“Miz Givens,” he said, not closing the door, “keep the shades down, an’ keep the windows closed. Don’t let nothin’ bother ya t’night, an’—an’ don’t let Moms hear the noise.” He started to close the door, but she motioned him back with a pudgy, brown hand.
“What noise? What you mean?” He waved her off.
“You’ll know real soon.”
He smiled at her and her face was so strained he wondered if she was not sick herself. “Don’t worry,” he said. Then he closed the door and went downstairs and over to the corner, and found the fire-box, and pulled the lever down. Then he went back up to the roof to wait for the fire engines.
He had known it would be just this way. The sirens, the red, winking lights, the long engines with their ladders tucked down and all the noise. Noise! That was it. If there was anything that could drag the neighborhood from its beds at this hour, if there was anything that could bring the blackjack players out of the back room, if there was anything that would smoke the Beast from whatever warren he was using tonight, it would be the complete pandemonium of a false alarm fire. The engines pulled in to the curb near the alarm box and the firemen climbed down, looking for the blaze.
In a few moments they would realize it was a false alarm, then they would tear off again, leaving the neighborhood for the cops to comb for the alarm setter. Leaving the crowds to disperse, asking each other, “What happened, what went on, what was that all about?”
Before then, the Beast had to come out of his hole, had to come into the crowd to see what was happening. He had to.
Rusty watched carefully, straining his eyes to make out the faces of everyone down there, in the streetlamp light, and the glare of the engine’s headlights. He saw the women, in their nightgowns, with the terrycloth bathrobes pulled across their fat stomachs. He saw the balding men, their heels red and bare in bedroom slippers. He saw the young girls and some of them reminded him of Weezee and some reminded him of Dolores, but that was too long ago to think about. But he did not see the gigantic hulk that was the Beast. He saw nothing like that.
Then the firemen were cursing loudly and they were piling back onto the engines, and scream-roaring away. Then the street faded into silence and the crowd milled around for a few minutes asking what had happened and then they started to disperse, as Rusty had known they would.
He had failed. He had fouled up again.
Then he saw the Beast.
The big man was standing in the alley across the street. The fire engine’s headlights had blinded Rusty before, but now he could see the monstrous slovenly shape angled against the brick wall, watching everything, taking it all in, the gaping mouth wet and wide, those little eyes, like two spots of hell, ripped free and thrust into a doughy face, the two meat-chunk hands, those fingers, each as big as a sausage.
This had raped Dolores?
Rusty felt nausea grip him. He leaned his face against the cold brick of the roof’s ledge and he prayed. He said to the sky and the night and the god he was so sure no longer knew him, “Please oh dear god above hear me hear what I’m saying tonight and forgive me for what I’m gonna do.”
Then he stood up and lit a cigarette.
He saw the Beast’s face swivel upward and he saw the eyes cold and deadly staring into his own, across that space. He raised his hand against the sky and motioned the Beast to come up. “I set it,” he said. He said it loud enough to carry to the street and hoped a cop did not hear it, too.
The Beast hesitated a moment, then looked both ways on the street and started across. He disappeared from Rusty’s sight under the angle of the building, and Rusty knew he was on his way up. Neat. The sonofabitch still thought Rusty didn’t know. He still thought Rusty was looking for the man in the camel’s hair coat. Neat. The sonofabitch. Sure he had given Rusty the tip. So Rusty would look the other way and find Morlan and take care of him, the Beast hoped, before Rusty could find out Morlan had been nowhere near Dolores when she had been killed. That would get Morlan out of the Beast’s way and get Rusty cooled permanently, too.
Neat. So neat Rusty had run around like a chicken with its head detached, following up a trail that meant nothing. No wonder there had been no connection between the dope and the death of Dolores. How could there be?
The only connection had been there all along and Rusty had been too dumb to see it. Now the connecting link was on its way upstairs.
The door to the stairwell banged open and the huge shape of the Beast was there.
