Date: 2014-04-01 12:52:51+00:00
Keywords: Crime; Short Stories (Single Author); Mystery; Collections; Speculative Fiction; Fiction; Short Stories; Urban & Street Lit; Science Fiction; Horror; Science Fiction Fantasy
Description: Terrifying tales of teenage gangs and life on the mean streets from the multiple award-winning author of A Boy and His Dog. Remember Charles Bronson stalking the streets of New York blowing holes in muggers in Death Wish? Remember Glenn Ford standing off the vicious juvenile delinquents in Blackboard Jungle? Well, it is more than fifty years and two different worlds from 1955 to now. And something the author of these stories knows that you are scared to admit is that reality and fantasy have flip‐flopped. They have switched places. The stories that scare you today are the ones about rapists an
Publisher: Open Road Media
Rights: Copyright © 1958, 1975 by Harlan Ellison

The Deadly Streets

Harlan Ellison

IN LOVING MEMORY OF
MY FATHER
LOUIS LAVERNE ELLISON

“A city sidewalk by itself is nothing. It is an abstraction. It means something only in conjunction with the buildings and other uses that border it, or border other sidewalks very near it. The same might be said of streets, in the sense that they serve other purposes besides carrying wheeled traffic in their middles. Streets and their sidewalks, the main public places of a city, are its most vital organs….

“…if a city’s streets are safe from barbarism and fear, the city is thereby tolerably safe from barbarism and fear. When people say that a city, or part of it, is dangerous or is a jungle what they mean primarily is that they do not feel safe on the sidewalks.

“But sidewalks and those who use them are not passive beneficiaries of safety or helpless victims of danger. Sidewalks, their bordering uses, and their users, are active participants in the drama of civilization versus barbarism in cities….

“Today barbarism has taken over many city streets, or people fear it has, which comes to much the same thing in the end…. And as they fear them, they use them less, which makes the streets still more unsafe.”

Jane Jacobs, THE DEATH AND LIFE OF GREAT AMERICAN CITIES

Contents

New Introduction: AVOIDING DARK PLACES

Introduction to First Edition: SOME SKETCHES OF THE DAMNED

RAT HATER

“I’LL BET YOU A DEATH”

WE TAKE CARE OF OUR DEAD

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN TONGUE

JOHNNY SLICE’S STOOLIE

JOY RIDE

BUY ME THAT BLADE

THE HIPPIE-SLAYER

KID KILLER

WITH A KNIFE IN HER HAND

SOB STORY (written with Henry Slesar)

LOOK ME IN THE EYE, BOY!

THE DEAD SHOT

SHIP-SHAPE PAY-OFF (written with Robert Silverberg)

MADE IN HEAVEN

STUDENTS OF THE ASSASSIN

NEW INTRODUCTION

AVOIDING DARK PLACES

In 1974 the Mystery Writers of America awarded me an Edgar Allan Poe statuette for the “best mystery story” of the year. It was a story called “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs.” You can find it in my collection, NO DOORS, NO WINDOWS. It’s a story about street violence, based on the now-legendary murder of Catherine Genovese in New York’s Kew Gardens section, 13 March 1964. It took the rapist-killer over half an hour to slaughter the woman, as she dragged herself around almost an entire city block, screaming for help. For those few of you who may not remember this case—now solidly entrenched as cultural mythology—the horrifying extra-added-attraction that separated the murder of Kitty Genovese from all the other unspeakable rape-murders that have become, sadly, a commonplace staple filler for tabloid back pages, was this:

No one helped her. She screamed long, and she screamed loud, and no one helped her. There were witnesses. Thirty-eight of them. They watched from darkened windows; some even pulled up chairs for a more comfortable view. One turned up her radio so she wouldn’t have to hear the shrieks of agony. As Kitty was being raped in an apartment vestibule—already having been knifed repeatedly, already half-dead—one of the tenants opened his apartment door, saw the necrophiliac attack…and quickly closed the door. He even knew Kitty. Thirty-five minutes after her first screams were heard, at 3:55 A.M., someone finally called the 102nd Precinct. Three minutes later a patrol car was there. The killer was gone, however; and Kitty Genovese died in the ambulance a few minutes before five o’clock; DOA Queens General Hospital.

When “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” was first published in a magazine in June 1973, nine years after Kitty Genovese’s death (a million excuses and explanations why those 38 people had refused to help her after Kitty Genovese’s death), I received a floodtide of letters telling me things were very different in New York now. The writers of those letters assured me New Yorkers were more concerned now, that they no longer stood by as people were robbed or beaten or killed. They called me to task for disinterring a moldering corpse of ages past. They said such things could no longer happen.

Yet in early 1975, when I first wrote this introduction, as I write this, a nurse was stabbed to death in precisely the same Kew Gardens street and one of the observers who watched the murder, and did nothing, was one of the women who had sat by as Kitty Genovese was butchered and defiled.

This book speaks directly to the authors of those letters chiding me, because

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

A few weeks ago, my housekeeper, Eusona, laid a beauty on me. She reads the newspapers: I haven’t the stomach for it these days. So she has become my gazette.

The story, which she found on the back page somewhere, was a quickie. Woman parking her car in Manhattan was driven to a frenzy by a dude in a VW who pulled into the space snout-first behind her, as she was backing up. As he parked, she reached into the glove compartment of her dashboard, pulled out a revolver, jumped out of the car, stalked over to the VW, aimed the weapon through the window and shot to death the man driving, and his two female passengers.

These two stories took place in New York, but just so you don’t feel all teddibly superior to those barbarian Megalopolitans, here’s a lovely one from a large Midwestern city (which one, I cannot remember right now, but it was on the evening network news). A couple of thugs broke into the apartment of an old Czech woman. At knife-point they demanded she give them all her money. She laughed at them, telling them all she had was about three American dollars worth of Czechoslovak koruna, a currency so unstable and unacceptable that the exchange control law of 1 January 1954 prohibits its import and export. She offered them the koruna and continued laughing. Wrong move.

They spotted her gold fillings, bust out her teeth, and got away with about $1100 worth of marketable gold.

As horrifying as we may find Charlie Bronson’s actions in Death Wish, his vigilante tactics of stalking and killing muggers in New York strike a sympathetic vibration in each of us, though we hate it in ourselves, though most of us would deny we feel the same urge from time to time.

You feel it, I feel it.

Ten years ago, I was worked over pretty fair by a couple of over-six-feet heavyweights. One of them held me while the other one pounded my face into guava jelly. When the local bacon finally arrived, the guys had split. One was a deckhand on pleasure yachts, with a string of priors for mayhem that made Hurricane Carter look like Christopher Robin’s nanny. He skipped the country, so I was told. But the other one was a certified flake, an overly macho clown who had been married to a busty film starlet, had bombed out as a stockbroker, and who owed money all over Hollywood. We hauled him into the City Attorney’s office, got him cold when the Man suggested we each take a lie detector test. I rolled up my sleeve right there and said, “Let’s get it on!” The flake began to hem and haw, and his attorney fumfuh’d it was an invasion of something or other. Nonetheless, I took the polygraph test and it backed my story one hundred per cent. Attorney’s office put out a warrant for his arrest. But the cops didn’t bother looking for him.

We went to court, almost two years ago, and got a financial judgment against him for five grand, since it was obvious I wasn’t going to be able to slap the sonofabitch in jail. Even though I had witnesses to unprovoked assault, battery, criminal assault, and a host of etceteras, the cops were simply too busy busting kids with grass in their possession to keep a pair of homicidal thugs off the streets.

He can keep the five grand. Just let me have fifteen minutes alone with the muther.

I’d take along a tire iron.

Not for the beginning; I want that pleasure barehanded. But after that interlude, I’d need the tire iron. I’d start with his legs. Lay him out on the floor and lean his left leg up against the wall and then just jump on the angle, right below the kneecap. Like snapping a rotted piece of cord-wood for the fireplace. Then I’d use the tire iron to break it back in the opposite direction, so bone-chips would get in the kneecap socket, so he’d walk with a limp for the rest of his barbaric life. Then I’d do his hands. Forearms with the tire iron, wrists with the tire iron, fingers one by one…

Make you uneasy? Make you sick? Makes me sick, to know I’ve got that in me somewhere. If I told you I’m a pacifist, would you believe me? Not for a second, and I wouldn’t blame you; even though it’s true. Let me make you even more uneasy; I’m no different than you.

Have you ever been beaten…or raped…or robbed…or even been dismissed cavalierly by some petty authority?

Think back. You know I’m telling the truth. We are all the same inside these skins. We all want to exact revenge. The invasion of our personal space, the brutalization, the debasement, the shame at not having been able to duke it out like Bruce Lee or one of the million short, smart movie/television stars who play the rabbit till they can take it no longer and then lash out and deck the hairy bully. Gary Cooper in Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town: at the end of the trial where the forces of greed and evil try to convince the court his millions should be taken away from him because he’s “pixilated” and the judge asks Deeds if there’s anything else, and Cooper as Deeds says, “Yes, one more thing,” and he hauls off and knocks crooked attorney Douglass Dumbrille stone cold in the courtroom. Alan Ladd in The Glass Key: having been worked over by pithecanthropoid William Bendix and his buddy, Rusty, played by Eddie Marr, fights back, sets fire to the room where’s he’s been kept prisoner, throws himself out a window and escapes, enabling him later to pound the shit out of Bendix. Jan-Michael Vincent in Buster and Billie: his sweetheart having been raped and bludgeoned to death, finds his ex-school chums, the gang who killed her, and goes berserk, killing two of them by smashing in their heads with a pool cue and a billiard ball. And, of course, Charlie Bronson in Death Wish.

But those are only movies, you say.

Are they? Think back. You know I’m telling the truth. If your wife or sister or girl friend was ever assaulted, if your husband or brother or son was ever stomped or beaten, didn’t you wish you had that fifteen minutes alone with the nameless, faceless motherfuckers who did the deed? Didn’t you fantasize it in your mind, some ghastly weapon in your hand that would prevent their getting at you as you crippled them? If you say you never held such a thought…you are either a liar or nobler than any other member of the human race.

Because the unspoken terror that lives with all of us in big cities these days is a constant. It runs in our bloodstream, it tingles in our skin, it aches in our bones. It’s better for us here in Los Angeles than for you in Detroit or Pittsburgh or Washington, D.C., or New York. But not much.

And so, in that unseamed existence beyond regional or ethnic or religious differentiations, we are all the same. All come to that place where the fear we’ve been taught is so omnipresent that it can be ignored until its intensity reaches panic level. Background noise, ever present static, the ticking of the clock in the darkened bedroom, the hum of generators underfoot, the clattering of the crickets. Always with us. Always there. Unnoticed, unheard, unknown…always there.

Until the moment comes when we become aware of it because it assumes corporeal reality. Like this:

On a trip to New York, I found myself at nine o’clock at night—having worked all day on the galleys of one of my books soon to go to press—descending in a semi-empty elevator at 919 Third Avenue. Bone-tired, leaning up against the wall of the elevator car, attaché case hanging from one hand, almost phased-out. Semi-empty. There was the one other passenger. A very large, very nasty-looking young man in a long and dirty topcoat.

In elevators, unless one is garrulous, one stares at the numbers lighting one after another, or pretends to be deep in thought; one never looks at the other passengers, unless one is a cut-up. I am garrulous, I am a cut-up; but not on this occasion. I was too exhausted. I merely leaned against that wall and waited for the long descent to end.

Everything that happened next, happened in a matter of seconds.

Without looking at him, but nonetheless seeing him clearly out of the corner of my eye, I perceived my companion’s hand reaching down into his topcoat pocket for something weighty. Don’t ask me how I knew, don’t even suggest I could have been dead wrong: I’ll admit I may have been way off-base, but in my gut I knew I was right: he was reaching for a knife. Some nice, long, heavy gravity knife or shake, like the ones I used to see uptown around 101st and First Avenue. His hand was deep in the pocket when, without moving or looking at him, speaking to the floor where my eyes were directed, I said, in a deep and gravelly voice, “If that hand comes out of that pocket with anything on the end of it but fingers, I’m going to kick your brains all over this elevator, motherfucker.”

He paused. Hand deep in pocket.

And then, very slowly, very smoothly, he brought his hand out with the fingers spread, palm forward showing he held nothing. He moved finally and carefully, deeper into his corner, and he watched me.

When we got to the first floor, he was out of the car quickly, was signing the guard’s register at the front door before I was even out of the elevator myself, and as I crossed the lobby of 919 Third Avenue, he was out the door and gone.

Yes, I may have been wrong. He may have been just a young guy working late in one of the upper offices. Maybe. But the noise level of fear had mounted too high to be ignored. It had assumed corporeal reality. And he was quickly gone.

I know if I hadn’t spoken up, just psychopathic enough in my tone and phrasing, that he would have braced me with a knife. I learned the next day, from my then-publisher, Norman Goldfind, that there had been a dozen or so knifings, robberies, muggings, and even a rape in that building over the past two years. And a man had his throat slashed in a toilet in that building just a few months ago. I knew. As you know.

So don’t judge your humble author too quickly. Don’t cluck your tongue and denigrate me for the insensate violence that exists just below the civilized veneer. I am a survival type, an animal that knows. One gets that way in cities like New York.

I learned it a long time ago, when I was gathering material for WEB OF THE CITY (republished recently in an Ace Books edition) and for this book. So the Mystery Writers of America gave me an award for a “mystery” story that is no more a mystery than any other example of mimetic fiction. “The Whimper of Whipped Dogs” is a fantasy that explains reality in a way reality cannot explain itself.

In the same way, the stories in this book hold up that mirror to the real world, turning it slightly, so you can see what goes on around you from a new angle.

Eleven of the stories were written for this book back in the Fifties, when such things as kid gangs existed in the streets of New York. They still exist, but they’re very very different now. In the Fifties, the juvies waged war against each other, and “civilians” were pretty much exempt from the slaughter, unless a random pedestrian happened to walk into the path of a zip gun slug. Today, the gangs rob and kill and spend their time helping to raise the national crime statistics by 17% every month.

Those eleven stories now become history.

There are five others I’ve added to what comprised the first edition of this book. Several of them are up-to-date exercises in street terror. They are history in the making.

But all of them, even though mere fictions, professional lies told to amuse or titillate you, bear within their plotted little boundaries the seeds of what has become the tone of the cities: fear. That unwavering threnody we hear in the night, the hum of people with aerosol cans of mace in their purses, Dobermans on leashes, Fox Locks on their doors, terror in their hearts.

Sixteen stories of violent kids, murderous adults, psychos with no sane reason to kill, streetwise thugs who make their livings preying on the weak and the unwary.

And if you should ask me, “Why tell these terrible stories? Why scare us with such fables?” Why, then I answer: because it is better to know, to see the face of fear, so you can ready yourself. Because living in ignorance is no longer blissful. It’s suicidal.

The deadly streets are the jungles of barbarism Jane Jacobs speaks of, and if you wish to survive in those streets, you must arm yourselves with awareness. Perhaps these stories are only cautionary tales. When they first appeared they were curiosities. It’s just barely possible they are now tools for staying alive.

HARLAN ELLISON
Los Angeles

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION

SOME SKETCHES OF THE DAMNED

Ever dig a fifteen-year-old boy—his face fresh out of the candy-pimples stage—ripping another kid’s belly open with a switchblade, slicing the other kid’s face to stringers using a raw potato studded with razor-blades?

Or a sixteen-year-old girl, just beginning to fill out like a woman, battering another chick to death across the breasts with a foot-and-a-half length of tire chain?

Ever see a war party of twenty studs, all screaming as though they were battling for the Cause, come roaring out of an alley and plow into an unwary group of kids?

And the war that follows…ever see anything like that?

Not if you live in Plymouth, Massachusetts or Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio or Cadiz, Kentucky you haven’t. And you probably never will. Pray to your God you never will! You think it’s rough when your kid has a couple of beers, or stays out all night getting loaded on cheap grass, or gives you the lip? Gentle reader, you’ve got it made. Your kid is a paragon of the virtues. And you know why?

Because your towns have trees and sky and friendliness and neighborliness and love and a small school system, and a purpose for any youngster who wants one.

But if you live in New York, or Philadelphia, or Chicago, or San Francisco…you know what I’m talking about. You know those kids live on the housestoops and the streets, and in the gutters. You know they mangle their hands nervously, waiting for something to happen. And when it doesn’t—they make it happen.

You know, because they’re your kids.

You know about the Pachucos in San Diego, you know about the hoods and studs of South Philly, you know about the pitched street battles of New York’s Blooded Royals and Golden Dragons, their zip-guns blowing each other to hell. You’ve heard about the Happy Gentlemen and the Greeks, the Puerto Rican Flyers and the Jolly Stompers. All of them crave their kicks, and if they don’t fall into those kicks in the course of an average day, they scratch for the kicks.

Those kicks, and those kids, are the subjects of these stories.

A word or two hundred about the stories in this book.

With the exception of one, each story is based in verifiable fact. Truth incarnate.

Unlike many of the books or magazine stories you may have read, these stories all had their starts with the kids, in the gangs, in the streets. There is no collusion here. I know they are facts because I got them in the streets, running with a kid gang. For ten weeks I lived as one of them: going on their raids, dating their debs, attending their meetings, undergoing their initiation.

For ten weeks I was a Baron. I hung out on Stuyvesant Street, in that section of Brooklyn called Redhook. For ten weeks I wore jeans and a black leather jacket and a wide black belt with its buckle honed to razor-sharpness.

When I came out, the glamour of being the JD’s Hemingway, of living dangerously and writing about it, was gone. These were no little Dillingers, about whom legends could be spun. There’s no glamour about catching a knife in the throat. No glamour in being stomped to death. No fast living with thirty or forty teen-aged punks circling in on you, itching to use lead pipe on your face and body. No glamour at all.

It stinks. On ice.

Instead, there was the need to set down the way of it, the smell of it, and the terror of it. For them. For the ones we’ve damned to live their lives in those deadly streets.

The kids live in tenements and old brownstones that are never completely free of grime or the smell of urine. They don’t like it They know they’ve got a crowded, rotten school setup, and they don’t feature that, either. When they hit eighteen they know they might as well go into the service (because they can’t afford college) and they don’t see any point in becoming a shipping clerk or a Western Union toady. “I’ll be shippin’ out inna Merch Marine next Summer,” one of them says, and there’s a hopelessness in his voice, a defiance that suggests he’s going because he’s got no place else to go. Help me, man!

That’s what they’ve got to look forward to: parents who don’t give a creeping damn what happens to them; cops who know only that kids on the street spark trouble; teachers who wish they were paid more money, but usually don’t earn what they already get; a loss of faith in their religion, and a firmness of belief that Uncle Sam will get them eventually.

Damned. Treadmilled. Buck-passed by the parents, the teachers, the clergy and the politicians who have to worry about bigger and better Christmas decorations for the lampposts.

So they snatch their kicks while they can, and there they are…in the deadly streets…the streets where they learn their survival, and their social habits, and their sex. The rules. All the rules.

There aren’t many rules in the primer for gang kids, but they all count. They’re all easily understood because they use a simple and sound philosophy, one that proves itself true every day for them. The rules: the gang is mother, father, home, club and highest authority; it’s a stinking life, man, so get your stomps before they stomp you!

When he’s down, go for the head and groin. Never make it on the scene unless you’re shanked and the blade’s got six inches on an oiled switch. Avoid cops. Play it cool. Take what you want, and tell them but nothing.

And most important…don’t get caught!

Because of this philosophy, in many cases the social worker can’t get to the heart of the stories. That was why I ran with the gangs…so I could write about them as they really are.

The stories themselves are fiction; they are intended primarily as entertainment. But in each one there is a solid and truthful grain of fact from the streets. The grain that led to the story.

That grain of truth is not intended as entertainment.

It is intended that perhaps one kid out of the thousands who run the alleys will read this book. And when he does, it will make the difference.

The difference between that kid’s dying in bed at the age of eighty with his wife and kids around him, a successful life behind him…or dying at the age of fifteen in a dirty city street, at 4 A.M., with a .32 zip slug in his head.

In those ten weeks with the kids, I found them to be basically honest and decent, like the kids in Cuyahoga Falls or Cadiz or Plymouth. Decent but damned!

All they need is a chance—a square chance. Nobody’s asking for charity; dammit, all they need are a few breaks, and they’ll come through.

It is not, however, the purpose of these stories to reform the slums or to take the kids out of the deadly streets. If the stories make you think, that’s fine. If they make you try to find out where your son or daughter stays till all hours of the morning, that’s even better.

But first of all, if they make good reading, I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. There’s blood and unhappiness in these stories, and none of them are pretty; but then, there’s nothing pretty about life for these kids. I simply hope you don’t shrug it off and say this guy is a real tear-jerker…don’t shrug and say these things don’t happen. Because they happen every living day of the year!

There’s darkness and violence and confusion here; the reflections of a modern teen-ager’s life in an age of political immorality, guided missiles, psychiatry and high prices, and waiting to be planted when your time comes. But there’s more, I hope.

It’s easy to get carried away with the blood. But if you do, you miss the point each story tries to make.

A point about the kids.

The ones who deserve a chance to get out of the deadly streets.

The damned ones, the doomed ones.

HARLAN ELLISON
1958

RAT HATER

I had them bring Chuckling Harry Kroenfeld to me in the old Steel Pier warehouse.

Most people don’t remember that warehouse, but back in the Twenties it was one of the best in the city. Handled cargo, month in and month out, with no slack season. It was a good warehouse—far off where a scream couldn’t be heard, and dirty…very dirty; that was important.

I remembered the old Steel Pier warehouse. It was a bit of memory to me. It was the jump-off place for my sister. Well, she didn’t actually jump; she was pushed. But it didn’t make very much difference after it was done.

Harry wouldn’t like being brought by two cheap hoods, but then, he was in no position to complain. Twenty-five years ago he might have been able to do something about it, but that was twenty-five years ago. Harry and the mob had fallen out a long while back. He was lucky they had let him live after the break. But again, that doesn’t matter now.

Neither of the pistoleros who brought Harry to me knew the story. It wouldn’t have done any good to tell them, either. They were being paid and they didn’t care why I was going to kill an old, fat man. Money was money, and as Chuckling Harry used to point out to me—before he’d had my sister shot, weighted, and put in the harbor—business is undeniably business.

He was right, in a way. But revenge is revenge, too.

When they opened the seamed metal door and pushed Harry through, I was surprised at how much he’d changed. I just stared at him for a moment, hearing with another part of my senses the two hired thugs bolting the door from the outside.

That didn’t worry me, of course. I had a key I could use to get out—afterward. But right now, we were locked in together. The only thing that kept us apart—and it was a very real barrier, I assure you—was the .45 I held oh, so steady in my left hand.

“Hello, Harry.” I said.

He was lying against the metal wall, the back of one fat hand scrunched to his mouth. I’d never seen eyes quite that large before. Or skin quite that pasty-looking. But then, I’d never actually killed a man before. Harry’d never died before, either, which rather evened things.

“Lew. L-Lew Greenberg. Hi, Lew. How long’s it been?” Chuckling Harry had always been a lousy bluff. He was stuttering and sweating; I expected him to slip and slide in his own wet in another minute.

“Well, Harry,” I said, considering—the .45 up to my lips in thought—“it’s been about eighteen years. Right after the Christmas jobs in ’57. Oh, I’m sure you remember, Harry.”

I sat down on a packing crate that creaked under me, though I don’t weigh much, and crossed my legs.

“Oh, yeah, sure—sure! Now I remember, Lew. It’s good—good to—uh—see you, Lew.” He put the strangest inflection on the word “see.”

There was only one light in the warehouse. Right in the center of the space I’d cleared of garbage and boxes; it cast a disc of yellow brilliance. All the rest of the place was shadowy dark. I’d fixed it up just for this. Even so, it was difficult telling whether Chuckling Harry was more frightened of the gun or me.

I was disappointed a bit. I’d expected more shock on his part. But I consoled myself with knowing it would come in time.

Chuckling Harry made as if to rise, watching me carefully to see if I’d stop him. I didn’t, and he got up, brushing off his suit.

“That isn’t a very expensive suit, Harry.”

He looked down at it, stretched over his paunch, as though seeing it for the very first time. “Oh, well…You know how it is, Lew. Wanted a suit in a hurry…”.

“Did you go to one of the fat men’s stores, Harry?”

He grew red, the blossoming of it making his dead white face all the whiter. He’d never liked being reminded he was an obese hulk.

“Fat man’s store, hell! I got this uptown! Bought it at…” He started to continue, caught another short look at the automatic in my lap, and fell silent, licking his droopy lower lip with a pink tip of tongue.

“Bet that only ran about seventy bucks, Harry. Cheap. I remember the days you used to have thirty suits, all tailor made, all over three hundred bucks each. Remember those days, Harry?”

He waved his blocky hands inadequately. “You know how things are, Lew. Times change. Why, in the old days, I was…” He ran down of his own accord, licking his lips again.

“Come on over and take a chair,” I said, motioning to the lone straight-backed chair in the center of the circle of light. He moved toward it slowly, looking around as if to make certain no one else was in the warehouse with us.

“No one else, Harry,” I said quietly.

He sat down in the chair, sliding forward a bit, allowing for his bulk. The round, saggy columns of his legs were placed far apart, supporting him. His buttocks drooped over the sides of the seat. I knew he was wondering what was going on.

He was still Chuckling Harry. He was still fat—I don’t think anything could change that. Except, perhaps, death. But Chuckling Harry Kroenfeld had altered much since the day eighteen years before, when I’d told him I had to quit the mob and find steadier employment to support my mother. Then he had been dynamic, powerful. Now he was tired and beaten. He was washed-up and washed-out Harry was an old man at last.

He still had an almost monk-like circlet of white hair ringing his bald head; his eyes were still that fishy, watery blue; his face was still puffy and drooping with lard. Looking at him there in the chair I could almost imagine the, rosebud-pink lips forming the words they’d formed when he’d said goodbye.

So long, Lew. Here’s a couple hundred, just to keep you going. No hard feelings about Sheila, of course!

Of course. He’d chuckled then, and handed me the two crisp hundred dollar bills, which I’d taken. Of course.

He wasn’t chuckling now. He looked tired and unhappy, and getting more frightened as the seconds passed.

“Wh-what are you doing these days, Lew?” he asked, toying with a pinkie ring on his right hand.

“I have a string of supermarkets, Harry,” I answered, amiably.

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” he said, waving a pudgy hand in slow remembrance. “We heard about it around. Heard you were doing real well. Real well.” He chuckled and licked his lips again, looking around, as though expecting someone else to add to the conversation.

The conversation was threatened by lag, and I certainly didn’t want that to happen. “Do you see those ropes attached to the chair, Harry?” I pointed the muzzle of the .45 at the thick cords.

A tic leaped in his right cheek, but he bent from the hips, looking at them. He didn’t answer.

“I dislike asking you to do it, Harry,” I said, politely, “but would you mind tying your feet securely?”

“Say! What is this!” Harry shouted, almost leaping up. This time I waggled the gun, indicating it would be wisest if he sat where he was. I ran a hand through my thinning hair, smiling broadly at Chuckling Harry Kroenfeld.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d tie your feet, Harry. It would facilitate matters a great deal.” I half-rose, the gun leveling as I did.

He looked at me once, quickly, seeing the big smile on my face and the big hole in the front of the automatic. He bent once more and began wrapping the thick ropes about his ankles. “Up higher, and tie them to the legs of the chair.” I directed him, seeking the most secure job.

By the time he was finished, perspiration had beaded his forehead, some of it running crookedly down his face, into the neck of his shirt.

He’d done a good job, though. I’ve got to give Harry that. I was going to give him more, of course, but I gave him that first. I don’t forget old times.

He straightened, wiping at his florid cheeks. “Say, look, Lew, I don’t know what this is all about, but I’ve got to get home. I don’t know why you had those two guys grab me when I closed the shop, but I’ve got a kid waiting, and my wife holding dinner for me, and I’ve got to get back…”

“Yes.” I cut him off. “It was rather neat the way the boys checked what time you closed, wasn’t it, Harry?” I continued to smile. My nose itched, so I rubbed it slowly.

“You don’t understand, Lew; I don’t have time for fun tonight. The wife and kid are waiting and maybe some other time, if you give me a call, we can get together…”

It was pleasant cutting him off, so I did it again. In the old days, nobody cut off Chuckling Harry Kroenfeld. “Still the same wife, Harry?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he answered, nervously, “still Helen. We got a kid now. Robert.” He bit his lip, looking pained, and I could tell his eyes were saying, I’m an old man now! Please leave me alone! Yes, he was old, but some people hadn’t gotten the chance to grow old.

“How old’s your son, Harry?” I inquired conversationally. I was interested, truly.

“Seven.” He answered me reluctantly, and I could tell he had lost his sense of hospitality. He wouldn’t be much of a conversationalist from here on out. But of course it didn’t matter.

I stood up. “Would you mind wrapping your arms around the back of the chair, Harry, I’d like to—”

“Goddamit, what the hell is this? What do you want from me, Greenberg! No, I won’t wrap—”

I’m afraid I lost my temper a bit. I grated the words really fine throwing them at him: “Get your lousy, stinking hands around the back of that chair, Harry, before I blow your guts out through your stinking fat back!”

However, I must admit it was the kind of talk Harry had always understood best, and he slowly slid his jelly-roll fat arms around the back, joining the fingers.

I picked up the coil of rope from behind the crate and walked over to him. Then I cooled down, and became rather ashamed of myself. “I’m sorry, Harry,” I said, tightening the ropes around his hands, tying his arms securely to the chair. I was surprised how much like a baby’s his hands were. “It’s been a long time since I’ve lost my temper. Forgive me, Harry?”

He didn’t answer. I put the barrel of the gun at his ear. “Forgive me?” I asked again, most sincerely.

He bobbed his head, his sagging jowls bobbing humorously. “Yeah, yeah, I forgive you, Lew.” I finished tying him.

I went back to the packing crate, sucking on my lower lip in thought. “So your son’s seven now, is he?” I nodded my head in admiration. “Bet he’s a cute little boy. Just like his pop,” I said, smiling toward Chuckling Harry but keeping the gun on him.

“How old would Shelia be now, Harry?” I asked, interested, though I knew, of course.

I could tell he knew what this was all about, suddenly. If I’d thought he was white before, now he became chalky. He shook, and the chair clattered a bit on the cement floor.

“Look…Lew…that’s all in the past…you wouldn’t…I’m an honest guy now, Lew, I broke with the mob years ago…I’ve been going straight…I’m sorry, Lew…she just found out a few things, and I couldn’t chance having her around! She was too dangerous…you understand, don’t you. Lew?”

He was bubbling, froth starting to ooze from a corner of his mouth. I didn’t feel sorry for him.

“Do you still hate rats, Harry?” I asked, looking back over my shoulder at the dimness of the warehouse.

His head came up sharply; his nostrils quivered; the tic came once more. “R-rats?”

“Why, yes, Harry. Rats. I know how much you hated them.”

I remembered how he’d almost killed one of the guys in the gang who’d wrapped a rat as a birthday present gag. How he’d taken special pains to live near the top of all buildings, so the chance of getting rodents would be smaller. The time he’d jellied into a heap, until three of the boys had killed a rat that ran across his path.

“Rats, Harry,” I repeated, savoring the word.

“W-why? Why do you ask? Yeah, I suppose I still don’t like ’em. So what?” He didn’t know whether to answer or not He was squinting at me, licking his lips, really nervous.

“Do you have your wife clean real good, so the rats don’t get into the cupboards, Harry? Do you call in the exterminators every year at the store, whether you need them or not? I’ll bet you smack your kid if he laughs at a Mickey Mouse cartoon. Is that right, Harry, do you?” I’d spoken softly, but steadily.

“Why do you wanta know? Why?” The sweat glistened like bubbles on his face.

“I just thought I’d inquire, Harry. You see, this entire place is filled with them. See them?”

Some men fear death, some fear closed places, some water. Chuckling Harry Kroenfeld feared rats. With an almost pathological fear. I wasn’t going to just kill Harry—please credit me with more ingenuity than that—I was going to kill him!

“Rats, Harry! Large, black, crawling rats, with thin, wiry whiskers and little, pointed snouts, sniffing. They’re all over the place, Harry! See them? See them, Harry?”

I had been talking quietly, but his head began snapping back and forth on his neck, as though he were on scent, as though he wanted away from there desperately. He probably did.

“No! There aren’t any…I don’t see any…Lew, look, you got to—uh—let me go home now! Helen’s waiting for me, Lew!” He was getting frantic, his voice was rising. But that didn’t matter. The old Steel Pier warehouse is way down away from everything. No one would hear.

“Certainly I’ll let you go, Harry. After the rats have eaten away your pants cuffs, and started on the bones in your fat legs. Do you have bones in there, Harry? They’ll find them! How long do you think it will take them to eat through all that fat, Harry?”

“Lew!” he screamed, straining at his bonds. The chair clattered toward me, but I motioned him off with the gun. I could tell it hadn’t completely sunk in yet. He still didn’t believe I’d do it Chuckling Harry has been known to be wrong.

“I wouldn’t worry too much, Harry, because it’ll take them at least three hours to finish you. They’re pretty messy eaters.”

I smiled in a friendly way, then I shot him.

The .45 erupted, Harry screamed once at the pain, then spun around—still tied to the chair—and fell onto his back. There was a neat, round hole in his pant leg, and it was becoming stained dark very quickly. Blood was streaming out of his left leg. “It could have been a bit higher,” I mused, “I’d always thought there was more blood higher up the leg. Oh well…”

I walked over and looked down at Harry. He’d fainted. Or perhaps it was just a state of shock. Either way, he was lying there, eyes shut, mouth half-open, tic in his cheek jumping. I shoved the gun into my pocket, bent down.

I lifted Harry and the chair. It was quite a job; a big man, and in that half-conscious shock state he was dead weight. Well, not exactly dead, but soon—soon.

I tipped the chair up, set it back on its legs, and brushed off my hands. That warehouse was filthy. They really should have taken better care of it.

I held the gun steady on Chuckling Harry while I fished the knife out of my pocket. I had to open the blade with my teeth.

Harry’s head was tipped back on his shoulders, the tongue protruding from his gummy lips just a bit. He was still in shock. I laid the automatic down, taking the fabric of his pant leg in my hand. I carefully slit it up past the thigh, letting the fabric fall away from the leg. The bullet had gone through the bone, just below the kneecap. It was a messy wound—I was willing to bet it would hurt Harry plenty when he woke up.

I brushed off my hands again, and my knees. The place was deep in garbage-leavings from winos who had camped in there. That was good.

Just as I was going back to my packing crate, Harry began moaning; then he came to. His eyes snapped open and whipped back and forth around the warehouse. I knew all he could see were the dark corners; the shimmering, hanging cobwebs; the .45 and me.

“You’ve waited eighteen years for this, haven’t you, Greenberg?” His eyes were glazed, but a sort of sanity seemed to come over him for a moment.

“For what, Harry? For the rats to eat your intestines out? That’s very true; I have. It’ll be fun. I’m not a vengeful man, as you know, but Sheila just wouldn’t rest easily if I didn’t make some sort of gesture in her behalf—”

He winced and moaned as the pain from his leg hit him. Harry licked his lips, turned his head from side to side. I’ve got to admit—he suffered. Then I took his mind off the leg; I said, “Rats, Harry? What do you think happens when they smell all that rich Kroenfeld blood?”

Harry began straining his eyes into the gloom, trying to see the rats. “They’re back there,” I reassured him, pointing to a hollow scraping behind some crates. He drew back against the chair, struggling with the ropes that bound him.

“They’re tight, Harry: You and I tied them, and we were old buddies, weren’t we, Harry? Harry? Are you listening? Hear them scrabbling on the floor?”

I could tell he heard them. His face was a white balloon dotted with sick sweat. I knew he could hear them, because I could hear them. I felt for the plastic sack in my pocket.

The noise from the darkness was beginning to mount. Tight, tiny squeals came from all around us. Occasionally a gray shadow leaped from one patch of black to another. They’d smelled the blood.

“They want you, Harry! Remember the days when we’d come down here to the waterfront, for collections, and you’d stay in the car till we brought you the take? You didn’t like them, did you, Harry?”

I knew he was picturing the wharf rodents, fresh from the tramp steamers, tumbling over one another as they ripped apart a dead fish. Their clicking, vicious teeth leaving nothing of a bleeding gutter-mutt. The stench of them rooting in the grain bins and garbage piles.

He watched, fascinated, as I drew the plastic sack from my side pocket. I looked up, and caught him staring at me. “You know what this is, Harry?” His eyes were dull, lifeless. The leg wound was pumping shiny rivulets of blood into his sock and shoe.

I ripped the tape from the mouth of the bag, getting up. I drew out a wet, dripping piece of bread. It was brown and soggy. The smell overpowered me for a moment. I almost gagged. “Bread, Harry. Just bread. Dipped in chicken blood. My butcher was really surprised when I asked him to make some of this up. You should have seen his face!”

I moved around the warehouse, dropping the blood-soaked pieces of bread in dim corners, kicking the stuff into the darkness. One piece slid out of sight beneath a pile of broken timbers and an instant later I could hear them tearing at it.

“Lew! My God, Lew!” I turned around, where I stood in the darkness, looked at Harry in the center of the yellow circle. Suddenly he leaned forward, sweating like the pig he resembled.

“Lew, I’ve—I’ve saved some money from the old days! I—I can give you ten thousand if you’ll let me go! I’ll f-forget this whole thing, Lew! I’m an honest shopkeeper now! Please, Lew, forgive me!”

I’d never seen a man struggle so, sweat so, bite his lips so often. He had become a parody of himself. He did the same things over and over again. It was really something to watch.

I walked over to him. Looked down into the horror that stared from his eyes.

“Money, Harry? No, money doesn’t mean anything to me now. I have a great deal of it. A fine home, a wife, two children—everything I missed when I was a kid, Harry. But I’ve got something more—something you don’t have. I have a big hate, Harry. One that I’ve been nursing for eighteen years. One that I—oh! What’s that? There’s a rat, over there, behind that stack of bricks, isn’t there, Harry?”

He was staring up at me, terror swimming freely in his eyes. So I went on. “A big hate, Harry. I overheard a conversation a long time ago; you were talking to one of the boys, telling him how Sheila had bled more than you thought one woman had any right to bleed. I heard you say she was still kicking when they dumped her. Right off the loading dock of this warehouse, wasn’t it, Harry? Eighteen years ago, wasn’t it, Harry?”

His eyes rolled up and for a second I thought he was going to have a seizure, robbing me of the climax. I brought my fist back and cracked him across the mouth. His head snapped around and his eyes slid back down. They were small, small, compared to the white that surrounded them.

“Getting weak, Harry?”

He was so pale, it was amazing he was still conscious after the shot. I’d counted on fear keeping him awake. This was the big moment I’d waited eighteen years to enjoy.

“Wait till they come after you, Harry. Just wait. Rats, Harry, rats! Think of all that warm, bristly fur; think of all the fleas and death they’re carrying. First they’ll go for that bleeding leg, Harry; they’ll get a whiff of all that gore and come running! Then the ripping starts! And after a while the pain will be so big you won’t have to worry about the bullet in your leg. That’ll be nice, won’t it, Harry?”

I was going to continue, but the scream I’d seen building as I’d begun—broke.

He opened his cavernous mouth wide, saliva drooling, and screamed. Oh, my God! So loud I thought the dust would fly off everything and roar around the room!

He began kicking out, his feet still tied together, and making little mewling noises at the same time. His feet would get just a bit away from the chair, before the ropes stopped their movement. He seemed to be kicking at the rats, though they hadn’t ventured into the light yet.

But they would. Meals are too far apart on the wharves for them to pass up as juicy a feast as Chuckling Harry Kroenfeld.

He screamed again. This one was a loud, bubbling thing that started deep in his stomach and rattled up.

“Oh, stop, stop, Harry,” I begged him. “You don’t want to frighten them off, do you?”

He didn’t stop. In fact, he screamed louder. Now I could see the fingers of his bound hands clutching at the back of the chair. He was straining his quaking fat toward me, leaning forward as far as the ropes would allow. His legs writhed, his knees heaved, his body trembled.

He was looking past me in grotesque agony. I turned to see what he was staring at.

Then I saw the first one.

It was a little monster, with protruding teeth I knew were as sharp as a guillotine blade. Beady, hateful red eyes glared out of the darkness. The tentative piping of its voice reached toward us.

“They’re coming, Harry,” I said, risking a closer look into the dark. They were back there—straining toward the fat in the chair. All I had to do was remove that source of fear—the light—and they’d be on him.

I started walking toward the seamed metal door. “They’ve smelled and eaten all that bloody bread, and they’re hot now. They’re stirred up, Harry. They’re hot and hungry and they smell a good meal.”

“Lew! Please, dear God in heaven, don’t let him do this to me, don’t let him, don’t—”

It was interesting to listen to the changes in tone as his cries climbed higher and higher. I took the key from my pocket. He was bouncing on the chair, scraping and clattering in a very small circle. I moved out of the circle of light that held him; moved from its edges toward the door.

They were coming now—coming in full force. I could hear their claws scratching the stone floor. There must have been a thousand of them. More than I’d counted on. Harry could hear them.

I tried not to listen to his ravings from behind me, as I started to unlock the door. I turned once to look at him—for the last time.

“Lew!” he answered. “Lew! I didn’t mean to do it! I didn’t mean to hurt Sheila—I didn’t mean it, Lew, so help me God!”

I tried to believe him. Right then I wanted to believe him very much. I tried to think of her, as I stood there, just one year younger than me, and so pretty, so grownup, all the fellows in the block beat each other up just to get a date with her. I tried to think how Harry had seen her one night when I’d brought her to a party he’d thrown. I tried to think how nice it would have been if Harry had married Sheila, even though Harry was a bit fat and a bit older than her. It would have been nice, even at that.

I tried to think of her blonde hair, and her tiny pixie figure, and her high, giggly laugh, and the way Harry had said her mouth was open when they’d dumped her with the tire chains around her slim ankles. How she’d taken in water at the mouth and nose, and sunk, eighteen years ago, before they’d even gotten a chance to hear her call out for her brother Lew.

I’d been hearing that call for eighteen years.

I tried to think of those things, but Harry’s screams kept interrupting.

“Lew, Lew, help me, Lew, don’t let them at me!”

“Sorry, Harry,” I mumbled over my shoulder as I unlocked the door, “I can’t deprive them of their pleasure. We all get our kicks one way or another. You had yours eighteen years ago—the rats get theirs today.”

I took a final look at his dead-fish face before I clicked the lights off. He was on the verge of madness. The darkness fell in and was complete.

“Goodbye, Harry.”

I stepped over the sill, slammed and locked the door. I leaned up against it, found myself panting. My back was cold, perspiring. It hadn’t been easy. I’d had to steel myself for years to do this. It hadn’t been easy; in the instant before I’d shut the door, I’d seen them racing across the dirty floor, making for him.

I could hear his screams from inside the warehouse. They tore at me. The boys would have a real clean-up job when they came two days later.

I turned away and walked up the pier to my car. I could have stayed and watched through a window, I suppose. But I didn’t really want to. That warehouse was filthy.

And I hate rats.

“I’LL BET YOU A DEATH”

Greasy Ernie’s Diner was loaded with Strikers.

It was a week after the rumble, and everybody was dissatisfied. Just as the Strikers had been about to tangle with the Jolly Stompers, the cops had broken the war up.

Now they slouched in the booths, looking out through the big, metal-rimmed windows at the slicing rain pounding black and heavy into the street.

Checker Tobin sat and toyed with the remnants of his hamburger.

“It’s a rotten night,” he murmured.

