The boys wanna see if you’re a hero, Checker!
What’s the matter, Check? Change your mind?
The boy clapped his hands to his ears wildly, and miraculously the voices stopped. He didn’t need to hear them any more. He knew what he was going to do.
In the drizzle-shine cast by the lamp post on the corner, Checker could see the hungry shadow-image of Cherry, moistening her lips with a flick of red tongue-tip. He edged out from the shadow of the building. The sidewalk seemed to go only one way. Straight-line away to the cop. Like a moving belt, dragging him closer.
His throat tightened convulsively. He suddenly wished he didn’t have to go through with it. He felt the jaws of the steel trap grinding shut.
The cop hadn’t moved. He was still making his report.
This wasn’t like a rumble. This wasn’t like talking smart to the cops who pinched you when you hung out on the corner. This was the real thing; Checker wasn’t sure he could make it. His legs felt numb, all down the back, especially in the back of the knees!
The cop was a big guy, broad across the shoulders and rump. He looked so much like a dark blue mountain, leaning against that post, talking into the phone.
The cop had a thick neck, and his cap was tilted back on his head. Why did he do that? Checker wondered. The rain will slop all over his face.
Suddenly, it was that thought which made Checker terribly frightened. He found himself trembling slightly. Why would a cop tilt his hat back so the rain could slosh all over him? It made the cop somehow more real, more formidable, someone who didn’t give a damn about the rain or the lousy weather.
Or anything.
A man like that was stronger than a vague mind-image of a stupid cop. Checker was scared: plain scared.
He turned, began stepping back to the building wall.
“Hey! What are you doing there?”
The cop had racked the phone and slammed the box shut. He had turned and seen Checker, even as Checker had been turning to leave. This was it.
With the Strikers somewhere back there in the darkness, with the cop advancing on him, Checker was stuck—cold stuck—and he didn’t want to go through with it. It wasn’t worth it. No hot twist like Cherry was worth buckin’ a guy like this cop. Checker started backing up slowly.
“Hey! You there! I said stop!”
Checker froze. His legs locked in midstep and he stumbled against the wall. The cop was getting bigger and bigger in his vision. He was even bigger coming than Checker had imagined he was standing there phoning.
He was a rocky-looking guy, not too old, not too young, about middle-aged, with small gray eyes and a slight limp. He didn’t look like a cop should look. He look the way a cop might want to look.
Tough—really tough. The kind of guy that wouldn’t put on the power unless it was needed. But once it was…
Checker didn’t want to tangle with this cop.
The bluecoat jogged up to Checker, favoring his left leg. He put a wide, blocky hand on the boy’s shoulder. “What were you doing there, I asked?” The cop’s voice was deep and throaty. He hefted his night-stick in the other hand.
Checker remained silent. His years in the streets had taught him one thing: the less you say, the less they got on you!
The cop shook him roughly. “Come on, punk, say something. Well, come on, answer me!” He shook Checker again.
The boy said nothing, but drew himself more erect, the jacket rippling with movement. He was beginning to hate this cop. Hate him real much. Hate him more than he feared him. It might be enough in a minute. It just might be enough.
Watch it, cop. Watch it! It might be enough in a minute! Just keep shaking me, yelling at me, and we’ll see if it ain’t maybe enough!
I don’t want to tangle, mister, but don’t nobody shake me! I been shook enough, and you’re gonna pay if you shake much more.
The boy’s eyes glowed strangely. The cop gazed in fascination into the dark pools. The kid looked like he was on pot. But the iris wasn’t expanded. Just a natural cuckaboo, this kid.
“Roll up your sleeve,” the cop said, taking no chances.
When Checker made no move, the cop let the stick slip its rope-string over his wrist. He yanked the boy’s black leathered sleeve up. The arm was clean. Clear. No needle marks.
The kid was just a natural-born cuckaboo!
Checker suddenly shrugged the cop’s hand off his shoulder. The rain slicked down on them both, and Checker hunched his shoulders into the jacket. “Keep ya hands to yourself. I ain’t done nothin’!”
The cop’s eyes narrowed. The boy was sweating freely, though the evening was chilled and wet.
