Cut and Run (12 page)

“Well, that report said some very interesting things. I was actually there, in the middle of it, and it confirmed my own observations on the event.

“Wasn't the first riot I'd seen, but it wasn't like any of the others. I was in Newark in sixty-seven, when a black cab driver got beaten by the police for illegally passing a double-parked patrol car. That was the kind of thing that would set it off; a black man would be shot or beaten or killed by the police, usually over some minor crime, and it would get people angry. Everybody'd be talking about it, and that talk would get louder and louder, until pretty soon people were hollering. And they weren't hollering at each other; they were hollering at the cops. I've seen fights between a man and his wife go the same way. And when the hollering ain't enough, it's time to start throwing things. Bottles, rocks, bricks. Windows get broken, and somebody decides to grab that TV or stereo that's just sitting there in a pile of broken glass. Once the looting starts, everything goes to hell right quick; it's like the signal that all the rules don't apply anymore. That's when people die, and buildings burn.”

He shuffled out of the kitchen and set two cracked china cups on the coffee table, each with its own teabag. “That's what it was like in Newark, and according to some friends of mine, in Watts, too. But that's not how it was here.”

He shuffled back into the kitchen as the kettle began to whistle. “What set things off here was the murder of a black man by the police, same as the others. Arthur McDuffie ran a red light on a motorcycle while driving on a suspended license, and when the cops tried to pull him over, he ran.”

He emerged from the kitchen with the kettle and carefully poured the boiling water into both their cups. “Chase lasted eight minutes, until McDuffie slowed down and gave up. At which point, the four white officers that were chasing him pulled off his helmet and beat him to death with their night-sticks.”

St. George paused, the kettle in one hand. He looked at Natalia, then at Tripp. Neither of them said anything. After a moment, St. George turned and shuffled back toward the kitchen.

“Then they tried to cover it up. Put his helmet back on and backed over his motorcycle with the police car. Tried to say he crashed his bike. Medical examiner said otherwise, and after making a deal for immunity, so did two cops who saw the whole thing.”

St. George emerged from the kitchen and sank back into his chair. “Now, in Watts or Newark, angry crowds of black residents would have taken to the streets. But that didn't happen here, not at first. People were angry, people were upset, but the officers involved were arrested and fired. We took a ‘wait and see' attitude, because there were some of us that actually believed justice would be done.”

St. George picked up his cup of tea carefully. “We were wrong.”

Natalia picked up her own cup. “They were found not guilty.”

“That's right. Despite the fact that their own testified against them, despite the fact that the four officers charged had forty-seven complaints lodged against them during the six years previous—
and
had been involved in no less than thirteen internal affairs probes—an all-white jury acquitted them of all charges. They deliberated for less than three hours.”

“Wow,” said Natalia. “That's…unbelievable.”

“Oh, we believed it,” said St. George grimly. “What else could we do? We'd waited five months, we gave the system a chance to work the way it was supposed to. When it didn't,
that's
when we took to the streets. And by we, I don't mean the kind of people who naturally turn to violence as a solution; I mean middle-class, educated citizens. In Newark and Watts, seventy-four percent of the rioters arrested had criminal records; in the Liberty City riot, only thirty-four percent.”

Tripp cleared his throat. “Yeah, that wasn't the only difference. A report by the Lembeck Center for the Study of Violence said that in previous race riots, the killing of whites was always a by-product; in Miami, it was the objective.”

“We'd just been told it was acceptable for white police officers to murder a black man over a traffic ticket. We gave our response.”

“Eighty million dollars in damage to your own neighborhood,” said Tripp. “Eighteen dead, only eight of which were white. Doesn't sound like a real effective response to me.”

St. George glared at him. “I didn't say it was effective. I said it was
necessary
.”

“Mister St. George,” said Natalia, “did you know any of the victims?”

“No. I'd seen one of them around the neighborhood, but the rest were strangers to me. Didn't know any of them personally.”

“Did Hiram Davey ask you about the Liberty City riots?”

“It was one of the things we talked about, sure. He wanted to know what it was like, my own personal experience.”

“And what was that experience?” asked Natalia.

“Not much to tell. I saw my share of looting, but no killings. Saw a few cars set on fire, and a U.S. mailbox get thrown through a plate-glass window, but I didn't see anyone die.”

Natalia nodded. Until now, she and Tripp had just been trying to get St. George talking; now that they had, she wanted him to talk about something in particular. Hiram Davey's book had gone into a lot more detail about St. George's character than Natalia had implied, including the fact that St. George's fictional counterpart had been guilty of killing a young white man during the riot. Davey's notes hadn't made it clear if this was something he'd made up, or was based on fact. If it was more than just fantasy, it would establish that Joshua St. George was capable of murder…and would have had more than sufficient motive to kill again.

“Did you ever visit Mister Davey at his house?” asked Natalia.

“No. He came here.”

“Can you tell me where you were, early yesterday morning?”

St. George turned his glare on her. “I was here, asleep. Didn't get up until around ten. And I think that's the last damn question I'm going to answer.”

“Mister St. George—”

He got to his feet. “You think I don't know an interrogation when I hear one? You don't ask questions like that unless you're talking to a suspect. Well, I'm no damn suspect. You want to find out who killed some smart-ass white-boy writer, you're in the wrong place. Now I'll kindly ask you to leave.”

Natalia and Tripp both got up. “All right, we're going,” said Natalia. “But we may have more questions for you later.”

