The Deadly Streets

by Harlan Ellison

  The block party went from sidewalk to sidewalk, clear across the blocked-off street. At the head of Sullivan, the big impressive church stood sentinel, making certain the revels did not get out of hand. Along the edge of the sidewalks, hundreds of little booths had been set up. Some sold Italian sausage, hot and delicious: others sold pizza for fifteen cents a slice; still others handled Italian ices in rainbow colors, or cotton candy, spun and pink and ephemeral to the taste; while other booths were games of chance: pitching hoops over watches attached to boxes, putting a dime on the number and letting the wheel spin; there were a dozen others.

  Down at the far end of the three-block stretch of lights and noise, a Dixieland jazz band high on a platform beat out complicated variations of “I’m Comin’ Virginia,” “Tin Roof Blues” and “Margie.” And all around, dark corners, alleys, dim hallways.

  Theresa ignored the lights, the floats, the banners, and sized up the last. She saw two side streets, almost dark and filled with shadows; dozens of hallways, dark and wide staircases to upper floors. A pigeon could be dragged up into that blackness.

  It was a natural. Tonight they’d make dough.

  “Hugo,” Theresa said, pulling the block-faced boy to her, whispering in his ear, “you bring the tape and the rope?” Hugo nodded, patted his stomach, which bulged more than usual. He had wound the clothesline around his waist. The tape was in his pocket.

  Theresa motioned the five to follow her. They walked through the jostling crowds, ignoring the smiling girls and their dates, the old people nodding happily at the goings-on, the smiling priest in his cassock benignly greeting his fold. “Wait a minute,” she said, as they progressed down the street. “I’m a sucker for cotton candy.”

  She walked up to the pimply-faced boy with hairy arms who tended the cotton candy machine. “How much?” she asked. The boy jerked a thumb at the sign over his head. It read COTTON CANDY 15¢. He grinned, and Theresa frowned at being laughed at. “You make a big one, wise guy? Or do I take my business someplace else?”

  The boy grinned again, lopsidedly, shrugged. “Sis, I don’t give a damn what you do. You want a cotton candy, I make you a cotton candy. It ain’t big enough…you can complain to my old man when he comes on. Okay?”

  Theresa’s blood began to froth with anger. Who the hell was this punk kid to think he could talk to her like that? If there wasn’t a crowd around, she’d stick the shank into his gut and twist! But she didn’t want any trouble now—there was business to be transacted, and there wasn’t time for fooling around. “Gimme a candy,” she said, taking several coins from a little pocket in her skirt.

  The boy continued grinning. What an idiot! Theresa thought angrily. Finally he served up a pink cone of fluff that clung to the brown paper tube in its center like a cloud on a stick. She took the candy and walked away. She looked back over her shoulder and the jerk was still watching her, still grinning. What a simp! Theresa thought.

  “Okay,” Theresa’s voice hardened in direction as she rejoined the bunch, “let’s move.” She chewed on the nothing of her cotton candy as she walked with the five boys down the sidewalk behind the booths. As they passed one stall, a plump, jolly Italian woman stuck her head around the canvas and shrieked: “Avy! Come on, come on, come on! Try-a you luck. Just-a dime, onny a dime, win a lamp for you livin’ room, come on!” But they were past her without stopping.

  Theresa indicated a black and gaping rectangle of a building entrance and nudged Hugo. “In there.”

  They slipped into the building without drawing attention, and moved under the stairs for last minute instructions and the dividing-up of the tape and rope.

  “Okay, now, here’s the way it’ll be.” Theresa finished the last of the cotton candy, pulling it from the brown paper tube with her small, sharp white teeth. She dropped the tube and wiped her hands on one another. “I want Hugo an’ Jacksap in here. Down the block aways, I want Policy George, Jingles and Pinty. Watch out for the dummy, George.” She threw in the last with a nasty smile, for she knew how much Pinty adored her, followed her blindly, worshipped the cement over which she walked…and that he was good friends with Policy George.

  She said it for kicks. Theresa liked her kicks.