“Rotten. Real rotten, couldn’t be worse rotten.” He was a thickset boy with deep blue eyes and heavy brows that met above a lumpy, ridged nose. He fingered a salt shaker, tapping it lightly on the micarta table top.

The rain sleeted against the windows, and the Strikers chewed their lips in general annoyance at everything.

Vode sat beside his steady girl Cherry, opposite Checker. “Ohwoo, what a bitch of a night. Nothin’s on nowhere. No dance, no chickie-run, like nothin’—no-where!” He sighed, pulled one leg onto the bench, hugged his knee.

Checker slid back in the booth, a faint smile flickering across his lips. “Man! I wish we’d gotten to them Stompers!” He shook his head in remembrance.

Vode’s girl, Cherry, yawned. “Yeah, but we didn’t. The cops got in there too quick. Slobs.”

She was a striking girl, with a lush body for her age. Her hair was a thick, flame-colored mass, pulled back into a pony-tail. She watched Checker carefully, an unnamed emotion in her dark eyes. Once, she licked her lips.

Checker was leaning back in the booth. His eyes seemed to be shut, though Cherry couldn’t be sure he wasn’t watching her through narrowed slits. “If I was out there—if I was pushin’ with them Stompers—I’d know what to do…”

Checker let the switchblade slide down his arm. As Vode and Cherry, across the table, watched, the shank dropped out of Checker’s black-leather sleeve, into his hand.

Checker raised the knife, fingers turned up and curled around the weapon. He showed the switch to Vode. “See it?” he said, voice low and whispery.

Cherry leaned forward, licking her full lips; Vode nodded, the cowlicks bobbing. “Now!” snapped Checker, pressing the button with his thumb. “Now see it?”

The knife snicked and the blade arced up. Checker had it in front of his face, the flat edge toward him. A shaft of reflection on the metal showed one blue eye and heavy brow above it. “See it?” he asked again.

Vode glanced around nervously, nodded once more. He moved uncomfortably in the booth. “You better put that away, man,” he advised. “A cop walks in here, you’re dead!” He nodded his head at the knife.

Checker moved his hand slowly, in front of his face, letting his reflection shiver on the blade.

“Cops. Crap on them! If they hadn’t come around last Thursday, we’d of ripped the hides off them Stompers!” His voice had risen, and the Strikers in other booths were leaning toward him, turning around to stare, something in his voice drawing their attention.

“I was looking for that creep calls himself Johnny Slice, the one who’s prez of the Stompers,” Checker admitted, jiggling the switchblade in his hand. “If I’d gotten close to that punk, I’d of cut him wide. Wide!” His face had hardened, the jaw muscles straining.

One of the Strikers, a boy named Julie, leaned over the back of his booth, poked Checker with one finger. “Yeah, Daddy-O, I can picture it now: you standin’ there like Superman, with all them cops runnin’ over you, and you takin’ cuts at schnookle Johnny Slice. I can picture it right now!”

He started to laugh, slid back down into the next booth, and clutched his stomach.

Checker roared something unintelligible, startling the customers at the counter, and shoved out of his booth. In a moment he was in the next booth, his hand wrapped in the fabric of Julie’s shirt, the shank at the boy’s throat.

“You callin’ me liar, Julie?”

The other boy swallowed heavily, his cheeks went white. “No, Checker, I ain’t spookin’ ya. If you say you’d of done it, I believe you. Honest to God, Checker!”

The enraged Striker released Julie’s shirt, pushed him against the back of the booth. “Then shut your goddam mouth.”

“Chrissakes, you’re jumpy,” Julie added, making certain his tones were level and inoffensive.

Checker’s face softened. Julie drew back as the dark boy poked playfully at him. Tapping him lightly on the bicep, Checker said, “Yeah. Sorry, Julie. I been edgy ever since the rumble petered out.”

Cherry nudged Vode. “Lemme out,” she demanded. He slid out of the booth, and she moved past him. The girl walked slowly up to Checker.

Taking his arm, she said, “Come on, Check, let’s you and me go for a little ride. Get your mind off the rumble. We can use Vode’s car—can’t we Vode?”

Vode watched with growing anger. Cherry had been making too many catting motions around Checker lately. It might mean a stand, and Vode didn’t want that. He didn’t much like the idea. Checker was hard. Vode had seen him in a couple of rumbles—one of them with the Jolly Stompers, the roughest bunch in Brooklyn—and he was a mean cat to toy with.

He couldn’t refuse the car and risk getting Checker down on him. He wouldn’t make a play now, but something would have to happen soon. Cherry was too hot an item to let Checker swipe her.

He dug into a pocket of his jeans, brought out the ring of keys. He tossed them to Checker. “Here. But take it easy and get back soon. We want to check out early.”

Checker looked down at the keys, then at Vode. “Thanks,” he said, but it didn’t sound like thanks.

He closed the knife and put it in his sleeve. He shook his arm up toward the ceiling, and the knife dropped up the sleeve.

They turned to leave. Vode took a half-hesitant step toward them. “Cherry…” he started, but when she turned, he shook his head. “Nothing. Go on.”

She smiled sardonically, and moved with Checker toward the door of the diner.

Outside, the girl piled into the front seat and slammed the door, yelling to Checker. “Come on, Lover, let’s put some tar on these tires!”

Checker slid behind the wheel of the souped-up Ford and turned the key in the ignition. With a roar, the motor leaped to life and the car zoomed out into traffic, cutting off a line of cars that had beaten the light.

Checker spun the wheel hard, tire-screeching around the corner, across the slick, shiny asphalt, and into traffic.

They sped uptown, catching the timed lights just as they fell. “Like a hackie!” Checker laughed, and Cherry moved closer, her thigh touching his. She slipped one arm through his, and leaned toward him.

“Let’s move!”

Checker bent down on the accelerator and the Ford leaped ahead, dodging in and out of lanes. They headed uptown, and soon found themselves in Morningside Heights.

“Where now?” Checker asked, his eyes bright, his hands warm and sticky on the wheel.

“Let’s go down onto the Drive and park someplace,” Cherry said, her eyes half-closed. “We can sit and…listen to some music,” she said quickly, flicking the car radio on.

As Checker turned down toward the river and the Drive, the wail of a lonely saxophone filled the car. Cherry’s fingers punched at the buttons on the radio. “Let’s have something hot.”

The radio settled at an all-night jazz show, with creeping rhythms and the constant heated beat of snare drums.

“Smooth, ain’t it?” she asked.

“Um. Smooth.”

They turned onto the Drive, joining the hordes of late-evening commuters, streaming away from New York. The Hudson River Parkway turned and sprawled for miles, with the Ford riding it recklessly and quickly.

Then, when a dark draw-off area by the River showed itself, Cherry, straightening up, nudged Checker in the side. “There,”-she said, excitement edging her voice, “pull off there!”

Checker pulled onto the gravelly section, and cut the motor. Behind them, the unabated whanging of cars speeding past kept up a constant background noise.

Checker shrugged his shoulder muscles, loosening them from the tension of steady driving. He looked out across the hood of the car at the dark, silent Hudson.

“Cigarette?” he asked, offering the pack to Cherry.

She shook her head no, moved a little closer to him.

“You know, Cherry,” he said, “I ain’t very bright, but if I didn’t know better, I’d think you was makin’ a play for me. Now what would our buddy, Vode, say to that?”

He grinned, and turned to look at her.

“You know what I think of Vode,” she snarled. “He got to me when I first joined the Club. I don’t dig him nohow! And I don’t give a damn what he thinks!”

She turned toward him, moving closer, rubbing her breasts against his arm. “Now, with you, it’s different.”

Checker was playing it cool. “Yeah?”

“I been watching you since you joined the Strikers. You got it, Checker.” Her eyes were bright. She moved closer, shoving Checker against the door.

“Maybe I got it,” he admitted, “but what about Vode? He won’t dig your liking me. I hate to stone any buddy, but we can’t make noise till Vode drops you.”

She drew back petulantly. “Ain’t no guy dumps me!”

“Then how do we get rid of Vode?” Checker asked calmly.

“Simple,” Cherry said, looking down at her red-tipped fingers. “You got a rumble comin’ up with the Stompers, don’t you?” When Checker nodded his head slowly, Cherry continued. “Then during the war, when he turns his back, pin him with your switchblade. It’s been done before,” she explained.

Checker did not draw back. He looked out the window and lit a cigarette. His voice was level. “It’s an idea. I’ll think about it.”

She moved closer once more, her face lit by the light from the radio dial. The music seemed to swell, filling the car. “You’re not going to think about it now, are you, Check?”

Checker looked down at her; she was licking her lips again.

He flicked the cigarette out the window.

They slid to a stop in front of Greasy Ernie’s. The big rainbow-shaped neon sign that arced over the diner was blinking on and off pinkly, frantically:

THE NICEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD EAT IN THIS DINER!

Cherry opened her door, slammed it behind her, and flounced up the steps, into the diner. Checker right behind her.

Checker saw Vode rise to his feet, still sitting in the same booth where they had left him. Some of the Strikers had checked-out, but most were still there, passing the gab, waiting for something to pop.

Checker tossed the keys to Vode. “Where the hell were ya?” Vode inquired angrily. “It’s been two and a half hours!”

Cherry slid into the booth, pulled Vode by the sleeve till he sat down next to her. “Oh, just out the Drive.”

“Yeah. And I’ll bet you parked a while, too,” he said accusingly.

Checker sat down opposite him, let the switchblade slide down into his hand, clicked it open. “That’s a pretty unkind thing to say about a chick as faithful as little Cherry is to you, Vode,” he answered, watching the other boy evenly.

Vode stared back steadily. They watched each other, eyes locked, till Vode flickered and slowly lowered his. “Yeah. Yeah. I suppose so,” he murmured.

The sounds of the diner came back around them, mixed and mingled with the noises of the streets and the noises of the ebony rain pelting into the gutters. Someone yelled for a piece of apple pie with cheese on it.

Checker toyed with the knife. It seemed as though time had doubled back on itself—as though he and Cherry had never gone on that ride.

“Y’know, I’d like a shot at that lousy Johnny Slice,” Checker stated, remembering his anger of two and a half hours before. “A real shot. Man, I’d pile his bricks!”

Checker wanted another chance to rumble with the Jolly Stompers. He wanted a chance at Vode. Cherry was worth it! He knew they’d gone on the ride.

“Don’t forget the cops, Check,” said Cherry, from across the booth, playing with him, smiling inside while the outside was serene. Abruptly a thin smile played across her full lips and she tossed her auburn hair coquettishly. Vode watched with annoyance.

“Cops!” Checker snorted at her. “Cops! I eat ’em for meatless Friday; they’re just like jellyfish!”

Vode’s head came up sharply. This was more interesting! Suddenly the. conversation interested him; this was too much between Cherry and Checker. He was going to have to get rid of Checker. This might be an angle. He saw a sharp way to get Checker off his back—and away from Cherry.

He leaned across the table. “You don’t like cops, right Checker?” His sallow face was alive with excitement; a grin broke the even blankness of his expression.

“I hate the stupid jerks,” Checker answered, as though the question were unnecessary. He had been idly fingering the knife. Now he raised it again. “I’d like to let a cop field this steel in his tummy!”

Vode licked his lips nervously. “Okay, Checker. We been buddies for quite a while now. Right?”

Checker nodded warily, still not understanding. “So?”

“So I got a proposition for you, buddy-O. A bet. A real bet.” He was wagging his finger in emphasis. “You want in?”

Checker leaned back in the booth, watching the faces of the other Strikers, who listened now, their interest drawn. He looked at the plain whiteness of Vode’s face, and the ripe beauty of Cherry’s sardonic grin. “Maybe,” he replied. “Depends what kind of a bet it is.”

“You’re not chickie, are you?”

Checker slid forward, the knife ready. “That wasn’t nice, buddy-O. I said maybe—depending what kind of bet you got in mind.”

“I’ll bet you a death!” Vode said abruptly.

Checker’s brows drew down. “What? What the hell are you talkin’ about?”

The other boy let his tongue slide onto his lower lip for an instant, then said, “I’ll bet Cherry against your killin’ a cop. You cool a harness boy, you get Cherry. You don’t—you stay off my turf with her.”

The sudden silence of the diner was broken only by a customer clicking his fork against his pie plate, and the sizzle of the grill.

The Strikers looked at Vode, then at Checker. There was a hushed murmur of disbelief. As it washed through the crowd of teen-agers, Checker let his breath out slowly. “Sounds interestin’. Tell me more.” He was looking at Cherry, who was licking her lips, a faint grin on her face. She was enjoying this.

“We’ll go out, the bunch of us, and tag behind you. When you find a cop, you give him the shank. If you do, you can have Cherry, with no beef from me. If you don’t, then you stop makin’ the hot-looks on her. Deal?”

Checker’s face flamed. Cherry made an angry noise.

“What the hell you mean, me makin’ the hot-looks on her?” Checker snapped.

“What the hell you think I am, a raffle ticket?” Cherry growled, turning on Vode.

The pale boy held up his hands in resignation. “Look, don’t argue with me. If you dig the bet, Checker, you’re on; and if you win, I don’t think Cherry’ll put up too much of a beef. Now, which is it?”

Checker’s face was a blotched mask. His eyes were deeply hidden in shadow. He looked down at his hands. The naked switchblade lay in his palm. He closed his fingers over it once more.

“Is it a bet?” Vode persisted. “The boys wanna see if you’re a hero, Checker.”

Cherry strained forward in her seat. The Strikers edged closer. Even Greasy Ernie, behind the counter, had taken in most of the discussion, and he ignored his customers, eager to find out Checker’s decision.

Checker watched his hands, as though the answer would come from there. He knew he couldn’t back down. To back off was to show yellow, to show chickie; Besides, this was Cherry he was betting for. He raised his eyes a fraction, saw the edge of her in his vision. He knew what the answer would be.

The dark-browed boy looked up. He drew himself more erect, the black leather tightening across his chest. The knife came up slowly. Then he smiled tightly, slowly, and his words were sure and soft:

“I’ll bet you a death.”

The streets had slicked down completely. The gutters were swollen with midsummer rain, and the pavements shone with rainbow streaks where grease and gasoline had spattered.

Checker walked alone past the park. The Strikers were a block behind, holding to the shadows, walking quietly in a group. They were experienced in huddling; this was their city. They knew New York better than the housewives or the nine-to-fivers, or the cabbies, even. They knew the city and they knew how to get around in it.

Now they held to the shadows, letting Checker make his own play—letting him find his cop.

The night had closed down tightly, and the Strikers watched Checker, seeing only a dark blur, moving steadily. Then the blur stopped moving. The Strikers moved in.

“What’s the matter, Check?” Vode inquired, a touch of bite in his voice. “Change your mind?” They both knew that backing-off now would be punking-out. That would lose Checker any standing he might have in the Strikers. Besides, he couldn’t turn back and punk-out in front of Cherry.

“Watch your mouth, Vode,” Checker said. “I want to talk to Cherry—alone. For a minute.” He squinted his dark eyes at the gang, as though challenging them to disagree with him.

“Hey! I don’t know—” Vode began, but Cherry gave him a quick slap on the arm and edged past.

“Oh, come on, Vode! He wants to talk to me for a minute, why not? After all, I am the pay-off in this little bet.” She moved toward Checker.

He turned and walked away down the street, into a doorway. The Strikers watched as Cherry ambled to the doorway, swinging her body carelessly, and disappeared into its complete darkness.

“Listen,” said Checker, “you goin’ along with this thing? You’ll be my steady if I kill a cop? That right?”

Even in the semi-darkness, Checker could see the smile that crossed Cherry’s lips. “Sure, Check. I’ve wanted to be your drag before this but that goony-bird Vode’s been in the way. Now you can get him out of the way without havin’ to cool him sneaky in a rumble. All you have to do is find a cop.” Then a tinge of uncertainty came into her voice.

“You think you can find a cop—and—and—kill him?”

Checker reached out, dragged the girl close. “You just watch,” he said carefully. “You just watch me find one. Then that punk Vode’s gonna get his, anyhow. I thought he was my buddy, but he’s a lousy bastard; that’s what he is!”

Cherry moved closer, pressing her body against Checker. “Don’t let that turkey bother you.” She moved her head slowly, letting her auburn hair glide across his cheek. “When you’ve won the bet, I’ll be your drag; and he won’t be able to open his mouth. Then you can—”

“—Challenge him to a stand,” the voice of Vode finished, from the doorway. He reached in and grabbed Cherry by the upper arm. “Come on, you bum. Let’s let the hero here go out and find his copper. He’s been stallin’ long enough. Me and the guys wanna see him in action. We’re dyin’ to see you cool a badge, Checker, buddy-O.”

He yanked roughly, and Cherry slid out of Checker’s grasp. Checker cursed under his breath, swearing he would have a stand with Vode as soon as he’d won the bet.

He was going to win the bet! That much he knew for certain. It wasn’t only Cherry, though God knew she was enough to boil any stud’s blood, but now it was a personal thing. And when he shoved his steel into the cop, he would not only be killing a lousy badge, he’d be killing Vode a little.

The stud that cooled a copper would be the biggest man in the whole city. Biggest man in all the gangs. Biggest man; man to get all the broads, man to be top hard-boy!

And Checker wanted that almost as much as he wanted Cherry.

He slipped out of the doorway, the Strikers following a block behind. The night slid in around him, and he searched for the cop that could win him his big bet.

It had started drizzling again, harder this time. The rain misted down in a fine spray, and the black leather of Checker’s jacket had become beaded with moisture.

The cops seemed to be hiding. At every corner Checker had stopped, and waited. The Strikers had waited, too. But there had been nothing; not a sign, not a glimpse, not a patch of blue or a sparkle of metal. For the first time in his life Checker wanted to see the cops, and they were hiding!

What a crazy thing, he thought, stepping into another doorway to light a cigarette.

What a crazy night! When you don’t want them, they crawl all over you. When you want one bad enough so’s you can taste it, they stay in the cop house and play poker! He cupped his hand around the match, brought it to the cigarette.

The brief flare of the match highlighted his face, casting even deeper shadows into the pools under his eyes, in his cheeks. He had begun to perspire, and it bothered him.

“You’re chicken,” he murmured to himself, then grinned. He drew deeply on the cigarette, grimacing, wishing he had a high-stick to put him on the cloud. “A little pot and then I’d take on the whole damned force,” he said to the night.

A car turned into the street, its headlights flashing quickly in and out of the doorway, broken raggedly by the sluicing rain.

Checker drew on the cigarette once more and stepped out onto the sidewalk. He resumed his search. In a minute the cigarette hung wet and disheveled between his lips. In annoyance at not having cupped the rain off it, he flicked the butt into the gutter, and turned the corner.

Half a block up the street he stopped. On the corner.

His billy hanging from the inside of his elbow, a cop was phoning in on a call box.

Checker stopped and moved against the building wall. Now that the opportunity confronted him…he wasn’t sure he wanted to go through with this bet.

He took a shuffling step backward, then he heard the voices. Whispers of what had been said before:

You’re not chickie, are you?

The boys wanna see if you’re a hero, Checker!

What’s the matter, Check? Change your mind?

The boy clapped his hands to his ears wildly, and miraculously the voices stopped. He didn’t need to hear them any more. He knew what he was going to do.

In the drizzle-shine cast by the lamp post on the corner, Checker could see the hungry shadow-image of Cherry, moistening her lips with a flick of red tongue-tip. He edged out from the shadow of the building. The sidewalk seemed to go only one way. Straight-line away to the cop. Like a moving belt, dragging him closer.

His throat tightened convulsively. He suddenly wished he didn’t have to go through with it. He felt the jaws of the steel trap grinding shut.

The cop hadn’t moved. He was still making his report.

This wasn’t like a rumble. This wasn’t like talking smart to the cops who pinched you when you hung out on the corner. This was the real thing; Checker wasn’t sure he could make it. His legs felt numb, all down the back, especially in the back of the knees!

The cop was a big guy, broad across the shoulders and rump. He looked so much like a dark blue mountain, leaning against that post, talking into the phone.

The cop had a thick neck, and his cap was tilted back on his head. Why did he do that? Checker wondered. The rain will slop all over his face.

Suddenly, it was that thought which made Checker terribly frightened. He found himself trembling slightly. Why would a cop tilt his hat back so the rain could slosh all over him? It made the cop somehow more real, more formidable, someone who didn’t give a damn about the rain or the lousy weather.

Or anything.

A man like that was stronger than a vague mind-image of a stupid cop. Checker was scared: plain scared.

He turned, began stepping back to the building wall.

“Hey! What are you doing there?”

The cop had racked the phone and slammed the box shut. He had turned and seen Checker, even as Checker had been turning to leave. This was it.

With the Strikers somewhere back there in the darkness, with the cop advancing on him, Checker was stuck—cold stuck—and he didn’t want to go through with it. It wasn’t worth it. No hot twist like Cherry was worth buckin’ a guy like this cop. Checker started backing up slowly.

“Hey! You there! I said stop!”

Checker froze. His legs locked in midstep and he stumbled against the wall. The cop was getting bigger and bigger in his vision. He was even bigger coming than Checker had imagined he was standing there phoning.

He was a rocky-looking guy, not too old, not too young, about middle-aged, with small gray eyes and a slight limp. He didn’t look like a cop should look. He look the way a cop might want to look.

Tough—really tough. The kind of guy that wouldn’t put on the power unless it was needed. But once it was…

Checker didn’t want to tangle with this cop.

The bluecoat jogged up to Checker, favoring his left leg. He put a wide, blocky hand on the boy’s shoulder. “What were you doing there, I asked?” The cop’s voice was deep and throaty. He hefted his night-stick in the other hand.

Checker remained silent. His years in the streets had taught him one thing: the less you say, the less they got on you!

The cop shook him roughly. “Come on, punk, say something. Well, come on, answer me!” He shook Checker again.

The boy said nothing, but drew himself more erect, the jacket rippling with movement. He was beginning to hate this cop. Hate him real much. Hate him more than he feared him. It might be enough in a minute. It just might be enough.

Watch it, cop. Watch it! It might be enough in a minute! Just keep shaking me, yelling at me, and we’ll see if it ain’t maybe enough!

I don’t want to tangle, mister, but don’t nobody shake me! I been shook enough, and you’re gonna pay if you shake much more.

The boy’s eyes glowed strangely. The cop gazed in fascination into the dark pools. The kid looked like he was on pot. But the iris wasn’t expanded. Just a natural cuckaboo, this kid.

“Roll up your sleeve,” the cop said, taking no chances.

When Checker made no move, the cop let the stick slip its rope-string over his wrist. He yanked the boy’s black leathered sleeve up. The arm was clean. Clear. No needle marks.

The kid was just a natural-born cuckaboo!

Checker suddenly shrugged the cop’s hand off his shoulder. The rain slicked down on them both, and Checker hunched his shoulders into the jacket. “Keep ya hands to yourself. I ain’t done nothin’!”

The cop’s eyes narrowed. The boy was sweating freely, though the evening was chilled and wet.

“Then why did you try to take off when I called you? Answer me, kid, or so help me I’ll run you in!” Checker could see what was running through the cop’s head:

Let’s be careful. This kid alone? No sense getting carved up by a wolf-pack. Would it be smarter just to ring up the precinct house and not take any chances with this punk? What was he so scared about?

“Come on now, answer me!” His tone was harsh and brittle. Checker knew the cop was trying to toss a scare his way.

The boy shuffled his feet a moment, then looked up at the apartment house towering over them both. The bright squares of night-lit windows made a random pattern against the ink and soot sky. “I didn’t know who you was; I couldn’t see you; I was scared.”

The cop arched an eyebrow. “Yeah? Well, what’re you doing out here this late anyhow? You live around here?”

Checker shook his head, tried to draw away again, but the cop restrained him once more. “My buddy lives here,” the boy said, quickly. “He told me to come on up, we’d go to a movie.”

“Yeah?” the cop said slowly, obvious disbelief in his voice. “Then why’d you try to run when I called?”

Checker was getting frantic. This was beginning to be a nightmare. The same questions, over and over, as though he hadn’t answered them already once, as though they were coming up fresh for the first time, as though they’d keep coming up till he dropped dead.

“I already told ya. I couldn’t see ya. It was too dark. Honest, I’m sorry. Can I go now?”

The cop pursed his lips momentarily, then released the boy’s jacket. “Yeah, I suppose so. But stay on the sidewalk, in the open, from now on. All right, move along.”

He stood and watched as Checker turned, moving away from him. A strange kid. He seemed all keyed-up, but he wasn’t on dope, that was obvious. Well, maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe he couldn’t see that far into the dark. Maybe he…

The cop turned, looked back over his shoulder at the corner where he had been using the call box. The box fastened to a lamppost; there was a yellow circle of light twenty feet around the base of the pole.

The kid couldn’t possibly have missed him!

Then another thought struck him. Movie…

Movie? At this hour? He slipped his sleeve back, and peered at his watch. Twelve-thirty. Movie, hell! That kid was pulling something off, and he almost made it!

“I knew there was something wrong with him!” the cop said aloud, starting to run.

Checker was still in sight. Just turning the corner. He hadn’t yet begun to run himself. “Stop! Hey, you there! Kid! Stop!”

Checker looked back in horror. The cop must have suspected something. Without wasting a step, Checker broke into a run. He turned the corner quickly.

He passed an alleyway, and saw the dark bulk of the Strikers, watching him. He sidestepped into the alley.

“H-hey!” he panted, “you g-gotta give me a-a h-hand. W-when the copper gets down here…we’ll…we’ll…all jump him…”

He stopped. The words didn’t spill over each other any more. He watched the Strikers. They were shaking their heads. “Sorry, Checker,” Vode said, pulling Cherry a little closer. “This is your picnic, not ours. You made a bet, and you got to carry through on it yourself, man.”

Cherry leaned away from Vode’s encircling arm, toward Checker, a mocking smile on her bright red lips. “I’m worth the risk, ain’t I, Check?”

Checker let a stream of curses slip through his ground-together teeth. “You bunch of stinkin’, slimy bastards! You got me into this thing! Why the hell don’tcha help me?”

A slow, thick smile spread across Vode’s sallow face.

Then he knew why Vode wouldn’t help him.

“You sonofabitch!” he whispered, the hate swelling up in him. He took a step toward Vode.

The pale boy dipped a hand into his jacket pocket. It came up with a blunt-snouted gun, deadly black and watching. “I got this off Sheckels before we started followin’ you. I kinda figured you’d try to punk out.” He lowered the gun meaningfully.

Till it was aimed at Checker’s stomach.

“Get out there!” he snapped.

Checker took another half-step toward Vode. The gun came up sharply, pointing into Checker’s face. “I’ll get you,” he said. It came out cold and hard. “I’ll win that bet, too,” he added, “and when I do, I’m gonna lay a few on your kisser, Cherry.”

The girl sneered. Checker hated her worse than all of them. She had played both sides to win. If Vode won the bet, she was still the girl friend of the top boy. If Checker came through—well, then he was her man. She didn’t care.

He turned and ran out of the alley.

The cop had stopped on the corner, trying to figure which way Checker had gone when he’d turned the corner. He was rubbing his limping leg. He spotted the boy the instant he left the alley, and ceased rubbing. “Hey! Stop there!”

Checker started running again. He couldn’t stop. Behind him he could hear the slap-slap of the cop’s feet hitting the pavement. The cop ran past the alley where the Strikers had hidden. They could have taken him right then, but they didn’t! The cop went right past.

I’ll get you bastards—after I win this bet, he thought.

The rattling shriek of the police whistle split the night.

His breath came raggedly, but he raced on, knowing if he was caught, it would be either him or the cop. He was going to win that bet!

Checker came to another corner and spun around the building without slowing down. Another alley. He passed it by and ducked quickly into a doorway just beyond.

The cop slammed around the corner, going smoothly for a guy with a limp in his left leg. The cop came to a dead stop as he saw the black mouth of the alley. He ground his jaws nervously. Was the kid in there? Was he armed? He didn’t know, but there was one quick way to find out.

The flashlight beam cast a thick arm of light down the passage. It filtered off into half-light before it hit the garbage cans against the wall, halfway down the alley. The bluecoat’s gun was in his hand, and he paced slowly into the alley.

He didn’t notice the blur of black leather and metal as Checker slid rapidly up behind him.

The pain began just to the left of his armpit, in his back. He hardly felt the knife slice into the fat over his spine, but a second later the blade ground against bone, and it was like ice in a furnace!

The cop staggered, letting out a howl, flailing out with his gun arm. The arm caught Checker across the throat, sending him spinning out of the alley, onto the sidewalk.

The cop stumbled out after him. “A cop! I killed me a cop!” Checker shouted, getting up and coming back at the blue-coated figure.

The boy’s wild face grew large in the bleeding cop’s eyes. The pain was numbing him. He dropped the flashlight. Its beam spattered across the sidewalk.

Checker advanced on the cop again, his arm raised. The switchblade caught an instant’s gleam from the lamp post. Dirty cop! The thought repeated itself in the boy’s mind. I’ll win that bet, you’ll see!

He had started, and there was no turning back!

“What…are…you…?” the cop mumbled, fumbling at the holster flap.

The boy took another step, lunged, mumbling, eyes wide at the enormity of what he was doing. His tongue was trapped in a corner of his mouth, pink and wet.

The cop lifted the thousand-pound revolver, fired once, twice, three times. Point blank into the chest of the dark-browed and mumbling boy before him.

Checker slipped in mid-stride, tottered sidewise. He fell to his knees, still clutching the knife. Animal sounds came from him in short grunts, as he struggled to draw breath around the sharp, hard, pounding points of pain in his chest. “Uh, uh,” he grunted, both hands held at his chest, hugging himself with crossed arms. “Uh.”

Then he fell onto his side, slipping half into the street. His breathing was heavy, he was blinking rapidly.

The sound of police sirens ricocheted through the night. Around a corner, the whirling red light atop a squad car bore down on them.

The cop took a step toward the squad car, as it pulled in to the curb, then he fell with a crash, the gun skittering into the gutter.

He lay there, blood dribbling from his lips; then his back arched, and he fell motionless, stiffly.

The crowd began to gather even as the police poured from the squad cars. They seemed to sense when the danger was past, when it was safe to come and watch what horror lay in their streets.

As though it were a signal, the gathering of the crowds brought the end of the sluicing rain. The last drops came down, spattered unnoticed, and then the heavens were darkly silent.

The Strikers had seen most of it from the alley. Silently they had followed, and watched as Checker had killed his cop.

Now they came across the street, in groups of two and three, joining the crowd as though they had been dragged from their homes or cars at this hour, as all the others had.

They moved through the crowd, pushing in steadily toward the center, where the police stood, with caps removed, looking down at the body of the patrolman.

A few people were looking at the kid, his head and shoulders in the gutter, the blood still welling out in an ever-lessening flood.

“Checker…” Cherry muttered, no tone at all in her voice. She fell silent. And licked her lips.

“Yeah. Checker,” Vode replied, his voice low, and half to himself.

Only Cherry heard his next words, and her face was impassive:

“Guess what, Check?” Vode said lightly.

“You lose.”

WE TAKE CARE OF OUR DEAD

Checker had been dead a week when Sammy Silence came to see Vode.

“They want to kill you, Vode,” the dummy said.

Vode stared open-mouthed at Sammy. “B-but you can’t talk!” he exclaimed, upsetting a chair as he backed away from the ugly boy.

Sammy Silence was in the gang; he’d been in the gang a long time—even before Vode had joined the Strikers. He was a legend. He was the dummy of the gang, the guy everyone trusted because he couldn’t talk.

He was a dummy. He was a mute. That’s what everybody thought. Yet here he was, coming to Vode, talking. Telling Vode that the Strikers were out for his skin. Vode didn’t know whether he should be more amazed that the dummy could talk or that the Strikers wanted him dead.

He regained himself and stepped back toward the ugly boy. “Where’d you hear that?” He waved his hand aimlessly, but his meaning was clear.

Sammy plunked into an easy chair. It was Vode’s home, a railroad flat, but the dummy made himself at ease.

He was a thin boy, almost skeleton-like, with thin wrists and thin ankles and a neck so thin it looked as though it might not be able to support the bony weight of his head. His eyes were deep, and they seemed to have voices all their own, independent of his vocal cords. He was dressed in the sheerest filth of raggery, his only clean and well-tended item a zipper jacket of red poplin.

He spoke slowly, haltingly, his face reddening with every word. The first words Vode had ever heard him speak:

“D-d-down at the D-D-Diner. I h-heard Paulie and Fifteen t-talkin’. They said they was gonna g-get you cooled ’cause you bumped off Ch-Checker.” The boy stumbled to a halt, his face red and perspiring from the effort of speaking.

His tiny Adam’s apple bobbed pitifully in his chicken-craw neck.

It was obvious why he had let everyone think he was incapable of speech.

“But that’s nuts!” Vode almost yelled. “I didn’t kill Checker!”

But his eyes had narrowed, and he licked his lips nervously.

“Th-that ain’t what Fift-t-teen said.” Sammy answered coolly. “He-he s-said ya suckered Ch-Checker into a stand w-with a cop, and then when Ch-Checker needed you to b-back h-him up, to c-cool the c-cop, you d-double-crossed him.”

Vode felt cold right down into the calves of his legs. He knew he wasn’t sitting so well with the Strikers these days; and he knew they were sore about Checker. But he hadn’t thought they’d go this far.

“Look,” Vode explained hastily, leaning over the ugly boy, “it was like this: Checker was makin’ passes at Cherry…”

The dummy’s eyes sparkled at mention of Vode’s red-haired girl friend. All the boys in the Strikers wanted Cherry. But he was a dummy—he knew his place.

Vode went on. “I had to get Checker to leave Cherry alone, so I made a bet with him. I bet him he couldn’t kill a cop…and if he did, he could have Cherry. If he didn’t, he hadda knock off makin’ passes at her.”

“Th-then when h-he found a c-cop, you double-crossed him, r-r-right?”

Vode ran a hand unsteadily through his curly hair. “No! That ain’t right! I didn’t double-cross him. We just followed him when he went looking for that cop. When he found the guy, he chickened-out, and started running. We were in an alley, and the cop was chasing him. Checker came runnin’ into the alley to get me to back him up…help him jump the cop…but I didn’t want to get suckered into it, so I yanked a rod and shoved him back into the street.”

Sammy raised a finger. “Th-that’s what Fifteen said; only h-he says you fixed it s-so’s Checker’d get killed by that cop. H-he says you borrowed the rod from s-some kid up-uptown so’s y-you could put the squeeze on Checker.”

Vode felt sick to his stomach. The Strikers had figured it out, then. That had been exactly what he’d done. It had been a frame, and it had worked. Until now.

He’d known Checker would need help, and to prevent any of the gang giving it, when the cop was after Checker, he’d gotten to a contact uptown and borrowed the rod. But now Checker was dead, and Cherry was his girl again, and he’d thought the Strikers had forgotten the incident.

Vode was a tall boy, with an extremely sallow face, and a head of thick brown, curly hair. He had a nervous habit of rubbing his thumb across the fisted first finger of his closed hand.

Now he was making that movement. Nervously, almost wildly.

He was scared, really scared, for the first time since he’d joined the Strikers, but he wasn’t going to let them know it! In fact, he wasn’t so sure he could trust this dummy. A guy who all of a sudden could talk!

“What’s in this for you, Sammy?” he asked suspiciously. “Why’d you risk lettin’ me know you could talk? They send you up here to see if I’d turn chickie?”

He advanced a step on the scrawny boy.

Sammy leaned forward in the chair, and Vode caught a fetid whiff of the alleys the boy frequented. “L-l-look, Vode. I d-d-don’t want no trouble. I d-don’t want in on this bit. I only c-c-come up to tell ya c-cause you been decent to me a couple times. If the Strikers ever find out I was here, I’m d-dead…so k-keep it to yaself, huh?”

Vode nodded dumbly, his voice seemingly lost. He didn’t speak even when the dummy pushed himself from the chair and moved toward the door.

Sammy Silence paused with his hand on the doorknob. “D-do me a favor, willya, Vode?”

The sallow-faced boy looked up, questioningly, though his mind was spinning elsewhere.

“D-don’t tell anybody I can talk, willya. I-I-I…” He couldn’t say it. It was obvious, though, why he wanted his ability kept quiet. He had no parents. He lived from door to alley and alley to gutter; and it was safer if the gang thought he was really Sammy Silence. Then too, there was the stuttering. That could really rack-up a guy. Vode understood.

He knew what the boy must have gone through to come and speak from his warped throat, to warn him. He understood perfectly.

“Okay, Sammy.” His voice was soft. “It’s between you and me. Thanks a lot; I appreciate this. I’ll do you the same some day.”

The dummy turned the knob. He started to say something, pumped his tongue against his lips for a second, then opened the door, a look of terrible sadness on his face.

“S-s-so long, Vode,” he said.

The door closed quietly and tightly behind him, and Vode was alone in the railroad flat. Noise from the afternoon street rose up in the heat and struck at the walls. Vode sat down heavily in the chair the dummy had occupied. Through the open window he heard a bus wheeze to a stop on the corner and discharge its passengers.

The city had never seemed so lonely. Things had never seemed so rugged. He was sorry now he’d ever boxed Checker in like that—gotten him killed.

The gang took care of its members. It took care of its dead, too. And they didn’t like studs that cooled other studs, particularly when Checker had been so well-liked.

“Hell!” He muttered under his breath, banging his hand down on the over-padded arm of the easy chair. A spurt of dust rose upward at his violence, and the particles turned lazily golden in the sunbeams slanting through the window.

The walls seemed to ooze down over him, meeting the dirty carpet, squashing him in between their gritty surfaces.

He wanted to run but there was no road in sight.

They showed up at the flat that night.

Ten of them. Fifteen and Paulie and Sharkmouth and Fat Jules and the rest. And the dummy, Sammy Silence.

They showed up, and they only knocked once before they came through the door. Vode’s father was reading the News. He looked up, fear on his face for a second. Then he rose and scratched at his undershirt in annoyance.

“What you kids want here?”

He spoke with a thick Polish accent, and his small, almost delicate face worked as it strove to build up a false bravado.

The ten moved into the room, maneuvering themselves around the living room. Vode’s father watched them with eyes that grew wider with fear. He had seen these children of the streets in action—knew what they could do—knew they weren’t youngsters with harmless passions, knew they were deadly.

“Wh-what you want here?” His voice was not at all brave.

“We come to see Vode, Mister Piercynski.” Big, rangy Fifteen stepped forward a bit, drawing himself taller.

Vode’s father worked his cheek muscles, trying to find something to say to these evening invaders of his home. Something that would defeat them, but not offend them.

“Well, you got to knock on my door before you come in, you unnerstand?” His voice wavered and cracked.

“Why don’t you back off and shut up,” Paulie said, coming up beside Fifteen.

Fifteen snickered. The boy’s words struck the older man almost physically, driving him back a step. Piercynski melted. His face fell apart before the swaggering carelessness of the boys. He swallowed loudly, and looked about as though he were trapped.

Then he collapsed, slumping back into his chair. “Vode, he’s in the bedroom,” he said softly, staring at the worn carpet between his slippers.

They all laughed roughly then, the tension whispering away, and moved down the hall to Vode’s bedroom.

Vode had heard them come in. He had waited with ear against wall praying his father might stop them, might turn them back. He had heard the exchange between his father and the Strikers, the exchange that had ended with Mr. Piercynski backing-off, as Paulie had commanded. It was the same as always…always. His old man had backed off. He was a weakling. And Vode hated weaklings.

He was hating it, with eyes screwed tightly shut, and hands clenched violently at his side, even as they stopped outside his door, and burst in.

He started, and slowly opened his eyes.

“Hi, Vode!” Fifteen said, coming in. He was a big boy, with a muscular body and long legs. The girls compared him favorably with the male movie stars, and he knew it. He had a habit of acting loose and melodramatic to heighten the comparison.

While Vode faced the big Fifteen, they all moved into the room. All nine of them. The small bedroom became crowded.

“Ain’t you boys out a little late tonight?” he asked, with mock heroism.

They could sense the disquiet in his voice, and they liked it. “We ain’t seen you around much lately,” Fat Jules said, leaning against the closet door, crushing a shirt hung over the knob.

“Not since Checker got a gutful of lead,” Paulie added, from behind him. Vode whirled at the voice.

This was the Game, and they were playing it for all there was in it. “What do you want?” Vode asked again.

“We just thought we’d stop in and see if you wanted to square up for Checker?” Fifteen boosted himself to the top of the bureau, his feet dangling, banging insultingly against the furniture. He looked down at Vode.

The sallow-faced boy knew he had to bluff it out.

The Strikers knew he’d foxed Checker into getting killed by that cop, and they wanted vengeance. The gang law was in force tonight, and he’d have to play it cool to make it out alive.

“Whaddaya mean, square up?” Vode asked, sitting down on the bed carelessly. “For what?”

“Well, you know how it is?” Fifteen sliced a flattened hand through the air. “What with you makin’ sure Checker got cooled, we thought you’d like to reinstate yourself in the good graces of the club.”

He looked to the others for affirmation, and they flashed thin, tight grins, nodding their heads in agreement.

“You’re nuts!” Vode said, jerking his head as though he were spitting. “You’re nuts! I didn’t do a damned thing to him. He made a bet, and he lost; that’s all there was to it.”

“Yeah, and you rigged the bet so’s he’d lose!” Paulie spat, from the wall. He’d been a close side-buddy of Checker’s.

“That’s a goddam lie!”

“Yeah, well I say it ain’t, you lousy sonofabitch!”

“Prove it!”

“I don’t have to. We already talked to the guy you borrowed the rod from…he told us!”

Vode’s mouth went dry. His belly jerked up at him, and he knew they had him.

“I borrowed it cause I was plannin’ on takin’ a gas station out in Jersey with some guys.”

“What guys?” Fifteen asked. “You don’t mean you was gonna pull off a job without your buddies in the Strikers?”

“I—”

“Oh, for Chrissakes, I can’t stomach this!” Paulie suddenly spoke up. “Can’t ya see the punk’s lyin’ in his teeth? He ain’t got the guts to try a heist by hisself!”

Vode pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket, stuck it in his mouth carelessly, yet his hand shook a bit. “You callin’ me yellow, you lousy slob?”

Paulie struck suddenly, his hand lashing out, knocking the cigarette from Vode’s mouth. “You bet your ass I am!”

He seemed determined to back Vode into a fight but Fifteen motioned him back. “Stay outta this for a minute, Paulie, you’ll get your chance.”

Vode’s neck felt tight, skin-drawn. He bent down to pick up the cigarette, feeling they would plant a boot in his back any second.

“Anyhow,” Fifteen resumed, “you gotta square up with the gang. Make amends, like. You know what I mean, don’tcha Vode buddy?”

His tones were syrupy, but his eyes glimmered like knife-points.

Checker’s image flashed before Vode’s eyes. He stared up at Fifteen warily. “What do I have to do?”

“Well…” Fifteen considered, buffing his nails on his black leather jacket sleeve, “we thought you oughtta start out by donatin’ a hundred bucks to the club treasury. Things have been tough for the Strikers’ treasury. You understand.” He added as an afterthought, “That’s just a starter.”

Vode’s eyebrows leaped upward at the sum Fifteen declared. He crushed the cigarette to paper and shreds of tobacco, let the handful fall to the rug. He leaped to his feet, the bedsprings groaning from the release of his weight. “You crazy or somethin’? Where the hell am I supposed to get a hundred bucks? You’re nuts!”

He turned away angrily.

Fifteen jerked a short nod at Fat Jules, and the larger boy grabbed Vode by his shoulder, ripping his shirt, spun him around hard so the sallow-faced Vode banged against the wall, hitting the night stand, upsetting the lamp.

