- rusty santoro
- mirsky
- miss clements
- pops santoro
Rusty had not been to bed. The week's sweat had dried on him and he felt filthy inside and out. The memories of the weekend were a jumbled, kaleidoscopic horror. The stand with Candle, the dance and the drag back to the old ways, the rumble and jail overnight—staggeringly terrible in terrible gray and steel—and then Dolores. The terrible wallop in the head of her death, like that, that way, in an alley. Then Moms and the trouble with the Cougars. And the first word about what had happened in the darkness back there, behind Tom-Tom's malt shop. The word about the man in the camel's hair coat. It was all too much.
Rusty had gone home and Mrs. Givens had still been there, hunched over in the big armchair, shrouded in darkness, only the black, scuffed tips of her shoes showing from shadow, in the reflected light from a street lamp outside.
He had sent her away, telling her he would watch. She had asked him nothing, not where he had been, or what he had found out, nothing about Dolores or the word from the street. She merely nodded at his words and left silently, like some velvet-furred animal.
Rusty had sunk down into the armchair and summer night had gone by in remote noise from crosstown, and mugginess. Now with the faint gray wash of dawn slipping down the buildings, he met the day with a desperation and determination to find that man in the camel's hair coat. Somehow, some way. And kill him.
The past had forged strong chains, not easily broken.
The buses ground past downstairs, and the sounds of the city awakening climbed higher and higher, like a generator warming up. Rusty sat immobile, thinking.
No one in Cougar turf wore a camel's hair coat. That wasn't sharp; black leather jackets, chino slacks, stomping boots, Sam Browne belts with razor-sharp buckles, duck-fanny haircuts, but no camel's hair coats.
That was downtown stuff. Straight down the main line.
Rusty could not quite grasp the sense of that. What was a downtown hooker doing here in Cougar turf and why should someone like that kill his sister? Why should she be raped like that? The answer popped in sickeningly. Dolores had been an attractive girl, that was reason enough.
Rusty had seen enough of the streets to know the score. Sense, there was none. The blood that filled the manholes to the tops came from sick minds and fast action. There was no reason and no end to it, of course, so Dolores was dead, and there was nothing more to say after that. Except the man in the camel's hair coat would die, naturally. That was the way of it.
But how to go about it?
There were still two problems, or rather, two untied ends, aside from the one final end that would be tied with a knife. What was the camel's hair coat doing in Cougar turf and why had the gang clammed up so tightly? It had become apparent after a few minutes with them that the Cougars were quiet for a good reason and one a lot stronger than merely "the code." There was something back there, but Rusty did not know what it was, what it meant, how it tied in. This was far out of his depth. He had no idea where to start, how to begin to find a murderer.
It was a far different thing, this hollow hungry killing need to find the man and punish him. A far different thing than bludgeoning his way through a rumble, or knife-gutting a rock who had offended him. They were in two different classes, and Rusty felt like a fly on flypaper, trapped and helpless.
But there had to be a way. Therehad to be a way because more than God, or Earth, or Life, or any goddamn thing he wanted his hands soaked in the blood of the man who had raped Dolores. Rusty Santoro, seventeen years old, and crying warm inside, sat tensed in the big armchair and swore he would find the man. There was nothing, nothing at all, for him, if that was not done. He sat back and started to figure—hard.
Mrs. Givens came in at eight o'clock and prepared a hot breakfast for Rusty. He slapped his spoon at the thick oatmeal. He toyed with and broke the toast. He ran a finger around the moist, beaded lip of the glass of milk. He did not touch a thing and when Mrs. Givens went into the bedroom to see how Moms was resting, he slipped out the front door.
He carried the big switchblade in his jacket pocket.
School was where he headed, down the street to the subway. But he never made it. Somehow, his feet led him away, far away from the subway and toward the line dividing Cougar turf from Cherokee territory. Rusty had decided something. Somewhere in their silence, in the fact of the Cherokee rumble at the dance, in the whole tangled web of it all, there was a hookup between the Cougars, the Cherokees, Dolores' death and the man he sought. What it was, he did not know, nor how it was constructed, but there was a dragging in him that led him toward Cherokee turf. There was a hookup and it seemed he would have to knuckle down in enemy turf to find the answer; to find the next bit of path that led to the man in the camel's hair coat.
He invaded Cherokee turf shortly before nine o'clock Tuesday morning, cold-eyed and searching. It was quiet, gang quiet, with the kids in school, but there was always the subterranean murmur of rumbles. The whispers were there, if you listened closely enough and if you could decipher the animal intensities that gave them meaning. Rusty was looking for a pigeon.
