In the Heat of the Night

testify. At least that was the effect he tried for. And he intended to remain quiet and courteous no matter what lay ahead, for the four men facing him had enough votes on the Council to oust him from his job.
    “Bill, the boys asked me to invite you over to discuss the Mantoli murder. Naturally we’re all quite concerned about it.”
    Watkins interrupted. “Coming to the point, Mr. Gillespie, we want to know what’s being done and also what’s going on.”
    “Isn’t that the same question?” Gillespie asked.
    “I mean we want to know what’s being done to clear up the murder and what all the rumors are about you having a nigger cop in the station.”
    Gillespie straightened his shoulders. “I’ll take your questions in reverse order, Mr. Watkins. One of our men rushed ahead too fast and picked up a black boy in the station. He had a lot of money on him and so my man ran him in.”
    “Right thing to do,” Watkins clipped.
    “When I questioned him, he said he was a cop out in California. I checked up, of course, and he was.”
    “This isn’t California,” Shubie contributed.
    “I know that,” Gillespie snapped, and then checked himself quickly. “I’m sorry, just thinking about him makes me mad.” He looked at Shubie and saw that the explanation was satisfactory. “Anyway, George Endicott stuck in his oar. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to a councilman, but I don’t think he knows how to ran a police department. Well, Mr. Endicott got hold of the chief of police that this black boy Virgil works for and found out that Virgil was a homicide specialist. So he up and borrowed him to help us out here.”
    “That’s this nigger,” Watkins said.
    “That’s the one,” Gillespie agreed. “Without passing the buck, Mr. Schubert told me to use him and he’s the boss; I did what he asked me to.”
    “Well, I don’t like it,” Watkins exclaimed, and half rose to his feet. “I don’t want no nigger running around this town asking questions of white people like he thought he was somebody. He wanted to talk to my night man, Ralph, at the diner, but Ralph wouldn’t let him in. And he was down at the bank acting like he was a white man. A few of the boys are getting ready to teach him his place, and they will, too, if you don’t get him out of here.”
    Gillespie looked at Frank Schubert and waited for the mayor to pick up the ball. When he found he was the center of attention, Schubert reached into his desk and produced a small bundle of newspapers. “Mantoli wasn’t so much of a big shot, but when he got himself murdered it made news. It made more news when a colored cop came on the job. If you haven’t seen all of these, you better take a look. You know we’re getting a lot of press attention. So far it’s all been to the good and a lot of free publicity for the music festival.” Dennis spoke for the first time. “Horse shit,” he said. Schubert looked at him as if he was trying to be patient but was finding it an increasingly hard job. “Luke, I know you’ve been against the music-festival idea all along and that’s your right. But like it or not, we’re stuck with it now and we’ve got to go through with it. If it flops, you were right, no argument about it. If it goes over, then maybe it will pump some money into this town and we’ll all make out.”
    “Maybe,” Dennis amended.
    Schubert turned back to the newspapers. “Gentlemen, I got a phone call from Newsweek a few minutes before you came here. They wanted a full rundown on our use of Tibbs. If they run it, that means national publicity for all of us.”
    “And what the hell will our own people think?” Watkins demanded.
    “Will, it doesn’t make any difference. We’re stuck with this nigger now until we can dump him or until Bill here cleans up the case.” Schubert turned toward Gillespie. “That’s what I wanted to ask you about. I’m not trying to put turpentine on your tail, but are you going to get us out of this fairly soon?”
    Gillespie put a bite into his voice as he answered. “There’s a regular routine for this sort of thing, a routine that gets results. We’re following it. In addition to that, I’m doing some investigating personally, I don’t want to tell you gentlemen definitely when we will have our man under lock and key, but I will tell you, in confidence, that we are getting results. Furthermore I’m keeping Virgil under control and if he gets one bit out of line in this town,