“Manners, Vode.” Fifteen waggled a finger warningly. “Watch your manners…otherwise we might not even give this chance to you, so you can square yourself.”

His face became rock-hard, the lines about his mouth tightening. “We might just take you down over the Drive and shove you off the breakwater. Or we might haul you to the dumps and leave you with a beer-bottle stuck in your kisser, for the rats to clean you up. You rather we do that?” He wasn’t playing the Game any more.

“You c-can’t do that,” Vode tried to brave it out. “The cops could trace it back just the same. They’d get you.”

“Try us,” Fifteen said softly, and hellfire blazed up in his slate eyes.

This was the choosing for Vode. It was either the knife or the squaring-up. Vode blanched, and the nervous movement of his thumb over his first finger began again. The others watched him with sly smiles breaking the taut lines of their faces.

“Where you think I’m gonna get a hundred bucks?” Vode demanded, the impossibility of it hitting him fully.

Paulie put one foot on the bed, leaving a dirty bootprint on the brown spread. “Oh, we got that figured for you already, Vode buddy-O,” he said, his face screwing up in a rigid smile at the corners of his mouth.

Paulie looked at the others to see if they shared his amusement. He already knew they did. They did.

“How?” Vode asked with caution.

“You’re gonna hold up Old Man Straubing’s place tonight,” Fat Jules said, fatly grinning. “You’re gonna boost Old Man Straubing’s candy store. Tonight.” The grin widened.

Vode stared at them, and suddenly their faces meshed and melted into one picture: a big composite of the Strikers, all of them after his blood.

“Straubing’s? Are you kidding? Look, I ain’t chickie, but I’ll be damned if I’ll heist that joint.”

Vode’s mind raced ahead: Shavers, the cop, he’s got his beat right past the joint…and old man Straubing keeps a loaded pistol in there behind the candy counter. I’ll get my head shot off! Jeezus, they wanna get me killed!

“You’re nuts!” he was almost yelling. “I won’t do it! If you slobs think I gotta get you dough, I’ll get it my own way…I ain’t gonna hold up Straubing’s store. Go to hell!”

Paulie stepped forward quickly, then, and cracked him across the mouth with fisted knuckles. Vode staggered back, his lip split by his teeth. Blood welled from the fattened lip. He sucked on it, the blood running over his gums.

His face had gone white, and he made the nervous movement frantically now, unaware he was doing it.

“Keep ya voice down and a civil tongue in your head when you’re talkin’ ta gentlemen,” Paulie said, his face rigid.

“Don’t you think we can make you, Vode?” Fifteen inquired pleasantly.

He nodded his head, and Sharkmouth came out from beside the bureau, where he had been leaning.

He was a short, thin boy, almost emaciated looking. He wore tight-fitting black chino pants with white piping, and a black shirt under the now seldom-worn black leather jacket.

Vode noticed, with a twinge of wonder, that the boy was also wearing a pair of black leather gloves. It was summer; why the gloves? The question didn’t hold him long:

In Sharkmouth’s hand was an open switchblade.

“It hurts,” the boy in black said. And said no more.

Vode’s eyes seemed held by the sheen of metal. He watched the knife where it lay sleeping in Sharkmouth’s palm. Abruptly he felt all fight go out of himself.

He tottered a second and sat down suddenly on the bed. His lips quivered slightly, and the frantic rubbing of thumb over fist made little washing sounds in the silent room.

Half to himself he murmured, “I didn’t do it to Checker. I didn’t do nothin’…”

Paulie towered over him, gave a short half-laugh. “Yeah. You didn’t do much! You just bushwhacked him into gettin’ full of cop slugs. Now you’ll square up with the Strikers, or you’re gonna be real sorry.”

He paused, and looked at the gang again, making certain they knew he was going to say something important. “We take care of our members—even if they are dead!”

“I did it for Cherry! I did it for Cherry!” Vode was mumbling, rubbing a hand absently up his right temple.

“You did it for Cherry, huh?” Fifteen asked from the top of the bureau.

Vode nodded dumbly.

“Well, then let’s ease over and see her, huh, man?”

“W-why?”

“Maybe she can put in a word for ya. If Cherry says you done it for her, then you’re squared away with us.”

Vode looked up, an easy smile crossing his face. “That’s it! That’s a deal; we’ll fall over there right now, okay?”

“Okay, okay,” Fat Jules said easily. Perhaps too easily.

Vode felt the vague stirrings of uneasiness in his mind. “W-well, we better go,” he said nervously.

They left then, with Vode’s old man watching silently as his boy walked out, almost under restraint. He tried to say, “What time you’ll be back, son?” but the words never left his mouth.

They left then, without Vode ever once catching the look of deadly sorrow, the look that said don’t go, in the eyes of his father. And in the eyes of Sammy Silence.

They found Cherry at last, in the malt shop, with a boy none of the Strikers knew. He was obviously from off-turf. That didn’t sit so hot with the boys.

“What’s she doin’ with a stranger if she’s a Striker deb?” Fat Jules wanted to know.

He turned on Vode in anger. “Don’cha know how to keep an eye on your broad, even?”

As a body they strolled into the malt shop. They were not quiet about it.

Cherry looked up at the noise, and as she recognized them, the color drained away from her attractive face.

She was a well-formed girl, overdeveloped for her age, with absolutely auburn hair like a blast furnace, and full red lips that had prompted the universal nickname “Cherry.”

“Hi fellas. What’s new?” She smiled sickly. Vode moved toward her carefully, all thought of pressure from the Strikers submerged. Paulie and Sharkmouth stayed with him, moving as escort.

“Whaddaya doin’ with him?” Vode demanded, jerking a thumb at the unidentified boy.

A flicker of animosity ranged across Cherry’s face, and she licked her lips rapidly. The look died and was replaced by open fear. She waved a slim hand in faltering explanation. “He’s…he’s…my cousin! Yeah. He came in with my Aunt Gert from New Rochelle, and we was just havin’ a Coke. We’re goin’ back to my place.” She let the smile perch on her face, though it looked as though it were going to sicken and drop off at any second.

The boy, a pimply-faced, yet almost handsome fellow, looked startled at being called cousin, but said nothing. A thin film of perspiration had sprung out on his forehead, nose and upper lip. He swiveled on the stool, looking uncomfortable.

“Cousin? The hell he’s your cousin! You been datin’ behind my back? We’re supposed to be steady!” Vode’s face became blotched as he spoke, the anger suffusing his features.

Cherry started to say something, but the soda jerk stepped up, said, “Say! You’ll have to talk civilly or get out of my shop if you don’t want…”

He was cut off by a flat hand in the mouth that sent him back against the rear counter, upsetting a hot fudge machine.

“Shut up, clown, this is a private discussion!” Fat Jules said, menacing the clerk with a balled fist. The fellow left hurriedly, to wipe off the rear tables.

Cherry said what she had begun to say: “Listen, big mouth!” she snapped, sliding off the stool, “you got no push with me! I can date anybody I want! You’re in bad enough without mouthin’ off to me! I ain’t wanted nothin’ to do with you since you pulled that lousy deal on Checker!” She walked close to him, her eyes flashing.

Vode brought his hand up, as though to slap her, but Paulie grabbed it tightly at the wrist, twisting it up behind his back.

Vode gave a sharp scream, and gritted his teeth against the pain.

Fifteen came a little closer to Cherry. His eyes were half-veiled, running up and down her lush form. “That’s what we wanted to ask ya about, Cherry honey. In fact, we got a question to ask ya. Your boy friend here,” he tossed a thumb in Vode’s direction, “he says he got Checker stacked crooked with that copper, because of you. He says it was on your account, and you’ll straighten him with us.

“Otherwise…” His face became a featureless mask of granite, etched with acid in the lines of a death-head, “…we square him our own way.”

He moved back out of the way, and Cherry could see the cool Sharkmouth, savoring the sight of his wild switchblade.

She looked at the knife, at the crowd of anxious boys with the scent of death hanging on their hands, and at the white, terribly frightened face of Vode.

“Crap!” she said sharply. “Crap! He didn’t do nothin’ for me!” She said the last matter-of-factly. There was no other answer.

“No!” Vode got out, before they had him by the underarms and were hustling him from the store. He kicked his legs futilely.

“Thanks, Cherry,” Fifteen said, eyeing her lewdly.

“Any time, Fifteen.” She smiled, and turned back to her Coca-Cola. The pimply boy, pale and perspiring, turned also.

To them, with Vode gone, kicking and moaning, the incident was dead.

Fifteen walked toward the door. He turned to Paulie and Fat Jules. “And kick that crumb’s teeth down his throat,” he directed, pointing to the pimply-faced boy, drinking his Coke through a straw. “It’ll teach Cherry she’s a Striker deb, and it ain’t healthy to date off-turf.”

Fifteen walked out of the malt shop, even as Paulie and Fat Jules advanced on the pale and still perspiring boy.

Cherry watched quietly. She didn’t dare scream.

Old Man Straubing was a veteran of the First World War. He had taken on a load of mustard gas at Belleau Wood, and the cough he had gotten as a bonus was familiar in his neighborhood.

As familiar as Old Man Straubing himself, with his drooping, barely respectable handlebar mustache and his mock-ferocious attitude toward the children.

“A free bobble gom I should giff you yet!” he would complain in thick accent, to the smiling youngster. “Free yet!”

He would inevitably purse his lips till the mustache trembled, let a bit of fire from his eyes, then break down into a smile, and a chuckle. “Ja, ja, free it would be, if you don’t godt the pennies.”

Old Man Straubing seemed to be the neighborhood Santa, and he could afford to be. He charged ten cents more on each malted milk than anyone else. He bought popsicles for $1.90 for two dozen, and sold them for ten cents each. He had picked up the mustard gas cough at Belleau Wood, but he had also picked up a firm dislike for these snot-nosed Americans who rode around in their Cadillacs and dropped ashes all over his linoleum floor.

He had fought at Belleau Wood, but no one in the neighborhood realized he had fought on the other side. Capture and repatriation had brought with them a desire to come to this land where the gold bricks lay in the street.

Everyone in the neighborhood complained about the Old Man’s prices, but then, he was a neighborhood Santa to the little kids.

Vode had known Old Man Straubing since he had been old enough to beg free bubble gum. Robbing him didn’t seem right, somehow.

“Listen, Paulie,” Vode pleaded in the alley next to the candy store, “why can’t I get the dough someplace else? I pick up some change around; I can get the dough to square up with you guys someplace else! Look, I know the old guy! I don’t want to…”

Paulie’s thick face sprang lines of determination. His fists clenched warningly.

“In there, Vode,” he said with finality, “in there. You get the money to square with the Strikers in there! No place else. That’s the way we planned it; that’s the way it’s gonna ride.” He turned to the thin, black shadow of Sharkmouth.

“Ain’t that right, Shark?”

The angle-faced boy in black cracked a wet smile, and brought the naked switchblade up to sight in his ebony-gloved hand. “That is ever so right,” he agreed, softly.

A sharp feeling of disquiet raced through Vode’s mind. Why did they want him to rob Old Man Straubing? Why the old man, who probably didn’t even have a hundred bucks in the till? Why this store, with Shavers, the cop, pounding a beat right past the front door every half hour? Why? Why?

Was it the Old Man’s gun, kept in an empty Clark Bar box behind the candy counter? The smooth, slick black Luger the Old Man had bought from Ansie Padio when Ansie had come back from the war. Was that it? Did they want him to get his brains blown out?

Then Vode remembered having seen Old Man Straubing talking with Shavers one day.

He had been drinking a coke, and Straubing had been saying, his moustache waltzing, his voice strange and tight: “Ja, I’ve godt the permit for the gun. And I’ll use it on any sonofabitches vhot come in here undt try to rob me!”

And he’d looked so happy saying it, as though he didn’t really like the kids, but tolerated them. Vode remembered that as soon as he’d gotten old enough to earn money, Straubing had stopped giving him free gum and had started asking full price on everything—even malts. As though he’d just waited for Vode to grow old enough to take him.

The picture of that look on the Old Man’s face…and the gun…came to him sharply.

“I won’t do—” he began, but the sharp sting of Fifteen’s hand across his jaw stopped him. Things were getting rougher every second. A chill wind blew down the alley. Vode shivered.

He remembered the night Checker had died, in the rain and wet. He had felt this way then.

Fifteen’s voice floated to him coldly. “You’ll do it! You’ll do it!” The boy’s voice was brick steady; there was no fooling with the Strikers. Vode knew they would drive that switchblade into his flesh right here in the alley, leave him to die, if he didn’t go through with it.

“Okay. Okay, I’ll do it,” Vode said. His jaw muscles ached from gritting his teeth, trying to figure a way out of this. His thumb was raw from rubbing against his fist. But he knew there was no way out for him.

“We got something for you to use,” Fat Jules said. He motioned Sammy Silence forward, and from the dummy’s shirt they took the gun.

He saw his hand reach out and wrap itself around the crisscrossed butt of the pistol. It felt warm and impersonal, where it had grown warm and impersonal next to the dummy’s skin.

Vode looked up and saw the staring, beseeching eyes of Sammy Silence, holding to his own. Sammy was saying something, but he couldn’t tell what it was.

“Don’t worry about it none,” Fat Jules added, pointing to the gun. “It ain’t loaded.”

Vode looked down at the gun, and it changed suddenly, as he watched, into an open switchblade, lying on a black leather glove, then back to a gun again.

He shook his head, a film of tears forming over his eyes.

“Come on,” he said swiftly.

He moved out of the alley, and the Strikers followed close.

Vode went into the candy store first.

The old man was bending over, filling in the empty spaces in the cigarette racks behind the counter with fresh cartons. “Mr. Straubing?” Vode ventured querulously.

The old man straightened and saw the sallow-faced boy. A smile broke across his seamed face, and the handlebar mustache twitched with ill-disguised affection.

It had been a long time since he’d seen Vode. “Ah!” he exclaimed, putting down a half-full carton on the counter. “Ah! Vode, how are you? I haffen’t seen you vor so long, I thoughdt you musdt haff forgot…”

The gun came into sight above the counter, rising straight and steadily, as though on a string, as though controlled by someone other than Vode.

“Vhat is idt, Vode?” the old man asked, still not comprehending.

“I—I—I want all the money in your…your register,” the boy said, trying to brazen it, though his lips trembled, his hand and voice did the same.

The other boys moved forward, ranging behind Vode, their faces hard, cold, ugly, immobile, defiant. Strikers.

The old man looked at Vode. The boy’s eyes cried don’t believe I am with them; I am not one of them, sir!

The dead, staring face of Checker swam before Vode’s eyes, and he cursed himself for the lust Cherry had inspired.

“Ja, ja. I understand,” the old man said. “I vill giff you my money…”

He moved a short step to the register, rang a button and withdrew a thin sheaf of bills. He handed them across to Vode.

Fifteen stepped forward, as did Sharkmouth.

“Shove them in your pocket,” Fifteen snapped at Vode.

The boy stuffed the money into his pants pocket, and at the same instant Fifteen grabbed the gun away from him, shoving it at Sammy Silence, who thrust it into the rear of his waistband, and zippered up his jacket quickly.

Vode looked around confused, and the events of the next few seconds happened with such terrifying speed, yet so clearly, they were each sharp and vivid.

Sharkmouth, with the switchblade reaching from his black gloved hand, leaned across the counter, and drove the knife into Old Man Straubing’s throat.

The old man gurgled hideously as the blood spurted out. His hands crept to his gashed neck, and a split-second later he was on the floor, gasping to death.

Sharkmouth stepped back and roughly grabbed Vode’s hand to him. Vode felt the chill steel of the knife in his fingers. Felt blood on his hand. He dropped the knife instantly, but now he knew! He knew what it was all about then:

Sharkmouth had worn gloves.

His own prints were on the knife.

The gun was gone from sight.

He was being framed—set up the same way Checker had been set up.

“No! No, you gotta give me a break, let me outta here!” He was yelling, struggling to get past the boys, out the door. They didn’t touch him, yet they blocked his path by weight of numbers. He shoved through them slowly.

Then they let him go.

He was four steps out the door when they began yelling.

“Stop! Stop him! Stop that boy, he killed Mr. Straubing!”

Vode twisted and shoved and elbowed through the crowds on the street, just doing their Thursday night shopping, while the stores were open late. Hands reached out from the crowd at him, clutched at his clothes, tried to hold him. He twisted away, and the crowd closed in on him.

More hands came down on him, and a foot was crossed over his path. He tripped and went down, the sidewalk scraping him viciously across the palms of his hands and the bridge of his nose.

He ground to a stop, and hands lifted him up roughly, jerking him, pulling him many ways at once.

Then the blue coat and silvered shield of Shavers, the cop. came into his sight. He let out a scream.

“Framed! I’m being framed! I didn’t kill him!”

“Kill who? Kill who, you little street tramp?” Shavers demanded, his thick hands closing around the boy’s collar.

A woman leaned into Vode’s vision, and her birdlike mouth spat the words, “…killed Old Man Straubing from the candy store…” and disappeared back into the crowd.

Then he was being bodily dragged back to the shop, with the crowd following, with the Strikers following, watching as he was shoved through the front door of the candy store, and Mr. Straubing was lifted up from behind the counter, the blood dropping wetly from the handlebar mustache.

A woman screamed shrilly then.

The cop swore and his fist cracked agonizingly against Vode’s face. “You little bastard!” he said.

Someone called out that an edge of a bill was protruding from the sallow-faced boy’s pocket. It was a Striker voice, but no one recognized it as such. The money was dragged away from him. “Thief! Murderer! Kill him!” The cries went whispering through the crowd, blossomed into yells, thundering into demanding roars.

“No, no, no,…I didn’t…I…didn’t…do…it…” He was breathless, his throat was clogging.

The cop stooped and picked up the knife in a handkerchief. “We’ll just see if you did it.”

Vode twisted in the cop’s grasp, saw the Strikers leaning in through the door, mock shock on their faces.

“Them! They’re the ones that done it!” He shrieked, twisting, pulling, trying to get at them.

“Hold him!” someone said, from the crowd. “Don’t let the lousy little killer get away!”

The cop looked out through the front door at the boys there.

“You know him?” Shavers asked.

Fifteen leaned in, took a close look at Vode, said earnestly, “Never saw the dirty little killer before in my life, sir.”

“They did it, they did it!” Vode shrieked.

He caught a glimpse of the sad, pleading face of Sammy Silence, behind Fifteen. Even as he watched it, the face aligned itself into a deep resignation.

Fifteen winked at Vode when no one was watching.

“Ask the dummy, ask the dummy, ask that boy there!” Vode pleaded, pointing to Sammy Silence. “Ask him, he’ll tell you it’s a frame; he can talk!”

The cop looked toward Sammy. Someone shoved the dummy out into the open. Everyone looked at him. He twisted his thin hands together, looked down at his feet.

A murmur went through the crowd.

Sammy took a quick sidelong glance at the Strikers. The ugly death-lust still flickered like heat lightning in their eyes, and the smiles of snide assurance lingered as they saw who Vode had called on to be their spokesman.

A dummy who couldn’t talk. A mute. They were safe.

“Ask him! Ask him!” Vode kept repeating hysterically.

The cop looked toward Sammy.

The dummy extended his hands out before him, palms upward, shrugging his shoulders in bewilderment.

The cop dragged Vode toward Sammy. “This kid says you saw the knifing. That right?”

Sammy said nothing. His wet tongue slipped against his lips.

“Well, answer me!”

The Strikers all laughed, the chuckles racing among them and into the rest of the crowd like a live thing.

Sharkmouth leaned over Fifteen’s shoulder. Vode saw that he had removed the bloody gloves, probably given them to one of the other Strikers, who had left the neighborhood. The small, thin boy with the gash mouth said to the cop, “You can tell the kid’s lyin’—probably nuts, too!”

Sharkmouth laughed. “He must be nuts, asking you to get the dummy here to tell you anything!

“He can’t talk!”

They all laughed then, and the cop looked from Vode to Sammy and back again. “That right?” he asked Vode, sensing he was being used as a joke.

Vode felt panic rising and rising, curling up like sticky smoke in his belly. “No! No! He can talk! Lemme talk to him, lemme try, you gotta let me try! It’s only fair, it’s only fair!”

The cop loosened his grip, knowing the mob of people blocked the exit.

Vode took a stumbling step, grabbed Sammy by the arms. He spoke close to the boy’s face, smelling the stench of the streets. “Sammy, you gotta talk, you gotta help me!

“They’ll fry me, Sammy. I’ll burn, and I didn’t do nothin’! Tell him, Sammy. Talk Sammy, talk, for God’s sake, say somethin’!”

The dummy stared into Vode’s eyes, and in his own a wetness swam to the surface. In his eyes Vode saw a message:

This is a jungle, Vode. I can’t do anything…or they’ll eat me alive. Don’t ask me to help you…I can’t!

“Sammy, talk! Talk, Sammy! Talk, talk, talk, talk…”

He was shaking the dummy, the words crisping out between clenched teeth, the tears coursing down the dirt of his cheeks. Frustration and terror and hatred and fear all tied in one knot, slamming again and again inside his head.

The dummy turned away, back to the Strikers.

The cop snorted. “Lousy little tramp!”

The clutching hands tightened on Vode, and he felt the blackness of ultimate horror closing down over him, as they dragged him away. The sad, sorrowful, ever-pleading face of Sammy Silence in his mind. The phrase in his mind, too:

We take care of our dead!

They did, too. They made sure everybody squared-up with the gang. Squaring up was rugged, and the dummy knew when he was safe.

Sammy knew the phrase. That’s why he was Sammy Silence.

Because only the silent ones were allowed to live in peace.

But only in silence—of course.

THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN TONGUE

Matthew Farley had been expecting the knock on his door for almost a week. He had stayed away from work, hoping the knock would never come. He had lived almost exclusively from the canned goods in the kitchenette of the tiny two room apartment, going out to shop only when milk and eggs ran out.

He had stayed home, hoping that if he did not show himself, they might not know he was in this neighborhood; perhaps think he was out of town or something. He had stayed home, but the knock had finally come.

It came again. Sharp and solid. Not the way he had expected it.

But then, he had expected a hail of machine gun bullets through the door, really; the same way the man in the billiards place had gotten it. The knock seemed so innocuous.

He tried to fight down the panic that swam to the top of the lake of fear in his mind.

Again, sharper, but still businesslike.

Not at all the way a killer would sound.

“Mr. Farley?” The voice was muffled by the closed door.

He hesitated a long, long minute.

“Mr. Farley? Are you there, sir?”

He kept silent, perhaps the man would go away.

“Mr. Farley, this is the police. We know you’re there, sir, and we want to be of help. Please allow me to speak to you for a few minutes.” A hesitation, then, again, “Mr. Farley? Are you there?”

The police? Could it be? Why not? If the killer knew he had seen his face, and if the killer had found him, then why couldn’t the police have done the same? He bit his fingernail and winced in indecision.

The knock.

“Y-yes?” He attempted to sound brave, but it came out too softly.

“Mr. Farley.” It was semi-triumphant. Just a slight disguise of pleasure; the man outside had done considerable searching, that was certain. “Mr. Farley, please let me speak to you for a few minutes, sir. I’ve been trying to locate you for almost six days, and they were getting worried at the station house. Please, sir.”

Mr. Farley went to the door. He did not touch it, almost as though it were molten. He pressed himself against the wall, his face against the mirror beside the door, his breath caught in his throat. Why had he spoken? This man might be the killer. But no—there was a faith and trust engendered in that voice. He somehow trusted the man on the other side of that door. It wasn’t the killer; he knew that.

He felt the cool of the mirror against his face, and moved away. For an instant he caught a glimpse of himself. Gone to fat.

Slightly balding, and with a haircut that made him look as though a bowl had been jammed on his skull, then the hair sheared around the edge. Eyes that were watery blue, nothing romantic. His nose was so much puff and froth, and the cheeks that parenthesized the puff were round hemispheres. His neck was a logical outgrowth of his chin, and the two were one. He was not a handsome man; he had never been one. He was merely a man, with no great direction in life, and no great skill.

He had existed in the wasteland of passion and struggle that was the world mainly through an ability to speak. He had a gift of gab, a golden tongue, and that great gift offset his other, unprepossessing drawbacks.

Now, he could not speak. For the first time in his life he was tongue-bound. He managed to make a sound: “Nuhh?”

The reassuring voice just beyond his perspiring face soothed him. “Mr. Farley. You’ve got to talk to me, sir. My name is Cadwell. Detective Robert Cadwell, thirty-second precinct. Sir, your life is in danger, and I’ve been sent to ask you—oh what the hell!” The man exploded with a curse that was all annoyance and frustration, nothing more. “Look, Mr. Farley, I was sent here to help you. Now how the devil can I help you if you won’t even talk to me?”

Farley placed a hand on the mirror. It left a soft, moist print.

“I’m—I’m a-afraid to open the door.”

“Mr. Farley, sir, nothing can hurt you. I’m from the Police, and I’ve been sent to—” The annoyed snort again. “Oh, hell.” The sounds of footsteps receding.

Panic butterflyed through him and struggled to be free. The policeman was going! He had to stop him.

Mr. Farley unbolted the door, and stuck his head out.

The policeman stopped at the head of the stairs leading down to the foyer of the apartment building. “Hi.” It was a relieved, final word. Cadwell was surprised, but pleased.

“I—I’m s-sorry. I’ve not been myself…at all…lately. I’ve not been well.”

Cadwell stepped toward him. “May I speak to you, Mr. Farley?” He did not use the word “sir” but it was there, and such politeness reassured Mr. Farley more than pleading could have, even by its absence.

Abruptly, Mr. Farley realized he was in the presence of a policeman, and his manners returned. “Oh, yes, won’t you come in, please.”

The man named Cadwell stopped before entering the apartment. “Mr. Farley,” he said seriously, reaching inside his jacket—Mr. Farley stiffened—and pulling forth a wallet which he flipped open, “I wanted you to see my credentials before I came in. Just so everything is squared away.”

Matthew glanced quickly at the tin, and back to Cadwell’s face; it was a restful face. He was satisfied.

“Come in, sir, do come in.” The golden tongue had loosened.

Cadwell entered the room, and swept his dark gray snapbrim from his head. He held it awkwardly, until Matthew realized it was in the man’s hand, and took it. He nervously indicated the Morris chair by the window for Cadwell; and perched on the edge of the sofa when Cadwell was seated.

“Mr. Farley—” Cadwell began.

“Yes?” inquisitive, because Matthew knew he must not talk about the thing he had seen in the street.

“Look, Mr. Farley—”

“Do call me Matthew. That was the name I used when I was in the theater. Matthew, plain Matthew, no last name; rather clever don’t you think, for a stage personage?” Matthew had never been on the stage.

“Well, then, Matthew. But look Mr. Fa—Matthew, I came here at the request of Lieutenant Foote, he’s in charge down at the thirty-second, sir.”

Matthew smiled politely at this intelligence, anxious to say something. Anything. It had been six days since his conversational abilities had been demonstrated; it was good to feel relaxed, to be able just to speak to someone again.

Cadwell went on. “Matthew, five days ago, a man named Ricci was killed a block from here, in a pool parlor. He was the collector for a horse book that we’ve been trying to track down for almost a year now. He was killed because he had been keeping back some of the take. Do you know anything about that killing, sir?”

His eyes knew what the answer should be, and his voice asked Matthew to tell the truth.

Matthew lied; he did not want to die.

“Killing, Mr. Cadwell? I’m afraid not. You see, since I left the theater, I haven’t been too well. It’s all I can do to get down to the office every morning. I work for—”

“Yes, Mr. Farley.” Cadwell interrupted impatiently, frustration in the sound of his voice and the lock of his big hands. “I know. I know you work for the Better Business Bureau; and I know you’re fifty-one years old; and I know you have a heart condition. I know all of these things because I’ve been searching for you for six days.

“And I’ve been searching for you for six days because a beat cop at the corner of Third and Seventieth saw you near the scene of that killing. I’m not here by chance, Mr. Farley.

“Now. Will you please tell me what you saw, sir.”

Matthew’s plump left hand found the slight indentation where neck and jowl merged, and stroked. Softly, shamed, he murmured, “I know nothing.”

“Excuse me, sir, I didn’t hear what you said.”

Louder. “I said, Mr. Cadwell, I know nothing.”

Cadwell leaned forward, pleading persuasively. “Mr. Farley, there’s more at stake here than just the apprehension of a killer. This city has to be clean, sir. It has a great need to be clean. You can’t know what it is, to work as a cop all your adult life and see the filth that’s all around you, and want to clean it out, yet find yourself helpless. Mr. Farley, it’s a terrible thing.”

“What do you want from me!” Matthew was shouting. He was annoyed at the other man’s eloquence. “I’m a peaceful man; I detest violence and crime as much as you. All right, so perhaps I’m not a great hero, but if I knew something, I’d tell you. No. I know nothing. Leave me alone.” He wished fervently, within himself, that he had never opened that door. He hoped the killer would not use this to track him down. Could this police officer have been followed?

Cadwell stood up, and anger flamed in his face. “Mr. Farley, a man went into that pool room and used a Thompson submachine gun in a space not much bigger than this apartment. Not only did he cut in half a slob no better than himself, but he wounded three other men, neighborhood hang-ons who were minding their own business, shooting a game of snooker.

“That man might have killed people on the street if he had been pressed, Mr. Farley. The next time it might be someone’s wife or children. Can you go to bed at night with that on your con—”

“I can’t worry about that, Cadwell,” Matthew said. “I can’t worry about anything or anyone but myself.

“That may sound self-centered.” He was apologetic, but firm. “But no one has ever looked out for me. I’ve had to go it myself all the way. I have no one to hand me anything and say, ‘Take it easy, Matthew, just settle back and rest.’ No, Mr. Cadwell, I know nothing, and if I did, I would still keep my mouth shut. Now that’s it! Get out now, and leave me alone!”

He rose and went to the other window. He clasped his pudgy hands behind his back, and stared at the street below.

He heard Cadwell rising, snapping his tongue against his teeth.

“You’re a weak excuse for a human being, Mr. Farley. A weak, weak excuse.” Matthew heard the hat being slid off the table where he had placed it. “I can’t say it’s been a pleasure, Mr. Farley.”

Matthew did not turn around. “I’m sorry. That’s the way it is. I saw nothing. I’m sick, go away and leave me alone.”

“You know we may call you, subpoena you if this ever gets to trial—which it probably won’t, now that we’ve lost our only witness…”

Matthew stiffened, and a picture ran through his head.

“You know, Mr. Farley, there’s a legal phrase that might interest you. It’s called pari passu, which means without preference. If this comes to court, they’ll get you for withholding evidence. You’ll go to jail yourself—”

The picture in Matthew’s mind was of himself, on the witness stand, dapper in a double-breasted dark blue suit, with a four-in-hand tie and his hair—with the bald spot covered—combed straight back. Himself, talking.

The golden tongue.

For the first time, the center of attention. Not a clerk in the Better Business Bureau, not a fat little man who talked too much, but a material witness. His picture in the papers, important men listening as each golden word fell from his lips. It was a picture to envision, a thing to be desired. He turned from the window.

“—but if you know nothing,” Cadwell finished resignedly, “then you know nothing. Goodbye, Mr. Farley.” He turned to the door.

“Wait!”

Matthew’s hand was palm forward, his face alive for the first time in a great long while. “You, you say this might be a big case?”

Cadwell’s face showed renewed interest. “Why, yes, sir. It would be the biggest thing to hit this city since Leggever and his bunch were broken up years ago. Do you think you’d change your mind?”

Matthew’s decision was made in an instant. The cleanliness of the city did not matter to him; the truth of it all, and the rightness of it all did not matter. None of it mattered, but being able to speak, and be heard, for the first time in his life, that was something that mattered.

“Yes. Yes, Mr. Cadwell, I’ll talk. Take me down to your precinct to see your Lieutenant. I’ll tell him what I saw. It was a short man with a scar on his nose. He was wearing a—”

Cadwell was shaking his head. Sadly, slowly, shaking his head.

“Killing is so unnecessary, Mr. Farley,” he said. “It is to be avoided as often as possible. Only when absolutely necessary, as in the case of Ricci. We had hoped you would be afraid to talk, Mr. Farley. I was sent to ascertain whether that was the case.

“You had me convinced, Mr. Farley. Quite thoroughly convinced. Too bad.” He drew the snub-nosed .32 from his waistband.

“They sent me to check you out because I’m a good talker, Mr. Farley. They said if I couldn’t break you down, then you were a safe bet to stay alive and keep quiet. You had me convinced there, Mr. Farley. You’re a good talker, too.

“But I guess I’m a better talker than you.” He went to the sofa and took a pillow from it, placing it over the muzzle of the .32 as he walked toward Matthew.

The blood drained from Matthew’s face as he watched the pillow approach.

“You know the trouble with you, Mr. Farley,” Cadwell said calmly, as he pressed the now-hard pillow into Matthew’s stomach.

“You talk too much.”

JOHNNY SLICE’S STOOLIE

We was mugging a lush in the alley back of Gavoldie’s Bar when Fish popped it to me.

“You been talkin’ to that lousy cop, Fairchild?”

His head was wrapped in smoke from his cigarette and he looked like somebody’d cut him off at the neck. I looked up and I knew he saw something in my eyes. I could tell.

“Shaddup!” Johnny whispered, looking up from the drunk. “Ya wanna bring the cops in here?” He said it, but that wasn’t the reason. He just didn’t want Fish sayin’ anything yet. Something was wrong, real wrong. One of these boys had an itch to stomp me—I could feel it—and the others had the feel of watchers.

Fish squatted around, his feet making scratching sounds on the gravel in the alley. He was hunkered down over the guy, with Johnny and me. The drunk was layin” on his kisser with his coat-tail pulled over his head, and we was goin’ through his pockets.

“I got it,” said Johnny, holding up a fat, square thing. He opened it and it made money sounds in his fingers. Let’s cut out.”

We beat it out the back end of the alley, picking up Lazear and Dumb Chollie, one from each end of the passage.

We hit for the subway, and all the way downtown they just hung there, arms limp through commuter-straps, watching me.

Man, you don’t know what it’s like.

When they got the evil-eye down on you, you just want to crawl inside your shirt and turn black and shrivel up real small. I felt like that, and I figured they knew. But what was this jazz about me talkin’ to Fairchild?

I wouldn’t go near that crummy plain-clothes dick for all the broads in Minsky’s. Once with him was enough. Cops give me a pain in the can, anyway, and Fairchild’s the slimiest of the lot.

We got off at Grand Army Plaza and came up out of the ground. I wanted to run and hit for home, but I knew those men were watching me. One whistle off-key and I’d have my brains all over Brooklyn.

“Let’s divvy,” said Dumb Chollie. He never was too bright, otherwise he’d of known not to get on Johnny’s back. Johnny turned to him and smiled. When Johnny Slice smiles, the rest of us wanta throw up. It ain’t nice to look at.

Johnny ain’t a pretty boy. He’s like—well, ya ever see these characters what put a silk stocking over their faces, and scrunch their kissers all up? That’s what Johnny looked like, except he didn’t have no stocking on. He didn’t need one.

He was just plain ugly, with a nose that looked like it was all the time pushed up against a window, and real high cheekbones. It gave him an Indian look. Lousy skin, too, all covered with beard and pimples and blackheads. And scraggy hair. Just a plain mess. Real miserable. Don’t you never tell him that, though. Seen too many guys get stomped flat ’cause they looked at Slice with less than Tony Curtis reflected in their eyes.

“How’s ya sister, Chollie?” he asked.

Dumb Chollie got a blanker look than usual on his pan and stuttered, “Wh-what’s she got ta do with it?”

“No, no,” Johnny said, placating him, “I just wanna know how she is.”

“Oh, she’s okay, I s’pose,” Chollie answered, with effort.

“She ain’t goin’ into the lots with Zylo and Vimmy no more? She ain’t layin’ for all the ten-year-olds in your block no more? She ain’t takin’ it in the—”

“You shut up! You jus’ shuddup, y’unnerstand!” yelled Chollie, moving a step closer to Johnny.

That’s what Johnny likes. He gets them all riled up and then he swats. Man, his hand came out like it was on a switch, and he slapped that Chollie six good times, whack, whack, across the chops. Chollie staggered back and fell up against Lazear. That fat slob just pushed him back, and Johnny grabbed the dummy by his collar, faced him up close, shovin’ that sick kisser of his right into Chollie’s eyes.

“You ever tell me to shut up again, I’m gonna put you down for good. Ill cut you open from your crotch ta your lousy pudding-head. You read me, man?” He shook Chollie, hard.

The dummy just kept wagging his head, like it wasn’t held on good. He knew when to back down. Johnny shoved him away and he fell on the sidewalk.

“I’ll divvy when I get damned good and ready, and don’t you forget it, zero-brains.” He turned away, and his eyes caught mine.

Blood turn to water. Hell, yes. It happens.

“Whattaya wanna do?” asked Lazear. Man, was I glad he broke it. I could feel the sparks building inside Johnny’s head.

“Let’s go to Coney,” I suggested.

“Man, that’s nowhere,” snarled Fish, and I knew it wasn’t just Coney made him say it. That boy hated me. He was after something.

I had to stake it, though. Don’t know why, it just would have been backing off, and I don’t back from that cat He’s rough, but not that bad.

“I like it,” I said, watching him close.

His hand went into his pocket. I knew he had his switch in that pocket. I pushed my hands deeper into my jacket pockets. I had a switch in there, too.

“Some of us don’t like you, wise guy. We heard you been seen places you shouldn’t’a. Like you been talkin’ to people we don’t approve of. Your mouth hinged on both ends, we hear.” He was talking big, but that didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean anything till he went for that six-inch down there somewheres.

“You got somethin’ to say, you say it crapbreath,” I snapped back at him, and wished I hadn’t. You don’t toss names like that when you don’t wanna fight. Man, I was sorry. Like I wanted to run over and catch that word before it got to him and shove it in my hip pocket.

But he heard it.

My fist got stuck in my pocket, and he had that switch out and snick! it was open and makin’ little circles in his big fist.

I finally got mine out and was back a step or two.

It opened, but it looked like a safety pin next to his, and that was funny ’cause they was both the same size. I guess it’s just the end you look at it from.

“Aw, come on, fellas, don’t make no trouble out here.”

It was Dumb Chollie, picking himself up and moving in at us.

“Shove it, you goofball. Stay outta this, it’s between the squeek and me.” He moved toward me, slow, tossing the knife from one hand to the other, so I couldn’t be sure where it was. He was kinda slouched, and he scared hell outta me, but I hadda back my play.

Next thing I knew, Johnny was in between us, just standing there.

Nobody screws around with him. If he moves in between a stand, it means the stand’s off. I used my fingernail on the lock of my knife and closed the blade. It was a long Italian stiletto, and it fitted nice into my pocket.

Fish was slower about ducking his.

“No fighting,” Johnny stated. “Not now.”

“Later, punk, later,” said Fish, turning away.

“So whadda we gonna do?” asked Lazear. Still on the same kick. Man, he’s all the time gotta be on the move. Go, go, go. Don’t stop for nothin’.

“Let’s go over to the clubroom,” suggested Slice.

Way he said it rocked me again. He said let’s go over, but, man, he meant somethin’ else altogether. I didn’t know what, but I guessed he was wise to my swipin’ the stuff we had put away. I didn’t want to go.

“Cool,” said Lazear, and Chollie bobbed his head. Fish didn’t say nothing, but he was Johnny Slice’s sideboy, and wherever Johnny wanted to go, that Fish swam with him.

I was outnumbered.

“Great.” I agreed. No choice.

We hit for the clubroom.

I walked a little bit behind those others, walking with Dumb Chollie. He ain’t much, but at least he ain’t got the brains to put a shank in my ribs when I’m looking the other way.

We walked with our collars turned up and our feet makin’ slide-sounds on the pavement. The way the street lamps put light on those other three, up ahead, with their collars up, made ’em look like devils, walking to catch a bus.

I looked over at Chollie. Man, was he soft in the head! A real gumbrain. He was on the outs with the Stompers, too, but they let him come along on little jobs like rolling the rummy. It was easier than leaning on him and taking the chance his old man would run to the cops.

But they wouldn’t worry about that with me. Man, I was all by my lonesome and they knew it. If they put me in the Gowanus, ain’t nobody’d go screaming to the Crime Commission.

That’s why I didn’t like this whole bit.

Somewhere something was right down the drain. That Fish man said three times about me talkin’ to Fairchild, the cop, and I ain’t been near the crumb since the day he walked up to me on the street.

I was in the hole for gytching some of the H we had stashed away in the clubroom, then selling it to a coupla hot numbers on Garfield Street who’d go for me every time I brought them some junk. But nobody knew about it. I thought.

This jazz with Fairchild must of been hooked up with some of the kids getting tagged and stuck in the can. Someone was tipping the cops to who was pulling the jobs in our turf. We hadn’t pulled anything till tonight for fear the squeek would blow to the bulls and some of us would get put away.

Tonight we’d gone out, and it looked like they’d brought me along on the roll-job to see if any tip-off went through. If it didn’t, they figured I was the boy.

The only trouble was that I wasn’t Slice’s man. I wasn’t the stoolie. Why’d they pick me? Somebody put up a case with me as water-boy. Man, there was something lousy wrong there.

I felt sweat on my upper lip. I wished I could stop sweating. I wished I was the hell outta there.

Fish kept lookin’ back over his shoulder at us, givin’ me a look that said I’ll see you later, punk, I’ll see you real good!

“You got somethin” in your eye, man?” I said, real wise.

He stopped, and I thought we was gonna have a replay of that bit by the subway station, but he just wrinkled his nose at me like I was horse-droppings, and turned around again.

In a little bit we fell over to the Gorman A.C., where the Jolly Stompers had a clubroom. It was the last thing we had to prove we was a real club. We hadda ditch our jackets…man, were they nervous! Had a big boot and a knife on the back, with Jolly Stompers in red on the black leather, and the names on the front. Mine said Cheech. We ditched ’em ’cause the cops were wise to them. Quickest way for a cop to locate a gang kid is to advertise with your name on the jacket.

So we blew ’em off, fast. Put ’em away and only wore ’em once in a bit to dances, and like that.

When we went through the gym, Johnny gave two-fingers of hello to old man Gorman. That big pug used to be a helluva good middleweight, but he got his brains scrambled almost as bad as Dumb Chollie, and he opened the athletic club to keep himself in beer and cigars. He also got a nice piece of dough from what he fenced for us.

Don’t know what the hell he ever did with all the hubcaps we used to gytch, but he took ’em off us at two bucks apiece as quick as we lifted ’em.

We went into the back room, and I was rocked again.

The membership was out, full.

Everybody was there. Even studs we didn’t hardly see no more: Powlie, Adolph Bergman, Hunk, Pepper, all the boys moved away or graduated to the big time. It looked like Old Home Week.

Then I stopped dead, right in the doorway.

They was all lookin’ at me.

I made a move to back out, but that Fish was suddenly right at my side, and he shoved me into the room. Lazear locked the door.

Johnny Slice went up to the front of the room and took the gavel outta the desk drawer. Man, I was ready to take a dive; I knew what this was. Court.

And it looked like I was already convicted.

“Put him over there,” Johnny commanded, pointing the mallet at a chair to the right of his desk. The defendant’s chair. Oh, Christ, this was the very least!

I was scared so bad they hadda take three guys to get me over there, into that chair. I sat down like I’d never get up again, and my knees was like jelly. I was so shivery I thought they’d all see it. But I guess they didn’t ’cause Johnny started the case.

“Will the prosecuting attorney please tell the membership what the defendant is up for?”

