The Black Hearts Murder (11 page)

Rawlings looked crestfallen. Then he shrugged. “Too late now, Prentiss. We get our mail in the morning, and I wasn't arrested till afternoon. How was I to know I was going to need a defense?”

McCall said, “Let me put it this way. If Harlan James does let you know where he is, will you ask him if he's willing to see me?”

“I'll think about it,” Rawlings said. “Where do I reach you?”

“I'm staying at the Banbury Plaza.”

Rawlings turned about. “Come on, Prentiss, I want to get home and wash the stink of that jail off me.”

He walked away without a glance. Prentiss Wade smiled at McCall, spread his hands in humorous despair, and hurried after his client.

TWELVE

Officer Beth McKenna lived in a better residential district and apartment building than Laurel Tate's. Her apartment was in a twelve-unit, one-story building shaped like a squared-off C, legs pointing toward the street with a lawned courtyard between. There were outside doors to each apartment giving onto a parapeted porch that ran around the inside of the C.

Beth's was Apartment 3, on the left side of the porch. She came to the door in a white long-sleeved blouse with a mannish collar and a bowtie that matched her blue skirt. The ensemble managed to be anything but masculine. Her skirt was a miniskirt, the shoes were fashionable, and she had on sheer black butterfly stockings.

Having last seen her in her uniform, with a regulation-length skirt, McCall had not noticed her legs. He noticed them now—if “notice” was the word—the instant she opened her door. They were long and svelte, from a Vargas drawing. His inspection lingered.

“I have a face,” Beth reminded him from her doorway.

“And a lovely one it is, too,” McCall said absently. “I'm not a leg man especially. Oh, I like legs, all right, but I'm really a sort of all points man—I mean all curves—with no particular anatomical hangups. May I come in?”

“From the way you looked at them,” Beth said, not moving, “I'm not sure I ought to let you.”

“I'm perfectly harmless,” McCall protested. “It's just that they were out here in the open to see, and if anything I'm farsighted. If they're not supposed to be looked at, why not try a maxi?”

She laughed. “At least you don't wallow in clichés. My last date's original comment was, ‘Boy, you got nice stems.' Come in.”

The apartment seemed to be a three-roomer, like Laurel's, but the two rooms McCall could see were bigger than Laurel's and furnished with better taste. Banbury police must earn more than secretaries, which was improbable; more likely, Beth's police-lieutenant husband had left her a lot of insurance. The living room had a real fireplace. A breakfast counter separated the living-room area from a full kitchen; it was large enough to include a table and four chairs. A door opposite presumably led to the bedroom and bath.

“I wasn't quite finished dressing,” Beth said. “Do you want a drink?'

“I can wait,” McCall said.

“Be right with you.”

She emerged from the bedroom wearing a long-sleeved jacket that matched her skirt. It took her a mere ten minutes.

“What kind of food grabs you?” McCall asked.

“I feel Italian tonight.”

“Italian it is. Any recommendations?”

She hesitated. “Well, there's Luigi's over in the Italian section of town, but—”

“I'm on an expense account,” McCall said. “Is it the best Banbury has to offer?”

“Positively.”

“Then Luigi's is where well go.”

They had excellent spaghetti, passable squid, and impossible Chianti. McCall praised it all as if it had been prepared by Mama Leone herself.

Over the espresso McCall asked her whom she favored in the mayoralty contest. “As a cop as well as a citizen,” he said.

“Most of the force is behind Horton,” Beth said. “I was, too. Because of his law-and-order pitch, of course. But I've begun to have doubts … Chief Condon keeps saying we need a mayor with a no-nonsense attitude toward the black militants, but maybe a black man in city hall would quiet the racial unrest so there wouldn't be trouble at all.”

“Ever hear Horton speak?” McCall asked.

She shook her head.

“Like to? He's holding a rally tonight.”

Beth lowered her cup. “You're, breaking something to me gently, aren't you? You've been meaning to attend the rally all along.”

He grinned. “I really ought to hear what Horton has to say. Would you mind, Beth?”

