“But this is not the Black Brigade itself!” Buzz persisted. “It’s a splinter group with a more violent agenda, and its aim is to spread revolution in the style of Lenin-terror first and foremost. One of its cornerstones is high school violence. The Black Brigade soldiers don’t know the splinter group exists, it isn’t something Mohammed el Nesr wants spread about.”
“This report is pure supposition, Buzz. If I were to be guided by it, I’d be laughed at,” said Corey.
“And being laughed at is more important than the chance that there’s violence brewing at Taft?” Buzz demanded.
Flushing, Corey had put the sheets down as if they burned. “That is uncalled for! Give me facts and I’ll be happy to believe you, but I won’t act on hunches. Can’t you see it now?” His voice had taken on tones of hysterical drama. “Taft High School parents sue the city of Holloman for discrimination and defamation! Go away, Buzz! Do the job I’ve just given you-nail whoever held up the Fourth National Bank out in the Valley. It’s both tangible and important.”
Unable to do more, Buzz had left it. There was some justice in Corey’s stand; only the thought of a tragedy involving children had spurred him to such effort.
His report went into the Taft High weapons cache file, but on two Thursdays, when Carmine, Abe and Corey met to discuss the cases of the week, Corey had not produced the report, or even mentioned it in passing. It sat in the back of the file, unread.
Tracking down the Fourth National Bank robbers had taken time, but Buzz Genovese was a good detective, albeit inexperienced. The crime had all the earmarks of a funding exercise rather than self-profit, but Corey’s Black Brigade snitches were very young and very junior in the hierarchy, so knew nothing of Mohammed el Nesr’s thinking, and swore it wasn’t the Black Brigade-with complete truth. A $74,000 take would buy a lot of firearms up to and including fully automatic weapons, but if Mohammed was innocent, who else was there with the organization? A question Corey didn’t ask. Buzz went to his splinter group, and, eventually, to an address: 17 Parkinson in the Argyle Avenue district.
At noon on Tuesday, November 26, Buzz, Nick Jefferson and four uniforms entered the house to find two black men watching a Lakers replay on television; neither man was armed, and a rigorous search of every cranny on all three floors revealed no firearms. 17 Parkinson was a three-family house that had been gutted and completely lined with mattresses, every window boarded up. Milo Washington and Durston Parrish clearly lived in it, but Buzz’s snitch, vouched for by Nick, swore that Milo and Durston were the heads of the new splinter group. So where were the caches of weapons?
Posters had been pinned to the mattresses extolling bloodshed, black supremacy, the slaughter of whites, and, many times over, three capital letters: BPP. It was a new acronym to Buzz.
He stared at Milo Washington, a more commanding figure than Durston Parrish. Well over six feet, a good physique, a handsome face, milk coffee skin and hip threads; the eyes, large and an interesting shade of green, regarded him with contempt. He must, Buzz reflected, be feeling an utter fool-watching a Lakers replay!
“What does BPP stand for, Milo?” Buzz asked.
“Black People’s Power,” Milo said proudly, defiantly.
“So that’s it! Who’re you, man?” Nick asked.
“I am the founder and leader.”
“And articulate when you need to be. Where are the guns?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know, Uncle Tom pig?”
A frisson of fear shot down Buzz’s spine; they hadn’t been quiet about raiding 17 Parkinson, thus giving those in the houses nearby time to evacuate before the bullets started humming.
“Something’s wrong,” Buzz said to Nick when the search proved fruitless. “Milo didn’t deny the guns-he’s stupidly articulate, needs time inside having talks with Wesley le Clerc.”
“We’ve got nothing on them,” Nick said. “Watching the Lakers win isn’t a crime, and there were no stashes of any kind.”
“Don’t hold your breath, Milo,” Buzz said to him on the porch, a corner of his mind wondering why the uniforms, clustered around one squad car, looked so upset.
They had all been inside the house when the fracas at Taft High occurred. Two students, two teachers and a riot cop were dead, and another thirty-three were wounded, all but two slightly. Someone on Parkinson had run to the school to alert the kid who led Black People’s Power there; spoiling for action, he gathered his troops, broke out automatics and spare clips from the BPP cache, and set off to bust Milo and Durston free. If the pigs thought they were taking Milo in, they better think again! But one of the BPP kids was a spy, there to tip off the Black Brigade kids when the BPP arsenal surfaced. The BB kids tapped their own cache, and a gun battle developed within the school. Only the intervention of riot police had stopped the hostilities.
Why hadn’t Corey Marshall believed his report? It all hinged on that, thought Buzz, wandering desolately across the courtyard blaming himself-and Corey. He’d
Someone was pacing the courtyard: Carmine Delmonico. His face was grim, nor did Buzz need to ask why he was out here, pacing. Sometimes a man needed to have space and open air.
Carmine saw him and strode over.
“Do you
The two men turned and began to walk together.
“I knew I was right,” Buzz said at last, clenching his fists. “I kept telling Corey there was a splinter group, but he wouldn’t believe me. I didn’t have any facts, just my cop instincts. I was conned too, Carmine, by Corey’s Black Brigade snitches. They talked me into thinking that the Black Brigade wasn’t worried by the formation of Black People’s Power. Whereas the truth is that Milo was making significant inroads into Mohammed’s army, and war was in the wind. The trouble is Mohammed’s ordinary soldiers are not in the picture-I should have seen it, but I didn’t. Jesus!”
Another silence fell, again broken by Buzz Genovese.
“I put in four hours writing that report, busted my ass, but I didn’t have facts to back up my cop instincts. Just little signs-stray remarks, sidelong looks, interrupted whispers-not facts, facts, facts! The Valley bank holdup went down to finance BPP weapons purchases, but tell me why-just tell me why they had to hide the weapons in a school?
“What report, Buzz?”
“The supplementary one I submitted about the Taft High arms cache. Corey closed the case for lack of evidence a month ago-well, I guess you know that. But I knew it wasn’t over. So I watched and listened for another nearly two weeks, then I wrote this second report.” He looked embarrassed. “Sorry, Captain, I didn’t mean to snitch, and Corey was right. There wasn’t a shred of evidence.”
“What do we do about it?” Carmine asked, holding up the second report. He was staring at Commissioner Silvestri and Captain Vasquez, whose faces were carefully neutral.
“If so much as a whisper of this gets out, the media will have a field day. The death of kids in a school is
