Hail to the Chief

by Ed McBain

  Which in this case was nothing.

  The six bodies in the ditch achieved a nice racial and ethnic balance. Three of them were black, two of them were Hispanic, and one of them was white. None of them carried any identifying scars or tattoos. None of them had hand or fingernail characteristics that could identify them as lacemakers or garage mechanics. None of them had any scrapings under their finger nails that proved decisive in linking them to an occupation. Worst of all, none of them had any fingerprint records. For all intents and purposes, they were all still as anonymous as the photographs taken of them, and the detectives still had no clue as to who had killed them or why.

  Statement of one Randall M. Nesbitt made this fourteenth day of January at 10:55 P.M. in the detective squadroom of the 87th Precinct on Grover Avenue in Isola. Randall Nesbitt freely and voluntarily offered the following information in the presence of Detective 2nd/Grade Stephen Louis Carella, Detective 3rd/Grade Bertram A. Kling, and attorney appointed for aforesaid Randall Nesbitt, Harold Finch of the law firm of Finch, Golden & Horowitz of 119 Cabot Street, Isola. Having been duly warned of his rights, and having waived his privilege to remain silent, Randall Nesbitt replied as follows to Detective Carella's question: Why did you do it, Randy?

  Why? What do you mean 'why'? I'm the president, that's why. I'm the elected leader, I can do what I want. I can order a hit when I want to, and if the orders ain't followed, there's trouble. I don't have to discuss the hit with nobody. I know what's best for my people, and I do what's best, and they listen to me, and they carry out the orders. The decisions I make ain't always popular, but I don't care about that, I'm not running no popularity contest. I'm doing what's best, and I'm the only one who can decide what's best because I'm the only one has all the facts at his fingertips. Those people were the enemy. I ordered the hit because I was trying to make peace.

  Lots of guys in the clique, they think it's great to be president. An easy job, you know? But it ain't. It's a lonely job, and it's a job where the decisions you got to make ain't always understood right away. But I stand behind all the decisions I make, and I'm willing to take responsibility for them, even though I don't have to answer to nobody. I got my negotiator, and I got my war counselor, and they're two top men who I listen to, but even they know that what I say goes. I listen, I weigh the information, and then I decide. And it was me who decided to make the hit.

  It was a complicated hit because there were two different cliques involved. The reason for the hit was to make peace between them and us. We'd been rapping since October, meetings down our clubhouse, meetings in their clubhouses, what did it accomplish? Nothing. You can talk only so long. After that, you got to make a show of strength. You got to show them who's the most powerful. Okay, I decided to show them. As it turned out, it didn't solve nothing because we later had to take even stricter measures. But I think it gave them reason to hesitate, you know? I think it made them look on us with respect. It made them say to themselves, 'This guy is the president of the most powerful clique in the neighborhood. We better not fool around with him, because he's not kidding. He says he wants peace, and he means it. That's what the first hit must've made them think. After that, we had to get tougher.

  'There are guys in the clique who don't understand why I did what I did. They think it's easy. They didn't understand the first hit, and they still don't understand all the other things that happened. I'll tell you something. When you got these difficult decisions to make, and you finally make them, then you expect the people you're leading to support you, you know what I mean? I mean, man, these are your own people, you dig? They ain't supposed to raise objections, they ain't supposed to say this or that or the other thing. They're supposed to understand that I'm the president, and they're supposed to say, 'Right on, man. Even if we don't like what you're doing, then maybe it's because we don't understand it yet. You go right ahead, man, you got our support.' That's the way it's supposed to be. Instead, there were these cats on the inner council, they started complaining right away, the minute I told them the hit was already accomplished.

