Mike Shayne's Torrid Twelve

1

When the Rider Fork and Hoe Company moved its plant from Philadelphia to Brooklyn, it adopted the simple, expedient course of laying off most of its workers and rehiring new ones in Brooklyn. But it not only kept its key men, it moved them at company expense.

That’s how it happened the move didn’t separate Rick Henderson and his best friend, Junior Carr. The fathers of both boys were shop foremen for Rider.

Before the move, Rick got a lecture from his father on the subject of juvenile gangs. Big Sam Henderson had been reading the newspapers.

“We’ll be living in a nice section of Brooklyn,” Big Sam told his son. “Only a couple of blocks from Prospect Park. But Brooklyn ain’t like Philadelphia.”

“How’s that?” Rick asked.

“Here this gang stuff is only in the slums. Near as I can figure from the newspapers, Brooklyn’s got it all over. Even in the nice sections the police have plenty to worry about.”

Rick gave him a confident grin. “Don’t worry about me, Pop. I can take care of myself.”

He had reason for confidence. At sixteen Rick Henderson was five feet eleven and weighed one hundred and eighty pounds. He was first-string fullback on his high school football team and president of the boxing club. Though he wasn’t a brawler, he’d had his share of teen-age fights, and had yet to lose one.

Big Sam said, “I’m not worrying about you getting beat up. I’m worrying about you hooking up with one of these gangs.”

Rick looked at his father with amazement. The circle Rick moved in did its best to emulate what it thought was college-level behavior. He belonged to a national high school fraternity, unrecognized but tolerated by the school, and he and his fraternity brothers wouldn’t have dreamed of being seen in public with a girl who didn’t belong to one of the national high school sororities. In its own estimation Rick’s circle was a highly sophisticated group which tended to look with patronizing amusement at all other levels of teen-age society.

“One of those teen-age black leather jacket outfits?” Rick asked with raised eyebrows. “That’s for the movies, Pop. What would I be doing with a bunch of squares?”

“Well, you just mind what I say,” big Sam said gruffly. “There’s gonna be no juvenile delinquents in this family. I had to be sure you’d understand that.”

Beneath his gruffness there was relief. Big Sam had confidence in young Rick’s judgment. But with all the stuff in the papers about juvenile crime, a parent couldn’t be too careful.

Rick described his conference with his father to Junior Carr. They both had a good laugh over it.

“Boy, what parents can’t think of to worry about,” Junior said. “Guys like us getting tied up with one of those punk kid Apache-haircut outfits. Wonder if Iota Omega has a chapter at the school we’re going to?”

Junior Carr was as tall as Rick, but only weighed a hundred and thirty pounds. He was too light for athletics and too uncompetitive to go out for less strenuous school activities. His high school fraternity was the most important social activity in his life.

“No,” Rick said regretfully. “I looked it up. Had some fellows in other frats check their chapter lists, too. I don’t think they have any fraternities there.”

“Maybe we can start a chapter,” Junior said with an air of hope.

Rick’s family settled in a four-room flat on Sterling Place, a quiet street of uniform-looking apartment buildings and small neighborhood stores. It wasn’t Brooklyn’s finest residential section, but neither was it shabby. Aside from the fact that most people in the area lived in apartments instead of individual houses, it didn’t differ from the middle-class residential sections of any big city.

Junior Carr’s family rented a flat just around the corner from the Hendersons, on Underhill Avenue.

The move took place over a weekend. It was Sunday evening by the time both families were settled enough for the boys to have a chance to look over their new neighborhood. Immediately after dinner they met in front of Rick’s apartment building.

Instinctively they headed for Flatbush Avenue, the nearest main street. After wandering down to Grand Army Plaza without seeing anything more interesting than a subway entrance, they turned around to explore Flatbush in the opposite direction.

Flatbush Avenue in this section is a heavily traveled street dotted with taverns and small stores. Rick and Junior glanced into each place they passed. Neither was consciously looking for anything in particular. They were merely exploring. But subconsciously they were searching for companions their own age. They found them near Atlantic Avenue, in a combination soda fountain and candy shop named the Cardinal Shop. The place was crowded with teen-agers.

In tacit accord they entered the shop and stood looking around. There were no vacant seats at the soda fountain and no unoccupied booths.

The customers ranged in age from about fifteen to eighteen, and there seemed to be twice as many boys as girls. For the most part the boys wore well-pressed slacks and either sweaters or jackets, with an occasional sport coat and open-necked sport shirt. The girls all wore skirts and loose sweaters, flat-heeled pumps and bobby socks. The dress was a little more casual than Rick and Junior had been accustomed to in Philadelphia, but they instinctively recognized the group as kindred souls. This was the high school “popularity” crowd.

Rick and Junior felt a little overdressed in their neat suits, white shirts and neckties.

A few couples were dancing to a juke box playing rock-and-roll. The remainder sipped soft drinks, carried on noisy conversation punctuated by much laughter, or wandered about the place from table to table. Everyone seemed to know everyone else there.

It seemed such a happy scene that Rick and Junior grinned with spontaneous pleasure. Then their grins gradually faded as the other customers began to notice them.

It started at the soda fountain. A youngster of about sixteen glanced their way, elevated his eyebrows and said something to the boy next to him. He in turn stared at Rick and Junior, then passed the word on. Within a fraction of a minute everyone at the counter had swung round to gaze at them silently.

The reaction spread from the counter to the booths. All conversation stopped. The dancers halted, and they too joined in staring at the newcomers. One of the boys who had been dancing went over to the juke box and shut it off by pulling out the cord.

Junior glanced around uneasily. Rick’s face began to redden with a mixture of embarrassment and anger. A blond boy of about Rick’s size, but probably a year or so older, lazily rose from a booth and moved toward them. He didn’t exactly swagger, but there was the confidence of authority in his movements.

The thin, bald-headed man who was tending the fountain, and who apparently was the proprietor, scurried from behind the counter to head off the blond boy.