Slops, a red-haired kid with a big nose, got up and said, “I’m repeatin’ what we were told by a reliable source. That this man—the Defendant Cheech Beldone—was overheard talkin’ with the cop known as Fairchild, and told him who was responsible for the job at Emery’s candy store last Wednesday night.”

He sat down again, and Johnny said: “As you of the membership all know, Carl and Bermie was picked up on Friday afternoon, at work, and they were put in jail. This is the third time such an occurrence has happened.

“I believe from the testimony we have heard, from our reliable source who was there and overheard the defendant tell the names of Carl and Bermie to that cop, Fairchild, that we should ask the death penalty for Cheech.”

He stopped and looked at me. The way he just said we should ask the death penalty for me made me wanta scream. He didn’t give a damn! It was me they was gonna kill, not him, and he didn’t care. I was shakin’ and they was all watchin’ me and I yelled, “That ain’t fair! You ain’t let me say nothing!”

So somebody in the back of the room says, “Yeah, let the pigeon squawk some more,” and everybody laughed like hell, except that Fish, ’cause he hated my guts, and Johnny, who only smiles when he wants to smack somebody.

“All right, all right. Quiet! Let the defendant rise.” Slice was wavin’ the gavel at me, so I got up.

“Tell us about Fairchild,” he said, that sick kisser of his just waiting for me to say something.

So I told them.

I told them how one night about two months ago this knock came on my door. I was asleep. It was about two in the morning, and I was in my pad; I hadda be at work the next morning, nine o’clock.

So I yelled, “Yeah?”

And this voice said, “Open the door, Beldone, it’s the police. We want to talk to you.” He said it real quiet like he didn’t want to wake anyone else on my floor of the rooming house, and I figured only time the bulls are polite is when they haven’t got a tag on you, so I got outta bed and unbolted the door.

When I got the door open and I saw it was that slob Fairchild I was sorry I’d opened it, ’cause I hate plain-clothes dicks worse than anything, the lousy sneaks.

I knew who he was, from seeing him on the street, and I was sore as hell he come busting around two in the morning when I hadda work the next day. He plopped himself into the chair in my room and said, “Mind if I sit down and talk for a few minutes, Cheech?”

“You’re in, ain’tcha?” I said.

“Why aren’t you in school these days, boy?” he asked, so I told him. “I gotta work, that’s why.”

And he asked me why I didn’t stay livin’ with my uncle after my old lady died, and I told him ’cause Uncle Harry was a lousy broad-chaser and a booze-hound to boot and I didn’t feel like being kicked outta my sack anytime he brought one of his tramps home to sleep with, so I hadda go onto the floor or the bathtub.

I told him I liked it better where I was, on my own.

Then he asked me who was head of the Stompers these days, and I told him I didn’t know. So he says I know and he can save me a lotta trouble would I tell him.

“Shove it,” I said.

“Don’t get flip, Beldone,” he said, pointing his finger at me. I was surprised. The finger was all yellow from cigarette stains, and I couldn’t figure this slob to be human enough to smoke. “Tell me what the gang has on, and we can make sure you don’t get any reform school, and we’ll get you into a trade class at Brooklyn Automotive.”

I guess my eyes got wider, because he frowned. I got off the bed and went over and opened the door. “Out,” I said, “I’m a citizen and you got no right in here if I don’t want ya in. Out.”

He got up. “Think it over, kid. It’d be smarter than winding up in a gutter.”

“Out!”

He got out, and I didn’t see him for three weeks. Then he stopped me in the Candy Shop and started to say something, but I shook him loose quick.

Then last Thursday he stopped me again. On the street. I couldn’t shake him that time, ’cause I didn’t want him gettin’ no case of resisting an officer or crap like that on me. So he says the same thing, and I told him to put it where he shit, and I blew outta there fast.

I told them that, and they all sat and just looked at me. I could tell they didn’t wanta have to knock me off, but that goddam Fish was up on his feet, all of a sudden.

“You gonna believe that liar? I saw him on the street with Fairchild. He was talkin’ to him. If our reliable source says he tipped the pot, then he tipped the pot. Let’s put the stinkin’ sonofabitch where he belongs!”

That cat was after my hide, and I was scared white he’d get it.

Johnny started to bang the gavel, and I knew he was goin’ to make a verdict—he never bothered with a jury. He always thought he knew the case better than anybody. All of a sudden I didn’t want to hear what he had to say. He didn’t like me, never did, since he became president of the Stompers. I wanted out.

So I made out.

There was thirty-to-one in that room. The one was me. So I beat it up out of that chair and jumped onto Slice’s desk, where he stood gettin’ ready to put me down, and I went out the window over his head.

I just jumped and went through it and I felt the rip of my jeans gettin’ cut open as I went through. I was out on the back roof of the A.C.

I heard ’em yelling and coming up after me. Man, I wanted away, but fast. I was going to fade and not be seen, again, ever.

I’d go to California, or upstate, or anywhere. But I wanted out.

Next thing I knew I was down the fire escape and into the street, running. All of them after me. I was scared to the socks.

It was dark, only one streetlight every half-block, and they’d been around with the water trucks and the streets were wet and shiny. I could see my face all blurred as I ran, see it on the blacktop. I was crying. Oh, Christ, I wanted out bad.

I hit for my room, figuring if I could get holed up there, I could hang on till light and then they’d ease off and I’d get the hell outa there, and move to Jersey someplace. I just wanted out.

They cut me off on the other side of the street. They must of come out through the front of the building and gone around the block. Lazear and Fish was right in front, running like a bitch, and that Slops pounding right past, them like he had a fire up his tail.

I could hear Fish yelling, “Get the bastard, get the stinking, ratting bastard!” And it was coming out in puffs because he was right behind Johnny Slice, and Johnny was coming up fast on me.

My legs was hurting, right in the joints behind the knees, and I could hardly see where I was going. Windows kept opening all up the street, and lights went on. I slipped once in a puddle and almost went down, but I kept going, and every once in a while I could hear myself sobbing. Man, I was scared! If I could ever just get outta this, I’d never see those boys no more at all.

I stopped short and made a dash for an alley between two brownstones. I could hear them pumping slam-slam right behind me. Jeezus, how I was crying! Halfway down the line I saw a fire escape, and I jumped and grabbed it, and pulled myself up, getting rust stains all over the front of my jacket, but I was up.

I felt a hand grab me around the ankle and it was Slops, and he was tugging at me, gasping, “I got the crud, I got him!”

So I kicked out and put my regiment boot right where he wore that big nose of his. He crunched and swore and started bleeding. Even in the dim without much of a moon I could see the shine of blood all over his kisser. He started screaming, and I legged up that fire escape, and onto the roof. I could hear them coming.

I didn’t know what the hell to do.

There was a pigeon loft up there and I crouched down behind it, and pulled my switch. I was afraid to open it, like they’d hear the snick of it, but I did it anyhow, holding my hand over it so it wouldn’t click. It opened and the moonlight caught the honed blade for a second before I got it out of the light.

I heard a noise, and someone crept over.

I got that shank up, ready to slice the bastard, but it was only Dumb Chollie. How he got up there and left the others behind, I don’t know. He came over, and how he knew I was there, I don’t know that either.

“Cheech, it’s me, it’s Chollie. Hey, lemme stay with ya. They’re after me, too.” Why the hell were they after him, I wondered. I knew he was outside, but they wouldn’t pot off the dummy, like me. His voice was all queer and beggy, like a kid asking a favor, so I took a chance and went, “Psst!” and he came over and hunkered down next to me. He had a switch, too.

I didn’t know where he came from, or what he wanted, but he wasn’t screaming for my blood, and I was glad to have anybody on my side, even if it was a loose-headed character like that.

Then they all came up the fire escape.

They’d come up slow, ’cause they thought I might be in a window on the way up. I could see ’em blacked-out against the lighter black of the sky. It was them just standing, looking around for me, and all them TV antennas. It was weird, real weird.

I could hear them muttering to each other, but they didn’t know where I was.

Then Dumb Chollie started talking.

“It was me, Cheech. I told the cops. I called ’em and didn’t tell ’em my name. But I called ’em.”

“Shut up,” I whispered at him. I could see those studs listening real cat-like for where the voices was comin’ from. Man, I didn’t know what that crazy Chollie was sayin’, but I had to shut him up or I was dead meat.

“I told them ta pick up Carl and Bermie, and the other kids, and then I told Johnny I heard you tell the cop who it was robbed Emery’s.”

I suddenly knew what he was blabbing about!

“Why? Why, you crazy gumhead? Why?” I was talking, loud, and I was so scared I wasn’t worried about them guys no more, just getting the stuff outta Dumb Chollie.

“’Cause I wanted back in the gang, Cheech. They was gonna make me a member again, I knew it, if-I told ’em you was tippin’ the cops. I hadda do it, Cheech. I hadda get back in the gang. You know.”

Oh, Christ, yeah I knew. That lousy dummy killed me with his lies. I was framed, and they were gonna get me sure.

They was coming toward us, slow. They knew I hadn’t gotten away over the roofs. They wasn’t sure where I was up there, but they knew I was up there.

I sat there shaking like a freezing dog, praying, honest-to-God praying, hoping they’d go on past and I’d be able to run like hell.

I wasn’t even going back to my pad. I was just gonna leg out fast.

They stopped again, about fifteen feet from the pigeon coop, lookin” around, when that Dumb Chollie stood up and yelled, “Hey, Johnny, here he is! You put me back in the club again?”

“You crazy bastard!” I screamed, and put my knife into the back of him. I yelled when I saw he was bleeding. He slid off my knife and fell over on his face, kicking his legs so I wanted to puke. Man, I’d never seen anything like that and Oh, Christ! I wanted away, bad!

All of a sudden I saw all them bastards coming at me, screaming and yelling at me, and I turned around and ran again. This time I made it to the edge of the roof and started to jump across the alley, but someone, I guess Johnny Slice—he’s the best with a shank—put his knife right through my jacket and out through my shoulder and I screamed because it was like cutting your finger on glass or paper or a razor blade and all of them at once only deeper and harder and I could feel the skin part and the blood start to sticky my undershirt, and I screamed again, and stopped dead.

And they’re coming over, but they aren’t in too big a hurry, because I heard my knife go banging down into the alley, and they know I can’t jump across that with one arm.

They don’t know it wasn’t me.

It wasn’t me was a stoolie.

I was a good member. I never ratted.

That Dumb Chollie, boy, did he screw himself up. Look what happened to him.

Yeah, did he screw himself up.

JOY RIDE

If you asked me to explain it today, how it happened, or why it started, I’d look at you and shrug my shoulders. I can’t. I was with Jerry Marchand the night it happened—right out of a clear blue sky, like they say!—and I still don’t understand it.

I don’t even know if there’s any meaning to the thing. It’s just life…one of those things you know can never happen, but does happen. Over and over and over again to some poor, innocent slob, like Jerry.

I was there, I saw how it happened, but it remains in my mind only as a rapid-fire series of incidents. A bunch of odd circumstances that all tied together, and like I say, might have no real point.

Except that they started out quiet—and ended up with a real screaming hell!

We were driving home. Jerry had closed his optical shop a little early and picked me up where I worked. We were going to take in a ball game that night.

I knew Jerry had been worrying pretty heavily, and I’d wanted to get his mind off it, at least temporarily. So I’d hornswoggled him into buying a couple tickets to the Yanks-Indians night game.

Jerry’s wife, Bev, had called him that afternoon and told him if he wanted, she’d fix a cold dinner and we could eat it before taking off for the Park.

So we were driving out to Jerry’s home.

“She worries about the damnedest things,” he said, watching the evening road. He was talking about the way Beverly bugged him, on things like eating and wearing a topcoat.

He was a big guy, with deep-set eyes and hair thinning a little on the sides. A real steady, easy-going sort that got the job done without yelping and bellowing the way most guys would. I liked him very much. We’d been friends—Jerry and Bev, my wife Harriet and myself—for almost five years. I couldn’t have liked the guy more.

“She figures I’ll get triple heartburn if I don’t eat at home.” His eyes were dead on the road. He drove the way he lived: restful, easy, getting there without skids or aggravation. A good, steady life; a good, steady driver.

“Well,” I said, just filling in the conversational gap, “you know how it is.”

“Yeah.” He chuckled, little lines of amusement springing up around his mouth when he smiled. He pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with his thumb.

We drove on up Silsby Road a few more minutes, quiet, each of us thinking our thoughts. I knew Jerry was wondering how the baby was.

Jerry and Bev had two children. Loren, who was just five—and a demon—and the new baby, Lisa, only three weeks old.

Lisa had been coughing, and Smetters, the doctor, had been around with concern and a little black bag.

I knew Jerry was wondering how the baby had been while he had been in the shop that day. I could see it had put him on a knife-edge nervousness, and his joking was mere cover-up. I was trying to decide whether to be a clown and try cheering him up, or be smart and keep my big mouth shut.

That was when it started…

We were riding quietly, as I say, when the hot-rodder came the hell out of nowhere and honked up behind us, doing at least seventy-five.

He had dual mufflers on his car, and a horn that sounded like the death moan of a whale.

He came up behind and blew his head off.

It was a thin, two-lane road, and we couldn’t pull over very well. I started to wonder why doesn’t he pass, when he did…

Around the right.

He swerved out and cut alongside. Jerry’s face went white and he spun the wheel hard to the left. We went over and into the opposite lane, and I saw a pick-up truck from Sears Roebuck getting monstrous in the front window.

I jerked my head to the side and saw the kid go screaming past in his car. I only got a quick swipe of a view, crew-cut, sport shirt collar turned up, cigarette dangling out of his mouth, and a big crud-eating grin plastered across his adolescent face.

Then the wheel spun again. Jerry’s foot came down with a thump. The car kicked, jerked, and roared right in front of the pick-up truck—and off the road.

We bumped across the shoulder and up a slight incline. By this time Jerry had control of the machine, and he braked it to a stop. He was shaking like a thistle in a windstorm. His face was beet-red, and I could feel the air charge itself with some strange emotion.

“Why that stupid, miserable, little bastard!” he said, so low I could hardly hear him. “That…that…”

He couldn’t speak, he was that angry.

The pick-up truck hadn’t even stopped. Probably cursing us out, a mile down the road. Silsby lay silent and empty behind us. The kid could easily have waited a minute to pass us properly.

I turned back to Jerry. He hadn’t even cooled off an Iota. His face was red, getting even redder as the anger swam up from his collar.

“Now take it easy, Jerry.” I tried placating him with a hand on his arm.

He shrugged it off angrily. “Mind your business, Arnie…” he said quietly—deadly quiet. “I’m all right! I’m just plenty damned mad, that’s all! That could have piled us into the truck. That damned kid could have killed us! The little fool!”

He was really flushed, and biting down hard on his temper. I hadn’t ever seen him go off the deep end like this, and I could only attribute it to the worrying he’d been doing the past week.

“Take it—” I started to ease him again.

“Look, Arnie…” He turned on me, eyes angry, lips skinned back against his teeth. “If I want your advice on how I should behave, I’ll come calling. Till then, let me handle things my own damned way!”

He was more than angry. Jerry just didn’t swear. To make him let fly like this, there had to be concern and frustration and a week’s worth of nervousness behind it. He was more than angry. Not the minute-spanning kind of thing that most people pass off for anger, or the kind of thing that husbands feel for their wives when the women won’t make them a pot of coffee late at night, or any of the other look-the-same substitutes. This was the real thing, and it scared me. I figured to keep my mouth shut and let it wear off on its own.

But it didn’t wear off.

But it didn’t wear off.

The longer he sat—and it couldn’t have been more than three minutes since the kid had shoved us off the road—the madder he got. It was almost unnatural. It was as though he was letting all the fear and worry of the past week simmer up in this one big bubble.

And he was directing all that fury at the wiseacre kid in the hot rod.

Suddenly, before I quite knew what was happening, the bubble burst!

Jerry threw the car into reverse and backed recklessly onto the highway. Without looking to see if anyone was coming. I knew something was going to happen. Even then, right then, I knew something bad was going to happen.

“Listen, Jerry,” I pleaded with him, “don’t be foolish! I don’t know why you’re so hepped-up about this, but he was only a kid, for God’s sake. Let’s get over to your house. Bev’s waiting dinner for us. We don’t…”

But he had backed into the proper lane and before I could finish my sentence he’d gunned the car so hard I was shoved back against the seat.

He tore off down Silsby, and I watched with a sort of numbed, growing horror as the speedometer inched past 50, past 55, nudged 60, then 65!

What the hell was going on! What did he have in mind? Jerry’s face was a solid mask of intent fury. His eyes were big and staring. He watched the darkening road as though it were the only thing in the world.

Dusk was settling fast, and the road was becoming hard to see.

A pair of headlights came toward us over the rise of a hill, and a horn bleated from between them. “Turn on your lights,” I said, carefully controlling my voice.

He didn’t seem to hear. He kept watching the road, squinting to catch the line of it in the gathering darkness.

“Your lights, Jer! Your lights; turn them on!”

He threw me an annoyed glance, and slapped at the dash. The twin pillars of his lights slapped onto the road ahead of us.

He was doing sixty-five and pressing higher.

“Look, Jerry,” I said, my voice almost clogging in my throat, “if you’re going after that kid, forget it! They just don’t know any bet…”

He tossed me a fast, scathing glance, and I shut up.

It looked as though I’d have to play this out with him, the way he wanted it. It was just so damned strange, is all. A quiet guy like Jerry! It would really have taken a thing like a week full of worry and a whackball kid to toss him off the tracks like this.

We barreled down Silsby till we saw the kid’s tail-lights skittering, a mile ahead, down the hill, turning off onto Belvoir. I knew it was the kid—there hadn’t been anyone passing us, and there weren’t any side-streets this far out.

“Little bastard,” Jerry mumbled, and gunned her harder. He was so caught up in this thing, finding such a release in it, he couldn’t stop now if he’d wanted to…and he didn’t want to. We were doing a cool 70 per, and I was scared white.

Jerry was no kid. He was pushing forty, married, and two kids. This wasn’t the kind of sport for a guy that age and temperament to be tinkering with. I started to say something again, but caught the look in his eyes as he leaned across the wheel, the light from the dash highlighting his cheekbones and forehead. The scream of air ripping past the car was setting me further on edge.

We turned screechingly off Silsby, onto Belvoir, and shot after the kid. About half a mile up Belvoir we saw him turn in.

Jerry didn’t slack up as we approached his turn-off.

It was a drive-in restaurant, and the kid was parked at the curb. A car-hop was just walking away.

We skidded into the drive, pulled up alongside, and Jerry jumped out without closing his door, stalked over real fast to the kid’s car.

Now this is the way it happened—all of it.

Jerry yanked open the door on the driver’s side, and made a pass at the kid. The kid had lit a fresh cigarette, and must have already ordered from the car-hop, because his window was still down.

“Why the hell don’t you drive more carefully?” Jerry yelled at the kid, and yanked him out of the car.

The kid didn’t even say anything. He looked scared and surprised as hell for a second, then his face changed while I watched it, and a look as mean as anything I’ve ever seen came across it. Then his hand dipped into his jacket pocket and came up with a big switchblade knife.

Jerry didn’t even get a chance to see it, and the kid dragged loose, pulled back and swung that blade high and ugly.

I saw the flash of the steel, heard a ripping, and Jerry screamed. Next thing I knew, Jerry was lying on the gravel of the drive, all covered with blood, and the kid was piling back into his car.

I jumped then, and got across real fast. The kid was thumbing the starter when I reached in through the open window and chopped him across the neck. He slumped over against the wheel, and then fell sidewise.

I dragged him out, and five minutes later, when the squad car pulled up, I was still beating him in the face, crying like a baby.

The car was stolen, and the cop told me to come down to the station to sign a statement. I told him I’d come down after I’d made sure the ambulance got Jerry to St. Luke’s. I went with them, drove Jerry’s car, and waited in the hospital till I got word the kid had stabbed him in the chest, but that it didn’t look fatal.

Then I called Bev. Harriet had come over earlier, thank God, so it made it a bit easier. I heard her scream over the phone and tried to plead her back to quiet. Then Harriet got on the line and I told her what had happened. But it was so crazy, all of it, I couldn’t tell her why or what had really happened, or anything.

Then I went down to Central Police Headquarters, and made that report.

Then I went back to the hospital.

Now that’s almost all there is to it. And you can say, “Well, what the hell’s the point of that?” and I don’t know, so help me God, I just don’t know!

It’s only something that happened, and it had a real miserable twist at the end, which was this:

The cops told us we’d get a commendation from the police department for helping out as good citizens in a case like this.

Which was fine, except that the crazy, sonofabitchin’ kid got Jerry right in a nerve-center, and it’s paralyzed Jerry’s whole right side.

Commendations are fine. Hell yes, but how’s a guy going to provide for a wife and two kids when he can’t move one arm, when one leg is paralyzed, when the right side of his face hangs lifeless every time he starts to talk?

Yeah, fine. A commendation, and the kid gets out in five years if he doesn’t rattle the bars.

A crazy, pointless episode you say?

Maybe, but there’s got to be a moral there someplace.

There’s just gotta be.

BUY ME THAT BLADE

Wally Genaro was Trick’s buddy. Just ask Wally, and he would hook his thumbs into the back pockets of his tight jeans, spit onto the sidewalk and say, “Yeah, like Tricky and me is close, y’know? Like I watch out for the kid; he’s not so bright, and he’s not so big; so I gotta protect him.”

That was the way it was. And in the Lancers, that was good enough to protect Tricky from all harm, and get him into all the rumbles and heists. Whenever a job was on. Tricky tagged along beside big Wally, with the crew-cut, and when Wally sapped a lush or mauled a broad, Tricky got his licks. He stood in line, and got his licks.

So that night, when Wally said to Tricky—well, not exactly to Tricky; he always spoke to someone else in a manner which showed Tricky he was supposed to listen—and suggested they go down to the Village, and mug a couple of queers, Tricky was glad. He didn’t like fags. And it was a hot night, so why the hell not?

The subway wasn’t crowded, but Wally stood anyhow. He stood hanging on the strap, swaying with the rhythm of the train, his eyes closed, his full lips pursed in a hum that could not be heard. When the local pulled in at 4th Street, they got off; Tricky, Wally, and another boy Tricky did not like, a simp named Rally. Tricky did not like Rally because the thin boy liked his potatoes-and-blades. Tricky had seen Rally in a couple of rumbles, where the boy took a bunch of double-edged razor blades, shoved them into a raw potato, and ground the thing into a stud’s kisser. It was messy and unnecessary, as far as Tricky was concerned, so he didn’t like Rally. Tricky liked to make it quick, if it had to be made at all, and not all slopped up with blades and blood.

They walked up the subway steps, first Wally, then Rally and last of all Tricky. He knew better than to walk in front of his buddy, Wally. That happened once, and Wally had belted him good in the chops. They came up into the evening noise of Greenwich Village, and stood staring out across the street at the neoned front of Jack Delaney’s and the quiet little park off to the left. Then Wally said, “Come on.”

“Where ya goin’?” Rally asked. Tricky would never have asked. That wouldn’t have been smart at all. Wally would’ve belted him.

“Wanna get a deck of butts,” Wally answered, looking annoyed.

“Okay, man,” Rally answered, pressing for no good reason, “but let’s get kickin’. I wanna pick up some scratch tonight.”

Wally started to answer, decided there was no sense to stomping Rally here and now, and glared silently for a moment. Then he started across the street to the cigar store. It was quiet in the store, and Wally got his cigarettes without any trouble, though he slapped a hand at the metal racks of paperbacked novels, and set the racks to moving. The shopkeeper took no notice. Wally tried a little harder; he moved the rack with his foot, bending the cover on one of the novels.

“Okay, kid,” the man behind the counter snarled, “that’s all. Take your butts and get outta here before I call a cop.”

Wally liked that. Tricky watched him from the door and knew something was going to happen pretty chop-chop.

“Oh, you gonna call a fuzz on me, huh, man?”

“I said out, wise guy! And I mean out now!”

Wally started forward, a gleam in his eyes, trouble building in him like the July heat, but the man pulled a heavy length of ironwood—a chair leg—from a rack behind the cash register, and moved around, ready for a tussle. “Now get your ass outta here before I wallop it good!” he said low and heavy, and Wally backed down.

He didn’t like backing down, but the reach on that rod was enough to cream his hand and he knew it. “Okay, dad, take it easy. Take it easy. Like I’m goin’.”

Wally turned, and started for the door. As he neared it, he lunged to the side and shoved over one of the racks, spilling books in all directions. Then he was out the door, running like hell, and the other two trailing him close. The shopkeeper stood in the door for a moment, yelling obscenities, then went back inside. By the time they cleared the side of the little park, they stopped breathing heavily, and had a good laugh over it.

“That was cool, Wally,” Tricky said happily. A real buddy.

“Shut up,” Wally said, and shoved the smaller boy. “Who asked you.” It was obvious he was angry within himself at being frustrated by the shopkeeper. He had wanted to cream the slob, and had instead settled for a little annoyance. He was sore, and Tricky was the one to take it out on.

“I—I didn’t mean nothin’, Wally,” the boy said.

“Oh, shut ya face!” And he shoved the boy again.

“Come on, come on, let’s ankle. I wanna find some fags,” Rally said. Wally again started to buck him, thought of the potato he knew was in Rally’s jacket pocket, and agreed reluctantly.

They moved on down the street, forcing pedestrians into the gutter if they wanted to pass by.

As they passed the little alley-street known as Gay Street, Tricky burst into muted laughter. Wally spun on him, senseless anger blazing up in his cheeks. “What the hell you bloopin’ about?” Tricky pointed to the street sign, and when they made out what it said in the dim light, Rally laughed, too. Wally was silent.

“We came down here to find gays, not to yuk at a street sign, so move your butt.” They continued walking. They turned left at the thoroughfare, and moved downtown again. The streets weren’t completely deserted, but few people moved along them. They watched carefully, and only once did they see anyone who looked like a fag. He was going the other way, on the other side of the street, hurriedly, and there was no sense to crossing over. He didn’t look as though he was heeled anyhow. And it wasn’t only the fun of stomping a queer they wanted; it took dough to get kicks, and queers had dough, usually.

They passed a crosstown street and turned up. A girl was walking along ahead of them. Wally nudged Rally, who made an obscene gesture and started after her.

The girl turned at the sound of hurrying footsteps, and her mouth made a dainty little O as she saw Wally getting nearer. She wasn’t particularly good-looking, Tricky thought, but hell, a piece was a piece. They started after Wally.

Wally had the girl boxed in now. She was up against the wall of a building, and Wally was standing over her with his arms on either side, keeping her pinned. “What’s ya name?” he asked, his voice laden with menace. She quivered and would not answer. “Come on, come on, we onny wanna ask ya name? What they call ya?”

The girl finally managed to say, “Diane,” and the boys all laughed at that, for no good reason.

Wally leaned in closer and said, “How’d ya like to come into the alley and maybe show us a good time, huh?”

He leaned in even closer and said something else, too low for Tricky to hear, but the girl turned pale, and forced his hand away from where it had fallen on her shoulder. “You leave me alone,” she cried.

Wally did not like that. He moved back, and his hand dropped to her small breast. She screamed then, good and loud. Her cry rang up in the night, and Wally got sore. He leaned back, and hauled her one in the face. The girl slewed sidewise, and fell to the street. Wally bent over and lifted her skirt. “No good puta,” he said loud enough for her to hear, and dragged his switchblade from his pocket. She saw the blade snap open, and her eyes opened wide with it.

“Don’t—don’t hurt me!” she wailed. Wally leaned over, and held her as best he could with one hand. She struggled, and he said, “Hey, Tricky. C’mere. Hold her for me.” Tricky did not like what was happening; did not like to see girls hurt this way, but he knew better than to buck his buddy Wally. He braced the girl’s shoulders against the building, while Wally slashed her thigh with his initials. “That’s to remember me by,” Wally said, and teed off on her jaw again. She lay there unconscious, and bleeding, and Tricky watched her for a second, till he realized the other two had hurried away.

“Hey! Wait up!” he yelled, but they were already around the corner.

Just then a light flashed down the street, caught Tricky in its glare, and the huddled form of the girl, and a police siren started to wail. Tricky was paralyzed for a moment, and then galvanized into action. He sprinted around the corner, just as the cop car yanked alongside the girl, and he heard a rough, heavy voice call out, “Stop! Stop or we’ll shoot!”

But Tricky was already gone. Around the corner, and into the open front door of a drugstore. He stayed inside for a minute, then slid out the side way and wandered back to the thoroughfare, looking for his buddy Wally and Rally.

It took him an hour to find them, and they were sitting on the fence at Washington Square, waiting for a Queen to walk by. “Hey,” he said angrily. “Wha’s’a idea walkin’ off and leavin’ me there for the fuzzes? They was comin’ down the street; they almost got me.” His bright, small face was flushed, and he felt angrier than he ever had before.

“Hey,” Wally said, slipping off the fence. “You lookin” for lumps? Huh, you wanna get bashed? I didn’t run out on you, and personally, I don’t give a flyin’ damn if they do pick ya up.”

Tricky felt something go cold in him. Was this his buddy talking? Then it dawned on him, as though Wally’s words were clearing something away at last that had been clouding him. Wally was using him for a stooge. He just wanted to make fun of Tricky, liked to feel like a big man helping out the little guy. Well, he’d show him. Soon…real soon.

Wally was about to swing, when Rally called out, “Hey, man. Here comes the Queen-O to end ’em all. Check this character.” Wally turned away from Tricky with his fists still doubled, and saw the young man walking toward them. He walked with a sprightly step, coming off the balls of his feet, and his clothes were very Ivy League. His hands were delicate and manicured, and his face was as unlined as that of a baby. Tricky knew he was a queer at once; only a queer would wear clothes like that.

Rally moved into the fellow’s path, and muttered something insulting at him. The man stared for a moment, saw the other two and tried to walk around them. Rally moved after him, and tripped him with a swift movement. The man sprawled face first into the sidewalk, tearing the flesh on the left cheek, and Wally was upon him immediately.

The boots. Up and down, one two three, and the man lay, his hands protecting his groin as the feet came up and went down on his neck, his back, his face. Then he sprawled over, motionless.

“Come on, fast,” Wally said, bending down, and turning out the man’s pockets. “Get his wallet.”

But before the other two could do anything, he had the wallet and the change from the pants’ pocket, and they were strolling up the street as fast as they could. Behind them the pedestrian lay in an untidy heap.

When they got to a place where the lights were brighter, Rally stopped Wally and said, “Come on. Cough it over now. I want my share of the poke.”

Wally glared at him, remembered the potato, and dug into the wallet. “He only had seven dollars,” Wally said, not showing them inside. “Here’s your half.” And he handed Rally three one dollar bills.

“What ya mean, my half?” Rally yelled. “This is only three bucks.”

Wally took out the knife and held it loosely, absently. “I did all the work on him. Any arguments?”

Rally had none, and they walked on.

Finally, Tricky managed to say, “Hey, Wally, where’s my share?”

“I’m keepin’ it for ya,” Wally said, not turning around. “You’d spend it if I wasn’t watchin’ out for ya. We’re buddies ain’t we?”

Tricky did not answer. What was there to say?

But as they passed a souvenir shop, Tricky said, “Hey, Wally. I know you’re my buddy, but how’s about you buyin’ me that knife in the window there. I might need it some time. Ya know the Sabres been seen around where I live. Come on, Wally, buy me the knife.”

So Wally looked at the knife and saw it was not a switchblade, and it only cost a buck and a half, so he felt like the big man.

“Okay, buddy-O, glad to do it with your dough. You’re my ace-buddy, ain’tcha?”

Tricky nodded, and Wally went inside to buy him the knife.

It wasn’t as good as a switchblade, but Tricky had seen how a fast man could flip the blade of one of those things so it was almost as fast as a switch. And he had reason to want to be fast.

He had a buddy he was going to square up with soon. Real soon….

THE HIPPIE-SLAYER

She was blonde, the sun-bottle way all Malibu surfer teenies are blonde. She was button cute, the way all groupie teenies are cute. And her ripe young body was outlined in the minidress the way all descendents of Cleopatra, the queen teenie, show their snaring sexuality in foxy gear.

And, like all the teenie-boppers, petrified to be out of it, she was turned on.

She was grooving heavy behind the most luxurious acid she had ever scored: her world was hot pink and orange.

None of which saved her, as she tripped just three inches too far out of the Now. Over the edge of the building’s roof, where she had been turning on with friends, plunging three flights end-over-end, showing milk-white body as the miniskirt covered her face.

She hit the skylight going fifteen miles an hour, and crashed through, screaming. The glass tore out her throat, cutting off the scream; she landed twisted on the parquet floor of the restaurant that was beneath the skylight.

Her death drew three lines on a back page of the Los Angeles Times. The next day only the few high school friends who had tripped with her remembered she had died, and that her name had been Connie.

Only a few friends, and her father. Jack Gardiner, her father, who had raised her alone after Francine had died. Who had lived for nothing but Connie, who had loved no one but Connie, who remembered nothing now but Connie.

And in the terror that filters through after shock, he knew it had been their fault, them, the freaks, the longhaired boys and amoral girls who had killed his daughter.

Jack Gardiner waited several months, letting the hate build in him, letting it pass the fiery stages of slashing and rending, where unreason lay, waiting for it to melt down and cool, to congeal into solid purpose so he could pursue vengeance in a methodical manner, with a sweet sense of calm. And when the time came, he went out; out with a blade as thin and sharp as the glass that had ripped her throat. Out, with the blade…and the memory of Connie…and the hate…

Ricky Marigold was his name up at the commune. He was seventeen, had run away from home in Pacoima and was a righteous grasshead. He wasn’t a bad kid, just fucked-up. He was for: love, truth, gentleness, getting high, staying high, good sounds, pleasant weather, funky clothes and rapping with his friends. He was against: Viet Nam, the Laws with their riot sticks, violence, bigotry, random hatred, nine-to-five jobs, squares who tried to get you to conform, grass full of seeds and stems, and bringdowns in general.

He met Jack Gardiner on the corner of Laurel Canyon and Sunset, across from Schwab’s where the starlets went to show off their asses. He saw Jack Gardiner as a little too old to be making the scene, but the guy looked flaky enough: lumberjack shirt, good beard, bright eyes; and he seemed friendly enough.

So Ricky invited him to come along.

They walked up Laurel Canyon, hunching along next to the curb on the sidewalkless street. “Gonna be a quiet scene,” Ricky said. “Just a buncha beautiful people groovin’ on themselves, maybe turning on, you know.” The older man nodded; his hands were deep in his pants pockets.

They walked quite a while, finally turning up Stone Canyon Road. A mile up the twisting road. Jack Gardiner slipped a step behind Ricky Marigold and pulled out the blade. Ricky had started to turn, just as Connie’s father drove the shaft into Ricky’s back, near the base of the spine. Ricky was instantly paralyzed, though not dead. He slipped to the street, and Jack Gardiner dragged him into the high weeds and junk of an empty lot. He left him there to die.

Unable to speak, unable to move, Ricky Marigold found all the love draining out of him. Slowly, for six hours, through the small of his back.

Sitting on the curb in front of Gazzarri’s, watching the Strip traffic go by. Gina wished she had not had the fallout with Zal. Now he was up the hill, with all that fine stash, getting high with three other birds, and she was cooling it without where-to-go. She was toying with the thong laces on her calf-high boots when she realized there was someone standing in front of her. She looked up, letting her eyes travel up the faded chinos, over the wide brown belt, across the broad chest expanse of the lumberjack shirt, clocking the three strings of Hindu holy beads around the neck, and up to the face. The guy was smiling down at her. He had a nice face. A little old, but a nice face.

“What’s happening?” he asked.

Gina shrugged. The guy sat down beside her.

“Mind if I sit down?”

Gina shrugged again. Then she started getting worried. You never knew with these old farts. Some of them were cool, were into the thing; but others were cruisers, they just hawked the Strip, trying to make all the young meat. She had once serviced a dude in a blue serge suit, in the front seat of his car, only going down, nothing more, to get the ten bucks for two tickets to see James Brown at The Trip, when it was open. But that had been last year, and the Man had been cracking down on girls who thumbed the Strip just to make the nut for a night’s sounds.

But this guy seemed okay…the vibrations he was putting out were okay…yeah, he seemed okay.

“Quiet night.” He made small talk. Gina nodded.

“Where’s it happening?”

Gina shrugged again.

“You look really drug with things.” the old guy said. Gina looked up at his face; he was smiling.

She smiled back. “Just on a bummer, that’s all. A guy I was living with burned me for a load of—”

She was about to say grass, but there was really no telling who this dude was. He could be just a very hip, very good at his trade, Man. So she tapered off the sentence with a lazy shrug. A silent eloquence that said all sorts of things without saying anything at all. It was her conversational stock in trade, a much-used gambit.

He caught it all.

“Hey!” He laughed. “I’m cool. Some guy sprang with your grass, yeah?” Gina just stared.

“Yeah, well, I know how it is.” Even though he spoke to her, he was staring across the street. “This girl I was running around with, she found out where I kept my stash and cut out one night with about three pounds of really clean stuff. Burned my ass, it really did. But it happens, y’know.”

Gina grinned.

“If that’s all that’s hackin’ you.” the guy said, “I’ve got enough speed up at my place to turn on the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.”

He nudged Gina gently. She smiled awkwardly. “Hey,” he said, “I’ve got more’n I need. You want to turn on, come on along.” He got up and started walking. He stopped and turned around and looked back at her. She wasn’t coming. He smiled and motioned for her to follow. Gina got up and followed him.

He cut her throat from ear to ear, in the deserted lobby of an expensive apartment building on Wilcox. It only took a second; and then, carefully turning her so the blood spurted against the inlaid mirrors of the lobby, and not on him, he dropped her into the open and waiting elevator and punched the button for the fifth floor.

After the light show, Kivo invited a couple of dozen friends and groovy-looking strangers to make it up to his place. They left the Cheetah in a caravan of cars festooned and decorated with stickers of hearts and flowers and Aubrey Beardsley detailwork.

In the back seat of a VW that bore the legend JESUS IS ALIVE AND WELL IN MARY on its bumper, Jack Gardiner sat hunched down, hands in his pockets. His left hand was wrapped around the three sugar cubes he had saturated with strychnine three hours earlier. He had intended to drop them into drinks in the Cheetah, but when he had seen Kivo, he had known he’d found the most evil human being who had ever walked the Earth. Kivo was the titular leader of a group of wasted derelicts and misfits called The Eyes of the Universe. They were a layabout bunch, who showed up at every freak party, were omnipresent on the Strip, could be found till the early hours of the morning noshing on coffee cake and Cokes at Cantor’s, and were hired for a pittance by the management of rock clubs, to come and dance on the floor. They were grotesquely dressed, studiously filthy, sub-literate and when they danced, they gyrated and gesticulated in a manner midway between obscenity and devil-worship. One leaped up and down, his arms rising and falling as though he were doing calisthenics. They called him Grasshopper. Another was squat and square, built like the cartons in which Kotex gets delivered to grocery stores. They called him Turd. (Until recently: now he was called Wildflower: the idioms changed rapidly.) Another was covered with hair. Another was an epileptic. He was wild on the dance floor.

And Kivo. Bearded, with licentious eyes, a mouth that had been drawn with a stick of charcoal, and a wife named MaKivo, who would screw a snake. It was said on the Strip that MaKivo would screw a bush if she thought there was a snake in it.

Gardiner had decided to save the poisoned sugar cubes. In the privacy of Kivo’s infamous pad—where young girls and boys were turned on to various uglinesses—he would present them to Kivo in secret, let him drop them, and then leave.

The VW climbed up toward Mulholland on Laurel Canyon, and turned left at the light. The stench of unwashed bodies gagged Gardiner. But it wouldn’t have to last much longer. He had been hard at work these past weeks. Connie would rest easy now. He had seen the headline in the Hollywood Citizen-News earlier that evening. Behind its plastic coin-box window, the headline had screamed:

HIPPIE MURDERS CONTINUE UNSOLVED!

And he had smiled. A secret, quiet, well-over-thirty smile that said Connie would rest easy when he was finished. Nine of them, so far. Nine who would never pour their filth into the American bloodstream. If it took a little individual action on the part of a good citizen, a grieving father, then that was what he was prepared to do. To act as a one-man vengeance squad, to eliminate the taint of scum these foul degenerates had brought to his city, his country, his daughter and his world.

The VW cut off Mulholland, up a private drive, and circled the hill to the top. There was a large, sprawling house set back over the edge, unseen from the road below, where Kivo and his black mass acolytes could corrupt teen-agers. unchecked by the inept police.

The living room of the house was huge, and the smell of grass was already pervasive. Gardiner settled down on a stack of Oriental cushions, and waited his time.

The heads settled down in one corner, broke out Kivo’s stash, laid it out on newspapers, and began straining it. When they had enough for a dozen joints, they began rolling. Gardiner watched them for a while.

The speeders, the downer fools, the crystal freaks, were all in the center of the room: some were merely dropping dexy in pill and cap form, a few were honking their cocaine, and Kivo was working straight methadrine, shooting it like a stone junkie. He said he was just chipping. Gardiner was getting ill.

One of the potheads scuttled over to Gardiner, and offered him a twisted joint of marijuana. “Here y’go,” he said. He was giving love. Gardiner was a stranger, and in that sub-society it was not to his advantage to stand out. He took the cigarette. A girl wearing strings of plastic beads lit him. He drew in, and automatically inhaled. They were watching him. He held it down, and felt…

Himself whirling. His head throbbed. There were strange and unacceptable things happening to him.

He slumped back against the wall, and the time drew out like taffy. Gardiner, with a metabolic system that had never encountered marijuana, amphetamines, acid, uppers, downers, dope of any sort or style, was rapidly stoned. He found his eyes moist, and his thoughts colorful. He found himself murmuring, saying all sorts of strange and wonderful things, and Kivo was listening. Kivo and the others, staring down at him through a roseate fog, like some coven of magical ghouls.

“Hey, this old man’s a non-believer,” Kivo was saying. “Who is he?”

And then they were going through his pockets. They found out little beyond his name and driver’s license number. But they found the sugar cubes.

“Hey, he’s a seeker.” Kivo laughed. “Let’s turn him on.”

So they did. With his own acid-cubes. All three of them.

Jack Gardiner, sole Fury in the Avenger Corps, made the big trip. He rested no more easily than his Connie.

The Eyes of the Universe buried him on the dark hillside, looking out over Los Angeles. Safe from smog. And they spent many hours wondering what kind of good shit he had employed to get such a fantastic, final high.

KID KILLER

“Come on! Ya wanna kill me…ya wanna take the gun away? Come on, ya buncha slobs!”

The three boys from the Knifemen had him trapped in an alley. They’d seen him flashing the big .45 in the poolroom, and they’d followed him outside. Now he was trapped.

He was a short boy with a sallow, hungry-looking face. His eyes were deep-set under narrow brown brows and they seemed to cast back the tenement window lights flickeringly.

He held the .45 awkwardly and backed up as the three boys came toward him. He put one hand behind him, felt the ragged brick surface of the building’s wall. Trapped in the alley: no fence to jump, no door to go through, no way out.

Trapped. Trapped as he had been since they’d moved to New York. Since they’d moved down into the dirty jungle that was lower Manhattan.

Anton Cosnakof had turned to his son, and stared silently for a long instant. “We’ve got to leave Detroit, Petey.” His words came through softly, as though he were afraid to use them.

“We’ve got to leave because I have to find new work.”

