Although Ramirez could not feel as cynical as his friend, he had feared for himself the more from the moment of that crystal clear presentation of his position. Now as he stood between Brady and the Captain, he was obsessed with a desire to remove forever any doubts of his innocence. Trembling, he scrutinized the faces of the men on the platform as they came on, stood still in the light and went out.

7

7

So far he had seen no one who even vaguely reminded him of the man whom he had seen from the window of his shack in the grayness before dawn, no one whose movement might be lithe and quick as were the movements of the man he had seen. He believed now with the Captain and Santillo that if he saw the man he would know him and in a quavering voice he answered the questions with which Hendricks reminded him from time to time of the task he had to perform.

“See him up there?” Hendricks would ask as a group of prisoners would come out and stand before them on the platform.

“No, no,” Ramirez would answer, pitiably afraid that he was offending the Captain by taking so long to find the wanted man.

And now a new batch of men had come out. Two of them were Mexicans. Ramirez paid them scant attention, then looked at the third who was tall and lean and even lithe and this time it was Brady who bent toward him and muttered in his rasping voice, “Is that the guy, Ramirez?”

Then Ramirez’ heart leaped as he transplanted the man at whom he was looking to the lot near his house and saw him drag the body of the girl from the front of the car and drop her on the ground. Ramirez began to feel dizzy as he saw the quick movement with which the man bent once over the body, then leaped back into the car to drive off. And then he was sure, for even the face, which until now he had been unable to remember, appeared before him and it was the face of the man on the platform. If those shoulders moved, if that back bent, Ramirez knew it would be with the sureness that he had seen in the early dawn of that terrifying morning.

“Is that him?” he heard Brady say again.

“Yes,” Ramirez said. His voice sounded as if it were coming from somewhere else. It was higher pitched than usual and he could not control its shakiness. “Yes,” he repeated, wondering whether he had been heard at all the first time and then to make it clear beyond doubt, he said, “Yes, that is the man.”

He saw Brady look at the Captain and then he knew that the Captain’s puffy eyes were studying him.

“O.K.,” Brady said. “Come on along now, Ramirez.”