“Good,” Sylvia said.
She was so pretty! For a long moment neither of them said anything.
Then finally Sylvia asked, “You wanna come down t’ my place for dinner? Got some special frozen stuff Al took offa the East River guys yesterday.”
Ron’s stomach trembled with anticipation. But he said, “No thanks. You and Al enjoy it.”
“Al’s out,” she said. “He’s talkin’ t’ some other gang chiefs, tryin’ t’ set up a truce or somethin’. Too many raids, ever’body’s hurtin’.”
“When will he be back?” Ron heard himself ask.
Sylvia shrugged.
Shaking his head, Ron said, “Look, you’re his girl now, and I . . .”
“So what? I still like you.”
“Yes, but—well, where I come from, you stay with one guy. It could just cause trouble.”
Sylvia almost laughed at him. “Cheez, you must come from a real bughouse. Is everybody uptight on the Outside like you?”
“Look, Sylvia, I appreciate what you’ve done for me. You saved my life and, well . . . is Al treating you all right?”
“Sure. Why shouldn’t he?”
“You like being his girl?”
“Sure.”
“Sure,” Ron echoed.
It took a minute for Sylvia to understand what Ron meant. “Hey, I dunno what’s goin’ on inside yer head, Ron. But get one thing down. I always been Al’s girl. Right? Ever since he was chief of th’ gang. Even before that, I was his girl. Catch?”
Ron felt as if a truck had hit him. “But . . . but . . . you and me . . .”
“I like you an awful lot, Ron. Some ways, yer nicer’n Al. Yer awful sweet. But I’m Al’s girl. Nuthin’ we can do about that.”
“Then—what you just said . . .”
She shrugged. “But I’m still his girl.”
Al was gone for three days, and all during that time Ron stayed in his own room. Davey brought him some food, but most of the time Ron stayed hungry. And sleepless. He stared into the darkness each night, thinking of Sylvia and hating himself twice over. Once for thinking of her, and again for not doing anything about it.
When Al finally got back, he was glowing with happiness. He called a council meeting up on the roof. Ron was included in the meeting.
Al paced up and down along the crunching gravel as he talked. The other guys stood or squatted on their heels. Ron stayed on the fringes of the twelve-man council, on his feet.
“Musta been twenty-five, thirty gang chiefs there,” Al said excitedly, waving his hands eagerly as he spoke. “We met in the Empire State buildin’, down on th’ ground floor. Y’know they’s a dozen gangs livin’ right inside the building? On different floors. One of ’em never comes down t’ th’ street at all! Grows its own food up on th’ roofs. Creepy.”
Ron looked at the council members. They didn’t seem very impressed. None of them could think as fast or as far as Al, Ron realized. That’s what had made Al the gang’s leader. He could plan ahead, he could see farther than any of the others. He wasn’t the best fighter among the bunch, but he could get the fighters to work together and do better as a team than they could ever hope to do as individuals.
“Why’n’t we take over th’ whole Empire State buildin’?” Dino asked, grinning. “Make some headquarters, huh?”
Al threw him a sharp glance. “No time fer jokes. The meetin’ was serious business. All th’ chiefs got together t’ figure out some way t’ stop all the raidin’. The gangs’re cuttin’ each other up too much.”
“We’re doin’ okay,” somebody said.
“So far,” Al answered. “Y’know those Muslims uptown . . . they’re all bunched up t’gether now in one big super-gang. Got a leader they call Timmy Jim.”
“Them black bastards.”
“Yeah,” Al agreed. “So far they been pretty quiet. But if they start movin’ all together, and us white gangs’re all split up, the way things are now—we’re dead meat.”
Everyone started muttering.
“So we gotta start workin’ t’ gether,” Al said.
Dino shook his head. “How we know we can trust the other gangs?”
“How they know they can trust us?” Al shot back. “I’ll tell ya how—we’re gonna start out small. We’re gonna let Ron start fixin’ stuff for some of the other gangs. And th’ Chelsea gang agreed t’ let us use th’ stuff in their warehouses.
Ron can go there an’ they’ll let him take what he wants. No more raids on ’em. And they won’t raid us.”
“That don’t smell right,” someone else said. “Them Chelsea rats always been hittin’ us. Ever since I was a kid.”
Al said, “Well, we’re gonna try and see if we can get along together. It’s worth a try.”
“It’s a trap,” Dino said. “You got suckered by some sweet talk.”
