Make Room! Make Room!

1

“Everyone says this is the coldest October ever, I never seen a colder one. And the rain too, never hard enough to fill the reservoir or anything, but just enough to make you wet so you feel colder. Ain’t that right?”

Shirl nodded, hardly listening to the words, but aware by the rising intonation of the woman’s voice that a question had been asked. The line moved forward and she shuffled a few steps behind the woman who had been speaking — a shapeless bundle of heavy clothing covered with a torn plastic raincoat, with a cord tied about her middle so that she resembled a lumpy sack. Not that I look much better, Shirt thought, tugging the fold of blanket farther over her head to keep out the persistent drizzle. It wouldn’t be much longer now, there were only a few dozen people ahead, but it had taken a lot more time than she thought it would; it was almost dark. A light came on over the tank car, glinting off its black sides and lighting up the slowly falling curtain of rain. The line moved again and the woman ahead of Shirl waddled forward, pulling the child after her, a bundle as wrapped and shapeless as its mother, its face hidden by a knotted scarf, that produced an almost constant whimpering.

“Stop that,” the woman said. She turned to Shirl, her puffy face a red lumpiness around the dark opening of her almost toothless mouth. “He’s crying because he’s been to see the doc, thinks he’s sick but it’s only the kwash.” She held up the child’s swollen, ballooning hand. “You can tell when they swell up and get the black spots on the knees. Had to sit two weeks in the Bellevue clinic to see a doc who told me what I knew already. But that’s the only way you get him to sign the slip. Got a peanut-butter ration that way. My old man loves the stuff. You live on my block, don’t you? I think I seen you there?”

“Twenty-sixth Street,” Shirl said, taking the cap off the jerry can and putting it into her coat pocket. She felt chilled through and was sure she was catching a cold.

“That’s right, I knew it was you. Stick around and wait for me, we’ll walk back together. It’s getting late and plenty of punks would like to grab the water, they can always sell it. Mrs. Ramirez in my building, she’s a spic but she’s all right, you know, her family been in the building since the World War Two, she got a black eye so swole up she can’t see through it and two teeth knocked out. Some punk got her with a club and took her water away.”

“Yes, I’ll wait for you, that’s a good idea,” Shirl said, suddenly feeling very alone.

“Cards,” the patrolman said and she handed him the three Welfare cards, hers, Andy’s and Sol’s. He held them to the light, then handed them back to her. “Six quarts,” he called out to the valve man.

“That’s not right,” Shirl said.

“Reduced ration today, lady, keep moving, there’s a lot of people waiting.”

She held out the jerry can and the valve man slipped the end of a large funnel into it and ran in the water. “Next,” he called out.

The jerry can gurgled when she walked and was tragically light. She went and stood near the policeman until the woman came up, pulling the child with one hand and in the other carrying a five-gallon kerosene can that seemed almost full. She must have a big family.

“Let’s go,” the woman said and the child trailed, mewling faintly, at the end of her arm.

As they left the Twelfth Avenue railroad siding it grew darker, the rain soaking up all the failing light. The buildings here were mostly old warehouses and factories with blank solid walls concealing the tenants hidden away inside, the sidewalks wet and empty. The nearest streetlight was a block away. “My husband will give me hell coming home this late,” the woman said as they turned the corner. Two figures blocked the sidewalk in front of them.

“Let’s have the water,” the nearest one said, and the distant light reflected from the knife he held before him.

“No, don’t! Please don’t!” the woman begged and swung her can of water out behind her, away from them. Shirl huddled against the wall and saw, when they walked forward, that they were just young boys, teen-agers. But they still had a knife.

“The water!” the first one said, jabbing his knife at the woman.

“Take it,” she screeched, swinging the can like a weight on the end of her arm. Before the boy could dodge it caught him full in the side of the head, knocking him howling to the ground, the knife flying from his fingers. “You want some too?” she shouted, advancing on the second boy. He was unarmed.

“No, I don’t want no trouble,” he begged, pulling at the first one’s arm, then retreating when she approached. When she bent to pick up the fallen knife, he managed to drag the other boy to his feet and half carry him around the corner. It had only taken a few seconds and all the time Shirl had stood with her back to the wall, trembling with fear.