Looking that way, looking that hard, he was bound to succeed. It was like looking for trouble. Look long enough, turn over enough rocks with a rude kick and eventually a trouble came forth. That was the way of it. Seek and you shall find. A pigeon.
Finally, he got the word from a tailor deep in Cherokee turf—a little man with a hare lip who wore a satin-backed vest and who feared for his front window. He gave Rusty the second clue to the track. He directed the boy to a garage it was healthy for citizens to avoid, where the Cherokees spent their evenings shearing down cams, trimming away chrome, souping up their heaps.
Rusty asked the little tailor where a gun could be purchased in Cherokee land. The tailor did not know. He was lying, but Rusty had no stomach for the tactics which would persuade the man to tell him.
He hit for the garage.
It was a gaping hole in a line of apartment buildings. The street was run-down. The houses had once been stately brownstones, but refugee owners had divided each apartment into dozens of minor one-room closets and had rented them to Puerto Ricans, fresh to New York. It was a dirty, noisy street with cardboard milk cartons crushed flat in the gutters, battered garbage cans on the sidewalks and obscenities chalked on pavements and walls. Laundry hung from windows. The smell was oregano and sweet, the odor of cigarettes and pine cleanser fighting a losing battle with dirt-caked corners. It was a depressing street. It was all too familiar to Rusty. It was typical.
The garage was open-faced amid these buildings, with a big red sign announcing rates per hour, day and week, and the name TINY'S GARAGE STORAGE. Rusty walked up the sloping walk into the dimmer, cooler interior and almost immediately saw the rodent.
He was perhaps five feet seven, with no chin whatsoever and eyes slitted to fine lines. He wore sloppy sports clothes, and his hair was cut in a severe crew-cut, so a bald spot showed at the center of his scalp. But there was more than just a mousiness and furtiveness to him. He looked more like a twitching gray rat than a human being. As he chewed a piece of gum, his aquiline nose twitched, accentuating the resemblance.
"Yeah. What c'n I do ya?" the rodent squeaked as Rusty came in from the street.
Rusty walked toward him, watching the boy as he leaned against the front end of a Buick. The boy seemed loose-jointed and nervous and he grew even more so as Rusty approached without speaking.
"You—uh—you know where I can find some 'a the Cherokees?" Rusty started.
The rodent watched in silence for a minute, then swirled the gum to the other side of his mouth. He plucked at his nose tentatively, then nodded his head. "Yeah. I know where ya c'n find the Cherks. So what? Whaddaya want with 'em?"
Rusty walked slowly, coming abreast of the boy without alarming him. "What's ya name?" Rusty asked.
The boy stared back as though uncomprehending.
Rusty reached into his pocket. The opening of the knife was sharp in the silence of the garage. "I—I just watch the joint for Tiny Sacher when he goes up fer a sanwich. I—uh—got no connection with them, like ya know …"
"I asked you what was your name," Rusty repeated.
"Mirsky," the boy answered slowly, with pain. "M-Mirsky."
"Well, now, M-Mirsky," Rusty accented each word with harshness, "how's about you telling me what you know about the rumble up in Cougar turf Friday night."
Mirsky slid around the side of the car. His face had turned ashen. His eyes were almost closed in fear. He struggled to deny all knowledge of the fight, the party-crashing.
"Who you, to ask sump'n like that? Huh, who are ya? I don't know you. You got somethin' round here? If y'don't then scram. I got work t'do." He continued sliding around the dusty surface of the car. His charcoal slacks picked up a thick coat of filth from the movement.
Rusty took a quick step and his hand wound in Mirsky's jacket lapels.
"The name is Santoro, kid. You know the name?"
Mirsky shook his head violently. His little rat eyes that had been buried deep in the creases of his face were now hanging out, wide and awake with a slippery fear. "I n-never h-heard that name. Whachoo hangin' onta me for? Lemme go!"
Rusty backed him into the angle of the car and wall.
He held him tightly, twisting the fabric till Mirsky was breathing with difficulty. The boy was shaking terribly. "Please, man, lemme go. L-like I don't know a thing. I just work here. I ain't inna Cherks …"
"Kid, you're sweatin' too much not to know somethin'. And I got a hunch you know who I am, that maybe even you was told to expect me around here. That so?"
The kid refused to speak. His little aquiline nose twitched, rodentlike, and Rusty felt a straining within himself. He spoke quietly, quickly. "Look, Mirsky. I want you to dig somethin'. I got to find out what happened the other night. I got to, you read me?"
Mirsky would not answer, and Rusty forced the boy's head to nod yes, by pulling at his collar.
