53 Frumious Bandersnatch by Ed McBain

Author:Ed McBain
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction, Police Procedural, Mystery & Detective, General
ISBN: 9780743253888
Publisher: Orion
Published: 2003-09-01T04:00:00+00:00

7

THERE WERE MARCHERSoutside the Rio Building when Carella got there on Monday morning at eight o’clock. The marchers were carrying hand-lettered signs on wooden sticks.

Some of the signs read:ROCK RACIAL PROFILING!

Others read:TAMAR IS A RACIST!

Yet others read:WHY A BLACK RAPIST?

The marchers were chanting, “Ban Bandersnatch! Ban Bandersnatch! Ban Bandersnatch!”

Television cameras were rolling.

Carella was not surprised to see the Reverend Gabriel Foster at the head of the procession.

Six-feet-two-inches tall, with the wide shoulders and broad chest of the heavyweight fighter he once had been, his eyebrows still ridged with scar tissue, Foster at the age of forty-nine still looked as if he could knock your average contender on his ass in thirty seconds flat. According to police records, the reverend’s birth name was Gabriel Foster Jones. He’d changed it to Rhino Jones when he’d enjoyed his brief career as a boxer, and then settled on Gabriel Foster when he began preaching. Foster considered himself a civil rights activist. The police considered him a rabble rouser, an opportunistic self-promoter, and a race racketeer. His church, in fact, was listed in the files as a “sensitive location,” departmental code for anyplace where the uninvited presence of the police might cause a race riot.

Foster looked as if he might be promoting just such a commotion on this bright May morning.

“Good morning, Gabe,” Carella said.

“Ban Bander…” Foster said, and then cut himself off mid-sentence and opened his eyes wide when he saw Carella. He thrust out his hand, stepped away from the line of protestors, and grinned broadly. Carella actually believed the reverend was glad to see him. Shaking hands, Foster said, “Don’t tell me you’re on this kidnapping?”

“More or less,” Carella said, which was the truth.

“Did you see the video?” Foster asked him.

“I saw the taping they did last night,” Carella said. “Not the video itself, no.”

“It depicts the girl’s rapist as a black man.”

“Well, it depicts a black dancer portraying some kind of mythical beast…”

“Some kind of mythicalblack beast,” Foster said.

“The beast in the original poem isn’t black,” Carella said.

“That’s exactly my…”

“And the poem was written in England, back in the 1800’s.”

“So why…?”

“There isn’t even arapist in the poem. That’s what’s so fresh about the song. This girl takes a…”

“That’s exactly my point, Steve! Thereis a rapist now. And the rapist is black.”

“Come on, Gabe. The song takes a powerful standagainst rape! You can’t object to that.”

“I can most certainly object to the rapist being black.”

“It’s thedancer who’s black. Tamar Valparaiso hired a black dancer. Equal opportunity. Do you object…?”

“To portray a black rapist.”

“Gabe, I think you’re barking up the wrong tree. I don’t know the girl, but I’m willing to bet my last dollar she isn’t a racist.”

“I can smell one a hundred yards away,” Foster said.

“Maybe your nose is too sensitive,” Carella said. “I have to go upstairs, Gabe. You want my advice?”

“No.”

“Okay, see you later then.”

“Let me hear it.”

“Pack up and go home. You don’t want to be on the wrong side of this one. It’ll come back to haunt you.

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