by Pascal Marco
Stick glared at Murphy. He hoped James hadn’t heard the youth officer’s derogatory remark.
“Boy’s sharp, though. He’s had a rock-solid alibi on every single collar,” Murphy continued. “Mays and LeDonne over in Gang Crimes South have been watching him real close recently. They haven’t been able to put him away on anything yet. If this is your bat boy then his luck may have changed with your boy James’s ID here.”
“Knock off the boy stuff, okay, Murph.”
Murphy shook his head and continued reading from the papers in Clarke’s folder. “He’s got an older cousin, Julius Clarke. Runs the P-Stones out of the Olander Projects. He’s one bad dude that Julius. Looks like little cuz might be following in the family tradition.”
“Maybe Julius was the sixth kid you saw?” Stick asked James.
“No, sir. It wasn’t Julius,” James replied. “He don’t run with those boys.”
“Your boy’s right there, Stickaroo. According to Gang Crimes, Julius runs with the older P-Stone Rangers. He’s too big-time for these little shithead Oakwood Rangers. They’re just punks who report to the Nation,” Murphy added.
The P-Stone Rangers, originally formed as the Blackstone Rangers, had united scores of Chicago street gangs in organized violence, later renaming themselves the Black P-Stone Nation. Their members wreaked havoc everywhere in Chicago, and Gang Crimes believed they controlled many smaller, subset gangs, like the Oakwood contingent. According to Murphy’s statement, the attack of Manny Fleischman seemed to prove that theory.
“Let’s see if James can ID the other four boys then,” Stick said.
Stick led James to a table with dozens of three-inch binders lined up between two large bookends. Each binder was sorted with a gang affiliation and the respective precinct within Area 1. Murphy pulled one out labeled rangers—district 21, opened it, and pushed it in front of the young witness. The binder, stuffed with plastic sheets of mug shots exhibiting juveniles with YD numbers in The Prairie, overflowed. As James leafed through the pages, Murphy also pulled out some Polaroids from a separate folder on the table.
“These are some recent snapshots we have of aspiring up-and-comers we think are ready to make the leap into more heinous crimes on the sous-side of Chicago, James ol’ boy.”
Stick once again let Murphy’s last comment slide then watched as Murphy laid out the Polaroid snapshots, one by one. As Stick looked on, James slowly scanned each photo placed in front of him.
“If you see this sixth kid you didn’t recognize from the gang, too, you’ll let me know right, James?” Stick reminded his eyewitness.
James didn’t speak but nodded his answer without looking up from the Polaroids. Eventually he picked out the four other boys who had attacked Fleischman, pointing at them with a short nod and quick finger tap on the photo as he recognized each of them. Murphy set the photos aside as he did. When finished, James still hadn’t identified the sixth boy.
“You’re sure you don’t see this sixth kid in any of these pictures?” Stick asked him again.
James shook his head no again. “Maybe he ain’t got no police record or nothin’. Huh?”
Stick wondered if the boy’s question sounded more hopeful than curious.
Murphy jumped in, “Your boy could be right there, Stickaroo. First offenders usually get community adjusted, sent home to their parents with a warning to not let us see their sorry little asses again. We give these losers two chances at community adjustment. If they screw up after that, then it’s strike three and we arrest them. That’s when we give ’em their very own YD number and they get to have their pretty little pictures taken. Maybe this sixth kid just hasn’t posed for us yet.”
Murphy went over to a desk and leafed through a handful of manila folders. As he found the Youth Division reports for each of the additional four boys James had IDed, Murphy read aloud from each of their rap sheets.
“Looks like all four have been involved in mostly small stuff. A little schoolyard and street corner extortion, a few collars for B and E on vacant buildings.” Murphy stopped and pointed at two pictures on the table. “These two here are Bertrand Rhodes and Bobby DeSadier. Their street names are ‘Jumbo’ and ‘Bobby D.’ “He opened another folder. “And this one’s name is Tyrone Witherspoon. They call him ‘Stretch.’ Seems he’s a shadow of your batboy, Pick. Same exact collars, same time, and same outcome. Nothing stuck.”