Raising placating palms, he said, “No trouble now, Max. Not in here.”

Max paused long enough to give the bald-headed man a reassuring grin. “We ever give you trouble, Pop? If anything builds, we’ll take it outside.”

Junior whispered, “We better get out of here, Rick.”

Rick’s gaze jerked to him. He didn’t say anything. He merely stared at Junior until the latter uneasily averted his eyes.

Then Rick faced the blond boy again, gazing at him in challenge.

2

The blond Max brushed past Pop and unhurriedly closed the rest of the gap between himself and the newcomers. Other boys drifted behind him from the counter and from the booths, until more than a dozen formed a semicircle around Rick and Junior. None of them said anything. They merely waited for Max to speak.

Dismissing Junior with one contemptuous glance, Max ran his eyes estimatingly over Rick.

“You guys are a little off your turf, aren’t you?” he inquired.

Rick gaped at him steadily as he thought the question over. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked finally.

“You’re no citizens. What makes you brave enough to come this side of Atlantic?”

Again Rick struggled for the blond boy’s meaning. Eventually he said, “You think we’re from overseas? Foreigners, or something?”

A feminine titter from a rear booth broke the silence hovering over the room. It rippled from youngster to youngster like a wave, then died away. None of the boys in a semicircle around Rick and Junior so much as smiled. The blond Max said without expression, “A comedian, huh?”

Rick said hotly, “I just don’t know what you’re talking about. What you mean, this side of the Atlantic? We were born here.”

Max’s eyes narrowed. But not menacingly. A look of comprehension began to grow in them. “Atlantic Avenue,” he said. “Aren’t you Purple Pelicans?”

Rick’s anger began to fade as his puzzlement increased. He said, “You’re talking Greek, fellow. I never heard of Atlantic Avenue. And what’s a Purple Pelican?”

Max’s expression underwent a subtle change. He was still authoritative, but the threat disappeared from his manner. In a merely condescending tone, he said, “Where you live, man?”

Rick considered whether to answer or tell him it was none of his business. Finally he said with a touch of belligerence, “Sterling Place.”

Max hiked an eyebrow, then turned to give Junior an inquiring look.

Junior licked his lips. “Underhill Avenue,” he managed.

Max said, “How come you’re strangers, then?”

“Because we just moved in today,” Rick snapped. He added in a more temperate tone, “From Philadelphia.”

Max ran his eyes over the semicircle of faces around him. He said indulgently, “Why push it? They didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?” Rick inquired.

“You’re living on Prospectors’ turf now,” Max explained. “It’s a club. The Cardinal Shop’s our personal, private spot. Non-citizens don’t come in without an ask.”

“Who’s a non-citizen?”

“You don’t read the lingo too good, do you, man?” Max said. “A citizen’s a club member. Don’t they have clubs down Philadelphia way?”

“We belong to a fraternity,” Rick told him. He pulled aside his coat to show the pin on the breast pocket of his shirt. “Iota Omega Upsilon. The I.O.U.s.”

A tall, lean boy of about eighteen in the semicircle snickered. “Fraternity boys. Pour me a cup of tea, Mother.”

Some of the others grinned. Their grins faded to expectant expressions when Rick stared unblinkingly at the lean boy. The boy gazed back at him with equal steadiness.

A feminine voice broke the silence. “Why don’t you invite them to stick around, Max?”

Everyone glanced around at the red-haired girl who had come up behind the group. She was about Rick’s age, slim and ripe-looking, with green eyes and delicate features. She was regarding Rick with unconcealed interest.

The lean boy growled, “You keep out of this, Pat.”

“Why?” the redhead inquired. “You don’t own this place.” Moving into the group, she looked up at Max. “They look like nice boys, Max. Ask them to stay.”

Max glanced from her to the lean boy. He seemed to be amused. “Got any objections, Artie?”

Artie moved forward to glare down at the redheaded Pat. “Butt out and go back to your booth,” he ordered her. “This is man business.”

Elevating her chin, Pat said, “You don’t own me either, mister. I was talking to Max.” She glanced back at the blond leader.

Max shrugged. “It’s all right with me if they want to stay. You’re on your own, Artie.”

He looked from Artie to Rick, and his amusement seemed to grow. The air of expectancy increased in the rest of the crowd.

Artie swung to confront Rick. “You better blow,” he said stiffly. He jerked a thumb at Pat. “This is my witch.”

“Was, you mean,” Pat said loudly. “I told you nobody orders me around.”

After glaring at her for a moment, Artie said to Rick, “You heard me, stud. You gonna take off?”

Rick ran his eyes over the circle of faces, let his gaze settle on Max. He wasn’t quite certain of what was expected of him. If Artie was pushing for a fight, Rick was willing to accept the challenge. But not if the entire group meant to pitch in on Artie’s side. In that case, he and Junior would be lucky to get out of the place alive.

Reading his thought, Max said amicably, “Nobody’ll gang up on you, man. It’s strictly between you and Artie.”

That was enough assurance for Rick. Facing Artie, he said belligerently, “You want me to leave, fellow, you put me out.”

Abruptly Artie did an about-face and marched toward the rear of the shop. Customers spread to make a path for him. Rick gazed after his retreating back in surprise.

Max grinned at the expression on Rick’s face. “He’s not walking away from you,” he said. “We don’t fight in here. He’s just heading out back.”

Even as Max spoke, Artie jerked open a back door and stalked outside. After a momentary hesitation, Rick followed. Junior and the rest of the crowd trailed after him. From the corner of his eye Rick saw the bald proprietor standing behind the counter wringing his hands. But the man made no move to stop what was going on.

The rear door led into a back yard enclosed by a high board fence. A street light in the alley cast a murky glow over it. Artie stood in the center of the yard, stripping off his cloth jacket.

