The Black Hearts Murder (3 page)

“No, I've got to run back to the shop. I'll catch it in my car—I parked it on the street, too.” She turned away with a businesslike, almost a curt, nod.

He watched her get into a dusty, fender-dented Olds about ten years old and shoot away from the curb like a cop. McCall climbed into the Ford, still smiling. He quickly tuned the radio dial to BOKO's frequency. He turned on his motor, let the engine idle, and snapped the radio switch.

A disk was coming to an end. It was followed by a commercial for a local shlock outfit, a discount clothing store. Then an announcer with the improbable name of Cubbage came on:

“We interrupt the Dave Banner show to bring you a news bulletin to be followed by a special report.

“Black Hearts leader Harlan James failed to appear for the scheduled start of his trial for sedition in district court 2A at the county courthouse this morning. Moments ago the BOKO newsroom learned that the ten-thousand-dollar bail posted to assure the appearance of the Black Hearts leader has been forfeited, and presiding Judge Wendell Graham has issued a bench warrant for Mr. James's arrest.

“Now for the special report:

“At 8:30 this morning a package was delivered to this station by a Negro messenger who left without identifying himself. The package contained a spool of tape for a tape recorder, also a letter signed in ink ‘Harlan James.' The letter, typewritten and addressed to ‘News Department, Station BOKO,' reads as follows:

“‘Copies of this letter and duplicate tapes have been sent to all area radio and TV stations.

“‘I hereby publicly announce that I will not submit to standing trial in the racist-pig district court of the racist-pig judge Wendell Graham on the phony charge of sedition framed against me by the racist-pig district attorney Volper.

“‘I have gone underground to protect myself. However, I plan to remain in the Banbury general area.

“‘I wish it absolutely understood that none of my blood-relatives, including the sister at whose home I have been living, nor any brother of the Black Hearts organization, including our officers, knows where I am. I am purposely keeping my hideout secret from them so as to prevent their being harassed by the racist-pig police in attempts to make them reveal my whereabouts. They do not know it.

“‘The accompanying tape contains a message to my black brothers and sisters which I demand you play over the air. I will send you further tapes, provided this one is played by you, as a means of keeping in touch with my people who believe in me.

“‘I have no real hope that any of the stations to which I am sending these tapes will play them over the air, because the radio and TV stations of the Banbury area have too often demonstrated their racist, anti-black bias. If you do play them, why not? If you do not play them—why?

“‘From the bottom of my black heart, Harlan James.'”

The newscaster went on:

“In spite of its inflammatory nature, station BOKO has decided to play Harlan James's tape over the air. Our decision stems from BOKO's conviction that the public, white and black, has the right—indeed, the civic obligation—to hear from his own lips just what kind of man James is, and what kind of violent revolutionary doctrine he is preaching. We believe that this taped message, far from winning James converts to his cause—which is evidently his reason for sending it to us—will alert all decent law-abiding citizens to the danger posed by the message and the man.

“The next voice you hear will be that of Harlan James, on the tape he has had delivered to us, complete except for certain obscenities which cannot, of course, be broadcast and which our technicians have blipped out.”

There was a pause. Then a resonant bass voice said, “My black brothers and sisters, greetings from the bottom of my black heart. This is Harlan James, president of the Black Hearts, speaking.”

The fifteen-minute harangue that followed seemed to McCall feeble stuff. It was the familiar catalogue of grievances against “honky” mistreatment of the black man, all true enough, and a bitter exhortation to blacks to “stand up and fight” for their rights. The language was liberally spattered with blips; but nothing in James's speech advocated violent revolution, as the announcer Cubbage had implied; if there was anything subversive in James's message, it eluded McCall. His chief objections to it were that there was nothing new in it, that it was often disjointed and hard to follow, and that the leaders of other black militant movements had said the same things with far greater clarity and imagination.