He paused on the next folder, reading it silently first to himself, and then continued aloud, shaking his head, right before he threw a large photo on the table of a boy with a patch over one eye. He tapped on it hard.
“’Course, every cop in Area 1 Youth Division and Gang Crimes South knows this little prick. His name’s Porter Turner. He a real beaut, too. Street name’s ‘Pokie.’ Wanna know how he got that cute little nickname? A classmate accidentally hit him in the eye once at school, so he returned the favor by poking the other kid’s eye out with a ballpoint pen during recess. He was eight years old. Mean little bastard. Other kid didn’t press charges. What a surprise.”
“I think we got enough here for probable cause so I’ll put out a stop order on these kids,” Stick said as he scribbled in his notebook. Turning to James, Stick asked, “If we brought all five of these boys in for a lineup, do you think you could positively ID all of them?”
James nodded yes. “Can I go home now?”
“Sure, son,” Stick replied, motioning him toward the door. “See ya later, Murph. Oh, and by the way, I’ll make sure I tell Timbo you said to say hello to my fat partner.”
As Stick and James approached the doors leading back to the hallway, Stick bent down and whispered into the boy’s ear. Hand on the doorknob, they both then shouted in unison, “Go, Sox!”
When they returned back down to the detective’s office, Timbo had the phone to his ear.
“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” He hung up as Stick and James walked up behind him.
“Edward Seamus,” Timbo said in a lilting voice. A routine they played throughout their partnership, each called the other by their full baptismal names when something surprising, or official, or both, had developed in one of their cases.
Playing along, as always, Stick answered, “Yes, Timothy Joseph.”
“Lieutenant LaFrance wants us to find these perps pronto and he wants a murder-one collar. City Hall’s all over this one. Seems like this Fleischman guy was kinda famous.”
“Whadya mean, ‘kinda famous’?”
“Well, Stick. You better sit down ‘cause you’re just not gonna believe this.”
Stick gave his partner an impatient look. He had no time for Timbo’s little guessing games. “What, Timbo? Spit it out.”
“Okay. Okay. You remember the Black Sox, don’t you? Of course you do. Well, it seems that Manny Fleischman was the last surviving member of that team. So, I mean, he’s kinda famous, in a sad sorta way, that is, considering it was the only time a World Series was ever thrown—ever, ever, that is.”
As Stick stood with his mouth agape, his face turned ashen, not able to reply to his partner’s news. What concerned the lead detective more, though, was what effect this news would have upon his eyewitness. He looked over at James who stared at him, eyes widened.
Timbo went on. “Seems the media got wind of this little known fact—a sports reporter from WGN radio just broke it—and now City Hall has it. So downtown is all over LaFrance’s ass.” Timbo motioned with his head toward their superior’s corner office. “That was him on the blower. Looks like we got ourselves a heater here, pardner. They want these little bastards found and locked-up yesterday.”
Stunned, Stick shook his head. He’d been a cop a long time and the remarkable unfolding of new developments in the attack of Manny Fleischman made his head spin, wondering what surprising discovery might come next in this murder investigation. He turned to the boy. “Let’s go, James. Maybe it’s a good idea to take you home now.”
CHAPTER 14
When Stick Hanle
y drove up to the Overstreet apartment at 3938 South Ellis, James politely asked, “Wouldja like to come inside my house?”
“Some other time, James. I have a lot to do right now. We really need to find these kids—and fast.”
“Okay. Yeah. I guess you’re right.” After a pause, James spoke again. “Detective Hanley, I didn’t know baseball had an all-black team. Is that why people like Detective Boscorelli didn’t like them?”
Hanley, staring off in thought, paused a moment until he caught the significance of the boy’s innocent question.
“No, no, James. That’s not what they mean by Black Sox. Actually, the Black Sox were a bunch of white guys long ago who really screwed things up—pretty bad as a matter of fact.”
“What’d they do, kill somebody?”
