Web of the City

by Harlan Ellison

  “You hear me?” he snarled, his voice thick and syrupy.

  Rusty tried to move sidewise, tried to get away, but though the boy could not see in the dark of the alley, the standing man could and Rusty heard the swish of fabric against legs an instant before the feet struck him in the stomach. A ball of pain exploded outward in his gut, sending tracers of agony up into his chest and down into his groin and he slumped over with a moan. He was not out, he was not even graying, but the shock of it was so great, he lay still, motionless—yet quivering inside.

  “I asked ya hear me?” his father repeated. He bent over to see if he had hurt the boy, but more to see if he had ruined his chances of communication than in concern over injuries. He bent down, slumped onto his haunches and Rusty acted by reflex. The compulsion was not there, nor the confidence, but the streets had done their work, and his leg—bent at the knee in front of him—came up whip-fast and caught the man in the groin.

  Pops Santoro screamed with the querulous screech of a confused animal and doubled over, his mouth wide, his eyes fully open, and Rusty took the opportunity to move. He started to his feet and the pain in his side sent a sharp cramp through him. He could barely walk and his hand scratched across the rough brick surface of the building as he tried to get away.

  The little moans of agony that had been coming from his father ceased and Rusty felt a hand, tentatively, on the back of his neck. The man was trying to stop him. Rusty spun, using the hand that held him as a pivot, and shoved his elbow into his father’s chest. The hand let loose and Pops Santoro stumbled back. Pain continued to blanket them both.

  The spoor of conquest was high in Rusty now and he thought of this man before him not as his father—no, it had been a long time since he had considered him that, anyhow—but as an opponent. Another obstacle the gutters had thrown up to confound him. His hand went to his pocket and the switchblade he had put there for no one but the man in the camel’s hair coat came out.

  Even in the darkness of the alley, with only the faintest light from a street lamp down the block casting a lighter shadow over the building, the knife seemed to draw all brilliance to itself. It was up straight in the boy’s hand, and its pointed head was aimed at Pops Santoro’s throat.

  Rusty dragged for breath, came up with enough to gasp, “Y-you hear me, I don’t know who set ya on me, but you stay the frayk away from me, far away from me. Cause I hate you, you sonofabitch, I hate you all over, and you come near me again, I swear to God I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you and that’s it!”

  The man stumbled back again, seeing the line of steel that extended out from Rusty’s fist. He put a hand to his stubbled chin and his voice was too thick with liquor to be forceful.

  “You stay home, an’ stop interferin’ with people’s business.”

  Rusty backed away and as he passed out of the line of faint light that came in through the alley’s mouth, he saw his father’s face in a half-light. At that instant, it all tied together and he knew he had been right. Something he had seen in the man’s face told him he was right.

  And after he had left the alley at a dead run, after he had scrambled over a fence and run through a dozen other alleys, after he was on the roof of his own building, with the night a hood over him, he sat down and thought. And knew he was right, that he had stumbled onto the answer long before and was going about it in the right way.

  No wonder they were all scared. No wonder they were all trying to get him to lay off. Boy-O was the key right now. What he had seen in his father’s face was the same thing—he now realized with shock—that he had seen in Miss Clements’ face.

  The eyes had been the same. Very white and no pupil at all but a pin-prick of black. Eyes that were made by the Devil, eyes that were made by one thing. The dream-dust. The narcotics habit.

  His old man was on it, too. Miss Clements had been on it.

  That was why he was being warned away. Now all he had to do was find Boy-O. After Boy-O, if he could make the pusher talk, the next link, and on up, till he found the one he wanted.

  Hell yes. The man in the camel’s hair coat.

  TEN:

  SATURDAY, A WEEK LATER

  rusty santoro

  boy-o

  Boy-O didn’t come out of his hole for almost a week.

  It was a bad week; one of attending classes and having to bite his nails while waiting for a break. He had considered cutting school and spending his time looking, but a stern warning from Carl Pancoast bit the end off that idea. Also, Rusty was certain whoever had put Miss Clements on him would do his damnedest to make sure he was stopped from looking too hard—though how they could know he was looking for Boy-O was something Rusty could not imagine—even if they had to send the police after him, to arrest him as a truant.

