Johnny Get Your Gun (17 page)

“No!” Johnny stopped and faced his enemy. “Tom Satriano told me to come and see him after the game.”

“Then see him on the parking lot, that’s the right place to wait.”

Johnny made one desperate effort to be reasonable—to find a happy solution. “Go ask him,” he challenged. “He’ll tell you. Tell him it’s Johnny. He’s got the letter he sent me and he’s waiting for me now.”

The usher rejected it. “Don’t tell me what to do, I
know my job. And right now it’s keeping kids like you away from the clubhouse. I’ve got my orders. Now don’t make me chase you away or call a policeman.”

At that moment, without any delay, Johnny had to make a decision. His mind flashed back to all the white-hatted heroes he had seen on television who, when all else failed, had depended on their reliable weapons. Then that image was immediately blotted out by the picture of the boy he had shot the night before; one more time in his tortured mind he saw him sinking to the ground. He made his decision: he would threaten, but he would not shoot. In the best tradition of the many Westerns he had seen, he drew his gun.

“Let me past,” he ordered.

The usher stood there and laughed at him, a mocking laugh that made Johnny hate him with a blazing fury. “You think I’m afraid of that toy gun?” he said. Then he took a menacing step forward.

“It’s a real gun,” Johnny warned between his tightly clenched teeth.

The usher had had enough, his patience with this troublesome boy ran out. The authority of his uniform had been challenged, and by a belligerent kid who refused to obey a reasonable order. He would not endure that humiliation, it was an affront to the whole organization that he represented. He began to walk calmly forward, to turn the boy around properly and send him on his way.

To Johnny the battle had been joined and there was
no backing away. He was not thinking of Tom Satriano now, only the adversary before him whom he
must
defeat. The usher was bigger, of course, but Johnny knew that he had the weapon. For one frightened instant he hesitated, then he saw that the usher was much closer and would be upon him in a second or two. In that blinding moment, hating the usher as he did, he still remembered the boy he had hit. In a flash the answer came to him—he aimed the gun over his opponent’s head, and fired.

Inside the confining tunnel the explosive blast of the shot echoed with total violence. For an instant Johnny thought that his eardrums had been torn from his head; then to his utter amazement he saw the usher fall flat where he had been standing. He did not sink slowly like the boy had done; he dropped like a dead and lifeless thing and lay inert and still.

Then reason departed, the world rocked underneath him, and Johnny lost everything but the raw instinct to survive. With a scream of hysterical fright, he turned and fled.

In the clubhouse close by Tom Satriano heard the sound of the shot and jumped to his feet. In the instant the banter of conversation in the big room froze, for every man there knew about Johnny McGuire and was waiting for him to appear at the door.

Up above, still on the field box level, Virgil Tibbs heard the shot too. He lunged forward and hurtled down the remaining steps, almost throwing himself around the corners.

Back down the long corridor Johnny raced, his gun tightly clenched in his hand, ready now to use it if he had to to clear the path before him. Only the mute concrete bore witness to his flying feet, to the panting of his desperate breath. His new hat flew off and he did not even notice. He was in a frenzy now, a trapped animal running for the first available place that would give him sanctuary.

His lungs pounding with pain, he burst out of the tunnel into the sudden shock of full bright daylight. For a mad, blinding moment he had to stop; he did not know where to go. The gigantic, now empty stadium loomed above and all around him as though it had been designed specifically as a hopeless trap from which no one could escape.

He could never make it across the huge playing area, and if he did there was no place to go when he reached the other side.

The bullpen gate was open; he gulped air into his tortured lungs and bolted through, desperately hoping that there would be a way out on the other side. There was, another gate stood open, but beyond it there was only a great openness, and the concreted banks of a dry river where he could never hope to hide. Then he saw the foot of the towering A-frame and fastened to it the little car provided to lift the maintenance man up all of the way to the ringlike halo that was the symbol of the team and of the stadium itself.

