The Deadly Streets

by Harlan Ellison

  He’d known Checker would need help, and to prevent any of the gang giving it, when the cop was after Checker, he’d gotten to a contact uptown and borrowed the rod. But now Checker was dead, and Cherry was his girl again, and he’d thought the Strikers had forgotten the incident.

  Vode was a tall boy, with an extremely sallow face, and a head of thick brown, curly hair. He had a nervous habit of rubbing his thumb across the fisted first finger of his closed hand.

  Now he was making that movement. Nervously, almost wildly.

  He was scared, really scared, for the first time since he’d joined the Strikers, but he wasn’t going to let them know it! In fact, he wasn’t so sure he could trust this dummy. A guy who all of a sudden could talk!

  “What’s in this for you, Sammy?” he asked suspiciously. “Why’d you risk lettin’ me know you could talk? They send you up here to see if I’d turn chickie?”

  He advanced a step on the scrawny boy.

  Sammy leaned forward in the chair, and Vode caught a fetid whiff of the alleys the boy frequented. “L-l-look, Vode. I d-d-don’t want no trouble. I d-don’t want in on this bit. I only c-c-come up to tell ya c-cause you been decent to me a couple times. If the Strikers ever find out I was here, I’m d-dead…so k-keep it to yaself, huh?”

  Vode nodded dumbly, his voice seemingly lost. He didn’t speak even when the dummy pushed himself from the chair and moved toward the door.

  Sammy Silence paused with his hand on the doorknob. “D-do me a favor, willya, Vode?”

  The sallow-faced boy looked up, questioningly, though his mind was spinning elsewhere.

  “D-don’t tell anybody I can talk, willya. I-I-I…” He couldn’t say it. It was obvious, though, why he wanted his ability kept quiet. He had no parents. He lived from door to alley and alley to gutter; and it was safer if the gang thought he was really Sammy Silence. Then too, there was the stuttering. That could really rack-up a guy. Vode understood.

  He knew what the boy must have gone through to come and speak from his warped throat, to warn him. He understood perfectly.

  “Okay, Sammy.” His voice was soft. “It’s between you and me. Thanks a lot; I appreciate this. I’ll do you the same some day.”

  The dummy turned the knob. He started to say something, pumped his tongue against his lips for a second, then opened the door, a look of terrible sadness on his face.

  “S-s-so long, Vode,” he said.

  The door closed quietly and tightly behind him, and Vode was alone in the railroad flat. Noise from the afternoon street rose up in the heat and struck at the walls. Vode sat down heavily in the chair the dummy had occupied. Through the open window he heard a bus wheeze to a stop on the corner and discharge its passengers.

  The city had never seemed so lonely. Things had never seemed so rugged. He was sorry now he’d ever boxed Checker in like that—gotten him killed.

  The gang took care of its members. It took care of its dead, too. And they didn’t like studs that cooled other studs, particularly when Checker had been so well-liked.

  “Hell!” He muttered under his breath, banging his hand down on the over-padded arm of the easy chair. A spurt of dust rose upward at his violence, and the particles turned lazily golden in the sunbeams slanting through the window.

  The walls seemed to ooze down over him, meeting the dirty carpet, squashing him in between their gritty surfaces.

  He wanted to run but there was no road in sight.

  They showed up at the flat that night.

  Ten of them. Fifteen and Paulie and Sharkmouth and Fat Jules and the rest. And the dummy, Sammy Silence.

  They showed up, and they only knocked once before they came through the door. Vode’s father was reading the News. He looked up, fear on his face for a second. Then he rose and scratched at his undershirt in annoyance.

  “What you kids want here?”

  He spoke with a thick Polish accent, and his small, almost delicate face worked as it strove to build up a false bravado.

  The ten moved into the room, maneuvering themselves around the living room. Vode’s father watched them with eyes that grew wider with fear. He had seen these children of the streets in action—knew what they could do—knew they weren’t youngsters with harmless passions, knew they were deadly.

  “Wh-what you want here?” His voice was not at all brave.

  “We come to see Vode, Mister Piercynski.” Big, rangy Fifteen stepped forward a bit, drawing himself taller.

  Vode’s father worked his cheek muscles, trying to find something to say to these evening invaders of his home. Something that would defeat them, but not offend them.