  Moms lay still in her bed, though now she was well enough to take a little clear chicken broth from either his hands or Mrs. Givens’. The kids in school avoided him. Cougars passed him in the halls with softly murmured catcalls and Weezee was a total stranger now. Only Carl Pancoast was any help. Rusty spoke to him several times, and though the older man harped endlessly on staying away from this business—allowing the police to solve the murder in their own time and way—he was a reassuring factor and Rusty knew he had at least one friend.

  Then, the following Saturday, Boy-O crept out of hiding and Rusty went for him.

  The boy had obviously known Rusty was looking for him. Rusty no longer trusted anyone in the neighborhood, and had carried on his efforts surreptitiously. Yet the neighborhood, with that unspoken instinct, like the mute communication of jungle vines, knew there was something going on, something tense, lying in wait. Rusty had not for a moment given up hope of trapping Dolores’ murderer, and the low plant sense of the neighborhood may have felt it. But they wanted to stay out of the line of fire, and almost no one would help him.

  So when Boy-O left his pad—a room in a cheap flophouse outside Cougar turf—and wandered back to Tom-Tom’s for his dope-peddling run, Rusty knew it and he was there.

  No planes to the face. Just a floating hunger, with no bones to support it. A starving animal, with eyes that never rested, never closed. Boy-O lived where he was supposed to live—in the gutter. His clothes reeked of the street and his face was always marred by patches of dirt or soot. A high-water mark ringed his thick neck. He had quick, scarred hands; filthy, untrustworthy hands.

  He was passing a bundle to a Cougar named Clipper when Rusty came into the malt shop. He was removing the little white packets from the slit inside-edge of his pants-top, as the boy came through the open door. He looked up, started, then dragged himself into a semblance of nonchalance. It was instantly apparent to Rusty that whoever had been warning him off the finding of Dolores’ killer had also warned Boy-O that Rusty was on the scent.

  A thought flashed through Rusty’s mind: why don’t they just put me down and stop this bullshit? The thought flickered and was gone. Along with the fear. He was doing what had to be done, just as he had had Giulio, the butcher, watching Tom-Tom’s place from his shop across the street, watching for Boy-O, forewarning Rusty.

  Just as he had crossed into Cherokee turf. Just as he would find that last man, and do him the way he should have been done.

  Just as he was going to make Boy-O talk today.

  Boy-O saw him and a film of craftiness clouded his eyes. He turned his head slightly, continued talking to Clipper. But he knew every step Rusty took and as the Puerto Rican came up behind him, Boy-O did not move, but said quietly, “Anything I c’n do for ya, Santoro?”

  Rusty paused and wet his lips. He had to handle Boy-O delicately till he got him someplace where no one would interfere with the question-and-answer game he wanted to play with the pusher.

  “Yeah. I wanna talk to ya about somethin’.”

  Still with his back to Rusty, Boy-O handed the little packets from his pants to Clipper, and accepted the two five-dollar bills with the other hand. It was all one fluid movement without pause
or fumbling. Clipper looked up at Rusty and the boy saw the nerve-jumping tension in the Cougar. Clipper was on it hard and he needed a fast mainline to get rid of the monkey. Even as Rusty thought it, Clipper pushed up from the booth and left the shop hurriedly, the packets in his pocket, his hand jammed tight down on them in protective adoration.

  Boy-O turned then. He faced around and leaned against the table. He was the biggest junkie of all, bigger than his customers, bigger than any Rusty had ever seen. The scumbag was constantly broke, though he raked in a staggering amount of money, just from the neighborhood kids and junkies such as Finkel, the barber, and the boys who worked on the docks…

  … and Miss Clements

  … and Pops Santoro.

  Yet he was always broke and filthy and sleeping in fifty-cent pads. He spent all he made on more of his own product. The face that looked up into Rusty’s was a lost one. It was devoid of purpose and strength, contained only the driving hunger for the dream-dust, the stuff that made a man temporarily twelve feet tall, and all trouble six miles away.

  “Like what ya wanna talk about?” Boy-O said. “I don’t know we got anythin’ to talk about?”

  “Sit down,” Rusty instructed him, with a friendly tone to the words. He waved his hand to the booth and then half-turned to call to Tom-Tom. “Hey! Tom-Tom! What’ll ya have, Boy-O?”

