Johnny Get Your Gun

4

This time Virgil Tibbs did not wait to ask if he could use the telephone, he returned to the kitchen, picked it up without ceremony, and dialed the headquarters number.

“Tibbs at the McGuire home,” he reported in. “The boy, Johnny, has not come home. Almost certainly he has his father’s loaded handgun with him and he knows how to use it.”

“Good God!” the desk sergeant responded. “It’s true.”

“Right. You’d better call the Hotchkiss home immediately and tell Barry Rothberg the score. Then set up a stakeout to cover the exterior. The boy may still come home on his own, I hope to heaven that he does, but we can’t bank on it. Also run the full missing child routine-hospitals and all the rest. I’ll be here for a few more minutes.”

He hung up, turned, and found the McGuires where they had been standing, listening, behind him. “I don’t want to upset you,” he told them, “but this could develop into a very serious situation. I’m hoping that Johnny will come home by himself. If he does, I suggest that you treat him with an extra measure of consideration and love, because he will be needing it.”

Maggie began softly to cry.

“I think you had both better sit down,” Virgil advised. “I have some things to tell you.”

The belligerency drained out of him for the moment, Mike did as directed. Maggie, her shoulders shaking, followed suit.

In quiet, calm tones Tibbs told them what had happened in the schoolyard and of Johnny’s violent reaction. Then he carefully repeated Ralph Hotchkiss’s offer to replace the smashed radio set at once.

Mike pondered the matter. “If this Hotchkiss will buy him a new radio, with a battery and everything, then I guess it’s all right. But it was plain dirty what his kid did to Johnny, and I can’t blame Johnny for getting damn mad. That smart-alec kid of Hotchkiss’s needs a good whipping and maybe someday Johnny’ll give it to him.” As he spoke the last words the first dawn of comprehension began to show on his face. “My gun,” he said, forming the words mechanically, “he took my gun.”

Grimly Virgil nodded. “Yes, Mr. McGuire, he has your gun. I think he means to use it and the Hotchkiss family is very frightened.”

“Oh, my God, no!”

Maggie flung her hands over her face and bent over the table, her body shaking with sobs. Mike got up quickly and put his arm around her, to comfort her and to hide his own acute embarrassment. After the single, shattering outburst Maggie calmed down and began to sob; she had no handkerchief so Mike tore off a paper towel and handed it to her. Tibbs remained silent; when the paper towel had been used and pushed away he reached into his own pocket and produced a clean linen handkerchief which he offered to her.

She hesitated a second, then took it, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose. That finished she looked up at Tibbs. “What can we do?” she asked.

“First of all, stay here and wait for your boy to come home. If he does, tell him you’ve been worried, but don’t upbraid him. Give him his dinner, make him glad that he came home, then please call me right away. If I’m not there, talk to the man who answers the phone.” He laid a calling card on the table.

Mike indicated that they would do as directed. The realization of what might possibly happen was clear in his mind and he was very much sobered.

“Before I go, I’d like to have a little more information,” Virgil said. “It could help us to find your son sooner.”

“That’s all right,” Mike responded.

“I take it that Johnny liked his radio very much.”

“It was his birthday present, he listens to it all the time. He’s nuts about the Angels baseball team and he hears all the games when he ain’t in school.”

“Does he follow the Dodgers too?”

“No, he don’t like the Dodgers, just the Angels. The Dodgers, they don’t play on TV. Mostly he likes the Angels because of Gene Autry. You know about him?”

“Everybody knows about Gene Autry,” Virgil answered. He stressed the first word just a little, he could not help it.

“Well, Johnny met him once. Just a quick handshake, but it was a big thing for him. Autry called him his pal and Johnny never forgot it. That was back home. Now Johnny wants to be a ball player so he can be on his team-Autry’s I mean.”

“Someday soon it might be a good idea to take him to a game,” Tibbs suggested.

