“Na,” said Cayetano. “But tell him that I feel very sick and would prefer not to talk so much.”
“He says that he is telling the truth,” the interpreter said. Then, speaking confidently, to the detective, “He don’t know who shot him. They shot him in the back.”
“Yes,” said the detective. “I understand that, but why did the bullets all go in the front?”
“Maybe he is spinning around,” said the interpreter.
“Listen,” said the detective, shaking his finger almost at Cayetano’s nose, which projected, waxen yellow, from his dead-man’s face in which his eyes were alive as a hawk’s. “I don’t give a damn who shot you, but I’ve got to clear this thing up. Don’t you want the man who shot you to be punished? Tell him that,” he said to the interpreter.
“He says to tell who shot you.”
“Mandarlo al carajo,” said Cayetano, who was very tired.
“He says he never saw the fellow at all,” the interpreter said. “I tell you straight they shot him in the back.”
“Ask him who shot the Russian.”
“Poor Russian,” said Cayetano. “He was on the floor with his head enveloped in his arms. He started to give cries when they shoot him and he is giving cries ever since. Poor Russian.”
“He says some fellow that he doesn’t know. Maybe the same fellow that shot him.”
“Listen,” the detective said. “This isn’t Chicago. You’re not a gangster. You don’t have to act like a moving picture. It’s all right to tell who shot you. Anybody would tell who shot them. That’s all right to do. Suppose you don’t tell who he is and he shoots somebody else. Suppose he shoots a woman or a child. You can’t let him get away with that. You tell him,” he said to Mr. Frazer. “I don’t trust that damn interpreter.”
“I am very reliable,” the interpreter said. Cayetano looked at Mr. Frazer.
“Listen, amigo,” said Mr. Frazer. “The policeman says that
