Johnny Get Your Gun (12 page)

“First of all, every man on the entire police force is helping to look for Johnny,” he began. “So are our policewomen. And the people of the city will help, I’ve already talked to the bus driver who carried him last night.”

“How was he?” Maggie asked.

“Just fine at that time. He’ll turn up, Mrs. McGuire, he’s got to. I’m almost certain we’ll have definite news before the day is over.”

In response Maggie held out her hand to him, something which for an instant astonished Mike and then, for some reason, made him angry.

“I wanted to ask you,” Tibbs said, “where you went to church.”

“What’s it to you?” Mike snapped.

Virgil turned toward him. “I asked a reasonable enough question, Mr. McGuire; you know that.”

“Maybe, but it’s none of your goddamned business.”

Tibbs tightened slightly, but he kept his own voice under control. “It’s very much my business, and you’d know that if you think about it for a minute. Sometimes when children are in trouble, and they’re afraid to go home, they’ll go instead to a trusted minister—I did.”

“Well we don’t go to church. Maggie here’s a Baptist, but we don’t know no ministers out here. Johnny, he wouldn’t do that.”

Tibbs accepted the answer, then he turned back to his hostess. “Mrs. McGuire, I know you must have gone over your phone conversation with Johnny a hundred times already in your head, and of course you’ve told Mr. McGuire all about it. Do you think you could repeat it once more for me? There might be some little point you didn’t mention when we talked about it.”

Wearily Maggie brushed her hair back without being aware of it, swallowed, and once more recited her account of the almost maddeningly limited talk she had had with her son. When she had finished she lowered her head a little, as though ashamed that she had no more to offer.

“And that’s all he said.”

Maggie nodded, her voice for the moment used up.

“Did you hear any sounds in the background that you might be able to identify? Anything at all?”

Maggie shook her head. “He was in a booth, he said that he was. I didn’t hear anything but him.”

“If he had only said something more—anything—I might have something to go on.”

“He might have said something, if the operator hadn’t cut in.”

“You said that the operator cut in?”

“Why, yes. The operator came on the line, like they do, and said that three minutes were up and to signal when we were through. So Johnny just said ‘good-bye’ and hung up.”

“There’s nothing to that,” Mike said.

“Maybe not,” Tibbs answered. “On the other hand, it’s just possible that it may tell me where to find your son.”

Fifteen minutes later Virgil Tibbs was in the office of Captain Lindholm, the chief of detectives for the Pasadena Police Department. The chief took one look at his face and waved him to a chair. “You’ve got something,” he said.

“I may have a lead on the McGuire boy, the one with the gun. I put it together out of bits and pieces, but it fits.”

“Good. Before you go any farther…no, you’d better give me your part first.”

“All right, sir, let me lay out the pieces for you. One, the boy has approximately sixteen dollars in his possession, at least he started out with that amount. He must have bought some food somewhere along the line, but it would be from hamburger stands and places like that. Almost impossible to check. Two, he was saving his money to buy a catcher’s outfit,
for baseball, but in the frame of mind he must be in, I don’t think he’s buying sports equipment.”

“Neither do I,” Lindholm agreed.

“Continuing, he is a rabid fan of the California Angels, both because he loves baseball and because he once met Gene Autry. He has a double involvement there; his parents have made that very clear.”

“It’s a long way to Anaheim, for a boy his age at any rate.”

“Agreed, sir, and that’s what stopped me, until just a few minutes ago. I know for a fact that he is no longer in Pasadena, at least that was true as of an hour ago.”

Lindholm pondered that piece of information. “That does shift the odds, doesn’t it.”

“Johnny McGuire is only nine years old, but even kids of that age can be remarkably resourceful at times. He’s somehow managed to get a bus ride out of town, or possibly hitchhiked, but the probabilities are well against that. Granted that he could have walked all night, but his chances of doing that without being spotted are very slim.”

Lindholm shook his head. “He spent the night in the Arroyo Seco, that’s what I was going to tell you. I’ve had two men down there making a thorough search; they found his red jacket rolled up under some bushes.”