"So get this, fella. I'm gonna find out if you tell me your way, or if you tell me my way. Now I ain't such a gentle stud and I c'n cut ya if ya make me." His voice was almost pleading. "Look, kid, don't make me. Please, I'm askin' ya, don't make me!"
But Mirsky was adamant. He was terrified and quaking, but more frightened of something else. What it might be, Rusty did not know, but he was certain whatever it was, that was part of the story behind the Cougars' refusal to talk and the mystery surrounding the death of Dolo.
"You're all I got to give me some poop, man," Rusty begged him, tears starting. "Please, don't make me do this." He was crying now, from sheer frustration, and the knowledge that what was to come was inevitable. "Please!"
No sound. Then he had to do it, crying all the while.
The knife was effective. In the dimness of the garage Rusty Santoro drew a thin red line across the boy's right cheek, and found the next bit of the trail.
I don't wanna do it this way, Rusty cried to himself, methodically doing what had to be done. His stomach wobbled within him as he applied the screws to the boy. He saw the same methods he had always used before, being used again. He saw the punch being thrown, instead of the logic being applied. But it had to be done this way. This was the way they knew, the way they feared. This was the way to get what he wanted. "Please!" he cried aloud once more, in the darkness.
Finally, "Stop! Y' gotta stop! I'll tell ya! Stop on me, stop now, stop stop …"
Rusty let the boy loose and Mirsky slid down in the darkness. He lay back and his tears were tears of pain. As painful as Rusty's had been all through it and were still. "Tell me what you know, goddamn it, tell me."
Mirsky put a hand to his cheek and when it came away slippery, he started to faint. His face went dead white again, and he started to slip back under the car. Rusty grabbed for the jacket again and hauled Mirsky erect.
"Th-they came d-down last night," he said softly. His eyes went around the garage fearfully. "They came down an' said somebody'd be lookin' for word. They said I wasn't ta say anything or they'd get me. You gotta promise me ya won't s-say nothin'. Please, y'gotta make me a promise or I'll get it. I'm tellin' ya."
Rusty stooped down and broke the knife. He looked around him, found a grease-spattered rag and wiped off the blade. He put the weapon in his pocket. "Don't think I can't bring it out again. Talk."
"Y'gotta promise!"
"Talk!"
Mirsky wet his lips. "They came down and said I wasn't to say nothin' about the tea and the Cherks bein' hopped-up when they went on that rumble. I wasn't ta say nothin' or they'd get me. Y'unnerstand that? Ya gotta promise me!"
Rusty stood up. "Who was it told ya?"
Mirsky thought a moment. "There was three Cherks and one guy from off-turf, like I didn't know him. I think he was a Cougar."
Rusty stopped breathing for a second. That was it.
"What was his name?"
"They didn't call him by name."
"Well then, dammit, what'd he look like."
"I didn't see him, man, he—"
Rusty hit him. Fury and frustration swollen in his brain. He drew back to slug him again.
"No, man, stop, hold it! I ain't lyin', they had him back where it was dark. I couldn't see him, 'cept he was short, was all. They just called him kid, or boy, or somethin' like they din't want me to know his name."
Inside, Rusty was twisted and beaten. It was always a dead end. He met a wall of silence, even where the wall was not too solid. He turned away from Mirsky.
When Rusty left the garage, Mirsky was sitting on the grease-spattered floor, his slacks filthy, the thin line of blood dripping down onto his shirt, like watercolor, running. He would be all right. The scar would heal to a faint white line and soon he would be filing the motorblock serial numbers from more stolen heaps. But right now he lay panting deeply, running his tongue-tip around the corners of his tiny mouth, his eyes closed in shock and pain. He would be all right, soon, if it never got out that he had talked to a Cougar. If it never got out that he had spilled the cherries on what had prompted the Cherokee raid that night. Dope.
There was a part of it. There was a section of it. Down near the bottom some place, dope figured in. But how? The kids had been using pot for a long time, what could that mean in the death of Dolores? It was all fuzzy, all screwed up. This was more than Rusty had bargained for.
Dope.
The Cherokees had been hopped-up. More so than they usually got on a rumble night. Someone had come across with a big packet of pretty decent white-cut, and the raid had followed naturally in the wake of the sky-flight. Almost as though someone had wanted that raid to come off, almost as though someone had needed that raid to cover up Dolores' murder. Or maybe it was backwards. Maybe whoever had peddled the tea wanted to keep the passing of it quiet, even though the killing was bringing notice to the rumble, almost as though the Cougars and Cherokees were in on it together. The silence of the gangs was oppressive. Too tight for the mere rules of the Code. There was something deeper in this, much deeper. It had to be dope.