  Pinty watched her unhappily, moisture filming his big, blue eyes, his loose-lipped gremlin’s mouth twitching miserably. He looked to Policy George for consolation, but the tall, olive-complexioned boy made no move to buck Theresa again. He had learned a lesson; the way Theresa played, a stud was a fool to buck her. No telling what she’d do next time; but you could always wait, and see what happened; she couldn’t run the gang forever. She had to slip sometime…and besides, it wasn’t right for a broad to be running a hot-rock gang like theirs.

  Even if she was doing a great job.

  Policy George coveted Theresa’s ownership of the gang.

  “Okay now,” she said. “When I get the pigeon in here, I want you guys to be ready. I’ll get ’im back under the stairs and you wallop him. You got somethin’ to belt ’im with?” she asked Hugo. He pulled a vicious-looking piece of tire chain from his pocket and wound it around his hand significantly. She turned to Jingles and Policy George. “Well, how about it?” Jingles stopped clinking the pocketful of coins, and reached into his back pocket for a stocking. He brought it out and dumped the pocketful of coins into it.

  He held a deadly effective bludgeon.

  “That does it,” she said. “Now don’t nobody fuck up or I’ll smack a coupla heads. Dig?”

  “Dig!” they answered.

  And Pinty chimed in, “Yeah, Dig.”

  Theresa looked at the dummy with exasperation, and a lopsided sneer came to her lips. “Christ, what a jackass!”

  Then, “Come on, let’s get the hell outta here.”

  Following behind Theresa as she left the hallway of the building, Policy George steered Pinty by the back of the neck as he would have led an animal by a leash. Jingles had dumped the coins back into his pocket, and was clinking them as he walked silently at Policy George’s side. As they walked along, Theresa looked into each doorway, rejecting each one for a different reason: too light, not enough room under the staircase, residents sitting outside to catch the evening breeze, an apartment downstairs. Finally, she found one similar to the one in which she had left Hugo and Jacksap. She noted the building number, and gave the three remaining gang members the nod.

  They ducked inside, and Theresa moved away, back down the street. She was quite near the jazz band, up on its platform, and in the street a large crowd had gathered, clearing out in the middle, directly under the stand, so couples could jitterbug.

  Theresa saw a group of men, ranging from about seventeen to thirty, standing fairly close together, and she knew this was the “stag line.” If it could be called that. Somehow, at any dance, the unattached males found a way to gravitate to one another. They were unattached, and Theresa decided to pick her man from the twenty-five or thirty standing around.

  She ignored the young punks, the glossy-haired ones with a buck and a half in their pockets and a cheap lay on their minds: she concentrated on the older ones: the husbands who had left their wives before the TV sets to watch the young girls legs, the uptown bored-set who had come down to see Bohemian life in the raw, the big spenders who wanted to pick up a young chickie. She roamed, and her eyes were cat’s eyes, her claws drawn in, but her feline temperament exposed.

  Finally she spotted a likely-looking pigeon.

  He was standing at the edge of the crowd, looking over the heads of the non-dancers, and snapping his fingers in time to the wild Dixieland beat of the jazz band. He was about thirty-eight, or maybe even forty, with a slight bulge at the belly-line of his Summer cord suit. His hair was a light, straw-blonde, and he wore dark-framed glasses. He was a natural…an uptown boy on the make. Probably fancied himself still the college charmer.

  Theresa sidled up to him and extended her hand. She touched his shoulder, and he looked down. Theresa was a striking girl, w
ith wide, dark eyes, and black hair that hung in curves to her shoulders. Her face was clean and smooth and sensual, and her body was just inside that line separating voluptuousness from fat.

  “Got a cigarette, Mister?” She smiled. It was a strange smile, all composed of suggestion and desire. The Summer Cord Suit fumbled in his pocket, came up with an empty pack, cursed softly, and with bumbling movements fished around in his other pockets till he came up with a fresh pack. He tore off the cellophane band and, in his nervous rush, ripped away the entire wrap. He smiled at her quickly, self-consciously, and continued struggling to open the pack. Finally, thinking, What a great creep this guy is, Theresa took the cigarettes away from the man, and drew a cylinder for herself.

  “Light?” she asked, handing him the pack.

  He was even worse, fumbling, bumbling, in lighting the cigarette. Theresa watched him with bored amusement.

  “You from around here?” the man asked, his eyes shining.

  He’s hooked, Theresa chirped joyfully, in her mind.