“They may as well have.” Stick paused, considering the irony in the boy’s question. “No … no … but in a way, it was actually worse than that. They cheated. Then, they lied about it. And then, even worse yet, they tried to cover it up. They did something no baseball team ever did before or since.”
“Did they go to jail?”
“No. No one went to jail. But they received a punishment much worse than jail. They got banned from baseball for life.”
“Sounds pretty bad, but how can that be worse than killin’ someone?” James asked.
“Well, in a way, James, they did kill something.” Stick stared out the large windshield of his four-door Chevrolet Impala sedan. “It just wasn’t a person. They killed a spirit.” He turned his head and looked at James. “It’s a long story, son, and hard to explain. Maybe you’d better have your dad tell you that one.”
“I think I know what you’re talkin’ about,” James said. “I kinda feel the same way about me and Mister Fleischman. I mean that spirit thing you’re talking about.”
“How well did you know Mister Fleischman, son?”
“I used to see him and talk to him in the park every day. Then he got me a job at the place he worked at in Hyde Park, deliverin’ groceries for the rich folks there. He was very good to me. He didn’t treat me different like most white folks do. He taught me about the good things black people do, what some famous ones have done, things people don’t know about or maybe even forgot about. He also told me he was a baseball player. A long time ago. That he played with a guy whose nickname was Shoeless Joe. He told me he was on a White Sox team with him.”
Stick focused now on yet another new fact: his eyewitness intimately knew the victim before the attack. And James’s last statement seemed to confirm this guy Fleischman was actually on the same team as the eight men thrown out of baseball for life from the 1919 White Sox—the infamous Black Sox. What the hell is this kid gonna tell me next?
“Maybe then tomorrow you can come by my house. My brother, William, wants to be a policeman, just like you.”
“Sure, kid. Okay, tomorrow for sure.” Stick knew the likeliness of this happening was slim. But it seemed easier to lie to the boy right now than to tell him the truth. More likely the scenario: Stick would only be back to visit James should he or his family decide they didn’t want to cooperate with the investigation after having another night to sleep on the prospect of what lay ahead of them by testifying against a local gang. It was most probable Stick wouldn’t be back in his own bed, for that matter, for at least the next twenty-four hours, possibly even longer. Heater cases had a tendency to keep investigators chained to their jobs until someone got arrested. Stick wouldn’t be sleeping anywhere comfortable, he guessed, for at least the next few nights.
James exited the tan-colored unmarked police car, slammed the vehicle’s big door shut, and ran off down the gangway toward the brownstone’s rear entrance. Stick waited until James took the sharp turn at the end of the brick three flat’s narrow passage. He sat there for a moment, making sure nothing happened to this brave boy, the only eyewitness to the murder of the last surviving member of the 1919 Black Sox team.
He wondered if he should station a blue-and-white at the curb of the Overstreet home. Neither James, nor his parents, had mentioned threats of any kind being made against them, but once the gang found out an eyewitness had come forward—and that was only a matter of time—then the boy and his family’s safety would be in jeopardy. Stick thought of moving the family to a safe haven, as a precautionary measure, but nothing warranted that step right at the moment. And anyway, with James’s positive ID of the five youths, he and Timbo would have these little pricks locked up and off the streets pronto, making his concerns all for naught.
Mayor Daley’s office would bring a lot of heat on the police department now to find these killers. Homicide investigators didn’t like to handle these high-profile cases. It distracted them from the job at hand. And with a twelve-year-old witness, Stick’s job would be even tougher.
What a fuckin’ mess. I hate goddamn heater cases. They’ll never let us sleep on this one. And what if Timbo was right and the Overstreets are in it for the reward money?
He questioned himself as to why he let that last thought of his partner’s cloud his thinking. Yet, Stick couldn’t help but wonder what would make a boy James’s age act in such a courageous manner. Should I really trust James and his family? A kid like James always did what their parents said. It didn’t help that Stick could still hear the anger in Eva Overstreet’s voice, regarding anyone in her family wanting anything to do with helping the police. She had left a clear impression on Stick with her little, threatening squeeze of his forearm, reminding him to keep her son safe—or else.