Tuesday was a day of warnings. Tuesday was a day of caution and wondering. Why? Why—because of three things that happened after Rusty left Cherokee turf, with the word "narcotics" festering in his mind. Three things, that happened too quickly and too closely together to be mere coincidence or idle interest.
The first incident happened when Rusty went home. He wanted to go out, but where could he go? There was no more information to be had, anywhere. Mirsky had not recognized the boy who had been with the Cherokees when they had warned him to be silent and the Cougars had dispersed effectively. He would have to bide his time, wait, watch. He went home.
Miss Clements was waiting at home. She was sit ting straight and stark—a stuffed bird, gathering dust, rigid with death, in the window of a taxidermist. Her nose was a long, thin and sharp projection that dominated her bone-thin face. Deep hollows accentuated the stark outlines of her almost-cruel face. She was, in fact, the perfect representation of a Grimm's witch, minus the broomstick and the black, peaked hat. Her face was overly white beneath her imperfect powder coating. She watched Rusty come through the door with quick, sharp needle-pointed movements of her little brown eyes. The deathly paleness of her face was made all the more remarkable and disturbing by the abundance of freckles that covered her cheekbones, forehead and nose. Rusty despised her.
He had closed the door and taken three steps into the living room before he saw her. But as he did his own body stiffened up, equally as rigid as her own. She sat forward, clutching her little rectangular purse to her lap, the indefinite fabric of her skirt stretched tight across her thin legs.
She cleared her throat with awkwardness and self-consciousness. It was a close sound in the silent living room, against the sealed-out background of New York street noises. Rusty tried to force himself, to untwist, to relax before her. This was his home now, not her blackboard-bordered stamping-ground. He was on top here, not her. Now he could call the trick and line up the attitude.
But still the residue of fear and hate from the days in her classes stopped him. He was the pupil, she was the teacher. And that hard, unyielding sharpness was Miss Clements.
"I din't know you was here …" he began.
She nodded rapidly, as though nervous herself at being in this strange, unfamiliar place, with its Spanish smells and its pictures of Jesus on the wall. Its squalor.
"I came over to—to see you," she started, her lips barely moving. "You weren't in class yesterday."
Rusty realized he had missed the entire day of school. It came to him with an abrupt sense of loss. He had skipped, he had done just what he had promised Pancoast he would not do. He was getting into trouble. Loss, also, for it was a day taken from him, a day in which he might have learned something vital for his new future—the future he had planned for, before Dolores' death. The future now was a short, red thing that would end suddenly at knife-point or zip-blast. The future now had no need nor room for school or architecture.
He heard her speaking. She had been speaking for the last few seconds. "… And there was a Spanish woman here, she told me about—about your mother, I'm sorry." She said it all in one fluid run-on, as though it had been rehearsed. She did not mention Dolores. "I wanted to talk to—"
She cut off and her head turned as the brown, wrinkled face of Mrs. Givens peered from the bedroom. The door had opened silently and Rusty had no way of knowing how long the woman had been listening.
"Ey," she called softly, sharply, nodding back with her head, "ven aca."
Rusty looked to Miss Clements, worriedly, for a moment, then shrugged within himself, and walked to the bedroom door. Mrs. Givens motioned him inside.
Inside, the room was dim and faintly moist, as before, with the late morning sunlight coming through a rip in the drawn window shade. Resting-place.
Rusty leaned over the edge of the bed to see his mother's face and felt no emotion at all that she was sleeping once more. Time had lost all meaning for Angelita Santoro. Not as time had stopped for Dolores, but as it stopped when it did not matter.
"She's all right," Mrs. Givens said softly, then, "that woman there." Her tone was one of dislike and distrust. Her words were whispered, but carried the force of a scream.
"She come in a little bit ago, likeuna mujer loca , a—a crazy woman! All scream and bang on door and she want you to talk, an'—an'—"she trailed off into a quavering silence, her hands flapping. "What's wrong with her?"
Rusty's brow furrowed. What was this all about? It was the truant deputy who came around when a kid cut school, not a teacher. Unless it was someone like Carl Pancoast, and Miss Clements had never taken that sort of interest in her pupils. Why was she so interested in him? Rusty bit his lower lip in thought and worried.
"I come in here, make sure she din't wake Angelita; what she wants with you?" Mrs. Givens' face was drawn in concern.
Rusty was at a loss to answer. Whatever the woman wanted, it seemed she was going to a lot more trouble than one day of missed schoolwork demanded. "Don't worry, Miz Givens," Rusty smoothed her concern, "it's about school. I missed a couple classes. It'll be okay, so now don't worry."
