Harlan Ellison - Web of the City

“What about your safe in there, where we were?” Rusty asked sarcastically, indicating the bedroom with a jerk of his head.

“You little whelp bastard!” the man’s voice was rough and angry, but lit with fear. He studied the boy before him with an intense wariness.

“No dough. That ain’t what I’m here for. I want some talk with you, mister. That’s all I want.” Rusty marveled to himself how calmly he was talking to this animal who had murdered and defiled his sister and whom he was about to kill.

A change of expression came over the man’s face and he sat forward, massaging the back of his head. “Who the hell are you?”

“You Morlan?”

“Yes, goddamnit! I’m Emil Morlan, now what do you want?”

Rusty took a deep breath. He had known it, of course, but to hear him say it, was something else entirely. The end of the road. All screwed up and confused and no reason for suspecting this man—except here was the camel’s hair coat—but here he was. He’d forced his way into a swanky apartment and he was about to commit a murder. Not a switch stand or a zip duel or a brick in the head in an alley—but cold, sharp murder. He would stomp this man to dust beneath his boots.

“Why’d you kill my sister?”

Morlan’s face went back into shadow. His eyes opened wider. He let his mouth move and his hand came away from the bruise on the back of his head. “You’re that kid from way downtown. What’s your name—”

“Santoro,” Rusty tossed it at him, hard. “Russell Santoro, an’ my sister’s name was Dolores. Remember now?”

He started forward and had his hand wrapped in the full, thick cloth of the camel’s hair coat before Morlan yelled, “Wait a minute! Hold it! For Christ’s sake, hold it, not me, not me! I didn’t touch her! I wasn’t anywhere near her! I can prove it. Stop!”

Rusty was close to him, bending over the chair, half-dragging Morlan erect. “Then talk mister, talk so fast, ’cause I’m gonna do something, one way or the other. Talk now and make it good, or Jeezus I’ll k-kill ya…” Rusty’s voice broke, and he found himself trembling with fury. The shaking concentrated in a tic and it battered hot and fast in his cheek, and the pain hit him in the gut again when he thought of Dolores and the days of looking, and now it was almost finished. Everything was almost finished.

Morlan tried to talk, but Rusty had him too close under the chin with the coat wrapped in his fist. He motioned futilely and struggled to speak. Rusty backed off a little, letting loose of the coat.

Morlan started to talk fast and he did not stumble or hesitate. He could not afford to be slow or inarticulate. His life hung on his glibness. He tumbled it all out in one wild rush of words.

“I didn’t do it. I had nothing to do with it. I heard from one of my contacts all about it and that someone had given you my name, or what I looked like. I tell you I was nowhere near there that night. I was down in your neighborhood, but I was nowhere near your sister. You’ve got to believe me. I was down there—because—because—”

Rusty tried to stop the trembling with an abrupt movement and nodded his head sharply. “I know you push the stuff into my turf—an’ Cherokee turf, too—so stop the crappin’ around. Gimme the scoop, or I’ll put you down final, right now.”

Morlan continued, anxiously spilling it all out. “I went down there with a couple of friends to see a man who’s been cutting in on our trade. He’s been raising his own stuff in a deserted lot behind this dry cleaning place. He’s got it in the middle of a thick patch of weeds. Nobody would recognize what it is, even if they should stumble on it. Just some pretty flowers—”

Rusty tried to remember: he had gone through that empty lot a hundred times. In fact, he had been through it just the last week, looking for Boy-O. So someone was raising tea in that field. He turned his attention back to Morlan.

“This guy’s been supplying a few people and for a time it didn’t bother us, he was on such a small scale. But he’s been branching out, starting to grind up more snuff. Then a few weeks ago he tried to put the scare into my pusher down there—” Rusty knew he must mean Boy-O, “—so my pusher told my contact man to put a scare into this creep. I went down there with a pair of buddies who used to box a little, to scare him off our territory. We don’t kill people. I’m a businessman. I got interests all over town, I can’t afford that kind of stuff.”

Rusty found himself believing Morlan, though he knew with each bit of belief his solution to Dolo’s murder was dissolving. But he could not bring himself to kill that easily. He wanted a passage out.

“When I got down there, I saw the guy, and he wouldn’t be scared off. He was pretty big and it would have been a bad fight if my friends had jumped him. Anyhow, he ran away when my two friends tried talking to him. I saw my pusher down there and told him we’d handle this guy and not to worry about it.

“That was when this affair at the bowling alley occurred. My pusher told me they were high on my snuff and I warned him that I didn’t want to be involved.

“Then my two friends and I came back. I went on to a party—I can prove it—and the next day I got word that a girl had been killed, and one of my sources down there—” again Rusty knew Morlan meant Boy-O, “—told me this big guy that has been cutting in on us, he had given you a description of me and told you I did it.”

Rusty stopped him. “What proof you got that you was at this party, and not down in Cougar turf?”

Morlan started to rise. Rusty made to stop him, then let him get up. Morlan went to an ornate Oriental-engraved breakfront and pulled open a drawer. Rusty moved over to make certain it was not another gun the gray-haired man was getting. Morlan pulled out a folder and opened it. The folder was an eight-by-ten nightclub photograph in a white cardboard frame. It showed Morlan at a table with several brassy-looking women and a half dozen other men all of his approximate age, all wealthy and shifty looking. A newspaper clipping was tucked into one corner of the photo.

He picked it out and showed it to Rusty. It was a replica of the larger photograph, with a gossip columnist’s story attached, giving the date the party had occurred, and noting that in the background could be seen on the stage the remarkable new comedian—it gave a name Rusty did not know—in his first show.

Morlan went to the phone, dialed a number and said, “Is this the Golden Sparrow?” That was the name of the nightclub where the picture had been taken. “Let me speak to the manager.” A pause, then Morlan said, “I’d like you to tell a friend of mine at what times the show goes on at your club.” He said hold it a second and handed Rusty the receiver. Rusty took it and listened. The cultured voice of a man told him the hours of the two regular shows each night. In the background he could hear music and the noise of a crowd. Morlan was leveling.

He hung up, and handed Morlan the photo and clipping. Morlan put them away. Rusty was convinced. The first show, the show at which Morlan had been seen and photographed, had been on at almost precisely the time Dolores had been attacked in the alley. Morlan was plainly not the man.

Rusty had almost killed an innocent man.

Then why had he been after this Morlan and his camel’s hair coat? Why? He knew, of course, but Morlan was speaking again.

“I never thought you’d get this far. I had a few feelers put out, to keep you away. I told my pusher down there to keep you off the scent, to get those kids to keep their mouths shut or we’d cut off their supply. I told him to find some other people to warn you away—” Rusty thought of Miss Clements and his own father and his stomach heaved, “—and they did it because they were afraid we’d stop their snuff if they didn’t. The cops got nothing, so I figured you wouldn’t get to me.”