The Black Hearts Murder (17 page)

“I'm not only talking to you, Zablonski, but to every man here. In case some of you don't know who I am, I'm Ben Cordes, and I'm running for mayor of Banbury. And I'm here to make a campaign speech.”

The amplified voice boomed and pealed.

Someone in the crowd shouted, “Go home, Ben. We're for you, but this is no time to be making speeches.”

There was laughter, and McCall thought, Now, Ben. Press your advantage.

“Isn't it? I've got news for you, friend. You're all set to blow it for me, you know that?” A puzzled silence settled over the mob. “I have the election cinched—or did have till just now—because the average voting joe backs my law-and-order stand. But if you think he wants mob rule, even by whites, you don't know the American voter. He simply won't go for a mob to govern him, white
or
black. You go ahead and shoot up these black citizens today, and I'll guarantee that public opinion will turn on a dime. You'll kill every chance I have to win the election. In fact, I'll guarantee your next mayor will be the black man who's my opponent. If that's what you want, Zablonski—and you, Rozak—and you, Collins—and you, Lennie Smith—” he kept picking men out of the crowd, stabbing at them with an accusing forefinger, so that each man so singled began to try to shrink out of sight “—okay, go ahead. But when your stupidity here today gets you a black police commissioner, and a majority of black cops, on top of a black mayor and a black city council, blacks running the city from top to bottom, why, then, don't come crying to me!”

Zablonski said sullenly, “It was your boss that nigger killed, Mr. Cordes. You want him get off free?”

“No, I want him caught and tried and punished,” Cordes said. “But by the rules of law. You want the right man, don't you? If you blasted the head off every black in that building, would you ever be positive you'd caught and punished the killer of Gerry Horton? Break this up. Let the law deal with Horton's murderer. Or you'll boost Jerome Duncan into the mayor's office as sure as God made little green apples.”

There was another pause.

Rozak said uncertainly, “Maybe he's right, Veech.”

“Yeah!” someone cried.

“What about it, Zablonski?”

“I say we do what Mr. Cordes says—”

“Wait! Wait!” Zablonski roared. He was pushing his way toward the panel truck, followed by Rozak. When they reached it, Zablonski said something to Cordes and the little station manager turned off his microphone before replying. Zablonski argued heatedly; Rozak kept glancing at the roofs; Cordes listened, little head cocked, spoke in a soft voice. McCall was impressed.

He spotted a few black faces peering down at the crowd, but the Black Hearts posted on the roofs for the most part kept out of sight. McCall silently praised their discipline.

Finally Cordes turned the mike on.

“Veech Zablonski has decided I'm right. It takes a big man to admit a mistake. I want a hand for Veech!”

A roar went up from the warriors. Zablonski turned this way and that, nodding, smiling. Rozak looked sore about something.

“So will you all please get back to your cars in an orderly manner and go home the same way? And thank you men from the bottom of my heart.”

God stopped booming to cheers, and the would-be slaughter was dead, stillborn. In twos and threes, the men made for Jackson Road and their cars, talking animatedly.

McCall watched the two squad cars at the intersection. They did not move, forward or backward.

Observers. There to report the action.

Were they disappointed?

Their inaction could only have been the result of direct orders. It was inconceivable that neither team would have reported in by radio what was taking place, or about to take place; at the least, they would have called for reinforcements. Banbury had a riot-control squad; where were they? The conclusion was disturbingly inescapable that someone higher up—could it have been Chief Condon himself?—believed in riot control only when the rioters were blacks.

Ben Cordes sat down in the panel truck and shut the door. Not once had he acknowledged McCall's presence on the scene. McCall grinned to himself. It would have been bad politics. Cordes was a canny old cookie. A tough man. It's so often the little guys, McCall thought.

Cordes had his driver, Whalen, remain where they were until the last white man was off the street and back on Jackson Road. Then the panel truck followed, like a cowboy after his herd. It disappeared, too.

The two squad cars suddenly came to life. One backed up and sped west. The other raced down the street past the Black Hearts building, siren blasting, turned north at the intersection, and rapidly faded out.

