Bernie shook his son’s shoulder and Boom-Boom said, ‘‘It’s my cousin, Tori, Officer Mallory. Victoria. She-my uncle Tomas-after lunch we heard him say he was going to kill Tony because of Wujek Tomas losing his job and he thought it was Tony’s fault, except he also blamed it on the ni-Negroes-so Victoria took off for the park here to warn Uncle Tony and she didn’t come home and we saw it on TV, the fight, and I told my dad and he said we should come here and try to find her, or anyway, find Uncle Tony, and then Dad and I, we saw you, and maybe you know, like, is she okay?’’
Bobby Mallory rubbed his sunburnt forehead. ‘‘Vicki came here? God damn it, who let her do such a stupid dangerous thing?’’
‘‘She took off, sir, and my ma, she had ahold of me, so I couldn’t follow.’’
‘‘Which is the only good news of the day,’’ Bernie Warshawski said. ‘‘Otherwise we’d be looking for both of you. We saw where Tori chained up her bike at the Seventy-first and Stony bus-’’
He caught sight of the body under the shrub. ‘‘But-that’s Tomas. Marie’s brother! What happened to him? He come with the St. Czeslaw crowd and pass out?’’
He moved over to kneel next to Tomas. ‘‘Come on, man, get up. You’ve had your fun, now get on your feet-’’
Bernie dropped the shoulder in horror: Tomas was never going to get up again. When Boom-Boom started to join his father at his uncle’s body, Bobby grabbed him and pulled him back.
‘‘We gotta get a meat wagon for this guy. Bernie, give his name and particulars to one of the officers here while I get on the squawk box in the squad car. And let’s see if you recognize our helpful witness… Lionel!’’
One of the uniformed men limped forward. Bobby introduced him to Bernie Warshawski, but when they went to look for the man in the Hawaiian shirt who claimed to have seen Tomas’s assailant, he had disappeared. Just like a damned civilian-don’t get involved! Or maybe he didn’t want to have to explain what he’d been doing in the park all afternoon. Maybe he’d thrown the brick that hit Martin Luther King hard enough to knock him to the ground. Jesus! They’d been lucky King hadn’t needed medical help.
Bobby used the squad car radio to summon a detective. When a man arrived to look after Tomas Wojcek’s body and to organize a search of the grass around him, he turned his own aching body and numbed mind to the task of finding Tony Warshawski.
This morning he wouldn’t have taken an overheard death threat against a cop seriously, but that was beforesomeone had bounced a rock off his own riot helmet and squirted a can of Coke into the eyes of one of the men in his detail. If Tomas Wojcek thought he could use the cover of the Marquette Park massacre to kill Tony-but had Tony, the most peaceable man on the force, whacked Tomas in the head hard enough to kill him? Bobby couldn’t picture it, unless Tony’d become as crazed by the heat and the ugliness of the mob as the rest of the cops in the park.
He got into the squad car Bernie and Boom-Boom arrived in and directed the driver to do a sweep of the park. Using the car loudspeaker, he kept calling Tony’s name, or calling out to clumps of cops as he passed to see if any of them had seen Warshawski. At Homan he was directed to the north end of the park, where Bobby finally ran Tony to earth. He was pushing a last bunch of rioters into the back of a paddy wagon when Mallory and Bernie went over to him.
Tony Warshawski was a big man, close to six-four. Like everyone else today, his face was red up to the circle cut into his forehead by the riot helmet he’d worn all day: above it, his skin looked almost dead white, but when Bobby and Bernie explained the situation to him, his whole face turned ashen beneath its burn.
‘‘Victoria? She came into this war zone hunting for me? Oh, my God, where is she? Bobby, I need a squad, I need to find her. How can I face Gabriella?’’
‘‘Tony, I’ll look. You’re too tired.’’ Bernie put an arm around his brother’s shoulders. ‘‘You get home, stay with Gabriella. She’s just about out of her mind, worrying about you and Tori both. And Marie, oh, my God, what a day-Tomas is dead, someone killed him over on the other side of the park. How will I tell her that? Boom-Boom, did your cousin say anything that-Boom-Boom? Bernard! Bernard Warshawski, come back here this minute! Now!’’
The three men looked around. Twilight was settling in; it was hard to see more than fifteen or twenty feet, and Boom-Boom had faded into the shrubbery around the lagoon.
IV
As soon as his dad was occupied with Uncle Tony, Boom-Boom slipped off into the park. If Tori was still here, she’d be hunting for Tony. If she’d left for home, well, then she was safe, and he, Boom-Boom, could find out what was so mysterious about Wujek Tomas’s death. Tomas was his least favorite uncle, mean-spirited, prone to pinching Boom-Boom or Victoria so hard that he left bruises on their arms or bottoms, but it was still unsettling to see him like that, dead under a bush. And Mama! She would cry like the world was coming to an end. And somehow blame Victoria for it.
When Bernie had come home from his afternoon shift at the plant and Boom-Boom told him what had happened, Marie said, ‘‘Headstrong, how Gabriella spoils her. No daughter of mine would run off like that, not even a thank-you for lunch. No manners, of course, Italian, a Jew, they don’t know manners.’’
She hadn’t wanted Bernie to drive over to the park-they’d all seen the reports on television, the violence, white people fighting the police-but Gabriella had telephoned, asking for Victoria to come home; Marie had been forced to say that she’d run off.
Gabriella arrived two minutes later, still in the silk print dress she wore to give lessons, her dark eyes two large coals in her pale face. She had looked Marie in the eye, spat, and turned on her heel. She announced that she was leaving for Marquette Park at once, but of course, Bernie told her to stay home, that he’d drive to the park and find Tony and Victoria.
Boom-Boom headed for the center of the park, away from the knots of cops who still lingered, keeping out sightseers, or waiting for working squad cars to arrive if their own had been disabled. Many of the men were lying on the grass, helmets at their sides. Others were using their riot helmets as canteens, filling them at the fire hydrants and pouring the water over their sweaty bodies.
At the lagoons that ringed the interior of the park, Boom-Boom was startled to see how many cars had been pushed into the water. Some had been rolled in so they were upside down. He tried to guess how many men it would take to roll a car over and over like that. He wondered if the guys he played hockey with could do it.
As he continued east, toward the park entrance on Sacramento-since that’s where his cousin would have entered the park-he came on a white convertible whose front end was submerged, leaving the back sticking up in the air, almost. That looked like Wujek Tomas’s car. His body was over near Seventy-first Street. This didn’t make sense. If he’d been driving, he’d have drowned in the car. Why was the car here and Tomas half a mile away?
Boom-Boom stood next to the Wildcat, trying to decide if it was his uncle’s. He didn’t know the license plate number, but there was a little red scratch near the bottom of the driver’s door. If he could get into the water, he might be able to see it.
He was starting to untie his sneakers when a thumping from inside the trunk startled him. ‘‘If that’s your ghost, Wujek, don’t worry: I’m not here to hurt your car,’’ he called loudly to cover a moment’s fright.
‘‘Boom-Boom?’’
It was his cousin’s voice, faint, tremulous.
‘‘Tori! What are you doing in the trunk?’’
‘‘He put me there. Get me out, get me out before I die.’’
‘‘Hang on, I’ve got to get the trunk open. Don’t go anywhere, I need to find some way to smash the lock.’’