Juvenile Delinquent Read online

  “What’s Joe say?” I asked.

  The inspector shrugged. “That he didn’t kill the kid. Nothing more. Wouldn’t give a reason for being at the club room, except that he was supposed to meet Bart Meyers there. Wouldn’t say for what purpose. For that matter, he wouldn’t even admit belonging to the Purple Pelicans, though the police know all about the gang and Joe was wearing the uniform. That’s a purple jacket and purple hat band. Besides, his father let it out and gave us the added information that Joe was vice president. He killed the kid all right. We traced the knife to his old man, who admitted he hadn’t seen it around for some time.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily mean Joe swiped it,” I commented.

  Day snorted. “He’s the only person aside from his dad living in their flat. And his dad didn’t kill Meyers because a dozen witnesses testified he was leaning against the bar in a tavern near his place from the time he got off work at five until we located him there at eleven.”

  “Any fingerprints on the knife?” I asked.

  “It had been wiped clean. By young Brighton, we think.”

  I puffed my cigar silently for a time. Finally I asked, “The police find any evidence of the reefer party?”

  “Not exactly. They found a few home-made reefers in the dead boy’s pocket. Also a heroin kit hidden behind a picture in a hole made by removing a brick from the basement wall. The whole works: syringe, needles, spoon and alcohol lamp, all in a little tin box. But no dope.”

  The heroin kit depressed me. Youngsters Joe Brighton’s age fooling with dynamite for kicks. Flirting with a habit which ninety-nine times out of a hundred eventually leads users to one of three places: a penitentiary, a mental hospital or a morgue.

  “Joe have any needle marks on him?” I asked.

  Warren Day shook his head. “Or the dead boy either. But some of the club members must ride the stuff, or they wouldn’t keep a rig right in the club room.”

  I said, “Did it occur to you this anonymous call may have been timed deliberately so the police would catch Joe on the scene?”

  “It occurred to us,” he admitted.

  “Yet presumably it came about the time of the murder.”

  “We’re aware of it, Moon. We’re not exactly dunces down here.”

  “Doesn’t that smell faintly like a possible frame?” I suggested.

  “Not necessarily. Maybe the girl knew the two boys planned to meet at the club room and have it out, and wanted the police to break it up because she was afraid whichever one was her boy friend would get hurt.”

  “Have what out?”

  “Didn’t I mention the motive we figure?” he asked. “This Bart Meyers was president of the club and Joe was vice president. We think Joe was pushing for president, which is the polite title these juvenile gangs give their leaders.”

  I snorted. “You think a seventeen-year-old kid would kill somebody just to become president of a club?”

  “It isn’t a club,” Day said. “They just call it a club. It’s an organized gang modeled after adult criminal gangs. Adult gang leaders get bumped off by ambitious underlings all the time. Why shouldn’t a juvenile gang leader get bumped occasionally?”

  “Is this just a wild guess, or do you have some evidence of conflict between the two boys?”

  “No actual evidence, but it’s a little more than a wild guess. Call it an informed guess. We rounded up most of the Purple Pelicans last night and grilled them. About fifteen altogether. But we couldn’t even get them to admit they’d ever heard of the gang, let alone that they belonged to it. We’ve had enough experience with these teenage gangs to know how they operate, though. They don’t elect officers; the toughest kid in the gang is president, the second toughest vice president, and so on down the line. The president is expected to be able to whip everybody else in the gang. Any time another member thinks he’s a better man, he can challenge the president. Then they have a fight, and if the challenger wins, he’s the new president. We think young Brighton challenged the Meyers kid and they met by prearrangement to have it out.”

  I said, “You couldn’t even get that theory before a jury without substantiation.”

  Day shrugged. “We’ve got the knife as evidence, plus virtually catching the kid in the act. We don’t need a motive.”

  I said, “The murder weapon strikes me as a little peculiar too. Why would the kid carry a hunting knife when he already had a switch blade?”