“Then why did you try to take off when I called you? Answer me, kid, or so help me I’ll run you in!” Checker could see what was running through the cop’s head:
Let’s be careful. This kid alone? No sense getting carved up by a wolf-pack. Would it be smarter just to ring up the precinct house and not take any chances with this punk? What was he so scared about?
“Come on now, answer me!” His tone was harsh and brittle. Checker knew the cop was trying to toss a scare his way.
The boy shuffled his feet a moment, then looked up at the apartment house towering over them both. The bright squares of night-lit windows made a random pattern against the ink and soot sky. “I didn’t know who you was; I couldn’t see you; I was scared.”
The cop arched an eyebrow. “Yeah? Well, what’re you doing out here this late anyhow? You live around here?”
Checker shook his head, tried to draw away again, but the cop restrained him once more. “My buddy lives here,” the boy said, quickly. “He told me to come on up, we’d go to a movie.”
“Yeah?” the cop said slowly, obvious disbelief in his voice. “Then why’d you try to run when I called?”
Checker was getting frantic. This was beginning to be a nightmare. The same questions, over and over, as though he hadn’t answered them already once, as though they were coming up fresh for the first time, as though they’d keep coming up till he dropped dead.
“I already told ya. I couldn’t see ya. It was too dark. Honest, I’m sorry. Can I go now?”
The cop pursed his lips momentarily, then released the boy’s jacket. “Yeah, I suppose so. But stay on the sidewalk, in the open, from now on. All right, move along.”
He stood and watched as Checker turned, moving away from him. A strange kid. He seemed all keyed-up, but he wasn’t on dope, that was obvious. Well, maybe he wasn’t lying. Maybe he couldn’t see that far into the dark. Maybe he…
The cop turned, looked back over his shoulder at the corner where he had been using the call box. The box fastened to a lamppost; there was a yellow circle of light twenty feet around the base of the pole.
The kid couldn’t possibly have missed him!
Then another thought struck him. Movie…
Movie? At this hour? He slipped his sleeve back, and peered at his watch. Twelve-thirty. Movie, hell! That kid was pulling something off, and he almost made it!
“I knew there was something wrong with him!” the cop said aloud, starting to run.
Checker was still in sight. Just turning the corner. He hadn’t yet begun to run himself. “Stop! Hey, you there! Kid! Stop!”
Checker looked back in horror. The cop must have suspected something. Without wasting a step, Checker broke into a run. He turned the corner quickly.
He passed an alleyway, and saw the dark bulk of the Strikers, watching him. He sidestepped into the alley.
“H-hey!” he panted, “you g-gotta give me a-a h-hand. W-when the copper gets down here…we’ll…we’ll…all jump him…”
He stopped. The words didn’t spill over each other any more. He watched the Strikers. They were shaking their heads. “Sorry, Checker,” Vode said, pulling Cherry a little closer. “This is your picnic, not ours. You made a bet, and you got to carry through on it yourself, man.”
Cherry leaned away from Vode’s encircling arm,
toward Checker, a mocking smile on her bright red lips. “I’m worth the risk, ain’t I, Check?”
Checker let a stream of curses slip through his ground-together teeth. “You bunch of stinkin’, slimy bastards! You got me into this thing! Why the hell don’tcha help me?”
A slow, thick smile spread across Vode’s sallow face.
Then he knew why Vode wouldn’t help him.
“You sonofabitch!” he whispered, the hate swelling up in him. He took a step toward Vode.
The pale boy dipped a hand into his jacket pocket. It came up with a blunt-snouted gun, deadly black and watching. “I got this off Sheckels before we started followin’ you. I kinda figured you’d try to punk out.” He lowered the gun meaningfully.
Till it was aimed at Checker’s stomach.
“Get out there!” he snapped.
Checker took another half-step toward Vode. The gun came up sharply, pointing into Checker’s face. “I’ll get you,” he said. It came out cold and hard. “I’ll win that bet, too,” he added, “and when I do, I’m gonna lay a few on your kisser, Cherry.”
