Johnny Get Your Gun

9

As he drove back toward his office, Virgil Tibbs realized that he would have to snap out of it. It did no good to tell himself that he did not know which way to turn next, it was his job to do the turning.

By the time he had parked and climbed one flight to the second floor he had managed to gather the right amount of resolve. He said hello to Bob Nakamura, glanced once at the accumulated pile of work which awaited him, and then sat down as a man should who is equal to the challenges before him. But before he could begin on anything, Bob had news for him.

“The cat’s loose on your kid with the gun,” he said. “It’s on all the newscasts. You’ve had several frantic telephone calls, the usual sort. Someone from the National Rifle Association wants you to call him back. I could use your help on this double header we had last night, apparently the same gang pulled both jobs, but the captain says you can’t be spared until the youngster has been picked up and disarmed. Any light?”

Tibbs shook his head. As Bob watched he pulled open a drawer and took out his service revolver. Very carefully he removed the six bullets that it contained. Then he checked the barrel, carefully reinspected the cylinder, and absolutely verified that the weapon was empty. “I want you to help me with something,” he said in a voice that was collected and businesslike. “Come here, will you?”

Bob got to his feet and took the gun when it was offered to him.

“Check that it’s empty.”

Nakamura broke the Colt.38 open and gave it a careful scrutiny. “OK.”

“All right, now turn your back on me. Imagine that you’re holding a bead on someone about twelve or fifteen feet in front of you.”

“Do I aim for his head or do I know what I’m doing?”

“Aim for the abdomen, but assume, if you can, that you have no real intention of shooting. You’re not a marksman, you’re a small boy who knows very little about handling a gun.”

The Nisei detective turned so that he was facing the window and then pointed the gun steadily at an invisible target. Virgil let him stand there for a good half minute, until he knew that his partner’s reflexes would be automatically slowed down. Then, without warning, he threw his arms around him from behind, catching him just above the elbows. Bob jerked back.

“Now,” Tibbs asked, “under those circumstances could you have pulled the trigger accidentally?”

“Definitely, in fact it’s possible that I did, I had my finger inside the guard.”

“Next I want to try something else. As you were.”

Obediently Bob resumed his pose, holding the gun horizontally in front of him as he imagined a child might do. Once more Virgil quickly grabbed his arms, held him for a few seconds, and then attempted to fit his right hand over the gun, his fingers on top of Nakamura’s. Immediately his partner drew away and, turning to his left, aimed the gun squarely at Tibbs. “Is that what you wanted me to do?” he asked.

“Exactly. Now the question is just this: if for any reason I had wanted to, could I have forced you to fire the gun a second time? And if so, could I have guided your aim?”

Bob thought for a moment. “Possibly,” he said with considerable hesitation. “But it would have to be a very long shot. The moment you let go with your right hand to grab the gun it was easy for me to twist away from you. Even assuming that I’m an untrained small boy.”

“Then I’m satisfied on that point. I wasn’t before.”

Tibbs took the gun back, reloaded it, and replaced it in his desk drawer.

“Care to tell me what it’s all about?” Nakamura asked.

“There isn’t really anything to tell. I noticed something last night that set me thinking. It was pretty uncertain, but I wanted to check it out anyway.”

His partner was ahead of him. “You were impersonating someone right now; a look at his record might be interesting.”

Virgil nodded. “I’m planning to check it. You see, the gun was fired twice last night, during the scuffle I mean, when an older boy tried to grab Johnny McGuire. I saw a possibility that the bigger boy might have had something to do with that second shot.”

“Did he ever have possession of the gun?”

“No.”

“Then after the experiment we just tried, Virg, I can’t see it. I’m sure you’d never get a conviction in court, even if you could show murderous hostility.”

Tibbs did not reply, too many other ideas were piling up in his mind. He tried to deal with the matter of Johnny McGuire first, and against his better judgment decided to hope for the best. A small boy, even with sixteen dollars in his pocket, could not keep going on his own for too long. Probably he would have discarded his gun as too conspicuous, too heavy, or too dangerous to carry any longer. In that case after he was picked up, the job of recovering the weapon should be simple. That would be the easy way.

At any moment, he fervently hoped, the phone would ring with the news that Johnny had been seen somewhere or had managed to find his way home. Every patrol car, every policeman on duty, even the law enforcement personnel of all the nearby communities were now on the lookout for him. He rationalized that it would be the soundest procedure to sit tight and wait for a break.

Then he knew that he couldn’t do that. The problem of Johnny McGuire, grave as it already was, had been intensified by the shadow of the militant black power advocates. These hardened professional agitators and their followers could descend on Pasadena and whip up a first-class riot in short order, despite the fact that police riot-handling tactics had improved considerably since the days of the terror in Watts.