McCall waited peacefully.

Black faces began to appear above the parapets. McCall estimated that there were over fifty of them, all armed with rifles, carbines, shotguns. He could not see the roofs on his side of the street, but if there were an equal number above, Rawlings's estimate that more than a hundred riflemen would be at their elevated posts when the whites arrived had been no exaggeration.

The men began drifting out of McCall's line of sight, no doubt headed for the street. He heard footsteps behind him and turned around. It was Rawlings, hands in pockets.

They grinned at each other.

“Ben Cordes might have had a point there,” the black man said. “Maybe I should have insured Duncan's election by letting that mob lynch me.”

“There aren't many Nathan Hales in this day and age,” McCall said, “of any color.”

“Oh, I don't know. I could lay my life on the line for something I believed hard in—like, man, the Black Hearts. Not for a person, no.”

“How do you stand on Duncan?”

Rawlings said evenly, “He's okay.”

“Don't you want to see him win?”

“As against a honky? What do you think?”

“Any black man? Against any white?”

“Not an Uncle Tom. But any other kind of brother—sure … Why you looking at me that way?”

McCall had been staring at the lower part of Rawlings's face.

“I was wondering how you'd look with the upper half of your face masked.”

Rawlings chuckled. “I've got five alibi witnesses.”

“You would have those even if you were guilty.”

“Sure. But it so happens that this time it's in the groove. We were having an executive meeting at the time Horton was hit.”

McCall shrugged. He had been able to eliminate Jerome Duncan at once on the evidence of the black candidate's lips. But Rawlings's lips were quite thick—as thick, he thought, as the killer's. It was absurd to go on this way, anyway. Lips alone would not identify the man.

Black men were beginning to drift onto the street. Suddenly it was an everyday ghetto thoroughfare, peopled and humming. Children appeared, women.

May all wars end this way, McCall thought. Only the war hadn't ended. It was just a battle that hadn't come off.

“You've got to admire the way Cordes took over,” he said. “All I wanted was his amplifying equipment. I didn't bargain for the voice of Jehovah.”

“He's a honky,” Rawlings said. “I think, McCall, you better light out of here while you still can. I wouldn't want anything to happen to the governor's boy.”

“Do you know anything,” McCall asked, “about a .22 caliber Woodsman? Owned, say, by Harlan James?”

Rawlings's strong chin stuck out suddenly; his big hands were balled. “That the kind of gun killed Horton?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn't tell you if he did. It just so happens, though, that he don't. Now you better take my advice before the brothers start throwing up at all that white skin you carry around.”

He gave McCall his back. McCall decided to get out of there.

At a quarter of nine that night McCall slipped behind the wheel of the Ford. The exit of the hotel parking lot fed into Grand Avenue. He turned right off Grand, intending to take First Street north.

As he completed the turn he caught a glimpse in his mirror of something rising from the floor of his rear seat. A small round object pressed coldly into the back of his neck. A .22, McCall guessed. His right foot instinctively went to the brake.

The voice said, “Keep going to Taylor Street, then turn north.” It was a man's voice, a whisper.

The headlights of an oncoming car gave McCall a glimpse of his captor in the mirror. The man was black, with bushy Afro-style hair. He wore a domino mask over the upper part of his face. Was it the man who had shot Gerald Horton? McCall was not sure from the one glimpse.

“What's this all about?” he asked in a calm voice.

“You oughtn't to get so nosy,” the black man whispered.

He was disguising his voice. Why should he do that, McCall wondered, unless he thinks I might identify it? Could it mean that he's not out for my blood—that he has a different purpose in abducting me?

“I'm nowhere near an answer to the Horton murder, if that's what you're worried about,” McCall said in the same easy way.

“You got a rep for finding answers,” the man whispered. “We ain't taking no chances.”

McCall's spine reacted promptly. It sounded as though this was meant to be a terminal ride after all.

“Who's we?” McCall asked. “The Black Hearts?”

“Just keep driving.”

They crossed First Street. McCall said, “Is this because of my visit to mama this afternoon?”

The man breathed, “Mama?” in a puzzled way.