In total desperation Johnny ran for the car and jumped inside. He swung the gate shut which gave him a slight protection and for a few precious seconds studied the simple
control mechanism. Then he looked and saw two uniformed policemen running down the third base stands toward him. They were already dangerously near, and they had guns too. His last hesitation disappeared; he pushed the handle and felt the car at once begin to rise under him. It moved very slowly, but fast enough so that he could see the ground falling away and know that for the moment he had taken refuge in something that would give him sanctuary above his enemies.

He reached the base of the scoreboard and watched as the intricate panels moved past him, sinking downward as he rose. Then he looked over the edge and a quick paroxysm of acrophobia seized him. He fought it by looking upward and seeing the great suspended halo much closer than it had been before. The last of the scoreboard moved past and he was on the dizzying height of the overhead structure being carried steadily upward to his doom.

With every bit of courage and self-possession that his spirit would yield, he forced himself to reach for the control. He pushed the handle to the center position. The car stopped.

He was poised now, between heaven and earth. His body began to shake, his knees threatened to unlock, and for a moment blackness began to swirl before his eyes.

At close to a dead run Virgil Tibbs tried to follow the sound of the shot, but in the hard-faced tunnels and corridors under the stadium the noise echoed back and forth from a dozen different directions. Other people erupted onto the scene, players still in uniform, a man in a business suit, two anxious policemen. They converged on the spot where the usher still lay face down in the tunnel. The Angel trainer, clad in white, arrived on the run carrying a first aid kit. Two other men, bearing a folded stretcher, were close behind him.

As the trainer began to run expert hands over the man on the floor, the usher began slowly to come to life. He raised himself on his hands and knees, shook his head as though to clear it of disbelief, and then with the trainer’s assistance managed to get to his feet.

“Are you all right?” the man in the business suit demanded anxiously.

The usher rubbed the sides of his face with the palms of his hands. “I…I guess so.” His knees were visibly shaking; the trainer broke a capsule and held it under his nose.

“What happened?”

The pungent fumes from the capsule helped the man to recover himself. “A kid shot at me.”

“Where is he?”

“He ran away.”

“What happened? Tell us.” There was urgency in the businessman’s voice.

“Well, first I saw this kid up above. He wanted to come down here and I told him it wasn’t allowed. Then, when I came down here myself, he showed up again, coming down the tunnel.” He nodded to indicate the direction.

“Go on, don’t waste time.”

“Like I said, this kid came walking down the corridor. He wanted to go to the clubhouse; he said something about Tom Satriano.”

Virgil clenched his teeth in frustration, then he listened as the man went on.

“I told him he couldn’t, then the kid got ugly. He had on a cowboy suit. He drew what I thought was a toy gun and threatened me with it. I walked right up to him and then he fired; the gun was real and I don’t know how he missed me. I hit the deck and the kid ran. That’s all.”

“Was he aiming at you, as far as you could tell, when the gun went off?” Tibbs asked.

“Right at me. Like I said, I don’t know how he missed.”

The sergeant in charge of the stadium police hurried up, closely followed by a tense Mike McGuire. “The boy,” the sergeant said. “He’s up on the big A. The maintenance car was unlocked. He got into it. We can’t control it from down here, but my men’ll handle it.”

“No!” Mike McGuire’s voice cut with a sharp edge. “You might hurt him. Leave it to me.”

Virgil spoke then, quietly, but with conviction. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to take over: this is a rather special case.” He looked at the sergeant. “I don’t know your name.”

“Wilson.”

“Sergeant Wilson, I know that this is your responsibility, but I know quite a lot about that boy and I think that I understand him.”

The man in the business suit interrupted. “May I ask who you are?”

“Virgil Tibbs, Pasadena police. This boy is our problem, it’s my case.”

“Ted Bowsfield, Virgil, I’m stadium manager for the Angels.”

Tibbs nodded his acknowledgment to save time. “The boy isn’t dangerous, the account that your usher just gave you isn’t entirely correct. I realize, of course, that he’s been
badly frightened. I think I can get the boy to come down and resolve all this.”

“Then go ahead, we’ll help you all we can.”

Virgil did not wait for any more; he ran quickly up the stairs to the field box level, focused his attention on the scoreboard and its towering supporting frame, and took in the whole situation at a glance. Then he went back down immediately to confer with Wilson. “We’ve got a little time,” he said. “For the moment the boy isn’t going anywhere, at least I hope to heaven he isn’t.”

