Chapter Eleven:

Saturday Night

Rusty caught him low in the small of the back, just as the door swung inward. He hit him with his bad shoulder—the one Boy-O had injured with the chair—and the pain washed Rusty anew. But the force of his drive from the back stairway sent the man spinning forward, to crash into the wall of the apartment's hall. Rusty stumbled forward after him, grasping the door by the huge center-set brass doorknob and thrust it closed. It was pitch dark and Rusty fumbled for a switch, found it, clicked it on.

The man had fallen over and was just starting to rise, supporting himself on the wall, as Rusty clipped him again. The man caught it behind the ear and lost his balance. His short, sharp exclamation of agony was cut off as his face hit the polished tile of the hallway floor. He rolled a few inches and lay on his stomach, the camel's hair coat bunched around him. He struggled on palms to rise. He could not make it and slumped down, breathing heavily. One hand went to his head, feeling the spot where Rusty had hit him.

Rusty used his foot to roll the man over.

He had a thin, pale face, with deep hollows under the eyes. His hair was thinning and brushed straight back from his high forehead. A birthmark purpled his cheek almost at the left corner of his lips. His eyes were green and smoked with pain. Rusty had seen the expression in those eyes in other eyes, too often lately, for it to escape him. He bent down and brought the man to his feet with difficulty. The man struggled in Rusty's grip, but Rusty was as tall as the other, and held him fiercely.

"You don't give me no trouble, Mr. Morlan, an' we'll be okay." He hauled him across the hall, into the darkness of the living room. As Rusty struggled across the room, he knocked against a floor lamp and quickly switched it on with one hand, regaining his hold before the gray-haired man could break away. All the way across the room he maintained a precarious grip on his companion.

The strength was flowing back into the man's body, and suddenly he shoved Rusty from him, at the same moment hurling himself sidewise.

Rusty tried to grab him, but the gray-haired man eluded the boy's attack, and ran into a bedroom off the living room. He slammed the door and Rusty heard it lock.

Suddenly Rusty realized how scared he was and what he was doing. If this man—and it was certain this was Morlan—called the police, they would arrest Rusty for housebreaking and assault. He went to the door of the bedroom and put his ear against it. He could hear vague sounds of movement from within.

There was no keyhole in the door.

He didn't know if he could do it, but he had to try breaking in that door, before Morlan could use the phone. He stepped back and took a run at the door. He hit it with his good shoulder, and even so felt the pain down his side. The door held and he was thrown back violently.

He tried it again.

He hit it from closer up, harder, and this time he felt pressure ease as the door strained on its hinges.

Again, and this time he heard the faint crackle of wood preparing to splinter as the center panel of the door began to buckle. Still nothing from the man within.

He smashed against the door for the fourth time and it crashed inward before him, slamming against the inner wall. The brittle metal of the lock itself had snapped. Pieces of metal hit the floor with soft clatters, and Rusty was shot through into the center of the bedroom.

He had been wrong. The man within was not calling the police. The phone stood unattended on the night stand. The gray-haired man was standing half-turned toward Rusty, trying to extricate something from a messy tangle of papers and stray objects in a wall safe.

A picture had been revolved upward on the wall, and now hung upside-down, grotesquely framing the gray-haired man who yanked at something in the safe, and abruptly spun full-face to Rusty—a gun in his hand.

Without thinking Rusty threw himself forward. He hit the bed just as the revolver went off and behind him he heard the bullet smash into the wall. He bounced off the bed and came at the gray-haired man from the side. Tackling him as he would have brought down a man on the football field at a pick-up game, Rusty caught Morlan around the knees and dug in.

They fell backward and Morlan crashed to the floor, still holding onto the revolver. He tried to bring it down on Rusty's head, but the boy threw up a protecting arm and caught the other's wrist as it came down.

Rusty swung over his head at the older man's face. He could not see, but he felt and heard the blow land. The other slumped back on the floor, and the hand that held the revolver opened. Rusty took the weapon, and got to his feet. The bedroom was a wreck.

For a moment Rusty considered using the gun to beat what he wanted from this man, but the memory of Boy-O was still tonight-fresh, and he turned and thrust it back into the wall safe. He slammed the circular plug and spun the tumbler knob. He revolved the picture back into place.

Behind him on the floor, the man said levelly, "If I hadn't been so nervous and forgot the combo to my own safe, I'd have gotten that gun sooner—and I'd of killed you!"

Rusty did not smile. He dragged the man to his feet and pushed him ahead, back into the living room. "But you didn't get it in time, so we're right back where we started from."

He shoved the man into a deep wine-colored armchair. Rusty stood watching him carefully for a second. "You Morlan?"

The gray-haired man looked up with a surly, confused, frightened expression on his face. "I have no money on me. It's all locked in my office downtown. You're wasting your time. I have a few dollars …" he contradicted himself, "you can have that if you get out right now—"

"What about your safe in there, where we were?" Rusty asked sarcastically, indicating the bedroom with a jerk of his head.