  Boy-O shrugged his shoulders, surprised at this sudden friendliness on Rusty’s part, suspecting it, but philosophically deciding a free soda was a good deal anyhow. He slid into the booth, said, “A black an’ white, heavy onna syrup.”

  “Tom-Tom, a Coke an’ a black an’ white shake, heavy on the syrup.” He slid down across from Boy-O and let a friendly smile play across his hard young face. “Hey, man, I haven’t seen much of ya lately.”

  Suspicion flickered across Boy-O’s face, but he replied, “Oh, yeah, well, I been busy. You know.” Rusty knew all right. Busy getting the stuff to peddle and lying on his back in his pad with the light pastel dreams flitting by overhead and the holes like a million mosquito bites in his arms and thighs. Yeah, sure, busy. Hiding out!

  “So? Whaddaya want?” Boy-O was too anxious to terminate the conversation. It showed nervousness and that he had something to be afraid about. That was good. For an instant Rusty felt bothered that he was going to have to use force again, but realized immediately there was no other way to get through to this hophead. The street called its own rules and a stud was a fool to play a kill-game by gentlemen’s rules. If it was going to be rough, then it was going to be rough. But was there no end of it, finally? Was the web always getting stickier, dragging him back always?

  “Well,” Rusty began, feigning nervousness, twining his fingers, looking down at his hands, “I—uh—well, I didn’t wanna say anything here, y’know…” he nodded his head at Tom-Tom, busily fixing the milk shake. “But, I—uh—I gotta have some stuff. I been gettin’ kinda nervous, an’ I need a fix…”

  Boy-O’s face jumped sharply and his eyes narrowed. Rusty was not a hophead. What did he want with the dust? Boy-O knew it was all wrong, right from the first sentence. This was some sort of trap, some sort of tie-in with Rusty’s sister and the hunt that had been going on the past weeks.

  “What’re you tryin’ to pull?” the pusher said softly, his filthy face tense under the imperfect light of the malt shop. “You tryin’ to pull me into your trouble? You got some idea I was in that rumble with your sister?”

  Rusty had to fight to hold back his desire to grab the junkie and throttle him. He held back and let an expression of hopelessness and doom cross his features. He shook his head sadly, lost, needing solace. “No, man, no, no…” His voice was a thready whisper, dripping with remorse and unhappiness. “I—I been sniffin’ a little and when my sister Dolores got it, I—I don’t know what happened to me, man. I just started hittin’ it like mad, y’know, an’ n-now I gotta have more. I been gettin’ it from—”

  Tom-Tom came around the counter, bringing the Coke and the milk shake, and Rusty cut himself off. He did it only partially because the soda jerk was within earshot. The other part of his reason was that he had to quickly figure out a source for the stuff he was supposed to have been mainlining. Where could he get it, that Boy-O would not doubt, could not check on?

  The baby-fat hand of Tom-Tom came into sight with the milk shake gripped in the fist and Rusty took a dollar from the pocket of his jeans. He laid it out alongside the glass, and kept his eyes on the light brown surface of the shake as he heard Tom-Tom clinking change. When the coins were down, Tom-Tom was gone and he saw the wet ring on the table where Boy-O had lifted his shake, he began again.

  “I been gettin’ some stuff from a friend of mine crosstown in Harlem, but it’s all g-gone now, an’ ya gotta help me out, man.”

  Boy-O did not reply. He sucked on the lip of the glass and his little feral eyes stared across the dark milky fluid and at Rusty. He knew the kid was lying. It was obvious. But he couldn’t refuse and not get himself creamed. Boy-O wanted out of this mess. There was no way to stay out of Santoro’s path, it seemed, without giving him what he wanted to know.

  Rusty Santoro had changed. He was no longer a gutter fighter. He had changed. He was a steam roller now and that roller was bent on crushing anything—or anyone—that got in the way. Boy-O was wary of this kid. There was no sense tangling with him if it could be avoided.

  “What you wanna know, Rusty?”

  Rusty’s eyebrows went up. Startled, he said, “I dunno what you mean, man. Like all I want is some dust, and we’re wheelin’ an’ dealin’, y’know.”

