Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve

by editor Leo Margules

  They walked along Flatbush Avenue in a group, Max and his two companions leading the others walking two-by-two behind them. Rick and Pat brought up the rear.

  Pat’s family lived in an apartment at Grand Army Plaza, only three blocks from Rick’s new home, but about a dozen blocks from the Cardinal Shop. When they started out, Rick was in a pleasantly exhilarated mood. Considering that it was his first night in new surroundings, he’d been a pretty fair social success. He was surrounded by new friends who represented the cream of local teen-age society, and he had an attractive girl on his arm.

  Then his mood began to change. The three boys in the lead suddenly got the whim of monopolizing the sidewalk. There weren’t many pedestrians out at this time of night, but what few there were got the treatment without regard to age or sex. Max and his two friends deliberately drove everyone they met into the gutter. Linking arms, with Max in the center, they spread the width of the walk and bore down inexorably on everyone coming the other way.

  An elderly man was the first forced to scurry off the curb into the street to avoid being run over. Next was a pair of middle-aged women, who scrambled aside making indignant noises and glaring after the trio.

  Pat and Duty seemed to find the exhibition hilarious. Rick was only embarrassed. Junior seemed uncertain how to react. A fixed smile settled on his face, but it was a forced one.

  “Showoff” behavior had been held in contempt by Rick’s sophisticated Philadelphia set. But there was nothing he could think of to do about the situation, except endure it. He was in a new environment now, and was in the minority. He sensed that any objection on his part would lose him the esteem he had so far managed to gain.

  They were almost to Sterling Place when they encountered a pedestrian who refused to give ground. He was a burly, middle-aged man who looked as though he might be a truck driver. Planting himself squarely in the center of the walk, he awaited the approach of the arm-linked trio with a belligerent expression on his face.

  The three boys didn’t slow down a bit. They strode straight into the man. Just as they reached him, the man lowered one shoulder to butt Max in the chest.

  Things happened so fast, Rick could barely follow them. The three boys unlocked arms. Artie grabbed the man by one shoulder and Eightball grabbed the other. Jerking him off-balance, they forced his head downward just as Max brought up a knee.

  Max’s knee connected with the man’s face with a sickening crunch. He went over backward, blood streaming from both nostrils. He was in a seated position on the sidewalk when Artie’s foot lashed out to catch him on the jaw. As the blow stretched the man out flat, Eightball jumped onto his stomach with both feet.

  Then all three boys were running down Sterling Place. Rick stood still in stunned disbelief at the vicious attack on a total stranger. Junior’s mouth hung open.

  Duty reacted next. Without a word he raced away after the other boys.

  Pat tugged at Rick’s arm. “We’d better get out of here,” she said fearfully.

  Without stirring, Rick slowly looked around. Across the street a couple and a lone man had stopped to peer their way. A passing car slowed to a stop and the driver in it craned to see what was going on.

  Junior suddenly broke into a run up Sterling Place, leaving Rick and Pat alone.

  The lone man on the opposite side of the street started to cross over. The man with the woman left her alone to cross too. Pat tugged at Rick’s arm again.

  “We didn’t do anything,” Rick said indignantly. “Run, if you want. I’m staying here.”

  He bent over the unconscious figure on the sidewalk. Pat looked around fearfully, but she stayed.

  4

  The lone man from across the street was the first to reach the scene. As Rick rose from his examination of the unconscious man, the newcomer said, “What happened? A mugging?”

  “I don’t know,” Rick said. “Just a fight, I think. You saw as much as I did.”

  The other man from across the street arrived then, and the driver of the car got out, leaving his car double-parked. Both stood staring at the prone figure.

  “He’s really out cold, ain’t he?” the driver commented.

  Rick said, “He’s hurt bad. Somebody ought to call an ambulance.”

  The man who had left his woman companion waiting across the street said, “There’s a tavern over there. I’ll call the cops.”