Rick came to a halt three feet from the other boy. The crowd formed a circle around them. Artie tossed his jacket to one of the boys in the surrounding ring. Rick slipped out of his coat, located Junior’s pale face in the crowd and tossed the coat to him. He rolled his sleeves to his elbows.

Max stepped forward as referee. He said to Artie, “Fair fight?”

Artie gave a stiff nod and Rick asked. “What does that mean?”

“Like in the ring,” Max explained. “No knives or knucks, kicking or gouging.”

Rick said, “That’s the only way I ever fight.”

“You’re lucky Artie wants it fair, then,” Max told him dryly. “He’s pretty good with his feet and thumbs.” He held out a hand palm up to Artie. “Give, man.”

Reaching into his pants pocket, Artie brought out a switchblade knife and laid it on the extended palm. Rick’s gaze followed it fascinatedly as it disappeared into Max’s pocket. He wondered what he would have done if Artie hadn’t agreed to make it a fair fight. The thought made his stomach lurch.

Max backed into the crowd. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.

Rick conquered the queasy feeling in his stomach and examined his opponent with a practiced eye. Artie was as tall as he was, and looked bone hard. He probably weighed only about one sixty-five, though, which gave Rick a fifteen-pound weight advantage.

Under ordinary circumstances Artie’s age might have been a psychological advantage, for at sixteen boys tend to regard eighteen-year-olds as grown men. But Rick’s high school boxing instruction, rudimentary as it was, tended to put him at ease when facing boys of any size or age. He’d put enough older boys on the floor of the school gym not to be impressed by his elders.

Artie moved forward in a boxer’s stance and feinted with a left. Ignoring it, Rick expertly caught the following right on his left forearm and countered with a solid hook to the jaw. Artie took two backward steps and sat heavily.

A mixed murmur of admiration for Rick and groans for Artie came from the crowd.

Scrambling to his feet, Artie made an enraged rush at Rick, swinging a roundhouse right as he came in. Rick stepped inside of it and landed a crashing one-two to Artie’s jaw.

Artie sat again. This time he remained seated, dazedly blinking his eyes.

Again there was a murmur from the crowd. Several boys and girls shouted encouragement to Artie to get up. When it seemed apparent after some moments that Artie either was incapable, or unwilling to get to his feet, Max stepped forward and gave Rick’s shoulder a congratulatory slap.

“You know how to handle your dukes, man,” he said. “Shortest fight we’ve had around here yet.”

Then the crowd was milling around Rick, patting his back and offering congratulations. Someone helped Artie to his feet and thrust him forward. Sullenly the older boy offered his hand to Rick in token of admitted defeat, Rick shook it gladly, suddenly so exhilarated by the adulation he was receiving that he actually felt affection for his recent opponent.

Then he was moving back into the Cardinal Shop surrounded by the admiring throng. To his surprise he found the redheaded Pat clinging to his arm. She was carrying his coat.

3

The rest of the evening was as pleasant a one as Rick had enjoyed in some time. Social acceptance is important at any age. At sixteen it’s crucial. And Rick found himself accepted as an equal by the entire group. Junior Carr found acceptance too, simply because he was with Rick.

The boys and girls were all from families of about the same economic level as Rick’s and Junior’s. The redheaded Pat’s father was the pharmacist manager of a chain drug store. Artie, whose last name Rick discovered was Snowden, was the son of a subway guard. Max’s surname was Jelonek, and his father was a liquor salesman.

Rick found that it was accepted by everyone present, including the defeated Artie, that Pat was his girl for the evening. They sat in a booth across from Junior and a good-looking Italian boy of about fifteen named Salvatore Bullo, who went by the name of Duty.

Pat’s full name was Patricia Quincy and she, like Rick and Junior, was a high school sophomore.

Pat explained that every boy present was a member of the Prospectors, which got its name from Prospect Park, the approximate geographical center of the area the Prospectors claimed as its own turf. There were a lot of other members who weren’t present, she added. Altogether the club had about a hundred and fifty members, plus a girl’s auxiliary of about a hundred. She said that Max Jelonek was the president.

“What is it? Just a social club?” Rick asked. “Sort of like an unchartered fraternity?”

“I guess you could call it that,” Pat said. “It’s the thing everybody who is anybody belongs to. A boy from around here who doesn’t get asked in is nowhere. The Prospectors run everything.”

“You mean in school?”

Duty Bullo laughed. “In school and out, man. You want to make the football team, you better be a Prospector first. You got a yen to work on the school paper, you don’t ask your school adviser. You ask Max. Outside of school you get the urge for some witch, she wouldn’t look at you unless you’re wearing the belt.”

“What belt?” Rick asked, looking puzzled.

Duty unzipped his jacket to display a brown elastic belt with a silver buckle bearing the raised symbol of a pickax. Rick and Junior examined it with suitable respect.

“How do you get in this club?” Junior asked.

“You don’t, unless you’re asked,” Duty told him. After a moment of general silence, he added generously, “Most all-right guys are eventually asked. You guys already got a good in. I mean Max letting you stick around tonight and all.”

Pat gave Rick’s arm a squeeze. “Don’t you worry,” she whispered in his ear. “They’ll ask you in.”

It was midnight when the group began to break up. Rick offered to walk Pat Quincy home, and got a surprised look in return. Apparently she had taken it for granted that he’d walk her home, and considered the offer superfluous.

Junior and Duty left with them. A moment after they got outside the Cardinal Shop, Max, Artie and another boy who went by the nickname of Eightball came out too. Max called to Rick and his companions to wait, as they were all going the same way.

They walked along Flatbush Avenue in a group, Max and his two companions leading the others walking two-by-two behind them. Rick and Pat brought up the rear.

Pat’s family lived in an apartment at Grand Army Plaza, only three blocks from Rick’s new home, but about a dozen blocks from the Cardinal Shop. When they started out, Rick was in a pleasantly exhilarated mood. Considering that it was his first night in new surroundings, he’d been a pretty fair social success. He was surrounded by new friends who represented the cream of local teen-age society, and he had an attractive girl on his arm.

