"I'll be damned," Lynch said feelingly.
"What's wrong?" Malone said.
The police lieutenant looked up. "I don't know if it's wrong or what,"
he said. "It gives me sort of the willies. I know every one of these
kids."
Malone took out a pill and swallowed it in a hurry. He felt exactly as
if he had been given another concussion, absolutely free and without any
obligation. His mouth opened but nothing came out for a long time. At
last he managed to say: "_Kids?_"
"That's right," Lynch said. "What did you think?"
Malone shrugged helplessly.
"Every single one of them," Lynch said. "Right from around here."
There was a little silence.
"Who are they?" Malone said carefully.
"They're some kind of kid gang, social club, something like that," Lynch
said. "They call themselves the Silent Spooks."
"The what?" It seemed to Malone that the name was just a little fancy,
even for a kid gang.
"The Silent Spooks," Lynch said. "I can't help it. But here they are:
Ramon Otravez, Mario Grito, Silvo Envoz, Felipe Altapor, Alvarez la
Barba, Juan de los Santos and Ray del Este. Right down the line." He
looked up from the notebook with a blank expression on his face.
"There's only one name missing, as a matter of fact. Funny it isn't
there."
Malone tried to look as if he knew what was going on. "Oh?" he said.
"Yeah," Lynch said. "The Fueyo kid--Miguel Fueyo. Everybody calls him
Mike."
While interesting, this did not provide much food for thought. "Why
should his name be on it especially?" Malone said.
"Because he's the leader of the gang," Lynch said. "The boss. The big
shot." He pointed to the list of names. "Except for him, that's all of
them--the Silent Spooks."
Malone considered the missing Mike Fueyo.
He knew perfectly well, now, why Fueyo's name was not in the book.
Who puts his own name on a list?
The notebook was Fueyo's. It had to be.
* * * * *
Lynch was looking at him expectantly. Malone thought of a question and
asked it. "They know you?" he said.
"Sure they do," Lynch said. "They all know me. But do they know you?"
Malone thought. "They could have heard of me," he said at last, trying
to be as modest as possible.
"I guess," Lynch said grudgingly.
"How old are they?" Malone said.
"Fourteen to seventeen," Lynch said. "Somewhere in there. You know how
these kid things run."
"The Silent Spooks," Malone said meditatively. It was a nice name, in a
way; you just had to get used to it for a while. When he had been a kid,
he'd belonged to a group that called itself the East Division Street
Kids. There just wasn't much romance in a name like that. Now, the
Silent Spooks--
With a wrench, he brought his mind back to the subject at hand. "Do they
get into much trouble?" he said.
"Well, no," Lynch said reluctantly. "As a matter of fact, they don't.
For a bunch like that, around here, they're pretty well-behaved, as far
as that goes."
"What do you mean?" Malone said.
Lynch's face took on a delicately unconcerned appearance. "I don't
know," he said. "They just don't get into neighborhood trouble. Maybe a
scrap now and then--nothing big, though. Or maybe one of them cuts a
class at school or argues with his teacher. But there's nothing unusual,
and little of anything." He frowned.