Web of the City (26 page)

Slowly, hesitantly, he nodded agreement. Knowing he was slipping back. Knowing all the work Pancoast had done might be wasted. Knowing his future might wind up in the gutter with him.

“When?” he asked.

“Tomorrow, after school. Out at the dump. Come heeled, man, cause I’m gonna split you to your groin.”

He broke his knife, shoved it into his sleeve, walked away angrily, shoving aside the Cougars. He was gone then, and the ice cream shop was silent for a long moment.

Then Fish shrugged, said lamely, “Gee, I’m—well, hell, Rusty, there ain’t—”

Rusty cut him off, running a hand through his own hair. “I know, man. Don’t bother. Ain’t nothin’
you
can do. I gotta stand with Candle. Gonna be rough bananas though.”

Why was his past always calling? Always making grabs on him? The blood was flowing so thick, so red, and it smothered him. He felt as though he was drowning.

Wouldn’t he ever be free?

It was gonna be a rough week.

The next day went like a souped-up heap. The kids stayed away from Rusty like he was down with the blue botts, and even the teachers seemed to sense something was hot on the fire, because they didn’t press him about his homework, or ask him to recite.

Rusty saw Candle only once during the day, and that was in the cafeteria. It was rugged inside him. He didn’t want to fight. He wanted to leave the thing alone, and reconcile it with Candle. He had to talk to the boy. The hard-faced prez of the Cougars was sitting at a table with Joy, feeling her up, and laughing loudly with his side-boys. Rusty cut wide around them, and got a tray for himself. The food was the usual steam-table garbage, and he only took a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, a piece of apple pie and a container of milk. He wasn’t hungry, not at all.

Finally, when he had polished off the food, he got up, took the tray to the check-in window where a colored boy was scraping them with a rubber tool, and turned around.

Everyone was watching him. He realized suddenly that they had been watching him all through lunch. But he had been thinking as he ate, and had not noticed. Now they stared at him, and from the middle of the room he heard the derisive voice of a punk.

“Here chick-chick-chick-chick-chick! Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck. Chick-chick-chick…” It went on and on, leaving the first boy, swinging to another, then pretty soon the entire room was carrying it, like a banner. The sound was a wave that washed against the shores of Rusty’s mind. It was the worst. It was a chop low like no other he’d ever heard.

He had been top man of the Cougars for so long, to have this kind of indignity pushed on him was something frightful. He clenched his fists and stood where he was.

Behind him, he heard the colored boy disappearing from behind the window. If things were going to be heaved,
he
didn’t want to be in the way.

Rusty knew he had to talk to Candle now. Now was the time, because if he spent the day with that chick-chick festering in his brain, he’d fight sure as hell!

Somebody yelled, “Oooooh,
Russell!
Oh, Russell, baby, do your hen imitation fer us! Go man, go, Russell!”

He hated that name. It was the first time they’d called him that since it had been abbreviated to Rusty.

The boy stepped slowly away from the window, and walked over to Candle’s table. The Cougar’s prez had been talking to his broad, not even looking at Rusty while the call had been going up. Now, as Rusty approached, he paid even more attention to

Joy, but the three side-boys stood up slowly, their hands going into the tight pockets of their jeans. There were shanks in there, waiting to cut if Rusty made a snipe move.

Rusty stopped. “Candle.”

The boy with the almost-Mongoloid features did not look up. He had his hand clutched to the girl’s knee, and he seemed totally oblivious to what was happening behind him. But Joy’s blue eyes were up and frightened. She stared straight at Rusty, and the wild excitement in her face made him sick; they all wanted their boots. They all wanted kicks. They didn’t care who got nailed, so long as sparks flew and they could bathe in them. Then Candle turned carefully around. He looked up.

“Well, read this,” he said arrogantly, more to his side-boys than Rusty. “Check who just dropped in for a chat. Welcome, spick.”

Rusty felt the blood surging in him, and he wanted to drive a fist straight into the bastard’s mouth. But that was what Candle wanted. That would be the clincher. They’d slice him up like fresh bacon, right there, and everyone would dummy up. No one wanted the Cougars mad at them.

“Candle, I wanna talk to you,” Rusty said softly.

