Brett Halliday - Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve

They walked along Flatbush Avenue in a group, Max and his two companions leading the others walking two-by-two behind them. Rick and Pat brought up the rear.

Pat’s family lived in an apartment at Grand Army Plaza, only three blocks from Rick’s new home, but about a dozen blocks from the Cardinal Shop. When they started out, Rick was in a pleasantly exhilarated mood. Considering that it was his first night in new surroundings, he’d been a pretty fair social success. He was surrounded by new friends who represented the cream of local teen-age society, and he had an attractive girl on his arm.

Then his mood began to change. The three boys in the lead suddenly got the whim of monopolizing the sidewalk. There weren’t many pedestrians out at this time of night, but what few there were got the treatment without regard to age or sex. Max and his two friends deliberately drove everyone they met into the gutter. Linking arms, with Max in the center, they spread the width of the walk and bore down inexorably on everyone coming the other way.

An elderly man was the first forced to scurry off the curb into the street to avoid being run over. Next was a pair of middle-aged women, who scrambled aside making indignant noises and glaring after the trio.

Pat and Duty seemed to find the exhibition hilarious. Rick was only embarrassed. Junior seemed uncertain how to react. A fixed smile settled on his face, but it was a forced one.

“Showoff” behavior had been held in contempt by Rick’s sophisticated Philadelphia set. But there was nothing he could think of to do about the situation, except endure it. He was in a new environment now, and was in the minority. He sensed that any objection on his part would lose him the esteem he had so far managed to gain.

They were almost to Sterling Place when they encountered a pedestrian who refused to give ground. He was a burly, middle-aged man who looked as though he might be a truck driver. Planting himself squarely in the center of the walk, he awaited the approach of the arm-linked trio with a belligerent expression on his face.

The three boys didn’t slow down a bit. They strode straight into the man. Just as they reached him, the man lowered one shoulder to butt Max in the chest.

Things happened so fast, Rick could barely follow them. The three boys unlocked arms. Artie grabbed the man by one shoulder and Eightball grabbed the other. Jerking him off-balance, they forced his head downward just as Max brought up a knee.

Max’s knee connected with the man’s face with a sickening crunch. He went over backward, blood streaming from both nostrils. He was in a seated position on the sidewalk when Artie’s foot lashed out to catch him on the jaw. As the blow stretched the man out flat, Eightball jumped onto his stomach with both feet.

Then all three boys were running down Sterling Place. Rick stood still in stunned disbelief at the vicious attack on a total stranger. Junior’s mouth hung open.

Duty reacted next. Without a word he raced away after the other boys.

Pat tugged at Rick’s arm. “We’d better get out of here,” she said fearfully.

Without stirring, Rick slowly looked around. Across the street a couple and a lone man had stopped to peer their way. A passing car slowed to a stop and the driver in it craned to see what was going on.

Junior suddenly broke into a run up Sterling Place, leaving Rick and Pat alone.

The lone man on the opposite side of the street started to cross over. The man with the woman left her alone to cross too. Pat tugged at Rick’s arm again.

“We didn’t do anything,” Rick said indignantly. “Run, if you want. I’m staying here.”

He bent over the unconscious figure on the sidewalk. Pat looked around fearfully, but she stayed.

The lone man from across the street was the first to reach the scene. As Rick rose from his examination of the unconscious man, the newcomer said, “What happened? A mugging?”

“I don’t know,” Rick said. “Just a fight, I think. You saw as much as I did.”

The other man from across the street arrived then, and the driver of the car got out, leaving his car double-parked. Both stood staring at the prone figure.

“He’s really out cold, ain’t he?” the driver commented.

Rick said, “He’s hurt bad. Somebody ought to call an ambulance.”

The man who had left his woman companion waiting across the street said, “There’s a tavern over there. I’ll call the cops.”

He recrossed the street, took the woman’s arm and both of them entered the tavern.

By the time a police radio car arrived, a considerable crowd ringed the unconscious man, most of it from the tavern from which the police had been called. Rick took Pat’s hand and quietly led her up the street. The police, busy questioning bystanders, took no notice of their departure.

They were a block away before Pat breathed a sigh of relief and lost the strained expression she had been wearing.

Giving Rick’s hand a squeeze, she said admiringly, “Boy, wait till the bunch hears about this in school tomorrow. You’ll get invited in for sure.”

“Hears about what?” Rick asked.

“How you bluffed it out. I never saw such nerve. Standing right there and talking to those men just like you didn’t know any more about what happened than they did. They never even suspected we were with the bunch that beat him up.” Pat smiled approval.

With a sense of shock Rick realized that Pat had entirely misinterpreted his motive in refusing to run. He had stayed partly because he hadn’t done anything wrong and refused to run because of another’s act, partly because he didn’t want to desert an injured man until help arrived. Pat seemed to think he had stayed through sheer bravado, to demonstrate to her that he could face down the other witnesses. She thought he had simply been attempting to prove that he could “get away” with things.

He didn’t enlighten her. He couldn’t without sounding stuffy. Furthermore, he found himself enjoying the admiration in her voice.

The next day in school, when the story got around, Rick didn’t correct the misapprehension either. Between classes and during the lunch period, he met many other members of the Prospectors. All had heard of the incident, and all had admiring comments to make.

The story grew in passage. By the close of school the version was that Rick had stood his ground even after the police arrived, and had straight-facedly described the victim’s assailants, giving totally wrong descriptions. Rick found himself the hero of a living legend.

Heroism to this new group, he gradually realized, consisted of outmaneuvering constituted authority. He saw evidence of this all around him. Daring little bits of misbehavior were performed all day long, right under the noses of teachers. There was no purpose in them other than to run the deliberate risk of apprehension and punishment. Boys who succeeded in harassing their teachers most, yet managed to go undetected, drew the most admiration.

The commonest trick was a bit of mild vandalism known as “flashing,” which was breaking light bulbs in their sockets. The usual weapon was a rubber band and a paper clip. Generally this was practiced in the halls between classes rather than in class, for then the corridors were so full of students, it was impossible to tell from which direction a missile came.

A bulb would explode just as a teacher passed beneath it, often showering him with glass. When he glared around, most students would be moving sedately along the hall, engrossed in conversation with companions, others would be bending over drinking fountains or reading the bulletin board. None, apparently, ever saw or heard a bulb burst.

Max was particularly expert at flashing. He could hit a bulb at fifteen paces without breaking stride.