  “Oh, yeah—” she evaded “—around.” She arched her eyebrows at him, and moved in closer, till her hip touched his. “Wanna dance?” She smiled up at him.

  The man touched the semicircle of his chin, and grinned back foolishly. “Hell…I mean, uh, I don’t dance so well. Want to go someplace for a, uh, drink?”

  Theresa decided to stop playing around. “Hey. Why don’t we…uh, kinda…you know…like go someplace, where we c’n be alone.” She wet her lips, dropping her eyelids in a suggestive movement. The Summer Cord Suit stared at her, perspiration beginning to softly fleck his upper lip. He took off his glasses nervously.

  “I kinda like you,” Theresa said. She took a deep drag on the cigarette and let the smoke trail from her mouth slowly. The man put his glasses back on.

  “Uh, okay. Sure. Where ya wanna go?”

  “Let’s go up to my place,” she said. “It’s on this street Huh, okay?” She looked up at him quizzically, knowing his answer already.

  The man’s eyes glowed even more brightly, and he wet his lips. “Yeah, sure, why not.” He was foaming at the mouth; even if it cost a little, hell, how much could an amateur cost—even as hot-looking a little amateur as this one—and he was heeled. Why not?

  Theresa took his hand, and started off through the crowd, back toward the building with Hugo and Jacksap waiting under the stairs. They walked swiftly: she anxious to get the work done; he anxious to get his pay-off.

  “Hey!” the Summer Cord Suit yelled to her, jubilantly, as they passed a booth where a man in a too-tight double-breasted brown suit was yelling, “O-yez, O-yez, O-yez! Cawm on in, cawm on in, try yer luck!”

  “Hey!” he yelled again, dragging her to the booth. “Let’s see if I can win you a kewpie.” Twenty-five cents to prove his masculinity, two-bits to show her he wasn’t just picking her up, a quarter to hint she should lower her price for such a decent guy.

  He took the three baseballs, and plunked a quarter down on the rough wooden counter. “Stan’ back!” he yelled at the bored booth-keeper who had already gone off to the left to yell at others passing by. The Summer Cord Suit wound up and threw. The first two balls missed completely. The third one grazed the right bottom fake-milk-bottle, jarring it, but not moving it. The pyramid of three paste-white fake-bottles stood as before.

  The man shrugged sheepishly, started to reach for another coin, even as the boothman began his retry spiel, but Theresa stopped him. With a pronounced pressure on his right arm, she propelled him away from the booth. “C’mon, honey, you don’t wanna stay at that booth all night, do ya?”

  The look she gave him was enough.

  They moved toward the building.

  “Right here,” Theresa said, pulling him into the black mouth of the hallway. She led him forward, and stopped at the foot of the stairs.

  She rubbed up against him, and began to moan low and throaty. “Ohh, Honey,” she whispered, close to him, pressing her body against his, “c’mon back here for a minute, before we go up. I think my roommate’s still awake.”

  She kept rubbing, and he hesitated only a moment as he followed her insistent dragging. They moved back toward the underside of the stairway.

  “Your roommate?” he said in confusion, following her mostly because she was a girl in heat and she was dragging him, “You didn’t mention any roo—”

  Hugo came out from the under-stair, the tire chain wrapped around his hand.

  The chain caught the man just across the right cheekbone, laying it wetly bare, to the bone. He was only able to drop a half-moan from his mouth before it filled with blood, and he dropped heavily to the tile of the hallway. His splintered face gleamed up faintly in the reflected light from the block party outside.

  “Drag him!” Theresa snapped, kicking against the man’s legs.

  Jacksap and Hugo emerged from the stygian darkness underneath the stairs and pulled the Summer Cord Suit by his armpits into the covering blackness. They laid him down again, and Jacksap felt for a pulse. “Man, you really walloped him,” he whispered urgently.

  “Is he conked?” Hugo asked, suddenly frightened.

  “No, man, but he smells like he’s on his way. We better—”

  Theresa bit through. “You better do crap! You better get goin’ through his pockets before the fuzz find us in here with him. C’mon, c’mon, get your cans rolling. There’s more fish t’be fried t’night.”

  Hugo made as if to protest, but Theresa struck a match, casting a devil’s gleam of orange over her cheekbones, the high roundness of her breasts, and the shaft of the switchblade in her hand. So quietly had she drawn it forth, so quietly had she opened it, they had never known she held it on them. “Move!” she snarled.

