Mike looked at him sharply. “I do when I can.”
“Then you have discussed with him what are commonly known as the facts of life?”
“As much as I thought necessary.” The answer had an edge to it. “Are you sayin’ that he ran away because he didn’t like his old man?”
“No,” Virgil answered. “My guess is that your son believes in you completely. You are probably his idol-his example for everything he does.”
“It’s the ball players he’s nuts about,” Mike retorted, but he was clearly mollified nonetheless. He was about to add something when the phone rang once more.
Mike ran to answer it, then passed the instrument to Tibbs in disappointment. “It’s for you.”
The conversation was brief and one-sided; after listening for several seconds Virgil hung up and turned to his host. “One more question, Mr. McGuire-a very important one. Have you, in your talks with your son, ever advised him what to do if others oppose him?”
Mike did not answer immediately, from the tightness of his jaw it was obvious that he was debating whether or not he would. He spoke only after he had apparently decided that he had no other choice. “I told him not to take any…not to let anyone boss him around.”
In the thick pause that followed the hard, ugly outlines of the missing gun hung in the air.
“Mr. McGuire,” Tibbs began, “you mentioned that you had planned to take your son to the baseball game and then ‘something came up.’ Later you referred to an accident. I’ve just learned that you were recently cited for reckless driving; according to the officer who saw you, you deliberately tried to force another car off the freeway and into the divider.”
“Do we have to talk about that now?” Mike flared.
“Only to ask if your son knows about this matter.”
“Yes, he knows. He heard me tell his mother.”
Tibbs did not pursue the matter further, he had learned all that he needed to evaluate the situation which faced him. “I can relieve your minds on one point,” he said. “Whenever a child is missing, no matter what the circumstances, we always make an emergency check of all the hospitals in the vicinity and other facilities. So far no one who could possibly be Johnny has been brought in.”
He paused to let that much sink in.
“Since we know why he is away from home, I think we can rule out any likelihood that he’s been hurt. The problem now is to find him and return him to you before he has a chance to do any damage.” He did not emphasize what kind of damage he meant; they knew.
Maggie shook her head and pressed her hands across her face.
“Johnny knows how to take care of himself,” Mike said.
“No, Mr. McGuire, he doesn’t,” Virgil retorted. “No nine-year-old boy does, he simply doesn’t have the physical strength or the mental maturity to fight his way in an adult world. And the possession of a gun doesn’t erase those considerations.” Quietly he got up to leave. “I’m going out to look for your son,” he said simply. “You know what to do if he comes back.”
Mike, in control of himself once more, replied. “We’ll call you.”
Tibbs left quickly and shut the door behind him. Once he was outside he began an intensive search of the apartment house area. He was fully aware that children who are afraid to go home frequently huddle somewhere nearby, trying to gather courage to face their irate parents. He looked carefully inside the McGuire car and then checked the others on the parking lot. He examined every public part of the premises and then all of the likely places in the close vicinity where a young boy might elect to hide. He gave no thought to the fact that the child in question was armed with a loaded gun; if he found him it would be time then to deal with that contingency.
His search was fruitless; after forty minutes he was forced to conclude that what had been a good bet had not paid off. Furthermore, the fact that Johnny McGuire was not there added to the seriousness of the problem. Normally children were quick to lose their tempers and equally quick to recover them; it would be hard for a young boy to remain enraged when he was alone in the dark of early evening and away from his home, family, and dinner. But if such were the case, then the gravity of the matter automatically increased by another damning percentage.
For the moment defeated, Tibbs got back into his official car, turned on the radio, and started for the Hotchkiss house. A thorough search in that vicinity was the next logical step. On the way he drove very slowly, watching the road only as much as was necessary. The rest of the time he gave close attention to the sidewalks, to clusters of shrubbery, and to all of the other places where a nine-year-old boy might be. He found nothing. He passed the silent schoolyard where the whole thing had happened and continued on into the better class neighborhood where the Hotchkiss home was located. He was three or four minutes away from his destination when the radio came alive with his call.
He picked up the microphone and answered.
“We’ve got him,” the dispatcher reported. “One of the cruise cars picked him up. About eight or nine, poorly dressed, says his name is Johnny.”
“Praise God,” Tibbs said. “Do the parents know yet?”
“No, wanted to check with you first.”
“Then hold it, bring the boy into the station. The father is an explosive type and I’d better take the boy home myself. I’ll notify the family from there. I want to find out about the gun he has-or had.”
“Ten four.”
Virgil U-turned and set a direct course for headquarters. He breathed a little more heavily from sheer relief; it had been a sticky one while it had lasted. A gun held by a child fires bullets which travel just as far, just as fast, as any others.
It took him twelve minutes to reach the parking lot, another three to get into the building, up the stairs to the second floor, and into the office of the juvenile division. The little boy who awaited him there turned up a tear-streaked face full of fright and despair, then he brightened just a little when he saw that the policeman coming into the room was a person like himself.
Virgil picked up the little boy, who showed unmistakable signs of some Negro blood, and comforted him across his shoulder. “We’ll find your people for you right away,” he promised. Then, looking toward the uniformed officer who had been waiting with the lad, he carefully shook his head from side to side.
The policeman left at once and hurried downstairs to the radio room. “It isn’t the McGuire boy,” he reported.
The dispatcher in charge reacted quickly. “Damn it, I pulled the men away from the Hotchkiss house. They’re on their way in.” He began to write a quick message for the duty man to put on the air.
Less than a minute later, out of the still night, a sharp explosive sound split the air and a.38 bullet crashed through the front window of Billy Hotchkiss’s home to bury itself deep in the woodwork.
5
A sudden wave of fright swept through Johnny McGuire so that for a few seconds he could not move a muscle. The gun had made an unexpectedly terrifying noise and it had kicked in his hand like a living thing fighting to get loose. The desperate mood which had held him for so long had shattered with the silence when the venomous gun had gone off.
When he had first taken it from the drawer where his father kept it, blinding rage had possessed him; Billy’s taunting face had been burned into his brain until it had eclipsed everything else. He had carefully put the weapon into a brown paper bag and had gained confidence from the fact that on the street no one had given him, or what he carried, a second glance. He had waited here in the wooded plot well out of sight for a long time, hoping that Billy would come out of the door of his home.
When he had seen the policemen come, and had guessed their purpose, he had simply walked away, clutching his bag in one hand. He had gone far enough to reach Colorado Boulevard where he had purchased two small hamburgers with his money and had topped them off with a thick, starchy milk shake which had come ready-mixed out of a machine. Nourished, he had gone back to find the police cars gone. For a few minutes, as the darkness had gathered, his purpose had wavered. Then recognizing the kind of weakness which his father would have despised, he had pulled out his poor, dead radio and had tried once more to turn it on. If by some miracle it had come to life, he would have broken down with tears of relief and gratitude, but the helpless smashed thing had only lain like a crushed bird in his hand and all of his rage at its destruction had come back anew.