Savage Streets

by William P. McGivern

  “I’ll put on some more coffee,” Barbara said. She glanced in the mirror above the bookcase and pushed a strand of hair back from her forehead. “If this turns out to be a long-winded complaint about people dropping cigarette butts on the putting green, I’m going to cut it short. I want to talk to you about Jimmy.”

  “Sure, so do I. Don’t fuss. Put the coffee on.”

  The doorbell rang a few minutes later. It was Sam Ward with the Detweillers. Ward said apologetically, “Look, I asked Chicky and Bill to come along because I phoned from their house and they’re involved in this in a way, too.”

  “Sure, come on in,” Farrell said. “Barbara’s just getting some coffee. Or would anyone like a drink?”

  Sam Ward shook his head with something like impatience, but Bill Detweiller, bulky and collegiate in a gray ski sweater, looked cheerfully toward the bar, and said, “Just a nip against the cold, eh, John?” He looked as if he had already had a few, Farrell thought; his solidly handsome face was a ruddy pink, and his bright blue eyes were alert and sharp with excitement.

  “How about you, Chicky?”

  Chicky Detweiller considered the matter with raised eyebrows and slanted eyes. “It’s a fattening thought,” she said, smiling. “Would you like to make me something special?”

  “If I’ve got the raw materials, sure.”

  “I’d like a stinger.”

  Detweiller glanced irritably at her. “Boy, you like pampering, don’t you?”

  “I’m a girl actually,” Chicky said, making a little face at him. “Remember? And the answer to your question is ‘yes.’ Any desperate objections?”

  The Detweillers were the kind of people, Farrell thought, who were more exciting together than apart; there was always a little challenge between them, a smiling tension that charged the atmosphere with the ever-interesting potential of trouble. Also, they harmonized nicely in a pictorial sense; Chicky was a gold-rinsed blonde, with masked and indiscreet brown eyes, and a childishly spare body. She usually wore combinations of white and beige and gold; tightly fitted and pegged suits with wide leather belts about her flat, hard waist; pale gold evening gowns to match her hair; and blond swimming suits which at a distance were hardly distinguishable from the texture and color of her skin. At the moment she was wearing cocoa-brown slacks and a yellow sweater with a soft rolling collar that emphasized her slender throat and elegant little head. The Detweillers had inherited a certain amount of money, it was generally thought, for although Bill complained vigorously about his brokerage commissions, Chicky had her own car, a part-time maid and a large and expensive wardrobe, the most discussed feature of which was an assortment of thirty-odd pairs of shoes, featherweight and nonfunctional arrangements of slender straps and extreme heels designed more to be marvelled at than worn.

  Now she smiled at Farrell and said, “Could you make me that stinger?”

  “Sorry, Chicky, no brandy, no mint,” Farrell said.

  “Nobody stocks all that stuff,” Detweiller said. “Have a beer, Chicky, and relax.”

  “Oh, I didn’t tell you, were on an economy wave,” Chicky said, still smiling. “I’m going to turn the collars of Det’s shirts, put up preserves the way his grandmother did, use up all the left-overs, drink nothing but beer — doesn’t it all sound fascinating?”

  “I’m glad I married a funny one,” Detweiller said, shaking his head. “Yaks all night long.”

  “Well, we didn’t come over for drinks or laughs,” Sam Ward said irritably. “Det, supposing we get down to business.”

  Farrell made two whiskeys with water and handed them to Detweiller and Chicky. “Close your eyes and you won’t know the difference,” he said to Chicky.

  Detweiller took a long pull from his drink and lit a cigarette. “Well, John, Bobby came home tonight all steamed up over the trouble you had with those young punks. He told me they were the same ones who had knocked Ward’s kid around yesterday. So I called Sam right away because the whole thing was beginning to smell a little bit, if you know what I mean. And Sam found out...” He stopped and glanced at Ward. “Well, you’d better take it from there, eh, Sam?”