Mike was unaware of the hidden question in that simple-sounding sentence, he only knew that he felt obliged to say something in response. “I was planning to do that, but then somethin’ came up….”

“The accident?”

Mike looked at him with narrowed eyes. “You know about that too?”

“You mentioned it on the telephone to Mr. Hotchkiss.”

Again the muscles of Mike’s jaw worked. “I guess maybe I did.” He drew breath and let it out again very slowly.

“Could Johnny have taken any money with him?” Tibbs asked, deliberately changing the subject.

Mike shook his head. “He gets fifty cents allowance when I can spare it, but it’s always all gone before the end of the week.”

“No, it isn’t,” Maggie said.

Her husband looked at her, surprised and with a slight show of rising temper.

“It was a secret I promised to keep for him,” she explained, her lower lip quivering in spite of herself. “He hardly ever spent anything. He’s been saving his money for weeks to buy a catcher’s outfit. He wants to be a baseball catcher. He knows we don’t have much, so he’s been putting it all away.”

“Do you know where?” Virgil asked quietly.

Maggie nodded and led the way. Maggie ran her hand quickly across her eyes before she opened the bottom drawer of the dresser and pulled out the tin box. She was being forced to betray his little secret.

The box was not locked: Maggie opened it and handed it to Tibbs. Inside, scotch-taped to the lid, there was a newspaper photograph of Tom Satriano, the first-string catcher of the Angels, in full regalia. Otherwise it was empty.

Virgil looked at it very carefully before he handed it back. “Do you know how much he had?” he asked. “Could you hazard a guess?”

Maggie swallowed before she answered. “Sixteen dollars, maybe just a little more. I helped him out a bit when I could-for being a good boy.” She glanced at her husband almost fearfully and was visibly relieved when he showed no further signs of displeasure.

“Then he’s gone and taken his money with him,” Mike said.

Tibbs remained silent as he studied the little room with considerable care; with nodded permission from Maggie he checked the inside of all three drawers of the inadequate dresser. When he finally did speak his voice carried a subdued, but unmistakable note of authority. “Mr. McGuire, are you in the habit of spending much time with your son?”

Mike looked at him sharply. “I do when I can.”

“Then you have discussed with him what are commonly known as the facts of life?”

“As much as I thought necessary.” The answer had an edge to it. “Are you sayin’ that he ran away because he didn’t like his old man?”

“No,” Virgil answered. “My guess is that your son believes in you completely. You are probably his idol-his example for everything he does.”

“It’s the ball players he’s nuts about,” Mike retorted, but he was clearly mollified nonetheless. He was about to add something when the phone rang once more.

Mike ran to answer it, then passed the instrument to Tibbs in disappointment. “It’s for you.”

The conversation was brief and one-sided; after listening for several seconds Virgil hung up and turned to his host. “One more question, Mr. McGuire-a very important one. Have you, in your talks with your son, ever advised him what to do if others oppose him?”

Mike did not answer immediately, from the tightness of his jaw it was obvious that he was debating whether or not he would. He spoke only after he had apparently decided that he had no other choice. “I told him not to take any…not to let anyone boss him around.”

In the thick pause that followed the hard, ugly outlines of the missing gun hung in the air.

“Mr. McGuire,” Tibbs began, “you mentioned that you had planned to take your son to the baseball game and then ‘something came up.’ Later you referred to an accident. I’ve just learned that you were recently cited for reckless driving; according to the officer who saw you, you deliberately tried to force another car off the freeway and into the divider.”

“Do we have to talk about that now?” Mike flared.

“Only to ask if your son knows about this matter.”

“Yes, he knows. He heard me tell his mother.”

Tibbs did not pursue the matter further, he had learned all that he needed to evaluate the situation which faced him. “I can relieve your minds on one point,” he said. “Whenever a child is missing, no matter what the circumstances, we always make an emergency check of all the hospitals in the vicinity and other facilities. So far no one who could possibly be Johnny has been brought in.”