“They got some surprise,” the woman crowed, holding the worn carving knife up to admire it. “I can use this better than they can. Just punks, kids.” She was excited and happy. During the entire time she had never released her grip on the child’s hand; it was sobbing louder.

There was no more trouble and the woman went with Shirl as far as her door. “Thank you very much,” Shirl said, “I don’t know what I would have done…”

“That’s no trouble,” the woman beamed. “You saw what I did to him — and who got the knife now!” She stamped away, hauling the heavy can in one hand, the child in the other. Shirl went in.

“Where have you been?” Andy asked when she pushed open the door. “I was beginning to wonder what had happened to you.” It was warm in the room, with a faint odor of fishy smoke, and he and Sol were sitting at the table with drinks in their hands.

“It was the water, the line must have been a block long. They only gave me six quarts, the ration has been cut again.” She saw his black look and decided not to tell him about the trouble on the way back. He would be twice as angry then and she didn’t want this meal to be spoiled.

“That’s really wonderful,” Andy said sarcastically. “The ration was already too small — so now they lower it even more. Better get out of those wet things, Shirl, and Sol will pour you a Gibson. His homemade vermouth has ripened and I bought some vodka.”

“Drink up,” Sol said, handing her the chilled glass. “I made some soup with that ener-G junk, it’s the only way it’s edible, and it should be just about ready. We’ll have that for the first course, before—” He finished the sentence by jerking his head in the direction of the refrigerator.

“What’s up?” Andy asked. “A secret?”

“No secret,” Shirl said, opening the refrigerator, “just a surprise. I got these today in the market, one for each of us.” She took out a plate with three small soylent burgers on it. “They’re the new ones, they had them on TV, with the smoky-barbecue flavor.”

“They must have cost a fortune,” Andy said. “We won’t eat for the rest of the month.”

“They’re not as expensive as all that. Anyway, it was my own money, not the budget money, I used.”

“It doesn’t make any difference, money is money. We could probably live for a week on what these things cost.”

“Soup’s on,” Sol said, sliding the plates onto the table. Shirl had a lump in her throat so she couldn’t say anything; she sat and looked at her plate and tried not to cry.

“I’m sorry,” Andy said. “But you know how prices are going up — we have to look ahead. City income tax is higher, eighty per cent now, because of the raised Welfare payment, so it’s going to be rough going this winter. Don’t think I don’t appreciate it…”

“If you do, so why don’t you shut up right there and eat your soup?” Sol said.

“Keep out of this, Sol,” Andy said.

“I’ll keep out of it when you keep the fight out of my room. Now come on, a nice meal like this, it shouldn’t be spoiled.”

Andy started to answer him, then changed his mind. He reached over and took Shirl’s hand. “It is going to be a good dinner,” he said. “Let’s all enjoy it.”

“Not that good,” Sol said, puckering his mouth over a spoonful of soup. “Wait until you try this stuff. But the burgers will take the taste out of our mouths.”

There was silence after that while they spooned up the soup, until Sol started on one of his Army stories about New Orleans and it was so impossible they had to laugh, and after that things were better. Sol shared out the rest of the Gibsons while Shirl served the burgers.

“If I was drunk enough this would almost taste like meat,” Sol announced, chewing happily.

“They are good,” Shirl said. Andy nodded agreement. She finished the burger quickly and soaked up the juice with a scrap of weedcracker, then sipped at her drink. The trouble on the way home with the water already seemed far distant. What was it the woman had said was wrong with the child?

“Do you know what ‘kwash’ is?” she asked.

Andy shrugged. “Some kind of disease, that’s all I know. Why do you ask?”

“There was a woman next to me in line for the water, I was talking to her. She had a little boy with her who was sick with this kwash. I don’t think she should have had him out in the rain, sick like that. And I was wondering if it was catching.”

“That you can forget about,” Sol said. “ ‘Kwash’ is short for ‘kwashiorkor.’ If, in the interest of good health, you watched the medical programs like I do, or opened a book, you would know all about it. You can’t catch it because it’s a deficiency disease like beriberi.”

“I never heard of that either,” Shirl said.

