Children of the Streets

by Harlan Ellison

  ‘Maybe that’s what you wanted it to look like,’ he shot back at me.

  I could feel my face getting red, like it does when I’m boiling, and my duck-rasp had a real waspish tone. ‘Now you come patty-caking in here trying to whipsaw me and scare me with tales of the fry-seat. I don’t much care for it! So unless you got something logical to say, or a charge to make, or a warrant to back you, or you want to talk more civilly, beat it. I don’t feel so hot right now.’ I turned toward the wall.

  Instead of cowing him, it got him all the madder. He grabbed me by the shoulder, yanked me back facing him. He was all the harder looking.

  ‘Listen, Campus, this isn’t any catered affair! We’ve been having trouble with this bunch of juvie hoods for six months now, and we’ve got a hunch they aren’t figuring out three hundred thousand dollar muggings on their own. We’ve got a hunch someone is ringing these jobs for them—and we’ve got a hunch the guy that’s been spotting for them is you.’

  His finger was in my face. I felt like biting it, but I didn’t. His arm looked too big behind it.

  ‘Nurse!’ I hollered, and the sweet young thing appeared as though by magic. ‘Haul this character off me, or call my company to send me a lawyer. I’m supposed to be an invalid, aren’t I?’

  She shrugged her neat shoulders, made a futile motion with her hands and said, ‘Doctor Eshbach said it was all right for Lieutenant Harrison to speak to you. Nothing I can do.’ She shrugged again and promptly disappeared at a wave from Harrison.

  ‘She on strings?’ I asked sarcastically.

  ‘Okay, Campus,’ Harrison chimed me off. ‘Now you got the word, let’s have a few answers.’ I pursed my lips. My head was splitting, and I rather thought I’d gotten a concussion, though they hadn’t mentioned it. But it was better to get this cop off my back early, and just lie back—till I could catch up with those punks.

  Oh, I’d decided to get them. That was settled in my mind by the time I started talking to Harrison.

  ‘Shoot,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah,’ he answered nastily, ‘that too.’ He reached into his topcoat pocket and brought out a little black notebook. ‘I’ve got to warn you, it says here, that anything you say may be used against you, and…’ He went on like that, the usual patter, all in a bored tone of voice. I told him to can it and get his questions over with.

  ‘What do you know about the mugging of a guy named Tanenbaum? A rug importer. About two months ago?’

  I looked at him blankly. Then a memory stirred. ‘That was in the papers. Got robbed of close to fifteen thousand dollars, didn’t he? On the way to pay someone for a big shipment of goods, wasn’t that it?’

  ‘Unusual you’d remember the exact amount, that long ago,’ Harrison shot at me.

  ‘I’ve got a good memory—any law against that?’ I drove back at him. He lowered his bushy brows in anger, and his glasses slid an inch down his nose.

  Then the grilling started for real. About halfway through, another cop came in—a detective—and he went at me when Harrison was taking five.

  I managed to piece the story together. It was interesting and made me all the more anxious to get the hoods that had plastered me. The story ran something like this:

  About six months before, big robberies and muggings had started cropping up, all of them pulled off by trained teenage punks in black leather jackets—the juvie set. One guy had been shot through the head with a zip-gun .32, another had been knifed in the chest a couple of times, this Tanenbaum had lost an eye when they’d stomped him—and now Pessler, a diamond merchant, was dead.

  It appeared to the police—and I could easily see why they were casting out for such unlikely suspects as myself—that someone was ringing for the pack. And a cabbie was as neat a sentry as they could hope for.

  Particularly since they’d found a couple of diamonds, raw, uncut, and pretty, nestling in my pants cuff.

  ‘A plant!’ I yelled when they popped that to me.

  ‘Maybe,’ Harrison answered.

  ‘Maybe, hell,’ I jumped back. ‘Look, I got a good record. I’ve never had any trouble more serious than a locked bumper. Now why the hell are you trying to pin this thing on me?’