  “Well, you got to knock on my door before you come in, you unnerstand?” His voice wavered and cracked.

  “Why don’t you back off and shut up,” Paulie said, coming up beside Fifteen.

  Fifteen snickered. The boy’s words struck the older man almost physically, driving him back a step. Piercynski melted. His face fell apart before the swaggering carelessness of the boys. He swallowed loudly, and looked about as though he were trapped.

  Then he collapsed, slumping back into his chair. “Vode, he’s in the bedroom,” he said softly, staring at the worn carpet between his slippers.

  They all laughed roughly then, the tension whispering away, and moved down the hall to Vode’s bedroom.

  Vode had heard them come in. He had waited with ear against wall praying his father might stop them, might turn them back. He had heard the exchange between his father and the Strikers, the exchange that had ended with Mr. Piercynski backing-off, as Paulie had commanded. It was the same as always…always. His old man had backed off. He was a weakling. And Vode hated weaklings.

  He was hating it, with eyes screwed tightly shut, and hands clenched violently at his side, even as they stopped outside his door, and burst in.

  He started, and slowly opened his eyes.

  “Hi, Vode!” Fifteen said, coming in. He was a big boy, with a muscular body and long legs. The girls compared him favorably with the male movie stars, and he knew it. He had a habit of acting loose and melodramatic to heighten the comparison.

  While Vode faced the big Fifteen, they all moved into the room. All nine of them. The small bedroom became crowded.

  “Ain’t you boys out a little late tonight?” he asked, with mock heroism.

  They could sense the disquiet in his voice, and they liked it. “We ain’t seen you around much lately,” Fat Jules said, leaning against the closet door, crushing a shirt hung over the knob.

  “Not since Checker got a gutful of lead,” Paulie added, from behind him. Vode whirled at the voice.

  This was the Game, and they were playing it for all there was in it. “What do you want?” Vode asked again.

  “We just thought we’d stop in and see if you wanted to square up for Checker?” Fifteen boosted himself to the top of the bureau, his feet dangling, banging insultingly against the furniture. He looked down at Vode.

  The sallow-faced boy knew he had to bluff it out.

  The Strikers knew he’d foxed Checker into getting killed by that cop, and they wanted vengeance. The gang law was in force tonight, and he’d have to play it cool to make it out alive.

  “Whaddaya mean, square up?” Vode asked, sitting down on the bed carelessly. “For what?”

  “Well, you know how it is?” Fifteen sliced a flattened hand through the air. “What with you makin’ sure Checker got cooled, we thought you’d like to reinstate yourself in the good graces of the club.”

  He looked to the others for affirmation, and they flashed thin, tight grins, nodding their heads in agreement.

  “You’re nuts!” Vode said, jerking his head as though he were spitting. “You’re nuts! I didn’t do a damned thing to him. He made a bet, and he lost; that’s all there was to it.”

  “Yeah, and you rigged the bet so’s he’d lose!” Paulie spat, from the wall. He’d been a close side-buddy of Checker’s.

  “That’s a goddam lie!
”

  “Yeah, well I say it ain’t, you lousy sonofabitch!”

  “Prove it!”

  “I don’t have to. We already talked to the guy you borrowed the rod from…he told us!”

  Vode’s mouth went dry. His belly jerked up at him, and he knew they had him.

  “I borrowed it cause I was plannin’ on takin’ a gas station out in Jersey with some guys.”

  “What guys?” Fifteen asked. “You don’t mean you was gonna pull off a job without your buddies in the Strikers?”

  “I—”

  “Oh, for Chrissakes, I can’t stomach this!” Paulie suddenly spoke up. “Can’t ya see the punk’s lyin’ in his teeth? He ain’t got the guts to try a heist by hisself!”

  Vode pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket, stuck it in his mouth carelessly, yet his hand shook a bit. “You callin’ me yellow, you lousy slob?”

  Paulie struck suddenly, his hand lashing out, knocking the cigarette from Vode’s mouth. “You bet your ass I am!”

  He seemed determined to back Vode into a fight but Fifteen motioned him back. “Stay outta this for a minute, Paulie, you’ll get your chance.”

  Vode’s neck felt tight, skin-drawn. He bent down to pick up the cigarette, feeling they would plant a boot in his back any second.