He picked up the phone, but before he could place his call he was told that he had visitors in the lobby. Three minutes later Charles Dempsey and a young Negro girl were shown into his office. The boy acknowledged an introduction to Nakamura and then presented the young lady. “This is Luella,” he said. “She wanted to come along.”

Virgil placed chairs for them and invited them to sit down. The girl did so, but Dempsey preferred to remain on his feet. “I wanna find out what’s happenin’,” he began abruptly. “Because, man, you got trouble. Big trouble.”

“I’m in the trouble business,” Tibbs answered. “What do you want to tell me?”

“Well, right off Willie was a mighty popular boy, he’d got a lot of friends. An’ a lot of the guys are already lookin’ for the white boy that shot him.”

Tibbs turned to the girl. “Do you agree with that?” he asked.

Luella took a few moments to consider her answer. She was about fifteen and he noted that she was undeniably ripe for her age. Her features were somewhat on the aquiline side, her waist slender, her breasts conspicuously high and full. Her voice, when she spoke, gave evidence of some training. “Willie was a real comer, Mr. Tibbs. He was a smart boy, mighty good-looking, and he had a lot of real talent. He was going places.”

“Damn right,” Sport added. “An’ I wanna tell ya that if any o’ our guys get hold of that white boy with the gun, somethin’s gonna happen.”

“What do you think I should do?” Virgil asked.

Dempsey responded at once to the flattery; he leaned forward against the desk to emphasize his words. “Well, if you can put out that you got this kid in the can, and no smart lawyer’s gonna get him right out again, it might make people feel a lot better. See he didn’t shoot no ordinary kid-he shot a black boy. You know how things are.”

“I know.”

“Well maybe you don’ know that right now they’re gettin’ a meetin’ organized down in Brookside Park. And if it gets swingin’, it ain’t gonna be no picnic, you can bet on that.”

Tibbs’s face tightened for just a moment. “I want to make something clear to you,” he said. “The person who shot your friend is still a little boy. That doesn’t excuse or undo what he did, but a child of nine isn’t wholly responsible for his actions.”

The girl nodded, but Sport looked at him through narrowed eyes. “You sound like you’re for this white kid. Are you with us or ain’t ya?”

A pencil snapped between Virgil’s fingers. “That has nothing to do with it, and you’re old enough to know it. If you must look at it that way, then color me blue-I’m a policeman.”

“Well I thought…” the youngster began, and then stopped.

“You mean that you’re going to let the white boy go?” the girl asked. Her voice rose at the end of the sentence.

“No, of course not,” Tibbs answered. “Nobody shoots anybody around here and gets away with it-or if he does it’s because we did our very best and failed. But a murder case is never closed until it’s resolved. And for that matter…” A shadow seemed to pass across his dark features. Whatever he was going to say remained unspoken, instead he added quietly, “You should know better than to ask that of me-or any other police officer.”

“Look,” Sport said, “I’m the big man around where I live, you just ask anybody. You get that kid an’ I can make you look good-the cops, I mean. You remember ’bout Watts? Well, a cop, he started that. I don’t want nobody more to get hurt, so I can help you maybe, huh?”

“Fine,” Tibbs answered. “That’s a deal. Suppose you begin by passing the word that if anybody locates the boy, don’t try to take him, call me. I’ll see that you get all the credit, but your people are too valuable to get shot, OK?”

Dempsey revealed a wide toothy grin. “Leave it ta me,” he promised.

As soon as he was well out of the office Bob Nakamura shook his head. “Virg, that line about his people being too valuable to get shot was a classic.”

“It’s perfectly true,” Tibbs said.

“Of course it is, it’s just the way that you put it. It implied, of course, that we’re expendable and he ate it up. I don’t think he’s quite as stupid as he pretends to be.”

“Of course not.” Tibbs picked up his phone once more, called records and asked for a check on Charles Dempsey, about eighteen, Negro, and a self-proclaimed leader in the youth group. As soon as he had that working he called the MTA bus information number and inquired about the early evening schedule on the line which ran close to Billy Hotchkiss’s home. After a few seconds delay he got exactly what he had suspected-confirmation that a bus had gone past at almost the same time that the shot had been fired. After that there had not been another for a full hour.

He silently cursed the luck that had given Johnny McGuire that convenient ride; if the shot he had fired into the Hotchkiss house had been delayed for only two or three minutes then the search for the boy would almost certainly have been successful and a tragic death would have been avoided. The more than ten years he had spent in police work had taught him, through frustrating experience, how often perverse breaks can go against the members of the force; for every good one that came along at least three others seemed always to go the wrong way.

The phone rang. It was records reporting that Charles Dempsey had had a total of six traffic moving violations, had been uncooperative twice when cited, and had been arrested fourteen months previously on suspicion of armed robbery. When faced with this last charge he had provided an alibi which had checked out. He had given enough information to establish his own innocence, but had refused to volunteer anything more.