Petey had always hated that tone—that indecisive tone. He looked up from the razor blades and airplane parts on the kitchen table. “Why? Why we gotta move away from here? Why you gotta get new work? You gotta good job in the car plant, ain’tcha?”

Cosnakof had run a hand through his thinning brown hair. He seemed to have no chin at all, and eyes so weakly squinting it appeared the world was a constant blur to him. “Well, you see, Petey, they laid off some people this week, and I was one of them…”

Petey stared up, shock on his young face. “Laid off? Why did they lay ya off? Ya been there ten years, Pop!”

Cosnakof spread his hands in useless defeat. “That’s the way of it, Petey boy. There ain’t nothin’ I can do about it. I thought we might go to New York. That’s a big town, plenty of work.” He grinned thinly at the new prospect.

Petey ignored the new subject; his mind was still riveted to the fact of his father being laid off. “Didn’t ya put up a squawk? Didn’t ya even make a fuss, Pop?”

The old man slipped into the battered kitchen chair next to the boy’s own. He laid a hand with permanent dirt in its creases across Petey’s, and looked across, into the boy’s dark eyes. “Petey, I’m an old man. I’m gettin’ older every year, and it just don’t do me no good to yell at folks or put up a fuss. I gotta take what’s handed me.”

Petey yanked his hand loose, stood up abruptly, spilling flakes of balsa wood from his lap. “You take all the crap everybody hands out! You take it all! You got no guts! You just let ’em shove ya around. You ain’t no good as a father or anything—”

The older man tried to stop him. He raised a thin hand in anguish. “Petey, Petey boy! Stop, son, please stop. It ain’t true! It ain’t!”

“—or anything else! You’re as bad off as mom! I got about as much respect for you as I do for her! And she’s a cuckaboo!”

The old man’s face whitened. He stood up and grabbed the boy by his shirt collar. “Don’t you ever say that again! Your Mother is just a little sick, is all. Don’t ever let me hear that again, or I’ll…I’ll…”

The boy’s thin face creaked up in a grimace. He shook his father’s hand loose, and shrugged his shirt into place.

“You’ll do what? You ain’t got the guts to slug me.”

Then he turned away quickly, throwing one of the carving tools to the floor, where it stuck in the linoleum, and walked out of the kitchen. Behind him Anton Cosnakof bent over to pick up the tool.

Petey couldn’t stand the closing-in walls of the apartment, or the futility of the whole damned thing. He was fifteen, and he felt like fifty. He wanted to go away, to never see these two people again.

New York. The thought leaped to his mind suddenly. Perhaps that was the answer. In New York he’d be able to get away from his old man and his old lady.

His face brightened a bit. and he made for the front door. The streets were open to his breathing, and that was where he retreated when he was down-in-the-dumps. Yeah, the streets.

As he passed his mother’s room, he heard her in there. Still talking. Still gibbering to herself about 1926, and about the heavy snows they’d had in Minnesota, and about the little apothecary shop where she had learned a trade. Still whispering the words out, like some forgotten steam radiator still spewing out occasional puffs of steam.

Petey’s face screwed into a mask of despair. He had never known this woman—this mumbling, sometimes-frothing slattern his father called wife—but he knew he had no mother. The other boys had mothers, but he had a banana! A looney tune.

The streets. That was where he would be free. The streets. And what of the streets of New York? He smiled at the prospect.

Trapped.

“Come on, Petey,” the first boy said, soothingly.

“Yeah. Petey,” chimed in his friend, a meatball with curly hair and bad teeth, “Don’t give us no trouble. We want that gun, and we’ll take it whether you give it or not. Steel like that don’t come along very often…”

Petey Cosnakof watched the three boys. He watched them carefully as they advanced, and the past year flowed back around him terrifyingly.

A full year of being beaten up in the gutters, of having his pocket money stolen from him, of being made the butt of involved and cruel jokes, of having them constantly call him “Little Petey Polack.” The year flung itself back upon him like a damned soul, and he cringed further against the wall, hoping it would leave him alone.

They’d been beating him up ever since he’d moved into the neighborhood, and they wouldn’t let him join the Knifemen. He was on the outside, and they didn’t like him. His name wasn’t Carter or O’Donaghey or even Smith. It was a bastardy-sounding thing like Cosnakof. He was a dirty little Polack bastard!

So they’d shoved him around, and taken his money, and called him names, and made fun of him. But now, suddenly, it was different—now he could protect himself.

Now he had the gun, and it felt warm and firm in his grip. But they wanted it, and they’d take it from him if he couldn’t be a tough boy. You had to be tough in this block—or get stomped.

He felt his shoulders smack up against the brick wall at the end of the alley. The three boys stopped momentarily and grinned at one another. The first boy—slim and wiry, with a feather-line scar across his right cheek—the boy called Snake, reached into his pocket, saying, “I’m sick and tired of this little crapper, anyhow. I’m gonna show him what a Knifeman stud can do when he don’t like somebody.”

He came up with the long switchblade, and flicked the weapon open with a sharp movement of his hand. The blade leaped up and Snake came on once more.

“Get back…get the hell back or I’ll cream ya!” Petey screamed, running the back of his hand across his mouth nervously.

“S’help me, I’ll plug ya if ya don’t get away from me!”

Snake put out a hand, palm up. “Gimme the rod, Petey. Give it here or you’ll be sorry. I got this shank starin’ at ya, kid, and if I don’t getcha, there’s thirty studs in the Knifemen, and they’ll get to ya if ya bother us.”

Farmer, the fat, greasy one, and Arnie, the thickset gorilla of a boy, stood back and watched as Snake moved on Petey. They wanted that gun; it would be real diggin’ murder in a rumble with the Golden Hawkers, but they didn’t want any holes in their skulls getting it.

“Get away from me, Snake!”

“You can’t go no further, kid, so you better come up with it and stop givin’ me any trouble before I’m forced ta slice ya! I’m prez of the Knifemen, and I’ll clue ’em in not ta bother ya if ya just gimme the…”

The shot exploded in the tight confines of the alley, and a dying sun’s hell-glow lit Petey’s face for an instant, as Snake doubled forward. The switchblade clattered onto the cement as he fell to hands and knees. He screamed low and long. Then he felt at the ragged hole in his face, felt the pulped mass that had been his right cheek, felt the blood beginning to well, and he screamed again. Only half a scream.

Then he died.

Farmer and Arnie seemed to be mannequins. They stood watching, no expression on their faces, for one second. They saw the bloody body of their president stretched into a queer position. They saw the glaze-eyed look of Petey, the smoking .45 so big in his mitt. They saw the way he stared at Snake, and suddenly was looking at them! They saw him take a step forward almost arrogantly, and they flattened against the wall. The kid was nuts!

And they ran. They turned on their heels and bolted.

Petey fired over their heads once, wildly. The bullet ricocheted off the wall, splattering brick shavings across the alley. The two terrified Knifemen ran like hell because they knew what it meant to have a kid like Petey loose with that .45 in his hand.

The evening street was a hollow canyon and as they ran. they heard his scream. They heard it bouncing back from the dirt-layered walls of the city. “I’ll get you guys, too! You been pushin’ me too long. Everybody’s gonna find out they pushed too much, poddamn ya! I’ll get ya ’cause you been makin’ my life hell! And I’m gonna be prez of the Knifemen, too…you wait an’ see!”

The scream followed them down the sidewalk and into the other alley and over the fence. It followed them away from the sound of the police sirens, and they knew Petey had gotten away clean. They knew the cops would come down and find Snake in there.

So they ran away, back to tell the gang, because they knew: better than the cops, or the parents, or anybody. They knew that as long as little Petey Cosnakof held that rod, the pang was stuck. He’d take over, he’d make sure they got clobbered!

The gang had to get that kid! He was a goddamned killer!

Petey didn’t go home. Home was nothing. Just an old, yielding man. a tired man, who was too weak even to slap his son when he’d done something wrong. And an old lady who should have been put in a bug-house years ago.

A mother fifty-three years old and mumbling to herself. A mother who had never spoken soft words of youth, or suckled, or tended—who merely stumbled and muttered, who eternally, over and over, dusted a cracked pharmacist’s mortar and pestle.

Home was nothing. Zero.

Guts. That was what made it, by God! Guts; and you had to have them, or you were nowhere. His old man was gutless. He’d let himself be shoved out of Detroit, and he’d let himself be shoved into the tenements. Well, Petey wasn’t going to be like that no more, no sir! Now he had the guts. He had the guts, and he had the gun.

And the one was the other.

It had been like God smiling down, the way he’d gotten that .45—just that afternoon. It had been like God…or someone….

The guy was running from the cop. Petey saw him come around the corner with the .45 in his hand. The guy had turned, still running, and snapped a shot quick at the cop, then turned into the alley behind the Puerto Rican grocery—the bodega.

It was a hot afternoon in the block, and Petey watched as the cop came to the comer, a fat little Italian woman two steps behind him. Petey heard the woman scream, “Finda heem! Catcha heem! He’sa rob my bakery!” and saw the cop wave an impatient hand at her while he searched the street for the man with the gun.

This is gonna be a cool deal! Petey thought, and ran Into the building entrance next door to the bodega doorway. He ran up three flights and went out the window, onto the fire escape. This was going to be too good to miss!

Petey looked down. The guy was on top of a pile of crates, trying to scale the wall at the alley’s end. He recognized him, then. A petty crook who hung around the neighborhood—a guy named Fletchman. A guy like all the guys who didn’t hold steady jobs. A guy with angles. And this latest one had backfired.

But Petey had never suspected Fletchman owned a gun!

Even as Fletchman tried to dig a hole in the brick wall, the cop appeared in the alley’s mouth. “Hold it there, fellow!” the cop yelled.

Fletchman dropped back down onto the stack of old crates, and brought the gun up fast. The lone shot he got off went wild over the cop’s head and disappeared into the street. The cop ducked back and began to signal a pedestrian to call the station house; he needed help.

At that moment Fletchman decided to make a break for it. He stood tall on the crates, and took aim at the edge of blue jacket showing around the wall. The cop took a wild chance, leaped into the mouth of the alley, in plain sight, and pumped three shots into the crook.

The .45 flew from Fletchman’s limp hand, skittered across the crates, and disappeared down in hack. The man stumbled a half-faltering-step, caught his toe on the edge of a crate, and clattered down into the dirty alley, crates tumbling atop him.

Petey watched it all from the fire escape. He saw the young cop stoop down, thumb his cap back on his head, and take Fletchman’s flaccid wrist between thumb and finger. He saw the cop stand up and shake his head sadly, holster the police revolver and lick his lips in resignation.

Petey watched, fascinated, as they came, five minutes later, and hauled the body away, as they shooed the crowd away and sent the gibbering Italian woman back to her bakery. No one seemed to remember the .45. He hoped feverishly they wouldn’t look for it.

Finally, they all left. Then he ran down the fire escape, into the second floor window, out the building, onto the street, around and into the alley. It took him ten minutes to haul the crates away, and there it was…

The gun. Big and black and deadly. All the guts he’d ever need. Enough guts to put those bastard Knifemen where they belonged. He’d run the block now. And to start off, he’d go down to the poolroom where they hung out, and shove the rod around. If he was lucky, Snake’d be there!

All the way over to the warehouse on Lexington, Petey kept thinking about how easy it had been to shoot Snake. It had been a pipe cinch. And Snake had deserved it, the bastard! That’d teach him not to shove smaller kids around!

When he got to the warehouse, he smashed in a window with the butt of the gun and crawled through, into the dirty, abandoned garage-warehouse. That gun was a real helpmate.

This was a safe place. No one would think to look in the old warehouse, and he could wait it out awhile—think it out awhile. He was sure the cops would be after him. And the Knifemen, too. They didn’t like their men clobbered like that. And the prez being cooled was enough to start a rumble that’d have Petey’s head in the sewer quickly. He fondled the gun, standing there in the darkness of the huge building. That .45 was all he had, but it was more than enough.

He had to plan a strategy.

He found the stairway at the back of the main floor and followed it up. The building was condemned, but some parts of it were still fireproof and intact, like the stairway. Finally he came to the roof-door, and opened it out on the night. It was cool, and the breeze off the river came up to Lexington just toned down enough to cool him more, but not chill him. He could sleep here, and wait it out.

He searched around and found a stack of old newspapers, all stuck together, and the middle ones still soggy from having lain out in the rain. He piled them, and lay down, pillowing his head so he could stare out at the checkered-light that was the skyscraper forest. Big black pencils, pointing toward maggots of stars. That was how he saw the sky. A dark inside to a garbage-pail, and the crawling, maggoty stars.

The breeze stiffened, and began to ruffle his lank brown hair. The sky was so big…and he felt so small. So damned damned small. Smaller than when the kids had beaten him up.

Why did he have to be so goddamned small? So the kids could push him around? Why wasn’t he a big stud like that stupid-ass Arnie, no brains, but all that size! He deserved that height and weight more than the ignorant Arnie. Then he could whip anybody. Well, now he didn’t have to worry about them pushing him. He had the .45 and that was an equalizer every time.

If he’d only had that the first time they’d leaned on him…

“Ay! Chopper, Arnie. Farmer! C’mere! Dig what just blew inta the neighborhood!”

Snake stood tall, and stared down at Petey, sitting on his front stoop. He placed one foot on the step, putting his big stomping-boot over the smaller boy’s loafer. Petey moved his foot away nervously. It was Petey’s first day on this block, and he wasn’t too certain what he could do. “My name’s Cosnakof. Petey Cosnakof,” he began.

Snake’s lean face V-split down into a vicious grin, and he threw back his head in laughter. The scar on his face became bright and shiny against the tanned skin of his cheek.

“Cowzakop? What kind of a crazy crap name is that?”

The tall boy stared down accusingly at Petey.

Petey smiled tentatively. “It’s…it’s P-Polish…” he said slowly.

“You gettin’ wise with me?” Snake asked suddenly, his face tightening like a marble bag when someone had drawn the drawstrings. His mouth lined out to almost white tightness.

Petey just stared. He didn’t know what to do. Abruptly, three other boys came down the block, at a run. They were panting, and when they saw him they stopped, catching their breath. He saw their faces lit with troublemaking. They didn’t even know him, but there was an air about the stoop, and they knew here was a goat. Here was someone they could stomp.

“Whassa trouble, Snake?” Arnie asked, his dull eyes fluttering.

Snake emulated the big boy’s tone, elbowing the stupid Arnie in the belly. “Whassa trouble, whassa trouble! Whaddaya think’s the trouble? Here’s a little Polack punk in our territory, and he don’t even know enough to bow down to the prez of the Knifemen!”

That was the first time Petey heard the name of the gang. But he also heard the word Polack…a fighting word…just as Spic or Kike or Dago or Wop would have been. He stood up and raised a fist.

He was about to say, “Listen, you, take that back!”

But he never got the chance. Snake’s fist arced around, from nowhere, and caught Petey on the right temple. He slid off the stoop, banging against the stone bannister, and fell at the feet of the Knifemen.

They were on him in a moment, stomping. The boots came up and down with piston regularity, and Petey felt the pain blossoming in his groin and chest and head and back and legs. The pain over and over again! The boots never seemed to stop, they’d go on forever, and them bleating out, you lousy little Polack punk, lousy little punk, lousy, little, little, little…

Till the final foot came down and Petey’s head swam off into the darkness. Just as he heard an old lady stick her head from an upstairs window and scream for the police.

Strangely, she was screaming, “Police, police, leese, leez, leezle, leetle, little, little, little…

But he had only heard part of it, there in the growing dark.

Suddenly Petey sat up, there on the roof. He had it! He had to get the Knifemen off his back. And he had to cover with the cops. He’d gotten an idea, and the more he thought about it, the surer he was it would work. He’d go down to the clubroom where the Knifemen met and stand up to them tall. When they saw the .45 they’d have to let him join. They’d even make him the new prez, and he’d get them to swear he hadn’t cooled Snake. That was the answer! That was the way to solve the problem fast and clean. That would do it. Then he’d have the run of the block, and he could walk with a swagger the way the rest of them did. That would be cool.

He’d do it!

The warehouse was dark and wet-smelling as he kicked through the old papers and rusty cans. It was dank and evil-smelling, as though a million rotten thoughts had come here to live their last moments. He suddenly hated the place, and feared it a little. He was going to the Knifemen to show them he was little, but could stand tall. And that he could kill if he had to do it!

He went out through the window, and as his foot passed across the window ledge, as he stepped onto the sidewalk, he felt released. It was as though his smallness was at an end and he was ninety-eight feet tall, ready to get away from everything behind him and be the tall man.

That’s all you had to do to show the Knifemen you were a cool stud. Just have guts enough to kill. He fingered the warm bulk of the .45 in his jacket pocket.

They had gathered to decide what to do about Petey.

Twenty-six of them sat together in the basement, and wondered what could be done about the little kid with the big gun. The black leather was deep as ink across a snow-field. And their hands never rested. Clenching and unclenching as though at an invisible fury they could not comprehend. The children of the streets had gathered to solve their problem. And the solution was the same as always: death!

“Man, you shoulda seen him,” Arnie was saying, his idiot-faced stare swinging between the Knifemen. “He wuz like uh…like uh…crazy man with that gun. he wuz!”

Farmer sat in the big leather chair Snake had occupied before his death, and shook a meaty finger at the other gang members. “No kiddin’, he was nuts. He potted Snake right inna kisser, almost blew off his head. He was a mean cat with that rod in his mitt.”

“We got to get him. He swore he’d get the lot of us. Said he’d come after us and get to be Prez of the Knifemen. That fuckin’ little punk…we gotta get ta hi…”

They saw the basement window behind him shatter, before they heard the shot. They turned and saw little Petey Cosnakof standing there, very rigid and very white, his face drawn up in a grimace of hate.

“I told ya I’d getcha, and I’d even it up with you bastards!”

Then he fired again. He caught Farmer in the collarbone, and the pain opened the fat boy’s mouth wide, though no sound came out. He staggered erect from the chair, then flopped to the basement floor. He lay there, sobbing, clutching at his shattered collarbone, and making soundless screams.

The other twenty-five Knifemen stared in horror at the black, snake-eye mouth of the .45, pointing in at them, aching to belch more smoke and flame. They had no idea how many rounds were fired from that gun, and there was no sense being a hero with a bloody head.

“I’m gonna be prez of the club!” Petey yelled in at them. He stood at the foot of the basement stairs, aiming into the crowd of them. His hand was whitely shaking on the gun, and their eyes grew wider as they saw his unsteadiness with that death wrapped into his fist.

Yo-Yo Thomas came forward a step. “Sure, sure, Petey, you can be prez! We’d like that…we wuz just talkin’ a minute ago about askin’ ya to join up as prez…on account of you got the rod and all like that…”

He had been moving steadily forward, but Petey stopped him flat with an abrupt movement of the gun.

The little boy’s face settled slowly into a grin. His voice became earnest, very earnest, and little-boyish, as he was little-boyish. Yet that death hung suspended, waiting. “Ya mean it? Ya really, honest-ta-God mean it?”

“Sure, Petey,” Yo-Yo reassured him. “Come on down.”

Petey took a tentative step from the stairs. He stepped onto the basement’s concrete floor and moved through the crowd. Behind him, several boys made aggressive movements, but Petey whirled suddenly, shoving the gun into their faces.

“Move! Go on, move! That’s what I want! I want to even it with you…go on…make a step for me and I’ll kill ya!”

The boys subsided, terrified. They had seen guns in the movies, and some of the older boys who hung at the pool-room had them, but the perfectly round, black hole in that square automatic was a fearsome thing. They made no further movement.

Yo-Yo walked Petey up to the big leather chair.

Petey watched that chair with dawning wonder. He was finally going to make it into the gang. He was going to be in with them—with the boys who had guts. He’d show them…they’d see…he’d be a good prez…he wanted to be a good president, and make them like him. All they had to do was given him a chance and he’d…

They had helped the bleeding, whining Farmer from the floor, and now two boys worked over him feverishly, trying to stanch the flow from his shoulder and neck. “We gotta get him to a hospital,” one of them said.

Petey jumped up from the chair. “He don’t go nowhere, the sonofabitch! He’s lucky I didn’t put it through his head! Let him lay!”

The boys were slow in moving away, and Petey fired at the floor between them. More as reflex than anything else, yet the bullet whanged and plowed a hole in the concrete. They jumped, and left the moaning Farmer propped against the wall, shoving his fingers awkwardly into the torn shoulder.

“Shuddup, ya bastard, or I’ll kill ya!”

Petey’s face crimsoned and he made a fist, leveling the gun at the stricken Knifeman. This was the first time the gang had ever been held at bay, with death so close to each of them. This was being held out at arm’s length by a very tall, very frightening person, with no way to strike back. They watched frozen. Farmer’s ash-gray face twitched terribly for a moment, and he bit his tongue. Then he was silent.

Petey went back to the chair, anxiously. He looked up with an almost pathetic intensity at Yo-Yo Thomas. “Now! Elect me prez!”

That was all he wanted. To be in with them, to show them he was tall now—tall with guts.

The gang boys watched him with hatred in their eyes. But he held the gun. Petey knew there were only three more shots in the .45, but the Knifemen didn’t, and that was good for him.

Yo-Yo started forward, and Petey brought the gun up, again reflexed, from fear and remembrance.

“Take it easy, Petey. I only wanna present ya formal-like to the members.”

Petey watched with open wariness. “Okay, but watch ya goddam self.”

Petey’s face was a split mask of anxiety and pleasure, and cautious watchfulness. Yo-Yo started toward him. Suddenly he leaped, made a grab for the gun. He caught the bullet in the stomach, but before he could fall, the basement stairs were filled with police and then the sounds of nightsticks meeting skulls resounded off the walls.

Petey leaped up wildly, threw the writhing Yo-Yo from him and dashed for the broken basement window.

He clamped the .45 between his teeth, pulled himself up on the ledge, and wriggled through the broken glass pane before anyone could stop him. The glass cut his face and ripped his jacket, but the strength that had allowed him to break and run, had allowed him to climb through the window, kept him moving.

He had lost his chance to get into the gang! To get with the boys with guts! He was alone again…

Then he was on the street.

Behind him he heard a cop’s voice screaming through the broken window. “Stop kid! Stop or I’ll shoot!”

He kept running, pounding unendingly, unevenly across the pavement blocks that stretched on forever, bringing his knees up in jerking, stomach-wrenching movements. Behind him he heard the agonized voice of the cop, “Please stop, kid! Stop or I’ll…”

And he turned, snapped one of the last two shots at the cop. The bullet slammed into the wall, and he fired again. The cop ducked as the bullet went through the window, ploughed into the basement wall.

“Goddamn it!” he whispered, and drew a careful bead on the running boy.

The Knifemen stood beside the cops. They stared down at the body of little Petey…twisted in on itself, but still clutching the gun tightly, as though it were everything in this world.

They had run from the building, and heard his last words, “N-now nobody’ll push m-me around…. I got the g-guts and I g-got the gun, and…and…I’ll k-kill ta keep ’em. I’ll ki…”

They shuffled and licked their lips and watched as the color faded from his thin cheeks. The crazy kid.

One of the cops turned to Arnie, standing with hands in pockets, watching Petey’s life flow into the night, watching Petey’s body. Down the street the meat wagon came toward them from a great distance, clanging sacrilegiously.

“We got a report of shots…this the kid was doing the firing?”

Arnie bobbed his idiot’s head, kept looking at Petey from his height, so much taller than the brown-haired Polack had been. “Thass him. He was holdin’ us all in there. We didn’t do nothin’! Honest!”

The cop’s face sagged in an expression of disgust at these metropolitan vermin, these children of the streets.

“Funny thing is. I guess you don’t think you did. And maybe you didn’t. Who knows? This time…I guess you little bums didn’t do a thing.

“But I wonder what made the crazy kid turn killer?”

Three blocks away, four flights up, a slate-colored man wondered where his son was, but made no move to find out; and a mumbling old woman forgot a bit more, that she had ever had a son. She knew only that 1926 had been a hard year, a very hard year.

Three blocks away, the meat wagon slid in to the curb, and a few minutes later the only evidence of what had transpired was a small spot of black liquid sinking into the broken pavement.

The cop had rounded the corner, out of sight, the .45 impounded in his pocket. Petey’s strength—Petey’s guts—in his pocket.

WITH A KNIFE IN HER HAND

Theresa dragged deeply on her cigarette, till the full, pink hemispheres that were her cheeks drew in to form dimples. She moved her head slightly, swirling the long, black hair from her face, and watched the five boys carefully.

“I been runnin’ this gang good for a year, ain’t I?” she asked.

The five boys nodded almost in unison. Pinty mumbled a throaty, “Yeah sure,” and Jacksap gave her two-fingers of agreement. She continued to watch their every movement, their every expression; her eyes were those of a wary animal. Alert. Cunning. Dangerous.

“Then what’s the beef? I brought ya out tonight ta do some cool movin’ and you’re all bellyachin’ at me? Now do ya want some scratch in ya jeans or don’t ya?” She let her expressive hands, that had been gesticulating broadly, fall to her sides. Absently, her hands smoothed the tight black skirt over her full hips; the five boys could not keep their five pairs of eyes from traveling with the hands. She smiled around her cigarette as she saw them watching the sensual movement.

Then Policy George spoke up. He was a tall, dark boy with a faint white scar on his right cheek; his voice was soft as kitten’s fur, his body as hard as cat’s claws. “We got no beef with the way you’re runnin’ things, Theresa—”

She cut in angrily. “Then what’s the beef?”

He calmed her with a hand and tried to explain. “We been kickin’ it around like, y’know, and we didn’t dig that bit the other night when we knocked over the candy store down in Hugo’s neighborhood.” He jerked a thumb at the stocky, Prussian-looking boy sitting on the garbage can. “Old Hugo here gotta live down there, woman. He don’t feature us knockin’ over marks in his block. I go along, and the other guys second it. Right, enough?” He looked at the four others in the alley. All but Pinty nodded decisively. Policy George gave Pinty a shove with his elbow, and the boy with the big eyes chimed in, “Yeah, sure sure, that’s right, Theresa.” He spoke with a halting, yet hurried speech that tripped and bumbled and meandered over itself. His face was an idiot’s open, wondering, always-pleased face.

Theresa threw her hands in the air. “You buncha stiffs!” she snorted, her full breasts straining against her black sweater as she inhaled furiously. “I get you buncha crumbs together, I make ya into a hot-rock bunch, an’ ya got more jack in ya pocket than ever, an’ you bastards got the nerve ta tell me you’re unhappy with it. Okay,” she raged, “if that’s the goddamn way ya want it, that’s the way it’ll sit!”

She started away from them, out of the alley, fury in her every step.

Policy George grabbed her by her arm and dragged her back. She came abreast of him as he started to say, “Now look, Theresa—” and her knee flashed up, white and full, and caught him flush in the groin. He screamed with pain, and had barely an instant to watch as her hand came around and chopped hard, behind his right ear.

Policy George crumbled against the building, still erect, but swimming in semi-consciousness. “Don’t none of you ever touch me, like I told ya before, unless I tell ya I want ya to, Dig?”

They all nodded understanding hurriedly. No one moved to help Policy George. The handsome boy gasped, and dragged air into his lungs, and after a few minutes straightened up again. His eyes held respect, and hatred, and something else.

He made no move of retaliation. There was an invisible barrier between himself and the girl. She had not even mussed her hair in the brief encounter. Now she shoved Hugo from the garbage can, and sat down herself. She studied the five for a long, silent moment. Then she blew air between her full lips, exasperatedly.

“I ain’t never seen a buncha slobs like you,” she yelled at them. “I came along and take ya outta the minors, start puttin’ some real money in your pockets, and alla sudden you start gettin’ temper’mental.

“Now you bums listen good: I run this bunch, and I pick the jobs, and I say when you beef. Got that?”

They agreed quickly. Policy George’s voice was slightly softer than the others. She caught his expression from the corner of her dark green eyes and frowned slightly.

“Okay,” she said. “So now we got the org’nization stuff all set. Now, anybody got any great big fat-butt beefs about the bit for tonight?”

Nobody answered. She nodded satisfaction.

“That’s good.”

She slid off the can, smoothing down the tight skirt again, and started out of the alley. “Okay, okay,” she yelled back over her shoulder, “let’s get this show onna road.”

The five boys followed her. Pinty, Hugo, Jacksap, Jingles—everlastingly rattling a handful of coins in his pocket—and Policy George. Theresa was thinking about Policy George; thinking hard. He was good-looking and he was sharp, and that was maybe the trouble. He’d been too anxious to speak up for the bunch of them. Maybe he had ideas the bunch shouldn’t be run by a broad. She was going to have to watch out very carefully for Policy George.

But right now there were pigeons to be knocked down and scratch to be made. They followed her to the subway and rode uptown from the Bowery till they hit the 4th Street stop of the subway.

Then they got off and made it for Sullivan Street, in the Village, where the dough was waiting tonight. Tonight, because it was a Saturday night, and because the big Catholic church on Sullivan was staging a block party. A big, noisy, sprawling block party, where the scratch was floating, just waiting for Theresa and her kids to pick it up.

But Theresa had to watch Policy George.

She fingered the cleft in her breasts, feeling the heavy, deadly weight of the switchblade knife shoved into her bra. Policy George wouldn’t give her any trouble.

Nobody gave Theresa trouble.

The block party went from sidewalk to sidewalk, clear across the blocked-off street. At the head of Sullivan, the big impressive church stood sentinel, making certain the revels did not get out of hand. Along the edge of the sidewalks, hundreds of little booths had been set up. Some sold Italian sausage, hot and delicious: others sold pizza for fifteen cents a slice; still others handled Italian ices in rainbow colors, or cotton candy, spun and pink and ephemeral to the taste; while other booths were games of chance: pitching hoops over watches attached to boxes, putting a dime on the number and letting the wheel spin; there were a dozen others.

Down at the far end of the three-block stretch of lights and noise, a Dixieland jazz band high on a platform beat out complicated variations of “I’m Comin’ Virginia,” “Tin Roof Blues” and “Margie.” And all around, dark corners, alleys, dim hallways.

Theresa ignored the lights, the floats, the banners, and sized up the last. She saw two side streets, almost dark and filled with shadows; dozens of hallways, dark and wide staircases to upper floors. A pigeon could be dragged up into that blackness.

It was a natural. Tonight they’d make dough.

“Hugo,” Theresa said, pulling the block-faced boy to her, whispering in his ear, “you bring the tape and the rope?” Hugo nodded, patted his stomach, which bulged more than usual. He had wound the clothesline around his waist. The tape was in his pocket.

Theresa motioned the five to follow her. They walked through the jostling crowds, ignoring the smiling girls and their dates, the old people nodding happily at the goings-on, the smiling priest in his cassock benignly greeting his fold. “Wait a minute,” she said, as they progressed down the street. “I’m a sucker for cotton candy.”

She walked up to the pimply-faced boy with hairy arms who tended the cotton candy machine. “How much?” she asked. The boy jerked a thumb at the sign over his head. It read COTTON CANDY 15¢. He grinned, and Theresa frowned at being laughed at. “You make a big one, wise guy? Or do I take my business someplace else?”

The boy grinned again, lopsidedly, shrugged. “Sis, I don’t give a damn what you do. You want a cotton candy, I make you a cotton candy. It ain’t big enough…you can complain to my old man when he comes on. Okay?”

Theresa’s blood began to froth with anger. Who the hell was this punk kid to think he could talk to her like that? If there wasn’t a crowd around, she’d stick the shank into his gut and twist! But she didn’t want any trouble now—there was business to be transacted, and there wasn’t time for fooling around. “Gimme a candy,” she said, taking several coins from a little pocket in her skirt.

The boy continued grinning. What an idiot! Theresa thought angrily. Finally he served up a pink cone of fluff that clung to the brown paper tube in its center like a cloud on a stick. She took the candy and walked away. She looked back over her shoulder and the jerk was still watching her, still grinning. What a simp! Theresa thought.

“Okay,” Theresa’s voice hardened in direction as she rejoined the bunch, “let’s move.” She chewed on the nothing of her cotton candy as she walked with the five boys down the sidewalk behind the booths. As they passed one stall, a plump, jolly Italian woman stuck her head around the canvas and shrieked: “Avy! Come on, come on, come on! Try-a you luck. Just-a dime, onny a dime, win a lamp for you livin’ room, come on!” But they were past her without stopping.

Theresa indicated a black and gaping rectangle of a building entrance and nudged Hugo. “In there.”

They slipped into the building without drawing attention, and moved under the stairs for last minute instructions and the dividing-up of the tape and rope.

“Okay, now, here’s the way it’ll be.” Theresa finished the last of the cotton candy, pulling it from the brown paper tube with her small, sharp white teeth. She dropped the tube and wiped her hands on one another. “I want Hugo an’ Jacksap in here. Down the block aways, I want Policy George, Jingles and Pinty. Watch out for the dummy, George.” She threw in the last with a nasty smile, for she knew how much Pinty adored her, followed her blindly, worshipped the cement over which she walked…and that he was good friends with Policy George.

She said it for kicks. Theresa liked her kicks.

Pinty watched her unhappily, moisture filming his big, blue eyes, his loose-lipped gremlin’s mouth twitching miserably. He looked to Policy George for consolation, but the tall, olive-complexioned boy made no move to buck Theresa again. He had learned a lesson; the way Theresa played, a stud was a fool to buck her. No telling what she’d do next time; but you could always wait, and see what happened; she couldn’t run the gang forever. She had to slip sometime…and besides, it wasn’t right for a broad to be running a hot-rock gang like theirs.

Even if she was doing a great job.

Policy George coveted Theresa’s ownership of the gang.

“Okay now,” she said. “When I get the pigeon in here, I want you guys to be ready. I’ll get ’im back under the stairs and you wallop him. You got somethin’ to belt ’im with?” she asked Hugo. He pulled a vicious-looking piece of tire chain from his pocket and wound it around his hand significantly. She turned to Jingles and Policy George. “Well, how about it?” Jingles stopped clinking the pocketful of coins, and reached into his back pocket for a stocking. He brought it out and dumped the pocketful of coins into it.

He held a deadly effective bludgeon.

“That does it,” she said. “Now don’t nobody fuck up or I’ll smack a coupla heads. Dig?”

“Dig!” they answered.

And Pinty chimed in, “Yeah, Dig.”

Theresa looked at the dummy with exasperation, and a lopsided sneer came to her lips. “Christ, what a jackass!”

Then, “Come on, let’s get the hell outta here.”

Following behind Theresa as she left the hallway of the building, Policy George steered Pinty by the back of the neck as he would have led an animal by a leash. Jingles had dumped the coins back into his pocket, and was clinking them as he walked silently at Policy George’s side. As they walked along, Theresa looked into each doorway, rejecting each one for a different reason: too light, not enough room under the staircase, residents sitting outside to catch the evening breeze, an apartment downstairs. Finally, she found one similar to the one in which she had left Hugo and Jacksap. She noted the building number, and gave the three remaining gang members the nod.

They ducked inside, and Theresa moved away, back down the street. She was quite near the jazz band, up on its platform, and in the street a large crowd had gathered, clearing out in the middle, directly under the stand, so couples could jitterbug.

Theresa saw a group of men, ranging from about seventeen to thirty, standing fairly close together, and she knew this was the “stag line.” If it could be called that. Somehow, at any dance, the unattached males found a way to gravitate to one another. They were unattached, and Theresa decided to pick her man from the twenty-five or thirty standing around.

She ignored the young punks, the glossy-haired ones with a buck and a half in their pockets and a cheap lay on their minds: she concentrated on the older ones: the husbands who had left their wives before the TV sets to watch the young girls legs, the uptown bored-set who had come down to see Bohemian life in the raw, the big spenders who wanted to pick up a young chickie. She roamed, and her eyes were cat’s eyes, her claws drawn in, but her feline temperament exposed.

Finally she spotted a likely-looking pigeon.

He was standing at the edge of the crowd, looking over the heads of the non-dancers, and snapping his fingers in time to the wild Dixieland beat of the jazz band. He was about thirty-eight, or maybe even forty, with a slight bulge at the belly-line of his Summer cord suit. His hair was a light, straw-blonde, and he wore dark-framed glasses. He was a natural…an uptown boy on the make. Probably fancied himself still the college charmer.

Theresa sidled up to him and extended her hand. She touched his shoulder, and he looked down. Theresa was a striking girl, with wide, dark eyes, and black hair that hung in curves to her shoulders. Her face was clean and smooth and sensual, and her body was just inside that line separating voluptuousness from fat.

“Got a cigarette, Mister?” She smiled. It was a strange smile, all composed of suggestion and desire. The Summer Cord Suit fumbled in his pocket, came up with an empty pack, cursed softly, and with bumbling movements fished around in his other pockets till he came up with a fresh pack. He tore off the cellophane band and, in his nervous rush, ripped away the entire wrap. He smiled at her quickly, self-consciously, and continued struggling to open the pack. Finally, thinking, What a great creep this guy is, Theresa took the cigarettes away from the man, and drew a cylinder for herself.

“Light?” she asked, handing him the pack.

He was even worse, fumbling, bumbling, in lighting the cigarette. Theresa watched him with bored amusement.

“You from around here?” the man asked, his eyes shining.

He’s hooked, Theresa chirped joyfully, in her mind.

“Oh, yeah—” she evaded “—around.” She arched her eyebrows at him, and moved in closer, till her hip touched his. “Wanna dance?” She smiled up at him.

The man touched the semicircle of his chin, and grinned back foolishly. “Hell…I mean, uh, I don’t dance so well. Want to go someplace for a, uh, drink?”

Theresa decided to stop playing around. “Hey. Why don’t we…uh, kinda…you know…like go someplace, where we c’n be alone.” She wet her lips, dropping her eyelids in a suggestive movement. The Summer Cord Suit stared at her, perspiration beginning to softly fleck his upper lip. He took off his glasses nervously.

“I kinda like you,” Theresa said. She took a deep drag on the cigarette and let the smoke trail from her mouth slowly. The man put his glasses back on.

“Uh, okay. Sure. Where ya wanna go?”

“Let’s go up to my place,” she said. “It’s on this street Huh, okay?” She looked up at him quizzically, knowing his answer already.

The man’s eyes glowed even more brightly, and he wet his lips. “Yeah, sure, why not.” He was foaming at the mouth; even if it cost a little, hell, how much could an amateur cost—even as hot-looking a little amateur as this one—and he was heeled. Why not?

Theresa took his hand, and started off through the crowd, back toward the building with Hugo and Jacksap waiting under the stairs. They walked swiftly: she anxious to get the work done; he anxious to get his pay-off.

“Hey!” the Summer Cord Suit yelled to her, jubilantly, as they passed a booth where a man in a too-tight double-breasted brown suit was yelling, “O-yez, O-yez, O-yez! Cawm on in, cawm on in, try yer luck!”

“Hey!” he yelled again, dragging her to the booth. “Let’s see if I can win you a kewpie.” Twenty-five cents to prove his masculinity, two-bits to show her he wasn’t just picking her up, a quarter to hint she should lower her price for such a decent guy.

He took the three baseballs, and plunked a quarter down on the rough wooden counter. “Stan’ back!” he yelled at the bored booth-keeper who had already gone off to the left to yell at others passing by. The Summer Cord Suit wound up and threw. The first two balls missed completely. The third one grazed the right bottom fake-milk-bottle, jarring it, but not moving it. The pyramid of three paste-white fake-bottles stood as before.

The man shrugged sheepishly, started to reach for another coin, even as the boothman began his retry spiel, but Theresa stopped him. With a pronounced pressure on his right arm, she propelled him away from the booth. “C’mon, honey, you don’t wanna stay at that booth all night, do ya?”

The look she gave him was enough.

They moved toward the building.

“Right here,” Theresa said, pulling him into the black mouth of the hallway. She led him forward, and stopped at the foot of the stairs.

She rubbed up against him, and began to moan low and throaty. “Ohh, Honey,” she whispered, close to him, pressing her body against his, “c’mon back here for a minute, before we go up. I think my roommate’s still awake.”

She kept rubbing, and he hesitated only a moment as he followed her insistent dragging. They moved back toward the underside of the stairway.

“Your roommate?” he said in confusion, following her mostly because she was a girl in heat and she was dragging him, “You didn’t mention any roo—”

Hugo came out from the under-stair, the tire chain wrapped around his hand.

The chain caught the man just across the right cheekbone, laying it wetly bare, to the bone. He was only able to drop a half-moan from his mouth before it filled with blood, and he dropped heavily to the tile of the hallway. His splintered face gleamed up faintly in the reflected light from the block party outside.

“Drag him!” Theresa snapped, kicking against the man’s legs.

Jacksap and Hugo emerged from the stygian darkness underneath the stairs and pulled the Summer Cord Suit by his armpits into the covering blackness. They laid him down again, and Jacksap felt for a pulse. “Man, you really walloped him,” he whispered urgently.

“Is he conked?” Hugo asked, suddenly frightened.

“No, man, but he smells like he’s on his way. We better—”

Theresa bit through. “You better do crap! You better get goin’ through his pockets before the fuzz find us in here with him. C’mon, c’mon, get your cans rolling. There’s more fish t’be fried t’night.”

Hugo made as if to protest, but Theresa struck a match, casting a devil’s gleam of orange over her cheekbones, the high roundness of her breasts, and the shaft of the switchblade in her hand. So quietly had she drawn it forth, so quietly had she opened it, they had never known she held it on them. “Move!” she snarled.

Hugo and Jacksap dropped and methodically stripped watch, ring, wallet, change, anything that was not attached, from the shallowly-breathing man. Then they rose slowly.

“We better help him, Theresa!” Jacksap whispered concernedly in the darkness. “He’s liable to croak back here.”

Theresa struck another match. She still held the knife. The dim, orange flicker of the match was reflected on the smooth half-moon of her forehead, leaving her eyes pools of ink. “You stop enjoyin’ life? I said we move…he stays. Whaddaya wanna do, get nabbed?” She shoved Jacksap by the shoulder, edged him past the prostrate man. Hugo stood a long moment watching the man, then pursed his thick lips, ran a hand over his square, crew-cut head, and moved to follow Jacksap.

Theresa blew out the match, dropped it on the stomach of the Summer Cord Suit, and went to join the two gang members who waited around the corner.

She walked smoothly and swiftly, drawing the eyes of several more eligible pigeons, but first she had to talk with Jacksap and Hugo. She rounded the corner, and there they were. Leaning against the building, Jacksap munching a square of pizza. “Gimme a bite,” Theresa commanded. Jacksap extended it, and she took a healthy swallow, getting a soggy portion of the napkin underneath, also.

“Now!” Theresa launched into her after-job directions. “I want you two to hop the subway back downtown, and stick away the stuff we got. Now I don’t know how much that pigeon had on him, but if there ain’t at least a hundred bucks in that wallet when I get back, you’re gonna be sorry.”

She studied their faces, and knew she had been right. They had already fished in the Summer Cord Suit’s things, and removed part. “Okay, hand it all over,” she said tiredly.

The two boys shuffled their feet, looked away, and coughed with strain. Theresa reached for the cleft of her breasts, and Hugo quickly snaked something out of his sleeve, handed it to her. She did not look at it, merely waited for Jacksap.

He watched her a moment, then swore under his breath and drew a thin sheaf of bills from his side pocket. Then she took the balance of the stolen goods, looked them over carefully, counted the money, down to the last coin, and handed it all back to them. “Now when we all divvy up, there won’t be nobody gettin’ a bigger share than nobody else. Right, fellas?” Her tone was deadly and heavy.

They nodded, as though they were automatons.

She gave them the thumb. “Hit for the subway. Blow this turf.”

They moved out, and she stood watching their retreating shadows for a long minute. “I don’t dig cheats, not at all,” she murmured, adding both of them to her “watch” list, along with Policy George.