  “I had a talk with Andy,” Ward said. “First he stuck to his original story — that he’d got in a fight with a boy his own size. But when I told him I knew he was lying he broke down. And finally he blurted out the whole sorry business.” Ward suddenly swore and got to his feet. “I’m sorry, Chicky, but I haven’t been so damn mad in years. Those punks — those lousy hoodlums is more like it — have been blackmailing him, extorting money from him, to be accurate about it. Hell, he’s only nine years old. He hasn’t done anything they can blackmail him for. But they told him that unless he gave them fifteen dollars he’d get a beating. So he only had ten dollars in his piggy bank, and that wasn’t enough. They took the ten and gave him a shellacking. Can you imagine this happening right here in Faircrest practically in our own backyards?”

  “They also put the bite on Norton’s boy,” Detweiller said. “Bobby blew the whistle on that, too. I called the Nortons, and of course Wayne was shocked as hell. He wanted to come over with us but the whole business upset Janey so much that he didn’t feel like leaving her.”

  Ward said to Farrell, “Andy says they got to your boy, too. Is that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right. They told him that he couldn’t play outside after school until he gave them fifteen dollars.”

  Detweiller finished his drink in one gulp. “Damn it, I wish I’d been around tonight to help you out. But I gather you didn’t need help.” He looked frankly envious. “You gave them a real bouncing around, eh, John?”

  “I was lucky, I guess.”

  “They haven’t bothered Bobby, of course,” Detweiller said. “I guess they took a look at the Detweiller jaw and figured he wouldn’t scare worth a damn. I’ve taught the kid how to handle himself and I’ve given him some pretty good advice if the odds are against him — pick up a brick or ball bat and even ’em up.”

  “These aren’t kids,” Farrell said. “I wouldn’t encourage Bobby to think he’s a match for them.”

  “Hell, they’re just lippy punks,” Detweiller said. “You can’t reason with them because they’re too stupid and you can’t treat them decently because they’ll just laugh at you. They understand just one thing, my friends, and that’s a good solid boot in the tail.”

  “Okay, but what do we do now?” Ward said, looking at Farrell. “My suggestion is to go to the cops tonight and let them know we want some action.”

  “You’ll just get a runaround from the cops,” Detweiller said, pouring himself another drink. “They’ll say ‘Oh, sure, we’ll take care of this, sir’ and then they’ll make out a lot of reports and wind up not doing a damn thing. Look at the gangs you’ve got running wild in this country. Regular teen-aged gangs of hoodlums. They’ve got officers, clubrooms, guns, battle strategy — hell, you’ve read about all this, haven’t you? In some of the schools in New York they’ve practically put up toll gates — pay up before you can go in. And the police don’t do one damn thing about it. And I’ll tell you why,” Detweiller said, pointing a finger at Ward, who was listening to him with obvious impatience. “The average cop comes from the same background as these young punks, and emotionally and psychologically he’s on their side. And the average politician, well, in his case...” Chicky stifled a yawn in a manner that made it quite noticeable and said, “Please don’t make speeches, Det. This is a serious matter.”

  “I’m going to finish this,” he said. “Will you just shut up? The average politician, Sam and John, is more concerned about votes in his district than he is in making an example out of these punks. Politicians count noses, they play it by the numbers, and the sad fact is that people like us are in the minority. Property owners, law-abiding people who believe in raising their kids decently — they’re outnumbered a hundred to one by people on relief, by degenerates and dope addicts, by dead beats who turn over their freedom to union goons, by all th
at riffraff we’re getting from Puerto Rico — okay, okay,” he said, holding up both hands. “I know there are fine Puerto Ricans. But we’re getting dregs. So to wind this up, people like us get pushed around because there aren’t enough of us to matter.”

  Ward said irritably, “We aren’t going in with our hats in our hands to ask for help from the police — we’re demanding it, for Christ’s sake. What do you think I pay taxes for?” He began to pace the floor, his expression forceful and angry. “I don’t know what your homes mean to you,” he said. “That’s none of my business. But I’ll tell you something about me. I haven’t had any leg-ups in this world. I didn’t go to college. I worked after school in a poultry shop because we needed extra dough at home. I had a nickname: Feathers. Other guys made the teams and drove around in cars and had spending money in their pockets. Not me. I was working.” Ward looked at them with his hands on his hips. “Well, I’ll tell you something: I didn’t mind one damn bit. I had my chance. I went to night school. I got a job with Texoho as a messenger boy. They wanted work and loyalty for their dough, and I gave until it hurt. I’m proud of what I’ve done, so far. And the future is going to be big — just as big as I can make it. Now a pair of young hoodlums come along and think they can throw mud at what I’ve made out of my life. Well, I’ll tell you this as a simple blunt fact: they made a mistake. I’ll teach them that if I have to break their necks with these two hands of mine.”

