Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

Manhunt. Volume 9, Number 1, February 1961

Hold-Up by Jess Shelton

He saw a young man with a brown paper bag in one hand and a gleaming switchblade in the other burst through the liquor store door and dash down the street. He gave chase and discovered there was more to this hold-up than met the eye.

* * *

I seen this kid running from the liquor store with a open knife in his hand, a switchblade, I think, and in his other hand a brown paper bag, and the guy from the liquor store was yelling but the kid took off down Laclede, where it was dark, down toward Weirdville. So I went after him. I don’t know why I did. Maybe it was some kind of compulsion like the headshrinkers talk about, or something else, who knows? But when I seen the kid running like that, all I could think of doing was to run after him. I didn’t even think right then about being a hero or nothing like that, like bringing back the money, just running.

The guy from the liquor store ran to the corner and stopped, and yelled at me, “Mister, it ain’t worth it! Don’t get cut for nothing!”

I heard him but kept on running. The kid, about twenty, tall with greasy wavy hair, a beat blue shirt and faded jeans and tennis shoes, ducked between two rickety buildings halfway down the block. Just before he disappeared he glanced back, his yellow eyes narrowing when he looked at me. I cut into the dark passageway right after him and trotted along the broken cement walk between the old buildings, my shoes clumping with a crazy racket.

Suddenly somebody squawked. I crashed into two hot bodies. Two teenage kids necking. I grabbed the boy. “Who is he?” I gasped.

“You a cop?”

“Who is he?”

“I ain’t telling no cop.”

“I ain’t a cop.”

“You chasing him?”

“What his name? Where’d he go?”

“Sammy,” said the girl. She was breathing hot. She pulled her boy friend away from me, stood between us pointing her pert chin sarcastically toward my face. “Sammy Barlow. Maple and Twenty-Third.”

“Damn you!” boyfriend hissed, I don’t know if it was at her or me.

But I took off again, through a cluttered backyard, past an open garbage can from which a profusion of rats scurried, and to the alley. He wouldn’t go back up toward Grand Avenue, because he’d come out on the street just half a block from the liquor store, and by now there’d be cops around. He went east down the alley, or else he went straight through the other yards up to West Pine. Then I heard some kids roar with laughing far down at the end of the block, so I started running down the alley. There was a juke joint there, a half dozen guys standing around in front of it, all of them laughing under the red and yellow neon lights with the green bugs and the white moths flurrying over their heads in the hot summer night.

“Hey, boy, you racin’ somebody?” one of them shouted to me. They all giggled.

Another one said, “There’s a man with a cause!”

“Sammy Barlow,” I panted. “He came past here. Where’d he go?”

“Hoydehoy! What makes Sammy run? Hey, maybe he’s takin his lunch home to Mama!”

“He robbed a store!”

One of the bigger kids walked over to me and put his face close to mine. His eyes were yellow fire. “Smart man, he don’t rob nothin, hear that?”

“He robbed it,” I growled back. “I seen him run out with a knife in his hand and a bag in the other.”

“A bag?” somebody giggled. “Man, he was takin his girl friend for a walk!”

“Cut it out!” Their laughing infuriated me. “I can call a cop if you want it that way!”

“Call a cop?” said the bird with his face close to mine. He put a big hand on my shoulder. He was strong. “Why don’t you just take your problem to Sammy, man?”

I jerked away from him. “Maybe I’ll do just that!” I spat back. “I know where he lives!”

“Hey, cat, you do? You birds, hear that? Pussycat here knows!” The kid grabbed me again when I started away, raised the palm of his hand, ducked histrionically when I started to throw a swing at him, and said, “Pussycat, you don’t got to go to Sammy’s house!”

“Why not?” I demanded, ready to swing.

“Cause I’m here, Mister.” The voice was basso, practically right behind me.

I spun about. He was leaning against the wall of the juke joint, on the alley side. In one hand he held the paper bag. In the other hand was the switchblade, the long blade scattering reflections from the red and yellow neon sign up above. Sammy wasn’t more than twenty, a clean looking kid, with good features now crossed up by a mixture of frown and grin. I don’t know why, but I liked him sort of, even if he did have the bag of money in one hand and the glittering knife in the other.

“Give me the money, Sammy,” I told him.