Then his mood began to change. The three boys in the lead suddenly got the whim of monopolizing the sidewalk. There weren’t many pedestrians out at this time of night, but what few there were got the treatment without regard to age or sex. Max and his two friends deliberately drove everyone they met into the gutter. Linking arms, with Max in the center, they spread the width of the walk and bore down inexorably on everyone coming the other way.

An elderly man was the first forced to scurry off the curb into the street to avoid being run over. Next was a pair of middle-aged women, who scrambled aside making indignant noises and glaring after the trio.

Pat and Duty seemed to find the exhibition hilarious. Rick was only embarrassed. Junior seemed uncertain how to react. A fixed smile settled on his face, but it was a forced one.

“Showoff” behavior had been held in contempt by Rick’s sophisticated Philadelphia set. But there was nothing he could think of to do about the situation, except endure it. He was in a new environment now, and was in the minority. He sensed that any objection on his part would lose him the esteem he had so far managed to gain.

They were almost to Sterling Place when they encountered a pedestrian who refused to give ground. He was a burly, middle-aged man who looked as though he might be a truck driver. Planting himself squarely in the center of the walk, he awaited the approach of the arm-linked trio with a belligerent expression on his face.

The three boys didn’t slow down a bit. They strode straight into the man. Just as they reached him, the man lowered one shoulder to butt Max in the chest.

Things happened so fast, Rick could barely follow them. The three boys unlocked arms. Artie grabbed the man by one shoulder and Eightball grabbed the other. Jerking him off-balance, they forced his head downward just as Max brought up a knee.

Max’s knee connected with the man’s face with a sickening crunch. He went over backward, blood streaming from both nostrils. He was in a seated position on the sidewalk when Artie’s foot lashed out to catch him on the jaw. As the blow stretched the man out flat, Eightball jumped onto his stomach with both feet.

Then all three boys were running down Sterling Place. Rick stood still in stunned disbelief at the vicious attack on a total stranger. Junior’s mouth hung open.

Duty reacted next. Without a word he raced away after the other boys.

Pat tugged at Rick’s arm. “We’d better get out of here,” she said fearfully.

Without stirring, Rick slowly looked around. Across the street a couple and a lone man had stopped to peer their way. A passing car slowed to a stop and the driver in it craned to see what was going on.

Junior suddenly broke into a run up Sterling Place, leaving Rick and Pat alone.

The lone man on the opposite side of the street started to cross over. The man with the woman left her alone to cross too. Pat tugged at Rick’s arm again.

“We didn’t do anything,” Rick said indignantly. “Run, if you want. I’m staying here.”

He bent over the unconscious figure on the sidewalk. Pat looked around fearfully, but she stayed.

4

The lone man from across the street was the first to reach the scene. As Rick rose from his examination of the unconscious man, the newcomer said, “What happened? A mugging?”

“I don’t know,” Rick said. “Just a fight, I think. You saw as much as I did.”

The other man from across the street arrived then, and the driver of the car got out, leaving his car double-parked. Both stood staring at the prone figure.

“He’s really out cold, ain’t he?” the driver commented.

Rick said, “He’s hurt bad. Somebody ought to call an ambulance.”

The man who had left his woman companion waiting across the street said, “There’s a tavern over there. I’ll call the cops.”

He recrossed the street, took the woman’s arm and both of them entered the tavern.

By the time a police radio car arrived, a considerable crowd ringed the unconscious man, most of it from the tavern from which the police had been called. Rick took Pat’s hand and quietly led her up the street. The police, busy questioning bystanders, took no notice of their departure.

They were a block away before Pat breathed a sigh of relief and lost the strained expression she had been wearing.

Giving Rick’s hand a squeeze, she said admiringly, “Boy, wait till the bunch hears about this in school tomorrow. You’ll get invited in for sure.”

“Hears about what?” Rick asked.

“How you bluffed it out. I never saw such nerve. Standing right there and talking to those men just like you didn’t know any more about what happened than they did. They never even suspected we were with the bunch that beat him up.” Pat smiled approval.

With a sense of shock Rick realized that Pat had entirely misinterpreted his motive in refusing to run. He had stayed partly because he hadn’t done anything wrong and refused to run because of another’s act, partly because he didn’t want to desert an injured man until help arrived. Pat seemed to think he had stayed through sheer bravado, to demonstrate to her that he could face down the other witnesses. She thought he had simply been attempting to prove that he could “get away” with things.

He didn’t enlighten her. He couldn’t without sounding stuffy. Furthermore, he found himself enjoying the admiration in her voice.

The next day in school, when the story got around, Rick didn’t correct the misapprehension either. Between classes and during the lunch period, he met many other members of the Prospectors. All had heard of the incident, and all had admiring comments to make.

The story grew in passage. By the close of school the version was that Rick had stood his ground even after the police arrived, and had straight-facedly described the victim’s assailants, giving totally wrong descriptions. Rick found himself the hero of a living legend.

Heroism to this new group, he gradually realized, consisted of outmaneuvering constituted authority. He saw evidence of this all around him. Daring little bits of misbehavior were performed all day long, right under the noses of teachers. There was no purpose in them other than to run the deliberate risk of apprehension and punishment. Boys who succeeded in harassing their teachers most, yet managed to go undetected, drew the most admiration.

The commonest trick was a bit of mild vandalism known as “flashing,” which was breaking light bulbs in their sockets. The usual weapon was a rubber band and a paper clip. Generally this was practiced in the halls between classes rather than in class, for then the corridors were so full of students, it was impossible to tell from which direction a missile came.

A bulb would explode just as a teacher passed beneath it, often showering him with glass. When he glared around, most students would be moving sedately along the hall, engrossed in conversation with companions, others would be bending over drinking fountains or reading the bulletin board. None, apparently, ever saw or heard a bulb burst.

