Harlan Ellison - Web of the City

He was perhaps five feet seven, with no chin whatsoever and eyes slitted to fine lines. He wore sloppy sports clothes, and his hair was cut in a severe crew-cut, so a bald spot showed at the center of his scalp. But there was more than just a mousiness and furtiveness to him. He looked more like a twitching gray rat than a human being. As he chewed a piece of gum, his aquiline nose twitched, accentuating the resemblance.

“Yeah. What c’n I do ya?” the rodent squeaked as Rusty came in from the street.

Rusty walked toward him, watching the boy as he leaned against the front end of a Buick. The boy seemed loose-jointed and nervous and he grew even more so as Rusty approached without speaking.

“You—uh—you know where I can find some’a the Chero-kees?” Rusty started.

The rodent watched in silence for a minute, then swirled the gum to the other side of his mouth. He plucked at his nose tentatively, then nodded his head. “Yeah. I know where ya c’n find the Cherks. So what? Whaddaya want with ’em?”

Rusty walked slowly, coming abreast of the boy without alarming him. “What’s ya name?” Rusty asked.

The boy stared back as though uncomprehending.

Rusty reached into his pocket. The opening of the knife was sharp in the silence of the garage. “I—I just watch the joint for Tiny Sacher when he goes up fer a sanwich. I—uh—got no connection with them, like ya know…”

“I asked you what was your name,” Rusty repeated.

“Mirsky,” the boy answered slowly, with pain. “M-Mirsky.”

“Well, now, M-Mirsky,” Rusty accented each word with harshness, “how’s about you telling me what you know about the rumble up in Cougar turf Friday night.”

Mirsky slid around the side of the car. His face had turned ashen. His eyes were almost closed in fear. He struggled to deny all knowledge of the fight, the party-crashing.

“Who you, to ask sump’n like that? Huh, who are ya? I don’t know you. You got somethin’ round here? If y’don’t then scram. I got work t’do.” He continued sliding around the dusty surface of the car. His charcoal slacks picked up a thick coat of filth from the movement.

Rusty took a quick step and his hand wound in Mirsky’s jacket lapels.

“The name is Santoro, kid. You know the name?”

Mirsky shook his head violently. His little rat eyes that had been buried deep in the creases of his face were now hanging out, wide and awake with a slippery fear. “I n-never h-heard that name. Whachoo hangin’ onta me for? Lemme go!”

Rusty backed him into the angle of the car and wall.

He held him tightly, twisting the fabric till Mirsky was breathing with difficulty. The boy was shaking terribly. “Please, man, lemme go. L-like I don’t know a thing. I just work here. I ain’t inna Cherks…”

“Kid, you’re sweatin’ too much not to know somethin’. And I got a hunch you know who I am, that maybe even you was told to expect me around here. That so?”

The kid refused to speak. His little aquiline nose twitched, rodentlike, and Rusty felt a straining within himself. He spoke quietly, quickly. “Look, Mirsky. I want you to dig somethin’. I got to find out what happened the other night. I got to, you read me?”

Mirsky would not answer, and Rusty forced the boy’s head to nod yes, by pulling at his collar.

“So get this, fella. I’m gonna find out if you tell me your way, or if you tell me my way. Now I ain’t such a gentle stud and I c’n cut ya if ya make me.” His voice was almost pleading. “Look, kid, don’t make me. Please, I’m askin’ ya, don’t make me!”

But Mirsky was adamant. He was terrified and quaking, but more frightened of something else. What it might be, Rusty did not know, but he was certain whatever it was, that was part of the story behind the Cougars’ refusal to talk and the mystery surrounding the death of Dolo.

“You’re all I got to give me some poop, man,” Rusty begged him, tears starting. “Please, don’t make me do this.” He was crying now, from sheer frustration, and the knowledge that what was to come was inevitable. “Please!”

No sound. Then he had to do it, crying all the while.

The knife was effective. In the dimness of the garage Rusty Santoro drew a thin red line across the boy’s right cheek, and found the next bit of the trail.

I don’t wanna do it this way, Rusty cried to himself, methodically doing what had to be done. His stomach wobbled within him as he applied the screws to the boy. He saw the same methods he had always used before, being used again. He saw the punch being thrown, instead of the logic being applied. But it had to be done this way. This was the way they knew, the way they feared. This was the way to get what he wanted. “Please!” he cried aloud once more, in the darkness.

Finally, “Stop! Y’ gotta stop! I’ll tell ya! Stop on me, stop now, stop stop…”

Rusty let the boy loose and Mirsky slid down in the darkness. He lay back and his tears were tears of pain. As painful as Rusty’s had been all through it and were still. “Tell me what you know, goddamn it, tell me.”

Mirsky put a hand to his cheek and when it came away slippery, he started to faint. His face went dead white again, and he started to slip back under the car. Rusty grabbed for the jacket again and hauled Mirsky erect.

“Th-they came d-down last night,” he said softly. His eyes went around the garage fearfully. “They came down an’ said somebody’d be lookin’ for word. They said I wasn’t ta say anything or they’d get me. You gotta promise me ya won’t s-say nothin’. Please, y’gotta make me a promise or I’ll get it. I’m tellin’ ya.”

Rusty stooped down and broke the knife. He looked around him, found a grease-spattered rag and wiped off the blade. He put the weapon in his pocket. “Don’t think I can’t bring it out again. Talk.”

“Y’gotta promise!”

“Talk!”

Mirsky wet his lips. “They came down and said I wasn’t to say nothin’ about the tea and the Cherks bein’ hopped-up when they went on that rumble. I wasn’t ta say nothin’ or they’d get me. Y’unnerstand that? Ya gotta promise me!”

Rusty stood up. “Who was it told ya?”

Mirsky thought a moment. “There was three Cherks and one guy from off-turf, like I didn’t know him. I think he was a Cougar.”

Rusty stopped breathing for a second. That was it.

“What was his name?”

“They didn’t call him by name.”

“Well then, dammit, what’d he look like.”

“I didn’t see him, man, he—”

Rusty hit him. Fury and frustration swollen in his brain. He drew back to slug him again.

“No, man, stop, hold it! I ain’t lyin’, they had him back where it was dark. I couldn’t see him, ’cept he was short, was all. They just called him kid, or boy, or somethin’ like they din’t want me to know his name.”

Inside, Rusty was twisted and beaten. It was always a dead end. He met a wall of silence, even where the wall was not too solid. He turned away from Mirsky.

When Rusty left the garage, Mirsky was sitting on the grease-spattered floor, his slacks filthy, the thin line of blood dripping down onto his shirt, like watercolor, running. He would be all right. The scar would heal to a faint white line and soon he would be filing the motorblock serial numbers from more stolen heaps. But right now he lay panting deeply, running his tongue-tip around the corners of his tiny mouth, his eyes closed in shock and pain. He would be all right, soon, if it never got out that he had talked to a Cougar. If it never got out that he had spilled the cherries on what had prompted the Cherokee raid that night. Dope.

There was a part of it. There was a section of it. Down near the bottom some place, dope figured in. But how? The kids had been using pot for a long time, what could that mean in the death of Dolores? It was all fuzzy, all screwed up. This was more than Rusty had bargained for.