“Not necessarily. Maybe the girl knew the two boys planned to meet at the club room and have it out, and wanted the police to break it up because she was afraid whichever one was her boy friend would get hurt.”
“Have what out?”
“Didn’t I mention the motive we figure?” he asked. “This Bart Meyers was president of the club and Joe was vice-president. We think Joe was pushing for president, which is the polite title these juvenile gangs give their leaders.”
I snorted. “You think a seventeen-year-old kid would kill somebody just to become president of a club?”
“It isn’t a club,” Day said. “They just call it a club. It’s an organized gang modeled after adult criminal gangs. Adult gang leaders get bumped off by ambitious underlings all the time. Why shouldn’t a juvenile gang leader get bumped occasionally?”
“Is this just a wild guess, or do you have some evidence of conflict between the two boys?”
“No actual evidence, but it’s a little more than a wild guess. Call it an informed guess. We rounded up most of the Purple Pelicans last night and grilled them. About fifteen altogether. But we couldn’t even get them to admit they’d ever heard of the gang, let alone that they belonged to it. We’ve had enough experience with these teenage gangs to know how they operate, though. They don’t elect officers; the toughest kid in the gang is president, the second toughest vice-president, and so on down the line. The president is expected to be able to whip everybody else in the gang. Any time another member thinks he’s a better man, he can challenge the president. Then they have a fight, and, if the challenger wins, he’s the new president. We think young Brighton challenged the Meyers kid and they met by prearrangement to have it out.”
I said, “You couldn’t even get that theory before a jury without substantiation.”
Day shrugged. “We’ve got the knife as evidence, plus virtually catching the kid in the act. We don’t need a motive.”
I said, “The murder weapon strikes me as a little peculiar too. Why would the kid carry a hunting knife when he already had a switch blade?”
“You should see how some of the other Purple Pelicans were armed when we rounded them up,” Day said sourly. “Half a dozen carried both sheath knives and pocket knives.”
“But I understand this hunting knife didn’t have a sheath. Kind of awkward to carry a thing like that just stuck under your belt.”
“Maybe he only carried it when he expected trouble,” the inspector said. “Look, Moon, we thought of all these objections you’re making. We’ve had nearly as much experience in evaluating evidence as most private eyes. Believe me, the kid is guilty.”
“All right,” I said wearily. “Mind if I talk to him?”
“I mind, but I don’t see what harm you can do,” Day growled.
Picking up his phone, he spoke into it and a moment later his chief assistant, Lieutenant Hannegan, stuck his head in the door. The lieutenant didn’t say anything, because he rarely does, merely raising his eyebrows inquiringly.
“Moon wants to see young Brighton,” Day said curtly. “Give him ten minutes.”
Hannegan just nodded.
3
Joe Brighton was stretched out on the drop-down canvas bunk of his single cell, but he couldn’t have been very comfortable. The detention cell bunks are only six feet long, so four inches of him hung over.
When Hannegan unlocked the door, Joe pushed himself to a seated position, swung his oversized feet to the floor and self-consciously smoothed back his theatrically long hair. Hannegan locked the door behind me and moved away down the hall.
Joe had outgrown the habit of calling me Uncle Manny, but after knowing me most of his life, apparently he couldn’t quite bring himself to call me Mr. Moon. At the same time he seemed to feel I was too adult for the logical compromise of plain Manny, with the result that he hadn’t called me anything for more than a year.
Now he simply said, “Hi.”’
“How are you, Joe? Your dad asked me to look in and steer you through this. Arrange for a lawyer and so on.”
“Yeah?” he asked.
He didn’t smile, but his attitude wasn’t particularly unfriendly either. His long, big-featured face was merely warily morose. He rested gangling arms on his bony knees and let his hands dangle downward limply. They were big hands, knobby and powerful. I could see how his gang might nickname him Knuckles.
“What’s the pitch?” I asked. “You actually knife this kid?”
He looked disdainful. “The blueshirts are way out in left field. Why would I use a knife on Bart Meyers? I could whip him with one hand.”
“Who did knife him then?”
Joe merely shrugged.
“Better tell me the whole story,” I suggested.
While he considered me estimatingly, I said a little sharply, “Stop looking at me like I was a cop. I’m here to help you, and I’m only allowed ten minutes. You want to take this rap sitting down, or you want to give me something to work on so I’ll have at least an outside chance to prove your innocence? If you are innocent.”
“I’m not looking at you like you’re a cop,” he said defensively.
“You’re sure as the devil not looking at me like I’m your foster uncle. You want my help, or don’t you?”
“What can you do?” he asked. “The blueshirts have got this rigged.”
“The police don’t rig murders,” I said. “If it was rigged, the real killer rigged it. Probably one of your Purple Pelicans.”
“Them? Nobody in the club would do a thing like that.” When he gave me that estimating look again, I said in an exasperated tone, “For God’s sake, kid, you’re on your way to at least a life sentence, and maybe the gas chamber, for a crime you claim you didn’t commit. You don’t owe any fake loyalty to anybody. Anyway, I’m not a cop and I’m not going to blab your club secrets to anybody. My sole interest is to do what I can for you because your father’s a friend of mine. Now open up. How many members in the Purple Pelicans?”
He brushed his hand over his hair again, hesitated a moment, then said reluctantly, “Around sixty.”
The figure surprised me. Warren Day had said the police had managed to round up fifteen members for questioning, and had implied that was most of the gang. Apparently the police had underestimated its size considerably.
“Sixty,” I said. “All of them such staunch friends they wouldn’t dream of framing you?”
Joe reddened a little. “We don’t pull stunts like that on each other,” he muttered.
“Then what’s your theory?”
“The Gravediggers, probably. A club down the other side of Lucas. The boys will take care of it.”
“You mean go down and knock off their president in revenge? And frame the Gravediggers’ vice-president? That’ll be cozy. The two of you can hold hands in the gas chamber.”
He popped his knuckles nervously. “Well, cripes, what can I do, Uncle Manny?”
His calling me Uncle Manny for the first time in over a year told me what his real mental state was beneath his surface indifference.
In a little softer voice I said, “Just spill everything you know or suspect, Joe. Start with how you happened to be alone with Meyers at the club room last night.”
“That’ll only make it sound worse,” he said miserably.
“Spill anyway.”
He looked at me a long time before responding. Then he shrugged hopelessly. “I gave Bart a challenge. A lot of the guys thought I should be president. It’s been building up all year. We were supposed to meet at the club room at ten o’clock and go somewhere to have it out. That’s why none of the other guys was around. They knew it was coming off and stayed clear. But when I got there Bart was dead.”