The Jungle Kids

by Ed McBain

  Richard’s hand crushed tighter on the collar. He heard the slight rasp of material ripping. He peered into the hateful eyes and spoke quietly. “Pronounce my name correctly, Miller.”

  The class had grown terribly quiet. There was no sound in the room now. Richard heard only the grate of his own shallow breathing.

  I should let him loose, he thought. What can come of this? How far can I go? Let him loose!

  “You want me to pronounce your name, sir?” Miller asked.

  “You heard me.”

  “Go to hell, Mr. Daddy …”

  Richard’s fist lashed out, catching the boy squarely across the mouth. He felt his knuckles scrape against hard teeth, saw the blood leap across the upper lip in a thin crimson slash, saw the eyes widen with surprise and then narrow immediately with deep, dark hatred.

  And then the knife snapped into view, sudden and terrifying. Long and shining, it caught the pale sunlight that slanted through the long schoolroom windows. Richard backed away involuntarily, eying the sharp blade with respect.

  Now what, he thought? Now the garbage can turns into a coffin. Now the garbage overflows. Now I lie dead and bleeding on a schoolroom floor while a moron slashes me to ribbons. Now.

  “What do you intend doing with that, Miller?”

  My voice is exceptionally calm, he mused. I think I’m frightened, but my voice is calm. Exceptionally.

  “Just come a little closer and you’ll see,” Miller snarled, the blood in his mouth staining his teeth.

  “Give me that knife, Miller.”

  I’m kidding, a voice persisted in Richard’s mind. I must be kidding. This is all a big, hilarious joke. I’ll die laughing in the morning. I’ll die …

  “Come and get it, Daddy-oh!”

  Richard took a step closer to Miller and watched his arm swing back and forth in a threatening arc. Miller’s eyes were hard and unforgiving.

  And suddenly, Richard caught a flash of color out of the corner of his eye. Someone was behind him! He whirled instinctively, his fist smashing into a boy’s stomach. As the boy fell to the floor Richard realized it was Miller’s friend Vota. Vota cramped into a tight little ball that writhed and moaned on the floor, and Richard knew that any danger he might have presented was past. He turned quickly to Miller, a satisfied smile clinging to his lips.

  “Give me that knife, Miller, and give it to me now.”

  He stared into the boy’s eyes. Miller looked big and dangerous. Perspiration stood out on his forehead. His breath was coming in hurried gasps.

  “Give it to me now, Miller, or I’m going to take it from you and beat you black and blue.”

  He was advancing slowly on the boy.

  “Give it to me, Miller. Hand it over,” his voice rolled on hypnotically, charged with an undercurrent of threat.

  The class seemed to catch its breath together. No one moved to help Vota who lay in a heap on the floor, his arms hugging his waist. He moaned occasionally, squirming violently. But no one moved to help him.

  I’ve got to keep one eye on Vota, Richard figured. He may be playing possum. I have to be careful.

  “Hand it over, Miller. Hand it over.”

  Miller stopped retreating, realizing that he was the one who held the weapon. He stuck the spring-action knife out in front of him, probing the air with it. His back curved into a large C as he crouched over, head low, the knife always moving in front of him as he advanced. Richard held his ground and waited. Miller advanced cautiously, his eyes fastened on Richard’s throat, the knife hand moving constantly, murderously, in a swinging arc. He grinned terribly, a red-stained, white smile on his face.

  The chair, Richard suddenly remembered. There’s a chair. I’ll take the chair and swing. Under the chin. No. Across the chest. Fast though. It’ll have to be fast, one movement. Wait. Not yet, wait. Come on, Miller. Come on. Come on!

  Miller paused and searched Richard’s face. He grinned again and began speaking softly as he advanced, almost in a whisper, almost as if he were thinking aloud.

  “See the knife, Mr. Daddy-oh? See the pretty knife? I’m gonna slash you up real good, Mr. Daddy-oh. I’m gonna slash you, and then I’m gonna slash you some more. I’m gonna cut you up real fine. I’m gonna cut you up so nobody’ll know you any more, Mr. Daddy-oh.”

  All the while moving closer, closer, swinging the knife.