He came across the tarpaper roof and he grew monstrous in Rusty’s eyes. His arms swung to his knees and below, and he seemed more a gigantic parody of some pithecanthropoid than a human. Rusty stared at the man who walked toward him and all the cold fury, all the hatred, all the brutality he had been driven to in the name of his sister, washed over him. He was going to kill this cold-blooded sonofabitch without remorse and without compunction. He was going to tear out his tongue and tear off his manhood, and stomp what was left into a runny pulp, and then—
And then he was going to give himself up. The future was dead, but so was the Beast. He didn’t know it, but he was already dead.
“Hi,” he said. Rusty did not answer, just watched.
“I say, Hi.”
The Beast stopped, uncertainty in his face. “You ever hear anything ’bout that guy I told ya I saw?” He licked his fat, gross lips.
Rusty wished he had the knife. But his hands would do.
“Whutsa matter? I ain’t seen ya in a while. Where ya been stayin’, huh?” Rusty looked around for a weapon. He needed something. Those arms of the Beast’s could crush him in a second. He saw nothing.
“Whutsa matter with you? Can’cha talk?”
Rusty got up, moved to the side. He rested his hand on the aluminum stalk of a TV antenna, knowing he could not pull it loose from its moorings to use as a weapon. But at least he was touching something. The antenna was right at the edge of the roof, where the ledge rose up. He wanted a weapon, desperately. Something to beat this giant to his knees with. Something with which to pound in that ape-face.
“I saw Morlan tonight,” Rusty threw at him in the silence. For a moment the Beast’s face was lax, devoid of expression, then the name must have registered, for his eyes narrowed and the stare left his face.
It was miraculous. Rusty watched as the imbecile light left him, and a look of craft and cunning came over the coarse features. This was no idiot. This was a man who had played the part for a long, long time, but was not a moron at all.
“You killed my sister…” Rusty said.
The Beast stared back in silence. His eyes never left Rusty’s face and his jaw worked slowly. “Oh? Makes you think that?”
“You told me about Morlan. Morlan says he wasn’t near her. Says he came down here to stop you from cutting in on his dust route. Where you raise the poppies? In that weedy lot behind the dry cleaner’s place?”
The Beast stood still, framed against the stars and no moon at all. The night seemed part of him, like something from the dawn of time. He was a caveman out bravely in the night, looking for meat. But this was no strong, brave man of pre-dawn. This was a filthy, butchering bastard who had killed an innocent girl.
“You haven’t said a thing yet, Santoro,” the Beast said. “The only thing you’re saying is you don’t know nothing.”
Rusty found himself marveling. “You ain’t a dummy at all. You ain’t stupid. You been pretendin’.”
The Beast’s face crinkled in a hideous grin, a travesty of a grin. “Oh,” he said sarcastically, “you finally figured it out, huh?”
“You been two people all along,” Rusty said in amazement.
“You was sayin’—” The Beast took a step forward.
Rusty moved back an equal step, toward the edge of the roof. “Th-the only thing I knew about Morlan was what you told me. That he was down here, in a camel’s hair coat. You knew I’d finally get to Boy-O and find out who was pushing through him and then check back
. You were hoping I’d kill him, weren’t you, you sonofabitch? You were hoping I’d kill off your competition—then that would put me away, too. Then you’d have the whole turf for your own dust.”
“I saved your life,” the Beast said. He moved forward. Rusty saw the step. But he could move no further and still be on the roof. It was seven floors to the street.
“Sure you saved—saved me,” nervousness ticked in Rusty’s words. “I hadn’t done the job for you yet.”
The Beast jumped. He grabbed for Rusty and caught him by the jacket. Rusty struggled and struck out blindly, feeling himself falling. The Beast dragged him back and held him in a crushing bear-hug. Rusty gasped, and ooophed as every rib in his body was crushed inward. He spread both hands and tried to shove the huge chest away from him, but it was no good. The Beast gasped deeply, sucking in more air for the job, and bent Rusty backwards, till the boy felt the night breeze blowing his hair. His head was over the side of the building. He could barely feel his legs. There was no strength from his waist down. He had to get away.
