“What’s the Tombs?”

Sylvia glanced across the crowd at the helmeted policeman. “It’s like a big jail. Underground. It’s real old and rotten. They toss ya in there, you never come out again. Nobody ever comes outta th’ Tombs.”

“They can’t do that,” Ron said.

“They sure can,” she insisted, her eyes frightened. “I thought Al gave you back yer ID But Dino’s still got it. Gonna sell it fer fuel, he said. If you got no ID, the hardtops won’t letcha outta th’ Dome. They’ll think yer one of us.”

She was serious. “You really stay here in the City all year long?” Ron asked.

“Yeah. We can’t get out.”

“But . . . how come Al didn’t warn me? Why would he just send me to the gate to be arrested? You told me—”

“Al don’t care. He just wanted t’ get rid of ya.”

“And you do care?”

She frowned. “I . . . I don’t wanna see nobody tossed in th’ Tombs. Nobody. Ya never get out.”

Ron thought a minute. “Then I’ve got to get my ID back from Dino.”

“I can get it off him,” Sylvia said.

“How?”

“I can do it, don’t worry how.”

He grabbed her by the shoulder. “How? The same way you got the money from me?”

Pulling away from his grip, Sylvia answered, “Yeah. Sort of.”

Ron shook his head. “No. I’ll get it back from Dino. I’ll break him in half, if I have to. Come on.”

He started pushing through the crowd back the way they had both come. Sylvia had to trot a few steps to catch up with him.

“You can’t fight Dino . . . not like you are.”

Ron said, “I can break every bone in his body with one hand.”

“No . . . you can’t . . .”

But Ron wouldn’t listen. He kept walking. She stayed beside him, silent.

They walked up the street, away from the gate and the hectic crowd. They passed a hotel on the other side of the street. Men and women were leaning out of its windows, laughing and throwing things down onto the sidewalk. Somebody tossed a stuffed chair through a window, about ten flights up. It crashed through the glass and spun as it fell in a shower of glass shards. People on the sidewalk jumped and screamed as they raced out of the way. The chair hit the pavement like an explosion.

A woman collapsed and fell to the pavement. Others looked up, cursing and shaking their fists at the people in the windows. A sofa came tumbling down next, and everyone on the sidewalk scattered for safety.

A police car pulled up, its red roof light pulsing like a living heart. Four hardtops jumped out of the car and raced into the hotel.

“They must be crazy in there,” Ron said.

“It’s th’ last night. They all go kinda flakey. Gonna be a tough night.”

Ron shook his head. And then they go home to be hardworking businessmen and loving fathers again. Until next summer. Suddenly he started to wonder what his own father did every night while they visited the City together, every night when he left Ron in their hotel room watching TV while he went out and didn’t return until Ron was sound asleep.

Smoke was coming from one of the hotel windows now. A woman was screaming, and Ron could hear the deeper shouts of angry men.

“They’re all sick,” Sylvia said.

They walked on. Ron forgot how tired he was, because his stomach was reminding him about how many meals he had missed. He was hungry. He’d never felt really hungry before in his life. It hurt.

Police cars cruised through the streets, but soon the crowd thinned down and Ron and Sylvia were in a part of the City that was deserted. They walked alone up the empty, filthy, littered sidewalks. He didn’t speak to her. He couldn’t. Sylvia remained silent, too, until: “You think I’m a crud, dontcha?”

“Should I be happy that you stole my money?”

“I . . .” Sylvia looked confused. “I don’t know how to say it right, Ron. Like . . . I don’t wantcha t’ think I’m a crud.”

He kept walking.

It was hard for her to keep up with him. She nearly had to run. “Okay, I clipped yer money. Right? But . . . that had nothin’ t’ do with whether I like ya or not. Catch? Th’ money’s just money. It ain’t you and me.”

“It was my money. And I trusted you.”

“Yeah, but me and Al and the kids need it more’n you. You can get more. We can’t. Not ’til next summer.”

“And you needed it so much you had to steal it.”

“I needed it fer Davey an’ me. He’s jest a little kid . . . he hasta have food all winter.”

“Couldn’t you get a job?”

She looked at Ron as if he were crazy. “A job? How’m I gonna get a job? All th’ jobs’re taken by people who live outside th’ City. They come in fer two months in th’ summer and make enough t’ live on th’ rest a th’ year.”

“Well, you could apply for a job too,” Ron insisted. “There are employment centers where they can find jobs for you.”

Sylvia stopped walking. “Ron, you jest don’t unnerstand. We got no ID’s. None of th’ kids. We don’t exist! As far as th’ hardtops an’ th’ computers an’ th’ world outside th’ Dome’s concerned, we don’t exist. They throw us in th’ Tombs an’ get rid of us whenever they catch one of us.”

Ron felt his face squeezing into a frown, as if that would help his brain to understand what she was telling him. “You mean you really live here inside the Dome all year long . . . and the government doesn’t take care of you at all?”

“That’s right. Al, Dino, all th’ gangs. Lotsa people. Some grown-ups, too. We all live here all year long.”

“But that’s against the law! The Dome’s closed for most of the year. New York was evacuated years ago—”

“The law!” Sylvia laughed. “Th’ hardtops leave at midnight. From then on ’til next July, there ain’t no law inside th’ Dome. Al’s th’ boss in our turf. Every gang’s got its own leader and its own turf.”

It was finally starting to sink into Ron’s brain. “And you live here all the time. In that—that rat hole I was in?”

Nodding, Sylvia answered, “Right. That’s home fer Davey an’ me an’ all Al’s gang. That’s why I needed yer money. T’ get us through th’ winter. Gotta buy food and everything.”