Dirty Harry 05 - Family Skeletons

by Dane Hartman

  “Are you all right?” he called as he neared.

  She gulped a few times, sat up with her hands flat on the ground, and replied, “Yes, I think so.”

  “Go back to the church,” Harry said, picking up speed. “Stay there. I’ll be back.” Then he sped by, going right after Tom.

  The young man tore across the way, passing the gazebo and sending another squadron of birds into the air. They rose lazily and drifted back down just as Harry charged through the same location, scattering them again.

  Callahan could see some brightly lit stores through the trees. He could see a parking garage, a clothes store, a Dunkin’ Donuts, and the Muffin House Christine had mentioned before. Next to that was a large movie-theater marquee. Tom was heading right for it.

  Atop the marquee it said “A Sack Theater,” and below that the legend, “The Savoy I & II.” Tom charged across the street, narrowly missing a few screeching cars himself, and right inside the place. Harry took the moment the cars had stopped to shift into fourth and followed in Tom’s wake before the traffic started moving again.

  As he ran past, Harry saw that the box office out front was closed. Pulling open the glass door he charged into a long hallway lined with movie posters, which ended in another set of doors. Surprisingly, they didn’t lead to the theater, they emptied out into an alleyway.

  Harry stopped in that street for a second. Across the narrow way was another set of doors and another box office. He looked down both sides of the alley for any sign of Tom. He was nowhere to be seen. Harry ran to the second set of doors. He saw Tom trying to elbow through two burly ushers to get in a side door along the hall.

  The cop ripped open the door in front of him and roared down the red-carpeted hall, his gun still out. The ushers leaped into the theater and ran into the men’s room. Tom had wanted to go through the theater and out the exit doors, but that plan was ruined by Harry’s appearance. Instead he ran farther down the wide, well-lit hall.

  The movie posters were getting bigger and bigger as Harry went farther and farther. Suddenly to his left a much larger theater appeared, its lobby rising two stories and a big chandelier hanging from the high ceiling. It was one of Boston’s classic old theaters turned into one of the last of the movie palaces. Tom seemed unconcerned. He raced right by it and out the rear doors to another street. Harry saw him go right and quickly followed.

  The cop raced out and stopped dead in the middle of a thin, heavily traveled back street. Dozens of shoppers scattered when they saw his gun still clutched in his right hand. But look as he might, Harry could no longer spot the young man.

  Cautiously, Harry put his gun away and went right. Next door to the Savoy was another theater, the Paramount. But it had fallen on harder times. It was locked up tight, its last attraction being a porno flick, the posters of which were still gathering dirt along the wall. The only thing between the theaters was a snack bar. Its doors were open. Harry looked inside.

  The room was large and long, stretching back hundreds of feet. Beyond the relatively small soda fountain was what Harry used to call a penny arcade, but what they now were calling a “family amusement center.” Inside he could see the flashing lights and hear weird sounds of pinball and video machines. He also heard the raucous noise of disco music, badly amplified.

  Slowly, Harry entered. There was a three-step stairway to his right, leading up to a platform lined with pinball machines. Harry stepped up, moving down the line while keeping an eye out along the path he had just left. Everytime he passed another machine he’d glance at the back of the person playing it. No one fit Tom’s description.

  He stepped down at the end of the line. It, in turn, led into a larger room filled with machines. Along each wall was another line of pinball devices. Taking up every available space in the middle of the floor were video machines, air-hockey games, and pool tables. Harry began to scan the area closely for any sign of Tom. He was about to back out and check somewhere else when his eyes settled on a face and form he recognized.

  The form was of another radio-tape recorder. The face was that of the music man’s big friend. As he watched, the big black dude elbowed another man lining up a billiard shot next to him.

  “Hey, what the fuck you doin’, my man,” the shooter complained, turning. “Can’t you see I’m setting up a shot?” The shooter was the music man. He stopped wailing when he saw Harry.

  “Well, well, well!” he said, exhaling mightily. “Look who we have here! Hey, boys,” he called. A bunch of big black dudes made themselves seen all around the pool table. Harry counted five in all, counting the gloating music man.