He—had—to—get—away—
Rusty’s legs brushed the brick of the roof ledge. It was a bare reflex, but he planted what he thought must be his heels against the brick, and shoved. The Beast stumbled a step backward, and his grip loosened just a fraction. Rusty brought both hands up from his waist, and dug the crooked fingers into the two small, evil eyes before him. He dug and felt wetness.
The Beast screamed. His voice let out across the canyon of the tenements and rattled down to the street. Rusty dug in deeper, feeling something under his left hand go soft and moist and start to run down the Beast’s cheek. He gagged at the thought, but shoved harder. His fingers broke into the clear and the screams continued. The Beast retched down across Rusty’s jacket and the smell was terrible. But the screams were worse. He let go, then, and Rusty fell on his back.
The Beast clutched at his streaming face, at the black pits that had been eyes, and as he stumbled he tripped across the shank of the TV antenna. His arms flailed out and he started to fall, holding tight to the antenna.
The shaft of the antenna bent and creaked and the bolts held, but the length of it swayed and gave. The Beast tumbled over the side of the apartment building, still holding tight to the antenna. He hung there, on the end of the bent aluminum, like a fish on a line. He swayed and bumped the building, and his great weight put a strain on the aluminum. It started to crack and the metal bent even more, rubbing against the brick.
The Beast’s screams had not ceased for a moment and now the street was again dotted with a crowd. People stared and pointed up at the great hulk who was suspended on a spiderweb from nowhere.
“Aaah! Help me! Help me!” The Beast screamed and Rusty stared down at him. A dazedness had come over the boy when he had been released. He had risen to his feet only with the greatest difficulty. Pain thrashed about in him, dying and pulling his nerves along with it.
He looked down at the blind hulk that had killed his sister. “Why’d you do it?” he asked, leaning over, hardly realizing the Beast was on the edge of oblivion. He had to know. It was a compulsion in there somewhere. He had to know why this thing had started.
He knew when it had started, back when he was born, but why.
The Beast screamed again and more windows flew up. Heads popped out and the entire neighborhood watched—and listened. A woman yelled, “Call a cop!” But no one moved. They watched, immobile. The Beast swayed some more. The bolts creaked. Rusty asked him again, “Why’d you kill my sister?”
“I din’t, I din’t mean to do it! Help me! Help me!”
“Why, tell me why!”
“I saw’r, that was all. I saw’r and she was all alone—she left the dance—an’ I asked her for a kiss and she laughed at me, an’ I—I—ya gotta help me, ya gotta…”
A cop rounded the corner and looked up and dashed for the building.
The bolts creaked and one snapped loose and the aluminum straightened a little as its length was pulled over the edge. Rusty turned away and started walking.
He passed the cop on the stairs.
The cop was too late. Rusty heard the crash in the street below as he opened the door to the apartment. Then, when he closed the door, he heard nothing more from the street—except one high-pitched woman’s wail—for Mrs. Givens had done as he had asked. Moms was asleep.
All the windows were closed.
THIRTEEN:
THE DAYS AFTER
rusty santoro
insubstantials
Days came, and days went. None of them paused in their relentless march to nowhere.
Everything straightened out, as straight as death could make it. Morlan was not heard from again. He was said to have left town when the police—after questioning Rusty—heard about his business ventures. Mirsky was gone, too. It was perhaps the safest thing he could do, for his life was worthless in Cherokee turf. The lot with the poppies was thoroughly excavated and the flowers destroyed. So good a job of plowing was done that the dry cleaning establishment purchased the lot for expansion purposes.
Rusty was asked a great many questions.