  Hugo and Jacksap dropped and methodically stripped watch, ring, wallet, change, anything that was not attached, from the shallowly-breathing man. Then they rose slowly.

  “We better help him, Theresa!” Jacksap whispered concernedly in the darkness. “He’s liable to croak back here.”

  Theresa struck another match. She still held the knife. The dim, orange flicker of the match was reflected on the smooth half-moon of her forehead, leaving her eyes pools of ink. “You stop enjoyin’ life? I said we move…he stays. Whaddaya wanna do, get nabbed?” She shoved Jacksap by the shoulder, edged him past the prostrate man. Hugo stood a long moment watching the man, then pursed his thick lips, ran a hand over his square, crew-cut head, and moved to follow Jacksap.

  Theresa blew out the match, dropped it on the stomach of the Summer Cord Suit, and went to join the two gang members who waited around the corner.

  She walked smoothly and swiftly, drawing the eyes of several more eligible pigeons, but first she had to talk with Jacksap and Hugo. She rounded the corner, and there they were. Leaning against the building, Jacksap munching a square of pizza. “Gimme a bite,” Theresa commanded. Jacksap extended it, and she took a healthy swallow, getting a soggy portion of the napkin underneath, also.

  “Now!” Theresa launched into her after-job directions. “I want you two to hop the subway back downtown, and stick away the stuff we got. Now I don’t know how much that pigeon had on him, but if there ain’t at least a hundred bucks in that wallet when I get back, you’re gonna be sorry.”

  She studied their faces, and knew she had been right. They had already fished in the Summer Cord Suit’s things, and removed part. “Okay, hand it all over,” she said tiredly.

  The two boys shuffled their feet, looked away, and coughed with strain. Theresa reached for the cleft of her breasts, and Hugo quickly snaked something out of his sleeve, handed it to her. She did not look at it, merely waited for Jacksap.

  He watched her a moment, then swore under his breath and drew a thin sheaf of bills from his side pocket. Then she took the balance of the stolen goods, looked them over carefully, counted the money, down to the last coin, and handed it all back to them. “Now when we all divvy up, there won’t be nobody gettin’ a bigger share than
nobody else. Right, fellas?” Her tone was deadly and heavy.

  They nodded, as though they were automatons.

  She gave them the thumb. “Hit for the subway. Blow this turf.”

  They moved out, and she stood watching their retreating shadows for a long minute. “I don’t dig cheats, not at all,” she murmured, adding both of them to her “watch” list, along with Policy George.

  Theresa watched a great many people.

  Theresa saw the crowd thinning, and knew she would have to hurry. There was still another pigeon to be plucked, and time was running short tonight. She began combing the area for unattached men, once more.

  As she passed the cotton candy stand, she saw the pimply-faced, hairy-armed boy, and paused momentarily. An older man was in the booth with him, and they were counting a large amount of money into a plain, brown paper bag. “That’s nearly two hundred, Dad,” the boy said, jotting down the final figure on the side of the brown paper bag. “You want me to carry it home?”

  The older man pinched his nose briskly, finished tabulating his cross-figures, checked them with his son’s, then absently murmured, “Yeah, okay, Freddy. You run it on over to the apartment an’ give it to Ma. I’ll bank it tomorrow morning.” He slipped a rubber band around the neck of the bag, and handed it to the boy.

  Theresa decided there were bigger stakes at hand than just mugging could bring. Here was a nice, neat pile, all tied up and handy, just waiting to be taken. Besides, she didn’t much care for that simple-minded sonofabitch with the pimpled kisser and the long legs.

  She slipped away to wait for him as he came down the street, away from the watchful eyes of Daddy. Theresa pulled her already-stretched sweater down into her skirt top, lifting her hem to do it. She stood back in the shadows, and only an unshaven gutter-crawler got the free show. “H-heyyy, cutie…,” he mumbled thickly, starting toward her, and Theresa had the switchblade out, open, and aimed at the old bum’s neck.

  “Like beat it, Pops!”

  The old man came on. “Isn’t this a prrrety girll,” he slobbered, reaching for her. “Le’s see those legs again, huh, cutie….”