The Deadly Streets

  “I told you to scram, Pops,” said Theresa backing against the wall. She held the knife before her, but she was not anxious to use it in the open street. She backed away, but the old man kept coming on. Then she swore softly, for passing down the street was the kid, Freddy, with a bulge in his right side pocket. The dough.

  She closed the knife, put it away between her breasts once more, and continued her steady edging from the drunken bum’s advances. Then, when she had almost reached the corner, she yelled. “Freddy! Help, Freddy! Hey, help in here!”

  The kid turned, and saw her face, just barely in the multi-colored glow of the overhead light-strings. Then he saw the filthy bum, his clothes in brown tatters, his hands extended toward the apparently terrified girl.

  “Help, Freddy!” she screamed again.

  He didn’t bother to stop and find out how she knew his name; that somehow did not occur to him. Instead, he rushed forward and grabbed the shorter drunkard by his collar. The boy spun the drunkard away, shoving him into the street, out near the now-closing booths. “G’wan, get out of here!” he yelled after the drunkard. The old man took one defiant, sidewise step back toward the boy and girl, but Freddy grabbed up a chunk of extra lumber a booth-keeper had not used for backing the canvas, and shook it high at the man. “Either you get the hell out of here, or I’ll bust this over your head, mister, an’ I’m not kidding, either!”

  The drunkard mumbled he only wanted to see the li’l cutie’s legs, and bumbled off down the street. Theresa smoothed down the skirt over her hips.

  “Hi,” she said softly.

  The pimply-faced boy dropped the stick, smacked his hands clean, and stared at her. “You weren’t so polite to me a while ago. What changed you?”

  She smiled coquettishly. “I needed help. He was gonna…you know…grab me like.”

  Freddy gave a half-chuckle.

  Theresa avoided looking at the bulge in his pocket. “How come you ain’t at the candy stand?”

  Freddy nodded back toward the stand. “My dad’s closing up tonight. I got school in the morning. Where, uh, where you going?”

  “Oh.” She bit her lip. “No place, just walkin’. Can I come with ya. I’d…uh…I’d like to thank ya for what ya done.” She wet her lips, and put extra strength on thanks.

  Freddy grinned down at her; the same smug, self-satisfied grin he had thrown her when she had first encountered him at the cotton candy stand. It was a knowing smile, an amused smile. He knew something she did not know: he knew how to read her mind.

  “If you come with, I’m gonna try and make out.” He smiled at her. She looked up abruptly. Was he kidding? What a geek, Theresa thought, her fists clenching in the darkness at her sides.

  “That so?” she said coyly. He grinned some more, sure of himself. So sure that he didn’t care—one way or the other—enough to worry about it. “We’ll see.”

  Fat chance, thought Theresa.

  They moved up the street toward the second building, where Theresa had stationed Policy George, Pinty and Jingles. She walked along beside him, occasionally feeling the large lump in the right hand pocket, as he bumped against her. She talked very little, and as they drew near the building, she wondered how she would get him inside.

  They were on the sidewalk behind one of the booths, just down from the building, when Theresa exclaimed, “Oh! Hey, there’s a pizza booth. Man, I love it. Wait a minute, I’ll—” She had reached into the little pocket of her skirt for a coin as she had started to speak, and then managed, just as they passed the black doorway of the building with the gang in it, to drop and spin the coin away, so that it disappeared inside.

  “Oh, damn!” she cried, starting after it, “That was my last quarter. C’mon, let’s find it.”

  He followed her inside, saying, “Listen, if you want a piece of pizza, I’ll get it for you. Forget the quarter, y’know.” But Theresa had already gone inside.

  “Maybe further back,” she interrupted, and they moved back closer to the stairs.

  “Oh, c’mon.” he said, still unable to call her by name, for she had not given her name, “let’s get out of here!”

  “Not yet,” she answered.

  “You can’t see a damned thing. Here, y’need a light?” he asked, moving back with her, past the stairs. He started to light a match, and heard a slithering from beneath the stairs. He turned just as Jingles swung out with the sock full of coins. Freddy ducked the overhand blow, and caught the boy by his wrist, dragging him out. He pulled him forward and threw him bodily against the brick wall of the hallway. Jingles brought up face-first into the wall, gasped and slid down, his nose broken, semi-conscious.