  “Now you’re talking,” Detweiller said. He looked at his empty glass and said to Farrell: “On your feet, host. I need a drink. But seriously, Sam, you made sense just then. If we gave those punks a thorough working over we wouldn’t have any more trouble with them.”

  “What’s all this?” Barbara said, coming into the room with a tray of coffee. She had put on fresh lipstick and changed from slacks and loafers into a tweed skirt and high heels. “Hi, Chicky. My, you sound ferocious, Det.”

  “There’s more bad news, honey,” Farrell said. He told her why Ward and the Detweillers had come over, and when he finished she sat down slowly and looked at them with a helpless expression. “What kind of creatures are they?” she said, in a bewildered voice. “They must be insane to think they can get away with this sort of thing.”

  “They’re human filth,” Detweiller said. “Dregs, leavings, call it what you like. I just told John and Sam we ought to sweep them up ourselves. Hell, why waste time? We’ve got a clear-cut problem; let’s solve it in an old-fashioned, clear-cut fashion.”

  “What do you mean?” Barbara said, glancing uncertainly from Detweiller to Sam Ward.

  “They knock our kids around, we return the compliment. Only we play really rough. Anything wrong with that?”

  She smiled at him but Farrell knew she wasn’t amused; there was a line of tension above her eyes. “I can’t believe you’d even consider such a thing. You’d be no better than these young hoodlums if you took the matter into your own hands. Don’t you see that?”

  Detweiller was enjoying her reaction, Farrell guessed, savoring her alarm and disapproval. Facing the bitter facts, calling a spade a spade, was this a role Det fancied himself equipped to play? He would let the sickly and squeamish turn away from duty, Farrell thought, trying to see Detweiller as Detweiller must see himself; behind the barricades, issuing the single bullet to the women and telling them to use it when the Indians poured over the stockade walls. Was that Det’s image of himself, he wondered. The Man Who Faced Facts?

  “Just listen a second,” Detweiller was saying to Barbara. “I’m not trying to shock you and I’m not just talking for effect. Nobody has bothered my son. Technically I’m an innocent bystander to all this, though I’m ready and happy to do all I can to help John and Sam. Hell, it’s a community problem, isn’t it? But I’ll tell you this: if any of these punks bother Bobby I can handle them without help from anybody.” Detweiller poured himself a short drink from the bottle Farrell had left at his elbow. “Nobody’s pushing me around, understand?”

  Detweiller was heating himself up with verbal muscle-flexing, Farrell realized, intoxicating himself with these big, heady boasts. Barbara’s presence was spurring him on, he guessed; she sat with slim legs crossed, lamp glinting on her smooth brown hair, listening to him with flattering gravity, obviously disturbed by his violent talk. Chicky on the other hand looked bored. She was sipping her drink, studying a beam of light flickering on the toe of her slowly swinging loafer. Her small face was still, and her masked brown eyes were turned down and away from Detweiller’s voice and gestures.

  “John, help me,” Barbara said almost angrily. “Tell him he’s wrong.”

  “I’ll help you,” Chicky said with a short laugh. “Det thinks the only way to prove anything is by hitting somebody. His idea of a subtle, well-reasoned argument is to twist my arm until I agree with him.”

  “Well, results count, don’t they?” Detweiller said, looking at her with a stiff smile.

  “Other methods get results, too,” she said. “Happier ones, I’ve been told.”

  “Look, I’m going to the police tonight,” Ward said. “Are you with me, John?”

  “Sure,” Farrell said. “We’re wasting time with this talk. Det, I’m not planning to chase a bunch of teen-agers down dark alleys to settle our problems. It might be fun, but we’d probably all come down with coronaries after a block or two.”