The others grinned hugely, and Candle swung one foot up on to the bench, just touching the edge of Rusty’s pants, putting a bit of dirt there.

“What you got to say to me you can say out at the dump after school, spick.”

“Look, don’t make it rougher than now,” Rusty cautioned him. “I wanna knock this off. I don’t feature the idea of a stand. I got enough trouble with the cops already. No sense my getting picked up and tossed in the farm.”

Candle reared back and laughed. Loud. His voice cut off all the chickie-chickie around the room, and everyone waited to find out what would happen. They knew Rusty was no chicken, they knew he had been rough as prez of the Cougars, and did not understand what had changed him.

But they also knew Candle was a rough stud, and it would be top kicks to see these two go at each other.

“You don’t wanna stand, man? You don’t wanna come out and show all these kids you ain’t yellow?” His grin grew wider as he grabbed a cardboard carton of milk, ripped open across the top. “That sits fine with me, man, but I still got a beef with you.

“So,” he said, lifting the carton, “if you wanna bow out, I’ll just settle my beef like
this
!” and he threw the milk at Rusty.

They laughed. The crowd burst into sound, and Rusty stood there with milk running down over his face, soaking quickly through his shirt and running down to his pants.

Before he could restrain himself, he had lunged, and had his hands around Candle’s throat. The prez of the Cougars gave a violent gasp, and brought his own hands up in an inward swinging movement, breaking Rusty’s grip. Then he choked out, “Grab—grab him!” and the side-boys had Rusty’s arms pinned.

Candle swung over the bench and stood up. His face was a violent blued mask of hate. “Now you read this, man. I’m not gonna work you over like I should now. Mostly cause I want to have more time at you, without nobody holding you back, yellow-belly. So you be out at the dump after school, and we’ll settle this down once and for all.”

Then he shoved Rusty in the stomach, not hard enough to knock the boy out, but hard enough to suck the energy from him. Then he and his side-men walked away quickly.

Rusty stood there for a full five minutes, listening to the cackles and catcalls ringing around him.

He could not move.

There was no way free. He would fight and he would win. He would carve that sluggy sonofabitch from gut to kisser and leave him for the dump rats to chew on.

The ringing of the sixth-period bell brought him around abruptly, and he moved to his locker to get his books.

It was gonna be tough as banana peels.

Pancoast got to him just before school let out.

“Rusty, I heard what happened yesterday. You going out there?”

Rusty shifted from foot to foot. What could he say to him? He knew if he went out there and fought, he was throwing it all away. But he couldn’t yank loose now if he wanted to, even though he knew it was the worst thing he could do.

“I—I
gotta,
Mr. Pancoast. I got into this, and if I don’t finish it once and for all, they won’t ever let me alone. One way or the other, I got to put a tail to this thing.”

Pancoast shook his head, grabbed the boy by the biceps. “Listen to me, Rusty. Listen to me now.

“You’ve been doing real well. You’ve been growing with every day. You go out there and come down to their level, and you’ll be right back where you started three months ago when I fished you out of jail. Do you understand?”

“I understand,” Rusty said, not looking at him, “but it’s gotta be this way. Final.”

Pancoast dropped his grip. His voice got steely hard. “I’ll call the police, Rusty. I’ll come out there with them and stop it.”

Rusty looked up at the man, and a warm bond of friendship—and more—existed between them. He knew he might sever that bond with what he was about to say, but he had to say it nonetheless.

“You come out there, or you call the fuzz, and I’ll cut you off even myself.”

Pancoast had been around the kids long enough. He knew that “cutting off even” was tantamount to a threat of revenge.

He said nothing, but his eyes were filled with a nameless hurt. His hands moved aimlessly at his sides. Then he turned and walked away.

Rusty was alone.

So damned, finally, horribly alone.

He walked out of the school, knowing two Cougars followed him. He moved down the street, and when Fish pulled alongside in his heap, Rusty was not surprised.

“Hey, man. They give me the word to bring you out. You know, like they told me.” He was always alibiing, Rusty thought ruefully.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Just a job like.”

“So like get in, huh, man?”

Rusty got into the car, and Fish waited while Tiger and the Greek got in the back seat. No one said a word; the car pulled away from the curb, swung out into traffic heading uptown toward the dump.

