Английский язык с Крестным Отцом

bloody. He rocked the kid's head back and slammed him against the wall. He punched

him in the stomach, then got him prone on the floor and slapped his face into the carpet.

He told the two women to wait and made Tommy go down the street and get into his car.

There he put the fear of God into him. "If my sister ever tells me you talk like that to her

again, this beating will seem like kisses from a broad," he told Tommy. "I want to see

you straighten out. Now go up the house and tell my wife I'm waiting for her."

It was two months after this that Al Neri got back from a late shift on the force and

found his wife had left him. She had packed all her clothes and gone back to her family.

Her father told him that Rita was afraid of him, that she was afraid to live with him

because of his temper. Al was stunned with disbelief. He had never struck his wife,

never threatened her in any way, had never felt anything but affection for her. But he

was so bewildered by her action that he decided to let a few days go by before he went

over to her family's house to talk to her.

It was unfortunate that the next night he ran into trouble on his shift. His car answered

a call in Harlem, a report of a deadly assault. As usual Neri jumped out of the patrol car

while it was still rolling to a stop. It was after midnight and he was carrying his huge

flashlight. It was easy spotting the trouble. There was a crowd gathered outside a

tenement doorway. One Negro woman said to Neri, "There's a man in there cutting a

little girl."

229

Neri went into the hallway. There was an open door at the far end with light streaming

out and he could hear moaning. Still handling the flashlight, he went down the hall and

through the open doorway.

He almost fell over two bodies stretched out on the floor. One was a Negro woman of

about twenty-five. The other was a Negro girl of no more than twelve. Both were bloody

from razor cuts on their faces and bodies. In the living room Neri saw the man who was

responsible. He knew him well.

The man was Wax Baines, a notorious pimp, dope pusher and strong-arm artist. His

eyes were popping from drugs now, the bloody knife he held in his hand wavered. Neri

had arrested him two weeks before for severely assaulting one of his whores in the

street. Baines had told him, "Hey, man, this none of your business." And Neri's partner

had also said something about letting the niggers cut each other up if they wanted to,

but Neri had hauled Baines into the station house. Baines was bailed out the very next

day.

Neri had never much liked Negroes, and working in Harlem had made him like them

even less. They all were on drugs or booze while they let their women work or peddle

ass. He didn't have any use for any of the bastards. So Baines' brazen breaking of the

law infuriated him. And the sight of the little girl all cut up with the razor sickened him.

Quite coolly, in his own mind, he decided not to bring Baines in.

But witnesses were already crowding into the apartment behind him, some people

who lived in the building and his partner from the patrol car.

Neri ordered Baines, "Drop your knife, you're under arrest."

Baines laughed. "Man, you gotta use your gun to arrest me." He held his knife up. "Or

maybe you want this."

Neri moved very quickly, so his partner would not have time to draw a gun. The Negro

stabbed with his knife, but Neri's extraordinary reflexes enabled him to catch the thrust

with his left palm. With his right hand he swung the flashlight in a short vicious arc. The

blow caught Baines on the side of the head and made his knees buckle comically like a

drunk's. The knife dropped from his hand. He was quite helpless. So Neri's second blow

was inexcusable, as the police departmental hearing and his criminal trial later proved

with the help of the testimony of witnesses and his fellow policeman. Neri brought the

flashlight down on the top of Baines' skull in an incredibly powerful blow which shattered

the glass of the flashlight; the enamel shield and the bulb itself popping out and flying

across the room. The heavy aluminum barrel of the flashlight tube bent and only the

batteries inside prevented it from doubling on itself. One awed onlooker, a Negro man

who lived in the tenement and later testified against Neri, said, "Man, that's a hard-

headed nigger."

230

But Baines' head was not quite hard enough. The blow caved in his skull. He died two

hours later in the Harlem Hospital.

Albert Neri was the only one surprised when he was brought up on departmental

charges for using excessive force. He was suspended and criminal charges were

brought against him. He was indicted for manslaughter, convicted and sentenced to

from one to ten years in prison. By this time he was so filled with a baffled rage and

hatred of all society that he didn't give a damn. That they dared to judge him a criminal!

That they dared to send him to prison for killing an animal like that pimp-nigger! That

they didn't give a damn for the woman and little girl who had been carved up, disfigured

for life, and still in the hospital.

He did not fear prison. He felt that because of his having been a policeman and

especially because of the nature of the offense, he would be well taken care of. Several

of his buddy officers had already assured him they would speak to friends. Only his

wife's father, a shrewd old-style Italian who owned a fish market in the Bronx, realized

that a man like Albert Neri had little chance of surviving a year in prison. One of his