  “Ever get cut, Mr. Daddy-oh? Ever get sliced with a sharp knife? This one is sharp, Mr. Daddy-oh, and you’re gonna get cut with it. I’m gonna cut you now, and you’re never gonna bother us no more. No more.”

  Richard backed away down the aisle.

  Thoughts tumbled into his mind with blinding rapidity. I’ll make him think I’m retreating. I’ll give him confidence. The empty seat in the third now. Next to Ganigan. I’ll lead him there. I hope it’s empty. Empty when I checked the roll. I can’t look, I’ll tip my hand. Keep a poker face. Come on, Miller, follow me. Follow me so I can crack your ugly skull in two. Come on, you louse. One of us goes, Miller. And it’s not going to be me.

  “Nossir, Mr. Daddy-oh, we ain’t gonna bother with you no more. No more tests, and no more of your noise. Just your face, Mr. Daddy-oh. Just gonna fix your face so nobody’ll wanna look at you no more.”

  One more row, Richard calculated. Back up one more row. Reach. Swing. One. More. Row.

  The class followed the two figures with fascination. Miller stalked Richard down the long aisle, stepping forward on the balls of his feet, pace by pace, waiting for Richard to back into the blackboard. Vota rolled over on the floor and groaned again.

  And Richard counted the steps. A few more. A … few … more …

  “Shouldn’t have hit me, Mr. Daddy-oh,” Miller mocked. “Ain’t nice for teachers to hit students like that, Mr. Daddy-oh. Nossir, it ain’t nice at …”

  The chair crashed into Miller’s chest, knocking the breath out of him. It came quickly and forcefully, with the impact of a striking snake. Richard had turned, as if to run, and then the chair was gripped in his hands tightly. It sliced the air in a clean, powerful arc, and Miller covered his face instinctively. The chair crashed into his chest, knocking him backwards. He screamed in surprise and pain as Richard leaped over the chair to land heavily on his chest. Richard pinned Miller’s shoulders to the floor with his knees and slapped him ruthlessly across the face.

  “Here, Miller, here, here, here,” he squeezed through clenched teeth. Miller twisted his head from side to side, trying to escape the cascade of blows that fell in rapid onslaught on his cheeks.

  The knife, Richard suddenly remembered! Where’s the knife? What did he do with the …

  Sunlight caught the cold glint of metal, and Richard glanced up instantly. Vota stood over him, the knife clenched tightly in his fist. He grinned boyishly, his rotten teeth flashing across his blotchy, thin face. He spat vehemently at Richard, and then there was a blur of color: blue steel, and the yellow of Vota’s hair, and the blood on Miller’s lip, and the brown wooden floor, and the gray tweed of Richard’s suit. A shout came up from the class, and a hiss seemed to escape Miller’s lips.

  Richard kicked at Vota, feeling the heavy leather of his shoes crack against the boy’s shins. Miller was up and fumbling for Richard’s arms. A sudden slice of pain started at Richard’s shoulder, careened down the length of his arm. Cloth gave way with a rasping scratch, and blood flashed bright against the gray tweed.

  From the floor, Richard saw the knife flash back again, poised in Vota’s hand ready to strike. He saw Miller’s fists, doubled and hard, saw the animal look on Vota’s face, and again the knife threatening and sharp, drenched now with blood, dripping on the brown, cold, wooden floor.

  The noise grew louder and Richard grasped in his mind for a picture of the Roman arena, tried to rise, felt pain sear through his right arm as he put pressure on it.

  He’s cut me, he thought with panic. Vota has cut me.

  And the screaming reached a wild crescendo, hands moved with terrible swift
ness, eyes gleamed with molten fury, bodies squirmed, and hate smothered everything in a sweaty, confused, embarrassed embrace.

  This is it, Richard thought, this is it.

  “Leave him alone, you crazy jerk,” Serubi was shouting.

  Leave who alone, Richard wondered. Who? I wasn’t …

  “Lousy sneak,” Levy shouted. “Lousy, dirty sneak.”

  Please, Richard thought. Please, quickly. Please.

  Levy seized Miller firmly and pushed him backward against a desk. Richard watched him dazedly, his right arm burning with pain. He saw Busco through a maze of moving, struggling bodies, Busco who was caught cheating, saw Busco smash a book against Vota’s knife hand. The knife clattered to the floor with a curious sound. Vota’s hand reached out and Di Pasco stepped on it with the heel of his foot. The knife disappeared in a shuffle of hands, but Vota no longer had it. Richard stared at the bare, brown spot on the floor where the knife had been.