The little woman nodded her head as though she was reluctant to believe such mad actions could have a basis so slight. But her nod finally changed to one of acceptance. She frowned so two tiny dimples fell in her cheeks, and she said, very, very softly, "Mama is very sick. Very sick. Not so good, but maybe tomorrow she'll be fine. We'll see." Her words had ceased to be conversation. She talked to herself now, the old people way, the old country way. She walked back across the room to the window and stood staring out through the rip in the shade. It cut in sections the silver falling across the room.
Rusty took another look at Moms and renewed his promise. It would be kept, that promise. Finally.
He went back into the living room.
Miss Clements was testing for dust along the top of one low cornice, with a long, white finger. She brought her hand down self-consciously as Rusty came into the room.
Somehow, that meant something. That and the fact that her eyes were very odd looking and her manner was high-strung and her complexion was fish-belly white. All that meant there was more to Rusty's side of this than she wanted him to know. He felt a new strength in her presence invade his manner, his voice.
"What'd you want, Miss Clements?"
She took a long moment to begin and her hesitation was coupled with a turning of the little handbag. "You shouldn't miss classes, Rusty," she said. It wasn't what she had wanted to say at all.
Rusty did not answer. It was her hoop, let her roll it.
"What I mean is," she went into her frigid classroom tone, "there are ways and means of making you people attend school when you are required to do so. If you persist in cutting classes, I, will be forced to go to the Prin—"
Rusty cut her off with a half-cough, half-chuckle that had been waiting to emerge for two semesters. It stopped her. She licked her thin, icy lips.
She started again. "I'm, I'm very sorry to hear about your sister. I've seen her many times in the halls and she seemed like an intelligent little girl with a remarkable capacity of learning."
It died. It just fell down and croaked. Rusty stared at her with hatred bubbling in his eyes. Bull! That was what she was spitting, just plain bull!
"Whaddaya want from me, Miss Clements?"
Her look became one of huntedness. To Rusty it was sadistically fascinating to make her squirm, as she made him squirm in class. She hated Puerto Ricans. She had often spoken of them as "You People" as though they were untouchables, and now one of Those People had her wiggling on the end of the rod.
She tried to start several times, then gave it up and murmured a good-bye. She started for the door, but Rusty stopped her with a word. She turned and the real reason for her appearance here came out in a flooding rush.
"You've got to stop this running around and—and looking for people, Santoro!" She spat out his name as though it were coated with alum. It typified her attitude in class; bitter, nasty, tactless. "You've got to buckle down and stop this senseless, this stupid …" She waggled her hands for emphasis, came up with another thought entirely. "Do you want to flunk History?"
Rusty eyed her coldly. It was apparent, she was threatening him with the one weapon at her disposal. She would lay the skids to him in school. Well, then, okay, lady. Do your sleazy damnedest!
He shrugged. "Don't care."
She bit her lip. Desperation rang in her voice. "I'm warning you, Santoro," her voice rose sharply, "if you don't cease this childish melodramatic detective business, I'm going to take you to the Principal. You wouldn't like that. You listen to me!" she was almost screaming, for Rusty had half-turned away in restrained fury.
The bedroom door popped open and Mrs. Givens emerged, her plump little hands twitching in brown circles. "Go 'way! Go on, go 'way! You making more sickness here! G'wan, get out!" She lapsed into deep Spanish, and the force of her tirade drove the bone-thin teacher before her, as though whip-lashed.
Miss Clements cast a frantic look at Rusty who had turned his back and was clutching the fabric of the easy chair with unbelievable tenseness. He was deaf to her, his eyes were closed to her. School? Nothing, next to finding the man in the camel's hair coat. No matter how much she warned him, and cajoled and threatened, he was on his way somewhere, and no one would stop him. No failure meant anything, next to that final failure.
Mrs. Givens' low but furious words sent the teacher to the door. Miss Clements tried to hurl one last threat at the boy, but the little Puerto Rican woman had the door open and the teacher was outside before she could stop herself.
The door slammed in her face, softly.
Rusty was alone with Mrs. Givens. She knew enough to say nothing. She went back to the bedroom, to resume her vigil, and as she passed within, the trembling words, "So much trouble …" trailed like smoke behind her.
Rusty stood clutching the fabric of the easy chair till it ripped with the intensity of his grip. Then he dropped his hands free, and sank into the chair, despair choking him.
That was the first incident.
The second incident was much less complicated, affected Rusty less violently and promised much more trouble.
He had left the apartment, again pacing the street in search of an answer. Several times he left the beaten track of the neighborhood, and sought nothing at all on the rooftops, in the big weed-high lot between a deserted dry cleaning plant and the back of a row of apartment buildings, in the alleys. He searched and found nothing. The city had drawn in its lines to him. He was seeking and they wanted no part of him as he trudged that road.