“There’s not so much of that, but there’s plenty of kwash. It comes from not eating enough protein. They used to have it only in Africa but now they got it right across the whole U.S. Isn’t that great? There’s no meat around, lentils and soybeans cost too much, so the mamas stuff the kids with weedcrackers and candy, whatever is cheap…”

The light bulb flickered, then went out. Sol felt his way across the room and found a switch in the maze of wiring on top of the refrigerator. A dim bulb lit up, connected to his batteries. “Needs a charge,” he said, “but it can wait until morning. You shouldn’t exercise after eating, bad for the circulation and digestion.”

“I’m sure glad you’re here, doctor,” Andy said. “I need some medical advice. I’ve got this trouble. You see — everything I eat goes to my stomach…”

“Very funny, Mr. Wiseguy. Shirl, I don’t see how you put up with this joker.”

They all felt better after the meal and they talked for a while, until Sol announced he was turning off the light to save the juice in the batteries. The small bricks of seacoal had burned to ash and the room was growing cold. They said good night and Andy went in first to get his flashlight; their room was even colder than the other.

“I’m going to bed,” Shirl said. “I’m not really tired, but it’s the only way to keep warm.”

Andy flicked the overhead light switch uselessly. “The current is still off and there are some things I have to do. What is it — a week now since we had any electricity in the evening?”

“Let me get into bed and I’ll work the flash for you — will that be all right?”

“It’ll have to do.”

He opened his notepad on top of the dresser, lay one of the reusable forms next to it, then began copying information into the report. With his left hand he kept a slow and regular squeezing on the flashlight that produced steady illumination. The city was quiet tonight with the people driven from the streets by the cold and the rain; the whir of the tiny generator and the occasional squeak of the stylo on plastic sounded unnaturally loud. There was enough light from the flash for Shirl to get undressed by. She shivered when she took off her outer clothes and quickly pulled on heavy winter pajamas, a much-darned pair of socks she used for sleeping in, then put her heavy sweater on top. The sheets were cold and damp, they hadn’t been changed since the water shortage, though she did try to air them out as often as she could.

“What are you writing up?” she asked.

“Everything I have on Billy Chung, they’re still after me to find him — it’s the most stupid thing I ever heard of.” He slammed the stylo down and paced angrily back and forth, the flashlight in his hand throwing twisting shadows across the ceiling. “We’ve had two dozen killings in the precinct since O’Brien was murdered. We caught one killer while his wife was still bleeding to death — but all of the other murders have been forgotten, almost the same day they happened. What can be so important about Big Mike? No one seems to know — yet they still want reports. So after I put in a double shift I’m expected to keep on looking for the kid. I should be out tonight, running down another phony spotting report, but I’m not going to — even though Grassy will ream me out tomorrow. Do you know how much sleep I’ve been getting lately?”

“I know,” she said softly.

“A couple of hours a night — if that. Well, tonight I’m going to catch up. I have to sign in again by seven in the morning, there’s another protest rally in Union Square, so I won’t get much sleep anyway.” He stopped pacing and handed her the flashlight, which dimmed, then brightened again as she worked the lever. “I’m making all the noise — but you’re really the one who should be complaining, Shirl. You had it a lot better before you ever met me.”

“It’s bad for everyone this fall, I’ve never seen anything like it. First the water, now this thing about a fuel shortage, I don’t understand it…”

“That’s not what I mean, Shirl — will you shine the light on this drawer?” He took out a can of oil and his cleaning kit, spreading the contents out on a rag on the floor next to the bed. “It’s about you and me personally. Things here aren’t up to the standards you’ve been used to.”

She skirted around mentioning her stay with Mike just as carefully as he did. It was something they never talked about. “My father’s place is in a neighborhood just like this one,” she said. “Things aren’t that different.”

“I’m not talking about that.” He squatted and broke open his revolver, then ran the cleaning brush back and forth through its barrel. “After you left home things went a lot better for you, I know that. You’re a pretty girl, more than just pretty, there must have been a lot of guys who were running after you.” He spoke haltingly, looking at his work.

“I’m here because I want to be here,” she said, putting into words what he had not been able to say. “Being attractive makes things easier for a girl, I know that, but it doesn’t make everything all right. I want… I don’t know exactly… happiness, I suppose. You helped me when I really needed help and we had more fun than I ever had before in my life. I never told you before, but I was hoping you would ask me to come here, we got along so well.”