Tibbs evaluated this. Being uncooperative while being cited was all too common-some of the most prominent citizens of Pasadena had that noted in their records. Nobody likes traffic tickets. Since the alibi had been proved, the armed robbery charge was out. It boiled down to a somewhat above average number of traffic tickets, two of which had made him mad. For a late teen-ager coming from a marginal environment it was, all things considered, a satisfactory report.

Again the phone rang. “Mr. Tibbs, please,” a masculine voice said.

“This is Mr. Tibbs.”

“Bert Furthman, Mr. Tibbs. You’re in charge of this case about the boy with the gun?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Then maybe I can help, I don’t know. I drive for MTA. Last night about nine-thirty I picked up a youngster who might be the one you’re after. He came running up to the bus stop just in time to catch me. I thought it was a little late for a kid his size to be out alone, but I assumed he was going home.”

“Of course.”

“Well, the reason I’m calling you, I picked up a newscast that said that the boy with the gun is wearing a worn-out red jacket. That’s how this boy was dressed. I remember that he was carrying something, I couldn’t say what. I let him off near the end of my run-a half a block from where the shooting took place. Where the colored boy was killed, I mean.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Furthman,” Virgil said. “I very much appreciate your coming forward.” He took down the driver’s address and telephone in case it would be necessary to call him as a witness. The information he had supplied was not new, but it did tie up a loose end. Unfortunately it did nothing to help locate Johnny McGuire now. As he hung up the phone he hoped that it would ring again as soon as possible. And with good news.

His wish was granted: before another full minute had passed the ring came again. He picked it up and said, “Virgil Tibbs.” Then he held his breath.

“Mr. Tibbs,” the voice of Maggie McGuire came tearfully over the line, “I’ve heard from Johnny!”

He opened his mouth to ask, “Where is he?” and was rescued by his intelligence. “Is he all right?” he asked instead.

“Yes, I think so. He called me on the telephone.”

Tibbs raised his hand to get his partner’s attention. Bob immediately picked up his own phone. “Did he say where he was, Mrs. McGuire?”

A suppressed sob came over the line. “No, he didn’t. I asked him and he said something like, ‘I’m here in the phone booth.’ That’s all.”

“Did he say anything else, Mrs. McGuire? Anything at all?”

Maggie did not appear to hear the question for a moment. “I don’t know where he slept last night, or what he’s had to eat…. I’m sorry, you asked me something?”

“Did Johnny tell you anything else at all, Mrs. McGuire?”

For a few seconds there was no answer, then he changed his question. “Please tell me about it, just as it happened.”

“Well, I answered the phone and I heard Johnny’s voice. He said ‘Hello, Mommy.’ I remember, just those words.”

“Good, go on.”

“I…I couldn’t say anything for a moment, then I think he said something like, ‘I’m all right, Mommy.’ I’m not sure, I was so upset.”

“Of course, Mrs. McGuire, I understand.”

“Then I asked him where he was and he said, ‘Right here in the phone booth,’ like I said. After that he said something about my not worrying. I don’t remember what I said to him, I think I said that I would come and get him. Then he told me that his radio was broken.”

“Did you reassure him on that?”

“Yes, I told him that we knew and that his father wasn’t mad-that’s what he would worry about. I told him we knew that it wasn’t his fault. Then Johnny said that he was in trouble because he had shot a nigger boy. Oh, I’m sorry!”

She burst into tears. Virgil remained silent, letting her take her time. Finally she said, “I’m very sorry. I didn’t mean to use that word to you.”

“Don’t concern yourself about that, Mrs. McGuire, you have enough on your mind. What else did Johnny say?”

She chose her words cautiously. “Well, as I said, Mr. Tibbs, he told me that he had shot the little colored boy. I told him that I didn’t care if he did kill him, I wanted him to come home. Of course you understand…”

She somehow seemed to sense the reception of her words and stopped. After that, for a moment or two, there was no sound.

“Mrs. McGuire,” Virgil began carefully, “I don’t want to press you, but did you use that word? Did you tell your son that he killed the boy whom he shot?”

“I guess…I guess I did.” Her voice was very low.

Tibbs could not answer her. He locked his fingers tightly around the telephone. He drew a long breath and fought to keep himself under control. “I’m very sorry that you did that,” he said. “So long as Johnny thought that he had just hurt the other boy, there was a good chance that he might have come home to find comfort from you and protection from his father. Now he believes himself to be a murderer. He isn’t, of course, but he won’t understand that.”

“What…what are you driving at?” she asked.

“Just this, Mrs. McGuire: I don’t want to alarm you, believe me, but in the stricken, desperate frame of mind that he must be in, only God Almighty can say what your son is likely to do now.”