Johnny, one of the guys on the council, got all upset about the baby.
Chingo told him that was an accident. When him and Deucey and The Bullet busted in on the nigger and his chick, the kid was sleeping in a crib by the window, you know? So Chingo told them to take off all their clothes, the chick was half naked anyway, and then when the pair of them realized what was about to happen, the chick ran for the crib and scooped up the baby and was about to start yelling, you know? So that was when Chingo cut loose, not meaning to chop down the baby, but those things happen. You take action, you got to expect a few accidents. The baby was innocent, and nobody was trying to chop down an innocent baby. It just happened. Also, Chingo says that the nigger pulled a piece just as Chingo opened up, and maybe some stray bullets from his own gun killed the kid, who the hell knows? Like, you know, maybe he was responsible himself for killing his own baby. Like he saw Chingo with the piece in his hand, and he pulled his own piece to defend himself, and the bullets went wild. Chingo explained that to the council, and especially to Johnny, who was making all the noise. I finally kicked him out of the clubhouse, told him to go take a walk till he cooled off. We later had to deal with him on another matter, but that had nothing to do with his questioning the hit or the accident that happened during the hit.
The hit was complicated, like I said before. That's because there were two separate cliques to deal with. There was the Scarlet Avengers and the Death's Heads. We call them the Heads because half of them are junkies, though they won't admit it. We never call them heads to their faces, because the next thing you know you got another stabbing on your hands. You got to watch out for these jerks, they're so sensitive. Like when Jo-Jo got stabbed outside the junior high school on Yancey, because one of the Scarlets thought he was trying to make time with a Scarlet chick. Boy! Any of the guys in this clique even looks at one of them Scarlet dogs, that's the day I got to see. Anyway, that ain't the point. These guys get everything all mixed up. They're always looking for an excuse to say we done something, when most of the time we just mind our own business and try to do good. Who got rid of half the pushers in this neighborhood, if not us? Nobody ever thinks of that. They just go around saying things all the time, what do they know? I got a good clique here, we're a good clique. We try to set an example for all the others. And I'm the president, and I try always to do good, and that's the example I set for my own people.
I decided on the hit just after New Year's. Man, I spent nights pacing the floor thinking about it. I figured the only way to make them see reason was to grab them where it hurts, strike right in their own turf, get their leaders, show them we ain't afraid of nothing. I didn't talk it over with nobody. Not even Toy. I didn't even tell her nothing about it. I worked it out careful and then I told Doc, my negotiator, and Mace, my war counselor, and I listened, to what they had to say about it, and they both said it was the right thing to do. It wouldn't have mattered what they said, because I already decided. But I showed them the respect of listening. A good leader's got to know when to listen in addition to when to act. The plan was to send Chingo and two raiders to get the president of the Scarlet Avengers and the president of the Heads. As it turned out, Chingo got more than we bargained for.
The baby, of course, was an accident, like I explained. But in addition, when Chingo and his raiders busted in on the spic pad, there was a blond cat sitting there rapping with the Head and his chick. He didn't know who the blond was at the time. We later found out in the newspapers. All Chingo saw was a white guy with a beard, maybe twenty-five, twenty-six years old, sitting there and rapping with the two spies. He was there to get the president. The chick was unfortunate. She shouldn't have been hanging around with a guy like that, who was holding up peace negotiations and putting himself in a vulnerable position. Those are the chances you take. The stranger was another matter. Chingo wasn't about to turn around and go out, now that he was there. Him and his raiders had already taken care of the other three, their bodies were downstairs in the back of the pickup truck, covered with a tarp. He was there to do the rest of the job, and so the stranger had to go with the other two. It was over in four seconds flat. If anybody in the building heard anything, they knew better than to open their mouths, or we'd have been around the next day to burn them out.
We don't fool around.
You're either our friends, or you're our enemies.
Chapter Two
The man on the telephone was a free-lance writer doing a magazine article on The Relationship of Television to Acts of Violence. That was not to be the title of his piece, he explained hastily. It was merely a statement of theme. The title would be something shorter and snappier. A title, he went on to explain, was almost as important as the first line of any written work, the hook that grabbed the reader at once and refused to let him go, no matter how he wiggled or squirmed.
The man's name was Montgomery Pierce-Hoyt.
Detective Meyer Meyer, normally a patient man, distrusted him at once, and listened to his long explanation of intent with boredom bordering on somnambulance. The first thing he distrusted was the man's name. Meyer Meyer did not know anybody who had a hyphenated family name. On his block, everyone had a very simple last name, no fancy hyphenation. Hyphenation was for companies like Colgate-Palmolive or Dow-Jones. Nor had he ever met a person with a first name like Montgomery. The only Montgomery he had ever heard of was Montgomery Ward, and that was another company. Who was he talking to here? A person or a company?
Meyer Meyer was very name-conscious because his own name had caused him no end of trouble and embarrassment. His father (bless his soul, his heart, and his sense of humor) had thought the double-barreled monicker would cause his offspring to stand out in a world of largely anonymous people, and (being something of a practical joker) had thought it funny besides (May he rest in peace, Meyer thought). Meyer had grown weary of telling people it was no fun to be raised as a Jew in a largely Gentile neighborhood, where his name inspired the chant 'Meyer Meyer, Jew on fire' and on at least one occasion almost led to a backyard barbecue when it was thought necessary by various and assorted goyim to test the validity of the chant. Tying Meyer to a pole, they started a fire at his feet and then went off to their catechism class, where they were being taught devotion to Jesus, even though he might possibly have been a Jew. Meyer prayed, but nothing happened. Patiently, he prayed more fiercely and devoutly, and still nothing happened. It was beginning to get very hot down there near his sneakers. Patiently, never losing faith, he kept praying, and finally it began to rain, a veritable downpour that put out the flames at once. Oddly, Meyer did not become a religious man after his experience. Instead, he developed a deep sympathy for firemen and for hapless cavalry officers tied to the stake by savage Indians. He also developed an attitude of patience bordering on saintliness, which was perhaps a religious outcome, after all. His patience was wearing quite thin at the moment. Completely bald, burly, with china-blue eyes (the lids of which were dropping to half-mast) he listened to Montgomery Pierce-Hoyt on the telephone, and debated whether he should answer in cop talk.
'What I'm deeply interested in knowing,' Pierce-Hoyt said, 'is whether in your experience the acts of violence that confront you daily are in any way influenced or stimulated, consciously or unconsciously, by something the criminal may have seen on television.'