The girl sneered. Checker hated her worse than all of them. She had played both sides to win. If Vode won the bet, she was still the girl friend of the top boy. If Checker came through—well, then he was her man. She didn’t care.
He turned and ran out of the alley.
The cop had stopped on the corner, trying to figure which way Checker had gone when he’d turned the corner. He was rubbing his limping leg. He spotted the boy the instant he left the alley, and ceased rubbing. “Hey! Stop there!”
Checker started running again. He couldn’t stop. Behind him he could hear the slap-slap of the cop’s feet hitting the pavement. The cop ran past the alley where the Strikers had hidden. They could have taken him right then, but they didn’t! The cop went right past.
I’ll get you bastards—after I win this bet, he thought.
The rattling shriek of the police whistle split the night.
His breath came raggedly, but he raced on, knowing if he was caught, it would be either him or the cop. He was going to win that bet!
Checker came to another corner and spun around the building without slowing down. Another alley. He passed it by and ducked quickly into a doorway just beyond.
The cop slammed around the corner, going smoothly for a guy with a limp in his left leg. The cop came to a dead stop as he saw the black mouth of the alley. He ground his jaws nervously. Was the kid in there? Was he armed? He didn’t know, but there was one quick way to find out.
The flashlight beam cast a thick arm of light down the passage. It filtered off into half-light before it hit the garbage cans against the wall, halfway down the alley. The bluecoat’s gun was in his hand, and he paced slowly into the alley.
He didn’t notice the blur of black leather and metal as Checker slid rapidly up behind him.
The pain began just to the left of his armpit, in his back. He hardly felt the knife slice into the fat over his spine, but a second later the blade ground against bone, and it was like ice in a furnace!
The cop staggered, letting out a howl, flailing out with his gun arm. The arm caught Checker across the throat, sending him spinning out of the alley, onto the sidewalk.
The cop stumbled out after him. “A cop! I killed me a cop!” Checker shouted, getting up and coming back at the blue-coated figure.
The boy’s wild face grew large in the bleeding cop’s eyes. The pain was numbing him. He dropped the flashlight. Its beam spattered across the sidewalk.
Checker advanced on the cop again, his arm raised. The switchblade caught an instant’s gleam from the lamp post. Dirty cop! The thought repeated itself in the boy’s mind. I’ll win that bet, you’ll see!
He had started, and there was no turning back!
“What…are…you…?” the cop mumbled, fumbling at the holster flap.
The boy took another step, lunged, mumbling, eyes wide at the enormity of what he was doing. His tongue was trapped in a corner of his mouth, pink and wet.
The cop lifted the thousand-pound revolver, fired once, twice, three times. Point blank into the chest of the dark-browed and mumbling boy before him.
Checker slipped in mid-stride, tottered sidewise. He fell to his knees, still clutching the knife. Animal sounds came from him in short grunts, as he struggled to draw breath around the sharp, hard, pounding points of pain in his chest. “Uh, uh,” he grunted, both hands held at his chest, hugging himself with crossed arms. “Uh.”
Then he fell onto his side, slipping half into the street. His breathing was heavy, he was blinking rapidly.
The sound of police sirens ricocheted through the night. Around a corner, the whirling red light atop a squad car bore down on them.
The cop took a step toward the squad car, as it pulled in to the curb, then he fell with a crash, the gun skittering into the gutter.
He lay there, blood dribbling from his lips; then his back arched, and he fell motionless, stiffly.
The crowd began to gather even as the police poured from the squad cars. They seemed to sense when the danger was past, when it was safe to come and watch what horror lay in their streets.
As though it were a signal, the gathering of the crowds brought the end of the sluicing rain. The last drops came down, spattered unnoticed, and then the heavens were darkly silent.
The Strikers had seen most of it from the alley. Silently they had followed, and watched as Checker had killed his cop.
Now they came across the street, in groups of two and three, joining the crowd as though they had been dragged from their homes or cars at this hour, as all the others had.
They moved through the crowd, pushing in steadily toward the center, where the police stood, with caps removed, looking down at the body of the patrolman.
A few people were looking at the kid, his head and shoulders in the gutter, the blood still welling out in an ever-lessening flood.