  Boy-O went back to his drink. He wasn’t getting through. “Come on,” Rusty urged, a heavy edge to his words, “let’s fall up to your pad and find a pack. I need a shot right now.”

  Boy-O looked up through half-slitted eyes and did not have the stomach to refuse. He slid out of the booth. He had snuff with him, Rusty knew that. Rusty wanted him away from here. To talk, it had to be!

  Well, get the talk over and then he was free and clear. He preceded Rusty out of the malt shop, as Tom-Tom tried valiantly to raise Glazounov or Bach on the tiny radio behind the counter. As they hit the sidewalk, the radio let fly with—“Ohohoh, yes! I’m the grayyyte pre-ten-en-der…”

  “Why din’t we go to my place?” Boy-O asked. Fear rippled deeply in his voice, and his face was white beneath the dirt film.

  The basement was cool and dark and from somewhere behind stacks of old newspapers, rats moved in search of food. A bulb burned low, swinging at the end of a thick cord, its shadow-image here then there then back then there then back again as the bulb described an irregular arc. The ruined furniture that had been stored down here lay jumbled like strange burial mounds, chair legs and table extensions sticking up like the snarled, clutching arms of half-buried corpses. The ceiling was low and covered by softly rippling coverlets of cobwebs.

  Boy-O looked around in open fear. Maybe Rusty didn’t just want to talk. Maybe—

  “Siddown,” Rusty ordered the junkie. He pointed to a crate and when Boy-O hesitated, he shoved. Boy-O stumbled backward, tangled his scrawny legs and fell in a clattering heap, knocking aside the crate. He stared up from the floor, his eyes large and white with terror. He never should have humored this stud! Now he was solid trapped.

  “Now, look, man, I don’t want no trouble, ya dig? I mean, I don’t know what kinda business you got goin’ and all, but I had nothin’ to do with it. I’m just a guy minds his own—”

  Rusty brought out the knife.

  It had come to be more important to him than the pencils and pens and inks which he had used for mechanical drawings, with which he had thought he would build a future. It had slowly come to mean more to him than his brain, or his eyes, or anything. It was the only tool that seemed to work in the streets. The only one they understood, and the only one they respected. He had not wanted to use it ever again—he had wanted to throw it away, but they had forced him to resort to it, again and again. It was hi
s lone companion against them all. It was the only mouth-opener in the world. The only thing that could find for him the things he needed and the information so vital to the location of Dolores’ murderer.

  “Now I wanna know where you get your dream-dust from, scummie. I wanna know right now.” He stood silent, then, letting the shaft of the shank talk for him.

  Boy-O lay there and his mouth remained closed. His life was the dust. It was the only thing he had, as Rusty had the knife, and if he lost it, he was less than nothing. The neighborhood despised him. They would put up with him only so long as he brought them the vital narcotics. Rusty could never make him speak.

  The next hour was short for Rusty, terribly long for Boy-O. But they reached a stalemate.

  Rusty stood over Boy-O, and what he saw was the end of all the violence he had known. He knew now that he could never raise his hands to another person. It had all been futile, of course. Boy-O lay flat on his back, his chest heaving up and sucking in with great effort. His eyes were closed and his face was a mass of broken veins, welts, sticky blobs of blood and stripped flesh. A gash had been opened along the right side of his neck, and a warm pulse of blood pumped steadily. He was not deeply hurt, but the pain that filled him was a living thing. Yet he had not uttered a word. Moans and screams, perhaps, but not a word.

  Rusty sank down against the wall of a coal bin. He could no longer hold his fists up. They were black with blood, and he was certain he had broken his thumb—or at least thrown it far out of joint. Desperation and futility and horror at what he had done mingled in his brain, and he laid an arm across his eyes to block out the sight of Boy-O, lying in the dirt and the dim one-bulb light. He had to make the junkie talk. He had to find out the next link.

  “Who d’you get your dope from?” he asked for the hundredth time, really expecting no answer. There was only silence.

  How to make the pusher talk? How to get that name from him? Rusty was up against a steel wall. But whatever happened, he was not going to hit Boy-O again. He gagged on a rueful chuckle, as he realized he was too late. He had sunk all the way back to his former level. He was nothing but a street bum again. The web had claimed its own.