  He recrossed the street, took the woman’s arm and both of them entered the tavern.

  By the time a police radio car arrived, a considerable crowd ringed the unconscious man, most of it from the tavern from which the police had been called. Rick took Pat’s hand and quietly led her up the street. The police, busy questioning bystanders, took no notice of their departure.

  They were a block away before Pat breathed a sigh of relief and lost the strained expression she had been wearing.

  Giving Rick’s hand a squeeze, she said admiringly, “Boy, wait till the bunch hears about this in school tomorrow. You’ll get invited in for sure.”

  “Hears about what?” Rick asked.

  “How you bluffed it out. I never saw such nerve. Standing right there and talking to those men just like you didn’t know any more about what happened than they did. They never even suspected we were with the bunch that beat him up.” Pat smiled approval.

  With a sense of shock Rick realized that Pat had entirely misinterpreted his motive in refusing to run. He had stayed partly because he hadn’t done anything wrong and refused to run because of another’s act, partly because he didn’t want to desert an injured man until help arrived. Pat seemed to think he had stayed through sheer bravado, to demonstrate to her that he could face down the other witnesses. She thought he had simply been attempting to prove that he could “get away” with things.

  He didn’t enlighten her. He couldn’t without sounding stuffy. Furthermore, he found himself enjoying the admiration in her voice.

  The next day in school, when the story got around, Rick didn’t correct the misapprehension either. Between classes and during the lunch period, he met many other members of the Prospectors. All had heard of the incident, and all had admiring comments to make.

  The story grew in passage. By the close of school the version was that Rick had stood his ground even after the police arrived, and had straight-facedly described the victim’s assailants, giving totally wrong descriptions. Rick found himself the hero of a living legend.

  Heroism to this new group, he gradually realized, consisted of outmaneuvering constituted authority. He saw evidence of this all around him. Daring little bits of misbehavior were performed all day long, right under the noses of teachers. There was no purpose in them other than to run the deliberate risk of apprehension and punishment. Boys who succeeded in harassing their teachers most, yet managed to go undetected, drew the most admiration.

  The commonest trick was a bit of mild vandalism known as “flashing,” which was breaking light bulbs in their sockets. The usual weapon was a rubber band and a paper clip. Generally this was practiced in the halls between classes rather than in class, for then the corridors were so full of students, it was impossible to tell from which direction a missile came.

  A bulb would explode just as a teacher passed beneath it, often showering him with glass. When he glared around, most students would be moving sedately along the hall, engrossed in conversation with companions, others would be bending over drinking fountains or reading the bulletin board. None, apparently, ever saw or heard a bulb burst.

  Max was particularly expert at flashing. He could hit a bulb at fifteen paces without breaking stride.

  No one Rick talked to seemed concerned at how badly the victim of the beating had been hurt. When he continued to get non-committal and indifferent replies to his questions as to whether anyone had heard, he stopped asking. It wasn’t until that evening, when he found a brief mention of the incident on an inside page of the paper, that Rick learned the injuries hadn’t been serious. The victim wa
s described as having a broken nose and facial lacerations. The only description of his assailants he had been able to give was that they were all teen-agers.

  At eight-thirty that evening Junior again met Rick in front of the latter’s apartment building. Together they walked to Grand Army Plaza and picked up Pat Quincy.

  When Rick asked what she’d like to do, she said, “Let’s drop by the Cardinal Shop.”

  “Will it be all right?” Rick asked. “I mean, Max didn’t say anything at school today.”

  “After the way the bunch took to you today, you’re practically a Prospector,” she assured him. “It’s just a matter of formality to vote you in at the next meeting.”

  “When’s that?” Junior asked.

  “Thursday’s meeting night. Meantime, you don’t have to be outcasts. We’ll have to ask Max if it’s all right to come in, of course. But nobody’s likely to make a big thing of it.”