Theresa watched a great many people.

Theresa saw the crowd thinning, and knew she would have to hurry. There was still another pigeon to be plucked, and time was running short tonight. She began combing the area for unattached men, once more.

As she passed the cotton candy stand, she saw the pimply-faced, hairy-armed boy, and paused momentarily. An older man was in the booth with him, and they were counting a large amount of money into a plain, brown paper bag. “That’s nearly two hundred, Dad,” the boy said, jotting down the final figure on the side of the brown paper bag. “You want me to carry it home?”

The older man pinched his nose briskly, finished tabulating his cross-figures, checked them with his son’s, then absently murmured, “Yeah, okay, Freddy. You run it on over to the apartment an’ give it to Ma. I’ll bank it tomorrow morning.” He slipped a rubber band around the neck of the bag, and handed it to the boy.

Theresa decided there were bigger stakes at hand than just mugging could bring. Here was a nice, neat pile, all tied up and handy, just waiting to be taken. Besides, she didn’t much care for that simple-minded sonofabitch with the pimpled kisser and the long legs.

She slipped away to wait for him as he came down the street, away from the watchful eyes of Daddy. Theresa pulled her already-stretched sweater down into her skirt top, lifting her hem to do it. She stood back in the shadows, and only an unshaven gutter-crawler got the free show. “H-heyyy, cutie…,” he mumbled thickly, starting toward her, and Theresa had the switchblade out, open, and aimed at the old bum’s neck.

“Like beat it, Pops!”

The old man came on. “Isn’t this a prrrety girll,” he slobbered, reaching for her. “Le’s see those legs again, huh, cutie….”

“I told you to scram, Pops,” said Theresa backing against the wall. She held the knife before her, but she was not anxious to use it in the open street. She backed away, but the old man kept coming on. Then she swore softly, for passing down the street was the kid, Freddy, with a bulge in his right side pocket. The dough.

She closed the knife, put it away between her breasts once more, and continued her steady edging from the drunken bum’s advances. Then, when she had almost reached the corner, she yelled. “Freddy! Help, Freddy! Hey, help in here!”

The kid turned, and saw her face, just barely in the multi-colored glow of the overhead light-strings. Then he saw the filthy bum, his clothes in brown tatters, his hands extended toward the apparently terrified girl.

“Help, Freddy!” she screamed again.

He didn’t bother to stop and find out how she knew his name; that somehow did not occur to him. Instead, he rushed forward and grabbed the shorter drunkard by his collar. The boy spun the drunkard away, shoving him into the street, out near the now-closing booths. “G’wan, get out of here!” he yelled after the drunkard. The old man took one defiant, sidewise step back toward the boy and girl, but Freddy grabbed up a chunk of extra lumber a booth-keeper had not used for backing the canvas, and shook it high at the man. “Either you get the hell out of here, or I’ll bust this over your head, mister, an’ I’m not kidding, either!”

The drunkard mumbled he only wanted to see the li’l cutie’s legs, and bumbled off down the street. Theresa smoothed down the skirt over her hips.

“Hi,” she said softly.

The pimply-faced boy dropped the stick, smacked his hands clean, and stared at her. “You weren’t so polite to me a while ago. What changed you?”

She smiled coquettishly. “I needed help. He was gonna…you know…grab me like.”

Freddy gave a half-chuckle.

Theresa avoided looking at the bulge in his pocket. “How come you ain’t at the candy stand?”

Freddy nodded back toward the stand. “My dad’s closing up tonight. I got school in the morning. Where, uh, where you going?”

“Oh.” She bit her lip. “No place, just walkin’. Can I come with ya. I’d…uh…I’d like to thank ya for what ya done.” She wet her lips, and put extra strength on thanks.

Freddy grinned down at her; the same smug, self-satisfied grin he had thrown her when she had first encountered him at the cotton candy stand. It was a knowing smile, an amused smile. He knew something she did not know: he knew how to read her mind.

“If you come with, I’m gonna try and make out.” He smiled at her. She looked up abruptly. Was he kidding? What a geek, Theresa thought, her fists clenching in the darkness at her sides.

“That so?” she said coyly. He grinned some more, sure of himself. So sure that he didn’t care—one way or the other—enough to worry about it. “We’ll see.”

Fat chance, thought Theresa.

They moved up the street toward the second building, where Theresa had stationed Policy George, Pinty and Jingles. She walked along beside him, occasionally feeling the large lump in the right hand pocket, as he bumped against her. She talked very little, and as they drew near the building, she wondered how she would get him inside.

They were on the sidewalk behind one of the booths, just down from the building, when Theresa exclaimed, “Oh! Hey, there’s a pizza booth. Man, I love it. Wait a minute, I’ll—” She had reached into the little pocket of her skirt for a coin as she had started to speak, and then managed, just as they passed the black doorway of the building with the gang in it, to drop and spin the coin away, so that it disappeared inside.

“Oh, damn!” she cried, starting after it, “That was my last quarter. C’mon, let’s find it.”

He followed her inside, saying, “Listen, if you want a piece of pizza, I’ll get it for you. Forget the quarter, y’know.” But Theresa had already gone inside.

“Maybe further back,” she interrupted, and they moved back closer to the stairs.

“Oh, c’mon.” he said, still unable to call her by name, for she had not given her name, “let’s get out of here!”

“Not yet,” she answered.

“You can’t see a damned thing. Here, y’need a light?” he asked, moving back with her, past the stairs. He started to light a match, and heard a slithering from beneath the stairs. He turned just as Jingles swung out with the sock full of coins. Freddy ducked the overhand blow, and caught the boy by his wrist, dragging him out. He pulled him forward and threw him bodily against the brick wall of the hallway. Jingles brought up face-first into the wall, gasped and slid down, his nose broken, semi-conscious.

Before the other two could jump him. Freddy had begun to turn and saw them at the same time, faintly outlined in street light reflections. “So that’s the bit—” He let a snarl rip between his teeth, swinging on the big, soft face of Pinty as the dummy came at him barefisted. He caught Pinty on the side of the jaw, and the dummy’s head slewed sidewise, but the dummy’s own fist cracked tightly into Freddy’s chest. The boy stumbled backward as Policy George moved in from the left. Freddy raised his hands to ward off any more strikes, for a moment’s rest, to gather his wits. He needn’t have bothered.

Theresa moved in behind.

Freddy heard the faint, metallic click of the knife springing open, and he half-turned toward the sound, ignoring the two hesitating gang kids before him.

He turned directly into the knife.

She shoved it hard, and it went into his stomach with little difficulty. He gagged and sucked in his breath, and his eyes spanged wide as he mouthed something incomprehensible. Then she dragged the knife loose and he slid toward her, his hands at his ripped stomach. She sidestepped, and he fell on his side, still all movement and crimson blotches and still alive for a while.

“Get the goddam money. It’s in a paper bag in his right pocket,” she snapped. He was lying there, looking up at her.

They reached down, and Policy George fished in the pocket, and came up with…

…a bag of almonds.

No money. Not a cent. Just almonds.

Freddy gasped, and then Theresa heard that damned half-laugh. That damned all-sure, all-uncaring chuckle that had infuriated her. “P-pard’n m-me…” He trembled. “S-screwed ya…D-D-Dad’s gonna take th’m-money t’the b-bank…ch-changed his m-mind…y-y-you l-l-l…”

Theresa dropped to her haunches, fury outlining her dark eyes with pinwheeling flashes of fire-red. She’d been outfoxed, she’d badly fouled up, she’d been had. And this sonofabitch was laughing at her! She dropped with hate.

“…y-y-you l-l-l…”

She drove the knife into his throat. Twisted. Dragged. Drove again. Missed. Was pulled back by Jingles who was on his feet now, and Policy George. Pinty watched huge-eyed. She stood panting, watching him lying there, bleeding it out fast.

He was going to finish the sentence, though. He was going to tell her:

“…y-y-you l-l-looooz…”

He finished, and was finished, together. They dragged Theresa away from there. In a restaurant, two blocks out of the Village, they stopped, and she went to the women’s room.

To wash the blood from her hands.

The take was eighty-six dollars and fourteen cents, a pair of subway tokens, a Helbros watch that needed a good cleaning, a pair of two-fifty cuff-links, and a wallet filled with papers none of them could utilize. They did not bother to find out his name, so they never knew if he lived. It really didn’t matter. They threw the wallet away. Jingles got the watch, mainly because he had the only wrist without a watch on it. There had been other jobs before this one. The cuff links went to Pinty, and he got shorted three dollars in cash. Each member should have wound up with about fourteen dollars, but they each got ten…except Pinty, who got seven.

And Theresa, who netted thirty-nine dollars and fourteen cents. And two subway tokens.

The bunch was unhappy about the split, but Theresa had that strength, that something inside her that made them back down. And she always worked on them singly.

Even after Policy George bucked her the second time.

It was the next day. The take had been divided that morning, and the griping was subdued. But when they got together on the roof of Jingles’ building, Policy George spoke up.

“Uh. hey. Theresa.”

She stared at him coolly, self-assuredly. She wore a white sweater that clung to her full, young curves, and a gray tweed skirt that hugged her round, lithe hips. She sat so they all got a view of the lacy underclothes she had bought during the afternoon. It was nice. It was black.

“Yeah, you got a beef?” She knew it was a beef.

Policy George scooted around till he faced into the middle of the cross-legged circle. She had been sitting in the opposite direction, staring out over the gray-shadowed silhouette of the Bowery, in brooding silence. Now he turned, and in the faint point of light from his cigarette, his face was youthfully tense, his eyes narrowed, the white scar on his cheek out and bright and sharp. He drew on the butt, and flicked it expertly off the roof. It rose in a sharp arc, dropped to scatter sparks in the street far below.

Theresa said nothing. She stared silently. It was the guy’s play; if he tried to fuck up the bunch, she’d give him the end of the shank so fast he’d be gone before it came out.

“I don’t read all this knockin’ around like.”

He waited for a reply. None. He went on laboriously.

“What I mean, the other night, that joint down in Hugo’s turf, an’ last night those two guys in the Village. Y’know,” he said, growing very serious, very concerned, very stilted, “that was murder, Theresa. Y’know what I mean don’t ya? It ain’t just you killed the guy, and maybe the other one, too, from what Hugo says, but it’s all of us, too. The cops get to you, an’ we go the same place you do. So, it ain’t okay with me no more. It ain’t okay at all.”

Theresa bit her lower lip.

She waved a hand toward the sky. “So you wanna get out of the gang?” She waited, hoping he’d buck.

Policy George looked at her intently, looked at the other four, who averted their gaze, stared at their feet, stared at the tarred roof, stared at the dusky night above. “No, that ain’t what I want,” Policy George answered. “I want you to get out of the gang. A couple of us been talkin’, and we, uh, we don’t think it’s right for a broad to run the gang.

“So I’m gonna take over.”

Theresa was startled at his remark that someone else was in this with him. So they were ganging up, to buck her, huh? Well, there was always more than one way to skin a cat.

“You think you can do as good a job as me?” she asked.

Policy George shook his head. “Maybe not, Theresa, but at least it’ll be a lot safer.”

She had to wait, bide her time. She could draw the blade on him, but Policy George was no fool: he knew Pinty would side with him, and whichever one of the others was in it, too, and that made three against her. Even if she could count on the other two (which she probably couldn’t), she had to just sit back and wait till the time came when she could shut Policy George’s mouth for good. And that time would come.

“Okay, George, if that’s the way the guys want it. Only…only I’d like to ask a favor.”

Policy George flipped a hand in deference. “Ask.”

“Could I, uh, could I stay inna bunch. I mean. I can still be a lotta use to the gang, y’know. I’ll do like I’m told.” It ate her guts out to have to crawl to these punks, but she forced herself, “Besides, I dig you guys a lot. You always knew that.”

Finally, after she had rubbed her thighs against Jingle’s leg, after she had smiled softly at Hugo, after she had conned Jacksap and appealed to Policy George, after Pinty had once more fallen under her spell—or had he ever been free of it, watching her with big cow eyes—finally, they let her remain in the gang.

That was a big mistake.

For Policy George.

The first week, Theresa had trouble eating humble pie. She constantly wanted to pull the switch from her bra and rip Policy George or one of the others. They made certain she had no real say in what they did. They stopped pulling such big, complex muggings, and started swiping hubcaps again, intimidating schoolkids into parting with their lunch money, and a dozen other small-time bits. Theresa was burning inside. She finally realized she would have to get rid of George, and do it so smartly that the others would not realize she had been behind it.

She thought about it a great deal.

Then she managed to get alone with Pinty. He was the key.

Pinty lived with his mother on the fourth floor of a resident hotel of seedy aspects, just out of the Bowery. Every morning, at five o’clock, Pinty’s mom got up, made a cold breakfast of cereal and milk—sometimes with fruit—for Pinty, leaving it where he could find it in the front of the old icebox. Then she walked down, the four flights, noting as usual that the bald-headed wino who served as night clerk was still asleep, and took the bus to the hand laundry where she helped Mr. Chin and his two sons. At noon, Pinty woke up, scratched, and went to find his breakfast. Though he thought he disliked congealed cold cereal and milk—the corn flakes always got soggy—he ate them, and never mentioned it to Mom. She worked hard, yeah, real hard, just for Pinty.

Then Pinty had the day to kill, till Mom came home at five o’clock and gave him supper. Then he could roam the streets till long after midnight. Mom never worried about Pinty’s getting into trouble: he had nothing to think with, so how could he think up trouble?

At the end of the first week that Policy George ran the gang, Pinty had a visitor at noon, just when he was getting up.

The knock came on the door of the tiny three-room apartment, and Pinty padded over to answer it in his underwear. Theresa was at the door.

She had her hair pulled back in a pony-tail, and her lipstick was on full and moist. Her body seemed to rush out at the dummy. He brushed sleep from his eyes, stumbled over his tongue to say something.

“Huh, huh, g-good morn’n, Theresa…”

“Ain’tcha gonna invite me in, Pinty?” She stared up at his light blond thatch of unruly hair hanging over his eyes, the slovenly grayness of the underwear he had worn for days, the rank odor of the apartment through which he had passed. She winced.

Pinty moved backward. He waved a hand awkwardly, and grinned as though he had just belched. “Yah, yah, sure, T’resa, c’mon in…it’s like kinda dirty, y’know, but that’s my fault, Ma keeps it real clean, but I get it—”

He continued his half-intelligible babble, even after she had entered the apartment and closed the door behind her, and locked it.

She cut him off, slumping down on an ancient sofa with the cover threadbare and a roundness of springs pressing against her rump. “C’mon, an’ siddown, Pinty. I wanna talk to ya.”

She allowed her skirt to ride up past her knees as she adjusted herself. Pinty’s mouth grew dry, his hands had no home, his eyes were great shining jewels. The Goddess had come to his cellar.

He sat down on the edge of the couch, and she drew him back till he was resting in the soft curve of her arms. “I knew you was the guy I wanted, the first time I saw ya,” she smiled into his face. Pinty doubted his hearing.

Theresa started her play. She moved in close to Pinty. He began to sweat, and fumble with his mind. The dummy’s brain that lived above his childlike face was confused, wandered in a maze of its own making. Sick brain, lost, lost, but how beautiful, how lovely, how firm was Theresa.

“Pinty, you like me don’t ya?”

A quick, vibrant nod of the head, several times more than necessary.

“You wanna make me like you?”

Again the nod, a quickening of blood in the baby-like cheeks.

“Well, you know I like George, don’t ya?”

A slower, slower nod, then a stop. “George don’t think ya like ’im, T’resa. Wassa matter with you an’ George, huh, Tresa? Suppose it was nicer, y’know, an’ George n’ you was good friends, that’d be nice, y’know, Tresa.”

She clenched her fists, loosened them after a moment, and slid her hand inside his perspiration-moist undershirt. For an instant, she gagged, then she said, “Well, Pinty, it’s all George’s fault, understand? I mean, I like him a lots—I mean, not anywhere near as much as I like you. That’s not the same thing at all. But I like him, and I want to make him like me.

“You see that, don’t ya? Ya see that we have to do it together, get him to be friends with me, that is; ’cause then we’ll all be good friends and go around together an’ have a ball.”

Pinty grinned, his loose-lipped gnome’s mouth spreading like a sphincter. “Gee, Tresa, that’s, that’d be a great thing. How ya wanna do it?”

Theresa smiled. “I wanna scare him, Pinty, scare him real good.”

“Oh, gee, I like you an’ all, Tresa, but I ain’t gonna do that…uh-uh.”

Theresa sucked in her full cheeks. This was what she was afraid of. Pinty was very close to Policy George. So to get him to do what she wanted, she had to get even closer than Policy George.

She shoved him back slowly on the sofa, till his feet were hanging off, and she lay against his chest, her full body hot on his. She began to remove the sweaty undershirt, and she was certain she would be sick afterward. But now, right now, to get George…it was worth it.

“We’ll talk about it…later,” she said.

Later, there was no argument.

She got as close as she could get.

Theresa had planned on a trip to Coney.

That was a necessity. A trip to Coney over the Belt Parkway through Brooklyn. It was high up, as the cars sped by right outside the windows, so you could see summer-hot people leaning out on their pillows, on their windowsills, so close you could touch them. But the Parkway wasn’t always so heavily-populated. At five in the morning, it was nearly deserted, and when you got back from Coney, near town—or on the way out, even—it became the Gowanus Parkway, and that was over a hundred feet from Parkway to the street below.

A guy could fall from a car going fifty, sixty, and there wouldn’t be enough left of him to spread on toast in the morning.

They left in a car Theresa had borrowed from a friend in the Blooded Royals. She had met Pinty, and they had gone to find Policy George. Luckily, he was alone—otherwise Theresa would have had to bushwhack anyone with him into not coming—and they were able to quickly talk him into an evening at the Island.

It was an old Plymouth convertible, with the top down, and Theresa drove fast and close to the stanchions. On the way out, since it was almost ten o’clock, the traffic thinned to nothing, and Theresa, who had arranged everything with Pinty, nudged the dummy. They were passing the oil tanks, not yet technically on the Belt Parkway, when Pinty, who sat in the middle, grabbed Policy George and got to his knees in the front seat.

Chuckling, laughing, thinking what a scare old George was gonna have, he lifted George partly, and held him over the side. “Now we wanna scare ya, Georgie, so’s ya like my girl, T’resa.”

Policy George’s handsome dark face was white with fear. He hung half out of the car, traveling at an ever-increasing speed, with the dummy clutching his jacket.

“Pinty! Pinty!” he screamed.

“Well…”

“Pinty! Lemme back, Pinty, man, stop it!”

Policy George screamed as the wind hit his face, blew his long black hair out in a wild mass, as the breeze stung his eyes, forcing them closed, as he saw the streets flashing by—far, far, far below.

“’Zat enough, T’resa? I’ll bring’m in now. He’s really plenty scared, ain’t he, T’resa. I’ll bring him—”

She had been driving very close to the aluminum bars that sided the Parkway. Now she cut sharply, throwing her elbow into Pinty as she did it.

Pinty could not hold his grip.

The car jerked, slewed, and righted, but Policy George had been lifted, thrown, and dropped over the railing.

For a few seconds, as they sped away, Theresa thought she could hear his scream. His hundred-and-thirty-foot scream to the cement.

But that was probably just imagination. Coney was ahead. People were always screaming there…

Pinty had not said anything, for the longest time.

Theresa decided a trip out to the Island, and a few hours of fun and games would straighten him out better than a quick explanation while they were speeding back into the city. So they went out to Coney Island.

Pinty sat ever so quietly, wringing his hands from time to time, muttering to himself, and looking out over the side of the car into the wind that had whipped Policy George away. He did not look at the full-bodied girl who sat straight, behind the wheel, a vague, unplaceable half-smile on her face.

They drove for the better part of an hour. Once Theresa got lost, in among all the sea food houses; but finally she found the route, and pulled in on the main street—the street of booths and side shows—of Coney Island.

Pinty still had not spoken, and Theresa leaned over, drew him close, and kissed him full on the lips. Pinty did not respond for a long moment, but the insistence of her lips, the heat of her hands, excited him, and he rolled in toward her.

She whispered in his ear. “Don’t worry, Pinty baby, it was a accident, y’know. It’ll be okay, you’ll see.”

Pinty murmured in a hurt voice, the voice of a dog who had been unnecessarily kicked: “George’s gone, in’t he?”

Theresa leaned in once more, to avoid answering, and swallowing her disgust, kissed him again.

He was about to pull her down on the seat, right there on the main street, with hundreds of passersby watching, when the spiel of the side show barker cut in.

“Ayy now, ayy now! I want you all to step right up here, step in close. The New York Police Department says we cannot block the sidewalk, so allow us to give you a better free show here, ladyzz an’ gennulmen, by just kindly movin’ on in here.”

He went on and on, talking about the half-woman half-baby inside, Lola the monkey-faced girl, and all the rest of them. They sat and listened for a minute, and when the barker said: “Okay now, here’s the prices. For adults, it’s just fifty cents, that’s half a dollar, the splittin’ of a buck! You can go in now, stay as long as you want, come out when you’re ready. For kids, it’s twenty-five cents and…

“Gus, Gus hold up sellin’ any more of those fifty cent tickets, hold it up Gus! That’s right, just hold it up. Okay now! It’s bargain day at Coney Island. For the next two minutes, whoever gets over to Gus—now I said stop sellin’ those fifty centers, Gus—and gives him a quarter, that’s just twenty-five cents, gets in for kiddies’ prices. No matter how old you are it’s just a quarter.”

He looked at his watch interestedly. “Okay! Beginning—right—NOW!” There was a dash and a clogging, and Gus was swamped. Dozens of people fell for the carny dodge and put down their quarter…which was the regular admission price.

Theresa looked at Pinty. “Ya wanna go in there an’ see th’ freaks, Pinty?” He hesitated, then nodded his head.

“I c’n pay for ya, T’resa.”

He opened the door and climbed out, letting her slide after him. He dug in his pockets till he came up with a dollar and handed it to the ticket-taker. He got his tickets and change, and they went inside.

On the stage, a dingy podium-affair at the rear of the canvas tent, a group of unhappy looking people sat in straight-back chairs, occasionally murmuring lowly to one another.

The monkey-faced girl, Lola, was dressed in a pair of Arabian pantaloons, of some substance intended to imitate muslin. She wore a halter, and she was knitting. Her face was that of an orangutan. Round, prognathous jaw, beady inset eyes, and hair completely covering her skin. She was a creature who had happened to be born resembling an ape, and rather than marriage and a home, this was her life.

The others all sat around. The thin man, the fat, the bearded lady, the half-woman half-baby who had an almost normal-size head and a body so small she could sit on two hands held together.

Theresa shoved toward the front, dragging Pinty, and studied them for a while. Then she whispered, “Ain’t they frantic, Pinty? Man, they are a riot.” She started to snicker, and then chuckle, and could not stop herself. One of the freaks began to snicker with her, and in a moment the entire tent was adrift with laughter. The freaks did not seem to mind sitting there for hours, with hundreds gaping at them, anything was better than disgust and silence. And they all joined in. The place was filled with laughter, which helped the barker outside make his sell.

But Pinty did not laugh.

He stood there confused, staring at the sick bodies, and he knew it was wrong to laugh. He began to speak, softly, hardly within hearing: “Hey…don’t laugh…stop that stuff!” Then he grew louder. “Stop it! Stop that laughin’!”

Still they paid no attention, and he felt the pain of their laughing in his own head, and he knew he was one with those sick people on the stage, and why was everyone laughing? Theresa had started the laughing, and she shouldn’t have done that…

“Stop it! Stop laughing, damn ya!”

His screaming was finally heard. The laughter died away, and in the silence, they turned to him, and Theresa moved away slightly. Was he cracking, this dummy?

“Don’t laugh at them folks,” he said. He turned and left the tent. For a minute Theresa considered junking him, leaving him here to get back on his own.

Then she remembered the trip out; she thought of the prowl cars which were now probably trying to locate witnesses to the accident on the Parkway. No, she had to stay with Pinty till he was no longer interested in what had happened to his friend Policy George.

She went after him, and found him waiting in the street, staring oddly at the car.

“C’mon, Pinty.” She jollied him. “Let’s go on some rides! Let’s have us a ball, huh boy. To kinda forget the bad luck ya had tanight.”

Pinty snapped a quick look at her.

As though he were seeing her for the first time.

“Y-yeah,” he said slowly, “we’ll go on some rides and stuff. An I’ll win ya a kewpie doll in a place here, huh, T’resa?” She nodded.

“That’s just fine, Pinty.”

So they walked down the line, and at the booth with the cats on shelves, Pinty spent three and a half dollars to knock down three of them and win Theresa a kewpie doll. It was a pink one, with little wings, and a slit in the back of the head to put in pennies, and Theresa kissed Pinty on the cheek. She hated the sight of the miserable thing, but she had to carry it.

Then they passed the Cyclone, and Theresa got another idea. Past the Cyclone was the Tunnel of Love.

Pinty was the only one who knew what had happened. Pinty would have to be removed: she had been putting off thinking of that, because Policy George had just died, and too soon for Pinty to go. But what a natural spot. The Tunnel of Love. With that knife nestling in her bra, so warm and ready.

“Let’s go onna roller coaster, Tresa,” Pinty said, interupting her thoughts.

Theresa had always disliked the dipping, flying rattlers, had always gotten sick on them, but she knew better than to try and buck the dummy when he had his mind set on it. Particularly when he was still disturbed about Policy George.

“Yeah, sure, okay, Pinty. Then well, uh, well go in the Tunnel of Love, an’ uh…” She smiled at him disarmingly.

He did not smile back, but he held her arm tightly.

Oh, is this stupe sold on me, Theresa thought, as Pinty bought two tickets.

He gave them to the leader, and they got in the last car. Theresa was glad they weren’t up front.

A few minutes later the Cyclone rattled slowly away from the loading dock, and started the first climb. The winch clanked, and Theresa snuggled in to Pinty, more in fright than anything else. Another half hour and he’d be sunk in the water of the Tunnel of Love, with a slashed gut.

They were almost to the summit of the first hill, the big one, the one Coney Island advertised as the highest, most thrilling dip in the world.

Then Pinty turned to her and said, quietly, “You shouldn’a made me do that ta my best friend, T’resa.” He leaned her back against the seat…the car aimed at the sky…he shoved her back, and grabbed her legs…she beat at his head, and started to yell…then they went over the top, and everyone was screaming…she wasn’t secure in the seat, under the bar any longer…she wasn’t holding on…she was falling…“Pinty! Don’t, I’m your girl, Piiiiii—”

She fell off sidewise, and she didn’t have a straight fall. She bounced from stanchion to girder to bracing, back and down and smash and down and finally down down down and then the bottom, and she was dead. Badly dead. Not all of her landed. And her scream continued for a long time after.

The Cyclone car sped on, down into the dip, up, around the bend, down again, and off, till the ride was ended.

Pinty left Coney Island after the ride.

He didn’t like it there at all.

People were always screaming there…

SOB STORY

After thirty-one years behind the desk, Kneeland was pretty fed up with blubbering women who were looking for their husbands. This Flagg woman, with her dyed blonde hair metallic under the cold lights of the station house, wasn’t any different from the rest of them.

“He said he hadda go to the bat’room,” she sobbed, and Kneeland winced at the smell of cheap liquor. “I had another drink and waited, Officer, but he never come back!”

She was wringing her hands. A washed-out woman who had gone out for one night on the town, in a life of too few nights out. Her hands were red and stiff from dishwashing. “What am I gonna do? He had the pay check—he got it today. There ain’t nothin’ in the house for the kids. We was only havin’ one lousy little drink and—”

Kneeland rubbed a sweaty hand up the side of his face, feeling the heavy ridge of the scar. “Wait a minute, lady. Let’s get this straight: you were in a bar, right?”

The woman nodded dumbly.

“And your husband went back to the bathroom, and just never came back?” His face was split by an incredulous grin.

“I think maybe you just had six or eight too many. You better go back with an officer and see maybe he didn’t just fall down behind the can. Or maybe he’s at home. You think so? Maybe?”

He was prodding the woman into agreement, but she didn’t comply, merely kept shaking her head. Kneeland frowned deeply.

“All right,” he said grudgingly. “What’s the name of this joint?”

“Oakie’s. It’s only four blocks from here.” She clutched across the desk at his shiny blue sleeve. “Please, Officer! Help me, willya? I gotta find my Harry!”

“Oakie’s?” Kneeland’s frown got deeper and wider. “Well, maybe I’ll go over with you and have a look…”

“Would you? Would you please? I mean, it’s only four blocks—”

“I said I would, didn’t I?” He was grumbling. “Hey! Casey!” The thin, balding sergeant in the doorway looked over. “Take the desk, willya? Got a little local emergency.”

He shoved the chair back, got up and stretched. It had been three hours since he’d actually moved. His joints were stiff and he realized he’d been aching for a reason to get outside anyhow. He strapped on his revolver, got his jacket off the coat tree, and pulling his cap down, ushered the woman before him.

It was a helluva nuisance, actually, with the fog meandering through the streets, and this caterwauling stew-bug, but it was outside.

Oakie’s. A drink, too, while he was about it. Oakie was always free to Kneeland with the hooch. Maybe not so bad after all.

Mrs. Flagg was saying something, but he only half-listened.

“I went back to the john, Officer,” she was saying, “but there was a guy in there, and he said there wasn’t nobody else inside, and why didn’t I get the hell away and stop botherin’ him. So I did, but Harry never come back. You gotta find him, Officer!”

She ran on and on, telling how much she loved him, and what a good father he was, and how she’d kept going back again and again, till the bartender had tossed her out, yelling drunkie after her.

The fog swirled around Kneeland’s legs. Why didn’t the damned woman keep her jack-yack shut?

Oakie’s rose out of the fog in front of them, the high curtained window with the Piel’s Beer sign and the word “Oakie’s” glowing into the murk with neon brilliance.

When they got inside, it looked as though the fog had followed them. But it was a different kind of fog; smoke-fog from a dozen burning cigarettes, whiskey and body-heat fog that filled the long, narrow room. The regulars and itinerants didn’t get excited about the solid blue figure striding up to the bar. They were used to cops; they tolerated them.

Oakie himself was doing the chores tonight. He was dressed to kill, in an angular-striped, double-breasted business suit, ignoring the wet heat that had stripped everybody else to sweat-patched shirtsleeves. His real name was Johnson; Oakie himself had been killed by his own prohibition brand of booze. But everybody called the new owner Oakie.

“Hi, Oakie!”

“Hiya, Sergeant!” Oakie’s grin showed half a dozen gold teeth. “What can I do for you?”

“Lookin’ for a guy.” He hiked a thumb at the woman who was leaning against his shoulder. “The lady’s husband. Name of Harry Flagg. Seems like he went to your can, and never got back.”

A ripple of raucous laughter went down the bar at that. Oakie’s grin widened. But his face went white.

Mrs. Flagg was peering into the gloom, back toward the men’s room. She didn’t see it, but Kneeland caught the flicker of eyelashes, the pasty hue that came over Oakie’s face.

Oakie licked his lips. The bottle he held came down with a bang on the freshly-mopped bar counter. “Haven’t, uh, haven’t seen him, Sarge.” His voice was a croak. Kneeland knew the owner was hiding something.

He stepped closer, leaned in toward Oakie.

“Okay, boy, let me in on it. What’s the pitch?” He spoke low, looking squarely at the now-perspiring barkeep.

Oakie thinned his fleshy lips to a tight line. “Come on back. I’ll show ya.”

They started toward the back, Oakie coming out from behind the bar. Kneeland looked around for Mrs. Flagg but she was out of sight. Now where the hell did she go? he mused.

Then he saw her. She was standing dumbfounded before the door to the men’s room. The bathroom was padlocked, and a big, hastily-scrawled sign had been tacked to the blemished wood:

OUT OF ORDER! USE WOMEN’S ROOM BUT KNOCK FIRST! OAKIE!

“They locked it! They locked it!” she screamed, turning a wild-eyed stare at Kneeland. “It was open I tell ya, it was open, and Harry went in there and then a guy told me to get the hell away and now it’s locked and Harry’s in there…”

She was beating at the sergeant’s chest with wild but ineffectual blows, her hair tumbling, drool showing at the corners of her lips.

“Now take it easy, lady, take it easy!” Kneeland placated her. He shoved her away firmly, glaring at Oakie with an expression that said, if there’s anything in there, Oakie, I’m gonna crack open your skull!

“Phil!” Kneeland called to a thin, hungry-looking man on the last stool of the bar. “Take Mrs. Flagg over there into a front booth, willya?”

After Phil had bodily dragged Mrs. Flagg away, and the sound of her imploring wails had faded, Kneeland faced around to the door and Oakie. “How long’s this been locked up?”

“Two days,” the barkeep assured him with outstretched palms. His voice was honest and his face innocent. “We can’t get the plumber over here to clean it up. Stopped up. Smells real bad. You know.” He grinned sickly.

“You don’t wanna go in there, Sarge. Ain’t nothin’ to see but a stinkin’ can…”

“Open it, boy,” Kneeland said levelly. His tone was dangerous.

Oakie leaned over and took a key from his jacket pocket. Reluctantly he began to open the lock. He started to say something, but Kneeland gave him a tiny prod and he clicked the key into the lock, and turned it. The padlock snapped open smoothly.

“New lock,” Kneeland said.

Oakie grinned up over his shoulder nervously. “Yeah. Yeah. Had to buy it three days ago to lock the thing up.”

“I thought you said two days ago, boy?” Kneeland remained blank-faced. Oakie didn’t answer. The door was open. Kneeland gave it a kick.

It was empty.

Kneeland took one long, slow look at the ragged, gaping hole in the rotten floorboards, and his mind got a fast, frightening picture of the black descent to the cellar below. Of the crushing, sickening impact of flesh and bone on damp, hard concrete. He swallowed hard, and pulled the door shut again.

He set his jaw and walked out to the front booth where Mrs. Flagg was waiting, dewy-eyed, over a half-empty glass of cheap rye.

“Mrs. Flagg…”

“What happened?” Her eyes were wild and hopeful. “Did you find my Harry?”

Kneeland hesitated a moment.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Flagg. There’s not a sign of him. He must have slipped out the back way.” He leaned forward earnestly. “You’ve just got to face it, Mrs. Flagg. I’ve seen a hundred cases like this. Your husband’s left you…”

The tears started. Thick, maudlin tears.

“Harry! My Harry!” she moaned. “How could you do this to me?”

Kneeland helped her out of the booth, holding her elbow with all the gentleness his big hand possessed.

Oakie, back behind the bar, looked up and caught his eye. His hand was picking up a thin sheaf of bills from the bar top. He rapped the money against his chin, and smiled pure gold in the direction of the policeman.

LOOK ME IN THE EYE, BOY!

It took two cops to drag the blond-haired kid from the midst of the rumble. His name was Tommy Kilpatrick and he had a long Italian stiletto, with a viciously-honed blade…and they got to him a few seconds after he had ripped open a black boy’s belly.

They brought in six altogether: four white boys and two blacks. The rest had scattered into the shadows of the parking lot at the sound of sirens. The cops herded them into the wagon, and put two officers in with them. They would have sliced each other up with their fingernails, otherwise.

When the wagon pulled up to the Central Police Building, the kid tried to make a break. He took a step down off the back of the wagon, and kicked the assisting officer in the groin with the pointed toe of his heavy shoe.

The blond-haired boy screamed something high and keening and leaped for the street, the open halves of his black leather jacket flapping out behind him. He almost made it.

The cop still in the wagon, frantically grabbing, managed to connect with the boy’s heel, as he leaped. It ruined the kid’s attempt, and he slipped face forward, his arms flailing wildly, and landed with a crash on the cement.

When they picked Tommy Kilpatrick up, a raw-meat sandpapering from the cement had bloodied the right side of his thin, hungry face all the way to the blond hairline. The boy looked about dazedly. His shoulders in the black leather jacket slumped as he recognized where he was.

“Finally got here,” he said softly.

They walked him into the station house.

There hadn’t been a booking session yet. Tommy wondered about that for a while, even after they’d taken his belt, his butts, the contents of his pockets, and put them in the big manila envelope. As he was writing his name on the check slip that certified just what was in the envelope, he concluded it was because they wanted him in the show-up first.

Then a pair of blank-faced cops herded all of them down a hall and into the elevator. They went up two floors, and the elevator jerked to a stop. They were herded out again and put in a small room with benches around the wall and a thick door at either end. There was a little pane of glass in each door, with chicken-wire inside, and Tommy looked through. He could see nothing; he tried the other door.

There were women on the other side. Over a dozen of them, of all ages. Slatterns with stringy white hair and toothless gums. Young chippies with tight skirts and mouths smeared with red, gum-chewing. Women who stared at the floor, and women who rubbed themselves. Then, one of them saw Tommy and let out a yell. She pointed, and Tommy drew back.

He went back to the bench, knowing these were other prisoners, scheduled for the line-up. They never showed men and women together.

He sat there staring at the floor between his feet, till he heard a tap-tap-tapping on the window. It was the young broad he’d seen on the other side. The glass was fogged from being so old, and having had so many people smash at it, but he could still see her plainly. She was beckoning.

He got up and walked over. She moved an inch away from the glass, and began making dirty motions, lifting her skirt slightly, urging him to come into the room if he could. He watched the dirty tramp for a few seconds, snorted, and turned away.

All the time till the cops came to get them, she scratched at the glass, urging him to get out somehow. She was a hungry-looking girl, even as Tommy was a hungry-looking boy. Yet she repelled him. She was dirty, and her hair hung in wheat-shock looseness, and she had a smoldering black eye that discolored her face almost to the cheekbone.

He stared stolidly at the floor between his feet till the other door, the one through which he could see nothing, clanged as they shot back the bolts, and swung outward.

Two cops stood there waiting. They weren’t the same two blank-faced ones as before, but they were equally as guilty of being nonentities as the others.

They stared into the room for a moment, and one of them pointed at Tommy. “Him?” he asked, inquisitively.

The other one nodded his head briskly, and the first one shook his in wonderment. Tommy didn’t understand any of it, but he wasn’t worried.

He knew it had something to do with his father.

He knew he’d never be booked, mugged, printed, clapped in a cell with the other kids. He knew he had a smooth out—a ticket to freedom every time. Not only was he a minor, which was a good hooker angle, but he had an ace in the hole.

Tommy Kilpatrick’s father was the Captain of this precinct.

He’d get out. He’d get back to the gang. It was a dyed-gold cinch. He’d get out, and the rest would go up to the Work House for a while. But not him…his old man was a cop!

“Okay, you birds,” the first cop yelled chopping off his words sharply, “let’s go get ourselves famous. Line-up!”

Line-up. The sun-glare of the kliegs, shining across his smooth-planed, hungry face. His blue eyes reached into the darkness beyond, trying to place the sounds that occasionally came to his ears:

The banging of seats as people sat down. The hurried cough of someone who was embarrassed to be here. The clatter of a cop dropping his clipboard and pencil, swearing softly. Then there was the brief snap flare of a cigarette lighter flaring in the darkness, then complete darkness again.

He heard the continual banging of men taking seats, and he thought he caught the flash of a badge. But there was nothing definite, nothing real. Just this stage, and the brief platform on which he stood with the others captured in the rumble.

The lights were fixed in the ceiling before him, shining down hot and sticky. Behind him, on the wall, the height markings marched progressively up to six feet. He knew where he stood…just under five-six. He was fourth in line, but he was certain they wouldn’t get all the way to him. As soon as someone connected his name with the name of the Captain, they’d have him off that platform, then there’d be no identification, no booking session, and he’d go home to a warm bed and a bottle of his old man’s beer, if he could swipe it without attracting attention. Have to move the bottles around in the icebox so it looked as though there were still the same number there, that none, were missing.

He dragged his thoughts away from home and concentrated on here, on now. As long as he was experiencing this for the first time, he might as well see it all, feel it all. It’d make good conversation in the clubhouse. He was caught, but this wasn’t the end, as it was for those other jerks in the string lined up. His thin mouth twisted tightly together, till he felt the pressure on his back teeth.

He was fourth in line. To his right three shapes were clear, and yet somehow foggily shaded, in the light of the merciless kliegs.

The first, a tough black from the Wild Gentlemen, almost six feet tall, with a scar running black down his face. The second was Whippy from his own gang, the BackBlasters. Whippy had gotten whaled with a club during the rumble, and he held his head to the side, occasionally tamping a finger down on the painful lump. Then third was Carlos, dark and handsomely ugly; fourth was himself.

He knew what he looked like to those cops out there. A short kid, just under five-six, with blond hair and a scarecrow face. Sharp nose and high cheekbones. He touched one cheek now, felt the rawness his fall had produced. But it wouldn’t scar. It’d heal and he’d still be okay-looking. He knew he looked a lot like his old man; they’d recognize him. When they did, he was going to go free. He was sure of it.

Next in line was Leaper, from the BackBlasters, thin and smart-alecky. Then another stud from the Wild Gentlemen, with a massive afro and deep-set eyes. Those lousy bastards…coming over into Blaster turf. They got what they damned well deserved! And if they showed up again, the BackBlasters’d shove ’em all down the sewer balls first! Lousy slobs! The black kids were on the ends of the string. They hadda put ’em like that, Tommy thought viciously, otherwise they’d of been beat ta death!

He watched each of them, edging forward from the wall so he could see their faces, see their bodies tensed, see them standing with hands behind their backs, or at their sides. He was the only one that seemed at ease. But that was because he knew nothing was going to happen to him. He had an in…he had a way out. He was the only one of the bunch who wasn’t going to get booked. He knew!

“All right, you kids…stand up straight. You there on the end, take that hat off!”

The hollow gigantic voice from the microphone spit up at them, and the end boy, the scarred, six foot Wild Gentleman, whipped the soft dark fedora from his head. The boy stared out slickly at the darkness, his face moist, his eyes very white and large and frightened-looking.

He seemed to sense he had gotten off to a lousy start.

It was as though this were the first day of school, and it was vitally important to make a good and lasting impression on the class and the teachers. He licked his thick lips.

“Now I want everybody to pay close attention to what these boys look like. You can ignore what their answers are, for the most part, because they usually lie. But if you recognize someone up there, please tell the officer sitting next to you…” he went on in a dull monotone, as though he had spoken these same lines, these same inflections, since the dawn of time, since the Earth was only a gaseous, fiery ball.

What the hell’s he bored about? Tommy mused angrily, We’re the ones standing up here, not him, the bastard!

Tommy knew what this was. They were up here for two reasons. The first, so that they could be identified by witnesses of the rumble, so they could pin a heavier charge than disturbing the peace on them.

The second was so that if they were ever arrested again, or seen on the streets, the cops would recognize them, be able to keep tabs on them. It was an identification session. The face-up. The line-up.

The other boys all fidgeted, standing with their weight first on one foot, then the other. Only the blond, watchful boy stood calm. He knew he had it figured.

The microphone blurted again. “All right there, you, the first boy. Step forward.”

The big black kid took a halting step forward, toward the edge of the wooden platform. His feet echoed hollowly in the silent room, as a cough rattled from the darkness. The boy’s big shadow fell against the wall, with its height markings in bold relief.

Absently, he crushed his hat between huge, catcher’s mitt hands.

The microphone voice of the invisible interrogator cleared its invisible throat, and there was a sharp series of clanks and clicks as the cop adjusted the microphone more to his liking. Then the session started…

“Your name’s Jesse Carpenter?”

Jesse Carpenter bobbed his big head, licked his lips. “Uh, yes…sir.”

“Where do you live, Jesse?”

“Right now?”

“That’s right, Jesse. Right now.”