Virgil was almost afraid to ask the question. “Did they recover the gun?”

“No, they didn’t, and once they found the jacket they checked the area very carefully.”

“I hope to God he’s thrown it away somewhere,” Tibbs said.

“Probably he has, but until we can establish it as a fact, we’ll have to assume that he’s still armed. However, you say he’s out of town—how did you get that?”

“He called his mother on the phone to tell her he was all right. The operator cut in to tell him that his three minutes were up. They don’t do that on local calls, only those where toll charges are involved.”

“About the only place he could go from here by public transportation is into L.A. I’ll alert them immediately.”

“I’d suggest also, sir, that you advise Anaheim and particularly the security people at the stadium. One boy going to the ball game won’t be easy to find, but a boy alone by himself could be a little easier.”

“You think he’ll get that far?”

Virgil shook his head. “You’ll have to polish your own crystal ball on that one. A lot funnier things than that have happened.”

Lindholm sat up. “Agreed, except that if he’s still got his gun with him, things may not be especially funny before they’re over.” He looked up. “Yes?”

Virgil turned to find Bob Nakamura behind him. “Something is starting in Brookside Park,” Bob reported. “At first it didn’t look like much, but it’s snowballing.”

“Is anybody we know leading it?” Lindholm asked.

“I don’t think so, sir, it appears to be more of a spontaneous
thing, but it seems to be developing pretty rapidly. Five different patrol cars have called in during the last ten minutes to report a mass movement in that direction. All Negro, but apparently not the hippy types. So far five incidents of rock throwing damage, two store windows broken.”

Lindholm quickly picked up the phone. “I’ll tell the chief. Virgil, I sent Ted Rasmussen down there, but he’s new in his rank and may need some help. You’d better get down there and lend a hand. Call if you need more manpower. As soon as I talk to Chief Addis I’ll call Anaheim.” He dialed.

“Yes, sir,” Tibbs answered and left.

Sergeant Ted Rasmussen set his jaw hard and resolved to do his duty, no matter what. In the back of the station wagon he was driving there was a mobile command post which would enable him to direct the five other men assigned to him, or to communicate with headquarters if necessary.

Brookside Park was the trouble area of Pasadena, he knew that well although almost all of his work to date had been in the field of traffic. Any problems involving moving vehicles he could handle; what he was up against now was something else, but he would have to hack it because the responsibility was his.

A swiftly thrown rock hit hard against the right front fender of his police car. He took no responsive action; he was needed where he was going and he had no time for a probably futile chase on foot of some leggy teen-ager. When
he passed a car parked at the curb which had a freshly broken windshield he ignored it too. Ahead of him lay a much greater ugliness.

Essentially a quiet man, Ted Rasmussen was depending on the authority of the law, and the training he had received for his new job, to handle the situation. He knew quite a bit about riots; he had seen a graphic news photo of a policeman, his face streaming blood, who had been caught in the melee of a New Jersey uprising. The memory of that picture steeled him; what had to be done, he would do.

As he neared the park he was surprised by the number of parked vehicles; he guessed immediately that at least some of them had brought people from Los Angeles. Some of them would have come just to see the excitement; others might well be hard-core militants who were ripe for hostile action.

His first glimpse of the crowd which had already gathered hit him like a blow in the abdomen; he had not expected half that many. One quick look around the area told him that more people were streaming in on foot, some even running.

On a raised platform a speaker was haranguing the crowd. He had a loudspeaker system which he was using to augment the natural power of his voice. In the first few words that he caught Rasmussen heard the speaker talking about what a wonderful boy Willie Orthcutt had been.

Ted Rasmussen pulled his station wagon up behind the gathering crowd of listeners and went around immediately to set up his command post. He dropped the tail gate, flipped
on the switches of the electronic equipment, then turned to the two men who had been riding with him. “You know what to do,” he said crisply. “Go to the far side of the crowd and stay there. If I have to make an announcement, I want you to be able to testify that it was audible at the furthest point. Keep out of trouble if you can; if you need help, let me know fast.”