Max was particularly expert at flashing. He could hit a bulb at fifteen paces without breaking stride.

No one Rick talked to seemed concerned at how badly the victim of the beating had been hurt. When he continued to get non-committal and indifferent replies to his questions as to whether anyone had heard, he stopped asking. It wasn’t until that evening, when he found a brief mention of the incident on an inside page of the paper, that Rick learned the injuries hadn’t been serious. The victim was described as having a broken nose and facial lacerations. The only description of his assailants he had been able to give was that they were all teen-agers.

At eight-thirty that evening Junior again met Rick in front of the latter’s apartment building. Together they walked to Grand Army Plaza and picked up Pat Quincy.

When Rick asked what she’d like to do, she said, “Let’s drop by the Cardinal Shop.”

“Will it be all right?” Rick asked. “I mean, Max didn’t say anything at school today.”

“After the way the bunch took to you today, you’re practically a Prospector,” she assured him. “It’s just a matter of formality to vote you in at the next meeting.”

“When’s that?” Junior asked.

“Thursday’s meeting night. Meantime, you don’t have to be outcasts. We’ll have to ask Max if it’s all right to come in, of course. But nobody’s likely to make a big thing of it.”

Pat proved to be right. At the Cardinal Shop Rick and Junior stood self-effacingly just inside the doorway while Pat went to get permission from Max for them to join the group. Max came over and clapped both boys on the shoulders in a gesture of welcome.

“Draw up a Coke and sit down, studs,” he said.

The evening was a repetition of the first. Inside the Cardinal Shop there was no sign of the constant show-off behavior the group engaged in outside of it. Possibly this was because here there was no constituted authority to revolt against.

The bald-headed Pop was more in the status of a tolerated servant than a proprietor. The Prospectors had so taken over the Cardinal Shop that they, not Pop, ran the place. He had no authority either to order anyone out, or to permit in anyone not approved by his clientele. Max settled any disorders, and there was a remarkable lack of disorder. It occurred to Rick that if the teachers at school operated on the same psychology Pop used, their discipline problem would be solved.

During the evening Max called Rick and Junior aside for a private conference. “The guys and I have been talking you men over,” he said. “I’m planning to put you up for citizenship Thursday night.”

Rick said, “Swell, Max,” and Junior said, “We sure appreciate that.”

“You got to be voted in, of course, but nobody’s been talking against you.”

“How about Artie?” Rick asked.

“He’ll be all right. Maybe he’s a little peeved about you taking over his witch and beating him in a fight, but you got to give a reason for a blackball. This is a democratic organization. You can’t give a personal reason like that. It has to be something really against the candidate, like being chicken or squealing on a member.”

Rick said, “I see.”

“Of course you’ll have to do a chore before you get in.”

“What’s that mean?” Junior asked.

“Just something the club picks for you to do. To prove you’re worthy to belong. Sort of an initiation stunt.”

“Like what?” Rick inquired.

Max waved a vague hand. “Might be anything. But don’t worry. When we really want a stud in, we don’t pick something so hard he can’t make it. It’s only when some of the guys are a little against him that we really make it tough.”

Rick went to bed with mixed feelings that night. He was proud of having been chosen for membership in the Prospectors so quickly after arriving in the neighborhood. But he was a little disturbed by the members’ pattern of behavior. It was so totally different from that of his Philadelphia fraternity crowd.

He also wondered a little uneasily what his chore was going to be.

5

The next morning at breakfast Rick announced rather proudly that he’d been asked to join the Prospectors. His mother smiled vaguely and said, “That’s nice, dear.”

His father said, “What in the devil is the Prospectors?”

“A club,” Rick told him. “The top organization around here. All the important guys belong.”

“Yeah?” Big Sam Henderson said. “Connected with the school, is it?”

“Well, not exactly. Most of the fellows are in school. But it’s not sponsored by a school adviser or anything.”

“Who is it sponsored by?”

“By itself,” Rick said. “It’s just a club. Sort of like an unchartered fraternity.”

“What are the dues?”

Rick creased his forehead. “Gee, I never asked. I don’t know if there are any.”

“What does the club do?” his father asked.

“Do?”

“What’s its purpose?” Big Sam asked. “Every club has some purpose. Rotary’s a community service, for instance.”

“It’s not like Rotary,” Rick said impatiently. “It’s just a club.”

His father said, “You don’t seem to know much about the organization.”

“I know it’s the biggest thing around here,” Rick told him. “You don’t understand. It’s really something to be asked in so soon after moving here.”

Big Sam merely grunted and dropped the subject. But that evening after dinner he had more to say on the matter. He called Rick into the front room for a discussion. “I asked around at the shop about this Prospectors Club you want to join,” he told Rick. “You know what it really is?”

“What you mean?” Rick asked.

“It’s a kid gang,” Big Sam said bluntly. “Half the kids in it have juvenile records. The cops are after them all the time.”

Rick stared at him. “Who told you that?”

“Men at the shop who have lived in this neighborhood all their lives. It’s about the toughest bunch in this whole section. They’re nothing but a bunch of juvenile hoods.”

Rick looked at his father with genuine astonishment. “You got a wrong steer, Pop. I know these guys. They’re all just ordinary fellows from the same kind of families as ours. Max Jelonek, the club president, is one of the biggest wheels at school. He’s even on the Student Council.”

“I know all about him,” Big Sam said grimly. “He’s got a file as thick as your head down at the police juvenile division. He’s been pulled in for questioning on vandalism and assault so many times, every cop on the force knows him by his first name. You stay away from that bunch.”

“But it’s just a club,” Rick protested.

“Club, hell,” said Big Sam, who rarely swore. “Don’t you know all these kid gangs call themselves clubs? Ever heard of the Purple Pelicans?”

“I’ve heard it mentioned,” Rick admitted.