“Is that the only reason?”

They had never talked about this since the night he had asked her here, and now he wanted to know all about her feelings without revealing any of his own.

“Why did you ask me here, Andy? What were your reasons?” She avoided his question.

He clicked the cylinder back into the gun without looking up at her, and spun it with his thumb. “I liked you — liked you a lot. In fact, if you want to know,” he lowered his voice as though the words were shameful, “I love you.”

Shirl didn’t know what to say and the silence lengthened. The dynamo in the flashlight whirred and on the other side of the partition there was a creaking of springs and a subdued grunt as Sol climbed into bed.

“What about you, Shirl?” Andy said, in a low voice so Sol wouldn’t hear them. He raised his face for the first time and looked at her.

“I… I’m happy here, Andy, and I want to be here. I haven’t thought much more about it.”

“Love, marriage, kids? Have you thought about those things?” There was a sharp edge to his voice now.

“Every girl thinks about things like that, but…”

“But not with a slob like me in a broken-down rat trap like this, is that what you mean?”

“Don’t put words into my mouth, I didn’t say that or even think it. I’m not complaining — except maybe about the awful hours you’re away.”

“I have my job to do.”

“I know that — it’s just that I never see you any more. I think we were together more in those first weeks after I met you. It was fun.”

“Spending loot is always fun, but the world can’t be like that all the time.”

“Why not? I don’t mean all the time, but just once in a while or in the evenings, or even a Sunday off. It seems like weeks since we have even talked together. I’m not saying it has to be romance all the time…”

“I have my job. Just how much romance do you think there would be in living if I gave it up?”

Shirl found herself close to tears. “Please, Andy — I’m not trying to fight with you. That’s the last thing I want. Don’t you understand…?”

“I understand damn well. If I was a big man in the syndicate and running girls and hemp and LSD, things might be different. But I’m just a crummy cop trying to hold things together while the rest of the bastards are taking them apart.”

He stabbed the bullets into the cylinder while he talked, not looking at her and not seeing the silent tears that ran down her face. She hadn’t cried at the dinner table, but she could not stop it now. It was the cold weather, the boy with the knife, the water shortage, everything — and now this. When she laid the flashlight on the floor the light faded and almost went out as the flywheel slowed. Before it brightened again in his hand she had turned her face to the wall and had pulled the covers up over her head.

She did like Andy, she knew that — but did she love him? It was so hard to decide anything when she hardly ever saw him. Why didn’t he understand that? She wasn’t trying to hide anything or avoid anything. Yet her life wasn’t with him, it was in this terrible room where he hardly ever came, living on this street, the people, that boy with the knife… She bit into her lip but could not stop crying.

When he came to bed he did not say anything, and she did not know what she could say. It was warmer with him there, though she could still smell the gun oil, it must have got on his hands and he could not wipe it all off, and when he was close she felt much better.

She touched his arm and whispered “Andy,” but by then it was too late. He was sound asleep.

2

“I smell trouble brewing,” Detective Steve Kulozik said as he finished adjusting the headband in the fiberglass helmet. He put it on and scowled out unhappily from under the projecting edge.

“You smell trouble!” Andy shook his head. “What a wonderful nose you got. They have the whole precinct, patrolmen and detectives, mixed together, like shock troops. We’re issued helmets and riot bombs at seven in the morning, locked in here without any orders — and you smell trouble. What’s your secret, Steve?”

“A natural talent,” the fat detective said placidly.

“Let’s have your attention here,” the captain shouted. The voices and foot shuffling died away and the ranks of men were silent, looking expectantly toward the far end of the big room where the captain stood.

“We’re going to have some special work today,” the captain said, “and Detective Dwyer here, of the Headquarters Squad, will explain it to you.”

There was an interested stir as the men in the back rows tried to see past the ranks ahead of them. The Headquarters Squad were trouble shooters, they worked out of Centre Street and took their orders directly from Detective Inspector Ross.