He received the warning as he entered Tom-Tom's joint. The baby-fat sphere that was the soda jerk came out of the back room, the shine of sweat across his forehead. Nipping at the Tokay again. Well, that was okay, too. Everybody had a skeleton. Tom-Tom's didn't rattle as much as some.
"I got a message for you," the fat little man said, coming up behind the counter.
Rusty had swung up automatically on a stool. It was the way he did it when he came in, and reflex carried him. "From who?"
Tom-Tom shook his head in an indefinite bobble. "Don't know, y'know. Some kid, one of these kids that hang with the little kids around the stoop up the street, y'know, he brought it around, said to give it to you."
He reached up onto the mirror and from behind a stud that held the mirror in place he withdrew a folded envelope. Dirty and frayed. He handed it to Rusty, and moved away.
Rusty tore it open sloppily, and drew out the single sheet of notepaper. It was from a three-ring notebook such as the type used in his high school.
In a painstaking print that tried valiantly to be anonymous, the note said, STAY OUT OF CHEROKEE TURF AND STOP TRYING TO STICK YOUR BASTARD NOSE IN WHERE IT DON'T BELONG. COUGARS.
So that was the second warning, was it? Now the gang was afraid he was getting too close to something. What the hellwas all this? So far Rusty had found out nothing, really. He had two bits of information that were valuable and a round cipher of nothing for the rest. He sought a man in a camel's hair coat, and somehow that man was tied up with dope. Other than that—nothing.
He read the note again. The Cougars had changed a lot since he had been Prez. They were wilder now, though they had never been chicken-gut while he was top man, and there seemed to be something about themselves they did not want known, even to the gutter-runners who knew them so well.
Rusty tapped the note against his fingernail for a moment. Then he laid it down on the counter. A wet ring, left from a Coke bottle, darkened through, and the paper lay flat to the micarta surface. He stared at it for a long time, and then folded it up, put it in his pocket. Bull! It meant nothing, except that someone was putting the screws to the neighborhood. Whoever had shuffled the Cougars onto him was not going to stop with anything as simple as this. He wondered for a moment why they hadn't just taken him into the alley and leaned on him heavily. Then he remembered The Beast and the night before, and he knew they were not going to fool around any more than they were forced to.
Rusty had a silent, hulking protector there and that bothered him, too.
For a minute he contemplated going after the gang, trying to wring out of them the names of the persons who had made them send this note. It was obvious there was a line of communication between that Mirsky kid and the Cougars, or the gang would never have known he had been looking. The tie-up between such live enemies as the Cherokees and the Cougars brought the first faint tingle of tenseness to him. It had to be a strong tie, and one that put the fear of something into those knife-happy tenement kids. Rusty grew worried, and almost immediately discarded the idea of going looking for the gang.
First, they were probably well gone by now. Second, he did not want to press his luck with shoving them. Once he had beaten Candle fairly. The second time he had been saved by The Beast, but a third time might shove the juvies a little too far.
Tom-Tom walked back up, stopped in front of Rusty, and leaned a plump, pink arm on the counter. "Bad news?"
Rusty looked up, and the natural belligerence he felt at being so helpless emerged. "Good news. They got a special on, down at the undertakers. They'll let me have you embalmed for half-price. Special on all busybodies."
Tom-Tom edged away, a lingering fear of the kids in his eyes. He busied himself with non-essentials.
It was a dead bit, all the way around. Rusty slid off the stool, ambled toward the door. He stopped with one hand on the glass and turned to the little soda jerk with a stark expression on his face. "You see 'em, you give 'em the word. I don't scare easy, man."
Then he hit the street. That was the second incident and it didn't really matter.
The third did. It was bad.
If there was a tie-up between the Cougars and the Cherokees, if there was something in common, something already stated as important, it was the dope. The weed. The H. The white powder that had invaded the club since Rusty had left. Rusty had fought against the encroachment of dope since he had won the presidency of the gang from the previous leader in a fight. But after he had left, and Candle had come to power, he had heard many rumors.
The kids were on. They were real high. Sky.
Now the Cherokees had been hyped to a rumble and the Cougars were warning him away from that turf and the kid, Mirsky, had indicated a tie-up somewhere. So he had to find the source of dope in the neighborhood. Obvious. The pusher.
But that would not be as easy as it looked.