No one came to claim the Beast’s body. It went to Potter’s Field and no one took flowers for the hole. But it all straightened out, finally. With finality.
Moms got better, because she could not get worse. No one ever dies of a broken heart. Not really. At least, not on the outside. Life moves and time moves and people must move.
There were no charges that could be brought against Rusty. Over a hundred people had seen and heard what had transpired between the boy and the Beast that night, on the roof. It was clearly self-defense. And when Rusty had finished explaining how he had tracked down the Beast, the fuzz were more than happy to give him a clean turn-loose so they could spend their time breaking the dope chain that had supplied the kids.
The kids. The Cougars were another world, another time, another life. He found no hope in that direction. There was no hope at school, either. Pancoast came around, trying to find the Rusty Santoro he had taught, but like the fog that Rusty was also gone. Now there was only a quiet, dark-eyed boy who wanted peace. Too much peace.
Then one day he left.
He took a few things with him and he kissed Moms in the night, late in the night when the city was almost asleep—for the city never completely sleeps, but spins its web by night and by day—and he left. He went silently down to the street, and he stood staring at the wet-shine the water trucks had left behind when they tried vainly to clean the gutters. He looked up and saw the night of deep blue and the stars of white, and he walked away.
He walked past Tom-Tom’s place, all empty and dark now, with no juke box and no stamping feet and no harsh voices. All empty, the way he was empty inside.
The street echoed back his hollowly beating footsteps, as he walked the pavement, seeing it all clearly, in retrospect. He had come from these streets, and he would someday go back to these streets, for he was umbilically joined to them and the rottenness they spawned. There was no escaping it, no getting away from it. But somehow there must be a way of fending it off for a short time.
A catalyst, some hindering factor, some buttressing force that could intercede. He had found the death and the violence and the stupidity of this life—now he had to find his way out of it. At least for a while. He had to go away and search for something insubstantial.
Decency? Was that it? Was that what he wanted? He didn’t know. Perhaps that was the word and the act and the insubstantial he sought. But he knew one thing. There was quiet in him now. There was no longer any anger, no hurt, no frustration. It was all quiet, too quiet, inside him.
A quiet that these streets would not long tolerate.
Candle would end his days in some prison, it was as certain as a token in the turnstile or no ride. But so what if one Candle was gone, or one Beast was dead, or one Morlan had been halted? There would be others. There had to be others. For where the dirt and the hunger
and the anger bred violence, there would be human flies to feast on the carcasses of the weaker. As those flies themselves were caught up in the city’s suffocating web.
No, to find what it was he sought—and he had no way of knowing what it was he sought—he must get away from here. Not to run in fright, not to be alone, but just because there was nothing here. These streets had held him long enough. Now they were wasteland.
Here there was only the web and the knife and his fists.
He had sworn he would never raise his hands to anyone again. But what good was that promise if he remained here? No good, for the streets had their own rules, and you could not beat them. You could only pass, and hope to escape that final jackpot. The jackpot that bound you once more into the web. So he had to go away.
He took the subway to Times Square and he got off and walked past the glaring, neoned, never-asleep squares that beckoned him—and he ignored them. He walked till he came to the movie where he had picked up the girl. How long ago was it? Weeks? Years? Eternities? He had no way of gauging the time. Not only had things happened, but he had become a different person since then. He had changed so very much, and lost so much, and found nothing to replace it.
He stood in front of the theater and waited.
He did not know if it would be a good thing or a bad thing or just another emptiness, but he knew he wanted to do it this way. She was lonely, too. She was alone and empty and tired and together they might find that insubstantial he sought. They were both alone, but at least it was better to be alone together. What had been her name? Teresa? Yes.
She would come back to that movie one night. He knew that. She would, because she had his coin and she would have to. He did not know why he knew, but he was sure.
So he left his neighborhood and he left his streets and soon he would leave his city—which held the life that had been Rusty Santoro.
All that, behind him.
But oddly, the city did not care at all.