“I’m with you.”

“All right. First of all, please get your uniformed men out of sight of the boy, it may lessen his tension a little. Have somebody stand by the power cutoff for that car and set up a line of communication so that we can get word to him quickly if we have to.”

“Good. What else?”

“I’d like a thorough check of the tunnel, the boy may have thrown away his gun while he was running. I’ll cover the area outside.”

Mike McGuire seized Tibbs by the arm. “While you’re talking my boy is in danger. Someone’s got to climb up there and help him. I’ll do it, he won’t shoot me.” He let go his hold and started down the tunnel; after a step or two he broke into a run. Virgil paced him until they both burst out into the sharp sunlight. Against the glare of the high bright sky Mike pulled up, and shuddered. Then he formed a megaphone
with his hands and before Tibbs could stop him called up. “Hang on, son. I’ll come and help you!”

A thin, terror-racked voice came down from the car high above. “Don’t, Daddy, don’t!” The words ended in a hysterical sob.

Mike felt a strong hand on his shoulder, turned, and looked into the dark face close to his. “You’re a brave man, Mr. McGuire,” Virgil said, “but don’t try it, not now. Johnny is completely terrified; if you try to help him, he might do anything.”

Mike stood, his head tipped far back, staring at the high perch where his son was isolated.

“We’ve got to calm him down—to let the fright and terror drain out of him.”

McGuire’s body shook with suppressed emotion. “But somebody’s got to climb up there and save him…I’m his father.”

“I know, but that doesn’t make you a steeplejack. When Johnny calms down, I think we can persuade him to come down by himself. In that way no one will be hurt. It will mean a great deal to him that you’re here to welcome him. But if he had the idea, even for a moment, that you were coming up to punish him…” He left the sentence unfinished.

“Then what do we
do
?”

Virgil looked at him. “I suggest that you sit in the stands—close by. I’ve got an idea that might work. But I can’t try it with you here.”

Mike gathered himself and clenched his fists. It was hard for him, almost beyond the power of his self-discipline, but he finally gained control over himself. Slowly, and reluctantly, he walked to the railing at the edge of the field. He climbed over and then sat down in the front row.

Tibbs returned to the entrance to the tunnel to find a tall, well set-up man in an Angel uniform waiting there. “I’m Tom Satriano,” he said. “Can I help?”

“Yes,” Virgil answered, “you can. How many of the players are still in uniform?”

“Most of the crew. Fifteen or twenty.”

“Do you think they would be willing to help out?”

“Of course; that’s why we waited.”

“Then here’s what I’d like to ask, and I know it’s an imposition. Would some of you be willing to come out here and start a little action in the general area of the scoreboard? As though you were warming up for a game.”

“I’ve got it,” Satriano said, turned, and ran with a professional athlete’s skill down the tunnel. In less than two minutes players began to appear on the field. They filtered out of the dugout, paired off, and began to throw baseballs back and forth. As more appeared they took places closer to the left field bullpen. Someone with a bat began to tap easy grounders to a group of players who fielded the ball and then returned it. Jim Fregosi dropped a square white base marker on the grass and began to practice pivoting movements
for the double play. Bobby Knoop joined him; together they scooped in grounders, tagged the base, and then simulated the throw to first.

Tom Satriano appeared beside Tibbs at the end of the tunnel. “How does it look?” he asked.

“It’s perfect,” Virgil said. “This is wonderful cooperation, especially after you’ve already played a full game.”

“The boys will keep it up as long as you need them. I only hope it works.”

“If nothing else it will certainly calm the boy down, give him something that he’s intensely interested in to take his mind off his troubles.”

“Do you think he’ll come down?”

Tibbs shook his head. “I don’t know. If the California Angels can’t distract him, then it’s hopeless. Do they know he has a gun?”

“Yes.”

Virgil locked his fingers together and looked at them for a moment. “I know how valuable every one of you is to the team,” he said slowly. “And if Minnesota loses today, you’ll be in second place.”