“Mrs. Anita Rawlings.”

There was a little giggle in McCall's ear. “You think I'm LeRoy Rawlings? That's funny. Taylor's the next block.”

McCall carefully turned left at the corner. Taylor was a secondary street with little traffic and poor lighting. The gunman's choice of route was not encouraging.

“Okay, so you're not LeRoy,” McCall said. “But is this snatch because of what I asked Mrs. Rawlings about Harlan James?” He added suddenly, “Or is it because I asked LeRoy about the target pistol?”

“It's because you got a nose like Jimmy Durante. What's this clue the cops have about the gun?”

“They don't confide in me,” McCall complained. “Are you Harlan James?”

The giggle again. “If the cops didn't confide in you about the gun, we got nothing to talk about. So shut up and drive.”

TWENTY

The man behind him directed McCall to continue to Telegraph Road. McCall remembered it from his study of the Greater Banbury map. Telegraph Road was at the extreme northern edge of town. The edges of towns tended to be sparsely populated places. The trip promised less and less.

En route they passed within two blocks of Laurel's apartment house. McCall thought of it with nostalgia.

Once he saw a Banbury police car pull out of a side street ahead of him and proceed at ten miles over the speed limit. McCall increased the pressure on the gas pedal. But the black man whispered, “Whatever you got in mind, forget it. Stay behind, and don't make no mistakes.”

Half a mile later, the police car turned off. McCall passed the corner with great regret.

At Telegraph Road the gunman directed him to turn right. McCall was the soul of obedience.

A mile down Telegraph Road they passed the Banbury city-limits sign. The terrain became quickly rural. Dense woodland appeared. City lights had long since been left behind.

The whole business seemed absurd. To go out this way, at the hands of this crumb … McCall, you've had a brief if glorious career …

A little over two miles beyond the city limits the black man ordered McCall to turn into a narrow dirt road hacked out of the woods. McCall's headlights hit a sign:
DOVER ROCK AND GRANITE CO
.—
NO TRESPASSING
—
VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED
.

“Don't pay no attention to the sign,” the gunman whispered. “Keep going.”

The road was truck-rutted, but it was dry and packed and looked old. Grass was high between the ruts. The trees crowded up on both sides, branches meeting overhead to form a ceiling from which the moonlight bounced off.

A quarter of a mile later they suddenly broke out of the leaf-roofed tunnel into a large clearing. It was a cloudy night, but there was enough moonlight to tell McCall that the place was an old quarry, with every sign that it had long ago been abandoned.

The dirt road ended ten yards from the pit. It was immediately apparent why the quarry had been abandoned. The diggers had hit an underground spring; the pit was full of water, creating a pool measuring about fifty yards square. The water came to within a foot or two of ground level.

“I used to swim here when I was a kid,” the black man said in his fake breathy tone. “This pool's over a hundred feet deep.”

McCall had never felt more alive.

“Cut your engine, the lights. Leave the key in the ignition.”

McCall did precisely as directed. The puzzle was why the man was disguising his voice. It certainly didn't seem to indicate homicidal intentions. On the other hand, if he wasn't intending to kill, why this deserted quarry in a Godforsaken spot of forgotten woods? Maybe it was 'arf and 'arf. Murder on his mind, but the disguised voice just in case something went wrong. It didn't seem possible that the man was that subtle-minded, yet there it was, the only conclusion McCall could reach.

The whole train of thought left him tingling with a sense of accomplishment. Hurray for you, he said to himself gloomily. You'd be better off rehearsing your prayers.

“Come on. Pay attention.”

He was conscious of a jabbing at his neck. Then the pressure of the muzzle eased and he heard the door behind him open. It automatically turned on the dome light. The gunman said, “Get out. But real careful.”

He had backed off, well out of arm's range, as McCall opened the door at his side and slid from under the wheel. In the glow from the dome light he saw that the weapon in the black hand was a .22 Woodsman target pistol. The man was dressed as McCall had seen him the night before, in the meeting hall: black suit, black turtle-neck Italian shirt. Even black shoes, which he had only guessed at in the hall. And the damn mask …