“Can you men in the rear there hear me?” Dwyer called out, then climbed onto a chair. He was a broad, bulky man with the chin and wrinkled neck of a bulldog, his voice a hoarse, bass rumble. “Are the doors locked, captain?” he asked. “What I have to say is for these men alone.” There was a mumbled reassurance and he turned back to face them, looking over the rows of uniformed patrolmen and the drab-coated detectives in the rear.

“There’s going to be a couple of hundred — or maybe a couple of thousand — people killed in this city by tonight,” he said. “Your job is to keep that figure as low as possible. When you go out of here you better realize that there are going to be riots and trouble today and the faster you act to break them up the easier it’s going to be for all of us. The Welfare stations won’t open today and there won’t be any food issued for at least three days.”

His voice rose sharply over the sudden hum of voices. “Knock that noise off! What are you — police officers or a bunch of old women? I’m giving this to you straight so you can get ready for the worst, not just yak-yak about it.” The silence was absolute.

“All right. The trouble has been coming for days now, but we couldn’t act until we knew where we stood. We know now. The city has gone right along issuing full food rations until the warehouses are almost empty. We’re going to close them now, build up a backlog and open again in three days. With a smaller ration — and that is classified and not to be repeated to anyone. Rations are going to stay small the rest of the winter, don’t forget that, whatever you may hear to the contrary. The immediate cause of the shortage right now is that accident on the main line north of Albany, but that’s just one of the troubles. The grain is going to start coming in again — but it still won’t be enough. We had a professor from Columbia down at Centre Street to tell us about it so we could pass it on, but it gets technical and we haven’t got that much time. But here’s what it boils down to.

“There was a fertilizer shortage last spring, which means the crop wasn’t as good as expected. There have been storms and flooding. The Dust Bowl is still growing. And there was that trouble with the poisoned soybeans from the insecticide. You all know just as much about it as I do, it was on TV. What it adds up to is that a lot of small things have piled up to make one big trouble. There have even been some mistakes made by the President’s Emergency Food Planning Board and you’re going to see some new faces there. So everyone in this town is going to have to tighten his belt a bit. There is going to be enough for all of us as long as we can keep law and order. I don’t have to tell you what would happen if we had some real good riots, some fires, big trouble. We can’t count on any outside help because the Army has got plenty of other things to worry about. It’s going to be you men on foot out there that do the job. There isn’t one operational hovercraft left, they’ve all either got parts missing or broken impeller blades, and there aren’t any replacements. It’s up to you. There are thirty-five million people here counting on us. If you don’t want them to starve to death — do your jobs. Now… any questions?”

A buzz of whispered talk swept across the crowded room, then a patrolman hesitantly raised his hand and Dwyer nodded to him.

“What about the water, sir?”

“That trouble should be licked soon. Repairs on the aqueduct are almost finished and the water should be coming through within a week. But there is still going to be rationing because of the loss of ground water from the Island, and the low level of the reservoirs. And that brings up another thing. We been putting the announcement on TV every hour and we got as many guards as we can spare along the waterfront, but people are still drinking river water. I don’t know how they can — the damned river is just an open sewer by the time it reaches us, and salty from the ocean — but people do it. And they’re not boiling it, which is the same as taking poison. The hospitals are filling up with typhoid and dysentery cases and God knows what else, and that is going to get worse before the winter is over. There are lists of symptoms posted on the bulletin boards and I want you to memorize them and keep your eyes open, get word to the Health Department about anything you see and bring in any cases you think will get away. Keep your shots up to date and you got nothing to worry about, the department has all the vaccine you’re going to need.” He cupped his ear toward the nearby ranks and frowned.

“I think I heard someone say ‘political officer,’ but maybe they didn’t. Let’s say they didn’t, but I’ve heard it before and you may be hearing it again yourselves. So let’s get one thing straight. The Commies invented that name, and the way they use it it means a guy who pushes the Party line to the troops, sells them a snow job, a lot of crap. But that’s not the way we work it in this country. Maybe I’m a political officer, but I’m leveling with you, telling you all the truth so you can get out there and do your job knowing just what has to be done. Any more questions?”

His big head looked around the room and the silence lengthened; no one else was asking the question, so Andy reluctantly raised his hand.

“Yes?” Dwyer said.