  “Anyhow,” Fifteen resumed, “you gotta square up with the gang. Make amends, like. You know what I mean, don’tcha Vode buddy?”

  His tones were syrupy, but his eyes glimmered like knife-points.

  Checker’s image flashed before Vode’s eyes. He stared up at Fifteen warily. “What do I have to do?”

  “Well…” Fifteen considered, buffing his nails on his black leather jacket sleeve, “we thought you oughtta start out by donatin’ a hundred bucks to the club treasury. Things have been tough for the Strikers’ treasury. You understand.” He added as an afterthought, “That’s just a starter.”

  Vode’s eyebrows leaped upward at the sum Fifteen declared. He crushed the cigarette to paper and shreds of tobacco, let the handful fall to the rug. He leaped to his feet, the bedsprings groaning from the release of his weight. “You crazy or somethin’? Where the hell am I supposed to get a hundred bucks? You’re nuts!”

  He turned away angrily.

  Fifteen jerked a short nod at Fat Jules, and the larger boy grabbed Vode by his shoulder, ripping his shirt, spun him around hard so the sallow-faced Vode banged against the wall, hitting the night stand, upsetting the lamp.

  “Manners, Vode.” Fifteen waggled a finger warningly. “Watch your manners…otherwise we might not even give this chance to you, so you can square yourself.”

  His face became rock-hard, the lines about his mouth tightening. “We might just take you down over the Drive and shove you off the breakwater. Or we might haul you to the dumps and leave you with a beer-bottle stuck in your kisser, for the rats to clean you up. You rather we do that?” He wasn’t playing the Game any more.

  “You c-can’t do that,” Vode tried to brave it out. “The cops could trace it back just the same. They’d get you.”

  “Try us,” Fifteen said softly, and hellfire blazed up in his slate eyes.

  This was the choosing for Vode. It was either the knife or the squaring-up. Vode blanched, and the nervous movement of his thumb over his first finger began again. The others watched him with sly smiles breaking the taut lines of their faces.

  “Where you think I’m gonna get a hundred bucks?” Vode demanded, the impossibility of it hitting him fully.

  Paulie put one foot on the bed, leaving a dirty bootprint on the brown spread. “Oh, we got that figured for you already, Vode buddy-O,” he said, his face screwing up in a rigid smile at the corners of his mouth.

  Paulie looked at the others to see if they shared his amusement. He already knew they did. They did.

  “How?” Vode asked with caution.

  “You’re gonna hold up Old Man Straubing’s place tonight,” Fat Jules said, fatly grinning. “You’re gonna boost Old Man Straubing’s candy store. Tonight.” The grin widened.

  Vode stared at them, and suddenly their faces meshed and melted into one picture: a big composite of the Strikers, all of them after his blood.

  “Straubing’s? Are you kidding? Look, I ain’t chickie, but I’ll be damned if I’ll heist that joint.”

  Vode’s mind raced ahead: Shavers, the cop, he’s got his beat right past the joint…and old man Straubing keeps a loaded pistol in there behind the candy counter. I’ll get my head shot off! Jeezus, they wanna get me killed!

  “You’re nuts!” he was almost yelling. “I won’t do it! If you slobs think I gotta get you dough, I’ll get it my own way…I ain’t gonna hold up Straubing’s store. Go to hell!”

  Paulie stepped forward quickly, then, and cracked him across the mouth with fisted knuckles. Vode staggered back, his lip split by his teeth. Blood welled from the fattened lip. He sucked on it, the blood running over his gums.

  His face had gone white, and he made the nervous movement frantically now, unaware he was doing it.

  “Keep ya voice down and a civil tongue in your head when you’re talkin’ ta gentlemen,” Paulie said, his face rigid.

  “Don’t you think we can make you, Vode?” Fifteen inquired pleasantly.

  He nodded his head, and Sharkmouth came out from beside the bureau, where he had been leaning.

  He was a short, thin boy, almost emaciated looking. He wore tight-fitting black chino pants with white piping, and a black shirt under the now seldom-worn black leather jacket.

  Vode noticed, with a twinge of wonder, that the boy was also wearing a pair of black leather gloves. It was summer; why the gloves? The question didn’t hold him long:

  In Sharkmouth’s hand was an open switchblade.