The pusher was Boy-O, naturally. Everyone knew that. But where did the scumbag get it from? The Horse didn't come up out of the sidewalk and it didn't fall from the sky like manna. It had to come in from Mexico, or it had to come ashore down at the docks. But it sure as hell didn't spring full-blown into Boy-O's reeky fingers. So just finding the little scumbag wasn't enough. He had to find the hands that put the stuff into Boy-O's hands and the hands that were behind those. And on, and on, until maybe even downtown was involved, and that was way the hell out of Rusty's territory.
What the hell had he fallen into? Or rather, what had the death of Dolores dragged him into? He had to find Boy-O. Then it hit him …
Boy-O! That was part of the answer. The tie-up he had been seeking was now quite clear to him. He should have realized it when Mirsky said, "They kept callin' him kid, or boy, or somethin'—"
Boy-O, who ran tea in the Cougar turf—and now it was apparent he had a similar route in Cherokee turf—had been the other person Mirsky had not seen in the darkness of the garage. He had persuaded some of his addicts to warn everyone in the Cherokee turf that Rusty was around and not to spill anything. It had to be. Sure they had called the half-seen person "boy." But it had been Boy-O, not just boy. The tie-up was there. Dope and Boy-O and the rumble and the silence of the gangs. Now Rusty knew why the Cherokees and the Cougars were silent to him. If they spilled anything, they would get their pot cut away from them and that was the worst that could happen to a bunch of junkies.
But whether Boy-O had wanted silence simply because he was afraid Rusty would find out who had peddled the stuff that had gotten the Cherks high enough to rumble, or whether there was another tie-up between Boy-O and the death of Dolores he didn't know. But he would find out.
It was fairly obvious why Boy-O wanted so much silence. At best, peddling the snuff was a risky bit and with Rusty so hot to find out who had done his sister, there was always the chance Rusty might reveal the snuff-peddler's name to the cops, either out of hatred (for the rumble had been taking place while Rusty might have stopped whoever raped his sister) or just out of spite. So the silence curtain had fallen.
But now Rusty knew the score. He had to find Boy-O. He might be the key—the key to the man in the camel's hair coat.
But where was Boy-O? He had gone underground. Would the neighborhood help Rusty find him?
The neighborhood was cool and deadly these days. They were waiting, like a driver on a dynamite truck, waiting for the big boom that had to come. The word had filtered all through the turf and everyone knew the big trouble was brewing. When one of the gang turned on his fellows, when the club went after a lone stud, there was bound to be trouble. Worse than a rumble. There would be running and shooting and one morning the Department of Public Sanitation would find something messy in one of the gutters.
Then the fuzz would start prowling and a lot of families would be broken up as kids were hauled away to the line-up. This was going to be a bad time and anyone who felt the chill wind of trouble in the neighborhood was clamming up, staying as far from the boom as possible.
Doors were closed to Rusty.
Duke Ferreira might have helped, but—
"Look, kid, it's not I don't wanna give you the word. It's not you ain't a good kid. But I got a business here, an' I can't take the chance on goofin' out. Y'know what I mean?"
Rusty knew what he meant and left the horse parlor with the blare of the loudspeakers from Santa Anita, Belmont and Hialeah ringing in his ears. The next time Duke needed a runner in a hurry Rusty was going to be unavailable.
Whitey Savest might also have helped, but—
"Geddouda here. You're a jinx. I don't need no more fraykin' trouble. You promised me protection when you was with them kids and when you got the boot that stinkin' Shaster kid put the screws to me good. I got ten machines out of whack 'cause of them kids. So beat it. Now!"
Rusty left the pinball joint with his ears stinging. He would see that Whitey had more trouble, if he could. But, hell, why bother? He didn't care for revenge. Not on Whitey, at any rate.
Weissenborn couldn't help. Wouldn't help. Mae Franco wouldn't help. Swart wouldn't help—he was out cold and snoring in a rear seat of the Tivoli, anyhow.
So Rusty walked the streets till the evening closed down again, and Boy-O had laid out some place where he was unavailable.
Then the third incident occurred.
Rusty passed the black mouth of the alley separating two nameless apartment buildings and his mind was a welter of worry and indecision. So far, everything he had done had come to a blind end. He had been threatened, not very hard, but enough to warn him that he was treading dangerous ground. He passed the alley without pausing to steer away from it as he usually did at such empty holes.
The arm came out and grabbed him around the neck. He slipped and fell, and the hand at the arm's end grasped his collar, dragged him, sitting, into the darkness.
He knew the odor instantly. He tried to blank it off, tried to pretend it was not happening. It was Pops.
He could smell the odor of the sewers. The smell of doorways with copies of thePost beneath the man's dirty suit jacket. The smell of desperation and over it all, stinking God smelling like the slop it was, cheap wine.
