Harlan Ellison - Web of the City

That’s why it bothered me when Liggett stopped me at the garage check-out.

“Neal!” he flagged me, and I pulled over, outside the garage.

Liggett was a short man, with washed-out eyes, and a look that said, “Three years from now I can ditch all this crap and settle back on my rosy-red pension.”

I lit a cigarette, waiting for him to check off the last two boats out of the pool, and come over. He walked with a slight limp from the days of the hack wars. “Neal, there was somebody asking after you last night—phone call.”

My ears perked up. “Who?”

“Didn’t offer any references. Just wanted to know what route you were working—obviously knew but nothing from cab policy in this town—and when you were finished. Said he was a friend and wanted to toss you a juicy out-of-limits fare. Also wanted to know where you lived.”

“Tell him?”

Liggett rubbed the back of his neck reflectively. “Where you live? No. When you were off? Yes. The former because I didn’t think it was any of his biz, the latter because he said he wanted to hire you to ferry him out to Newark Airport. Thought he might be on the level. After I’d told him, though, I wondered why he didn’t know your address and what time you’re off, if he was such a big buddy.”

I pursed my lips, then stuck the butt back in my mouth. “Thanks, Lig,” I said. “If anybody starts checking me out in the future, play it close. There may be a couple people don’t want me to go on breathing. I’ve maybe been asking the right questions in the wrong places.”

“That mugging business still?” he asked.

I nodded and tossed the hack into first, punched the starter. Then I thought of something. “Hey, Lig.” He walked back, leaned against the window. “Any other way they can get my address uptown?”

He stopped to think a minute, nodded his head. “If you mean through our records—no. But there is just one.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Any phone book,” he answered, shaking his head.

I drove a double shift that day, trying to catch up on all the time I’d lost in the hospital. I was sort of slow in wanting to quit. Finally I felt my eyes bugging, and decided it was time to sack off. I reported in and told Lig I was taking the hack home for the night.

He okayed it, and motioned me off.

I drove uptown fast, wanting to pound my ear. I found myself getting tired fast these days. The hospital hadn’t worn off completely yet.

It was after nine when I pulled into 82nd Street, and stopped in front of the brownstone where I live. It was a dusty black night, and the streets were quiet as the catacombs. Odd for May, when the kids usually stay out late in the streets. There was one parking space, just big enough for the hack, and I jimmied it into the spot between a big Caddy and a Pontiac without too much shifting.

I was just starting across the street when the three kids jumped me.

They popped out of a dark-blue Merc parked on the wrong side of the street, in front of my brownstone, and they didn’t bother slugging me. One had a .45 and the other two were handling vicious switchblades. They didn’t say a word, just waggled their weapons in the direction of the Merc.

I got in. I didn’t really have a helluva lot of choice.

They pulled out with a squeal of burning tires, and started toward the East Side.

They turned left at Amsterdam Avenue, then left again at 83rd Street. When they got down to the Hudson River Drive, they turned onto it and shot hell-for-leather uptown.

“How far you kiddies think you can carry this game?” I asked. I was so goddam mad I was ready to yank their large colons out and tie them together.

“Far enough,” said the kid with the .45, leaning over the front seat.

“The hell you—” I started, and he tapped me with the barrel. He tapped me goddam good and hard. I went under, plenty annoyed. I was beginning to feel like a door knocker.

I came out of it, for a change, without a headache. I must be getting used to this stuff, I thought. Then I realized why I’d come to. The car had stopped.

We were on a cliff, overlooking what looked suspiciously like an ocean. “Out,” the lad with the pistol said.

I got out.

They marched me, at knife-point, toward the edge of the cliff. They must have driven way out, because this strip of coast didn’t look familiar. It was all too painfully obvious what was coming next.

“Do you jump, wise-mouth, or do we push?” one of the punk kids said. He was a ratty-looking little thing. The kind of kid you instinctively know gets pushed around, and plays it hard so no one will notice he’s scared of his shoelaces.

“I guess you’re going to have to push, runny-nose,” I tossed over my shoulder, looking down at the razored rocks and lacy froth of the waves crashing on them. That was gonna be a real nasty fall. I added, “But whether you push or I jump, I’m going to remember that mousy kisser of yours, and when I get to it I’m going to—”

Then the little bastard shoved me.

He planted a foot in the small of my back, gave a strangled yell of hatred, and I went can-over-tea-kettle into open air.

My arms went out in all directions. I felt the cold wind whistling past my cheeks, and I screamed so loud I’m sure my lungs wanted to take up residency elsewhere.

I didn’t see my life flash in front of my eyes. All I saw was a guy named Neal Campus, mad as hell because he was being pushed around like a floor mop, looking for a way out of this.

It seemed like I’d never stop falling. Then my flailing hands grabbed something. It was a bush. It ripped loose and dirt sprayed my face. I grabbed again, another bush. It ripped loose. But I was slowing a little. The third try made it. I hooked my hand around a scrub growth and slammed up against the chinky rock wall. It shook the breath out of me, and my arms felt as though they were leaving their sockets. But I wasn’t falling anymore. The rocks and debris cascaded past me, and made a helluva bang when they landed below.

I heard a thin laugh from the darkness above me, and a voice that carried down the cliff to me. “Let him spot us from down there, if he can, goddam big-mouthed sonofabitch!”

Two minutes later the Merc started up, and they drove away fast. I started back up. It wasn’t easy. It took me half an hour to climb what I’d fallen in a few seconds. My hands were raw by the time I made it, my head ached miserably, and I fell onto the dirt, gasping.

After a while I stood up. I faced into the wind to get cooled. I faced back toward the city. “I’ll get you—every one of you!” Not loud, just firm. That’s the way I felt. Not loud. Just firm. Real firm.

I started walking.

By the time I’d hopped enough lifts, and used what little change had stayed in my pockets during the fall—the punks had lifted my wallet—to get bus rides, I had a few other things straightened out in my mind.

Number one: these weren’t just kids jumping salty. There was something more here than just a particularly ugly form of organized gang crime. There was an older, smarter boy behind these leather-jacketed jockeys.

Number two: they’d know in a day or so that I wasn’t dead, that I hadn’t spattered into the Atlantic. Then they’d come jiving after me, and this time they’d probably make it stick. In short, if I stood still long enough for them to find me, I was dead.

Number three: I was caught between the devil and the deep blue. If the kids didn’t polish me off—and I wasn’t worried about being convinced on that score any more—the cops were going to do their damnedest.

And, most important, number four: I wanted those kids so bad I could taste it. I had to get to them and turn them in to Harrison and his stooges, just to get them off my back. Because if I didn’t do it ever so fast, they were going to make sure I didn’t have any back to get off.