  Pat proved to be right. At the Cardinal Shop Rick and Junior stood self-effacingly just inside the doorway while Pat went to get permission from Max for them to join the group. Max came over and clapped both boys on the shoulders in a gesture of welcome.

  “Draw up a Coke and sit down, studs,” he said.

  The evening was a repetition of the first. Inside the Cardinal Shop there was no sign of the constant show-off behavior the group engaged in outside of it. Possibly this was because here there was no constituted authority to revolt against.

  The bald-headed Pop was more in the status of a tolerated servant than a proprietor. The Prospectors had so taken over the Cardinal Shop that they, not Pop, ran the place. He had no authority either to order anyone out, or to permit in anyone not approved by his clientele. Max settled any disorders, and there was a remarkable lack of disorder. It occurred to Rick that if the teachers at school operated on the same psychology Pop used, their discipline problem would be solved.

  During the evening Max called Rick and Junior aside for a private conference. “The guys and I have been talking you men over,” he said. “I’m planning to put you up for citizenship Thursday night.”

  Rick said, “Swell, Max,” and Junior said, “We sure appreciate that.”

  “You got to be voted in, of course, but nobody’s been talking against you.”

  “How about Artie?” Rick asked.

  “He’ll be all right. Maybe he’s a little peeved about you taking over his witch and beating him in a fight, but you got to give a reason for a blackball. This is a democratic organization. You can’t give a personal reason like that. It has to be something really against the candidate, like being chicken or squealing on a member.”

  Rick said, “I see.”

  “Of course you’ll have to do a chore before you get in.”

  “What’s that mean?” Junior asked.

  “Just something the club picks for you to do. To prove you’re worthy to belong. Sort of an initiation stunt.”

  “Like what?” Rick inquired.

  Max waved a vague hand. “Might be anything. But don’t worry. When we really want a stud in, we don’t pick something so hard he can’t make it. It’s only when some of the guys are a little against him that we really make it tough.”

  Rick went to bed with mixed feelings that night. He was proud of having been chosen for membership in the Prospectors so quickly after arriving in the neighborhood. But he was a little disturbed by the members’ pattern of behavior. It was so totally different from that of his Philadelphia fraternity crowd.

  He also wondered a little uneasily what his chore was going to be.

  5

  The next morning at breakfast Rick announced rather proudly that he’d been asked to join the Prospectors. His mother smiled vaguely and said, “That’s nice, dear.”

  His father said, “What in the devil is the Prospectors?”

  “A club,” Rick told him. “The top organization around here. All the important guys belong.”

  “Yeah?” Big Sam Henderson said. “Connected with the school, is it?”

  “Well, not exactly. Most of the fellows are in school. But it’s not sponsored by a school adviser or anything.”

  “Who is it sponsored by?”

  “By itself,” Rick said. “It’s just a club. Sort of like an unchartered fraternity.”

  “What are the dues?”

  Rick creased his forehead. “Gee, I never asked. I don’t know if there are any.”

  “What does the club do?” his father asked.

  “Do?”

  “What’s its purpose?” Big Sam asked. “Every club has some purpose. Rotary’s a community service, for instance.”

  “It’s not like Rotary,” Rick said impatiently. “It’s just a club.”

  His father said, “You don’t seem to know much about the organization.”

  “I know it’s the biggest thing around here,” Rick told him. “You don’t understand. It’s really something to be asked in so soon after moving here.”

  Big Sam merely grunted and dropped the subject. But that evening after dinner he had more to say on the matter. He called Rick into the front room for a discussion. “I asked around at the shop about this Prospectors Club you want to join,” he told Rick. “You know what it really is?”

  “What you mean?” Rick asked.

  “It’s a kid gang,” Big Sam said bluntly. “Half the kids in it have juvenile records. The cops are after them all the time.”

  Rick stared at him. “Who told you that?”

  “Men at the shop who have lived in this neighborhood all their lives. It’s about the toughest bunch in this whole section. They’re nothing but a bunch of juvenile hoods.”

