Web of the City

by Harlan Ellison

  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. There had 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 brown-stones, 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 some 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 Chero-kees?” 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 sitting 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 pasty white under her imperfectly applied powder coating. She watched Rusty come through the door. Quick, sharp needle-pointed movements of 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 nervo
us 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, like una 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?”