  Whose chance is it now, he wondered? Whose turn to slice the teacher?

  Miller tried to struggle off the desk where Levy had him pinned. Brown, a Negro boy, brought his fist down heavily on Miller’s nose. He wrenched the larger boy’s head back with one hand, and again brought his fist down fiercely.

  A slow recognition trickled into Richard’s confused thoughts. Through dazzled eyes, he watched.

  Vota scrambled to his feet and lunged at him. A solid wall seemed to rise before him as Serubi and Gomez flung themselves against the onrushing form and threw it back. They tumbled onto Vota, holding his arms, lashing out with excited fists.

  They’re fighting for me! No, Richard reasoned, no. But yes, they’re fighting for me! Against Miller. Against Vota. For me. For me, oh my God, for me.

  His eyes blinked nervously as he struggled to his feet.

  “Let’s … let’s take them down to the principal,” he said, his voice low.

  Antoro moved closer to him, his eyes widening as they took in the livid slash that ran the length of Richard’s arm.

  “Man, that’s some cut,” he said.

  Richard touched his arm lightly with his left hand. It was soggy and wet, the shirt and jacket stained a dull brownish-red.

  “My brother got cut like that once,” Ganigan offered.

  The boys were still holding Miller and Vota, but they no longer seemed terribly interested in the troublemakers.

  For an instant, Richard felt a twinge of panic. For that brief, terrible instant he imagined that the boys hadn’t really come to his aid at all, that they had simply seen an opportunity for a good fight and had seized upon it. He shoved the thought aside, began fumbling for words.

  “I … I think I’d better take them down to Mr. Stemplar,” he said. He stared at the boys, trying to read their faces, searching for something in their eyes that would tell him he had at last reached them, had at last broken through the wall. He could tell nothing. Their faces were blank, their eyes emotionless.

  He wondered if he should thank them. If only he knew. If he could only hit upon the right thing to say, the thing to cement it all.

  “I’ll … I’ll take them down. Suppose … you … you all go to lunch now.”

  “That sure is a mean cut,” Julian said.

  “Yeah,” Ganigan agreed.

  “You can all go to lunch,” Richard said. “I want to take Miller and Vota …”

  The boys didn’t move. They stood there with serious faces, solemnly watching Richard.

  “… to … the … principal,” Richard furnished.

  “A hell of a mean cut,” Gomez said.

  Busco chose his words carefully, and he spoke slowly. “Maybe we better just forget about the principal, huh? Maybe we oughta just go to lunch?”

  Richard saw the smile appear on Miller’s face, and a new weary sadness lumped into his throat.

  He did not pretend to understand. He knew only that they had fought for him and that now, through some unfathomable code of their own, had turned on him again. But he knew what had to be done, and he could only hope that eventually they would understand why he had to do it.

  “All right,” he said firmly, “let’s break it up. I’m taking these two downstairs.”

  He shoved Miller and Vota ahead of him, fully expecting to meet the resistance of another wall, a wall of unyielding bodies. Instead, the boys parted to let him through, and Richard walked past them with his head high. A few minutes ago, he would have taken this as a sign that the wall had broken. That was a few minutes ago.

  Now, he was not at all surprised to hear a high falsetto pipe up behind him, “Oh, Daddy-oh! You’re a hee-ro!”

  SUCKER

  I learned later how they had found the girl.

  She was eighteen years old, an attractive blonde who was ripening into womanhood. Her body had been abused and her clothing had been torn, and her face still bore the frozen terror of her futile defense, and her hands in death were still clenched in fright.

  The patrolmen who’d discovered her body had stood in the darkness of the quiet street, and the relentless beams of their flashlights had picked out the bruises on her throat and the horror gleaming in her lifeless eyes. And the merciless glare of their beams had exposed her youth, invaded her youth in the final invasion of privacy that comes with sudden, unexpected death.

  One of the patrolmen had wagged his head and said, “These damn teen-agers,” and the other patrolman had cursed under his breath and then radioed the fatal assault to the sheriff’s office.