He paused to let that much sink in.

“Since we know why he is away from home, I think we can rule out any likelihood that he’s been hurt. The problem now is to find him and return him to you before he has a chance to do any damage.” He did not emphasize what kind of damage he meant; they knew.

Maggie shook her head and pressed her hands across her face.

“Johnny knows how to take care of himself,” Mike said.

“No, Mr. McGuire, he doesn’t,” Virgil retorted. “No nine-year-old boy does, he simply doesn’t have the physical strength or the mental maturity to fight his way in an adult world. And the possession of a gun doesn’t erase those considerations.” Quietly he got up to leave. “I’m going out to look for your son,” he said simply. “You know what to do if he comes back.”

Mike, in control of himself once more, replied. “We’ll call you.”

Tibbs left quickly and shut the door behind him. Once he was outside he began an intensive search of the apartment house area. He was fully aware that children who are afraid to go home frequently huddle somewhere nearby, trying to gather courage to face their irate parents. He looked carefully inside the McGuire car and then checked the others on the parking lot. He examined every public part of the premises and then all of the likely places in the close vicinity where a young boy might elect to hide. He gave no thought to the fact that the child in question was armed with a loaded gun; if he found him it would be time then to deal with that contingency.

His search was fruitless; after forty minutes he was forced to conclude that what had been a good bet had not paid off. Furthermore, the fact that Johnny McGuire was not there added to the seriousness of the problem. Normally children were quick to lose their tempers and equally quick to recover them; it would be hard for a young boy to remain enraged when he was alone in the dark of early evening and away from his home, family, and dinner. But if such were the case, then the gravity of the matter automatically increased by another damning percentage.

For the moment defeated, Tibbs got back into his official car, turned on the radio, and started for the Hotchkiss house. A thorough search in that vicinity was the next logical step. On the way he drove very slowly, watching the road only as much as was necessary. The rest of the time he gave close attention to the sidewalks, to clusters of shrubbery, and to all of the other places where a nine-year-old boy might be. He found nothing. He passed the silent schoolyard where the whole thing had happened and continued on into the better class neighborhood where the Hotchkiss home was located. He was three or four minutes away from his destination when the radio came alive with his call.

He picked up the microphone and answered.

“We’ve got him,” the dispatcher reported. “One of the cruise cars picked him up. About eight or nine, poorly dressed, says his name is Johnny.”

“Praise God,” Tibbs said. “Do the parents know yet?”

“No, wanted to check with you first.”

“Then hold it, bring the boy into the station. The father is an explosive type and I’d better take the boy home myself. I’ll notify the family from there. I want to find out about the gun he has-or had.”

“Ten four.”

Virgil U-turned and set a direct course for headquarters. He breathed a little more heavily from sheer relief; it had been a sticky one while it had lasted. A gun held by a child fires bullets which travel just as far, just as fast, as any others.

It took him twelve minutes to reach the parking lot, another three to get into the building, up the stairs to the second floor, and into the office of the juvenile division. The little boy who awaited him there turned up a tear-streaked face full of fright and despair, then he brightened just a little when he saw that the policeman coming into the room was a person like himself.

Virgil picked up the little boy, who showed unmistakable signs of some Negro blood, and comforted him across his shoulder. “We’ll find your people for you right away,” he promised. Then, looking toward the uniformed officer who had been waiting with the lad, he carefully shook his head from side to side.

The policeman left at once and hurried downstairs to the radio room. “It isn’t the McGuire boy,” he reported.

The dispatcher in charge reacted quickly. “Damn it, I pulled the men away from the Hotchkiss house. They’re on their way in.” He began to write a quick message for the duty man to put on the air.

Less than a minute later, out of the still night, a sharp explosive sound split the air and a.38 bullet crashed through the front window of Billy Hotchkiss’s home to bury itself deep in the woodwork.