“Well, right now I been livin’ for a while at the clubhouse.”

“The—uh—Wild Gentlemen’s clubhouse, Jesse?”

“Yessir.”

“Where’s that located, Jesse?”

“Well, it’s…uh…it’s over on the East Side.”

“Where on the East Side, Jesse?”

The big stud hesitated. “Near Chamberlain Street. Near there.”

“You can’t be a little more specific, Jesse?”

“What?”

“I said…can’t you be a little more specific. Jesse?”

“Well, I never noticed much where it was, sir. But it’s around there, someplace.” Laughter rattled through the unseen audience as the boy evaded the question. What a goddam clown, Tommy thought. The cop changed his approach, knowing he was not going to get the exact location of the gang’s hangout.

“What does the name ‘Wild Gentlemen’ mean, Jesse? That doesn’t mean you look for trouble, does it?”

“Uh, nosir.”

“Well, then, what does it mean, Jesse?”

“It just mean we lookin’ for our kicks.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, uh, you know…like we want a good time.”

“Is that what you call that rumble, Jesse? A good time?”

The black boy fidgeted, crushing the hat terribly. “Nosir, I mean, we was bushwhacked. We didn’t want night trouble, nosir!” There was an answering mumble of anger from the BackBlasters at that.

“Why are you living at the clubhouse, Jesse? Don’t your folks want you to live at home?”

Tommy listened closely. It was always the same routine. If they couldn’t get the info out of you one way, they tricked you into telling it another. They got you talking first, so the creeps in the audience could place your voice, then they got you booked, mugged, printed—you had a record till you died—and then they stacked you away in the House. But not this time…not him. Tommy Kilpatrick was going out. Out!

“Jesse,” the voice from the darkness said, “it says here you were caught with a zip gun. That true?”

“If it say that, sir, I guess maybe it true.”

“Don’t you know?”

“Man, I just walkin’ long that street, and next thing I know they was studs an’ cops all over mah back.”

“You mean you weren’t in on the planned raid of the Wild Gentlemen into BackBlaster territory tonight, Jesse?”

“Thass right, sir. I didn’t even know they’s gonna have one of them. I thought it’s just a social visit like.”

More laughter, and the microphoned voice snorted in disbelief. “All right, Jesse, that’ll be all. Step back.”

The big black slid back to the wall, crushed his hat some more, and stared at the floor, occasionally licking his lips with a tongue-tip.

Whippy stepped forward before the officer could tell him to do it. He took one big step toward the front of the platform and stopped, tamping the lump on the side of his head.

He was a slim white boy, with deep purple rings beneath his brown eyes. His pupils were large and glassy. The lower left corner of his mouth jerked spastically, irregularly, pulling his face down twitchingly from time to time. He looked as though he found it difficult getting to sleep at night.

“What’s you name, Anxious?”

“Whippy, what’s yours?”

“Don’t get cute, boy! What’s your Christian name?”

“Ain’t got one.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I ain’t Christian. I’m Buddhist.”

Everybody laughed, and the BackBlasters doubled over as their buddy got one-up on the cop. But the speaker’s voice deepened with anger. He didn’t like these street kids getting the better of him in cross-conversation.

“Okay, you. Now just shut your mouth and answer when you’re asked. And no wisecracks or we’ll toss the key away on you.”

“You mean I ain’t even gonna get a trial, Ossifer?”

“I thought I told you to clap your yap?”

“I guess maybe you did. So solly!”

The cop was getting plenty mad. The blond boy watched into the blackness, and even without light could feel the thickset cop’s face get red. He could feel the heat burning out at him. He had never seen the cop, but he knew the man was thick, and fleshy, and just ripe for a switchblade in the gut bucket

The cop started again, after the snickering died down.

“Is your name Leon Gross?”

“Naw. It’s Whippy. Ask any—”

“It says here your name is Leon Aaron Gross. Is that right, boy? Answer me straight, or you’ll be plenty sorry.”

Whippy got a sullen look on his face. He nodded. “Yeah, that’s my name.”

“You ever been arrested, Gross?”

“You should know…you got the record in front of ya.”

“Yeah, I’ve got the record. 1951 Suspicion of Robbery; 1952 Suspicion of Breaking and Entering. No conviction either time. 1953 Served six months in the Work House for Assault and Battery. 1954 Arrested for Possession of Narcotics. 1955 the same. Released in the custody of your father, Meyer Gross.

“You still on the dream-dust, Leon?”

No answer.

“I asked you, are you still on—”

The white boy interrupted angrily, “No! I ain’t on it any more. I put down months ago, now whyinabell don’cha lemme alone!” His face was red, and his mouth jerked fiercely.

They went around and around for another few minutes, till the officer had established that Whippy was still getting a snootful regularly, but that the Wild Gentlemen had clobbered him before he’d gotten a chance to use the long stick with the jagged bit of glass on the end.

Then Carlos was told to step forward.

“Your name is Carlos Arando?”

No answer.

“I asked you what your name was, boy.”

No answer.

“Can you hear me, Arando? Speak up!”

Still no answer, and handsome Carlos lifted his head to stare directly into the lights. His mouth was a fine, tight, visibly black line, closed.

“Look me in the eye, boy! I’m speaking to you.”

No answer, and in disgust the officer said, “Step back. We’ll see you later.”

Then it was Tommy’s turn.

“Step up there, kid.”

The boy stepped forward. Not arrogantly, not hesitantly, not comically. He merely stepped forward and stood, hands in pockets, calmly looking out at the ebony curtain between the microphone and himself.

“Your name’s Thomas Kilpatrick?”

“That’s it.”

“We have it here that you stabbed a boy named Daniel Johnson, during the rumble tonight with the Wild Gentlemen. That right?”

Before Tommy Kilpatrick could answer, even before the words could be formed, a deeper voice came out of the darkness behind the speaker at the microphone. It cut the boy off before he could admit his crime.

“I want to talk to that boy, Sergeant. Send him into my office.”

The Sergeant’s tones were tentative, inquiring, but he answered, “Yes, sir. Right away, Captain.”

A face materialized at the foot of the stage, just inside the ball of light where Tommy stood. “Okay, kid, down off there…you got an appointment.”

Tommy let the edge of a grin slide onto his lips. Stinkin’ cops. He knew how they operated, he knew he had figured it right the first time. His old man wasn’t going to let his son stand up there and get booked for assault with intent to kill. Let the rest of the BackBlasters go sit on their cans in the pokey, get booked for life. He was going to walk away from this free!

“I’m coming…Sir,” he replied, starting toward the stairs that led down from the platform, the grin flickering wider.

The officer with the bad breath brought Tommy into the office, and closed the door, staying outside.

The boy stared at the big man behind the desk for a moment, then grinned. “Hi, dad.” The boy walked to the chair across from the desk, and slumped into it.

He lifted one leg and threw it laconically over the arm of the chair. He stared for a moment at the thin dossier file in front of the man, and knew it was his own. He let his eyes roam about the office, taking in the framed certificates of graduation from the police academy, the citations, the letters of commendation. “Quite the office ya got here, dad. This’s the first time I been in it. How come ya never brought me here before?”

Then he looked at his father.

Big, with a square jaw, and crew-cut light brown hair. Blue eyes much like his son’s. Eyes that snapped a bit at a person’s nerves. A nose that half-skewed across his blocky face. The face of an ex-pug. The face of a hard man who knew when to be hard.

“I guess you wanted to see me.” Tommy said. “I’d like to make it fast, Dad, ’cause there’s a couple good shows on tv tonight, and I can make ’em if I get home real fast.”

His tone was condescending, violently rude.

The Captain’s face hardened even more. His jaw was a curved line of rigidity, and his mouth moved faintly, as though he were trying to drown a word or an emotion, a feeling or a decision.

“Tommy…” he murmured, as though the word were a speech of great meaning in itself. The boy cocked an eyebrow humorously, inquisitively.

“Did you kill that boy?”

“What do you think?” He looked away, at the door that separated him from freedom and the television. He would be going out that door in a little while.

“Look me in the eye, boy!” Tommy recognized that brutal edge to his father’s tone. The tone he had employed often at home. And he knew how the microphone cop could have picked up his father’s phrase; it was one of the Captain’s favorites. Even at home he never let anyone forget who was on top, who was the Man, who was in charge.

“Dum da dum-dum…” The boy grinned.

The Captain’s hand on the desk clenched into a fist, till the knuckles whitened out. “I’ve told you a million times not to get snotty with me. I’m your father, and I’ll crack open your foul little mouth if you don’t answer straight, boy!”

“No you won’t. You won’t touch me and I know it. You don’t want those cops out there to know your son runs with a gang of juvies. You got your rep-yoo-tayshun to watch out for…”

The man leaned across and flat-handed the blond boy with a violence that snapped the boy’s head around. He turned back, and the hatred blazed up like an inferno in his blue eyes. “You done that before. You can do better, can’cha?”

“Why did you stab that boy?”

“Because he got in my way. I’ll slice anybody gets in my way. You can remember that…dad.” He spat the final word as though it were poison.

The older man’s face softened momentarily. His eyes gathered a luster of pleading. “You don’t have to run the streets.”

“Why not? Anything better for me to do?”

“You’ve got a good home. Tommy. God knows I’ve had a difficult time bringing you up since your mother died, but I’ve done my best, tried—”

The boy laughed roughly. “Some home. Three rooms and no old lady.”

“What’s that got to do with it? Lots of kids have no mother. And you know I’ve been saving all our money for that farm when I’m on pension. That’s why we haven’t got a bigger place, but there are just the two of us—”

“That goddamn farm. That’s your idea. Always your ideas, all the time what you want when you’re on pension. Slops to that!”

“That’s got nothing to do with it. What’s the matter with you? Are you really rotten inside the way you’re making me think you are? What’s wrong with you?”

“I got a bastard for an old man, that’s all’s wrong with me.”

He stared straight at the Captain, as though daring him to make an issue of it, to slap him again, to ask more questions. The arrogance was an open thing now, the swagger of the streets in his tones. The Captain watched him, shook his head sadly, put a hand rubbingly across his eyes.

Softly. “That bad?”

“Yeah, that fucking bad. I can’t stomach you, with your lousy holier-than-anybody way, and you got no guts when you need guts!”

“I think you hate everybody, Tommy.”

“Pretty close.”

“And I think I’ve helped you get that way.”

The boy laughed raucously, confirming the statement.

“What will you do if you get out of here?”

“Go back and slice some more of those black bastards. And then some spic bastards, and then some white bastards! And maybe even someday you…Dad.”

The Captain let the hand slide from his eyes. His face hardened. He pressed the intercom button on his desk.

A nasal voice came through the box. “Yes, sir?”

“Come on in here, Stenson.”

The boy shifted in the chair. His leg slapped down on the floor abruptly. What was this? This wasn’t in the calculations. What was his old man pulling? He knew the old man was hard when he should have been soft, and soft when he should have been tough, but Tommy hadn’t figured this. What was he going to do? Provide an honor guard home to make certain he didn’t get into any mischief tonight? Well, he didn’t have to worry about that. Tonight was dead…but there was always tomorrow. And all the tomorrows that would make up his life.

The Captain stared at his son, and the boy’s eyes grew wide, he licked his lips. He looked as though anticipation was not the proper attitude now. He looked as though he didn’t quite know what was going to happen, but he suspected.

The door opened, and the officer with bad breath came into the room He stood waiting.

“Something I can do. Captain Kilpatrick?”

“Take this boy back to the desk.” he said shortly.

His voice was very quiet, and he stared down at the dossier.

The line of his jaw was rigid, yet his cheeks contracted and expanded, as though his tongue were working within his mouth.

He said, “Stenson, this is my son. I want him treated exactly as those other boys were treated. Do you understand?

The officer nodded, started to take Tommy by the arm. The boy leaped up. “Look at me, dad. Look at me, for Chrissakes! I’m your only kid.”

The older man looked up, and the boy’s glance fell. “Look me in the eye, boy!” he said, as cold and flat as an artic wasteland. Tommy stared at the cold, hard blue eyes, and the Captain said, “I don’t know what’s right and what’s wrong with you. I don’t know if I’m fulfilling my obligation, or righting the wrong I did to you and to all the people you’ve harmed, or whether I’m letting you down again…I don’t know. But this is the only way I can do it.”

He turned his eyes back to the dossier.

The boy’s voice came out slowly, disbelievingly.

“You’re kiddin’. Tell him you’re kiddin”! You ain’t gonna do it to me?”

“Take him away, Stenson.”

The officer grasped the boy by his upper arms, started to drag him from the room. The boy struggled, turned, inched back toward the desk, spat violently on the Captain’s desk.

The officer dragged the boy toward the door, stopped and looked back at the Captain, holding tightly to the struggling boy. “Should I return him to the line-up, Captain?”

The ex-pug face sank into a soft expression of complete, final, utter defeat. “Don’t bother with that,” he said.

He didn’t raise his bleak eyes from the dossier.

The defeat in his voice hung like smoke in the air.

“Book him,” he said.

THE DEAD SHOT

My old man brought me back a rifle from Germany.

Now he’s dead. He got his in a bar about three years ago, and they smashed open his skull with a chair leg. But I don’t miss him, honest.

I got the gun.

I don’t keep that gun on the shelf, no sir! I take it out, like right now. I got that barrel sawed-off so it’ll fit in my pants leg. I walk down the street with it in my pants, the butt covered up by my jacket. I make like I got a limp so they can’t tell I got the rifle in there, and then I have myself some real fun, man!

I’m a dead shot.

I can knock the window out of an apartment “house at a block and a half’s distance. I’m good, I am, and not brag-gin” neither. Here, let me show you.

Down the block there. See that man? He’s nothin’ but a janitor. See him carryin’ out that garbage, and putting it in front of the building. Now watch what I can do to him. He thinks he’s so safe; so damned smug and safe. Like Life’s going to be miserable to everybody else, but pass him by.

I’ll show him what misery is.

Takin’ careful aim is the most important part. I sight down through the back and front eye-notches, and then I squeeze the trigger ever so slow and careful. Pow!

The first shot hits right through the garbage can he’s carryin’ on his shoulder.

He feels the bam of it and it knocks the garbage can off his stringy shoulder. He’s staring at all the garbage all over the sidewalk and the street. He knows he’s gotta go and get the broom and clean it up, or the cops’ll haul him in.

He’s starting back toward the building. Now watch this!

I snap off a quickie, and it goes Pow! right through the glass pane of the door, right in front of his big, red-veined nose.

He’s jumping back, and looking around. He can’t spot me over here in this doorway, and I snap another one his way. He jumps again, and now I can see the crazy scare in his face. His old mustache is jumping, and he’s got his skinny hands over his heart. He looks like he’s gonna fall on his pan, any second.

But I can’t keep him dancin’ all day. The cops might charge along here any minute. I’ve got to stop this screwy fooling around. I’ve got important business tonight.

Pow!

It catches him in the right hip, and throws him halfway across the sidewalk. He takes a half-step and falls flat on his ugly old face in the gutter.

He’s got his arm all fouled up in that dirty vest, and he’s screaming like he was hung with a harpoon.

Them old men are always good for a laugh.

See, I’m in this empty lot now, where they’re buildin’ a playground. I’m behind a stack of bricks, and it’s ever so dark in the streets. Not complete dark yet “cause they haven’t even turned on the street lamps, but dark just the same. I don’t know why everything always seems dark to me. You think there’s something wrong with my eyes?

No, there couldn’t be. I can see anything. I can see to knock the window out of an apartment with one shot, or shoot the hat off a woman, or pick off a banana from a stem in a grocery window.

The Puerto Ricans call their groceries bodegas, and I like to put the shot right through the “O”, ’cause they usually got green bananas hanging up there behind the “O”. That’s fun. But what I got on tonight is even more fun.

There’s an apartment house ’cross the street, and it’s real hot. It’s a tenement, and this is summer, and all the old women put pillows on the window sills, and stare out at everybody walkin’ by. Sometimes they spit down onto the sidewalk just for kicks, or they dump empty beer cans out the windows.

I hate them.

I hate the way they get everything dirty and the noise those cans make. Sometimes when I’m sleepin’ late at night, one of those stinkin’ bitch women’ll toss a beer can out, and it’ll clatter like all hell, and wake me!

I hate them.

I hate the way they stare at everybody, and make dirty cracks about the way they dress. There was an old bitch, this one I mean, and she was talkin’ to a neighbor woman two floors down, the other night when I walked by with Jackie—that was before she and me broke up, damn her!—and they made cracks about the way I looked.

Screamin” like all hell—down two floors!

Everybody in the world must of heard ’em. I hate ’em.

But I was smart. I didn’t yell at them then. I just checked where we was, and saw where they lived and what they looked like, and knew I’d come back tonight. I waited till now. I see ’em. I see the two old women. Look up there. Look at them!

I’d like to kill those bitches. They don’t care for nobody. They ain’t got no compassion, that’s what they ain’t got!

Their old men come home at night and they got cold cuts and boiled potatoes for ’em, and not even a decent word. They take the paper away from the old men, and they plomp their fat cans on the window ledges and read and talk and watch the folks going by underneath!

The one on the fifth floor, she got a real dough-kisser, like a pudding with raisins for eyes. She got a mouth that flaps, flaps, flaps alla time. I’m gonna make sure she don’t say no more what she said the other night.

And that other biddy. She looks like she ain’t got twenty pounds on her—real wire, that one. So thin you’d think the breeze would whip her off her pillow and toss her out on the sidewalk. No knockers on her, and a miserable old dress she must of had since she was nine years old.

I remember once when I worked on a farm for a summer, they had grain bags that had patterns on ’em, and the girls used to take ’em and make dresses outta them. That’s what this dress looks like. Real cheap crap.

She got a nose like a baling-hook, and wrinkles all the hell over her.

Them two got nothing to do but sit in their windows and talk about people going by. Like me.

“That kid there dresses like he was a bum,” the fat one said.

“Yeah, and who’s the little tramp he’s walkin’ with? I don’t know her from this neighborhood,” the thin one had screamed back.

“You’d think them goddam foreigners would stay in their own blocks!” the fat one had answered.

What did they think? No one could hear them? The lousy old pots!

Jackie had looked up, and I’d seen the street lights reflect crazy in her blue eyes. She didn’t say nothin’ but I saw her mouth go white around the edges and I knew she wanted to kill them two old biddies.

So I’ll do it for you, Jackie, even though we’re broke up.

I got my rifle up against my shoulder, and I’m sightin’ careful. I’m hunkered down behind them bricks so they can’t tell where the shots come from. I got to get them both, and they ain’t gonna have a chance to get away.

The fat one’s leanin’ out a little, leanin’ on her pig-pudgy arms so the fat on her forearms is all squeezed down. Her face hangs like it was a ham on a hook and she’s screamin’ to the skinny bitch. I got to take her carefully.

I’m glad I used a match to black down the sights. That way I can aim right into the light behind her. She lives in a crummy two-roomer, and I see her big fat breasts and her big fat belly, right in the line of my sights. Now I’m steadying the rifle careful on my knee, and bending my head low.

Now I’m squeezin’ careful, slow…careful…slowww…

Pow!

Man! Looka the way she caught it. Right in the kisser, on the right cheek. Blew half her head away. She looks like somebody painted her with fish guts. Now she’s screamin’ and hangin’ onto the pulpy side of her kisser. And—Oh! Jeezus! There she goes!

She’s slippin’ across the sill, and the pillow falls like a dirty newspaper out from under her and falls into the street.

She’s tryin’ to hang on, and cryin’ and bleedin’. Die, damn you——fat stinkin’ lousy gossip! Die! Now…there…she…goes!

Over and over, all that fat,, all the way down and bango, right into the sidewalk with a real squish, and she spattered and sprayed blood all over the Buick at the curb.

The thin one’s lookin’, just lookin’. She don’t know what’s comin’ off, but I’m gonna show her too and I got the rifle over the bricks and now I’m linin’ her up in the sights like she was the onny thing in the world, that thin sonofabitchin’ gossiping pot!

The rifle kicks against my shoulder and pow! I miss. The bullet sails over her head and through the top half of the window, sprayin’ glass all over the place. Then I hear it hit something in the crummy apartment and shatter that, too.

But I ain’t quittin’. Before she knows what the hell’s happening and can jump back outta the way, I got the round ejected and her all lined up again fast. This time you ain’t got a chance, you bitch, ’cause I’m a dead shot!

Pow!

She caught it in the chest, and listen to that scream. It’s like a cat climbin’ a blackboard, gettin’ higher and higher and higher. Man! I gotta clomp my hands over my head ’cause those screamin’s really hurt inside. Now she’s standin’ up tall, and wailin’ and I think I better…put…another…one…inta…her!

Pow!

Blew the top of her head away. I’m aimin’ too high. But that got her. She slips and out the window she comes, right down on top of that Buick. Smashes a big goddam dent in the top, and slides down off, right down next to that fat slob. And she’s all twisted up, with her skirt over her ugly head, but she’s an old slob and there ain’t nothin’ to see. But the skirt is gettin’ darker and darker and the blood is runnin’ down into the gutter.

I see her old man come to the window, and he looks down and automatic-like he gives a yell. But he don’t look too unhappy about it I bet he’s glad. I done you a favor, didn’t I, old man?

I better get outta here. Windows is bangin’ up all over the street, and I hear feet hittin’ the hot jelly-squish asphalt. I better get outta here!

Besides, I got more things to do tonight.

But I don’t gotta worry. I’ll get “em done. I never miss.

I’m a dead shot! Yes.

Jackie and me broke up ’cause she says I’m nuts. She don’t know. She don’t know nothin’! I’ll show her who’s nuts.

I got my rifle, and that’s all that counts. I got that rifle and I can shoot anybody. I can be God or death or anything I damned well please. I’ll show you.

See that man over there.

The one that’s got the old squashy hat on his head, and he’s fishin’ around in the wastebasket for somebody’s newspaper? See him? Yeah, that’s the one.

He’s a bum. A real stewie. I hate them bastards, too, cause it was one like that killed my old man with a chair leg. One of them and I don’t know which one it was. So I’m gonna get ’em all.

I’m gonna kill every stewie I see.

I’m in this here doorway, see. And the stewie is across the street, walkin’ past a bunch of garbage cans, and I get a real close look at him.

He looks like all the rest, with their filthy beards and their toeless shoes and their goddam walk that looks like they didn’t know whether they was alive or not.

I hoist up the rifle and snap off a quick one.

Pow!

I’m a dead shot!

Caught him in the shoulder, low, almost on the bicep. He gets tossed around like he was a spinnin’ top and they yanked the string off too fast. He spins and now he stumbles and now he’s sayin’ something, but ain’t nobody gives a flyin’ damn what he’s sayin’ ’cause he’s just a stewie and they always mumble in their beards, the bastards.

Wish to hell I hadda silencer on this rifle.

He don’t fall, and I start to take another shot. But the clip is empty. So I yank it out and load it from my shirt pocket, and slap it back in with the flat of my palm.

Now I’m gonna let him walk a ways. That way it’ll hurt more. Nobody seems to have heard the shot, and that’s good. Of course, if they did. they’d look out and just see this old stewie stumblin’ around and nobody else out this late, and they’d think it was a backfiring car, maybe.

But he’s walkin’ down the street.

Too goddam drunk to know he’s been shot. But he staggers and bumbles and now he pitches onto his kisser, pulling over the big wire trash basket. It rolls into the street, and he just lays there for a minute. Now he’s gettin’ up again and leanin’ against the fire call-box, breathin’ real heavy, and holdin’ his arm.

Crap! All the fun’s gone from this pot. I’m gonna finish him off and get to the big business. I got big business tonight, real big. Like I’m gonna settle with Jackie.

Dead shot!

Pow!

Over he goes, still kickin’ and moanin’. Now they hear the shots and they got the windows open and the streets are fillin’ up and they’re all comin’ to the old stewie. Man, he’s kickin’ his can away. He don’t wanna die. You’d think all that boozin’ and cuttin’ around and him bein” a lousy old stewie, he wouldn’t mind kickin’ off—but no sir, he just don’t wanna die. The crowd’s too big to try again. I gotta go.

Wish I could put another one into that bum.

Jackie said I was nuts. Well, I showed her good. I’m. as okay as she is.

I stop outside her house. She lives in a double house with another family and I yell. “Jackie, hey Jackie! Come on out, baby!” And the window flies up in the top floor and she sticks her head out. Mmmm, she is good to look on.

She got blonde hair and blue eyes and long eyelashes and she got a twenty-six-year-old body on her—just a kid of sixteen she is, too. She’s somethin’! And in the back seat of Willie Dignan’s car, she’s real mmmm!

“What do you want down there?” she asks.

“Baby, I wanna give you a big kiss. You gotta come on down here and let me give you a big big big one!”

I’m startin” to unzip my jacket.

“I told you to get away from me. Tommy. I don’t want nothin’ more to do with you after last night! I’m gettin’ all black and blue from the hittin’ I took. My old man’s gonna kill you if he sees you, Tommy, so you better go on away right now!”

She’s all steamed and yellin’ at me so’s the whole neighborhood can hear. I don’t like that.

I got the iacket open, I’m reachin’ around for the butt of the rifle. I’ll show her who’s a dead shot!

“Now you get the heck away from here!”

She starts to slam the window down and I get the rifle up and pullin’ the trigger without even botherin’ to aim, I’m so damned mad. Damn! I pulled it; I should of squeezed it!

Pow!

The bullet plows into the wood frame of the window and she lets out a screech I know they can hear a mile away. Damn that bitch! I’m gonna take her out good!

I stand there and keep pumpin’ away good. Till the clip’s empty, and then I reload it so fast I get the rounds in cockeyed and have to straighten them again before I can shove the clip back in.

People are yellin’ all over the place, and I see lights goin’ on in windows up the street.

I put another one in the frame and she’s been gone since the first shot, but if I keep shootin’ I’ll get her. She’s somewhere down back inside and she thinks I can’t hear her.

Well, I can and there ain’t gonna be much of her left when I get done!

I hear a whistle and there’s a cop runnin’ down the block at me.

Damn cops. I hate cops like I hate the old women and the stewies and that goddam twist Jackie.

He’s got his revolver out and he’s aimin’ at my head, but that don’t scare me none. He’s gettin’ closer and I got my rifle up and I’ll put him down but good. I’m a dead shot!

I squeeze careful, but before my rifle goes off I see the big red fire in his hand, and I hear a loud one.

Pow!

There’s a zip, and somethin’ caught me right in the chest. It throws me back and I drop my rifle. I didn’t get to hit him.

OhmiGod. he hit me! But he can’t kill me! I’m…

I’m a dead shot…

SHIP-SHAPE PAY-OFF

I left the ship early Friday morning, just after we’d docked. The sun was coming up over the Palisades, and the Hudson lay dirty and swollen beside the docks.

My duffle was heavier than usual, but that didn’t bother me; I knew I had to shoulder it all the way uptown on the subway.

My duffle was heavier than usual because I had Willie in there. Willie the cabin boy—and a tightly-knotted rope around his throat.

He didn’t weigh much, even as cabin boys go, but I felt his head banging against my rear at every step, and I didn’t like it.

I hit off down the dirty street toward the subway, poor Willie getting heavier with every step. I gave the man in the change booth some nickels, got a token, dropped it in, and grabbed the uptown express. That time of day, it wasn’t much crowded. I wondered how long it would be before Willie would start to stink.

I slouched in a corner of the car, propped my duffle between my legs in front of me, and tried to remember what Willie had looked like. He was starting to blur already—and it hadn’t been more than an hour since I’d let him have it. All I could remember of his face were the sharp cheekbones and the big, wide staring eyes that looked older than Willie’s twenty-eight years. Eyes that had seen too much, that afternoon off Paramaribo in First Mate Crayeley’s cabin; the eyes that had bugged like swollen grapes when I got the hawser around his throat an hour ago.

Poor Willie. But five hundred is five hundred, and Miss Laura had asked awfully nice. I’d do things for her I wouldn’t do for her husband, Captain or no Captain. She’s all right, Laura. And a hot-lookin” dish she is, too! And if she didn’t want the old man to know what she’d been doing with Crayeley, I didn’t mind helping her out—for five hundred.

The car rattled along uptown, and I figured 116th was about right. If I carried him down across the Drive and dumped him off the breakwater with a few rocks in the duffle bag, he wouldn’t come up till long after the fishes had eaten out his eyes. Those accusing eyes.

I settled back and stared at the ceiling. It was hot. Even damned hot for July. The fans in the car clattered noisily and when the car stopped I opened one eye to see if any good-looking women got on. Their summer dresses blew up prettily with the fans going.

But none got on, and the car rolled again. I settled back with my eyes closed once more. Man! Am I desperate, I thought idly, to need a cheap thrill like that! But six weeks on the ship without a woman was hard on a guy like me. No women, that is, except Laura.

With my eyes shut I could picture her real easy. The high forehead and gold-flecked eyes. The copper hair blowing in the wind on the foredeck. The breeze and salt spray plastering the thin dress tight against her lush body. The firm thighs and full, high breasts. My mouth dried out, and I tried to put her from my mind.

Her trips on the ship had been infrequent. Too infrequent. I guess because she was getting it from the First Mate on shore when the ship was in. Only when it got tough on her did she come aboard.

Oh well, I wasn’t going to get any of that. She was pretty careful who she handed it out to. Crayeley, maybe, but not a slummer like me. Pity Willie’d seen her and threatened to tell the Captain. If he’d stayed out of there, not been so nosey, not asked for money to keep quiet, he’d still be walking the decks.

And I wouldn’t get five hundred.

Five hundred wasn’t much—but it was all a shipmate like Willie was worth to a guy like me.

I carried him down the hill past the resident hotels, away from Broadway, and over the Hudson River Parkway. It took me fifteen minutes to get across—those damned commuters speed that road like maniacs, and close together as pig’s-knuckles in a barrel. I walked across the little patch of heat-scorched grass and down the rocks.

It took me two minutes, blocked off from the road by the slope of the breakwater. The rocks were good and heavy.

I laid Willie on his side, and gave him a healthy kick with my boot. He went slipping and rolling down the incline, disappeared with a tiny splash into the black, dead-fish laden water.

“’Bye, shipmate,” I saluted him, watching the ripples spread.

Now for the five hundred. A call to Laura at her apartment, and I was off to the pleasures of the big city.

I walked back up the hill to a drugstore, whistling.

I dropped the dime in, listened to it clink down, listened to the dial tone, listened to the sound of my own dialing. I listened to the phone ringing, once, twice, listened to Laura’s soft, husky voice saying, “Hello.”

“Hi,” I said. “It’s me. Jack.”

“Jack? What Jack?”

“Jack!” I said. “From the Betsy B. You remember me, Mrs. Sefton, dont you?”

She sounded mystified. “No, T can’t say that I do. Who did you say you were? From the ship?”

I cautiously looked around the drugstore. The next booth was empty. Good. I didn’t want any extra ears.

“You remember me,” I told her. “I had to wait till we docked so they’d think he went ashore and never came back. You owe me five hundred bucks. Now do you remember?”

“Oh!” she said, very softly.

“Oh,” I mimicked. “Yeah. Willie, remember? I’ve done the job, and I’m minded to collect. Now how about it?”

There was a long silence at the other end. I drummed impatiently on the stippled walls of the phone booth.

“I can’t hear you, Mrs. Sefton.”

“There’s—there’s a difficulty…” she said hoarsely. “I—I can’t pay you just now…Jack.”

Now it was my time to be quiet for a while. Finally I said. “Yeah?” My voice was harder than I’d thought it would be.

“I mean it,” she said. “I just don’t have the cash. I’m sorry I asked you—”

“You’re sorry? You’re sorry! What about me, who bumped off some guy I hardly knew, to keep your pretty pink undies clean? What about my five hundred bucks?”

“Please deposit five cents for the next three minutes,” the operator said sweetly.

I swore and dropped a nickel in. “Where’s my five hundred?” I asked again. “Come on, speak up!”

“I don’t have it,” she said. “Please stop bothering me or I’ll call the police.” There was a click and the receiver went down.

I swore again. I wished I hadn’t thrown that extra nickel in—good money after bad. I got out of the phone booth and stood undecided for a moment. Then I headed out into the street, clenching and unclenching my fists.

Maybe she was going to run rings around Old Man Sefton—but I wasn’t going to put up with the same stuff.

I knocked. “Laura?” I said.

“Yes? Who’s there?”

“Crayeley,” I said. “The Old Man home?”

“No. Come on in. darling.”

She threw the door open, and I stepped in out of the nice, clean hall. The Seftons really lived high off the hog. It made me happier about the whole thing to see the sort of place they lived in. She could pay up, if she only wanted to.

“Jack!” The door started to swing shut on me, but it was too late by then. I was inside, my back flat against the door. I grinned. “Hello, Mrs. Sefton. Laura.”

I stared at her. She was pale, but still gorgeous. Her satin dressing-gown had fallen partly open as she’d struggled to close the door, and I saw the milky-white of her breasts.

Her belly was flat and flowed beautifully into rich thighs. She had long legs that were real class. She was all the good stuff of all the women I’d ever seen, from Rio to Singapore. And I knew she could swing it better than all of them at once.

She caught my stare and the red flowed up from her breasts, right past her neck, and suffused her face. She drew the robe closer, and belted it tightly. It was better that way. She pushed against it like she really wanted out.

She backed up. “What do you want?”

“Five hundred bucks,” I said amiably. That’s all. Just five hundred.”

“I don’t have it.”

“I’ve heard that song before.” I folded my arms. “Look, don’t go making deals if you can’t back them up. I got you off the hook with Willie, but I didn’t do it for exercise.”

“My husband doesn’t let me have much cash,” she said weakly. “I’m sorry if I—”

“I’m sorrier.” I was angry. I strode inside and looked around. “Nice place you’ve got here,” I said. A muscle in my cheek was snapping sixty. If Sefton walked in now, I’d really have had it. I felt the thick, modern curtains. “Real slick little home, you and the Old Man.”

I whirled and looked at her. She was white-faced, arms crossed over those fantastic breasts, copper hair glinting brightly.

“It’d be a real shame if the Old Man decided to kick you out of here on your pretty little butt, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

I smiled pleasantly. “I want the five hundred,” I said. “If I don’t get it, I’ll spill it all to your husband about the pleasant afternoon you spent screwing around in Crayeley’s cabin. I know the old boy is broadminded, but he draws the line at cutting in the First Mate. How’s that?”

She came closer to me. Closer, till her jutting breasts touched my shirt. My back suddenly felt as though it had been greased with burning oil. I began to sweat. I could smell the musky perfume she had on, and the closeness of her hurt me. “I don’t have the cash,” she said for what seemed like the fiftieth time. Her lower lip slid out in a little-girl pout.

“Don’t kid me with that sweet innocence act,” I said. “You’re not foolin’ anybody. And you don’t have any suckers around to knock me off, the way I gave it to Willie.”

“I—I—can’t get it up,” she said resignedly.

“You’ll get it up,” I said, getting nastier. The heat was in me now, but good! Then a thought came to me. And I added, “One way or the other. Money ain’t everything.”

She stared at me blankly. Then a dawning light came into her beautiful gold-flecked eyes, and she drew in a breath sharply.

“I can’t!” she gasped. “I can’t! I won’t!”

“Oh, but you will. Because you got the same problem as before. Only Willie wasn’t too smart. I am. You’ll pay up—like I say, one way or another…”

I took off my cap and threw it on the table. I moved toward her, and she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth. She was twice as exciting-looking that way. A feeble little, “I can’t get it up…” trailed out softly.

Well, the Captain’s lady didn’t used to come on many voyages with her husband. Now she comes on every trip. Closes up her swank apartment and comes along. Captain Sefton thinks it’s because she wants to be close to him. He figures she likes the first class accommodations.

Oh, maybe sometimes the accommodations aren’t first class, but then I’m just a belowdecks swabber.

You know, even if she offered me the five hundred now…

…I don’t think I’d take it.

MADE IN HEAVEN

“Chickie,” I muttered to myself, “it’s no wonder all the guys in the Poppers wanta make you. You’re a livin’ doll!”

And I was, too. Long black hair tied back in a real flip-pin’ pony-tail; smooth white skin; black, flashing eyes; and eyebrows that hooked off like they wanted to get somewhere real fast. It was a cryin” pity that little compact mirror didn’t show the rest of me!

It was the coldest day I remember. I’d put on my heaviest skirt and sweater, not really wanting to go out. I’d taken my time putting on my lipstick, stopping to look at myself in the compact mirror, just to kill time.

Oh well, I thought, maybe I’ll fall over to the clubroom.

I walked into the living room and made a small noise in my throat when I saw my old man.

That guy is a real slob. He was layin” on the couch, all dirty T-shirt and scrubby beard and sweat-stink. I couldn’t see how my old lady could take him. He even had his shoes on the couch; layin’ there, snoring like a noon whistle.

Yeah, I thought, when’s the last time that lazy slob heard a noon whistle close-up?

I walked past him, spitting real faintly, so as not to wake him. Mom was out working, so I knew I’d have about three hours to kill till dinner time.

I put on my heavy winter coat and went down the stairs. Everything was quiet. It was cold, sure, but that wasn’t any reason for as much quiet as there was. Then I remembered it was Saturday, and Saturdays around our block are always quiet in the late afternoon.

I crunched off across the snowy sidewalk, making for the poolroom where the kids had their clubroom in hack. I fished in my pocket, found one, and put the cigarette in my mouth.

The smoke followed me in a white trail. Christ, it was cold!

It was quiet in the poolroom, too.

I said hi to Fat Benny, who owns the place, and ignored his foul mouth. I’m good-looking, but he don’t have to make lousy cracks every time he sees me. One of these days I’m gonna have Torchy wreck this joint and put you down real good. Lard Tummy, I thought.

“Anybody in back?” I asked.

“You mean any Poppers, don’tcha?” he replied.

“Is there anybody else I’d give a damn about?” I snapped at him. That wise slob, always mouthing off! If the Poppers didn’t need that room in back, rent-free, they’d of put him out so long ago he’d of been dust by now.

“Yeah, Twist is back there. Nobody else, though.” He leered at me.

You’d like to get your fat meat-paws on me, wouldn’t ya. Greasy-Lips? “Thanks—for very little.” I tossed the line over my shoulder, walking past the pool tables with the fluorescent lights above them. I didn’t want to stay in that guy’s sight for too long. No telling what he’d try when the joint was empty and he was alone with me.

I knocked on the door, twice quickly, then once slow. I heard somebody swear, and the couch springs squeaked. “Wait a minute! It was Twist’s voice. Then the door unbolted and Twist opened it.

It wasn’t hard to figure why they called him Twist. He wasn’t anything like my stud. Torchy. He was a long, thin character, with a pocky face. He had one of those half crew-cut, half d.a. haircuts, all greased and in place. I was sure he put it up in a net when he went to sleep at night, so it’d be smooth next day. Ugh!

He grinned at me like I was his long lost, said, “Hey! Chickie, baby, come on in. Nobody’s here but me.”

The way he said it made my neck itch, but there wasn’t any place else to go, and it was frigid outside—so why not?

I went past him and sank into the big easy chair. He closed and bolted the door. “How come?” I asked, raising an eyebrow and hooking my thumb toward the locked door.

He shrugged, watching me closely as I crossed my legs. Then he flopped over onto the couch. “Wanna make sure nobody thinks this is an open house.” He grinned again, and I didn’t like it. Not one teeny little bit.

“Seen Torchy today?” I asked.

“You still soft over that carrot-top?” he asked right back.

“Any your goddam business?”

“You can do better. You’re a smooth-looking kid.” His eyes shifted up and down my territory. That grin looked like it might split up his kisser any minute. That, and his pimply, scarred face made me want to puke.

“I’ve always liked ya, Chickie,” he said, sitting up.

“So?”

“So…maybe you and me can—”

I never let him get finished. “Look, Lover,” I said, “you just keep your gutter-track ideas to yourself. Torchy ever hears you makin’ a pitch at me, he’ll split ya from your jock to your top!”

He kept smiling and got up, started walkin’ toward me in the easy chair. I could smell a wrestling match coming up.

“Don’t finger the merchandise. Twist!” I growled.

“That tone ain’t becomin’ a lady,” he said. That slimy smile of his seemed glued on. I wondered, if I used a good strong, smackin’ fist, if it’d come off. I got ready to find out.

“Why don’t you and me marry up?” he said. I knew what he meant. Marry meant to go steady—for me to be his girl. In the Poppers, when a drag ties up with a stud, she carves his initials in her breast or arm. I had T.N. on my left arm: I was Torchy Nelson’s drag. That was the way I liked it. If I carved Twist’s name on me, I’d look like a goddam totem pole, and by the gang-laws, I’d be “married” to him.

“Marry, hell!” I bit out. “I wouldn’t do it with you, with mine, if yours was gold-plated…”

Then he smacked me.

He got in close and brought his hand around so fast all I saw was a blur of finger and wrist, then he connected. It snapped my head around, and made my eyes water. By the time I could turn back, that creepy slug had his hands all over me.

“Goddam you!” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

“No good, Chickie, honey.” he mumbled, his face pressed up to my sweater. He was practically in my lap in the chair. “The room’s almost soundproof, remember?”

Then I did remember. The gang’d done it to make sure no one could hear meetings outside the door. Damn it!

I couldn’t stand it any longer. He was almost panting in my pocket, his lousy hands inside my sweater, everywhere! “Off me, off me,” I kept mumbling, pushing at him.

Then he tried to get into a better position on me, tried to get more than what he had already, and I broke loose. I slipped out underneath him, almost pulling my sweater off in the process. “You bastard!” I screamed, and kicked him good.

I caught him right at the base of his spine, and he arched his back, clutching at himself with both hands, behind. I kicked out again, this time cracking the metal toe of my loafer into his hand. He screamed real high, whiney like, and sucked on the knuckles.

I kept kicking him, till he was sitting on the floor, his back against the base of the chair, hands over his face, too hurt to move, too scared to try and stop me.

I was panting by the time my mad was worn off, and I pointed a shaking finger at him. “I’ll make it easy on you this time. Twist,” I gasped. “I won’t tell Torchy or any of the studs about this. But you come near me again, so help me I’ll have them lean on you real good!”

He was a big boy, and what I’d said was part bluff. I was sure Torchy could take him, but there wasn’t any sense making Torchy stand with this crumb if I could kill the bit right here.

I looked down at him. I must have really hurt him, because he was crying. It was the first time I’d ever seen a guy bawl, and the tears rolling down his cheeks made tracks in the dirt of his face. A guy as big as that, man, it made me sick to see him.

He looked up at me, rubbing his arm where I knew I’d caught him with a good one, and the tears oozing out of his eyes, and sobbed, “You wait, you bitch! You wait! One of these days you’ll beg me to hook up with ya! You’ll beg me to marry you, ya lousy stinking—”

I kicked him right in the groin, when I saw the words forming. I can’t stand foul language.

We were dancing, in the malt shop—Perky’s Place, they call it, though nobody named Perky has anything to do with the joint—when Sparkplug and A. J. fell in.

Right off we knew it was good news. We gathered around them, when they sat down in a back booth. “Ding, ding!” said Sparkplug, holding his thumb up in a salute to victory. His little blue eyes were glittering. He was a cutie, real small and lovable, like all the girls dug him much.

“We got it?” Torchy asked, pulling me closer to him.

“Man!” answered A.J. digging out a butt. “It’s sewed, snowed, and set to explode!” He lit the butt, drew in deep, blew the cloud across to Sparkplug.

“We talked to the old guy. Told him it was a ‘Youth Recreation Center’ and he bit like a big fish! No rent, and we get the joint next week! No more Fat Benny’s poolroom for the Poppers! Man, we’re Big Time now!”