  Before the other two could jump him. Freddy had begun to turn and saw them at the same time, faintly outlined in street light reflections. “So that’s the bit—” He let a snarl rip between his teeth, swinging on the big, soft face of Pinty as the dummy came at him barefisted. He caught Pinty on the side of the jaw, and the dummy’s head slewed sidewise, but the dummy’s own fist cracked tightly into Freddy’s chest. The boy stumbled backward as Policy George moved in from the left. Freddy raised his hands to ward off any more strikes, for a moment’s rest, to gather his wits. He needn’t have bothered.

  Theresa moved in behind.

  Freddy heard the faint, metallic click of the knife springing open, and he half-turned toward the sound, ignoring the two hesitating gang kids before him.

  He turned directly into the knife.

  She shoved it hard, and it went into his stomach with little difficulty. He gagged and sucked in his breath, and his eyes spanged wide as he mouthed something incomprehensible. Then she dragged the knife loose and he slid toward her, his hands at his ripped stomach. She sidestepped, and he fell on his side, still all movement and crimson blotches and still alive for a while.

  “Get the goddam money. It’s in a paper bag in his right pocket,” she snapped. He was lying there, looking up at her.

  They reached down, and Policy George fished in the pocket, and came up with…

  …a bag of almonds.

  No money. Not a cent. Just almonds.

  Freddy gasped, and then Theresa heard that damned half-laugh. That damned all-sure, all-uncaring chuckle that had infuriated her. “P-pard’n m-me…” He trembled. “S-screwed ya…D-D-Dad’s gonna take th’m-money t’the b-bank…ch-changed his m-mind…y-y-you l-l-l…”

  Theresa dropped to her haunches, fury outlining her dark eyes with pinwheeling flashes of fire-red. She’d been outfoxed, she’d badly fouled up, she’d been had. And this sonofabitch was laughing at her! She dropped with hate.

  “…y-y-you l-l-l…”

  She drove the knife into his throat. Twisted. Dragged. Drove again. Missed. Was pulled back by Jingles who was on his feet now, and Policy George. Pinty watched huge-eyed. She stood panting, watching him lying there, bleeding it out fast.

  He was going to finish the sentence, though. He was going to tell her:

  “…y-y-you l-l-looooz…”

  He finished, and was finished, together. They dragged Theresa away from there. In a restaurant, two blocks out of the Village, they stopped, and she went to the women’s room.

  To wash the blood from her hands.

  The take was eighty-six dollars and fourteen cents, a pair of subway tokens, a Helbros watch that needed a good cleaning, a pair of two-fifty cuff-links, and a wallet filled with papers none of them could utilize. They did not bother to find out his name, so they never knew if he lived. It really didn’t matter. They threw the wallet away. Jingles got the watch, mainly because he had the only wrist without a watch on it. There had been other jobs before this one. The cuff links went to Pinty, and he got shorted three dollars in cash. Each member should have wound up with about fourteen dollars, but they each got ten…except Pinty, who got seven.

  And Theresa, who netted thirty-nine dollars and fourteen cents. And two subway tokens.

  The bunch was unhappy about the split, but Theresa had that strengt
h, that something inside her that made them back down. And she always worked on them singly.

  Even after Policy George bucked her the second time.

  It was the next day. The take had been divided that morning, and the griping was subdued. But when they got together on the roof of Jingles’ building, Policy George spoke up.

  “Uh. hey. Theresa.”

  She stared at him coolly, self-assuredly. She wore a white sweater that clung to her full, young curves, and a gray tweed skirt that hugged her round, lithe hips. She sat so they all got a view of the lacy underclothes she had bought during the afternoon. It was nice. It was black.

  “Yeah, you got a beef?” She knew it was a beef.

  Policy George scooted around till he faced into the middle of the cross-legged circle. She had been sitting in the opposite direction, staring out over the gray-shadowed silhouette of the Bowery, in brooding silence. Now he turned, and in the faint point of light from his cigarette, his face was youthfully tense, his eyes narrowed, the white scar on his cheek out and bright and sharp. He drew on the butt, and flicked it expertly off the roof. It rose in a sharp arc, dropped to scatter sparks in the street far below.