The two uniformed officers left together, walking rapidly around the perimeter of the growing mass of humanity. Behind the sergeant the car which had come with him unloaded three more uniformed men.

The police had made great strides in crowd handling since the outbreak of violence in Watts a few years previously and the sergeant had been well briefed. “You had better keep your batons with you. Don’t make a show of them, but if it becomes a question of self-protection, then do whatever is necessary. Avoid an incident if you possibly can.” He nodded toward the speaker. “I don’t know who that man is, but so long as he confines himself to protest, demanding Negro rights, and things like that, he’s within the law. Remember that. If he gets out of line to the point where we’ll have to take action, then I’ll let you know. Now spread out a little, but keep me in sight.”

The three officers followed instructions; it was a case now where their uniforms were their best protection. Although they were armed, against a mob of hundreds, if the crowd broke loose, they would be virtually helpless.

Ted Rasmussen tapped his fingernail against the public
address microphone and verified the fact that the system in his station wagon was in working order. Then he picked up his communications mike and reported that he was on the job and had made his initial deployment. He was not able to give an accurate estimate of the size of the crowd, but he asked for reinforcements on the basis of the outsider cars he had spotted while driving in.

He had barely pressed the mike back into its clip when a youth darted out of the crowd, aimed a rock at one of the uniformed men, and then scurried back into the jam of people. Fortunately he missed; Rasmussen saw it and signaled his men not to give pursuit. He tried to sense the feeling of the crowd, the extent to which it had been aroused, and he was not sure of his result. The speaker was well launched into a poignant description and biography of the dead Orthcutt boy; the crowd was responding, but everything that came out of the loudspeakers was well within the law.

The communications set came alive with the message that another six uniformed men were being dispatched. Also Virgil Tibbs was on his way and should arrive at any moment. That was good news for Rasmussen; if things got any worse, Virgil, being both experienced and a Negro, could be a real help.

“An’ I ask you, are we goin’ to let them do that to
us
?” The sudden increase in the power of the speaker’s voice awoke Rasmussen to the fact that he had not been listening and that something had been said which he should have heard. A roar of response came from the crowd, and with it a wave of
movement. An unmarked car drew up behind the station wagon and Tibbs got out.

“We pay our taxes in Pasadena, but we ain’t
citizens
of Pasadena,” the speaker went on. “You know this is a rich man’s playground, but it’s rich
white
men! Every year they crown a pretty
white
Rose Queen an’ have big parties while we’re crowded into ghettos. And that ain’t right!”

“Know him?” Rasmussen asked Tibbs.

Virgil shook his head. “He’s not one of the Negro community leaders, he could be from outside, or just someone who wants to sound off.”

The crowd reaction was mounting, the speaker sensed it, and he responded in turn. The sense of caution which he had been evidencing began to vanish; his words took on a new bite and any sense of restraint was swept away.

“This town is a symbol of the white man’s world, the white man’s
dying
world. He ain’t goin’ to be in charge much longer. This boy, this Willie Orthcutt: I’m telling you he was
better
than any white kid in this here whole town. And who killed him?
A white boy killed him
. A sneering white boy pointed a gun at poor, unarmed Willie, pointed it right at his guts and shot him dead. He didn’t even know him, but he shot him dead because he was black!”

A wave of ugly sound ran through the crowd. Rasmussen looked at Tibbs quickly, searching his face for a clue as to what he should do. Virgil revealed no expression at all, he was simply listening intently to the speaker’s words.

The speaker paused and read his audience. There was
a steady stirring now, an undercurrent of mounting tension which charged the air. He had his listeners with him and he knew it. Suddenly he felt the power; understood that if he were bold enough, he could rouse the people before him into action. He drew a deep breath and made his gamble.

“Well, are we just gonna stand here and talk about it, or are we gonna
do
something? It’s time they were
afraid
of us, it’s been the other way too long. I say that we go now, like they did in Watts, and give ’em hell until every brown-nosed cop gets down on his knees out of FEAR every time he sees a black man’s face!!”