“Checker…” Cherry muttered, no tone at all in her voice. She fell silent. And licked her lips.
“Yeah. Checker,” Vode replied, his voice low, and half to himself.
Only Cherry heard his next words, and her face was impassive:
“Guess what, Check?” Vode said lightly.
“You lose.”
WE TAKE CARE OF OUR DEAD
Checker had been dead a week when Sammy Silence came to see Vode.
“They want to kill you, Vode,” the dummy said.
Vode stared open-mouthed at Sammy. “B-but you can’t talk!” he exclaimed, upsetting a chair as he backed away from the ugly boy.
Sammy Silence was in the gang; he’d been in the gang a long time—even before Vode had joined the Strikers. He was a legend. He was the dummy of the gang, the guy everyone trusted because he couldn’t talk.
He was a dummy. He was a mute. That’s what everybody thought. Yet here he was, coming to Vode, talking. Telling Vode that the Strikers were out for his skin. Vode didn’t know whether he should be more amazed that the dummy could talk or that the Strikers wanted him dead.
He regained himself and stepped back toward the ugly boy. “Where’d you hear that?” He waved his hand aimlessly, but his meaning was clear.
Sammy plunked into an easy chair. It was Vode’s home, a railroad flat, but the dummy made himself at ease.
He was a thin boy, almost skeleton-like, with thin wrists and thin ankles and a neck so thin it looked as though it might not be able to support the bony weight of his head. His eyes were deep, and they seemed to have voices all their own, independent of his vocal cords. He was dressed in the sheerest filth of raggery, his only clean and well-tended item a zipper jacket of red poplin.
He spoke slowly, haltingly, his face reddening with every word. The first words Vode had ever heard him speak:
“D-d-down at the D-D-Diner. I h-heard Paulie and Fifteen t-talkin’. They said they was gonna g-get you cooled ’cause you bumped off Ch-Checker.” The boy stumbled to a halt, his face red and
perspiring from the effort of speaking.
His tiny Adam’s apple bobbed pitifully in his chicken-craw neck.
It was obvious why he had let everyone think he was incapable of speech.
“But that’s nuts!” Vode almost yelled. “I didn’t kill Checker!”
But his eyes had narrowed, and he licked his lips nervously.
“Th-that ain’t what Fift-t-teen said.” Sammy answered coolly. “He-he s-said ya suckered Ch-Checker into a stand w-with a cop, and then when Ch-Checker needed you to b-back h-him up, to c-cool the c-cop, you d-double-crossed him.”
Vode felt cold right down into the calves of his legs. He knew he wasn’t sitting so well with the Strikers these days; and he knew they were sore about Checker. But he hadn’t thought they’d go this far.
“Look,” Vode explained hastily, leaning over the ugly boy, “it was like this: Checker was makin’ passes at Cherry…”
The dummy’s eyes sparkled at mention of Vode’s red-haired girl friend. All the boys in the Strikers wanted Cherry. But he was a dummy—he knew his place.
Vode went on. “I had to get Checker to leave Cherry alone, so I made a bet with him. I bet him he couldn’t kill a cop…and if he did, he could have Cherry. If he didn’t, he hadda knock off makin’ passes at her.”
“Th-then when h-he found a c-cop, you double-crossed him, r-r-right?”
Vode ran a hand unsteadily through his curly hair. “No! That ain’t right! I didn’t double-cross him. We just followed him when he went looking for that cop. When he found the guy, he chickened-out, and started running. We were in an alley, and the cop was chasing him. Checker came runnin’ into the alley to get me to back him up…help him jump the cop…but I didn’t want to get suckered into it, so I yanked a rod and shoved him back into the street.”
Sammy raised a finger. “Th-that’s what Fifteen said; only h-he says you fixed it s-so’s Checker’d get killed by that cop. H-he says you borrowed the rod from s-some kid up-uptown so’s y-you could put the squeeze on Checker.”
Vode felt sick to his stomach. The Strikers had figured it out, then. That had been exactly what he’d done. It had been a frame, and it had worked. Until now.