“That’s another so-called club over the other side of Atlantic Avenue. Every so often your little social organization has a rumble with the Purple Pelicans. They set up a war on some vacant lot and go after each other with chains and tire irons and shivs, and sometimes with a gun or two. Just for kicks. Did you know that a Purple Pelican youngster was killed four months ago? Plus a couple of dozen others ending up in the hospital.”

Rick said faintly, “They don’t seem like that kind of guys.”

“Well, they are. And now that you know, you stay away from them. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Rick said even more faintly.

Shortly afterward, when Junior Carr stopped by for him, Rick relayed what his father had told him. Junior absorbed it in wide-eyed silence.

“You think he got the right dope?” Junior asked finally.

“Sure,” Rick said in a morose tone. “All this time we’ve been fooling around with a rumble-starting teen-age gang.”

Junior said tentatively, “Wouldn’t they be sore if we didn’t join now, Rick? I don’t want these guys mad at me.”

Rick only looked at him.

Junior said in a defensive tone, “I don’t mean just because they might beat us up. But look how the Prospectors run everything. We’d be right out in the cold. Probably Pat would even drop you.”

Rick frowned at this. “Let’s go over and talk to her about it,” he suggested.

When they picked up Pat, Rick told her he had something to talk about, and suggested they all walk over to Prospect Park instead of going to the Cardinal Shop. They found a bench in the park, and after they were seated with Pat in the middle, she looked at Rick expectantly.

“It’s about the Prospectors,” Rick said. “My dad says it isn’t a club, it’s just a teen-age gang.”

Pat’s eyes widened. “You told your father about the Prospectors?” she asked in a shocked voice.

“Why not?” Rick inquired.

“None of the fellows tell their parents they belong, Rick. My folks would kill me if they knew I belonged to the auxiliary. You just don’t do that.”

Rick said glumly, “It is just a gang then, huh?”

“It’s a club. It’s not like those things you read about over in Harlem. Nobody in the Prospectors goes around stealing hubcaps or skin-popping. We’re a straight club.”

Rick was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Pop says Max Jelonek has a juvenile record a mile long.”

“Pickups on suspicion,” Pat said contemptuously. “The cops have got nothing better to do. He’s never taken a fall.”

Rick said, “The police don’t keep picking up innocent people on suspicion.”

“Oh, Max feels his oats once in a while. But it’s all in fun. He never does anything really bad, like stealing”

“Yeah,” Rick said dryly. “Just beats up strangers and busts up property. And sets up rumbles with the Purple Pelicans.”

Pat said petulantly, “You’re talking like a detached worker.”

“A what?”

“A street-gang worker. One of those busybodies who’s always coming around, trying to get the guys to organize ball teams and stuff. Look, Rick, you can’t fight City Hall. You’re either for the Prospectors or against them. And around here, if you’re against them, you’re dead.”

Junior said on a high note, “What do you mean, dead? Explain it, will you?”

Pat glanced at him. “Out of everything. Like Duty Bullo explained the other night. You wouldn’t have a friend in the world.”

“Oh,” Junior said with a touch of relief.

Pat said earnestly, “Believe me, Rick, you’ll get in trouble talking like that. You’re in now. The guys all like you, and you could be the most popular fellow in the club. But you sound off the way you’re talking now, and you’ll end up talking to yourself. Because you won’t have any friends to listen to you.”

“Including you, Pat?”

Pat stared at him a moment before answering. Then she squeezed his arm and said confidently, “You won’t be a schmoo. You won’t be silly enough to kick your chance of getting in. Not when you’re right on top of the heap.”

Rick let the subject drop. Later the three of them stopped by the Cardinal Shop for a time. But Rick didn’t enjoy himself. He kept thinking of what his father had told him.

He also kept remembering the conversation he’d had with his father just before they left Philadelphia, and his amused question, “What would I be doing with a bunch of squares?”

6

On Thursday football spring training started. Rick reported for practice and got a favorable reception from both the coach and members of the squad. The coach examined his sturdy frame with an approving eye and looked quite pleased when he learned Rick had been a first-string fullback in Philadelphia. He was greeted with equal enthusiasm by the regular squad members, all of whom turned out to be Prospectors.

Max Jelonek reported for practice too. Rick learned that the previous season Max had been a substitute quarterback on the first team.

There was no scrimmage this first day. The coach merely put them through some hardening exercises and had everyone hit the tackling dummy a few times. He sent them to the showers at four p.m. with the gruff announcement that real training would start the next day.

As they were dressing in the locker room, Max said, “Tonight’s meeting night, Rick.”

“Yeah,” Rick said.

He’d been thinking about the Prospectors almost constantly since his conversation with his father. He still hadn’t decided what to do. Trained to obedience, it was against everything he’d been taught since birth to go against his father’s express order. On the other hand, he’d never before been in a situation such as this, where obedience meant almost certain social ostracism.

He had thought of discussing the whole problem with his father, but had decided against it. He sensed that Big Sam’s reaction would be simply, “You don’t want to be accepted by kids like that anyway. Find some friends you can respect.”

Which, like most adult solutions to teen-age problems, would be meaningless advice. In the end, he had simply tabled the problem.

Rick stayed home that evening, Junior came over for a time and they did some homework together. They didn’t, as had become their custom, walk over to see Pat for a while.

Friday during the lunch period Rick finally had to face the problem of what to do about the Prospectors. Max called him and Junior aside.

“You’re in, studs,” he announced with a grin. “Unanimous votes for both of you.”

“Gee, that’s swell,” Junior said a little uncertainly, and looked at Rick.

Rick merely nodded.

“Your chore is a little tougher than I thought it would be,” Max said apologetically. “Sort of a sop to Artie. We let him pick it, and I guess he’s a little burned at you, Rick.”

Junior asked, “What is it?”

“Well, you’ve heard of the Purple Pelicans, haven’t you?”

Rick nodded and Junior said uneasily, “Sure. Over the other side of Atlantic Avenue.”

“Uh-huh. They meet on Monday nights. Got a basement clubroom they’ve fixed up. With a half dozen street-level windows.”