  “Well, I hope you can get the cops interested,” Det said, “but I’ll be surprised if you do.” In rising he almost tipped over his chair. “Well, what do you know? Old Det is pie-eyed. Chicky, let’s take me home.”

  She watched him with a little smile crinking the comers of her eyes. “Okay, slugger,” she said. “In another round you’d have had him. Come on. Night, Barbara. Thanks the usual million.”

  The offices of the Rosedale police were located on a quiet, well-lighted street a block away from the noisy confusion of Whiting Boulevard. The large, whitestone building also housed state and county administrations; a magistrate’s court; the offices and meeting rooms of the water board, Transit Authority and various tax bureaus. The graveled approaches to the building circled a neatly manicured little park, and the parking space flanking its imposing columned doorways was reserved for officials.

  “It’s hell to be a civilian,” Ward said, as they went up the broad flight of steps. They had been forced to park on the street and Ward was in an irritable mood. “These civil service drones all act like they’re doing you a big favor,” he said, as they pushed their way through the heavy, plate-glass doors. “Whether you’re reporting a fire or taking out a dog license or paying your goddamned taxes — they all act like they’ve got ten thousand more important things on their minds. Christ, I’ll bet ninety-eight percent of them couldn’t hold a job in private industry.”

  They told their story to a uniformed officer on duty behind a freshly varnished counter on the first floor of the building. On his right a sergeant sat at a switchboard and behind him another officer was issuing and confirming orders to squad cars by short-wave radio.

  When they completed their account the officer nodded alertly but sympathetically, and told them they had come to the wrong place; the detective division in the Hayrack district would have jurisdiction in this matter, he explained, and gave them the address of the station house.

  They thanked him and walked back down the graveled roadway to their cars.

  “Det would say I told you so,” Ward muttered irritably. “The old runaround — it’s starting already. That’s what he told us to expect.”

  “You mean Commissioner Detweiller of the Yard?” Farrell said. “You got that from him personally?”

  Ward smiled. “He was in great form tonight, wasn’t he? You think he was serious about banging those kids around ourselves?”

  “I don’t think he knows himself.”

  “He might be right at that.”

  “Sure. The odds are against him being wrong all the time.”

  “He must have got under your skin
, John.”

  Farrell considered that for a few seconds, and then said, “It’s this whole damn business that’s got under my skin. I shouldn’t blame Det for that. He means well enough, I guess.”

  The glass doors of the Hayrack police station gleamed opaquely in the bright light of the green electric globes hanging on either side of the entrance. The building was two-storied and ancient, made of soot-dulled red brick and squeezed into place in a block of depressed-looking shops and old-fashioned frame houses. There was a bar at the comer with a circular neon sign blinking above it, and a delicatessen a few doors from it with cans of beer displayed in stacks behind a dirt-streaked plate-glass window. Several of the old wooden homes had ROOMS signs in their windows, and directly opposite the station house was a junk shop with a collection of yellowing bathtubs and ice boxes and primitive washing machines displayed on the sidewalk, these secured against improbable theft by a chain that snaked through their insides and locked them all together into one immense and ludicrous package.

  As he waited for Ward to park his car, Farrell wondered why he felt so out of place in this neighborhood. It occurred to him that he couldn’t quite imagine himself living here; drinking in the corner bar, shopping in the delicatessen, or coming down the sidewalk to turn into any of these ancient, paint-starved dwellings. A wind rose in the street driving flurries of dust and flaking cigarette stubs along the gutters, and he turned his back to it and pulled his coat collar up about his neck. It wasn’t that the neighborhood was poor, he thought; it was simply unreal to him, an atavism, something belonging in another time. The rust-streaked bathtubs in the junk shop, the tired old houses with the signs in their windows, the whole street, for that matter, was like a movie set of the Thirties, dingy and depressed, colored with the lifeless shades of shabby defeat; it was rather unbelievable in the present world of six-to-one martinis, charcoal-broiled steaks and country clubs, of Evinrude for Everyman and spinning traffic rotaries ablaze with the gleaming, fin-tailed cars that were too big to park in the city or squeeze into garages smaller than airplane hangars.