  That was after Chingo reported back to me and told me he'd carried the bodies down to Isola, and dumped them in an open ditch on the North Side. So the council raised a stink. Like, man, who was asking them for their opinion? I almost ordered seven lashes. There's a club pole if you don't obey orders, you get seven lashes from each and every one of the members. Who was the council to question what I done? I swear, they're like children, you know what I mean? You got to take them by the hand and lead them every place, they wouldn't know how to wipe their own noses without me. Why am I the president? Why did they give me a mandate? To lead them, right? Okay, so I was leading them, and I wasn't about to take no back talk about how come I ordered a hit, and didn't I think it was going to just prolong matters, and maybe provoke other hits from the enemy against us, or bring down the fuzz, or whatever. I wasn't concerned with none of that. I was concerned with making peace.

  Johnny, one of the guys on the council, got all upset about the baby.

  Chingo told him that was an accident. When him and Deucey and The Bullet busted in on the nigger and his chick, the kid was sleeping in a crib by the window, you know? So Chingo told them to take off all their clothes, the chick was half naked anyway, and then when the pair of them realized what was about to happen, the chick ran for the crib and scooped up the baby and was about to start yelling, you know? So that was when Chingo cut loose, not meaning to chop down the baby, but those things happen. You take action, you got to expect a few accidents. The baby was innocent, and nobody was trying to chop down an innocent baby. It just happened. Also, Chingo says that the nigger pulled a piece just as Chingo opened up, and maybe some stray bullets from his own gun killed the kid, who the hell knows? Like, you know, maybe he was responsible himself for killing his own baby. Like he saw Chingo with the piece in his hand, and he pulled his own piece to defend himself, and the bullets went wild. Chingo explained that to the council, and especially to Johnny, who was making all the noise. I finally kicked him out of the clubhouse, told him to go take a walk till he cooled off. We later had to deal with him on another matter, but that had nothing to do with his questioning the hit or the accident that happened during the hit.

  The hit was complicated, like I said before. That's because there were two separate cliques to deal with. There was the Scarlet Avengers and the Death's Heads. We call them the Heads because half of them are junkies, though they won't admit it. We never call them heads to their faces, because the next thing you know you got another stabbing on your hands. You got to watch out for these jerks, they're so sensitive. Like when Jo-Jo got stabbed outside the junior high school on Yancey, because one of the Scarlets thought he was trying to make time with a Scarlet chick. Boy! Any of the guys in this clique even looks at one of them Scarlet dogs, that's the day I got to see. Anyway, that ain't the point. These guys get everything all mixed up. They're always looking for an excuse to say we done something, when most of the time we just mind our own business and try to do good. Who got rid of half the pushers in this neighborhood, if not us? Nobody ever thinks of that. They just go around saying things all the time, what do they know? I got a good clique here, we're a good clique. We try to set an example for all the others. And I'm the president, and I try always to do good, and that's the example I set for my own people.

  I decided on the hit just after New Year's. Man, I spent nights pacing the floor thinking about it. I figured the only way to make them see reason was to grab them where it hurts, strike right in their own turf, get their leaders, show them we ain't afraid of nothing. I didn't talk it over with nobody. Not even Toy. I didn't even tell her nothing about it. I worked it out careful and then I told Doc, my negotiator, and Mace, my war counselor, and I listened, to what they had to say about it, and they both said it was the right thing to do. It wouldn't have mattered what they said, because I already decided. But I showed them the respect of listening. A good leader's got to know whe
n to listen in addition to when to act. The plan was to send Chingo and two raiders to get the president of the Scarlet Avengers and the president of the Heads. As it turned out, Chingo got more than we bargained for.

  The baby, of course, was an accident, like I explained. But in addition, when Chingo and his raiders busted in on the spic pad, there was a blond cat sitting there rapping with the Head and his chick. He didn't know who the blond was at the time. We later found out in the newspapers. All Chingo saw was a white guy with a beard, maybe twenty-five, twenty-six years old, sitting there and rapping with the two spies. He was there to get the president. The chick was unfortunate. She shouldn't have been hanging around with a guy like that, who was holding up peace negotiations and putting himself in a vulnerable position. Those are the chances you take. The stranger was another matter. Chingo wasn't about to turn around and go out, now that he was there. Him and his raiders had already taken care of the other three, their bodies were downstairs in the back of the pickup truck, covered with a tarp. He was there to do the rest of the job, and so the stranger had to go with the other two. It was over in four seconds flat. If anybody in the building heard anything, they knew better than to open their mouths, or we'd have been around the next day to burn them out.

