John Ball: Johnny Get Your Gun

“If kidnappers were looking for a child to seize and hold for ransom, I doubt if they would choose one who was wearing a worn-out jacket.” He could have supplied a much better reason, but he was not ready yet to disclose all that he had learned at the Hotchkiss house.

The phone rang, loudly because it was installed in the kitchen. Mike scooped it up quickly and made the word “Hello?” into a question.

“Mr. McGuire?”

“Yes, Mike McGuire speaking. Go on.”

“This is Ralph Hotchkiss, Mr. McGuire, Billy’s father. I’ve just been given your number by the police department.”

“I don’t want to talk about the accident now.”

“Very well, but I just wanted to tell you how very sorry Billy is for what he did. If your son is there, Billy would like to talk to him.”

“He ain’t come home. We’re worried about him.”

Hotchkiss was very guarded. “Have you spoken to the police?”

“One of ’em is here now.”

“Good. If I learn anything at all, I’ll call you. Good night, Mr. McGuire.”

As he hung up the instrument growing suspicion began to take over in the forefront of Mike’s mind. He did not see his wife as she reappeared in the doorway holding a snapshot in her hand, instead he stared straight ahead while he allowed the cancer of distrust to nourish itself and grow. His jaw muscles began to work and his eyes grew hard. “I think that guy knows somethin’!” he exploded. His voice echoed back from the hard walls. He turned toward Tibbs as though expecting him to do something at once.

“Mr. McGuire,” Virgil asked, “do you own a gun?”

“Yes, I’ve got a gun-what of it?”

“What kind of a gun?”

“A Colt thirty-eight. Why?”

Tibbs ignored the question. “Do you customarily keep it loaded?”

“What the hell good is a gun if it ain’t loaded? I’ve got a right to have it, the Constitution says so. Don’t you give me no argument on that!”

There was a moment of thick silence.

“You have the legal right to own a gun,” Tibbs said. “You’re asked to register it for your own protection, but you’re not required even to do that.”

“Then what’s the gripe?”

“I didn’t say that there was a gripe. Mr. McGuire, have you ever allowed your son to handle your gun?”

“Sure every kid should know how to handle a gun. He might have to protect his ma sometime when I’m not here.”

“He knows, then, where you keep it?”

“Of course he does.”

Virgil rose to his feet, automatically Mike did the same. That brought them face-to-face and Mike, to his surprise, read power and authority in the dark eyes opposite his.

“I’d like to see your gun, Mr. McGuire. Immediately, if you please.”

Mike sensed that he would have to comply. He walked firmly past his wife, out of the kitchen, and across the small living room in his role as master of the house. He paused in front of a narrow linen closet and opened the door. A moment later he turned around to find that Tibbs was behind him and waiting.

“It’s gone,” Mike said.

This time Virgil Tibbs did not wait to ask if he could use the telephone, he returned to the kitchen, picked it up without ceremony, and dialed the headquarters number.

“Tibbs at the McGuire home,” he reported in. “The boy, Johnny, has not come home. Almost certainly he has his father’s loaded handgun with him and he knows how to use it.”

“Good God!” the desk sergeant responded. “It’s true.”

“Right. You’d better call the Hotchkiss home immediately and tell Barry Rothberg the score. Then set up a stakeout to cover the exterior. The boy may still come home on his own, I hope to heaven that he does, but we can’t bank on it. Also run the full missing child routine-hospitals and all the rest. I’ll be here for a few more minutes.”

He hung up, turned, and found the McGuires where they had been standing, listening, behind him. “I don’t want to upset you,” he told them, “but this could develop into a very serious situation. I’m hoping that Johnny will come home by himself. If he does, I suggest that you treat him with an extra measure of consideration and love, because he will be needing it.”

Maggie began softly to cry.

“I think you had both better sit down,” Virgil advised. “I have some things to tell you.”

The belligerency drained out of him for the moment, Mike did as directed. Maggie, her shoulders shaking, followed suit.

In quiet, calm tones Tibbs told them what had happened in the schoolyard and of Johnny’s violent reaction. Then he carefully repeated Ralph Hotchkiss’s offer to replace the smashed radio set at once.

Mike pondered the matter. “If this Hotchkiss will buy him a new radio, with a battery and everything, then I guess it’s all right. But it was plain dirty what his kid did to Johnny, and I can’t blame Johnny for getting damn mad. That smart-alec kid of Hotchkiss’s needs a good whipping and maybe someday Johnny’ll give it to him.” As he spoke the last words the first dawn of comprehension began to show on his face. “My gun,” he said, forming the words mechanically, “he took my gun.”

Grimly Virgil nodded. “Yes, Mr. McGuire, he has your gun. I think he means to use it and the Hotchkiss family is very frightened.”

“Oh, my God, no!”

Maggie flung her hands over her face and bent over the table, her body shaking with sobs. Mike got up quickly and put his arm around her, to comfort her and to hide his own acute embarrassment. After the single, shattering outburst Maggie calmed down and began to sob; she had no handkerchief so Mike tore off a paper towel and handed it to her. Tibbs remained silent; when the paper towel had been used and pushed away he reached into his own pocket and produced a clean linen handkerchief which he offered to her.

She hesitated a second, then took it, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose. That finished she looked up at Tibbs. “What can we do?” she asked.

“First of all, stay here and wait for your boy to come home. If he does, tell him you’ve been worried, but don’t upbraid him. Give him his dinner, make him glad that he came home, then please call me right away. If I’m not there, talk to the man who answers the phone.” He laid a calling card on the table.

Mike indicated that they would do as directed. The realization of what might possibly happen was clear in his mind and he was very much sobered.

“Before I go, I’d like to have a little more information,” Virgil said. “It could help us to find your son sooner.”

“That’s all right,” Mike responded.

“I take it that Johnny liked his radio very much.”

“It was his birthday present, he listens to it all the time. He’s nuts about the Angels baseball team and he hears all the games when he ain’t in school.”

“Does he follow the Dodgers too?”

“No, he don’t like the Dodgers, just the Angels. The Dodgers, they don’t play on TV. Mostly he likes the Angels because of Gene Autry. You know about him?”

“Everybody knows about Gene Autry,” Virgil answered. He stressed the first word just a little, he could not help it.

“Well, Johnny met him once. Just a quick handshake, but it was a big thing for him. Autry called him his pal and Johnny never forgot it. That was back home. Now Johnny wants to be a ball player so he can be on his team-Autry’s I mean.”

“Someday soon it might be a good idea to take him to a game,” Tibbs suggested.

Mike was unaware of the hidden question in that simple-sounding sentence, he only knew that he felt obliged to say something in response. “I was planning to do that, but then somethin’ came up….”