The door cracked open. A hand stuck out the door and showed three fingers. Three targets in the house besides Fisher’s guy.
Fisher stuck the penlight into the cargo pocket of his fatigue pants. In two steps, he reached the waist-high chain link between the properties. He put his left hand on the top of the fence, braced, and swung his legs up and over, landing without a sound. One step and he was at the door.
Amos Jones waited there, watching Fisher move from the wall to the fence to the door like a damn ghost.
Jones was a career loser and small-time thief. He’d started hanging with the radical black crowd in ’68 at the convention because it was a good way to meet white college chicks who thought screwing black guys absolved their racial guilt. He’d been in the building when Hampton got killed, Hampton half out of his bedroom, shot but not dead, when some cop just popped him right in the head, easy as that. Getting laid didn’t seem like near enough all of a sudden.
The cops had smacked him around pretty good, both on the scene and on the way to the station. At the station, they’d left him cuffed to a bench in some cold-ass cement room for a couple of hours, just in his shorts, cause that’s what he’d had on, not even any socks or nothing.
Then some white guy, guy in a suit and tie, nice looking hat, but lean and with the deepest no-shit eyes Jones had ever seen, walked in the door. He took one look at Jones and then called out into the hall.
“Officer, please uncuff this gentleman and get him some clothes. I’d like to speak with him.”
Ten minutes later, Jones was wearing some jail-issue coveralls, sipping on a cup of coffee, and sitting across the table from this guy. Jones was still pissed. He got this thought, just for a second, toss the coffee in the guy’s face, jump the guy, take his chances.
The guy smiled across the table at him.
“Mr Jones, if you throw that coffee at me, I’m going to kill you with the cup. I’m not going to tell you how and ruin the surprise, but trust me that it will be unpleasant.”
Jones figured he should just drink the coffee, see what the man had to say.
“Mr Jones, let me provide you with a quick philosophical context for our discussion. I have no enmity toward you or your people. I will not abuse your intelligence by trying to convince you that racial enmity played no role in tonight’s proceedings. It did. But it is immaterial to me. I am not a member of the Chicago Police Department or, really, an official appendage of any governmental body, yet I can assure you that I have served this country for nearly thirty years directly at the behest of persons whose power and influence are far beyond your experience. Are we clear so far?”
Jones knew the guy was talking over his head on purpose, trying to make him feel like shit, but he caught the gist of it. Jones nodded.
“Good. I also believe that, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, this nation represents that last best hope of mankind. I will do anything necessary to preserve that hope. I believe that Mr Hampton was an honorable man. He believed what he said and fought for what he believed in. But, quite simply, he was on the wrong side of history. His insistence on an adversarial approach to the resolution of racial issues at a time when that approach provided aid and comfort to our Communist enemies amounted, in essence, to treason. And so he was dealt with as a traitor.”
“Bullshit,” said Jones. The guy stopped and looked at him, waiting. Jones couldn’t think of what else he wanted to say.
“As difficult as it may be to rebut that well-reasoned argument, Mr Jones, allow me to continue. You are, of course, free to disagree, this being America and your rights being of such paramount concern to me.” The guy stopping for a second to give Jones this cold smile just in case Jones didn’t know bullshit when he heard it. “As I said, I considered Mr Hampton to be an honorable adversary. I do not extend that opinion to you. You, sir, are not an honorable man. You associated yourself with Mr Hampton for the social cachet attached to the movement. You found that being a revolutionary afforded you a degree of respect not attendant to your former activities as a thief and small-time criminal.”
Jones put up his hand and opened his mouth as if to interrupt, and the white guy stopped, raising his eyebrows. But Jones could think of nothing to say.
“Yes, quite,” said the white guy. “As I was saying, you attached yourself to the movement not out of any real sense of injustice or commitment but simply for your personal benefit. What I am now going to propose, Mr Jones, is that you act again for your personal benefit.”
The white guy stopped and looked at Jones expectantly. Jones was pissed, this guy basically calling him a Tom. Jones wanted to scream, get pissed. Mostly he wanted the guy to be wrong. But Jones knew he wasn’t.
“I’m listening,” said Jones.
“Excellent, Mr Jones. No tantrums, no half-hearted protestations of bravery or character. Straight to business. You show a very clear grasp of your circumstances. Let’s consider them in particular. At this moment, you have two options. I can wash my hands of your situation and return you to the kind ministrations of the gentlemen who brought you in here. I don’t believe they will kill you in custody, as this evening’s events have created sufficient concerns of a legal nature, but I do believe they will conduct a rather energetic interrogation, which will eventually compel you to confess to some charge along the lines of attempted murder of a police officer, as it is important to the officers just now that someone go on record as having shot at them first. You’ll spend what will likely be a very short life in prison. Does this align with your perspective?”
The man stopped again, the same expectant look, like he actually wanted to hear what Jones had to say. Jones nodded.
“Then our opinions of your situation coincide. Your second option is this. You walk out of here now, with me. You will be released back into the wild, as it were, as a hero, the only man to escape the ambush of Fred Hampton, the only witness who can bear the truth to his brothers. No one else will believe you, of course, because the police will swear you were never present. But amongst those of your race, you will be a new hero. You will use the status this grants you to ingratiate yourself to other radicals in the city. From time to time, I will reach out to you, and you will inform me as to their activities and their intentions. In exchange, I will ensure that you do not become a target of Chicago’s finest and that you live in a style you had not heretofore imagined possible. What say you?”
Jones thought about it. Sell out himself and his brothers for a get out of jail free card and a pile of cash. But the fact was, he’d been selling out himself and his brothers for a couple of years just for the occasional piece of pussy. Figured with the new rep and the new dough, he’d still get the pussy.
“Guess I say yes,” said Jones.
When Fisher got to the door, he saw that Jones had remembered his instructions. Jones held one finger to his head and pointed to the room in the southwest corner. Simba was in the back room, alone. Jones held two fingers to his chest and pointed to the room in the front of the building. Two more were up front. And then he pointed to the corner of the small foyer inside the back door. The black Converse All-Stars Jones had worn to Lynch’s house earlier, and to Stefanski’s house before that, were on the floor. Fisher nodded and then tilted his head toward the open door. Time for Jones to go.
Fisher stepped aside to let Jones pass. As Jones cleared his right shoulder, Fisher’s right arm flashed around Jones’ neck and his left hand clamped to his own right wrist. Fisher tightened the bones in his arm against Jones’ throat, squeezing the ceratoid artery, choking off the blood to Jones’ brain. He held the position until Jones passed out then slowly slid Jones to the floor. He pulled the Walther out of the holster, got Jones’ prints on it, put it back. He picked up one of the All-Stars and dropped it outside the door. He wanted to make sure at least one of the shoes was found in good shape.