“Never been there,” Johnny said.
“Maybe you’d like to come ridin’ with us. We’ll take you home.”
“Don’t ride with niggers,” Johnny flung back. He backed away, several steps this time, and they followed him, moving the same distance that he had.
“Kid, we tol’ ya not to use that word! You do it again and you got trouble!”
A little desperately Johnny turned and looked all around him-for someone, anyone-for a car coming by. It was strangely silent and the single streetlight was back at the corner where he had gotten off the bus.
“Let’s see the bag,” the first boy demanded, and grabbed for it. Johnny drew his hand back quickly; the bag came off in his tormentor’s fingers and the naked gun was left exposed, pointed toward the quartet which faced him.
The fourth face spoke at last. “He’s got a toy gun-look.”
Johnny backed two more steps and held the gun level; he had fired it once and he could do it again. “It’s no toy,” he said. “It’s real.”
“Better give it to me.”
“No.”
“How come you got it? Your father’s a cop, heh?”
“No,” Johnny repeated.
Then silently, as though they had rehearsed it, the four dark faces separated; the tall one began to walk behind him while the two quiet ones moved to flank him on each side. Johnny froze his attention on the one still facing him in front. He was frightened, but his fear gave him a kind of coldness. He formed a quick and binding partnership with the gun in his hand; they were afraid of it, he knew, and that meant that they were afraid of him.
The boy before him tried hard to take command with his voice. “Kid, gimme that gun!”
Without thinking Johnny moved to take one more step backwards, his left foot was still in the air when he felt two sudden strong hands seize his upper arms, pinning them to his sides. The outrage of being manhandled burst the thin bubble of his self-control. He yanked hard, blindly, to get himself free-he remembered doing that, then everything disintegrated in a violent blast of sound. He knew that the gun had fired itself, it had defended him, but nothing else would take shape. The world spun around him and a hoard of demons zoomed down upon him from the sky.
The hands that had been holding him let go, they actually pushed him away. He staggered forward to keep his balance, looked and saw a human face in sudden agony and shock. The boy who had first stopped him, his hands clutched over his abdomen, was slowly sinking to the ground.
Johnny stood stock-still, looking at what the gun had done. It had not been his own doing, only the gun’s-a living deadly thing.
He expected people to come running, to seize him, for the cops to pull up within seconds in their black and white cars, but the echo of the blast was stillness and the street remained as deserted as before.
Instinct seized him then; it caused him to whirl about, to take one last desperate look at the thing on the ground, and then to run harder, faster, longer than he ever had before. He saw an opening between two buildings and turned down it. It went all the way through to the next street; his heart was pounding hard when he reached the end of the passageway, but terror still had complete possession of him and the stabbing pains in his chest went unheeded. He saw that the street was free except for two cars retreating the other way; he dashed across it, found another opening, and flung himself inside.
He had to rest for a few precious seconds. His heart seemed to be trying to pound its way out of his chest, but he dared not heed it in his desperation. Gulping air, he set off once more, cutting between the buildings, stopping momentarily when his body forced him to, but driving himself to the limit that his burning brain could force out of his body.
He did not know how long he went on, how many streets he crossed without being seen, but when he reached a wider and busier thoroughfare he knew that he had to stop. He looked down at his right hand and saw that he was still carrying the gun; he had not dared to throw it away. Knowing that it must not be seen, he pressed back into the shadows. His desperate flight had exhausted him. For a few seconds he did not care what happened to him, then instinct returned and he looked about quickly for a solution to his problem.
Only a few feet away there was a tall trash can without a lid. He went to it and looked inside; there was a pile of waste barely visible in the semidarkness and, jammed halfway down one side, a shoe box.
He pulled it out, took off the lid, and saw the wet and soggy body of a dead kitten. The sight turned his stomach; in one automatic motion he dumped out the pathetic little body, sobbed, and then burst into tears as he carefully but quickly put his gun into the box and pushed it under his arm.
With the natural cunning of the pursued he went to the corner and forced himself to cross Orange Grove Avenue in a quiet and normal manner. When he reached the sanctuary of the other side he saw that there was a huge ravine ahead of him and he knew that it should give him a place to hide. He climbed down the steep slope of the Arroyo Seco in the near darkness, step by uncertain step, until he found himself at the bottom in a well-wooded part of the park.
He made his way from point to point, deeper into the gully, until he found a place where he was sure that no one would come before daylight. He crawled underneath a thick clump of bushes, heedless of the scratches being inflicted on him, and wormed his way into the center of the dense planting. There he carefully lay down, grasped the shoe box tightly in his arms, and surrendered, utterly exhausted, relaxing into a kind of stupor. Minutes later he was asleep and breathing deeply.
6
During the first few terrible seconds after the bark of the gun and the crash of the bullet through the front living room window, Ralph Hotchkiss’s reaction was one of shocked disbelief. Then a burning demand for action seized him and he lunged toward the front door of his home.
He heard the word “No!” and then felt the impact as his wife flung herself in front of him. She threw her arms around his waist. “No, no!” she repeated. “Don’t go, don’t, he’ll kill you!”
The impact of her words hit him. He quickly pulled Estelle down to the floor and pressed her shoulders there.
“Don’t get up,” he ordered. “Stay right there. I’ll call the police.” As he finished speaking the phone rang.
Holding himself bent over to make a smaller target he ran to the phone, lifted it off, and quickly said, “Yes?”
“This is Mr. Tibbs,” the voice said. “We took the guard off your home, Mr. Hotchkiss, when we picked up a young boy we thought was Johnny McGuire. It was a mistake, so the officers will be back shortly.”
Ralph tried to make his voice sound sane. “We’re being shot at. A bullet came through our front window just a few seconds ago!”
“Turn off the lights and keep down. “We’ll go after the boy at once. You’ll have protection within five minutes.”
“I hope we last that long,” Hotchkiss retorted. His nerves were quivering so badly he was unable to think what he was saying. Then something approaching sanity returned. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m not myself.”
“Understood, now get those lights off.” Tibbs hung up.
“Dad, what’s happening?” came from behind Hotchkiss. He turned quickly to find his son.
“Down on the floor, Billy, now!” he ordered, then he ran to the light switch and turned it off. Feeling the shielding comfort of the darkness, he returned to where he had left his family prone in the middle of the floor.
“That was Tibbs, the policeman,” he said. “He told us to keep down and to turn off the lights. They’ll be back any minute.”
“I hope so,” his wife answered him, a strange calmness in her voice.
Then it was quiet in the Hotchkiss household. Billy, knowing that he was the cause of it all, needed no cautioning to make him remain still. He tried to stay absolutely motionless and regulated his breathing as best he could.