  I learned the facts of her discovery later, while I was preparing my brief. In the beginning, I only knew the quiet desperation in Marcia’s voice when she called me. I remember hearing the phone ringing, and then Anne nudged me and said, “You’d better get that, hon.”

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed and turned on the lamp on the end table. The clock read two-thirty.

  “Now, who the hell is that?” I said to Anne.

  “Answer it,” she said. “That’s the best way to find out.”

  I made some crack about early-morning humor and then walked out into the hallway and past my daughter Beth’s room. I went down the steps, and the phone kept clamoring. When I reached it, I snatched the receiver from the cradle.

  “Hello,” I said, perhaps a bit too gruffly.

  “Dave?” the voice asked. It was hurried and almost frantic.

  “Yes,” I said. “Who’s this?”

  “Marcia. Dave, Harley’s in trouble.”

  I was still half asleep. “Who?” I asked.

  “Harley, my husband,” she said. “The police … our sitter …”

  “Pull yourself together, Marcia. What kind of trouble?”

  “They—they say he killed our baby sitter. Dave …”

  “What?”

  “Yes, yes. Dave, they’ve taken him away. He asked me to call you. He—”

  “Where’d they take him?”

  “To the sheriff’s office, Dave, It’s all so crazy. He—he couldn’t have done a thing like that, Dave. You know that. He—”

  “Of course I know.” I was wide awake now. “I’ll get right down there, Marcia. Now don’t you worry. I’ll get dressed and go right down.”

  “Thank you, Dave. Thank you so much.”

  “I want to hurry now. I’ll call you later.”

  “All right, Dave. Thank you.”

  I hung up and went upstairs and started to dress. Anne sat up in bed and said, “Where are you going?”

  “Down to the sheriff’s office. They’re holding Harley there. They say he killed his baby sitter.”

  “Oh, that’s absurd,” Anne said.

  “I know. But they seem to be serious about it.”

  “Well, my God,” Anne said.

  I finished dressing, and then I dusted a little talc over the two-thirty A.M. shadow on my chin. I went back into the bedroom, kissed Anne, and said, “I won’t be long, honey.”

  “All right,” she said. “Be careful.”

  I went out into th
e hallway and opened the door to Beth’s room. She was sixteen, but she still kicked the covers off every night. I tiptoed in, covered her, and then kissed her lightly on the cheek, the way I’d been doing ever since she was born. Then I went down and got the car out of the garage.

  When I arrived at the sheriff’s office, the sheriff himself greeted me. He told me Harley wasn’t allowed any visitors, but I told him I was Harley’s lawyer, and he said I could have a few minutes. He led me to the back of the building, unlocked a barred door leading to the cell block, and then took me to Harley’s cell.

  Harley said nothing until the sheriff was gone. Then he came to me and squeezed my hand tightly. “Dave, thank God you’re here,” he said. He was a thin man, with hair graying at the temples. His eyes were gray, and he was thin-lipped and high-cheeked, and I guess I’d known him for more than three years now.

  “What’s it all about?” I asked. I offered him a cigarette, which he took gratefully and lighted hurriedly. He let out a great puff of smoke and said, “Dave, they’re trying to play me for a sucker.”

  “How so?”

  He drew in on the cigarette again. “This kid tonight. The pressure is probably on from upstairs someplace, and they’re trying to hang it on the most convenient sucker. That happens to be me.”

  “All right, suppose you tell it from the beginning.”

  Harley nodded. “Sure. Sure.” He let out a deep sigh, as if he’d already told the story too many times already. “Marcia and I went out tonight. Nothing special. A movie and a few drinks afterwards. To be exact, we had three Martinis each.”

  “All right, go on.”

  “We got home at about midnight. This kid who was sitting for us—Sheila Kane, a nice kid we always use—she was sleeping on the couch when we came in. Marcia woke her, and I paid her and then took her out to the car. She lives on the other end of town, Dave. I always drive her home.”

  “Go on.”

  “I took her straight home. I dropped her off at her house and then took off. I stopped in a bar to buy a package of cigarettes. Then I went home.” He paused and sucked in a deep breath. “An hour later, the cops were pounding on my door. They said the kid had been raped and strangled. Her parents told them she’d been sitting for us.”