“It's the story of my life,” Beth McKenna sighed. “Other girls get taken to night clubs—me, on my dates I wind up listening to windbags.” She pushed her chair back. “Don't be a horse's patoo, Mike. It's part of your job. I bet I'll just
love
him.”

The Steelmen's Union Hall was at South Nevins and Kosciusko, in the heart of Little Poland. It was a two-story building whose insides had been scooped out like a gourd's, probably a converted Civil War armory or riding academy; it looked old enough. It was used mainly for social events and community meetings.

About 500 folding chairs had been set up; most were occupied. The principals were already onstage when McCall arrived with Beth McKenna, but the program had not begun.

Two of the half dozen chairs at the rear of the stage were occupied by Gerald Horton and Ben Cordes. Three other men and a woman, all beefy, overflowed the other four chairs—unmistakably of the genus party worker. Horton's crimson face positively glowed with love for his people as he looked about, waving and nodding. Technicians had set up broadcasting equipment and were making last-minute adjustments.

They found seats in one of the rear rows, and McCall surveyed Horton's audience. It was almost entirely a blue-collar crowd—factory workers with their wives and girlfriends. Not surprising. What was surprising was the scattering of black faces.

He remarked, “I didn't expect Horton to have any black backers.”

“Why not?” Beth retorted. “Some of them are as upset by the Black Hearts as the whites are. The polls give Horton around ten percent of the black vote.”

McCall doubted that a “law and order” candidate like Horton could command anything like that proportion of black support, but he said nothing.

Tiny Ben Cordes hopped out of his chair and sprang to the lectern. He fiddled with the microphone, smiling and nodding to people in the front rows. Finally he held up his hand and the chatter stopped.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not going to make a long spiel introducing our speaker of the evening. You all know whom you came to hear tonight, and you all know his record of achievement and service to our beloved city. If there's a public servant in Banbury's history who's worked harder than this man to make this a safe and decent town for your wives and children to walk the streets, I never heard of him—and I go back a long way. So, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado I give you our great councilman-at-large for the last four years—and the next mayor of Banbury—the Honorable Gerry Horton!”

The candidate rose, and his audience almost beat him to his feet. There was a thunder of applause and stamping shoes in the vast echoing chamber. McCall rose with the others, pulling Beth up with him. She glanced at him curiously, but he was applauding. So she applauded, too, grasping the point. This was no time or place to be a conspicuous minority.

Cordes backed toward his seat, clapping his little hands as he did so, then holding one of them up, as Gerald Horton leaned against the lectern, in a signal to the crowd. What Cordes was doing, McCall was interested to note, was urging even louder applause. This was for the benefit of the camera and microphones, of course. The crowd obliged. Horton kept smiling, nodding, waving, turning this way and that for the television camera. The roar swelled … Incredibly, above it McCall heard what sounded like a cork expelled from a champagne bottle.

That's funny, he thought. How could I hear a cork over this bedlam?

Beth McKenna had her left hand over her mouth. She was staring at the rostrum. With her right hand she was yanking at McCall's arm.

A small flower, like a dwarf red zinnia, had blossomed in the middle of Gerald Horton's forehead. The councilman, still with a half smile, was sliding out of view behind the lectern.

Shot, McCall thought.

Shot!

He spun around. A man dressed in black—black suit, black turtleneck shirt, black gloves (McCall could not see his shoes, but they must be black, too, he found himself thinking)—was just lowering what looked like a .22-caliber Woodsman target pistol from where he had been steadying it over the crook of his left arm. The man was tense and lean and a black domino mask covered the upper part of his face. Below it, McCall saw black skin, broad nostrils, fleshy lips; above it, an Afro hairdo.

A middle-aged couple stood between McCall and the aisle. By the time he squeezed past them the black man had darted through the entrance door and slammed it behind him. A moment later McCall tore it open. No one else in the audience had moved. It was ludicrous, like stop-action in a film, everyone in a deep freeze.