  “Remember the honkie I told you about on the plane?” the music man asked rhetorically.

  “Yeah, Jack,” said the big friend. “The one who smashed your ghetto blaster.”

  “One and the same,” the music man smiled, motioning at Harry with his cue stick.

  The other men started picking up cue sticks and billiard balls. “Well,” said one. “We got to teach the whitey that it’s not nice to break other people’s property.”

  “Yeah, Jack,” said another. “A honkey could get hurt that way.”

  They all started to move in on him. Harry faced them without concern. When he figured that they had gone far enough, he pulled out the Magnum and leveled it at them.

  The group of stalking blacks became a shocked tableau. Everyone froze in place. Even without its hammer cocked, the .44 Magnum was a marvelous weapon for intimidation. One could look down the barrel and see his life go past in Cinerama.

  “I see you haven’t learned your lesson yet,” Harry said to the music man. “Still buying and playing those things in public places.”

  “You want me to turn it off?” the black man said politely. “I will. I really will.” He turned to switch the machine off.

  “Hold it!” Harry ordered. “Any of you see a white kid come in here? About six-one, brown hair, wearing . . . !”

  That was as far as Callahan got. Tom came tearing out from behind the air-hockey machine to Harry’s side. Harry was pacing him by turning with the Magnum pointed even before the boy had gone three steps. The boy had almost made it to the fountain when Harry opened his mouth to shout “Halt!”

  He didn’t get that far. He had made a simple mistake. He had turned his back on the black gang. A cue stick was smashed across his shoulders from behind.

  Harry fell forward, the gun clattering out of his grip. He saw it fall under a fountain chair as he slid past on the tile floor. He ignored the pain in his back as he threw himself even harder at Tom. The boy had tried to run again when Harry was hit, but he had only made it to the door when Callahan grabbed his leg. Harry threw him down as he got up.

  The cop looked back at the fountain. The music man was running toward his gun while the rest of the guys bore down on Harry. Callahan reacted immediately. He gripped Tom by the back of the collar and waistband. He anchored his feet and heaved. The groggy kid catapulted up and into the quartet of blacks.

  Harry was right behind the young honkie. As two Negroes were knocked over and the other pair pushed back, Harry swung at the man nearest the fountain. His fist connected soldly, and the black dropped, his head bouncing off the edge of the counter. While the other standing man tried to get around the three struggling bodies on the floor, Harry went after the music man.

  The black had just gotten his fingers around the Magnum grip when Harry kicked him in the jaw. Since the black’s head was below the lip of the counter, he rose fast, smashed the back of his head into it hard, and dropped like a cement block.

  The Magnum wasn’t so lucky. It fell backward out of the music man’s hand, arched through the air, and landed on the pool table behind the still blaring radio. The other black finally reached Harry, trying to get him in a full nelson. Harry jerked him backward into the counter lip, effectively smashing the man’s kidneys with the Formica slab. That broke the grip. Harry spun and kneed him between the legs.

  The man dou
bled over. Harry grabbed his belt and threw him into the two other Negroes who were trying to get up. They all went down again, but Tom managed to slither out from underneath. The young man stumbled to his feet and dove toward the gun on the pool table. Harry followed right behind.

  Just as Tom got his hands on the Magnum, Harry grabbed the ghetto blaster. Tom turned around, pointing the weapon as Harry brought the radio resoundingly down on top of the kid’s head.

  Tom dove forward like Mark Spitz on a good day. He fell face first on the tile, the Magnum clattering next to him. The machine in Harry’s hand sputtered and died.

  The music man’s friend came roaring up and out of the black pile while the other men just struggled to stand. Harry met the big black halfway, pulling the broken radio around in a wide arc. The big black practically stuck his face right into it. The radio split apart in tens of tiny spinning pieces. The man’s face seemed to vibrate in flesh waves from the shock, then his eyes closed and he flew sideways right on top of a pinball machine. He crashed through the glass top, and the scoring mechanism went crazy.