  Theresa said nothing. She stared silently. It was the guy’s play; if he tried to fuck up the bunch, she’d give him the end of the shank so fast he’d be gone before it came out.

  “I don’t read all this knockin’ around like.”

  He waited for a reply. None. He went on laboriously.

  “What I mean, the other night, that joint down in Hugo’s turf, an’ last night those two guys in the Village. Y’know,” he said, growing very serious, very concerned, very stilted, “that was murder, Theresa. Y’know what I mean don’t ya? It ain’t just you killed the guy, and maybe the other one, too, from what Hugo says, but it’s all of us, too. The cops get to you, an’ we go the same place you do. So, it ain’t okay with me no more. It ain’t okay at all.”

  Theresa bit her lower lip.

  She waved a hand toward the sky. “So you wanna get out of the gang?” She waited, hoping he’d buck.

  Policy George looked at her intently, looked at the other four, who averted their gaze, stared at their feet, stared at the tarred roof, stared at the dusky night above. “No, that ain’t what I want,” Policy George answered. “I want you to get out of the gang. A couple of us been talkin’, and we, uh, we don’t think it’s right for a broad to run the gang.

  “So I’m gonna take over.”

  Theresa was startled at his remark that someone else was in this with him. So they were ganging up, to buck her, huh? Well, there was always more than one way to skin a cat.

  “You think you can do as good a job as me?” she asked.

  Policy George shook his head. “Maybe not, Theresa, but at least it’ll be a lot safer.”

  She had to wait, bide her time. She could draw the blade on him, but Policy George was no fool: he knew Pinty would side with him, and whichever one of the others was in it, too, and that made three against her. Even if she could count on the other two (which she probably couldn’t), she had to just sit back and wait till the time came when she could shut Policy George’s mouth for good. And that time would come.

  “Okay, George, if that’s the way the guys want it. Only…only I’d like to ask a favor.”

  Policy George flipped a hand in deference. “Ask.”

  “Could I, uh, could I stay inna bunch. I mean. I can still be a lotta use to the gang, y’know. I’ll do like I’m told.” It ate her guts out to have to crawl to these punks, but she forced herself, “Besides, I dig you guys a lot. You always knew that.”

  Finally, after she had rubbed her thighs against Jingle’s leg, after she had smiled softly at Hugo, after she had conned Jacksap and appealed to Policy George, after Pinty had once more fallen under her spell—or had he ever been free of it, watching her with big cow eyes—finally, they let her remain in the gang.

  That was a big mistake.

  For Policy George.

  The first week, Theresa had trouble eating humble pie. She constantly wanted to pull the switch from her bra and rip Policy George or one of the others. They made certain she had no real say in what they did. They stopped pulling such big, complex muggings, and started swiping hubcaps again, intimidating schoolkids into parting with their lunch money, and a dozen other small-time bits. Theresa was burning inside. She finally realized she would have to get rid of George, and do it so smartly that the others would not realize she had been behind it.

  She thought about it a great deal.

  Then she managed to get alone with Pinty. He was the key.

  Pinty lived with his mother on the fourth floor of a resident hotel of seedy aspects, just out of the Bowery. Every morning, at five o’clock, Pinty’s mom got up, made a cold breakfast of cereal and milk—sometimes with fruit—for Pinty, leaving it where he could find it in the front of the old icebox. Then she walked down, the four flights, noting as usual that the bald-headed wino who served as night clerk was still asleep, and took the bus to the hand laundry where she helped Mr. Chin and his two sons. At noon, Pinty woke up, scratched, and went to find his breakfast. Though he thought he disliked congealed cold cereal and milk—the corn flakes always got soggy—he ate them, and never mentioned it to Mom. She worked hard, yeah, real hard, just for Pinty.

  Then Pinty had the day to kill, till Mom came home at five o’clock and gave him supper. Then he could roam the streets till long after midnight. Mom never worried about Pinty’s getting into trouble: he had nothing to think with, so how could he think up trouble?