Tokay. California White. Sneaky Pete. Sweet Lucy. Rubbing alky. Radiator anti-freeze, filtered down through a three-day-old loaf of bread. High and smelling, a palpable aura around him, reeking, rising into the garbage odor of the alley. Rusty choked and his throat clogged and his eyes screwed tight-shut and he tried to get away, twisting on the pavement. He was dragged quickly, backward, the seat of his pants burning cement. In a moment the hand tightened, slung him forward against the brick wall of the building and Rusty scuttled around till he could see the dark shadow of his father, hulking before him.
"You stay home an' don't go botherin' nobody no more," the man said. His breath was the foul stink of decayed teeth and rotten food. The air was filled with it and Rusty gagged again. He wanted to hunker over, pull his knees up and lay his head down, eyes closed. He wanted to get away from here.
The man before him was a dimness, yet Rusty knew every inch and plane of his face. It was strange. He had spent years forgetting that face, blanking it so that each time he saw it, it passed out of his mind instantly. Yet now, so close to that face, but unable to see it, he knew it far better than anything in the universe—the puffy eyes with the black, humped rings beneath them, the flattened, putty blob of a nose, the fleshed pads of the lips, it was all there, so clearly, so real.
"You hear me?" he snarled, his voice thick and syrupy.
Rusty tried to move sidewise, tried to get away, but though the boy could not see in the dark of the alley, the standing man could and Rusty heard the swish of fabric against legs an instant before the feet struck him in the stomach. A ball of pain exploded outward in his gut, sending tracers of agony up into his chest and down into his groin and he slumped over with a moan. He was not out, he was not even graying, but the shock of it was so great, he lay still, motionless—yet quivering inside.
"I asked ya hear me?" his father repeated. He bent over to see if he had hurt the boy, but more to see if he had ruined his chances of communication than in concern over injuries. He bent down, slumped onto his haunches and Rusty acted by reflex. The compulsion was not there, nor the confidence, but the streets had done their work, and his leg—bent at the knee in front of him—came up whip-fast and caught the man in the groin.
Pops Santoro screamed with the querulous screech of a confused animal and doubled over, his mouth wide, his eyes fully open, and Rusty took the opportunity to move. He started to his feet and the pain in his side sent a sharp cramp through him. He could barely walk and his hand scratched across the rough brick surface of the building as he tried to get away.
The little moans of agony that had been coming from his father ceased and Rusty felt a hand, tentatively, on the back of his neck. The man was trying to stop him. Rusty spun, using the hand that held him as a pivot, and shoved his elbow into his father's chest. The hand let loose and Pops Santoro stumbled back. Pain continued to blanket them both.
The spoor of conquest was high in Rusty now and he thought of this man before him not as his father—no, it had been along time since he had considered him that, anyhow—but as an opponent. Another obstacle the gutters had thrown up to confound him. His hand went to his pocket and the switchblade he had put there for no one but the man in the camel's hair coat came out.
Even in the darkness of the alley, with only the faintest light from a street lamp down the block casting a lighter shadow over the building, the knife seemed to draw all brilliance to itself. It was up straight in the boy's hand, and its pointed head was aimed at Pops Santoro's throat.
Rusty dragged for breath, came up with enough to gasp, "Y-you hear me, I don't know who set ya on me, but you stay the frayk away from me, far away from me. 'Cause I hate you, you sonofabitch, I hate you all over, and you come near me again, I swear to God I'll kill you. I'll kill you and that's it!"
The man stumbled back again, seeing the line of steel that extended out from Rusty's fist. He put a hand to his stubbled chin and his voice was too thick with liquor to be forceful.
"You stay home, an' stop interferin' with people's business."
Rusty backed away and as he passed out of the line of faint light that came in through the alley's mouth, he saw his father's face in a half-light. At that instant, it all tied together and he knew he had been right. Something he had seen in the man's face told him he was right.
And after he had left the alley at a dead run, after he had scrambled over a fence and run through a dozen other alleys, after he was on the roof of his own building, with the night a hood over him, he sat down and thought. And knew he was right, that he had stumbled onto the answer long before and was going about it in the right way.
No wonder they were all scared. No wonder they were all trying to get him to lay off. Boy-O was the key right now. What he had seen in his father's face was the same thing—he now realized with shock—that he had seen in Miss Clements' face.
The eyes had been the same. Very white and no pupil at all but a pin-prick of black. Eyes that were made by the Devil, eyes that were made by one thing. The dream-dust. The narcotics habit.
His old man was on it, too. Miss Clements had been on it.
That was why he was being warned away. Now he had to find Boy-O. After Boy-O, if he could make the pusher talk, the next link, and on up, till he found the one he wanted.
Hell yes. The man in the camel's hair coat.