  Harry slowly retrieved his Magnum and straightened to face the last pair of blacks. They stared at him as if he were a whole army of Ku Klux Klan members.

  “Bingo,” Harry said. They must have thought he said “Boo!” because they nearly knocked each other over again trying to get out the exit door at the same time.

  Harry tiredly picked up Tom, dragged him over to the soda fountain, and asked the wide-eyed man behind the counter directions to the nearest police station.

  C H A P T E R

  F o u r

  “I can’t help you. You’ll have to wait for Detective Collins.”

  It was the fourth time Harry had heard that. A guy can’t make a dollar with any ease in this town, Harry thought. All he wanted to do was book Tom and then get him alone in a room for a little talk. That wasn’t too much to ask, was it? The Boston Police Department could extend that little courtesy for a visiting inspector, couldn’t they?

  It certainly didn’t seem that way. First, Tom had screamed excessive violence—“police brutality” in the lingo of the sixties—and demanded medical care. When the police doctor had only found a bump on his head and no horrible wound with an accompanying concussion, Tom had screamed for his rights, his phone call, and the name of a good lawyer.

  The friendly, mostly chubby, and seemingly agreeable cops had kept Tom on ice for a few hours now, occupying him with pictures and prints, the arrest report, and other delightful official things like that. In the meantime, they also entertained Harry by getting his statement. When they heard about the Unitarian Church offices and the hunting knife, they hastily got together for a huddle and then called downtown.

  Ever since, Harry had felt trapped in a Samuel Beckett-like play that might have been titled Waiting for Detective Collins.

  The police station was very familiar. It was like many other municipal police stations in that it was housed in one of the city’s oldest buildings. But rather than being rundown and corroded, Boston’s station house was a solid stone structure just a couple of blocks away from the theater section and Boston College.

  It was after ten o’clock in the evening when Detective Collins finally arrived. He swept into the squad room, his furry tan coat unbelted and unbuttoned off a nice pinstripe suit. Detective Collins was well dressed, well groomed, good-looking, and as black as the boys Harry had beaten up at the pinball emporium.

  “Detective Christopher Collins,” a woman sergeant introduced, after bringing the man over to where Harry sat, “Inspector Harry Callahan of the San Francisco Homicide Department.”

  Collins’ handshake was solid and warm. “It getting boring on the West Coast, Inspector?” Collins said as way of hello. “You trying to solve all our murders, too?”

  Harry stood. Collins was a couple of inches shorter than he was. About five-eleven or six feet, Harry judged. “Just happened to be at the wrong place at the right time,” Harry replied.

  Collins looked beyond Harry at the collected arrest reports on the desk. “We’ll see,” he murmured, scanning them. He turned to the sergeant, who looked like a retired librarian. “I’m glad you called me.” He then straightened, started to walk out of the room, and motioned for Harry to follow. Harry left the harried, forever active squad room to their work. He caught up to Collins in the hall. The black cop was still studying the reports.

  “I’ve been assigned to the Beacon Hill Murders that happened last night,” Collins explained. “Some things you say in here look like they could be connected with it.”

  “I figured as much,” said Harry, glancing around the hall as they went. “Both the murder victim and the attacked girl worked at the Unitarian Church, and both were attacked with knives.”

  “Hmmph,” Collins grunted, eyes still on the papers in front of him as he seemingly walked around by radar. “Christine, huh? Is that the only name you know for her?”

  “We weren’t properly introduced. I could find out. Call the Unitarian offices. She might still be there.”

  “We have,” said Collins. “She wasn’t.” Harry nodded, unsurprised. “No problem, though,” Collins continued. “We will call in the morning. Anyone on duty there will know her full name.”

  The black detective looked at Callahan out the corner of his eye. Harry saw it with his own peripheral vision but acted as if he hadn’t. It was an old, tired trick. Always try to put the other person on guard; always act if the other person has something to hide.