  “It hurts,” the boy in black said. And said no more.

  Vode’s eyes seemed held by the sheen of metal. He watched the knife where it lay sleeping in Sharkmouth’s palm. Abruptly he felt all fight go out of himself.

  He tottered a second and sat down suddenly on the bed. His lips quivered slightly, and the frantic rubbing of thumb over fist made little washing sounds in the silent room.

  Half to himself he murmured, “I didn’t do it to Checker. I didn’t do nothin’…”

  Paulie towered over him, gave a short half-laugh. “Yeah. You didn’t do much! You just bushwhacked him into gettin’ full of cop slugs. Now you’ll square up with the Strikers, or you’re gonna be real sorry.”

  He paused, and looked at the gang again, making certain they knew he was going to say something important. “We take care of our members—even if they are dead!”

  “I did it for Cherry! I did it for Cherry!” Vode was mumbling, rubbing a hand absently up his right temple.

  “You did it for Cherry, huh?” Fifteen asked from the top of the bureau.

  Vode nodded dumbly.

  “Well, then let’s ease over and see her, huh, man?”

  “W-why?”

  “Maybe she can put in a word for ya. If Cherry says you done it for her, then you’re squared away with us.”

  Vode looked up, an easy smile crossing his face. “That’s it! That’s a deal; we’ll fall over there right now, okay?”

  “Okay, okay,” Fat Jules said easily. Perhaps too easily.

  Vode felt the vague stirrings of uneasiness in his mind. “W-well, we better go,” he said nervously.

  They left then, with Vode’s old man watching silently as his boy walked out, almost under restraint. He tried to say, “What time you’ll be back, son?” but the words never left his mouth.

  They left then, without Vode ever once catching the look of deadly sorrow, the look that said don’t go, in the eyes of his father. And in the eyes of Sammy Silence.

  They found Cherry at last, in the malt shop, with a boy none of the Strikers knew. He was obviously from off-turf. That didn’t sit so hot with the boys.

  “What’s she doin’ with a stranger if she’s a Striker deb?” Fat Jules wanted to
know.

  He turned on Vode in anger. “Don’cha know how to keep an eye on your broad, even?”

  As a body they strolled into the malt shop. They were not quiet about it.

  Cherry looked up at the noise, and as she recognized them, the color drained away from her attractive face.

  She was a well-formed girl, overdeveloped for her age, with absolutely auburn hair like a blast furnace, and full red lips that had prompted the universal nickname “Cherry.”

  “Hi fellas. What’s new?” She smiled sickly. Vode moved toward her carefully, all thought of pressure from the Strikers submerged. Paulie and Sharkmouth stayed with him, moving as escort.

  “Whaddaya doin’ with him?” Vode demanded, jerking a thumb at the unidentified boy.

  A flicker of animosity ranged across Cherry’s face, and she licked her lips rapidly. The look died and was replaced by open fear. She waved a slim hand in faltering explanation. “He’s…he’s…my cousin! Yeah. He came in with my Aunt Gert from New Rochelle, and we was just havin’ a Coke. We’re goin’ back to my place.” She let the smile perch on her face, though it looked as though it were going to sicken and drop off at any second.

  The boy, a pimply-faced, yet almost handsome fellow, looked startled at being called cousin, but said nothing. A thin film of perspiration had sprung out on his forehead, nose and upper lip. He swiveled on the stool, looking uncomfortable.

  “Cousin? The hell he’s your cousin! You been datin’ behind my back? We’re supposed to be steady!” Vode’s face became blotched as he spoke, the anger suffusing his features.

  Cherry started to say something, but the soda jerk stepped up, said, “Say! You’ll have to talk civilly or get out of my shop if you don’t want…”

  He was cut off by a flat hand in the mouth that sent him back against the rear counter, upsetting a hot fudge machine.

  “Shut up, clown, this is a private discussion!” Fat Jules said, menacing the clerk with a balled fist. The fellow left hurriedly, to wipe off the rear tables.

  Cherry said what she had begun to say: “Listen, big mouth!” she snapped, sliding off the stool, “you got no push with me! I can date anybody I want! You’re in bad enough without mouthin’ off to me! I ain’t wanted nothin’ to do with you since you pulled that lousy deal on Checker!” She walked close to him, her eyes flashing.