  He didn’t have to say it. I could read it in his eyes. He was being crucified like a voodoo doll, from Downtown. All the way up the line, they were getting hot pants. From detective, to lieutenant, to inspector, to chief, to D.A., even up to the mayor—all of them were roasting. To pull the pan off the flame, they’d decided to temporarily fry a guy named Neal Campus. Because I’d been there, I looked good, and I had a couple of blue-whites in my pants cuff.

  ‘Look, Harrison,’ I said, a little more quietly, ‘I know you’ve got it rough, but don’t try to hang any of this wash on my line. I’m clean and you know it. Now if it’s just that you’ve got to make a pinch to shut the papers off, then find someone else. Because you know damned well you haven’t got a shred of a case to take before a jury. You’ll look like a sap, and I’ll sue you for ten years’ pay.

  ‘Those diamonds were planted on me just to throw you off, as they have. Now if you want a line on what happened—as much of it as I saw—maybe I can fish that out for you. But otherwise, I’m not your boy.’

  We went around and around for a while longer, and then they asked me, ‘What did these kids look like?’

  ‘I didn’t see their faces,’ I answered, smoothing the sheet across my lap. ‘Too dark.’

  Harrison leaped up, the chair fell over, he was bellowing at me, ‘You were up over the curb, Campus. You must have had them dead in your spots. If you’re telling the truth, and haven’t got anything to hide, why are you holding out on us?’

  They were damned mad, and I didn’t want to rub them any more. I clammed, and put on the honest-to-God-I’m-not-holding-back attitude. After a while, they took it for straight talk.

  I didn’t want to turn them loose on those kids just yet. If those kids had planted the diamonds on me, they must have wanted me for a patsy. They probably didn’t realize I’d gotten a good look at them. I’d had enough guys shoving me around in Korea, and I’d learned to dislike it real intense. Now, to have anybody start shoving me in my own city—that was too much.

  I wanted a crack at them before Harrison and his squad got to them.

  It took them an hour and a half to pump me dry. Or at least to pump me what they thought was dry.

  They got up to leave. Harrison clapped a battered porkpie down on his head and stood up. ‘That’s it for now, Campus. We don’t have anything really solid on you yet, but it’s still smelly, some of the dodges you’ve handed us. So take it true when I tell you not to leave town, or the fare you run up on that hack of yours may pay off in a trip to the fry-seat.’

  He wasn’t kidding, and it was easier just to shut my eyes than to try reassuring him. I wasn’t leaving town.

  They left, and all I could see, with my eyes shut, were three young hoods. I was going to get out of this hospital in another week, and I wanted them. Bad.

  Liggett, the dispatcher, caught me on the way out one morning about a week after I’d been released. I’d been out for a week, and asking plenty of questions around town—if anybody knew the kids I’d described. Nobody had, of course, but I hadn’t given up.

  I’d had a bit of a time getting my cab back, but I threatened to get the union on their tailpipes, and they slapped me back on schedule fast. They didn’t like the idea of a cabbie suspected of murder tooling one of their crates around, but they liked the idea of the union beating around their ears even less.

  That’s why it bothered me when Liggett stopped me at the garage check-out.

  ‘Neal!’ he flagged me, and I pulled over, outside the garage.

  Liggett was a short man, with washed-out eyes, and a look that said, ‘Three years from now I can ditch all this crap and settle back on my rosy-red pension.’

  I lit a cigarette, waiting for him to check off the last two boats out of the pool, and come over. He wa
lked with a slight limp from the days of the back wars. ‘Neal, there was somebody asking after you last night—phone call.’

  My ears perked up. ‘Who?’

  ‘Didn’t offer any references. Just wanted to know what route you were working—obviously knew but nothing from cab policy in this town—and when you were finished. Said he was a friend and wanted to toss you a juicy out-of-limits fare. Also wanted to know where you lived.’

  ‘Tell him?’

  Liggett rubbed the back of his neck reflectively. ‘Where you live? No. When you were off? Yes. The former because I didn’t think it was any of his biz, the latter because he said he wanted to hire you to ferry him out to Newark Airport. Thought he might be on the level. After I’d told him, though, I wondered why he didn’t know your address and what time you’re off, if he was such a big buddy.’