  “You should see how some of the other Purple Pelicans were armed when we rounded them up,” Day said sourly. “Half a dozen carried both sheath knives and pocket knives.”

  “But I understand this hunting knife didn’t have a sheath. Kind of awkward to carry a thing like that just stuck under your belt.”

  “Maybe he only carried it when he expected trouble,” the inspector said. “Look, Moon, we thought of all these objections you’re making. We’ve had nearly as much experience in evaluating evidence as most private eyes. Believe me, the kid is guilty.”

  “All right,” I said wearily. “Mind if I talk to him?”

  “I mind, but I don’t see what harm you can do,” Day growled.

  Picking up his phone, he spoke into it and a moment later his chief assistant, Lieutenant Hannegan, stuck his head in the door. The lieutenant didn’t say anything, because he rarely does, merely raising his eyebrows inquiringly.

  “Moon wants to see young Brighton,” Day said curtly. “Give him ten minutes.”

  Hannegan just nodded.

  3

  JOE BRIGHTON was stretched out on the dropdown canvas bunk of his single cell, but he couldn’t have been very comfortable. The detention cell bunks are only six feet long, so four inches of him hung over.

  When Hannegan unlocked the door, Joe pushed himself to a seated position, swung his oversized feet to the floor and self-consciously smoothed back his theatrically long hair. Hannegan locked the door behind me and moved away down the hall.

  Joe had outgrown the habit of calling me Uncle Manny, but after knowing me most of his life, apparently he couldn’t quite bring himself to call me Mr. Moon. At the same time he seemed to feel I was too adult for the logical compromise of plain Manny, with the result that he hadn’t called me anything for more than a year.

  Now he simply said, “Hi.”

  “How are you, Joe? Your dad asked me to look in and steer you through this. Arrange for a lawyer and so on.”

  “Yeah?” he asked.

  He didn’t smile, but his attitude wasn’t particularly unfriendly either. His long, big-featured face was merely warily morose. He rested gangling arms on his bony knees and let his hands dangle downward limply. They were big hands, knobby and powerful. I could see how his gang might nickname him Knuckles.

  “What’s the pitch?” I asked. “You actually knife this kid?”

  He looked disdainful. “The blueshirts are way out in left field. Why would I use a knife on Bart Meyers? I could whip him with one hand.”

  “Who did knife him then?”

  Joe merely shrugged.

  “Better tell me the whole story,” I suggested.

  While he considered me estimatingly, I said a little sharply, “Stop looking at me like I was a cop. I’m here to help you, and I’m only allowed ten minutes. You want to take this rap sitting down, or you want to give me something to work on so I’ll have at least an outside chance to prove your innocence? If you are innocent.”

  “I’m not looking at you like you’re a cop,” he said defensively.

  “You’re sure as the devil not looking at me like I’m your foster uncle. You want my help, or don’t you?”

  “What can you do?” he asked. “The blueshirts have got this rigged.”

  “The police don’t rig murders,” I said. “If it was rigged, the real killer rigged it. Probably one of your Purple Pelicans.”

  “Them? Naw. Nobody in the club would do a thing like that.”

  “How many in your club?”

  When he gave me
that estimating look again, I said in an exasperated tone, “For cripes sake, kid, you’re on your way to at least a life sentence, and maybe the gas chamber, for a crime you claim you didn’t commit. You don’t owe any fake loyalty to anybody. Anyway, I’m not a cop and I’m not going to blab your club secrets to anybody. My sole interest is to do what I can for you because your father’s a friend of mine. Now open up. How many members in the Purple Pelicans?”

  He brushed his hand over his hair again, hesitated a moment, then said reluctantly, “Around sixty.”

  The figure surprised me. Warren Day had said the police had managed to round up fifteen members for questioning, and had implied that was most of the gang. Apparently the police had underestimated its size considerably.

  “Sixty,” I said. “All of them such staunch friends they wouldn’t dream of framing you?”