A typical passage went: “The day when black men could be dismissed as ‘niggers' by Mr. Charlie is gone for all time. Now the black man walks down the middle of the sidewalk, and let the honky step out of his way! Now we don't turn the other cheek when we're hit; we hit back twice as hard! When Whitey uses a broom handle on you, use a baseball bat on him. Whitey pulls a pistol on you, you blast him with both barrels of a shotgun before he can pull the trigger. My black brothers and sisters, you want to break the chains of slavery? Don't you ever back one inch away from a honky threat.”

You would have to be a white supremacist to interpret this as outright advocacy of violence, McCall thought. If a white man were to advocate the same tactics against threatening blacks, it would be construed in the dominant society as permissible self-defense.

James's recitation of abuses and oppressions had been voiced ten thousand times by blacks and whites alike. The clichés of “honky,” “slavemaster,” “racist pig,” “exploiter,” “oppressor” were all there. Even the blipped words could be identified, by the context in which they were used, as the sterile obscenities employed for now worn out shock value by radical groups, both black and white.

There were no solutions presented. Stand your ground. Fight back. Spit in Whitey's eye. As if mere defiance were an end in itself. It was the static philosophy of anger, offering nothing but the satisfaction of manhood.

Maybe, McCall thought, that's enough for a black man who's been molded into something less than a man by the forces of white society. Maybe it's a necessary step in the evolution of a truly integrated community. But it certainly offered little hope for a peaceful today or tomorrow.

For all its lack of creativeness, Harlan James's speech pulsed with power. The man was a natural mover of people, intense, emotional, personally magnetic. It was easy to understand, after listening to his delivery, how James had gathered the loyal following of his Black Hearts.

McCall sat thoughtfully for a few moments when the tape ended. Then he headed for the city hall.

THREE

No one was in the reception room at Mayor Potter's office at city hall but the receptionist.

She was enough.

All his life—at least as far back as he could remember—McCall had had a thing about auburn hair. It was curious, because his mother had been a blonde, and he could recall no significant female in his childhood, teachers included, with hair of the shade that never failed to turn him on. Perhaps it came from a forgotten trip to a museum and the memory of a Titian painting, although there was a subtle difference between the hair color called titian—brownish orange—and the reddish brown of auburn. However it had started, he had never seen a girl with auburn hair whom he had not thought attractive, no matter how plain her features. The phenomenon was one of his life's minor mysteries, like a passion for haggis.

The girl at the reception desk had true auburn hair, painted by nature, not chemistry. Even without the auburn hair she would have attracted him: sea-green eyes, the flawless pale complexion, a chest development that the U.S. Marine Corps would call “outstanding.”

At the moment he first caught sight of her, her hands lay below the level of her desktop.

McCall said: “May I see your left hand?”

The girl looked up, startled. “I beg your pardon?” Her voice went along with the rest of her—in the alto range, a touch on the husky side, uncorrupted by provincial inflection.

“Your left hand—please. I'd very much like to see it.”

She raised her hands, looking at them, puzzled.

“Thank God!” McCall said, and advanced. “My name is Mike McCall. You're Mayor Potter's secretary?”

“That's right. Also his receptionist and errand girl. The mayor's even been known to weep on my shoulder.”

“He's no fool, at his age or half of it.” McCall surveyed her with pleasure. “I'd love to know your name.”

“Laurel Tate.”

“Laurel Tate,” he repeated, like a gourmet sampling a delectable new recipe.

The girl looked at her left hand again, frowning. Suddenly she threw back her head and laughed. “
Mister
McCall. It would serve you right if I told you I always leave my wedding ring home.”

“Do you?”

“No, that's why I can't honestly tell it to you. I don't have a wedding ring.”

“Because you're not married?”

“That's the usual reason.”

“I don't know. Things change fast these days. Anyway, I wanted to be sure.”

“Mr. McCall, I'd just adore listening to more of your line,” Laurel Tate said, “but I have work to do for my boss, so I'm going to have to ask what I can do for you. And don't give me the usual answer!” she added hastily. “I didn't mean it that way.”

McCall went over and rested one buttock on the corner of her desk. “I can't seem to remember why I'm here.”

“You're Irish, aren't you?” Her smile was blinding. He had never seen such beautiful teeth.