Suddenly, the words of his own dad, Tom Hanley, preaching to his kids at the dinner table, popped into his mind. “You can’t trust a damn nigger if there’s somethin’ in it for them.” He hated when his cop father had spoken that way, teaching his son not to trust blacks, especially when one turned against another. Stick couldn’t help but feel this kid looked and sounded different from the biased stereotype of blacks his father had instilled in him. His gut told him James spoke the truth. And one sure thing he did learn from his father was that a good cop followed his gut.
But what made James come forward?
Stick continued to ponder this thought as he sat in his Impala cop car at the curb outside the Overstreet apartment. Stick couldn’t deny he liked the boy. And, it didn’t hurt that James was obviously a die-hard White Sox fan—a huge mark in his favor. But didn’t my dad use to say most blacks liked the Sox anyway?
Yet, putting all these thoughts and conjectures aside, Stick couldn’t overlook the fact that getting eyewitnesses to come forward for any type of crime in Bronzeville, let alone a murder, defied explanation. In The Prairie, nearly 100 percent of all crime involved black gangs. Swift and merciless retribution awaited those who decided that their civic duty served a higher purpose than protecting their own skin—even if it was black.
Stick also knew, 100 percent, that James Overstreet’s life would never be the same. From this point forward, the boy would live every day, probably for the rest of his life, looking over his shoulder. Whether these perpetrators would be found guilty—I have an eyewitness, so why wouldn’t they?—or not guilty, James’s future in his neighborhood would be uncertain. So, too, would be that of his entire family. Chicago Homicide Investigator Edward Seamus “Stick” Hanley fully understood this and hoped that James fully understood it, too, even if he was only twelve, and whether he was black or not.
CHAPTER 15
The Chicago Police Department dispatcher had released a citywide bulletin about an hour before Stick Hanley returned back to Area 1 Headquarters at 51st and Wentworth. The boys James identified were well known by most of the Youth Division cops as well as to the guys in Gangs Crimes South, but not to the dicks in Homicide. Since this was a murder investigation now, Fleischman’s name got added to the board on the wall of the Homicide/ Sex/Aggravated Assault Unit’s office, listing the open and cleared homicide cases in Area 1.
The clearance rate of murders in Area 1 was the second lowest in the
city. The brutal summer of 1975 had all of the area’s homicide dicks working ungodly hours on all types of violent crimes but predominantly murders. Most murders involved one black gang member killing another. The workload was overwhelming.
Last year’s city record of nearly a thousand homicides hit the communal psyche of Chicago’s inhabitants hard and by the end of this year, even though declining, the Chicago Police Department had projected there would still be more than eight hundred homicides. Relentless pressure from City Hall had been put on Police Superintendent James M. Rochford to lower this grim statistic. Ward aldermen clamored that murder within their respective borders had become all too commonplace and, hence, unacceptable to the proud city’s image.
The Prairie, the most expansive district in Area 1, had one of Chicago’s highest crime rates since many of the city’s toughest black street gangs called it their home. Identified by Chicago PD as a “maximum patrol area,” it required three times as many patrol cars as compared to any other section in the City of Chicago. On most Saturday nights, emergency rooms at the two hospitals in the district—Mercy and Michael Reese—teemed with victims of beatings, rapes, and gang-related shootings. To the Area 1 Homicide cops working The Prairie, it was considered nothing less than a jungle.
Stick knew the first forty-eight hours after a murder were the most critical in solving the crime, so he promptly delegated investigative tasks. Other departments in Area 1, as well as the district beat cops, would serve an assisting role to him and Timbo. He would need all the help he could muster in quickly rounding up the kids James identified. Now a little over thirty-one hours old, in all likelihood they’d be in hiding with help from elder P. Black-Stone Nation gang members.
On top of that, Stick had on his hands a heater, and “Downtown” wanted someone—anyone—apprehended immediately. He and his partner, Timbo, would work nonstop until they caught and arrested the vicious murderers.
