Harlan Ellison - Web of the City

“Talk, damn ya!” Rusty said tightly, edging the point of the knife in more sharply.

Candle could not speak. He could only squirm, and he did that with abruptness that threw Rusty off-balance. In a moment he had a wedge with his hip against the boy’s side, and an imperfect lunge tossed Rusty away from him. Rusty went sidewise, into the crate on which Weezee sat, frightened and still toying unknowingly with her ponytail. He slammed into her and she went over, her legs flashing brown and slim as she tumbled to the dirty floor. Then Rusty had his hand under him for steadying and was coming erect. The gang moved in fast.

The first three who had attempted to take him when he had entered the room came at him again and Candle was right alongside. The blades flashed wickedly in the glare of the kerosene lamps, but Rusty was on his feet and backing away.

This was it, so this was it, damn it this was it.

Close, but not nearly close enough. He knew there was something here, but now he was stopped. He was going to be stopped good and proper in a minute. How much blood could three switches draw?

He saw a flash of big movement from the corner of his eye and then the three Cougars were being elbowed aside. One of them turned to the newcomer, his blade rising, and a thick hand came down from the darkness, plucked the knife from the boy’s fingers and it leaped upward, was stuck far above in the ceiling. The thunk of the knife sticking into the charred wood of the exposed ceiling stopped the others. All but Candle.

He kept coming, not quite realizing he was alone again, and facing Rusty’s knife. The activity to his left had been so swift, so complete, he had not realized what it meant.

Rusty saw it all. He saw the gigantic hulk that was the Beast come out of the shadows where he had lain slumped against the wall. He saw the huge idiot face contort in anger and violence as the Beast shouldered aside the three Cougars, and he saw the dummy rip the knife from the boy’s hand, and with a movement more agile than any Rusty had believed the Beast could employ, had seen him throw the knife, quivering, into the ceiling.

Now Rusty bent forward at the knees and the knife came out before him, like the head of a snake, swaying, swaying, deadly and waiting. Candle came on solid and then he realized he was alone. He brought up short and started to turn, but a hairy arm went around his chest and he was lifted clear of the floor. He hung there, thrashing for a long instant, and then another hand caught him under the crotch. Candle went up, up, over the matted, caked filth of the Beast’s hair, went up bubbling and trembling and the Beast pitched him forward heavily.

Rusty watched as Candle Shaster swung through the air and fell heavily. The boy hit, and then flopped onto his belly. He lay there for a moment, then heaved and lay still. He was not unconscious, but the sharp, tiny exclamations of pain that escaped him showed he was not going to get up soon.

Rusty stood staring into the round, idiot eyes of the Beast. The eyes that said nothing at all. The eyes that were filled with a great void, a great sadness, a great uncaring, unknowing nothingness. They were windows to the house of his soul and they were dead windows. Rusty saw the great face in its rigid immobility, nearly incapable of expression with meaning. The putty wart of a nose sucked air in, quivered as the air sped back on its outward journey. Rusty watched the Beast’s face for a moment, letting the full, unpleasant picture register clearly.

He had seen the Beast around the neighborhood for years. He was a traditional joke, taunted by the younger punkies around Tom-Tom’s place, avoided by women and snapped at by the fuzz. He was always in some alley, or under a pile of newspapers in an apartment building’s basement. What he did to keep himself alive was a mystery, though from time to time rumors flashed about him. Robbery, breaking and entering, assault, mugging. Lord knew he was capable of any of them—but there was never any real inquiry into his affairs.

He was just the thing called the Beast. And he was there. That was all.

Now he had made a definite step. He had done something concrete and had saved Rusty’s life. Why? The boy could not recall ever having done anything to acquire the huge man’s good will and friendship. Why?

The Beast looked down at Rusty and put out his hand. For a moment Rusty had no idea what he wanted, then he realized he was still gripping the switch, underhand. He rubbed a finger along the green plastic of the handle and then closed it reluctantly. The knife clicked as he lifted the lock at the back and he awkwardly handed it to the big man. The Beast shoved the knife into a side pocket of his rumpled, dirt-streaked slacks and turned away with a nod to Rusty.

The Beast walked back into the shadows and slumped down once more, his back edging down the wall till he lay in the angle of the charred walls.

Rusty pursed his lips. There seemed no sense to it. The Beast had never spoken more than three words to him and suddenly he had become Rusty’s protector. The boy was confused, but sensed his advantage now. He took three short steps to the barely stirring body of Candle and hoisted the boy to his feet roughly. He shoved the squat Cougar leader to the wall that was bathed in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp, and systematically brought him to.

The almost-Mongoloid features of the Prez began to flicker out of grogginess and he batted his eyes several times as Rusty shook and slapped him.

The Cougars watched in transfixed helplessness, knowing if they moved the Beast would move; and though fat and filthy, the dummy could crush any one of them easily. They stayed put and watched Rusty work Candle over thoroughly.

“Now, I wanna know,” Rusty said, each word accentuated by a sharp, stinging slap of his palm. Candle’s face was becoming flame red along one cheek, as Rusty tried to drag information from him by the only sure method he knew.

“Talk!”

The hand came out, flashed and cracked briefly against skin. Candle’s head jerked. His eyes opened wide and he twitched as though he wanted to retaliate. From the shadows the red coals of the Beast’s eyes, staring straight at the Prez, kept his hands at his sides, limply.

“Talk!”

Candle jerked his head away and Rusty’s next slap landed against the shoulder. It went that way for ten minutes, as Weezee sat biting her fist, her eyes wide. Violence was loose and there was no telling when it would come her way.

“Who killed my sister?”

No answer. The bond of silence was tight. Candle could no more speak, if he knew anything, than he could throw himself off the Staten Island Ferry. He was tied to silence. Rusty grew furious with frustration. His blows became more violent, and the Cougars knew this was not the fake rah-rah they usually saw in fights and rumbles. This was serious, this was the next thing to slow death. Rusty Santoro was on the edge and he wanted the word. The straight stuff, and they knew he would work each of them over till he got it.

Then their silence was no longer challenged, for the one who had stopped them before spoke from the shadows.

The Beast’s hoarse, unsteady voice came up in the room and he said, “I seen who took ya sister…”

Rusty was holding Candle against the wall with one white-knuckled hand, the other poised for a sidearm whack at the squat boy’s face. The hand never landed. Rusty stepped away slowly, letting his grip loosen on Candle, and the boy slid in a bumbling shuffle, before he fell again and lay panting, angled against the wall.

Rusty turned to the dummy, and there was a strange luster to the boy’s glare. This was what he wanted, this was all of it. This was the beginning of the trail that would end with a dead man in a gutter or hallway or alley, a Santoro-driven knife in his gut. This was it on skates and Rusty wanted it all.