“Half. The other half's Scottish.”

“Thank goodness the blarney part is only fifty percent! With the full hundred you'd be a menace to public health. Obviously, Mr. McCall, you came here to see the mayor … McCall,” she said suddenly. “Didn't you say
Mike
McCall? Mike McCall! Are you
the
…?”

“I'm
the
.”

“Oh.” Her pale cheeks had turned coral pink. “I'm so sorry, Mr. McCall! If I'd had any idea … The mayor's in conference just now, but I don't think he'll be more than a few minutes more … Please have a seat.”

“Could you make it Mike?”

The coral deepened. “I don't really think—”

“Mike, or I'll tell the governor on you.”

“Don't do that—Mike—I need my job.” She had a dimple, too. “But please, not in front of the mayor. He's old-fashioned about his secretaries.”

“All right, just when we're alone. By the way, is half past six too early for you?”

“Too early for what?”

“Dinner. To pick you up.”

“Are you sure you're Governor Holland's Mike McCall?” Laurel demanded. “You sound more like an advance man for a white slave ring.”

“You haven't answered my question.”

“I could say this is so sudden.”

“It is. But it's a sudden age. I'm tearing down the straightaway at top speed to cover as much territory as I can before some kook drops the bomb. Don't tell me, Laurel, you're going to act coy.”

She laughed again. “Six-thirty will be fine. How do you want me to dress?”

“Something simple. I'm a simple man. Where do I find you?”

She typed rapidly on a sheet of scratch paper:
Apt. 2C, 3217 Ralston Road, 884–1796
. McCall pocketed it and, nodding, headed for one of the chairs lined up against the far wall. He had scarcely seated himself when three men filed gloomily out of the inner office and left.

Laurel snapped a lever on her intercom. “Mr. McCall from the capital is here, Mr. Mayor.”

A high and hearty voice shouted, “Send him in!”

Heywood Potter was waiting before his big oval desk when McCall entered the mayoral sanctum. The mayor was a Humpty-Dumpty sort of man who looked barely seventy, let alone eighty-four. His chubby, almost unwrinkled face was topped by a knoll of deep snow; tufted brows slanted upward like horns. Only his shrewd blue eyes betrayed him—they were bloodshot, rheumy, very tired-looking.

“Mike!” He shook McCall's hand like a pump handle. “How's Sam?”

“Never better, Mr. Mayor,” McCall said. “Sends his best, and said to tell you it was one of the saddest days of his life when he learned you were retiring from politics.”

“Nobody goes on forever.” The old man trotted around his desk and plumped himself down in the dwarfing swivel chair. “Have a cigar, Mike?”

“I've quit, thanks. But I still enjoy smelling the smoke of the other guy's.”

“No point in my quitting,” the mayor said, biting off the end of a long green cigar. “Not at my age, after seventy years of addiction. Sit down, Mike, sit down.” He used his desk lighter, puffed until he was satisfied, and leaned back. The old eyes looked McCall over. “It's this race business, isn't it?” he asked abruptly.

“Yes, sir,” McCall said. “I assume you've heard about Harlan James not showing up in court this morning?”

Mayor Potter nodded. “I didn't catch the BOKO broadcast, but one of my aides did. I had my staff check the other area radio and TV stations, by the way. They all did receive the same letter and tape this morning, as advertised, only the others got theirs in the mail. BOKO was the only one to rate messenger delivery.”

‘Isn't that odd?”

“Not really, Mike. The trial was scheduled to start at nine
A.M.
It so happens that the mail delivery schedules for the studios range from nine to ten. James must have wanted at least one station to have the letter and tape before the trial was due to begin, and the only way he could get it there in time was my messenger.”

“But why BOKO? Why not one of the TV stations, for example?”

“Because BOKO,” the old politico said dryly, “is the only station in this neck of the woods James could be sure would put his immortal words on the air. Don't forget BOKO is owned by Gerry Horton, and anything inflammatory by a black man can only win Horton votes. The fact is, I'm told none of the other stations plan to air the tape. They're just giving résumés of it on their regular newscasts.”