  At the end of the first week that Policy George ran the gang, Pinty had a visitor at noon, just when he was getting up.

  The knock came on the door of the tiny three-room apartment, and Pinty padded over to answer it in his underwear. Theresa was at the door.

  She had her hair pulled back in a pony-tail, and her lipstick was on full and moist. Her body seemed to rush out at the dummy. He brushed sleep from his eyes, stumbled over his tongue to say something.

  “Huh, huh, g-good morn’n, Theresa…”

  “Ain’tcha gonna invite me in, Pinty?” She stared up at his light blond thatch of unruly hair hanging over his eyes, the slovenly grayness of the underwear he had worn for days, the rank odor of the apartment through which he had passed. She winced.

  Pinty moved backward. He waved a hand awkwardly, and grinned as though he had just belched. “Yah, yah, sure, T’resa, c’mon in…it’s like kinda dirty, y’know, but that’s my fault, Ma keeps it real clean, but I get it—”

  He continued his half-intelligible babble, even after she had entered the apartment and closed the door behind her, and locked it.

  She cut him off, slumping down on an ancient sofa with the cover threadbare and a roundness of springs pressing against her rump. “C’mon, an’ siddown, Pinty. I wanna talk to ya.”

  She allowed her skirt to ride up past her knees as she adjusted herself. Pinty’s mouth grew dry, his hands had no home, his eyes were great shining jewels. The Goddess had come to his cellar.

  He sat down on the edge of the couch, and she drew him back till he was resting in the soft curve of her arms. “I knew you was the guy I wanted, the first time I saw ya,” she smiled into his face. Pinty doubted his hearing.

  Theresa started her play. She moved in close to Pinty. He began to sweat, and fumble with his mind. The dummy’s brain that lived above his childlike face was confused, wandered in a maze of its own making. Sick brain, lost, lost, but how beautiful, how lovely, how firm was Theresa.

  “Pinty, you like me don’t ya?”

  A quick, vibrant nod of the head, several times more than necessary.

  “You wanna make me like you?”

  Again the nod, a quickening of blood in the baby-like cheeks.

  “Well, you know I like George, don’t ya?”

  A slower, slower nod, then a stop. “George don’t think ya like ’im, T’resa. Wassa matter with you an’ George, huh, Tresa
? Suppose it was nicer, y’know, an’ George n’ you was good friends, that’d be nice, y’know, Tresa.”

  She clenched her fists, loosened them after a moment, and slid her hand inside his perspiration-moist undershirt. For an instant, she gagged, then she said, “Well, Pinty, it’s all George’s fault, understand? I mean, I like him a lots—I mean, not anywhere near as much as I like you. That’s not the same thing at all. But I like him, and I want to make him like me.

  “You see that, don’t ya? Ya see that we have to do it together, get him to be friends with me, that is; ’cause then we’ll all be good friends and go around together an’ have a ball.”

  Pinty grinned, his loose-lipped gnome’s mouth spreading like a sphincter. “Gee, Tresa, that’s, that’d be a great thing. How ya wanna do it?”

  Theresa smiled. “I wanna scare him, Pinty, scare him real good.”

  “Oh, gee, I like you an’ all, Tresa, but I ain’t gonna do that…uh-uh.”

  Theresa sucked in her full cheeks. This was what she was afraid of. Pinty was very close to Policy George. So to get him to do what she wanted, she had to get even closer than Policy George.

  She shoved him back slowly on the sofa, till his feet were hanging off, and she lay against his chest, her full body hot on his. She began to remove the sweaty undershirt, and she was certain she would be sick afterward. But now, right now, to get George…it was worth it.

  “We’ll talk about it…later,” she said.

  Later, there was no argument.

  She got as close as she could get.

  Theresa had planned on a trip to Coney.

  That was a necessity. A trip to Coney over the Belt Parkway through Brooklyn. It was high up, as the cars sped by right outside the windows, so you could see summer-hot people leaning out on their pillows, on their windowsills, so close you could touch them. But the Parkway wasn’t always so heavily-populated. At five in the morning, it was nearly deserted, and when you got back from Coney, near town—or on the way out, even—it became the Gowanus Parkway, and that was over a hundred feet from Parkway to the street below.