take?' Santiago asked drunkenly. 'What do you mean?'
'You drove Diablo uptown in a limo, didn't you?' 'He was a champion!'
'You stole a black Caddy...'
'I borrowed it!'
'... from Bridge Texaco. A limo that...'
'I returned it!'
'... was in for a new engine.'
'He was a champion!'
'He was a bird who needed a ride uptown.'
'A hero!'
'Who made a mess all over the backseat.'
'A mess? A champion's feathers! Dialo Diablo's shit, too, Hawes thought.
'How could I bear touching them?' Santiago began weeping again. He tilted the rum to his lips, but it was empty. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of the pink sweater.
'Did you find a gun in the glove compartment of that car?' Carella asked.
'No. Hey, no. No.'
'Did you know there was a gun in the compartment?'
'No. What gun? A gun? No.' 'A .38 Smith & Wesson.' 'No, I didn't know that.' 'Didn't see the gun, huh?' 'No.'
'Didn't know it was in the glove compartment.'
'That's good, Jose. Because the gun was used to murder...'
'A murder? No.'
'A murder, yes.'
'And if we can trace that gun to you...' 'If your fingerprints are on that gun, for 'I didn't shoot anybody with that gun.' 'Oh? You know the gun we mean, huh?' 'I know the gun, yes. But...'
'Did you steal it from that glove compartment?' 'I borrowed it.'
'Same way you borrowed the limo, huh?;'
'I did borrow the limo. And I borrowed the
'Why?'
'To shoot the bird who killed Diablo.'
'So this was after the match, huh?'
'You took the gun from the car after the match.' 'Si. To shoot the bird.' 'Did you shoot the bird?'
'No. The cops came. I was going back in the theater when I saw all these cops. So I ran back to the garage.' 'With the gun.' 'With the gun, si.'
'What did you do with the gun then?'
'I sold it.'
The detectives looked at each other. 'That's right,' Jose said. 'I sold it.' Carella sighed. So did Hawes. 'Who'd you sell it to?'
'A man I met at a club up the street.' 'What club?' 'The Juice Bar.' 'What man?'
'I don't know his name.'
'You sold a stolen gun to a man you didn't even know?'
'We were talking, he said he needed a gun. So I
happened to have a gun. So I sold it to him.'
'You sold him a gun you'd just stolen.'
'I had just lost my best friend in the whole world.'