  We don't fool around.

  You're either our friends, or you're our enemies.

  Chapter Two

  The man on the telephone was a free-lance writer doing a magazine article on The Relationship of Television to Acts of Violence. That was not to be the title of his piece, he explained hastily. It was merely a statement of theme. The title would be something shorter and snappier. A title, he went on to explain, was almost as important as the first line of any written work, the hook that grabbed the reader at once and refused to let him go, no matter how he wiggled or squirmed.

  The man's name was Montgomery Pierce-Hoyt.

  Detective Meyer Meyer, normally a patient man, distrusted him at once, and listened to his long explanation of intent with boredom bordering on somnambulance. The first thing he distrusted was the man's name. Meyer Meyer did not know anybody who had a hyphenated family name. On his block, everyone had a very simple last name, no fancy hyphenation. Hyphenation was for companies like Colgate-Palmolive or Dow-Jones. Nor had he ever met a person with a first name like Montgomery. The only Montgomery he had ever heard of was Montgomery Ward, and that was another company. Who was he talking to here? A person or a company?

  Meyer Meyer was very name-conscious because his own name had caused him no end of trouble and embarrassment. His father (bless his soul, his heart, and his sense of humor) had thought the double-barreled monicker would cause his offspring to stand out in a world of largely anonymous people, and (being something of a practical joker) had thought it funny besides (May he rest in peace, Meyer thought). Meyer had grown weary of telling people it was no fun to be raised as a Jew in a largely Gentile neighborhood, where his name inspired the chant 'Meyer Meyer, Jew on fire' and on at least one occasion almost led to a backyard barbecue when it was thought necessary by various and assorted goyim to test the validity of the chant. Tying Meyer to a pole, they started a fire at his feet and then went off to their catechism class, where they were being taught devotion to Jesus, even though he might possibly have been a Jew. Meyer prayed, but nothing happened. Patiently, he prayed more fiercely and devoutly, and still nothing happened. It was beginning to get very hot down there near his sneakers. Patiently, never losing faith, he kept praying, and finally it began to rain, a veritable downpour that put out the flames at once. Oddly, Meyer did not become a religious man after his experience. Instead, he developed a deep sympathy for firemen and for hapless cavalry officers tied to the stake by savage Indians. He also developed an attitude of patience bordering on saintliness, which was perhaps a religious outcome, after all. His patience was wearing quite thin at the moment. Completely bald, burly, with china-blue eyes (the lids of which were dropping to half-mast) he listened to Montgomery Pierce-Hoyt on the telephone, and debated whether he should answer in cop talk.

  'What I'm deeply interested in knowing,' Pierce-Hoyt said, 'is whether in your experience the acts of violence that confront you daily are in any way influenced or stimulated, consciously or unconsciously, by something the criminal may have seen on television.'

  'Mmm,' Meyer said.

  'What do you think?' Pierce-Hoyt said.

  'Who did you say you were doing this story for?' Meyer asked.

  'Nobody yet.'

  'Nobody yet,' Meyer repeated, and nodded.

  'But I'll sell it, don't worry,' Pierce-Hoyt said. 'So what do you think?'

  'You want me to answer this on the telephone?' Meyer said. 'Right this minute?'

  'Well, yes, if…'

  'Impossible,' Meyer said.

  'Why?'

  'Because first of all, I have to check with the lieutenant. And second of all, how do I know you're really Mr. Pierce-Hoyt and not somebody else? And third of all, I have to gather my thoughts.'

  'Well, um, yes, I see,' Pierce-Hoyt said. 'Well, do you want me to come up there?'

  'Not until I talk to the lieutenant and see if it's okay.'

  'When do you think you'll be able to talk to him?'

  'Sometime today. Let me have your number and I'll get back to you in the morning.'