Rusty was scared, and his mouth was dry.

At least the knife in his shoe felt reassuring.

But not much.

As they passed the burning piles of garbage and refuse, the sky darkened appreciably. It was still early, not quite four yet, but the day seemed blacker than any Rusty could remember.

Fish tooled the beat-up Plymouth along the bumpy road, avoiding chuck holes and pits in the packed dirt. “One of these days, dammit, I’m gonna crack a parts shop and get me enough cams and crap to juice up this buggy.”

Rusty didn’t answer. He had more important things to worry about.

If he chickened here, he would not only have to ward off the antagonism of the neighborhood for the rest of his days—that was minor compared to what else would happen. Dolo would have to live him down, and that could mean any number of things in the streets. She might have to get more deeply involved with the Cougie Cats and their illegal activities. He had gotten Dolores into the Cougie Cats at her own request, and even though she was his sister, or perhaps
because
of it, he would have to watch out for her as much as himself. She was in the gang for keeps; she liked it, liked the excitement of it. So he had to make sure her row wasn’t as hard as his own to hoe. If
he
had trouble, he had to make certain she didn’t get the stick side of it.

It surprised him, suddenly, that he should think of his sister. She meant a great deal to him, and yet he hardly gave her a thought; the gang had taken up too much of his time. But she figured in this big. He had to watch himself. And then his ma. She would be bugged in the street. His old man…

That crumbum wouldn’t have to worry, but if he was here, maybe he could have done something, maybe he could have helped. Rusty set those bitter thoughts aside. Pa Santoro was a wine-gut, and there was no help coming from
that
angle.

The heap pulled around a bend, and Rusty saw a dozen or so cars all drawn into a circle, their noses pointed into the center. The place was crawling with kids, and a great cheer went up as they saw him in the front seat.

Rusty’s belly constricted. He didn’t want to fight Candle; he didn’t want to fight anybody. He wanted to go home and lie down, put on some records and lay very very still. His belly ached.

Fish took off at top speed around the ring of cars, spraying dirt in a wide wedge as he rounded the circle on two wheels. It was all Rusty needed to finish the nerve-job on him. He leaned against the right side of the car, and puked so hard he thought the tendons in his neck would split.

Fish was spinning the wheel as Rusty came up with it, and his eyes bugged. “Hey, man! What the hell ya doin’?”

He slammed his foot on to the brake pedal and the Plymouth ground to a skittering halt, the tires biting deep into the dirt of the dump grounds and spinning wildly.

The car stalled, and Fish was out, around the other side and opening the door in an instant. He grabbed Rusty by the collar of the boy’s jacket, and hauled him bodily from the car.

The kids were running over from the circle, violence lighting up their faces. What was happening there? This was a real kick!

Fish pulled Rusty down and the Puerto Rican boy fell to his knees in the dirt, Fish still clinging to his jacket. He began dry-vomiting, hacking in choking spasms.

Finally he slapped Fish’s hand away, and laid his palms flat on the ground, tried to push himself up; it took three cockeyed pushes till he was standing unsteadily. Everything was fuzzy around the edges and he could only vaguely hear the jeers coming from the crowd.

“Man, what a punk
he
turned into!”

“Chicken all the way. No guts.”

“Candle’s gonna slice you up good, wait an’ see.”

Every face was one face; every body was a gigantic many-legged body. He was swaying, and he felt a hand shoved into his back, and, “Stand up, fer chrissakes!”

His throat chugged and he thought for an instant he was going to bring up what little of his lunch was left lying uneasily in his stomach. But it passed as he gulped deeply, and he began to get a clear picture of what was around him.

He saw all the faces. Poop and Boy-O, Margie, Connie, Cherry, Fish beside him looking angry and worried at the same time, Shamey, the Beast, Greek, Candle with his eyes bright and daring, and—he stopped thinking for a moment, when he saw her.

Weezee. She was here too. Who had brought her?

He started forward in her direction, but Candle moved in and stopped him. “She came with me. I brought her. Any complaints?”

Before he could answer, Weezee started to say something. “I couldn’t help it, Rusty. He saw me—”