  I pursed my lips, then stuck the butt back in my mouth. ‘Thanks, Lig,’ I said. ‘If anybody starts checking me out in the future, play it close. There may be a couple people don’t want me to go on breathing. I’ve maybe been asking the right questions in the wrong places.’

  ‘That mugging business still?’ he asked.

  I nodded and tossed the hack into first, punched the starter. Then I thought of something. ‘Hey, Lig.’ He walked back, leaned against the window. ‘Any other way they can get my address uptown?’

  He stopped to think a minute, nodded his head. ‘If you mean through our records—no. But there is just one.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I asked.

  ‘Any phone book,’ he answered, shaking his head.

  I drove a double shift that day, trying to catch up on all the time I’d lost in the hospital. I was sort of slow in wanting to quit. Finally I felt my eyes bugging, and decided it was time to sack off. I reported in and told Lig I was taking the hack home for the night.

  He okayed it, and motioned me off.

  I drove uptown fast, wanting to pound my ear. I found myself getting tired fast these days. The hospital hadn’t worn off completely yet.

  It was after nine when I pulled into 82nd Street, and stopped in front of the brownstone where I live. It was a dusty black night, and the streets were quiet as the catacombs. Odd for May, when the kids usually stay out late in the streets. There was one parking space, just big enough for the hack, and I jimmied it into the spot between a big Caddy and a Pontiac without too much shifting.

  I was just starting across the street when the three kids jumped me.

  They popped out of a dark-blue Merc parked on the wrong side of the street, in front of my brownstone, and they didn’t bother slugging me. One had a .45 and the other two were handling vicious switchblades. They didn’t say a word, just waggled their weapons in the direction of the Merc.

  I got in. I didn’t really have a helluva lot of choice.

  They pulled out with a squeal of burning tires, and started toward the East Side.

  They turned left at Columbus Avenue, then left again at 83rd Street. When they got down to the Hudson River Drive, they turned on to it and shot hell-for-leather uptown.

  ‘How far you kiddies think you can carry this game?’ I asked. I was so goddam mad I was ready to yank their large colons out and tie them together.

  ‘Far enough,’ said the kid with the .45, leaning over the front seat.

  ‘The hell you—’ I started, and he tapped me with the barrel. He tapped me goddam good and hard. I went under, plenty annoyed. I was beginning to feel like a door knocker.

  I came out of it, for a change, without a headache. I must be getting used to this stuff, I thought. Then I realized why I’d come to. The car had stopped.

  We were on a cliff, overlooking what looked suspiciously like an ocean. ‘Out,’ the lad with the pistol said.

  I got out.

  They marched me, at knife-point, toward the edge of the cliff. They must have driven way out, because this strip of coast didn’t look familiar. It was all too painfully obvious what was coming next.

  ‘Do you jump, wise-mouth, or do we push?’ one of the punk kids said. He was a ratty-looking little thing. The kind of kid you instinctively know gets pushed around, and plays it hard so no one will notice he’s scared of his shoelaces.

  ‘I guess you’re going to have to push, runny-nose,’ I tossed over my shoulder, looking down at the razored rocks and lacy froth of the waves crashing on them. That was gonna be a real nasty fall. I added, ‘But whether you push or I jump, I’m going to remember that mousy kisser of yours, and when I get to it I’m going to—’

  Then the little bastard shoved me.

  He planted a foot in the small of my back, gave a strangled yell of hatred, and I went can-over-tea-kettle into open air.

  My arms went out in all directions. I felt the cold wind whistling past my cheeks, and I screamed so loud I’m sure my lungs wanted to take up residency elsewhere.

  I didn’t see my life flash in front of my eyes. All I saw was a guy named Neal Campus, mad as hell because he was being pushed around like a floor mop, looking for a way out of this.

  It seemed like I’d never stop falling. Then my flailing hands grabbed something. It was a bush. It ripped loose and dirt sprayed my face. I grabbed again, another bush. It ripped loose. But I was slowing a little. The third try made it. I hooked my hand around a scrub growth and slammed up against the chinky rock wall. It shook the breath out of me, and my arms felt as though they were leaving their sockets. But I wasn’t falling any more. The rocks and debris cascaded past me, and made a helluva bang when they landed below.