  'Fine,' Pierce-Hoyt said, and gave Meyer the number. The other phone on Meyer's desk was ringing. He said an abrupt goodbye to Pierce-Hoyt and picked up the receiver.

  '87th Squad, Detective Meyer,' he said.

  The caller was a woman who had seen the photographs of the multiple-murder victims in that morning's newspaper, and said she knew who the white man with the beard was.

  The woman's name was Phyllis Kingsley.

  She lived in Isola, near the River Dix, which formed the southern boundary of the island. Had she lived two blocks farther uptown, she'd have been in that exclusive and luxurious section known as Stewart City. As it was, she lived in a tenement on a block with several furniture warehouses and two parking garages. Carella and Kling got there at eleven o'clock that Tuesday morning, January 8. The thermometer had risen only slightly; the temperature hovered in the mid-twenties. Phyllis Kingsley greeted them wrapped in a handwoven afghan, and told them something had been wrong with the heat all night long, and it still hadn't been fixed. They went into the living room, where the windows were covered with rime.

  'We understand you can identify one of the murder victims,' Carella said.

  'Yes,' Phyllis answered. She was a woman in her late thirties, with carrot-colored hair and green eyes that made her look very Irish. Her complexion was fair and sprinkled with freckles. She was not a pretty woman, and there was something about her manner that indicated vulnerability. The detectives waited, expecting her to say more than the single word 'Yes.' When it became apparent that nothing further was coming Carella asked, 'Who was he, can you tell us?'

  'My brother,' she said.

  'His name?'

  'Andrew Kingsley.'

  'How old was he?' Carella asked. He had exchanged a silent glance with Kling the moment the woman began talking. It was Kling, seated slightly to the left of her and beyond her field of vision, who now jotted the information into a notebook while Carella asked the questions, a technique that made the person talking feel more at ease.

  'He was twenty-eight,' Phyllis replied.

  'Where did he live?' Carella asked.

  'Here. Temporarily. He just arrived from California a few weeks ago.'

  'Did he have a job?'

  'No. Well, on the Coast he had one. But he quit that to come here.'

  'What kind of work did he do?'

  'I think he was a carhop. At one of the hamburger places they have out there.'

  'Why did he come to this city, Miss Kingsley, can you tell us?'

  'Well, he said he'd been into a lot of things out there that helped him to find where his head was at, and he was anxious to get back East and put some of his ideas to
work.'

  'What sort of ideas?'

  'Well, he had ideas about the ghettos and of what he could do to help the people living in the ghettos. He was doing work in Watts out there.'

  'What kind of work?'

  'He organized a drama group for the black kids in Watts. He was a drama major in college. That's why he went to California to begin with. He thought he could get work in the movies or in television, but you know…' She shrugged, and then clasped her hands in her lap.

  'When did he arrive exactly, Miss Kingsley? From California, I mean. Would you remember?'

  'It was two weeks ago yesterday.'

  'And he was living here? In this apartment?'

  'Yes. I have an extra room.'

  'Did he know anybody in this city? Besides you?'

  'He was born and raised here. He knew a lot of people.'

  'The other pictures in the paper…'

  'No,' she said, and shook her head.

  'You didn't recognize any of them?'

  'No.'

  'You wouldn't know whether any of them were your brother's friends."

  'None of them looked familiar.'

  'Did he have black friends? Or Puerto Ricans?'

  'Yes.'

  'Did you ever meet any of them?'

  'No.'

  'Did you ever meet any of his friends?'

  'Yes, he brought a man home with him one night.'

  'A white man?'

  'Yes.'

  'Would you remember his name?'

  'David Harris.'

  'Did your brother introduce him as one of his friends?'

  'They had just met, I believe.'

  'Do you know what kind of work he did?'

  'He didn't say. I got the feeling…' She shook her head.

  'Yes, go on.'

  'I didn't like him very much.'

  'Why not?'

  'I don't know. He seemed… I felt he was not a good person.'