Having ridden a bus once before on his own, he climbed up into the vehicle with assurance and offered the driver fifty cents.
“Los Angeles?” the man asked.
Johnny nodded and received a penny in change. He walked back and sat down full of a wonderful sense of escape. He had never enjoyed a bus ride so much; he was unhappy only when it stopped for other passengers and delayed his progress. He wished also that he could talk to his mother and tell her that he was all right. If she had been with him, then he would have felt infinitely better.
Maggie McGuire sat before her kitchen table, staring unseeing through the wall that faced her. She was alone. Mike had gone to work. He had wanted to stay home and wait for news of his son, but with the expensive citation hanging over his head he had reluctantly decided that he could not afford even a momentary loss of income. Maggie had promised to call him the moment there was any word.
The considerations of money and the hard realities of day-to-day living washed over her like breakers running up a sandy beach and then retreating back into the anonymous vastness from which they had come. Her baby was gone, and that single fact dominated her. She understood that he had killed another boy and that he would have to go to prison, but if she could only hold him for just one long, all-engulfing minute in her arms, then, she felt, she would be able to face up to almost anything.
He had been with her here less than twenty-four hours ago, and she had given him little or no attention. If she had just taken the time to look at him she might have seen the bulge of the fatal gun in his pocket or stuck in his clothing, but she hadn’t bothered. Now, in the bitterness of her loss, she told herself that she was an unfit mother who had not taken proper care of the precious life entrusted to her. She put her head down and cried a little more. It was then that the phone rang.
Anxiously, fearfully, she picked it up.
“Mrs. McGuire?”
“Yes, yes!”
A worn-out, clacky voice began to recite a sales pitch about carpet and upholstery cleaning. The crews would be in the neighborhood and a free estimate…
“No!” she cried, and hung up the accursed instrument. Helplessly she beat her hands against the top of the table.
The phone rang again. “Yes?” she snapped.
A thin, small voice said, “Hello, Mommy.”
She grasped the phone as though she could make the voice at the other end come closer. “Johnny?” she asked.
“I just wanted to tell you that I’m all right,” her son said.
Her voice went dry and she could barely speak. “Where are you?” she asked.
“Right here in the phone booth, Mommy.” A slight whimpering sound came over the wire. “Mommy, my radio’s broken.”
“I know, Johnny, that’s all right. Don’t worry, you’ll get a new one.”
“Is Daddy mad?”
“No, Daddy isn’t mad. He knows that you didn’t break it.” A sense of reality began to come back to her and she tried to think. “Tell me where you are, dear, and I’ll come.” She knew when she spoke those words that she had no means of transportation, but she would even have called a taxi-anything-to reach him.
“Mommy, I think I’m in trouble.” The voice was a little softer, a thread of guilt running through the words.
“Johnny, I don’t care! Tell me where you are, Mommy wants you!”
“Mommy, I took Daddy’s gun and I shot a nigger boy with it.”
Maggie could stand no more, raw emotion shattered the little composure she had and caution deserted her.
“Johnny, I don’t care if you did kill that boy, come home-Daddy will take care of you!”
There was a fearful silence.
“Mommy,” came a very small voice, “did you say I killed him?”
“Johnny…” she began when another voice cut into the line. “Your three minutes are up. Please signal when you are finished.”
After that she heard nothing for three or four seconds, then the mechanical sound of the handset on the other end being replaced. The connection was broken.
She wiped her eyes with the backs of her trembling hands, picked up the card which was next to the telephone and dialed.
When she had an answer she said, “Mr. Tibbs, please,” and waited.
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.”