"You little whelp bastard!" the man's voice was rough and angry, but lit with fear. He studied the boy before him with an intense wariness.

"No dough. That ain't what I'm here for. I want some talk with you, mister. That's all I want." Rusty marveled to himself how calmly he was talking to this animal who had murdered and defiled his sister and whom he was about to kill.

A change of expression came over the man's face and he sat forward, massaging the back of his head. "Who the hell are you?"

"You Morlan?"

"Yes, goddamnit! I'm Emil Morlan, now what do you want?"

Rusty took a deep breath. He had known it, of course, but to hear him say it, was something else entirely. The end of the road. All screwed up and confused and no reason for suspecting this man—except here was the camel's hair coat—but here he was. He'd forced his way into a swanky apartment and he was about to commit a murder. Not a switch stand or a zip duel or a brick in the head in an alley—but cold, sharp murder. He would stomp this man to dust beneath his boots.

"Why'd you kill my sister?"

Morlan's face went back into shadow. His eyes opened wider. He let his mouth move and his hand came away from the bruise on the back of his head. "You're that kid from way downtown. What's your name—"

"Santoro," Rusty tossed it at him, hard. "Russell Santoro, an' my sister's name was Dolores. Remember now?"

He started forward and had his hand wrapped in the full, thick cloth of the camel's hair coat before Morlan yelled, "Wait a minute! Hold it! For Christ's sake, hold it, not me, not me! I didn't touch her! I wasn't anywhere near her! I can prove it. Stop!"

Rusty was close to him, bending over the chair, half-dragging Morlan erect. "Then talk mister, talk so fast, 'cause I'm gonna do something, one way or the other. Talk now and make it good, or Jeezus I'll k-kill ya …" Rusty's voice broke, and he found himself trembling with fury. The shaking concentrated in a tic and it battered hot and fast in his cheek, and the pain hit him in the gut again when he thought of Dolores and the days of looking, and now it was almost finished. Everything was almost finished.

Morlan tried to talk, but Rusty had him too close under the chin with the coat wrapped in his fist. He motioned futilely and struggled to speak. Rusty backed off a little, letting loose of the coat.

Morlan started to talk fast and he did not stumble or hesitate. He could not afford to be slow or inarticulate. His life hung on his glibness. He tumbled it all out in one wild rush of words.

"I didn't do it. I had nothing to do with it. I heard from one of my contacts all about it and that someone had given you my name, or what I looked like. I tell you I was nowhere near there that night. I was down in your neighborhood, but I was nowhere near your sister. You've got to believe me. I was down there—because—because—"

Rusty tried to stop the trembling with an abrupt movement and nodded his head sharply. "I know you push the stuff into my turf—an' Cherokee turf, too—so stop the crappin' around. Gimme the scoop, or I'll put you down final, right now."

Morlan continued, anxiously spilling it all out. "I went down there with a couple of friends to see a man who's been cutting in on our trade. He's been raising his own stuff in a deserted lot behind this dry cleaning place. He's got it in the middle of a thick patch of weeds. Nobody would recognize what it is, even if they should stumble on it. Just some pretty flowers—"

Rusty thought solidly. He had gone through that empty lot a hundred times. In fact, he had been through it just the last week, looking for Boy-O. So someone was raising tea in that field. He turned his attention back to Morlan.

"This guy's been supplying a few people and for a time it didn't bother us, he was on such a small scale. But he's been branching out, starting to grind up more snuff. Then a few weeks ago he tried to put the scare into my pusher down there—" Rusty knew he must mean Boy-O, "—so my pusher told my contact man to put a scare into this creep. I went down there with a pair of buddies who used to box a little, to scare him off our territory. We don't kill people. I'm a businessman. I got interests all over town, I can't afford that kind of stuff."

Rusty found himself believing Morlan, though he knew with each bit of belief his solution to Dolo's murder was dissolving. But he could not bring himself to kill that easily. He wanted a passage out.

"When I got down there, I saw the guy, and he wouldn't be scared off. He was pretty big and it would have been a bad fight if my friends had jumped him. Anyhow, he ran away when my two friends tried talking to him. I saw my pusher down there and told him we'd handle this guy and not to worry about it.

"That was when this affair at the bowling alley occurred. My pusher told me they were high on my snuff and I warned him that I didn't want to be involved.

"Then my two friends and I came back. I went on to a party—I can prove it—and the next day I got word that a girl had been killed, and one of my sources down there—" again Rusty knew Morlan meant Boy-O, "—told me this big guy that has been cutting in on us, he had given you a description of me and told you I did it."

Rusty stopped him. "What proof you got that you was at this party, and not down in Cougar turf?"

