“He won’t need it. He’s dead.”
“What?” Ron felt the breath catch in his throat.
With a sour face, Dino said, “Damn’ little brat coughed his guts out all night. Died jes’ about an hour ago. One less mouth t’ feed.”
Without even thinking about what he was doing, Ron growled like an animal and leaped at Dino. He got a glimpse of Dino’s face, suddenly scared-looking, and felt the solid shock of their bodies smashing together and hitting the floor. They rolled and thrashed around, and then Ron was on top of Dino, pounding him with both fists.
“Murderer! Butcher!” Ron screamed. Dino’s mouth and nose were filled with blood. “Killer! Filthy goddamned killer!”
The other guys pulled Ron off Dino. He fought back, hitting, kicking, screaming at all of them like a cornered wild beast until they clubbed him to his knees and kicked him unconscious.
Ron came to slowly.
His head throbbed painfully. His body ached and felt stiff. He found that he was lying on the cold floor of a completely dark room. He couldn’t see anything at all. No window, no light. Only darkness.
He sat up, taking it easy, trying to see if anything was broken.
Not so bad, he said to himself. It hurt, but not as much as the first time Dino and his pals had worked him over.
He thought about that time for a moment. It was almost as though the past few months hadn’t really happened. Here he was again, stiff and sore from a beating by the same guys. Everything that had happened was like a dream. A bad dream. Al and Davey were dead. As if they had never lived. Nothing but memories now.
Sylvia. Ron frowned, then winced as a cut on his cheek pulled open. Sylvia. She never gave a damn about me at all. He almost laughed, but it hurt too much. Did she really love Al? Or did she do everything just to make sure Davey would get fed and protected? Maybe she went to Dino just to get help for Davey. Sure, that’s why she did it. I was gone for three days. She must have thought I wouldn’t come back. Maybe she thought I was dead. Dino would be the only one who could help her—and Davey.
But Ron heard his own voice whisper to him, “Then why is she staying with Dino now? Davey’s dead. She doesn’t need Dino’s help.”
He sat there, seeing her face in the darkness, hearing her voice, feeling her touch. He tried to hate her. “You never cared for me at all,” he said to her.
Then he thought of Dino, and he did hate. Dino had led the raid by the Chelsea gang. He knew all the strong points of the Gramercy headquarters. He knew Al’s defenses. Dino had planned the raid. He had triggered the trap. He had killed Al. And Davey too.
Dino was going to kill Ron now. Ron knew it. But he knew one thing more. He knew that he would kill Dino first. He didn’t know how he’d do it; he only knew he was going to kill Dino. He snarled like an animal, sitting there in his blackened cage. A few months in the City and Ron had turned into a hating, blood-thirsty animal, eager to kill.
Footsteps outside.
Ron scrambled to his feet, ignoring the pain and stiffness in his body. He had to feel along the walls to find the door, it was that dark in his cell.
From outside he heard a muffled, “Hey, what—” And then scuffling sounds. A thud. A moan. Finally, the rattling of a key in the door’s lock.
Ron flattened himself against the wall, next to the door. When they come in here, I’ll jump them.
But they didn’t come in. The door opened outward and somebody flashed a light into the cell. Ron was blinded.
“Hey you! C’mon out, quick! B’fore somebody sees us.” It was an urgent whisper.
Ron staggered out of the cell, rubbing his eyes. Squinting in the light from a bare bulb in the ceiling, he found that he was in a hallway. Two guys were standing next to him: strangers. A third guy, one of Dino’s pals, was lying face-down on the floor, out cold.
“C’mon, dummy. Move! We’re tryin’ t’ getcha outta here,” one of the strangers whispered harshly.
Puzzled, Ron went with them. They led him down the hallway, into a tiny bathroom. They crawled through a window into an alley. Then they sprinted, all three together—Ron and the two strangers—down street after street, staying in the deepest shadows.
After a few blocks, Ron saw a car parked at a corner. The driver must have spotted them at the same moment, because the engine coughed to life.
“Okay, here it is,” one of the guys said, panting for breath, as they came up to the car. The rear door swung open and the two guys more-or-less pushed Ron inside.
“Okay,” said the driver in a deep, rumbling voice. He handed something to the two guys, who were still standing on the sidewalk beside the car. It looked like a plastic package of white powder.
“This better be the good stuff,” one of the guys muttered.
The driver laughed. “It’s real, baby. We don’t cheat.”
He put the car in gear and turned on the headlights. They slid slowly away from the curb and headed up the street, making as little noise as possible. In the faint glow reflected by the dashboard lights, Ron saw that the driver was black.
“What’s going on?” Ron asked. “Where are you taking me?”
The driver didn’t answer.
They drove in silence for nearly a half-hour, slowly, like a one-car parade. Or funeral, Ron thought grimly. They passed the market area heading north. Ron thought he spied the pinpoint of light that was Dewey’s home, high up in one of the buildings. As they went through Central Park, Ron saw packs of dogs racing beside the car, barking furiously. He had heard stories about the dogs in the Park. When the City had been officially closed down, many people had turned their pets loose. Thousands of dogs made it to Central Park where they quickly went feral. Now the Park was their own private jungle, and people who wandered in there never came out.
As they left the Central Park area, still moving uptown, Ron saw that there was a glow in the street far ahead of them. The car seemed to be heading for the light. Soon Ron could see that there were lights—real street lights—ablaze along the streets. And people were walking along on the sidewalks. Shops were open, here and there. And every person he saw was black.
At last the car pulled up in front of a building that must have once been a church. The driver got out of the car and opened Ron’s door.
“C’mon, whitey—shake it.”
Ron slid out and stood on the sidewalk.
“Up this way,” the driver said.
In the light of the street lamps, Ron could see that there were no people walking along this part of the sidewalk. A small crowd stood across the street, gawking at him. He shrugged and followed the driver. Ron noticed that the driver wore a sort of uniform of tight black slacks and black leather vest. Even his boots were black and highly shined. Ron felt shabby in his tattered old polyester suit and sandals. At least his clothes were black, also. Or they had once been. Now they were grimy and faded gray.
