Harlan Ellison - Web of the City

Rusty slumped down on a standpipe for a minute, and let his mind kick the ideas around. Where would they be? Finally he had two possible answers.

They were either on the roof at Fish’s building, which faced on an empty lot and was pretty well secluded or they were in the condemned warehouse on Wharton Street.

He checked the first out, and it was silent, black, with the silhouettes of pigeon coops among the TV antenna tendrils. The Cougars were not “high” on the roof tonight.

But they were in the warehouse.

They had put blankets up around the broken windows on the third floor, but Rusty was not a cop walking the beat and ignoring a warehouse about to be torn down. He was a member of that select clan of delinquents who knew what he was looking for and where to go to find it. They were having a war council in the guts of what had been a toy factory—till the building was done dirty by the man who owned it, who had it planted for arson, who had the insides fire-gutted and then got nabbed for the job—and they were after Cherokee hide. They were gonna get it too, sure as lights light and breath goes in and out. Rusty made it by the back way, up the stairs, close to the wall, so the steps didn’t creak and let on he was upcoming. Halfway up, the stairs just quit and charred planks ran across. He went back down a ways, and climbed into a hole burnt through the wall. The structural boards were somehow still there, and he walked inside the wall, past the spot where the stairs were gone, though he almost took a header three times.

Finally he made the right floor, and climbed back out through another hole, just below the door level. He stopped on the stairs, and saw a thin wash of dim yellow light under the ajar door. Another gloss of yellow watered down the right-hand wall, where the door was partways open.

He crouched down, and stuck his ear close to the opening, to listen.

He could hear them, clear and smooth, and right down the line, the way it had been when he had been Prez.

“Now, who wants to be War Councilor?” It was Candle, being the big wheel, as per usual.

A mumbled jumbling of high and medium voices, and finally Boy-O’s watery piping. “Hey, Jack! Lemme go, I wanna be a hero this time.” Laughter filled the room.

Then Candle Shaster’s voice rose up above the babble, annoyed and peremptory. “Shaddup. You just wanna go up there to peddle your snuff. They’d cut you up and drop ya down a manhole. Shaddup!”

Boy-O said something frail and the laughter rose again. Someone chimed in with another remark and the noise grew. Then Candle said, “Okay, wise guy. You so smart, you can be War Councilor. You go on up there with the white rag.”

Rusty heard Poop’s voice, querulous and angry. “Hey, why the hell me? Lotta other guys goofed off. Don’t toss that crap at me, man.”

Candle said something low, barely distinguishable in the rising clamor, and for a moment Rusty thought there would be a fight. But Poop backed down and the rumble discussion went on.

Rusty decided now was the time to make his play.

He stood up and threw the door open wide. It banged against the wall of the stairwell, sounding like the report of a pistol in the shallow confines of the passage. For a moment, while his eyes were adjusted to the gloom of the stairwell, he did not see those inside in sharp focus. Then the light flooded in, and Candle came through nasty-looking and a little frightened at who was before him.

Beside the new Cougar Prez was Weezee.

Her eyes banged open wide till the blue of them was a color contrast with the white of her painted face. Her hand flew to her mouth and for a moment she looked to Rusty as though she would faint. Everyone else remained motionless.

They were all there. The Greek, Poop, Johnny Slice, Tiger and the broads. But most of all, and it hurt on top of all the rest, there was Weezee, sitting beside Candle. He had his big, hairy spade of a hand on her knee. She didn’t mind. Times change, people change. Maybe. Not down inside. What’s there is there, and you’re screwed if you think what’s there is what you want it to be. She was here, now, and that was what counted. There were no excuses in the jungle. Live or die was all that counted. Rusty had long since decided he would live.

The guy who had killed Dolores… He would die.

The room was silent for a long minute and then there was lots of movement. Rusty wished in that instant he had borrowed a gun from somewhere, but there had been no place, and all he had was the stuff he was born with. He knew it was bluff or get stomped. He was no longer a Cougar, so he had to make a fast place for himself here, right this instant.

“Okay, knock it off!” he yelled. And stepped into the room.

The place was rotting away. Fire had consumed one entire wall, leaving the skeleton structure of old wood and plaster showing through. Metal, small-holed sheeting was peeled away within the walls, as though a giant hand had crumpled it up. The floor sagged noticeably. The ceiling was shrouded in darkness and the three kerosene lamps they had brought with them cast a fitful wavering glare across the room, down the now-empty stairwell.

They were stopped by his command for a moment. He had burst in and the time was not that far past that they had looked up to him as Prez of the club. He seemed to have momentary authority, for he had found them in an illegal place. Rusty came through the door, pulling it closed behind him. He walked across the room, staring straight into Weezee’s wide, frightened eyes. She had begun to nervously twist her ponytail.

Candle stood up, dropping his hand from her, and advanced a short step. Rusty bawled at him, “Sit down! I wanna talk to ya for a minute, and you’d damn well better feed me straight…”

Three of the club members moved in toward Rusty. He edged to the side, closer to Candle. The Prez of the Cougars had not sat down. He had moved a step further away from the girl, but he had not sat down. Rusty came on straight, and in one sharp movement had the Prez by the arm. He whipped it back so fast and he yanked it so hard, Candle screamed sharply in pain, and then the arm was up behind in the ridge of his back, and the knife from the sleeve was in Rusty’s hand.

The hand moved a fraction of an inch, the blade snicked open, and the point was indenting the cloth just between the fifth and sixth ribs on the right side of Candle’s body.

“Now,” Rusty forced his bluff, “now, if you wanna see how hot I am to get to know what I wanna know, then you brace me, all you fraykin’ rocks, and I’ll slide this so easy he won’t know it’s in till it’s out.”

His false bravado rang like tin on his ears, but the knife was in Candle’s side, and he had come bursting in suddenly, and he did look like he wasn’t playing around. The three members backed off. Candle struggled.

“My sister got it last night. You know that. You all know it. You guys’re sittin’ here and my kid sister’s downtown in the chill house. Now I’m gonna know who did it like, or so help me god like I’m standin’ here, I’ll scream fuzz so loud, you’ll all stay pokey till you drop.

“I know enough to get ya all canned in the Home for five years, and you,” he drove the point of the knife a little deeper into Candle’s side, “ya sonofabitch, I’ll cut out ya gut if ya don’t open up.”

Candle Shaster’s mouth opened wet and wide. He wanted to speak, but there was sharp, tiny pressure alongside his ribs, and the fright was big in him, so damned big. He squirmed in Rusty’s grip, but the boy was a rock, and held the knife tight to the cloth. It was the only thing between him and the violence the Cougars could unleash in a second, if they overcame the cold sweat of the switch in his hand.