Giving a speech in front of a pretty raucous crowd. “We ain’t waitin’ no more. We ain’t askin’ no more. Rights ain’t some scraps we wait for from the massuh’s table. We don’t need them from nobody – we own them. We was born with them. All we need to do is keep Whitey from takin’ them away. Pursuit of happiness? You ask any Black man wants to work for what any white man gets for free. They be takin’ it away. Liberty? You ask our brothers locked up in white jails because they march for their rights or fight for their rights. They be takin’ that away. Life? You ask Fred Hampton bout that when you see him, shot in his bed by the Chicago pigs. Butchered in his bed. They be takin’ life away. But we gonna let them take ours? No. By any means necessary. Fight in the streets if we gotta. By any means necessary. Butcher the pigs if we gotta. By any means necessary–” The Fed clicked the tape off.
“Butcher the pigs?” said Lynch.
“Thought that might ring a bell,” Riley answered.
“Who’s on the tape?”
Zeke Fisher sat forward in his seat, folded his hands in front of him on the table. “He calls himself Simba now, which is Swahili for lion. His real name is Harold James, Jr. Born August 3, 1948 to Rosa and Harold James in Mobile, Alabama. Moved to the south side of Chicago in September of 1955. He was a player with the Black Panthers here, mostly with some of the social programs they were running around the South Side. After the Hampton shooting, he turned severely militant.”
“He’s organizing the gangs,” Riordan said. “We got some informants on the inside of that. Hampton had that supposed gang truce, all that crap about the niggers gotta stop fighting each other, gotta fight us instead, so this James guy knows that crowd. What’s he’s doing now is trying to turn that into his own little army.”
Harris, the FBI guy, spoke up. “We’ve obtained tapes of other speeches in which this butcher the pigs rhetoric has come up. He’s very hostile to the police – to any authority, really.”
Lynch felt like he was sitting through a sales job – everybody in the room adding his piece to the pitch.
“The thing is,” Lynch said, “why would some guy who’s known for this butcher the pigs line go and paint it on a wall?”
“That’s a valid question,” said Fisher. “I don’t think we can look at this like a traditional crime where the intent is to avoid detection. This was a political act. I believe that James wants to create a direct conflict with the political authority, and especially with the more liberal politicians that, in essence, are his competition. He wants to create an unbridgeable barrier between the radical movement and traditional political solutions. In essence, he wants a rebellion.”
“Sounds like a death wish,” said Lynch.
“Hey, he wants to die, I want him dead, I got your racial harmony right here,” said Riordan.
Lynch stopped Riley in the hall outside the conference room. “Listen, couple of things I want to run past you without the audience.”
“OK,” said Riley, pushing open the door to the men’s room. “Step into my office.”
Riley walked over to a urinal and started taking a leak. “So what’s up?”
“ME found something on Hurley once he got him in the shop. No easy way to put this. Looks like Junior was a fag. He had semen in his ass. Stefanski’s semen, so far as the ME can tell.” Lynch was watching closely to see how Riley took this.
Riley kept pissing. Finished, zipped up, turned around.
“This on paper?”
Lynch decided to play a little dodge ball on that one. “Not in the ME’s report. He wasn’t sure this had anything to do with the murder. Didn’t want it out there if it doesn’t need to be. Kind of a hard thing to overlook, though.”
“Yeah. Jesus. Fuckin’ Stefanski. I mean, I knew he was a goddamn pervert, but a turd burglar? Damn.”
“I know. So this colored shit? Could be. But then I got
“Butcher the pigs?” said Lynch.
“Thought that might ring a bell,” Riley answered.
“Who’s on the tape?”
Zeke Fisher sat forward in his seat, folded his hands in front of him on the table. “He calls himself Simba now, which is Swahili for lion. His real name is Harold James, Jr. Born August 3, 1948 to Rosa and Harold James in Mobile, Alabama. Moved to the south side of Chicago in September of 1955. He was a player with the Black Panthers here, mostly with some of the social programs they were running around the South Side. After the Hampton shooting, he turned severely militant.”
“He’s organizing the gangs,” Riordan said. “We got some informants on the inside of that. Hampton had that supposed gang truce, all that crap about the niggers gotta stop fighting each other, gotta fight us instead, so this James guy knows that crowd. What’s he’s doing now is trying to turn that into his own little army.”
Harris, the FBI guy, spoke up. “We’ve obtained tapes of other speeches in which this butcher the pigs rhetoric has come up. He’s very hostile to the police – to any authority, really.”
Lynch felt like he was sitting through a sales job – everybody in the room adding his piece to the pitch.
“The thing is,” Lynch said, “why would some guy who’s known for this butcher the pigs line go and paint it on a wall?”
“That’s a valid question,” said Fisher. “I don’t think we can look at this like a traditional crime where the intent is to avoid detection. This was a political act. I believe that James wants to create a direct conflict with the political authority, and especially with the more liberal politicians that, in essence, are his competition. He wants to create an unbridgeable barrier between the radical movement and traditional political solutions. In essence, he wants a rebellion.”
“Sounds like a death wish,” said Lynch.
“Hey, he wants to die, I want him dead, I got your racial harmony right here,” said Riordan.
Lynch stopped Riley in the hall outside the conference room. “Listen, couple of things I want to run past you without the audience.”
“OK,” said Riley, pushing open the door to the men’s room. “Step into my office.”
Riley walked over to a urinal and started taking a leak. “So what’s up?”
“ME found something on Hurley once he got him in the shop. No easy way to put this. Looks like Junior was a fag. He had semen in his ass. Stefanski’s semen, so far as the ME can tell.” Lynch was watching closely to see how Riley took this.
Riley kept pissing. Finished, zipped up, turned around.
“This on paper?”
Lynch decided to play a little dodge ball on that one. “Not in the ME’s report. He wasn’t sure this had anything to do with the murder. Didn’t want it out there if it doesn’t need to be. Kind of a hard thing to overlook, though.”
“Yeah. Jesus. Fuckin’ Stefanski. I mean, I knew he was a goddamn pervert, but a turd burglar? Damn.”
“I know. So this colored shit? Could be. But then I got
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