We all started cheering then, and Torchy kissed me hard. It was what we’d been waiting for. It had been coming for a couple months, ever since we’d been having trouble with the cops on the beat hushing us outta the poolroom—saying it was indecent for kids to be in such a joint.

I thought so, too. Particularly since Fat Benny and that slob Twist found it easy to lock doors on poor, helpless babes like li’l Chickie. Now we had an apartment on the ground floor of a sharp building, and we could use it for drags, or pads, or anything! The coolest!

We broke then, fed the juke box, and started fishing. I danced close to Torchy, sockin’ it to him, and lettin’ my thoughts tickle my head. It was great being in the Poppers. It was great having a stud like Torchy. He was on his way up in the Poppers. Soon as Corks moved out or was canned, Torchy was in line for prez. That was smooth!

Then I thought of two months back, when Twist had locked me in, and made passes. That bastard! He hadn’t looked at me cross-eyed since then, and damned lucky for him, too!

As if I’d sent out a signal, just by thinking of him, Twist came into Perky’s. I saw him give Torchy and a couple of other studs the motion, and we made it over to a booth where he’d sat down.

He still looked greasy.

“I got a sweet rumble,” he said, fingering the plastic squeeze-bottle of ketchup.

“What’s the bit?” asked Ace, a slim, good-looking boy with dark curly hair. I liked him too, but not as much as my Torchy.

“Look, we been in Fat Benny’s quite a while now. Almost eight months. That sloppy robber’s been taking all our change for the pool we played. He didn’t charge us no rent, but he made more off us in pool, than if he had. Right?” We all nodded.

“Okay, then. Here’s the move: tonight, when that greaseball closes up, we knock him a good one, swipe the till, and get all our pool money back!” He was grinning that sick grin again, and I cooled the idea fast, but the other Poppers seemed to dig it.

“It’ll only take five, six of us to cool him,” Twist said. “He’d never tell the cops it was us. If he did, he’s afraid we’d tell the bulls he was selling us pot on the side. Is it a go?” He looked around anxiously.

I heard all those cats say, “Yeah, yeah, it’s a real kill!” I didn’t like it, and I liked it less when he leaned over toward Torchy and me and said, “Torch, how’s ’bout you running sideboy with me? You can even bring Chickie with!”

Torchy grinned right back at the slob. I hadn’t told him about the deal in the back room at Fat Benny’s, and he thought Twist was okay. I nudged him to show I wanted out, but he thought I meant yes, and said, “Okay, man! You got a sideboy. Chickie’d just love to accompany us, wouldn’tcha, babe?”

I couldn’t face down, then. “Yeah, sure,” I said, like I was eating lemons.

They set it for one o’clock that night, when Fat Benny closed; then we broke up. I didn’t like it. Uh-uh. Not a bit. But I was in for the whole ride.

We walked in just as Fat Benny was slapping all the dough into a sack. He always carried it over to the bank and put it into the night vault after he’d closed up, so we wanted to get him before he hit the street.

“Hi, Benny!” Ace says, walking in.

We came right behind him: me. Torchy, Stick, Twist and another deb named Loolie. “Hi. Poppers!” He wasn’t too sure what we were doing there that late, since we’d told him we were moving out of the back room in a few days.

“Just thought we’d drop by, say hello,” Twist said. He moved toward the counter. Benny was behind it, and we could see through the glass of the candy case his hand going toward the drawer under the register.

We all knew he kept a Luger in there. He used to take it out. flash it on us, chuckling like a baby with a rattle.

Stick saw him go for it first. He jumped, then, slid across the counter, right into Fat Benny. He hit him right in that blubber stomach, and Benny went back up against the wall with a whoosh!

But it didn’t cool him. The fat man locked his hands together, raised them over his head, brought them down crack into Stick’s face! Stick slid off the counter, behind the case, onto the floor. Then Fat Benny went for the Luger. He had it out, pointed at us, just as Ace slid his switch out of his jacket sleeve and lunged at him.

Fat Benny, real cool, put a slug into Ace’s kisser. Ace’s eyebrows shot up, his eyes opened wide—there wasn’t hardly anything left of the lower part of his face—and he turned around. I felt like vomiting.

He looked so surprised. Like it was his birthday and he’d gotten a present he hadn’t counted on. He had!

Then he started toward us, took one step, twisted his legs all up, and fell forward. He fell across Torchy’s dirty white bucks, getting them all red and sloppy, and Torchy let out one helluva scream, started for the door in a dead run!

Then we all broke.

Twist had his switch out, was making faint slashing motions toward Fat Benny, even as he ran out the door. I stayed kind of rooted to the spot for a second, still shook by the sight of Ace, till I saw that tiny barrel point at the spot between my breasts. Then I let out a howl and ran for my life.

I took off, ran out of the poolroom. I got to the alley and turned down. I ran like the wind, till I was stopped by the rear wall. I prayed he wouldn’t come looking in here. It was damned dark; it took me a minute to see there was someone down behind the garbage cans.

“Who’s that?” I mumbled.

“Twist!”

I didn’t care right then who it was—even if it was that crumb. I just slid in next to him, whispering, “What happened to your big deal. Big Man?”

Then I felt him handing me something long and cool. It was his switch. It was closed, but I knew it was a shank. My hand closed over it automatically.

“Take it!” he said, his voice rough. “The cops come after us, they won’t search you. Shove it in your bra! It’s a good one, so don’t lose it, for Christ’s sake. Give it back when…”

He trailed off into silence and I looked up, saw why.

There was a big fat shape blocking off the faint streetlight shine that flooded the front of the alley. It was Fat Benny.

He moved down the passage, slow, waving the Luger in front of him, like he was cleaning away cobwebs.

I got scared white, then.

“What’ll we do? He’ll find us!” I whispered.

“Not me,” said Twist. Then he was up, running for the wall. Suddenly Fat Benny did something I never thought he could do. He ran like a bat outta hell! He was faster than anything that big I’d ever seen.

The fat bum didn’t know I was there, but he saw Twist trying to climb the wall. He didn’t shoot—probably scared at what he’d done to Ace with that one bullet. But he jumped, grabbed Twist’s legs just as he started to scale the wall, and pulled him back.

He had Twist down in the alley, laying on his back. He bent over and raised the Luger. Then I heard him bring it down with a crunch into Twist’s kisser. He was beating the living hell outta Twist.

I don’t know what made me do it. I swear I don’t. If I had had time to think it out, I never would have done it. But I didn’t, and without even realizing it, I crept up behind Fat Benny. He was so intent on smashing in Twist’s face with that Luger blackjack, he wouldn’t have heard a DC-6 coming up behind him.

I pressed the stud. The switch went snick! and opened long and thin and smooth. I saw the streetlight shine off the length of it, then I shoved it into Fat Benny’s fat, fat neck. The thing went in so softly, I wasn’t sure I’d stuck him. So I did it again.

Then once more, just to make sure. Because by then I didn’t even know what I was doing.

Fat Benny turned half toward me, his mouth open like a fish out of water. He gabbled something I couldn’t make out, bubbled a little, then started toward me. He got about three steps in my direction, as I backed to the wall, then he tumbled forward.

He bounced, so help me God, he bounced. He was like these rocking horses that go forward and backward on curved boards. That’s what he did for a second. Then he kicked his left leg. Then he bubbled a little more. Then he was silent. Then he died.

I heard Twist getting up, crying again, blood all over his face. He wasn’t hurt too bad, though. His nose had been broken, but I’d gotten to Fat Benny before he could slam Twist too much. I’d saved his life, and I didn’t know why.

I couldn’t stand the sonofabitch, but I’d saved him!

Then I looked down at my hand. I still held the switch. I couldn’t let go.

“He’s cooled,” I heard Twist say.

I looked up and he was staring at dead, dead Fat Benny. Then he turned and looked at me. “You killed him. You did it!”

“I saved your stinking life, lover boy!” I replied.

“Yeah. Yeah,” he said. He said it real thoughtful, like an entirely new angle was coming to him. I didn’t like that tone. I liked that goddamned smile of his even less.

“How ’bout you being my drag now, Chickie?” he asked.

“What?” I almost yelled. He was out of his mind.

“Don’t you think you’d better?”

“You’re screwloose!”

“Yeah, maybe,” he said. “But what if I was to tell the cops what I know? What if I was to tell them you’d cooled Fat Benny here? They’re gonna be really looking for the characters did him out. Whaddaya think they’d do to you if they knew it was you?”

Then I caught the bit. That rat! That slob! That bastard! I’d saved a louse like that? I shoulda had my head examined.

I looked at his pimply, pocked face in the reflected streetlight. He was looking at me like I was a ripe fruit! He looked like hell.

Then I heard the sirens.

“Better make it quick, Chickie. You wanna marry up with me?”

I thought quick all right. No harm in going along with the gag for now. “Yeah. Yeah, sure, Twist honey. I’ll marry ya.”

He boosted me over the wall, then came over himself. While he was boosting me, even with the cops roaring up, he copped a cheap feel off me. That lousy crumb!

We started off down the alley on the other side.

Yeah. Yeah, sure I’ll marry you, you stinking bastard. I thought to myself. Sure. Marriages are made in Heaven. This one was made in hell. And that’s where you’re goin’ just as soon as I can arrange it. Twist lover!

We ran down the alley, Twist chuckling almost in my ear. I chuckled, too.

I looked down at my hand.

I was still carrying that smooth switch.

STUDENTS OF THE ASSASSIN

Tony and Pepper had it down to a ritual. Tony would walk up and ask the pigeon for a light, while Pepper curved in from the bushes. They always made certain there were bushes handy.

While the pigeon was busy putting the light to Tony’s ciggy. Pepper would lace him a couple times with a gloveful of half-dollars. Half-dollars worked best. No matter how broke they were—no matter how desperately their finances demanded they go on a job—they always had the half-dollars around. They worked best, that was all.

Then Tony would catch the pigeon and lower him away into the bushes. One, two, three and they were a block away, with the pigeon’s wallet, watch, rings and tie neatly shoved into the waistband of their slacks, of course, where any bulge made by the stuff they’d pinched would be covered by the fall of their flashy sports jackets.

It was Pepper who had started swiping the pigeon’s ties. Pepper was a real clotheshorse. He was a slim boy with dark hair and wise, old eyes that made him seem far older than the sixteen years indicated by his birth certificate. He was a quiet boy, with a nervous habit of biting the inside of his cheek when he was thinking. Tony couldn’t figure him.

The first time Pepper had unknotted an unconscious pigeon’s tie, Tony had said to him, “What the hell you wanna swipe that guy’s tie for?”

And Pepper had answered: “When I hit a drag at the Club, I want to look sharp, man. Why should I blow three, three-fifty, when most of these guys we’ve been rolling got nice ties I can’t afford? All I have to do is haul the tie off and use it myself! That ought to be easy enough to dig. Dig?”

“I dig, I dig.” Tony had answered, sucking his cheeks with annoyance. He’d never figure this Pepper. He’d known the kid two years, ever since he’d moved into Tony’s neighborhood, and they’d rolled maybe fifteen, twenty marks in the park. Yet, he still couldn’t figure the dark-haired boy.

Pepper didn’t seem to have the attitude of a good mugger. He didn’t want to wear the black leather jacket or jeans most of the kids affected when park-prowling. When Tony had first approached Pepper about jack-rolling, the dark-haired boy had looked up at him wisely from the tenement’s front steps, and asked, “We do it the way you guys been doing it? Jackets and jeans? Mug, then run like hell?”

Tony had spread his hands. “There’s another way?”

“If I start mugging pigeons with you,” Pepper had said, “we got to work it my way. My way once, twice and always! Dig?”

Tony had looked skeptical for a second, then dropped down next to Pepper on the steps. “So tell me what your way is.”

Pepper had told him, and though the idea was different to Tony, it seemed cool, and looked like it might work. So they had dressed in their best clothes: topcoats, jackets, slacks, gloves—and the half dollars—and taken to the park.

After they had rolled a guy, they joined the crowd, and no cop had yet stopped them. They just didn’t look like juvies. They were too well-dressed. Juvies always mugged wearing black jackets and heavy stomping boots.

It had worked fine, real fine, the last six months. They’d mugged twice as many marks as any other kids in the Club, and hooked twice as much dough. Pepper seemed to be a natural for this racket. A real mastermind!

Still. Tony felt ill-at-ease with Pepper. The kid was too quiet. Too sure of himself. All the Club members were sure of themselves—hell, Tony could swagger with the best of them—but not like Pepper. It was an animal grace, the way he walked. Like some cat-thing that knows someone might jump him at any second.

But as long as the money kept being as easy to pick up as it had been these last six months, Tony didn’t give a flying damn if Pepper walked on his hands!

Tony’s peace of mind might not have been the most serene with Pepper, but his faith had grown tremendously over the months. Now, tonight, they were going to take the second step. Tonight they would mug more than one person! You could stay in the peanut division only so long—then you had to move up.

Tonight: two pigeons would get cooled properly.

The evening was cool, but they hadn’t worn topcoats. The first twinges of spring were coming off the Hudson, and the park was loaded. Necking couples lay barefoot in each other’s arms, whispering inanities. Old women sat toothlessly humming on the Drive, staring at the tugs on the river. Mothers with socks and flats walked baby carriages, feigning nonchalance, inviting bench-warmers to coo at their kids. The park was loaded.

“Plenty of dough kicking around here tonight,” Pepper said, as they came down the hill into the Park.

Tony squinted against the sparkling light of the lamp posts. The evening was graying down, and shadows were starting to deepen across the grass. “Yeah. Maybe too much. How we gonna be able to pull anything off without anybody spotting us?”

Pepper grinned, revealing even, only slightly-stained teeth, and nudged him in the side. “Man, there ain’t no place better to pull off a job than in the center of a crowd. Specially in New York.”

They walked the pavements, watching the people, sizing up the crowd, making certain they knew where the cops were at all times.

The cops weren’t really as much of a problem as they had thought they’d be when they’d first started. There were only so many harness boys, and the few couldn’t be everywhere at once.

They left the sidewalk, after a while, and took to the paths leading through the bushes. It was always a soft touch if you could spot a guy making love to some chick in the bushes. They never set up a squawk till after you’d left—and the girl had fixed herself up. By then you could be blocks away; and with the foolproof disguise they had, they were a cinch to make it clean.

They were rounding a bend in the path, going up a slight slope around a boulder, when they spotted the first mark.

He was a young guy, walking with his arm around the waist of a girl in a flowery summer dress.

“He look like he’s got anything?” Tony asked. The occasional whine in the boy’s voice broke out, and was distinct as he asked the question. He was a year younger than Pepper, and it bothered the hell out of him.

Pepper turned halfway toward his companion, his voice lowered so the young couple should not hear. The wide grin spread once more. “He sure does. He looks like he’s got plenty to take his dollie out. That suit ain’t no Robert Hall item. We’ll take ’em. Dig?”

“Dig,” Tony replied emphatically. They prepared themselves, while the couple disappeared around the next bend in the path.

They hadn’t worn topcoats or gloves. It had turned too warm. But Pepper slipped the single black leather glove out of his inside jacket pocket, and dropped the eight half dollars into it. He held out his hand, and Tony funneled the other eight into the glove. The sixteen weights made a hefty fistful. The boys parted, slipping off the path, coming up on the strolling couple from either side of the path.

The boy was a tall, almost gangling fellow, freckles dotting his face, and an unruly head of auburn hair. He talked intently to the girl, leaning over and looking closely into her face.

It was obvious they were very much in love, for the girl stared back with an intentness equal to his own. She was a slim girl, rough-featured, but with beautiful, glossy black hair. They seemed lost in one another.

“Young love—ain’t it grand?” Tony jibed, pushing a bush aside, stepping onto the path behind them.

The freckle-faced boy dropped his arm from the girl’s waist, turning at Tony’s voice. “What…?”

He never finished the sentence. Pepper struck from slightly in front of the young couple, now that the boy had his back turned. He broke onto the path from the concealing bushes, swinging the heavily-laden glove. The weight crashed into the back of the boy’s skull, spinning him slightly. A second blow, almost before the first had finished its arc, caught him in the left eye, even as he tried to turn.

The second blow threw the boy back, and he staggered against the girl. “Oh, my God, Roger!” the girl screamed. Her eyes had grown wide and white in her pale face. She looked as though the white snow of her face had been spattered with ink.

“Ease it quiet, sister!” Tony snapped, stepping next to her. He grasped her by the upper arm, and drew her around.

“Leave him alone!” She screamed again, and this time spun on Tony. Surprisingly, her fingernails raked down the mugger’s face. Four thin lines of red welled up, though the skin was not broken.

Rage mottling his face, Tony threw a fist into the girl’s face, the fingers so tightly clenched they crackled at the knuckles. The fist caught the girl on the cheek, and she flailed back into the bushes. She fell heavily, swinging her weight around awkwardly on the foliage as she tried to grab a handhold. She fell to the ground, her skirt hiking up to reveal thin legs.

Pepper had pursued the boy, during Tony’s trouble with the girl. Again he lashed out with the weighted glove. This time the boy rolled with the blow, and swung on Pepper.

“You miserable…rotten…what do you think…you’re…” he panted, trying to land a wild blow on the agile Pepper. The first strike had affected him, however, and he stumbled after Pepper, who dodged quickly. The boy tripped on the rough ground.

He fell to his knees with a thud, and Pepper was in quickly. The young mugger grasped the boy’s long hair in both hands. The weighted glove gripped in his teeth, Pepper brought his knee up sharply, pulling the boy’s face down to it with savage viciousness. There was a crack! as they met and the boy’s nose skewed to the side, beginning to bleed. Again Pepper jack-kneed him, and this time the freckled boy’s eyes rolled up, as a hoarse moan slipped past his lips.

He fell sideways, doubling over.

Pepper took a deep breath, looked around for Tony. His partner was kneeling over the girl in the bushes. All Pepper could see of her was the pale white of legs and thighs protruding onto the path.

“For crine out loud! You miserable raunch, you!” Pepper spat at him, through thinned lips. “What a helluva time for you to pick a cheap feel! Get the hell out here and help me run over this guy before someone comes down the path!”

In a minute they had searched the boy, cleaned his wallet, removed his watch and ring; they removed the girl’s watch and rings also.

“Let’s go,” Pepper said, shoving the rings into the inner lining of his waistband, through the pockets.

Tony was looking down at the girl, still breathing raggedly, though unconscious. Her dress had been torn open at the neck, and one breast was nearly revealed. “Pity to let that stuff just lie there.” He shook his head sadly.

Pepper swung him around by the arm, cracked a flat hand into the boy’s face. A spot of angry red appeared, “Are you nuts?” Pepper seethed with incredulousness. “You want to stay here and greet the cops when this chick wakes up?”

Tony pursed his lips in undisguised anger. “Don’t you ever hit me like that again. I don’t give a damn how many guys we rolled together, I ain’t…”

Pepper stepped in to him quickly. “Oh, shut up, for Chrissakes. Don’t start bein’ a hero. Let’s pile outta here!”

They strode quickly back the way they had come. Around the bend past the boulder, down the slope, and across the darkening sidewalk. In a few minutes they were a block away, walking nonchalantly. No one could possibly have connected them with the mugging.

“That’s enough for tonight,” Tony said.

“You chickie?” Pepper goaded him. “We said two tonight, and two it’s gonna be. Dig?”

His anger still apparent, Tony mumbled, “Dig!”

A block later they had smoothed over their disagreement, and were looking for their second victim of the evening.

Two blocks behind them, in a stand of bushes, a dirt-smudged girl in a torn flowered print dress was coming to consciousness, to see the bloody beaten shape of her steady, lying doubled over. His skull was fractured.

The second mark, the second pigeon, was a natural. A twenty-four carat, diamond-encrusted natural. He was a tall, large-boned man with a sharp face, all planes and angles. He carried himself with an assured air, that wore well with his dark blue suit and grey snapbrim. He walked slowly down the sidewalk, between the trees, hands in pockets, a cigarette dangling at an impossible angle from his mouth.

Pepper looked at Tony. They were a double-dozen steps behind the man. Tony looked back at Pepper. An instant’s message flashed between them. This guy had been made for them! Pepper slipped off the sidewalk, into the dark area beside the route.

Tony shook a cigarette from his pack, stuck it in his mouth, and ambled up behind the man. An instant before the boy could tap the man on his shoulder, the man whirled.

He fastened an unwaveringly hard look on Tony, nearly a head and a half shorter than himself, and the words rapped out without inflection. “Something you want, kid?”

Tony stopped abruptly, the suddenness of the question throwing him momentarily off balance. He regained himself quickly, and tilted his face up to the man. The winking lights from across the river on the Jersey docks made diamonds in the tall man’s dark eyes. “Yeah. A light, if you’ve got one. I’m all out…” he said.

The man squinted an instant, then dipped a hand quickly into his jacket pocket, brought out a gold lighter. Tony stared at the instrument with open approval. It was a beautiful piece of equipment. He looked up quickly; the man had been watching him staring at the lighter.

The man clicked the lighter several times, till it lit, then offered his hand to Tony. It was rock-steady, and the flame moved only a fraction in the breeze. The boy edged closer, cupping his hands around the flame, keeping the wind off it, keeping the man’s attention fastened on himself.

From the corner of his eye, he could see Pepper edging out of the bushes behind the man, the glove hanging down tightly from Pepper’s upraised arm.

The barest flicker of Tony’s expression made the man’s eyes widen momentarily. Pepper was within a few steps of the man. bringing the gloveful of half dollars back even further for the strike, when the man spun around.

One thick hand shot out, grabbed Pepper around the throat, and heaved him off the ground with tremendous strength. The boy’s eyes rolled up in their sockets, and his mouth dropped open, though nothing came out.

The man lifted Pepper bodily, and flung him around his own outstretched leg. The boy flew through the evening air, and crashed into Tony, who had moved forward automatically as the man had grabbed Pepper. He had moved quickly, but even so, too slowly for the swiftness of what happened next.

They came together with an audible thump, and tumbled together onto the grass on the other side of the sidewalk.

In an instant, the man was on Tony. Dragging him erect, the man flat-handed the boy across the face…crack, crack, crack…crack, crack. Five sharp sounds echoed from the trees, and Tony’s head hung down, his eyes closed, the corner of his mouth bleeding; unconscious.

Pepper was trying to scramble to his feet, trying to rush away from this suddenly terrifying pigeon who was beating hell out of them. He took two steps, then the man had him by the collar of his sports jacket, and Pepper felt the flat edge of a hand as it snapped quickly down—then away.

For a second he felt nothing. Then the blackness oozed over him, and he joined Tony.

They came to almost within seconds of each other. They were lying stretched out, under a tree, in full view of the night-lit Hudson and the Drive. Cars roared past them in a whishing stream, metallic blurs without meaning or rest. The night had closed down completely. The park lights were on, but fewer people bulked on the benches.

The man was sitting with his face in darkness, the orange snip of his cigarette showing against total shadow. He was sitting, with his hands clasped around his drawn-up knees, hat slipped back on his head.

Pepper fluttered his eyelids first, raised himself off the ground, then moaned weakly and fell back on the grass. The striking of his head made booming and lights in his skull; the tiny pinpoints of light erupted on the inner surface of his eyelids. “Oh. God!” he moaned, rising up a bit on flattened palms. “What s-slammed me? Oh God!”

Tony’s dry gulping rattled in at that moment. He muttered a half-formed oath, slid his eyes open a fraction and stared sidewise at the man. The man arched his eyebrows as he looked down at the boy with interest. He held his head at an odd angle, looking down over the slope of his own shoulder.

The man scissored two fingers into his shirt pocket and withdrew another filter cigarette. He removed the butt of the first cigarette from his thinned lips and lit the second one with its glowing tip. He dragged deeply, to start the fresh cigarette properly. Then he said, “Up. I want to talk.”

The boys looked at each other across the grass. A mixture of wariness and terror minded in their glances. The two muggers struggled erect slowly. Tony tried to get to his feet, the intention to run like hell obvious in his movements. The man clamped a thick hand on the boy’s shoulder, bumped him down hard. Tony scrunched his face up in pain, and bit his lip. “What d’you want with us? You a cop?”

The man didn’t need to shake his head, but he did. It was obvious he was no harness boy. Pepper and Tony could see that immediately: even so there was a small victory in getting the stranger to declare his position. But he was no cop; he was dressed too well. He had too many expensive accessories, like the lighter, and the gold watch that peeked out from under a French cuff.

“No cop. I just want to talk.” the man added, still puffing deeply but thoughtfully on the fresh cigarette.

Pepper scrutinized the man. He looked as though his face was made of glass. The features were so sharply defined, framed by the light of the lamp posts, the boy was certain he’d slice a finger were he to run it over the man’s chin or cheekbone.

“Talk about what?” Pepper asked cautiously.

“You aren’t in much of a position to argue, are you?” the man said slowly, almost tauntingly. He had an infuriating smugness about him. He lipped the cigarette in a corner of his gash mouth, and smiled with all the knowledge it took to put Pepper and Tony away in the Home for five years.

“What’re your names?” the man asked, watching them carefully, almost narrowly.

“Jim,” said Tony.

“Arnie,” said Pepper.

They spoke almost at once, the words leaping out simultaneously.

The man’s hand lashed across, first in one direction, then backhand in the other. The boys clutched their heads as throbbing aches started once more. “Why the hell’d ya do that?” Pepper cried.

“Lie once more, and I’ll make damned certain the next park bull that crosses here takes you rummy little creeps with him. Do you understand me?”

They nodded sullenly.

“Now,” he said, gently again. “Let’s have your names. I mean, your names!” He placed a no-mistaking emphasis on the phrase.

They gave him their proper names, all the while staring sullenly at the ground.

“Look, mister,” Pepper said in a juvenile tone, “if you want to toss us to a cop, why the hell don’t you do it. Get it over with!”

“I don’t want to toss you to any cop,” the man said. “I dig you boys. I think you got real initiative; real guts and spunk. I like you!”

The boys looked briefly at one another, then back at the man. Confusion mirrored itself in their faces.

The man laughed shortly. His voice was only faintly tinged with sarcasm. He smiled, and ruffled Tony’s curly hair in a movement that made the boy start nervously. It had been a fatherly movement.

“You a fag?” Tony asked, but stopped short as a look of anger spread across the man’s face. The stranger made a hesitant motion of violence toward him. “Sorry, sorry…never can tell.”

“No, I’m not gay.” He took a deep breath, changing the subject, with obvious distaste for the previous track of thought. “My name may be familiar to you. Topper Kalish?

“Know it?” He waited, watching their faces almost expectantly.

The muggers looked at one another, then back to him, in astonishment. “You say Kalish?” Tony asked, amazed. The man nodded, smiling.

“Jeezoo, you’re the biggest!” Pepper blurted with awe.

“You held up the Sun Savings and Loan…”

“They still want you for cooling that guy and his doll…what was his name…that guy…?” Pepper mumbled.

The man supplied a name. “Marty Jukovsky?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s the guy. The big boy in the numbers racket downtown!” Pepper stared back at the man with open-mouthed admiration. “They got that hood that paid you to knock Jukovsky off. y’know,” Pepper informed the shadowy bulk that was Topper Kalish.

“He told ’em you got twenty-five grand to do the job! Gee, you’re the biggest!”

“That’s the trouble,” Kalish sucked on a tooth. “That’s why I’m walking around down here. I can’t find a good place to stash the dough till I can come get it. I’m hot, now. I have to cool off where the cops can’t find me.

“Then you two tried to roll me. That was the real finishing touch!” He started to laugh, rocking back and forth, still hugging his knees.

“Crineoutloud, Mr. Kalish,” Tony said, embarrassed, “we’re awful sorry we jumped ya. If we’d of known who you was, we’d of never…”

“Forget it.” Kalish waved the apology away. “I think it’s one of the luckiest things ever happened to me.”

“But…”

“I said forget it. I like you two. You fit into a thought I been having the last few days, while I’ve been looking for a place to hide out.” He paused and removed his hat. Setting it beside him on the grass, he rubbed the back of his neck as though he were overcome with weariness.

“What’s that? What you been thinking?” Tony asked anxiously.

Pepper nudged the curly-haired boy in the ribs. “Why don’t you stop flappin’ your lips. Let him tell us if he wants to. This ain’t some poolroom flunky—this is Mr. Kalish! So shut up for a change!” His face had darkened with anger, but the shadows of the evening hid the change in expression.

“No, that’s okay,” Kalish said magnanimously, “I want to tell you kids because I think you might be the answer.

“You see, I’m pretty hot, and there ain’t nobody that will work with me. They’re all scared. I been thinking the last couple days, why not bring a couple boys up from the ground. You know, train them—make them my apprentices. I could teach a couple boys a helluva lot about this business.” He stopped again, looking at them meaningfully.

As he had spoken, their faces had come alive with excitement.

“Interested?” Kalish asked.

“Interested! Interested?” Pepper blurted. “Are you kiddin’? You bet your life we are! Hey, that would really be somethin’! To work with Topper Kalish! Geezoo!”

“You kids haven’t got no ties—no folks that’ll start lookin’ for ya if you were to go away—have you?” Kalish inquired.

Pepper snorted a half-laugh. “Me? Nothin’ but a rummy old man that’ll be dead before winter anyhow. I’m free.”

They looked at Tony.

“Well…” he began, slowly, “…I dunno. My old lady don’t worry about me a helluva lot, but she might…if I was to go away…”

Pepper nudged him again. “You can do it, Tony. Your old lady’s too busy tryin’ to get your sister a husband.” He added in an undertone, “When she ain’t gettin’ layed by the milkman or the buyer from the Woolworth’s.”

“Listen! You just watch your goddam mouth, you lousy…! He cut himself short, and lunged across at Pepper. The other boy countered quickly and slapped Tony hard across the mouth.

They were about to go at it when the man dragged them apart with a half-snarl. “Can it! Or I got to look for two other kids. I don’t want no fighting between you. Understand?”

They nodded, sullenly. Tony’s face came up with a fierce expression on it. “I don’t give a dam what he says!” He jerked a thumb in Pepper’s direction. “But my old lady ain’t been doing nothin’ but tryin’ to get the cops to put me away anyhow.

“No, I ain’t got nothin’ to worry about if I leave.” He glared at Pepper momentarily, then looked down at his hands.

“Okay, then.” Kalish smiled. “Here’s the idea…”

They sat and talked for another hour, till the park cop came around to tell them the park was being emptied. Kalish turned his face toward the Hudson, quickly, till the cop passed into the dusk, to the next group of people.

“The parks always empty out after ten,” Pepper said. “It keeps the muggers away.” He grinned wolfishly.

“Come on,” Kalish said, “let’s find a place for me to hide out. I want to talk some more to you boys. I feel like you’re my own kids already. I’m sure we can hit it off.”

“Where away?” Pepper asked.

“I know a joint up on a Hundred-and-Fourteenth where they don’t give a damn who you are, long’s you got the dough for a room. You can do any goddam thing you want in there if you don’t burn the joint down,” Tony said quickly.

Kalish nodded. “That sounds like the joint. Let’s roll.”

They got up, brushing dirt and grass from their pants. Kalish walked off, up the slope, the two admiring boys a step behind him, excitement in their eyes.

It was a short walk to Kalish’s car.

The next two months with Topper Kalish were an education for Tony and Pepper.

Kalish had at one time been the chief triggerman for the Combine. He had been turned out a few years back because his face and gun were too well known. That he had not been killed was a testimony to the perfection of his past services.

Kalish had gone out on his own, and the trigger business was bigger than ever. He had even branched out on his own into armed robbery and small-job heists.

He was a craftsman, and did a job right. Except for the method he used. It was too rough for most of the New York gangs. No one wanted Topper Kalish working with them. He was a brutal man, receiving an almost fantastic pleasure from inflicting pain on anyone he robbed or killed.

The boys had been with Topper two months, before he scheduled them to come with him on a really big job. They had lived in the furnished room on 114th Street, and gone out with him only once or twice.

They had seen Kalish in action only once, and tonight was going to be a big night!

They remembered the first time they’d seen Topper work.

He had needed some quick cash. The money from the Jukovsky slaying was too hot—too many big bills. He needed quick money. He had taken a bar over the ropes to the tune of eight hundred bucks.

“Bars ain’t the easiest joints to lift,” Pepper had said warily. They were in Kalish’s car, parked two doors down from George and Lenny’s Bar & Grill.

“Watch me,” Kalish had replied, shoving the .32 into his waistband.

He had gotten out of the car, and walked into the bar, the boys following behind. They had taken a table close to the front door, while Topper had walked to the bar.

The bartender, a heavy and bald man with protruding ears, had smiled up, and Topper had asked him, “Are you George or Lenny?”

“I’m Freddy—I only work here.” The big man had begun to turn away, just as Topper had whipped out the gun, covered by his other hand, and said, low so no one but the barkeep could hear: “Well, George, Lenny or Freddy—I don’t give a damn which—walk real slow over to that register and take out every last bill. Bring it back here real quick, or I might decide to smear your face across that backbar mirror with this.” He had jiggled the gun, and the boys had smiled as they saw the big man’s face slide to deathly white.

But he didn’t flicker an eyelid. He had turned and walked to the cash register. He had punched the “No Sale” button and as the drawer banged open, had reached in.

Kalish had leaped onto the barstool, and one-armed over the counter, firing as he vaulted. The bullet had caught the bartender under the right eye and—as Topper had warned—plastered the back of the man’s head across the mirror wetly. The body had sagged out of sight as Topper had scooped up the money in the till and leaped back across the bar.

So quickly had Topper moved, that people sitting right in front of the bartender as his pulpy body had dropped in the duckboards, had not realized what was happening. By the time they were yelling and dropping onto the floor, the women were screaming, the drinks and stools were overturned, Topper had been halfway to the front door, the boys already in the car and revving the motor.

They had been around the corner and disappeared before the front door of the bar had erupted people, screaming, “Cop! Cop! Call the cops! Robbery! Murder!”

It had been eight hundred bucks. That fast.

The boys had been impressed by the sureness and authority in Topper’s movements.

That was why tonight was big to them. Tonight they were going to help Topper Kalish on his big job. They had listened to what he had said, and now they were more than ready.

Topper had given each of them a gun, a smooth and loaded .32, and they were prepared to study—if not assist—the way Topper Kalish earned his living.

Topper’s inconspicious grey Ford cruised crosstown on 110th, traveling well within the speed limit. “You boys remember everything I told you?”

“We learn fast, Topper,” Pepper said.

“Where we hitting tonight?” Tony asked, matter-of-factly.

“A candy store,” Topper answered, his even, white grin spreading. He massaged the steering wheel.

Tony, in the back seat, let out a startled, “What?” His voice registered amazement. “A candy store?”

“That’s right,” Topper answered, cutting off a cab at the light. The motor idled, and Topper looked back quickly at the confused Tony. “A candy store. Haven’t you ever been in a candy store?”

The light turned, and Topper accelerated rapidly. “Sure, sure. We been in a candy store, Topper,” Tony said, still bewildered, “but why you want to hold up a…?”

“The front is a candy store,” Topper cut him off. “The rear is a floating crap game that doesn’t float a helluva lot A Mrs. Chaplin and her old man run the place up front and get a cut off the game in the back. I used to sit in and make a few bucks there; tonight I’m gonna make more than a few.

“I got word there’s a big set-to running this evening. A couple of big boys from out of town with wads.” He made a circle with thumb and forefinger, waggled it beside his head. “A sure thing.

“What do we do?” Pepper asked quietly.

“You just sit in the car, and keep the motor hot Any cops come on the picture, you cool them off proper. That’s what you got rods for. Okay?”

“Okay, Topper.”

Pepper said softly, “We’ll take care of everything.”

They could see into the shop clearly. The evening was a summery lightness, and the wide door and window of the candy store afforded them a straight view. They could, in fact, almost hear what was being said. It wasn’t a very busy block, this time of the evening.

Topper walked in, and bought a pack of cigarettes. Then he leaned across the counter, talking to the old woman, who nodded and bobbed her head in answer to his questions. Topper jerked a thumb toward the door set into the back wall of the candy shop, and the woman shook her head with vehemence.

“Ain’t he the greatest!” Pepper admired him from the car.

“Yeah. He’s really something,” Tony agreed with pride.

Topper made hand movements the boys were certain meant he wanted into the back room. But the old woman was firm. She was a wrinkled thing, almost prune like, with stringy, dirty white hair falling down to her shoulders. She shook the wrinkled head on the wrinkled neck. Not and called out, loud enough so the boys could hear, Sigmund! Sigmund! Come here, qvick!”

The back door opened, and an old man, equally as wrinkled as the old woman, nut-brown and hunched over, limped out.

Abruptly, before the old man could shut the door, Topper had his gun out. He gripped it by the barrel and charged the old man.

The old man fell back, the door slamming shut, a look of terror on his face, as Topper smashed into him. They heard Topper give a short, sharp laugh as he smashed the gun’s butt across the old man’s face. The man screamed, and Topper hit him again, harder. The old man’s face seemed to fly apart under the viciousness of Topper’s blows.

They could hear Topper chuckling as though he were enjoying himself. The old man collapsed across a rack of paperback novels and fell to the floor, dragging the rack with him. Topper raised one foot.

The old woman screamed again and again. Shrilly.

She seemed unable to drag her eyes off the beaten mess on the floor. Her eyes were wide, and she dug her blunt fingers into the loose folds of her face, the terror streaming across her features.

“Ain’t he something!” Tony said, with ill-concealed good humor.

“Really someth…” The words were sliced off suddenly. He looked down the block. A cop was running from the corner, drawn by the old woman’s screams.

“Cop,” Tony said, quietly opening the door on his side.

“Yeah…cop,” Pepper whispered, getting out.

They walked away from the car quickly, to the opposite curb, stepping swiftly into the shadows of a doorway.

They still watched Topper in the store, and the running cop, coming on fast.

“Looks like the cop’ll take him, doesn’t it?” Pepper said.

“Suppose so.”

“We were supposed to take care of cops, you know,” Pepper said seriously.

“Think we should?” Tony said, making no move from the doorway.

“Ain’t that Topper something!” replied Pepper, ignoring Tony’s question.

The woman was crying hysterically, trying to climb out from behind the counter, over a soft drink cooler. Calmly, and with deliberation, Topper took aim and put three shots into her. The first two were calculated to cripple her, which they did; they caught her in the hip, as she struggled to the top of the cooler. Brittle old bones shattered, and with a scream she fell across, tumbling onto the floor. The third shot was a clean one into the face.

Topper turned toward the back door, which was coming open. Men in shirtsleeves appeared in the doorway, and Topper dumped two more bullets in their direction, sending one man slipping through, clutching his shoulder.

At that second, the cop burst into the shop.

“Too late now,” said Pepper, watching the scene.

“Um-hmm,” Tony agreed. They watched.

Topper spun, saw the cop, and emptied the gun at him hurriedly. The cop took the slugs in his side, and spun around, into the candy counter. In an instant, Topper was out in the street, making for the car.

He stopped short and yanked open the front door, started to jump in. Then he noticed it was empty. He began to get out, looking for the boys. “Hey! Hey. Pepper! Tony! Where are y…” He managed to spot them just an instant before the cop dragged himself through the front door and dumped all six shots from his .38 Special into Topper’s retreating form.

Topper gave one high-pitched, soprano scream, then tumbled forward, falling against the car, running his clutching hands down its dusty surface in five wiggling lines as he fell. The sound was like fingernails scratching across a blackboard.

He fell backwards and lay with knees folded under him, like the fake blind men who fold their knees under them in the subways. He lay on the sidewalk, still pulsing, bleeding his life away.

From the doorway across the street, Pepper pursed his lips. “Looks like Topper’s dead.”

“Looks like it, don’t it?”

“Better go and take a look.”

“Might as well.”

The crowd had deepened around the body. There was another crowd around the wounded cop, and in the store. But the crowd was biggest around the body of Topper Kalish, who lay with an angry circle of blood under him.

The people looked down, and the horror was in their faces, their voices muted but their words unmistakable.

“Monster!” A woman with a coat pulled on over her nightgown spat on the body. “A real monster! You see what he did to that poor Mrs. Chaplin?”

“Migod in Heaven,” said a man. The backs of his feet were red and horny in the bedroom slippers. “He should of been shot dead before he was turned out into these streets loose!”

Tony and Pepper looked at one another. Tony said, “Wonder what they was doing in bed this early in the evening?”

Pepper bent down, hands on knees. “First two caught him in the neck.”

He drew back as one man with army boots stepped up and kicked—in a burst of bravado—the dead face of Topper Kalish. The sirens of the ambulances shattered the crowd noises, as they streaked whitely to the curb.

Pepper and Tony stood on the inside of the circle that surrounded Topper’s body. They listened to the mutters and curses directed at the dead man.

“A monster!” the woman repeated. “A real monster; Just look what he done! And that’s what got him caught!”

“Yeah,” Pepper muttered to Tony, “look what he done.”

Tony nodded. “Look what got him caught.”

Pepper turned away suddenly, his face clear and untroubled. Under his breath, but loud enough so that Tony could hear and agree, “He was the greatest. But we know better.”

Three nights later, a bar on Amsterdam and 83rd Street was held up. for over six hundred dollars.

Questioned later, the bartender and witnesses swore the robbers were young boys.

They made a point of remarking that the boys were overly polite, and were certain to treat everyone with respect and kindness—up to the point that such an act would allow them to conduct their business. They had not hurt anyone, and had spoken with “sirs” and “ma’ams” that had amazed the crowd.

One woman remarked, in fact, that though she had been relieved of sixty-eight dollars, her watch and rings—and her companion had lost as much money, his watch and, oddly enough, his tie—“They seemed so mannerly. Like such fine boys. How could they have become criminals?

“I wonder where could have learned anything like that!”

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Introduction: “Avoiding Dark Places,” copyright © 1983 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

Introduction to First Edition: “Some Sketches of the Damned,” copyright © 1958 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1986 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“Rat Hater,” copyright © 1956 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1984 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“I’ll Bet You a Death,” copyright © 1956 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1984 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“We Take Care of Our Dead,” copyright © 1957 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1985 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“The Man With the Golden Tongue,” copyright © 1961 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1989 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“Johnny Slice’s Stoolie” (under the title “I Never Squealed!”), copyright © 1956 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1984 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“Joy Ride,” copyright © 1958 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1986 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“Buy Me That Blade” (under the title “Buy Me That Knife!” by “Ellis Hart”), copyright © 1957 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1985 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“The Hippie-Slayer” (by “Jay Solo”), copyright © 1968 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1996 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“Kid Killer,” copyright © 1957 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1985 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“With a Knife in Her Hand,” copyright © 1957 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1985 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“Sob Story” written with Henry Slesar (under the title “He Disappeared!” and the joint pseudonym “Sley Harson”), copyright © 1956 by Harlan Ellison and Henry Slesar. Renewed, 1984 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation and The Estate of Henry Slesar.

“Look Me in the Eye, Boy!” (by “Ellis Hart”), copyright © 1957 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1985 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“The Dead Shot,” copyright © 1956 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1984 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“Ship-Shape Pay-Off’ written with Robert Silverberg (under the title “Pay Up or Else”), copyright © 1957 by Harlan Ellison and Robert Silverberg. Renewed, 1985 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation and Agberg, Ltd.

“Made in Heaven” (under the title “The Big Rumble” by “Ellis Hart”), copyright © 1956 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1984 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

“Students of the Assassin,” copyright © 1956 by Harlan Ellison. Renewed, 1984 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

Copyright © 1958, 1975 by Harlan Ellison
Copyright © 1983 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation, renewed 1986, 2003

Cover design by Open Road Integrated Media

ISBN 978-1-4976-0480-3

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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