  Joe reddened a little. “We don’t pull stunts like that on each other,” he muttered.

  “Then what’s your theory?”

  “The Gravediggers, probably. A club down the other side of Lucas. The boys will take care of it.”

  “You mean go down and knock off their president in revenge? And frame the Gravediggers’ vice president? That’ll be cozy. The two of you can hold hands in the gas chamber.”

  He popped his knuckles nervously. “Well, cripes, what can I do, Uncle Manny?”

  His calling me Uncle Manny for the first time in over a year told me what his real mental state was beneath his surface indifference. Warren Day had classified him as one of the toughest nuts he had seen in a long time, and probably the kid’s sullen attitude and refusal to talk had justifiably given the police that impression. But beneath his veneer of toughness I could see he was just a scared youngster, eager for adult help out of his jam, but ashamed to show he wasn’t self-sufficient.

  In a little softer voice I said, “Just spill everything you know or suspect, Joe. Start with how you happened to be alone with Meyers at the club room last night.”

  “That’ll only make it sound worse,” he said miserably.

  “Spill anyway.”

  He looked at me a long time before responding. Then he shrugged hopelessly. “I gave Bart a challenge. A lot of the guys thought I should be president. It’s been building up all year. We were supposed to meet at the club room at ten o’clock and go somewhere to have it out. That’s why none of the other guys was around. They knew it was coming off and stayed clear. But when I got there Bart was dead.”

  “You say you were going somewhere to have it out? You weren’t going to fight at the club room?”

  “Naw. We don’t allow fights there. Bart and me just fixed to meet there.”

  “Where were you going?” I asked.

  His bony shoulders lifted in a shrug. “Behind the car barns, maybe. Or some vacant lot. We’d of decided that after we met.”

  “When a fight for the presidency takes place, are there certain rules?”

  “Sure,” Joe said. “You can’t use nothing but your hands. That’s how the guys would know this was a bum rap. They know I wouldn’t use a knife and they know we wouldn’t fight in the club room. Besides, Bart had on his jacket.”

  When I only looked puzzled at this, he explained. “Our jackets cost fourteen bucks apiece. We don’t even wear them on a rumble. Nobody in the club would fight without taking his jacket off first.”

  I asked, “If the Gravediggers framed you, how’d they know you planned to meet Bart last night?”

  “Everybody knew. The Purple Pelicans wouldn’t spread it around, but the auxiliary knew all about it too, and some of them pal around a little with members of the Gravediggers’ auxiliary.”

  “What are these auxiliaries?” I asked. “The club members’ girl friends?”

  “Yeah. Only they have to be taken in.”

  I took this to mean the girl friend of a member didn’t automatically become an auxiliary member, but had to be approved by either the club or the other auxiliary members, or perhaps both.

  “So you’re reasonably certain the Gravediggers knew of your planned meeting with Bart, then?”

  “Sure. That stuff gets around fast.”

  “How would they get at that knife your dad owned?”

  He laughed a little sardonically. “Our flat hasn’t been locked in years. What’s there to steal except a lot of empty whisky bottles?”

  “The police say some girl phoned in anonymously at a quarter of ten to report a reefer party was going in at the club room. Which is why the cops happened to arrive just when they did. Any idea who the girl would be?”

  His face darkened angrily. “First I heard that,” he said. “Probably some gal in the Gravediggers’ auxiliary.”

  “The cops think maybe it was either your girl friend or Bart Meyer’s trying to prevent the fight because she was afraid one of you’d get hurt.”

  “How’d the cops find out about the fight?” he asked in astonishment.

  “They didn’t. They’re only guessing. You think it could have been either your girl or Bart’s?”

  He shook his head decisively.

  “Give me their names anyway,” I suggested.

  “Bart’s girl friend was Stella Quint over on Sixth. I don’t know the exact address.”

  “How about yours?”

  After the slightest hesitation he said, “I haven’t got one.”