  Rick looked at his father with genuine astonishment. “You got a wrong steer, Pop. I know these guys. They’re all just ordinary fellows from the same kind of families as ours. Max Jelonek, the club president, is one of the biggest wheels at school. He’s even on the Student Council.”

  “I know all about him,” Big Sam said grimly. “He’s got a file as thick as your head down at the police juvenile division. He’s been pulled in for questioning on vandalism and assault so many times, every cop on the force knows him by his first name. You stay away from that bunch.”

  “But it’s just a club,” Rick protested.

  “Club, hell,” said Big Sam, who rarely swore. “Don’t you know all these kid gangs call themselves clubs? Ever heard of the Purple Pelicans?”

  “I’ve heard it mentioned,” Rick admitted.

  “That’s another so-called club over the other side of Atlantic Avenue. Every so often your little social organization has a rumble with the Purple Pelicans. They set up a war on some vacant lot and go after each other with chains and tire irons and shivs, and sometimes with a gun or two. Just for kicks. Did you know that a Purple Pelican youngster was killed four months ago? Plus a couple of dozen others ending up in the hospital.”

  Rick said faintly, “They don’t seem like that kind of guys.”

  “Well, they are. And now that you know, you stay away from them. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Rick said even more faintly.

  Shortly afterward, when Junior Carr stopped by for him, Rick relayed what his father had told him. Junior absorbed it in wide-eyed silence.

  “You think he got the right dope?” Junior asked finally.

  “Sure,” Rick said in a morose tone. “All this time we’ve been fooling around with a rumble-starting teen-age gang.”

  Junior said tentatively, “Wouldn’t they be sore if we didn’t join now, Rick? I don’t want these guys mad at me.”

  Rick only looked at him.

  Junior said in a defensive tone, “I don’t mean just because they might beat us up. But look how the Prospectors run everything. We’d be right out in the cold. Probably Pat would even drop you.”

  Rick frowned at this. “Let’s go over and talk to her about it,” he suggested.

  When they picked up Pat, Rick told her he had something to talk about, and suggested t
hey all walk over to Prospect Park instead of going to the Cardinal Shop. They found a bench in the park, and after they were seated with Pat in the middle, she looked at Rick expectantly.

  “It’s about the Prospectors,” Rick said. “My dad says it isn’t a club, it’s just a teen-age gang.”

  Pat’s eyes widened. “You told your father about the Prospectors?” she asked in a shocked voice.

  “Why not?” Rick inquired.

  “None of the fellows tell their parents they belong, Rick. My folks would kill me if they knew I belonged to the auxiliary. You just don’t do that.”

  Rick said glumly, “It is just a gang then, huh?”

  “It’s a club. It’s not like those things you read about over in Harlem. Nobody in the Prospectors goes around stealing hubcaps or skin-popping. We’re a straight club.”

  Rick was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Pop says Max Jelonek has a juvenile record a mile long.”

  “Pickups on suspicion,” Pat said contemptuously. “The cops have got nothing better to do. He’s never taken a fall.”

  Rick said, “The police don’t keep picking up innocent people on suspicion.”

  “Oh, Max feels his oats once in a while. But it’s all in fun. He never does anything really bad, like stealing”

  “Yeah,” Rick said dryly. “Just beats up strangers and busts up property. And sets up rumbles with the Purple Pelicans.”

  Pat said petulantly, “You’re talking like a detached worker.”

  “A what?”

  “A street-gang worker. One of those busybodies who’s always coming around, trying to get the guys to organize ball teams and stuff. Look, Rick, you can’t fight City Hall. You’re either for the Prospectors or against them. And around here, if you’re against them, you’re dead.”

  Junior said on a high note, “What do you mean, dead? Explain it, will you?”

  Pat glanced at him. “Out of everything. Like Duty Bullo explained the other night. You wouldn’t have a friend in the world.”