At nine o’clock that morning he canceled all leaves and ordered ninety-five percent of the Swankerton police force into Niggertown. They patrolled it — every square block of it — on foot and in cars. By eleven o’clock they had made two arrests. Doris Emerson, twenty-three, was booked for soliciting. Miles Camerstane, thirty-seven, was taken in for drunk and disorderly.
On a normal day the white section of Swankerton experienced between two and three armed robberies. By eleven o’clock that Friday morning, forty-six had been reported — not including the First National Bank which had been hit by a lone white gunman with a stocking mask over his face.
In Niggertown, the citizens strolled along the sidewalk and goodmawnined and lifted their hats to the patrolling police. And then they smiled broadly and used their hands to stifle their giggles. By noon, the frustrated cops were looking for jaywalkers without much luck. Niggertown had cooled it.
Necessary yawned when Robineaux, his eyes bulging, once more crashed his fist down on the desk and screamed: “You’re fired, goddammit!”
“Pete, you know you can’t fire me,” Necessary said calmly. “The city council’s got to do that — a majority. And I understand that most of them are partying over in New Orleans.”
“Throw him out,” I said. “You’re wasting your breath.”
“By God, I think you’re right.” Necessary buzzed for Lieutenant Ferkaire who popped in looking harassed and a little forlorn. “Show the mayor out, Lieutenant,” Necessary said.
“I’m not going,” Robineaux said and took a tight grip on the edge of Necessary’s desk.
“Throw him out.”
“The mayor, sir?”
“The mayor.”
“The press is out there, Chief.”
“Fine. He can make a statement on his way out.”
Ferkaire approached the mayor and tentatively put a hand on his arm. “If you’ll just step this way, sir.”
“I said throw him out, Ferkaire. You’re a cop, not a goddamned wedding usher.”
Ferkaire looked first at the mayor who still clung to the desk, then at Necessary who glowered at him, and then at me. “Throw him out,” I said.
There was a brief struggle, but not much of one. Ferkaire got a hammerlock on the mayor and marched him across the room. “I’ll get your ass for this, Necessary,” Robineaux yelled. “I’ll get both of you for this!”
“Get the door for your father, will you, Boo?” I said.
“My pleasure,” Boo said, opened the door, and made a low sweeping bow as his father was frog-marched from the room.
“Thanks,” Boo said to me.
“Don’t mention it,” I said. And then, because I’d promised myself that I would, I said: “How’d you get those scars on your face?”
Boo nodded his head at the closed door. “Him. He did it to me when I was twelve. With an old piece of chain.”
“For what?”
“For what do you think? For jerking off in the bathroom, what else?”
“What else,” I said as he closed the door behind him.
Ferkaire popped back into the office and stared around, a little panicky, I felt. “You got any coffee out there?” Necessary asked him.
“He’s making a statement to them,” Ferkaire said. “They got pictures of me throwing him out and now he’s making a statement to them.”
“I think I’ll have a drink instead,” Necessary said.
“I’ll join you,” I said.
“What’U I do with them?” Ferkaire asked.
Necessary poured Scotch into two glasses before he answered. “Send them in here about five minutes from now,” he said. “I’ll have a statement.” Ferkaire nodded and went out quickly.
Necessary walked over and handed me a drink. “I can’t keep them out there in Niggertown much longer,” he said.
“You probably won’t have to.”
“When do you think Schoemeister will try it?”
“It could be any time now.”
“You think it was Luccarella who got Nick and old man Morze?”
I shrugged. “Luccarella or Schoemeister. Does it matter?”
“I guess not,” Necessary said. “I thought he’d stay in the hotel though. He’d’ve been smarter to stay in the hotel.”
“You mean Luccarella?”
“Yeah. Luccarella.”
“No back way out,” I said. “That’s why he moved to that old house of Lynch’s.”
Necessary took a long swallow of his drink and smiled. “Well,” he said, “we found what we were looking for anyway.”
“What?”
“Something to stir it up with.”
“You mean the long enough spoon?”
“Uh-huh.”
“There’s only one thing wrong with it,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s a little longer than I’d counted on.”
There was no reason to be polite to the press anymore and Necessary wasn’t. A dozen reporters crowded into the office and we ignored them until the television cameras were ready.
“This live?” Necessary asked.
“That’s right.”
“I got a statement to make.”
“We want to ask you some questions, Chief. Why did you throw Mayor Robineaux out of your office?”
“What’s your name, sonny?” Necessary asked his questioner, a prominent local TV personality. It hurt his feelings. “Campbell,” he said. “Don Campbell.”
“Well, Don Campbell, if you don’t shut up, I’m going to throw you out just like I did the mayor.”
Two newspapermen and a wire-service reporter tittered.
Campbell whirled quickly to his camera and sound men. “You get all that? Did that go out?”
“We’re getting you right now, stupid,” the cameraman said.
Necessary stood up behind his desk. “I have a statement. It’s not prepared, but I’ll make it and then you can ask some questions.” He cleared his throat and stared into the lens of the nearest camera. “Through the efforts of the men of this police department, the city of Swankerton has been spared the horror of a serious riot. The brutal murder of William Morze could have provoked a tragic disturbance — the kind they have up North. It didn’t. And we can thank the good common sense of our colored population — and the efforts of Swankerton’s policemen — that it didn’t. I would like to announce that we know who the killers of William Morze are. They will be arrested within a few hours. In the meantime, law and order will prevail in Swankerton.” Necessary started to sit back down, but instead came back to the microphone, said “Thank you,” and then he sat down.
“Why did you throw the mayor out of your office?” Campbell asked.
“The mayor is ill. He was helped out of my office.”
“He said that he was going to have you fired.”
“Like I said, the mayor is ill and isn’t responsible for what he says. Next question.”
“How long have you known who killed William Morze?”
“Not long.”
“Can you reveal their identity?”
“No.”
“How many armed robberies have been committed in the white section of Swankerton today?”
“More than usual.”
“How many?”
“The last figure we had was one hundred three.”
“Jesus Christ!” a wire-service man said.
“Would you call that a crime wave, Chief?”
“I would, but I’d rather have a crime wave than a race riot and that was the choice we had to make.”
“What’s been the total take so far?”
Necessary looked at me. “Close to a quarter of a million,” I said.
The wire-service man said Jesus Christ again.