"Sure, Mr. Van Pelt. Wally Hutner was a sociology major--I'm
journalism--but we had a couple of classes together. He had a part-time
job with a neighborhood council up here, acting as a sort of adult
adviser for one of the gangs."
"They need advice on how to be gangs?"
"No, that's not it, Mr. Van Pelt. The councils try to get their workers
accepted enough to bring the kids in to the social centers, that's all.
They try to get them off the streets. Wally was working with a bunch
called the Leopards."
I shut him up. "Tell me about it later!" I stopped the car and rolled
down a window, listening.
* * * * *
Yes, there was something going on all right. Not at the corner Harrison
had mentioned--there wasn't a soul in sight in any direction. But I
could hear what sounded like gunfire and yelling, and, my God, even
bombs going off! And it wasn't too far away. There were sirens,
too--squad cars, no doubt.
"It's over that way!" Sol yelled, pointing. He looked as though he was
having the time of his life, all keyed up and delighted. He didn't have
to tell me where the noise was coming from, I could hear for myself. It
sounded like D-Day at Normandy, and I didn't like the sound of it.
I made a quick decision and slammed on the brakes, then backed the car
back the way we had come. Sol looked at me. "What--"
"Local color," I explained quickly. "This the place you were talking
about? Chris's? Let's go in and see if we can find some of these
hoodlums."
"But, Mr. Van Pelt, all the pictures are over where the fight's going
on!"
"Pictures, shmictures! Come on!" I got out in front of the candy store,
and the only thing he could do was follow me.
Whatever they were doing, they were making the devil's own racket about
it. Now that I looked a little more closely I could see that they must
have come this way; the candy store's windows were broken; every other
street light was smashed; and what had at first looked like a flight of
steps in front of a tenement across the street wasn't anything of the
kind--it was a pile of bricks and stone from the false-front cornice on
the roof! How in the world they had managed to knock that down I had no
idea; but it sort of convinced me that, after all, Harrison had been
right about this being a _big_ fight. Over where the noise was coming
from there were queer flashing lights in the clouds overhead--reflecting
exploding flares, I thought.
* * * * *
No, I didn't want to go over where the pictures were. I like living. If
it had been a normal Harlem rumble with broken bottles and knives, or
maybe even home-made zip guns--I might have taken a chance on it, but
this was for real.
"Come on," I yelled to Sol, and we pushed the door open to the candy
store.
At first there didn't seem to be anyone in, but after we called a couple
times a kid of about sixteen, coffee-colored and scared-looking, stuck
his head up above the counter.
"You. What's going on here?" I demanded. He looked at me as if I was
some kind of a two-headed monster. "Come on, kid. Tell us what
happened."
"Excuse me, Mr. Van Pelt." Sol cut in ahead of me and began talking to
the kid in Spanish. It got a rise out of him; at least Sol got an
answer. My Spanish is only a little bit better than my Swahili, so I
missed what was going on, except for an occasional word. But Sol was
getting it all. He reported: "He knows Walt; that's what's bothering
him. He says Walt and some of the Leopards are in a basement down the
street, and there's something wrong with them. I can't exactly figure
out what, but--"
"The hell with them. What about _that_?"
"You mean the fight? Oh, it's a big one all right, Mr. Van Pelt. It's a
gang called the Boomer Dukes. They've got hold of some real guns
somewhere--I can't exactly understand what kind of guns he means, but it
sounds like something serious. He says they shot that parapet down
across the street. Gosh, Mr. Van Pelt, you'd think it'd take a cannon
for something like that. But it has something to do with Walt Hutner and
all the Leopards, too."
I said enthusiastically, "Very good, Sol. That's fine. Find out where
the cellar is, and we'll go interview Hutner."
"But Mr. Van Pelt, the pictures--"
"Sorry. I have to call the office." I turned my back on him and headed
for the car.
* * * * *
The noise was louder, and the flashes in the sky brighter--it looked as
though they were moving this way. Well, I didn't have any money tied up
in the car, so I wasn't worried about leaving it in the street. And
somebody's cellar seemed like a very good place to be. I called the
office and started to tell Harrison what we'd found out; but he stopped
me short. "Sandy, where've you been? I've been trying to call you
for--Listen, we got a call from Fordham. They've detected radiation
coming from the East Side--it's got to be what's going on up there!
Radiation, do you hear me? That means atomic weapons! Now, you get th--"
Silence.
"Hello?" I cried, and then remembered to push the talk button. "Hello?
Harrison, you there?"
Silence. The two-way radio was dead.
I got out of the car; and maybe I understood what had happened to the
radio and maybe I didn't. Anyway, there was something new shining in the
sky. It hung below the clouds in parts, and I could see it through the
bottom of the clouds in the middle; it was a silvery teacup upside down,
a hemisphere over everything.
It hadn't been there two minutes before.
* * * * *
I heard firing coming closer and closer. Around a corner a bunch of cops
came, running, turning, firing; running, turning and firing again. It
was like the retreat from Caporetto in miniature. And what was chasing
them? In a minute I saw. Coming around the corner was a kid with a
lightning-blue satin jacket and two funny-looking guns in his hand;
there was a silvery aura around him, the same color as the lights in the
sky; and I swear I saw those cops' guns hit him twenty times in twenty
seconds, but he didn't seem to notice.
Sol and the kid from the candy store were right beside me. We took
another look at the one-man army that was coming down the street toward
us, laughing and prancing and firing those odd-looking guns. And then
the three of us got out of there, heading for the cellar. Any cellar.
V