Morlan started to rise. Rusty made to stop him, then let him get up. Morlan went to an ornate Oriental-engraved breakfront and pulled open a drawer. Rusty moved over to make certain it was not another gun the gray-haired man was getting. Morlan pulled out a folder and opened it. The folder was an eight by ten nightclub photograph in a white cardboard frame. It showed Morlan at a table with several brassy-looking women and a half dozen other men all of his approximate age, all wealthy and shifty looking. A newspaper clipping was tucked into one corner of the photo.

He picked it out and showed it to Rusty. It was a replica of the larger photograph, with a gossip columnist's story attached, giving the date the party had occurred, and noting that in the background could be seen on the stage, the remarkable new comedian—it gave a name Rusty did not know—in his first show.

Morlan went to the phone, dialed a number and said, "Is this the Golden Sparrow?" That was the name of the nightclub where the picture had been taken. "Let me speak to the manager." A pause, then Morlan said, "I'd like you to tell a friend of mine at what times the show goes on at your club." He said hold it a second and handed Rusty the receiver. Rusty took it and listened. The cultured voice of a man told him the hours of the two regular shows each night. In the background he could hear music and the noise of a crowd. Morlan was levelling.

He hung up, and handed Morlan the photo and clipping. Morlan put them away. Rusty was convinced. The first show, the show at which Morlan had been seen and photographed, had been on at almost precisely the time Dolores had been attacked in the alley. Morlan was plainly not the man.

Rusty had almost killed an innocent man.

Then why had he been after this Morlan and his camel's hair coat? Why? He knew, of course, but Morlan was speaking again.

"I never thought you'd get this far. I had a few feelers put out, to keep you away. I told my pusher down there to keep you off the scent, to get those kids to keep their mouths shut or we'd cut off their supply. I told him to find some other people to warn you away—" Rusty thought of Miss Clements and his own father and his stomach heaved, "—and they did it because they were afraid we'd stop their snuff if they didn't. The cops got nothing, so I figuredyou wouldn't get to me."

Rusty realized how lucky he had been. By bulling his way through to Mirsky—strictly by chance—and finding out the Cherokees had been doped up, he had traced it back to Boy-O, who had cracked and revealed his boss by the only possible torture method that would have worked. Then he had found Morlan, and though the police had found nothing, and Morlan did not suspect, Rusty knew one thing neither of them knew. The connecting link.

"Who is this guy that's been raising tea?" Rusty asked.

"I don't know his name. He's a big man, very big, with a face like an animal." Morlan seemed over-anxious to explain why he had tried to stop Rusty's search. "We were afraid with all the notoriety that fight had, it would come out that the kids were hopped-up. We paid to have it kept quiet, but with you running around, stirring up trouble, there was no way of telling how far you'd go. We had to keep you away, but we couldn't take a chance on hurting you. That would have started the rumors all over again, twice as loud."

"So why didn't you cool this guy since the rumble?"

Morlan spread his hands. "We couldn't do anything in that territory. Another killing would have really made it so hot we couldn't have covered it if we'd put all the money in the world into it. He's been cutting into our concession, but for now we have to let him have his way. We supply a lot of the city—you don't think we make our dough off school kids do you?—but we can't afford anyone cutting in, or pretty soon we'd have nothing left. You understand, don't you?"

Rusty let Morlan finish, a note of apology in his voice.

He took a step backward and turned. "S-sorry. Sorry I bothered ya. I'm … I'll be goin' now." He was dazed. It had dawned on him suddenly, a mixture of his own information and Morlan's description. It all fitted in now and it fitted properly. Except there was still no sense to it, down at the bottom. He should have known from the first. There had only been one link between Dolores and this man in the camel's hair coat. The rumble and the dope, they had been one thing, and Dolo's murder had been another. Two separate tracks, joined at only one place.

One link, and that link without verification. He had been going on the word of one man. And that man had been leading a double life. That man had lied to him, to create the link, so Rusty would come here and kill Morlan—who stood in the way.

It had been chance that the rumble had occurred the same night as Dolo's murder. Or perhaps Dolores' murder had been accomplished with the rumble as a distraction. If he had not driven Dolores out that night, if she had not gone to the dance to spite him, if he had not surrendered himself to his old vices when he had gone after her—he might have saved her.

But the murderer had used the hopped-up rumble as a club to get Rusty to do his dirty work. He had used Rusty as a tool, with one simple lie.

All birds with one stone.

So damned, completely obvious now and he had stumbled about like a blind man. Now he knew. Finally, he knew. You can't trust anyone. No one is a friend. It's a jungle and it's a web and it's quicksand, and you can't trust anyone.

He made his way to the door, somehow, and behind him he heard the now-indignant voice of Morlan telling him he was going to let him go free, this time, but Rusty had been damned lucky the cops weren't called in. He was bluffing and Rusty knew it. Morlan could no more afford the fuzz than he could.

Rusty heard nothing more because he was thinking of one ending, one person, one job, one final goal. He had to get back to the deadly streets he knew. Back to the gutters, for that was where his ending lay waiting, somewhere. He had to get back to the old neighborhood.

He had to find The Beast.


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