“So?” Rick asked.

Max grinned again. “The windows will probably be locked, but a hunk of brick can fix that. You studs are going to drop a couple of stink bombs in the middle of their meeting.”

Junior attempted an appreciative smile that came out more mechanical than enthusiastic. Rick remained silent and expressionless.

“Well, what you think, man?” Max asked Rick.

Rick said slowly, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want to bust up their meeting? What’s the purpose?”

Max frowned. “I told you the other night. To prove you’re worthy to be Prospectors.”

“What’s worthy about tossing stink bombs?” Rick inquired. “Any five-year-old kid can toss a stink bomb and run. Why not something that proves something? Like swimming the Hudson River?”

Max’s frown deepened. “We pick the chore, man. Not you candidates.”

“I don’t even know these Purple Pelicans,” Rick said with the beginning of anger. “They never did anything to me. An initiation stunt is one thing. We both had to pull stunts to get in Iota Omega. But we didn’t have to hurt anybody else. I’m not going to toss stink bombs at a bunch of strangers.”

“You are if you’re going to be a Prospector,” Max told him coldly.

Rick said flatly, “Then I’m not going to be a Prospector,” and walked away.

Junior didn’t follow him. A few yards away Rick glanced back over his shoulder. Junior gave him an embarrassed look and averted his eyes.

By the time school ended, Rick’s ultimatum had spread all over the school. When he met Pat in the front corridor after the last period, she was upset.

“Why did you talk to Max that way, Rick?” she inquired breathlessly. “Didn’t I explain how important it is to get in the club?”

“That’s stuff for twelve-year-olds,” Rick told her coldly. “Who wants to belong to a club that childish?”

“You mean you’re not going to apologize?” she asked, wide-eyed. “Rick, fellows beg to get in the Prospectors.”

“I don’t,” Rick said shortly.

Turning his back, he stalked off to the locker room to change into football clothes.

Max and several of the other squad members were there ahead of him. Silence fell when Rick entered, and everyone looked at him. Rick began to change into his suit. Max presently said, “Rick, do you want to be a Prospector?”

“No,” Rick said. “And I’m not going to change my mind.”

Max studied him for a time. Finally he said, “Nobody we ever asked turned down the chance, Rick.”

Rick said, “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”

Max glanced around at the other boys. There was a general shrugging of shoulders. No one said anything further to him, either in the locker room or later on the field. He was simply ignored. The coach ordered scrimmage today. He picked out two teams and placed Rick at fullback on the offensive team.

On the first play, with one of the halfbacks carrying the ball, Rick was blocked by three opposing players, an unnecessary amount of attention for a backfield man who wasn’t carrying the ball. An elbow grazed his jaw and a knee caught him in the groin, knocking the wind from him. There was a five-minute time-out for Rick to recover.

On the next play he was clipped from behind by Max, who was playing left tackle on Rick’s own side. Rick limped back into position with a thoughtful expression on his face.

On the third play Rick carried the ball. He ended up on the bottom of a pileup, where the coach couldn’t see the chopping right that caught him alongside the jaw. It was Max who swung the right. He buried his nose in his arms to avoid a cleated foot swinging toward his face and caught it on top of the helmet. When the tangle of players finally rose and let him climb to his feet, he was half-dazed.

He was also angry. Shaking the cobwebs from his brain, he got set for the next play, a quarterback sneak.

The instant the ball was snapped, Rick moved into action. He made no attempt to take out any of the opposition. Taking a running leap, he landed on his knees in the middle of Max’s back before the tackle could start his charge into the opposing line.

The air whooshed out of Max as he hit the ground belly-down with Rick’s full weight on him. Rick was instantly up again and rushing forward in a crouch. His right elbow crashed into the jaw of an opposing lineman and knocked him flat. His foot caught another in the crotch. The coach’s whistle was blowing furiously when he dropped the next nearest man who happened to be his own center, with a right to the jaw.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing, Henderson?” the coach screamed at him.

“Quitting,” Rick said bitterly, and walked off the field toward the showers.

7

Junior Carr came over to see Rick that night, but they didn’t go out anywhere. Junior seemed a little nervous about even being inside with Rick.

“You’d better straighten things up with Max, Rick,” Junior pleaded. “You don’t want the Prospectors down on you.”

“The devil with them,” Rick said.

“Look, Rick, I’m going to join.”

“It’s a free country,” Rick said shortly.

“But we’re friends. We’ve always been in everything together.”

“We can still be friends,” Rick told him. “I’m just not joining that bunch of squares.”

When Junior left, discouraged, Rick walked over to see Pat. He found her on the verge of tears.

“Rick, why do you have to be so stubborn?” she asked. “Look, even after what happened at football practice today, Max would accept an apology. I talked to his girl on the phone. He likes you, Rick.”

“Don’t go intervening for me,” Rick said. “I’ve made up my mind, and it’s final.”

Pat dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Don’t I mean anything to you?”

“Of course,” he said. “You’re my girl, aren’t you?”

“Not if you turn down the Prospectors,” she said tearfully. “I couldn’t be.”

“Why not?” he demanded.

“You don’t know what it will be like,” Pat said in a plaintive voice. “Nobody will even talk to you. If I went with you, I’d get the same treatment. They might even hurt me.”

“Hurt you?” he asked without belief.

“Hasn’t it occurred to you that you might get beat up, Rick? Don’t you see it’s the whole club you’ll be up against? Maybe they’ll only ignore you and make everybody else ignore you too. They wouldn’t jump you without Max giving the word, and probably he won’t because he likes you. But he might, and then you could get really hurt. You can’t fight a hundred and fifty boys.”

“One at a time, I could.”

“It wouldn’t be one at a time,” she said wearily. “People the club’s down on don’t get a fair fight.”

Rick contemplated this thought without enthusiasm. He remembered the knife Max had taken from Artie, and his stomach lurched again.