  I suspected he was being gallant about involving his girl, but before I could follow up, Hannegan appeared outside the cell and attracted my attention by banging his keys against the bars. When I looked at him, he pointed at his watch.

  “Don’t be so G.I.,” I said. “Give me another minute.”

  “Kid’s got another visitor,” the lieutenant said stolidly.

  “All right. Just one more question then. Joe, who do I see in the club to steer me around down in that neighborhood?”

  He looked thoughtful, glanced at Hannegan, then asked, “Got a pencil and paper?”

  I gave him my pocket notebook and a mechanical pencil. I stood beside him, watching as he laid the notebook on his knee and wrote : Stub Carlson, 722 Vernon.

  Below this he wrote : This guy is Manny Moon, who I’ve told you about. You can level with him about anything and it won’t go no farther.

  He contemplated what he had written, scratched through the no and substituted any above it. I put the notebook and pencil back in my pocket and waited for Hannegan to unlock the door.

  When the lieutenant and I arrived in the lobby together, I discovered the other person waiting to see Joe Brighton was his Aunt Sara. Sara Chesterton looked too young to be anybody’s aunt, and as a matter of fact was still short of thirty, but she was a full-fledged aunt nevertheless. She was the sister of Joe’s dead mother.

  She was also a strikingly pretty woman in a businesslike sort of way. Years back Maggie Brighton, who was something of a matchmaker, had tried to brew a match between Sara and me. But it didn’t take. While the girl always seemed to like me well enough, she showed no indication of swooning in my presence. And she was a bit too briskly self-sufficient for my taste.

  Sara Chesterton was a caseworker for the Division of Public Welfare, and years of dealing with relief clients had given her an impersonal and businesslike manner which carried over to her social contacts. She was a rather small woman, brunette, with attractive gray eyes and a well-rounded but not too plump figure. She dressed well, was reasonably well informed and seemed to have an amiable disposition. Altogether she seemed to possess enough attributes to make her attractive to most men, but she always gave me the uneasy feeling that I was being interviewed whenever we met. Possibly I wasn’t the only man who got that feeling, because insofar as I knew she’d never been engaged to anyone.

  When she saw me, she rose from the bench where she had been waiting, came over and thrust out her hand like a man. “How are you, Manny? Haven’t seen you for ages. What have you been doing?”

  “Hello, Sara,” I said. “Working, sleeping, eating. Drinkin
g a little occasionally.”

  “I’ll bet a little. Married to that Fausta girl yet?”

  She meant Fausta Moreni, blonde proprietress of El Patio night club, with whom I’ve carried on a sporadic and volatile romance for some years.

  “Hardly,” I said. “We’re just friends.”

  “You ought to get married, Manny. You’re past thirty now, aren’t you?”

  I grinned at her. “This is me, your old boy friend Manny Moon, Sara. Not one of your relief clients.”

  When she had the grace to look a little guilty, I said, “I gave up all thoughts of marriage when you tossed me over for a career.”

  “Phooey. Maggie practically threw me at your head, and you never even noticed me.” Then her responsive grin faded. “You been in to see Joe?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How’s he taking it?”

  “Pretty well.”

  “What’ll they do to him, Manny?”

  “Prison, probably, if he’s convicted. He’s a little young for the gas chamber. He claims he didn’t kill that kid.”

  “Oh?” She looked dubious. “I understood he was practically caught in the act.”

  “He thinks he was framed by some teenage club his club has rumbles with. I’m going to poke around down there and see what I can turn up.”

  Again she emitted an inquiring, “Oh?” Then her expression turned reflective. “Want a guide, Manny? That’s my relief district, you know, and I know the area pretty intimately.”

  “I hate to bother you,” I said.

  “Bother? Joe’s my real nephew, not just a foster nephew. And I’ll bet you’re doing this poking around on the house. My saturated brother-in-law certainly hasn’t paid you any retainer, has he?”