“Questions,” growled St. George. “Yeah, your kind always has questions. Don't want to listen to the answers, but lots of questions just the same.”

 

Wolfe snapped his cell phone shut and grinned. “Hey, Eric,” he said. “Time to stop flogging a dead fish. Just got word from the hospital—the guy that plowed the
Svetlana 2
into the dock is awake.”

“Let's go see what he has to say,” said Delko.

The survivor's name was Pace Birmingham, a stocky man in his twenties with stringy blond hair. He was sitting up in his hospital bed when Delko and Wolfe arrived, looking groggy but oddly cheerful. His right wrist was attached to the railing of the bed by handcuffs, his left in a cast. “Hey,” he said when they arrived, “I bet you guys are cops, right?”

“Good guess,” said Delko.

“Aw, it's not a guess,” said Birmingham. “I can spot you guys from a mile away.” He sounded glad to see them.

Wolfe pulled Delko aside. “I think he's still pretty wasted,” Wolfe said in a low voice. “How do you want to play this?”

“Well, anything we get won't be admissible in court—but we don't need him to incriminate himself, just give us an idea what was going on. Follow my lead—I have an idea.”

Delko approached the hospital bed with a smile on his face. “Hope you don't mind us bothering you again, Pace—we just have a few follow-up questions.”

Birmingham's smile stayed in place, but his eyes clouded over with confusion. “Follow-up? To what?”

“The interview we conducted this morning with you,” said Delko.

“Right,” added Wolfe. “You were very helpful—we want to thank you again for that.”

Birmingham put a hand to his bandaged forehead. “I—I don't remember that.”

“No?” asked Delko. “Well, some memory loss is common in cases like this. Don't worry, I'm sure that answering a few questions will bring it all back.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“Let's see…” said Delko, pulling a notebook from his pocket and pretending to consult his notes. “You told us about the gun battle, and how you got shot. You talked about feeling seasick before it all started…there's just a few details I'd like to clear up. For instance, you told me who was the first person to board the
Svetlana 2,
but not who was last.”

“I didn't? Well…”

“Oh, hang on—here it is. Sorry, my notes are kind of messy.” Delko gave him a big grin. “Let's see…we concentrated on the attack itself, not on what happened before that. Can you give me a more detailed description of the start of the whole incident? Starting with you and your friends in the other boat?”

“I…I guess so. Like I said, I was feeling kind of seasick. I was up top, waving to the boat with my shirt. I was supposed to be in trouble. Ernesto, he figured they'd be more likely to trust me 'cause I was white. Everybody else was down below, where they couldn't be seen.”

“Sure,” said Wolfe. “So they saw you and approached. Then what?”

“Everything went okay at first. I tied up alongside, and they helped me aboard. I told them I was having engine trouble and my radio was busted. Those big Russian guys weren't happy to see me, but they said I could use their radio. I was up in the wheelhouse when it all went down.”

“What happened first?”

“Well, Ernesto and Jorge jumped out and used the boarding plank. It was this thing Jorge built, with two big locking clamps on the end, attached on our end with chains. They practiced with a fake railing and everything, and it worked every time. They got so they could clamp onto the practice railing in less than ten seconds. Then everybody was supposed to just swarm on board and take the crew by surprise.”

“But it didn't go as planned,” said Delko.

Birmingham blinked slowly. “Welllll, no. You could say that.”

Wolfe turned away so Birmingham wouldn't see his grin.

After a moment, Pace continued. “They were a lot tougher than we thought. The whole all-out attack thing was supposed to overwhelm them, but I think it just made them
mad
.”

Delko hesitated. He knew they'd arrived at a critical point, and he had to be careful. “Well, that's understandable—considering what they were protecting.”

“Yeah, I guess. But I don't think that was it. Those guys were just
mean
.” He sounded as if he'd been wounded by more than mere bullets. “You know, I don't think I'm in the right line of work.”

“No?” asked Wolfe.

“No. I was considering giving it up when you guys showed up—I must have
already
decided to but I forgot.” He yawned. “Sorry. Having a hard time keeping my eyes open.”

“Just a few more questions,” said Delko quickly. “So when did Ernesto take off with the boat?”

“What? No, Ernesto didn't stay behind on the boat—that was Jorge. He waited until all the shooting stopped, then I guess he got scared because nobody came to tell him what happened. I was in the wheelhouse with the captain, but he got shot early on. Not by me—I was the decoy, so I wasn't armed. Anyway, I was crouched down, and then I heard the boat take off. That's when I went downstairs to see what was happening.”

“And that's when you got shot?”

“Not right away. Everybody was dead—that's what I thought, anyway. So I started searching.”

“What did you find?” asked Wolfe. Delko shot him a warning glance, but Pace seemed oblivious to the directness of the question.

“Lot of bodies. That was about it.” Pace shook his head slowly, as if his head wasn't securely attached and he was afraid it would fall off. “Nothing. No drugs, no guns, no diamonds.”

“Which one were you looking for?” asked Delko.

Now Birmingham turned petulant. “Come on—I
told
you, we didn't know. We had solid information that Dragoslav was out there to pick up this big illegal shipment—something worth millions—but we didn't know what it was. Could have been drugs, could have been weapons, could have been all kinds of things. Just 'cause we didn't know what it
was
didn't mean we were going to let this kinda opportunity pass us
by.”

“No, of course not,” said Wolfe. “So how'd you get shot?”

Pace looked embarrassed. “One of the Russians. He wasn't as dead as I thought. He got one shot off at me, and then I shot him.
Then
he was dead.”