  It often worked because almost everybody who walked into a police station without a badge had something to hide. Whether they were reporting a crime, the victim of one, or the perpetrator, everyone had the feeling that the cops wanted to know every single detail of their lives. In actuality, they were probably right.

  Harry certainly knew that he was hiding something. He had failed to mention Shanna’s involvement with the girl, Shanna’s shared conversation with the two, or even that Shanna existed. According to his statement, Harry had been just passing by when he saw the two young people go running out of the Unitarian Headquarters.

  It was a calculated gamble. Shanna’s father’s name was Donovan. If Collins was to think Harry had relatives in the city he’d find no directly related Callahans. If Collins found one of the drivers who just missed Harry on Beacon Street, he could prove him as a liar, but that was doubtful. As it stood, only Shanna and Harry knew the truth. And Collins didn’t know about Shanna, and Harry wasn’t talking.

  So Callahan ignored the questioning silence and Collins’ suspicious glance. He saw no reason to bring his relatives into it at this point, especially since the “alleged perpetrator” was in custody. “Where are we going now?” Harry inquired easily.

  “Your wish is my command,” said Collins. “We’re going to pay Tom Morrisson a little visit.”

  The interrogation-detention room was remarkably like all the others Harry had visited in his career. Then again, you could take any room and line every inch of wall space with cork and get the same look. White corkboard was everywhere. Within its pristine confines was a table, a tape recorder, and four chairs. In one of the chairs was an angry Tom Morrisson.

  “You can’t keep me here!” he shouted when they first walked in. “I didn’t do anything.”

  Collins stopped in the doorway and turned to Harry. “They all say that,” he told him with a smile. “They learned it from Dragnet.” The black detective looked back at Morrisson while still standing in the doorway, the reports under his arm. “Well, you’re absolutely right, Mister Morrisson,” Collins answered cheerily. “So we’re just going to have a little chat before we can decide what to do with you.”

  “I want my lawyer,” Tom said.

  “That’s the second line they learn,” Collins cracked to Harry, then fully entered the room. “Do you have a lawyer?” the black man asked.

  Morrisson thought a little bit. “Not by name,” he said.

  Callahan was going to wa
rn Collins about the kid’s lack of eating and sharp temper when he remembered he hadn’t mentioned overhearing their office conversation. But since he was leaning toward the other detective as if to mention something, he spoke up anyway. “He doesn’t have one.”

  “Hmmph,” Collins said as he put down the reports and sat in the chair opposite Morrisson. “Well, of course if you don’t have a lawyer, the court will assign you one, but first we have to get to court. You understand?”

  “I have a lawyer, I have a lawyer!” Tom yelled.

  “Give us his name or number so we can call him,” Collins suggested.

  “Uh . . . uh,” Morrisson answered. “Uh . . . give me a phone book. I’ll look it up.”

  “Sorry,” said Collins, knowing it to be a ploy by which Tom would call up the most appetizing lawyer he could find, then promise him any amount of money to take on his case. It was a time-wasting routine. “No phone books. They were all ripped off.”

  Morrisson fell silent. “I guess we’ll just have to have a talk without a lawyer,” Collins went on. “Now you know all your rights, don’t you, Thomas?”

  “Tell them to me again.”

  “Oh you know them,” Collins countered affably. “I bet you watch Barney Miller every night. Let’s get down to cases, shall we?” The black detective looked over at Harry, who was standing off to the side behind him. “You know who Inspector Callahan is, don’t you?” Collins inquired.

  Harry realized his whole subterfuge could blow up in his face with one wrong word out of Morrisson’s mouth. He looked at the kid with no expression, not wanting to tip his hand. If Tom knew that Harry didn’t want him to say anything about Shanna, he had no doubt she’d be the primary topic of conversation.

  “Yeah,” Morrisson snarled. “He’s a fucking cop.” For one of the few times in his career, Harry didn’t mind being called that. To him, it was better than being called “Shanna’s uncle.”

  “Yes,” Collins agreed with the kid. “He’s a fucking cop who has brought you in on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, resisting arrest, and disturbing the peace. Do you have anything to say to these charges?”