  I heard a thin laugh from the darkness above me, and a voice that carried down the cliff to me. ‘Let him spot us from down there, if he can, goddam big-mouthed sonofabitch!’

  Two minutes later the Merc started up, and they drove away fast. I started back up. It wasn’t easy. It took me half an hour to climb what I’d fallen in a few seconds. My hands were raw by the time I made it, my head ached miserably, and I fell on to the dirt, gasping.

  After a while I stood up. I faced into the wind to get cooled. I faced back toward the city. ‘I’ll get you—every one of you!’ Not loud, just firm. That’s the way I felt. Not loud. Just firm. Real firm.

  I started walking.

  By the time I’d hopped enough lifts, and used what little change had stayed in my pockets during the fall—the punks had lifted my wallet—to get bus rides, I had a few other things straightened out in my mind.

  Number one: these weren’t just kids jumping salty. There was something more here than just a particularly ugly form of organized gang crime. There was an older, smarter boy behind these leather-jacketed jockeys.

  Number two: they’d know in a day or so that I wasn’t dead, that I hadn’t spattered into the Atlantic. Then they’d come jiving after me, and this time they’d probably make it stick. In short, if I stood still long enough for them to find me, I was dead.

  Number three: I was caught between the devil and the deep vermillion. If the kids didn’t polish me off—and I wasn’t worried about being convinced on that score any more—the cops were going to do their damnedest.

  And, most important, number four: I wanted those kids so bad I could taste it. I had to get to them and turn them in to Harrison and his stooges, just to get them off my back. Because if I didn’t do it ever so fast, they were going to make sure I didn’t have any back to get off.

  But how the hell do you locate a bunch of teenage punks in a city of over eight million people? How do you get to them before they get to you?

  I knew I had to take care of a few things.

  I went to see Jerry Saha over in the Bronx.

  Jerry had been through the freeze-mud with me, near Wonson, and we’d kept in touch once we’d gotten back. I knew he still had his army service revolver—a spanking handy .45 that shot a real straight round. Jerry was an incurable souvenir hunter. His apartment looked like an antique shop.

  I called him from a drugstore on his corner, and he told me to come on up. About ten minutes
later he let me in, giving me the shush-finger. The wife and kids were asleep in the next room. It was six in the A.M.

  ‘What’s up, Neal?’ he said, belting his robe about him tighter. I told him he didn’t really want to know, but he said, ‘Hell, yes. Sure I do. You don’t come bursting in here at six in the morning unless something’s under your fingernails. Now give!’

  So I gave him the bit from the top—all the way from the mugging, and this Pessler character’s being cooled to the tune of three hundred thousand bucks’ worth of uncuts, through Harrison’s visit in the sick ward, right up to and including the little ride I’d just come back from, and particularly about how they were going to try and cool me proper in the near future.

  ‘I’d like to borrow your heater, Jerry,’ I told him.

  He looked worried for a minute, then nodded slowly. ‘Sure, Neal. Just a second.’ He trotted into the next room, his bedroom slippers slap-slapping against the soles of his feet, and closed the door behind him. I heard a drawer open and close. Then the closet door opening. I heard him fishing around the closet for a few minutes, then he reappeared. He had a chamois bag and a small box in his hand.

  ‘Here’s a box of bullets for the thing,’ he said, handing me the box. I took out eight rounds and shoved the box in my jacket pocket. I reached into the bag, came up with the blocky thing in my hand. Jerry had taken good care of that gun. It shone.

  I loaded the clip, flat-palmed it back into the butt. I shoved the .45 into my waistband. ‘Thanks, Jerry,’ I said. ‘Thanks a lot. You’ll get it back in good shape.’

  He looked concerned, his collegiate, crew-cut appearance cut by a frown. ‘Look, take care of yourself, Neal. If there’s anything else you need…’

  ‘Not right now, Jerry. I’ll keep you posted.’ I patted the spot under my dirty, mud-caked jacket where the .45 nestled against my tummy. ‘Thanks for this. It’ll probably be the only thing between me and potter’s field if it comes to a showdown with these characters.’