I must make an easy target silhouetted against the light, McCall thought. He shut the door behind him. Horton's assassin was sprinting across Kosciusko Street toward an alley. McCall raced after him. The man wheeled at the alley's entrance and swung up the long barrel.

McCall dropped flat. This time the shot sounded like a dropped board smacking a hard surface. A bullet swished over his head.

The masked man vanished in the alley. McCall rolled to his feet and was almost run down by a car. The driver spotted him at the last instant, swerved violently, and blasted in panic as the car went by. McCall lost a crucial few seconds.

It was a short block from Kosciusko to the next street. McCall got into the alley just in time to see his man dart out the other end. A moment later he heard an engine start, and a shriek of tires. By the time he emerged from the alley the getaway car was gone. He loped back to the meeting hall, inhaling in gulps.

The doors were open now and men were running into the street.

“Take it easy,” McCall called. “He got away, he got away.”

He went back inside. The people who had been seated at the rear of the stage now surrounded Gerald Horton. Someone had dragged him away from the lectern. He was lying on the floor, supine, his once red face a muddy gray-green. His eyes were open and staring into a bank of lights. Ben Cordes was on his knees laboring to resurrect him.

A handful of special officers were trying to keep the crowd away from the rostrum. A few women were crying. It was an oddly orderly scene.

Beth McKenna grabbed his arm as McCall hurried down the aisle.

“Mike. Did you—? Did he—?”

He shook his head, and she shut up.

A half bald man from the audience was shoving his way up the wooden steps leading to the stage, shouting, “One side, please. Please, one side! I'm a doctor. Please?”

McCall wriggled ahead of him and ran interference. A moment later they were on the platform.

“This man's a doctor. Get out of the way. Cordes! Would you mind?”

The little man got to his feet and lurched aside. He looked dazed. He sank into a chair and stared at the floor.

McCall took one look at the hole in Horton's forehead and turned Beth around. He did not wait to hear the doctor's verdict.

“Is he dead?” Beth gasped.

“Yes.”

He got her back up the aisle to a door which looked as though it led into an office. The door was unlocked. McCall found a switch and turned on the light. He shut the door behind them and pointed to a phone on the desk. Beth looked at him, wide-eyed.

“You're a cop,” he said. “Phone in.”

THIRTEEN

Beth did not move. Instead, she shivered. “I'm really only a secretary, Mike. I don't know anything about things like this. You do it.”

He remembered the number of police headquarters from having called Lieutenant Cox the day before. He dialed.

“You'll save time by asking for Communications,” Beth said.

“Police Headquarters.”

“Communications, please.”

A moment later a female voice said, “Communications, Toomey speaking.”

“This is Micah McCall, Assistant for Special Affairs to Governor Holland. I'm phoning from the Steelmen's Union Hall at South Nevins and Kosciusko.”

“Yes, Mr. McCall?”

“Councilman-at-large Gerald Horton has just been shot and killed. Assassin was a black male, five eleven to six one, one seventy to one eighty, dressed in a black suit, black turtleneck Italian-style shirt, probably black shoes, no hat. Wears his hair Afro style. Age indeterminate—his face was half covered by a black mask. The only facial description I can give is that his skin is very dark and nose and lips characteristically Negroid. The weapon was a .22 caliber Woodsman target pistol. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.” Communications' voice sounded shaky.

“Killer was last seen running south down an alley across the street from the union hall between South Nevins and whatever street lies east of it. He headed west—I think—on the street just south of Kosciusko, in an automobile. I only heard the car take off, I didn't see it, so I can't describe it. You'd better get all this right on the air.”

“Yes, sir,” the dispatcher said. “Were there any other witnesses?”

“Would you believe around five hundred?” McCall said.

“Thanks for phoning in, Mr. McCall. Please stand by there till the police arrive.”

He hung up.

Beth said, “You know whom that description fits, don't you?”

“LeRoy Rawlings, Jerome Duncan, and maybe ten thousand other black men in town. Those bushy haircuts seem to be popular with all types and classes of blacks, regardless of political philosophy. The man's lips seemed a little thick for Duncan, but Rawlings has lips like that.”