“I don’t want to get you in a jam,” he said stiffly. “I guess this is good-by, huh?”

“Unless you change your mind.”

“Then it’s good-by,” Rick said.

Rick’s ordeal didn’t really start until Monday, because over the weekend he simply stayed home. In answer to his parents’ questions as to why he was mooning around the house, he said he had studying to do. But most of the time he watched television.

He didn’t hear from Junior.

On Monday he got his first taste of what it meant to offend the Prospectors. First, Junior didn’t appear as usual to walk to school with him. At school he was greeted by blank stares from everyone, including nonmembers of the club. Apparently the word had gone out that he was taboo, and even non-members were afraid to violate the taboo.

Every time Rick encountered Junior Carr, his friend turned fiery red and hurried off in another direction. When he ran into Pat, she looked as though she were going to cry and averted her eyes.

On Tuesday he sat alone in the cafeteria during the lunch period, his back to a table containing Max, Junior and a number of other Prospectors. From the overheard conversation he gathered that Junior had performed the stink-bomb mission alone, and it had been a huge success. There was a good deal of hilarity over the discomfiture of the Purple Pelicans.

By the end of the week Rick had stopped listening in classrooms, had stopped studying and spent his evenings dully staring at the television screen without seeing it. His parents discussed calling a doctor.

Saturday night he got a phone call from Junior Carr.

“Listen, Rick,” Junior said. “I’m taking a chance phoning you like this, but we were always friends, and I wanted to tip you off.”

“Yeah?” Rick said without much interest.

Junior spoke with a tremor.

“You know I didn’t want to give you the treatment, Rick. I had to.”

“Sure,” Rick said. “I’m not blaming you.”

Junior’s tone turned a trifle relieved. “I’m really sorry about the way things happened, Rick.”

“It’s not your fault,” Rick said.

“What I’m calling about is that the word is out to clobber you, Rick. Artie’s been talking it up, and Max finally gave in. Rick, you got to be careful.”

“Yeah,” Rick said. “Thanks, Junior.”

He hung up the phone and went back to stare at television.

The warning didn’t particularly frighten Rick. He was in too comatose a state to be much concerned about anything. It didn’t really penetrate that he might be in actual physical danger until he was confronted with it on the way home from school on Monday.

They caught him in the center of a block only two blocks from his home. As he passed the alley mouth, eight of them poured out of it and formed a semicircle around him. Artie Snowden was in the lead.

Rick backed against the brick side of the building next to the alley mouth and warily examined the ring of faces.

Artie said with enjoyment, “How’d you like your face parted, stud? Down the middle?”

His hand came out of his pocket encased in a set of brass knuckles.

Rick might have attempted to slug it out even against the impossible odds if it hadn’t been for the knife another boy drew. His stomach lurched when he heard it click open and he saw the gleam of the seven-inch blade.

His stark terror saved him. Lowering a shoulder, he plowed between Artie and the boy next to him as though he were hitting a defensive line. He knocked both boys sprawling and was racing up the street, carrying his books like a football, before the rest of the group realized their quarry had escaped.

Rick ran all the way home and tumbled onto the front-room couch gasping. His mother glanced in from the kitchen, gave him a vague smile and said, “You’re home early, dear.” She disappeared into the kitchen again.

Rick sat without moving for a full half hour. Then he lowered his head into his hands and sat that way for another twenty minutes. When he finally raised his head again, there was an expression of defeat on his face.

Going to the phone in a corner of the living room, he dialed Pat’s number.

When she answered, he said in a blurred voice, “Rick, Pat. You think Max might still accept an apology?”

“Oh, Rick,” she said happily. “I’ll call his girl right now and get her to find out.”

The appointment was for ten p.m. Rick didn’t go inside the Cardinal Shop. He stood looking through the plate-glass window until he was noticed from inside.

Max came out with Artie Snowden, Eightball and Duty Bullo. He gave Rick an amicable smile.

“You got something to say, man?” he asked.

Rick gulped. In a low voice he said, “I’m sorry about everything, Max. I’d like to get in the club, if you’ll still have me.”

Max said indulgently, “Sure, boy. Some of the guys are sore, but me, I like a stud with guts. That charge you made on the football field was real cool.”

Rick said nothing, merely waited abjectly.

“You got no objections to the chores we assign now, huh?”

Rick shook his head.

“Only thing is, now it’s not going to be so easy,” Max told him. “The guys are pretty burned up. A lot of them say no — no matter what chore you pull.”

Rick waited in silent subservience.

“Only way we could talk them around was to give you a really tough chore,” Max went on. “It’s not going to be as simple as tossing a stink bomb.”

Rick said fervently, “Anything you say, Max.”

“Well, the stud who’s war counselor for the Purple Pelicans is getting a little big for his pants. He got sore about Junior’s stink bombs and brought some of his boys over for a raid last night. Caught a couple of our citizens alone and put them in the hospital. Right on our own turf.”

“You want me to fight him?” Rick asked.

Max grinned genially. From his jacket pocket he produced a small-caliber pistol, then dropped it back again. “We want you to burn him, Rick.”

Rick stared at him with slowly growing comprehension. “You mean kill him?” he finally asked in a husky voice.

“You got the scoop,” Max said.

Rick stared from one face to another. Artie brought out his set of knuckle dusters, examined it interestedly and put it away again. Eightball flipped open a knife, shut it and dropped it back in his pocket. Duty merely grinned at Rick.

“See what we mean?” Max asked. “It’s either all the way, or not at all. Take your choice.”

Rick swallowed and his eyes made the circle of faces again. “Do I have to decide right now?” he managed.

“Take your time,” Max said generously. “We’ll give you till midnight.”

Doing an about-face, he re-entered the Cardinal Shop. The other boys followed him in.

Rick stood for a long time staring at nothing. Then he turned and staggered off like a drunk.

He walked the streets for two hours. At midnight he came back to the Cardinal Shop.