And then he saw the boys.
There were eight of them, and they sat on two benches flanking either side of the path which wound through the small park. The lampposts along the path, he noticed, had either gone out accidentally or been put out. In any case, the benches upon which the boys sat were in total darkness and he could not see the boys’ faces. The area of blackness, intensified by the high covering arch of the heavily laden trees, spread for at least fifty feet along the path. The darkness began not ten feet ahead of him.
He hesitated.
His stride broke, and he remembered the telephone call — “Mr. Bell?” — and then the silence, and he wondered if that call had been made to ascertain the fact that he was still in the office. There were two detectives assigned to his home in Inwood, but... Suddenly he was frightened.
The boys sat motionless on the benches. Silently, like wax figures shrouded in impenetrable darkness, they sat and waited.
He decided to turn and walk out of the park.
And then he decided he was being foolish. There was nothing ominous about a group of young kids sitting in a park in the middle of a city. For God’s sake, there were probably a thousand policemen cruising the area! His right foot touched the patch of darkness on the path, moved into it, followed by his left, and then his right again, and then the darkness was everywhere around him as he approached the benches and their silent cargo, the fear returning in him with alarming suddenness.
The boys sat quietly. There was no talking — hardly any breathing, it seemed to him — as he passed between the two benches looking neither to the left nor the right, neither acknowledging their presence nor denying it.
The attack came swiftly, surprisingly because, if anything, he expected a punch to be hurled, but instead something lashed across his chest, something hard and sinuous, something alive with fury. He balled his fists and turned to the first attacker, but the same live terror leaped out of the darkness at his back, and he heard the rattle of metal, the sound of chains, chains? can it be they’re using? and then he felt the sharp snap of metal across his face, and now there was no doubt that the weapons in the hands of these eight boys were tire chains, skid chains, spiked with metal prongs to catch at the snow, wielded with surprising deftness and agility.
He threw a punch at a shadowy figure and someone grunted in pain, and then from behind him another of the skid chains whipped at his legs and he felt raw pain rocket up his spine to explode inside his skull. Another of the flailing chains whipped across his chest, and he seized at it with his hands, pulling at it, feeling the ripping of his flesh as his hands tore across the metal prongs.
There was a curious silence to the scene. None of the boys spoke. Occasionally they grunted when he struck one of them, but they said nothing intelligible. There was only the sound of heavy labor, and the sound of the metal chains lunging into the darkness, colliding with his body until he felt pain everywhere and still the chains would not stop their metallic methodical beating. A chain struck the calf of his right leg, and he felt himself losing his balance, and he thought I must not fall, they’ll stomp me, they’ll kick me with combat boots, and then his shoulder slammed against the concrete path and a kick exploded against his rib cage, and another set of tire chains descended on his face with the wild power of a medieval mace. And then the chains and the boots joined in a medley of organized pain, and still there was no sound but the chains and the labored breathing of the boys and far off the muted hum of an automobile engine somewhere on the street.
He was filled with rage, an impotent blind rage that threatened to consume him, overwhelming the shrieking pain he knew. There was injustice to this beating, but at the hands of his assailants he was helpless, helpless to stop the prongs which tore at his clothes and his flesh, helpless to stop the thick leather of the boots as they descended on him. Stop it, you goddamn fools! he screamed mentally. Do you want to kill me? What are you solving? What the hell are you solving?
A kick tore open his face. He could feel the skin ripping apart like the skin of a frankfurter on the outdoor barbecue grill of his home in Inwood, his face tearing, it was funny, the warm flow of blood, I must protect my teeth, the city swarming about him, all the sounds of the city rushing into the vortex of fifty-foot blackness on the path of the park, and the chains whipping, and the boots, the boots, and within him the outrage at the injustice, the impotent outrage suffocating him, rising inside him until a shocking star-shell explosion of pain rocked the back of his head and sent him soaring wildly into unconsciousness.
And in that last instant before the darkness became complete, he realized that he didn’t know whether his attackers were the Thunderbirds or the Horsemen.
And it didn’t make a damned bit of difference either way.
Ten
She stood by the bed.
She wore a white skirt and a black sweater, and her blond hair was pulled back into a pony tail captured by a small black ribbon.
“Hello, Dad,” she said.
“Hello, Jennie.”
“How do you feel?”
“A little better.”
He had been in the hospital for three days now, but this was the first time Jennie had come to visit. Sitting up in bed with his face and his body bandaged, he looked at the sunlight playing on his daughter’s hair, and he thanked God that the pain was gone now. The only pain now was in the memory of what had happened to him. The police had found him on the park path a little after midnight. The path around him had been stained with blood, and the hospital doctors later told him he’d been in deep shock. They’d dressed his wounds and filled him with sedatives and now, three days later, the pain in his body was gone. But the other pain still lingered, a pain of puzzlement, the pain of not being able to understand an attack that was senseless and cruel.
“Why did they beat you, Dad?” Jennie asked.
“I’m not sure,” he answered.
“Did it have something to do with the Morrez case?”
“Yes. In a twisted way, I suppose it did.”
“Are you doing something wrong?”
“Wrong? Why, no. What makes you think that?”
Jennie shrugged.
“What is it, Jennie?”
“Nothing. Just... the way the kids in the neighborhood have begun treating me, like a leper or something. I thought — I thought maybe you were doing something wrong.”
“I don’t think I am, Jennie.”
“All right,” she said. She paused. “Mommy went to see that boy the police picked up.”
“What boy?”
“The one who wrote you the threatening letter. About the Thunderbirds. You know the one.”
“Yes?”
“Well, they picked up the boy who wrote it. I guess your beating finally goosed the police into action.”
“Jennie, that’s hardly the proper language for a young lady to—”
“Anyway, they got him, Daddy. He’s a cripple.”
“A cripple?”
“A polio victim. He walks with a limp. They had his picture in the newspaper. He looked very sad, Daddy.”
“Did he?”
“Yes. When I saw his picture, I wondered what it would be like to be crippled and — and growing up in Harlem. Do you know what I mean?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Mommy went to see him this morning. The police let her. She asked him if he’d meant the threat, if he’d really meant that he would kill you.”
“And what did he say?”
“He said, ‘Yes, goddamnit! Why would I send the note otherwise?’”
“Jennie, your language...”
“I’m only quoting him, Dad.” She paused. “But he wasn’t in on the beating. He isn’t even one of the Thunderbirds, and he has an alibi for the night you were beat up. I talked to Mommy on the phone before I came over here. She said they’ll release him as soon as someone puts up the bail for him.”