“What about the markets, sir?” Andy said, and the nearby faces turned toward him. “There’s the flea market in Madison Square, they have some food there, and the Gramercy Park market.”

“That’s a good question, because they are going to be our sore spots today. A lot of you will be on duty in or near those markets. We are going to have trouble at the warehouses when they don’t open, and there will be trouble in Union Square with the Eldsters there — they are always trouble.” A duly appreciative laugh followed his words. “The stores are going to sell out and board up, we’re taking care of that, but we can’t control the markets the same way. The only food on sale in this city will be there, and people are going to realize it soon enough. Keep your eyes open and if anything starts — stop it before it can spread. You’ve got night sticks and you have gas, use them when you have to. You’ve got guns and they’re best left in their holsters. We don’t want indiscriminate killing, that only makes things worse.”

There were no more questions. Detective Dwyer left before they had been given their assignments and they did not see him again. The rain had almost stopped when they went out, but had been replaced by a heavy cold mist that swept in from the lower bay. There were two canvas-covered trucks waiting at the curb, and an old city bus that had been painted a dull olive drab. Half of its windows were boarded up.

“Put’cher fares to the box,” Steve said as he followed Andy into the bus. “I wonder where they resurrected this antique from?”

“City Museum,” Andy said. “The same place they got these riot bombs. Did you look at them?”

“I counted them, if that’s what you mean,” Steve said, swinging heavily into one of the cracked plastic seats next to Andy. They both had their satchels of bombs on their laps so there would be room to sit Andy opened his and took out one of the green canisters.

“Read that,” he said, “if you can read.”

“I been to Delehanty’s,” Steve grunted. “I can read Irish as well as American. ‘Grenade, pressurized — riot gas — MOA-397…’ ”

“The fine print, down at the bottom.”

“ ‘…sealed St. Louis arsenal, April 1974.’ So what, this stuff never gets old.”

“I hope not. From what our political officer said it sounds like we might need them today.”

“Nothing’ll happen. Too wet for riots.”

The bus shuddered to a halt on the corner where Broadway passed Worth Square and Lieutenant Grassioli pointed at Andy and jerked his thumb toward the door. “You’re interested in markets, Rusch, take the beat from here down to Twenty-third. You too, Kulozik.”

Behind them the door creaked shut and the bus pushed slowly away through the crowds. They streamed by on all sides, jostling and bumping into each other without being aware of it, a constantly changing but ever identical sea of people. An eddy formed naturally around the two detectives, leaving a small cleared area of wet pavement in the midst of the crowd. Police were never popular, and policemen in helmets, carrying yard-long, lead-filled riot-clubs, were to be avoided even more. The cleared space moved with them as they crossed Fifth Avenue to the Eternal Light, now extinguished because of the fuel shortage.

“Almost eight,” Andy said, his eyes moving constantly over the people around them. “That’s when the Welfare stations usually open, I suppose the announcement will go on TV at the same time.”

They went slowly toward Twenty-third Street, walking in the street because the clustering stalls of the flea market had pushed outward until they covered most of the sidewalk.

“Hubcaps, hubcaps, I got all the best,” a merchant droned as they passed, a small man who was almost lost in the raveling folds of an immense overcoat, his shaved head projecting above the collar like a vulture’s from a ruff of matted feathers. He rubbed his dripping nose with cracked knuckles and appeared to be a little feebleminded. “Get’cher hubcaps here, officer, all the best, make good bowls, pots, soup pots, night pots, make good anything…” They passed out of earshot.

By nine o’clock there was a different feeling in the air, a tension that had not been there before. The crowd seemed to have a louder voice and to be stirring about faster, like water about to boil. When the detectives passed the hubcap stall again they saw that most of the stock had been locked away and the few hubcaps left on the counter were rusty and scarcely worth stealing. Their owner crouched among them no longer shouting his wares, unmoving except for his darting eyes.

“Did you hear that?” Andy asked, and they both turned toward the market. Above the rising hum of voices there was an angry shout, followed by others. “Let’s take a look,” Andy said, pushing into one of the narrow paths that threaded through the market.

A shouting crowd was jammed solid between the stalls and pushcarts, blocking their way, and only stirred without moving aside when they blew their whistles. The clubs worked better, they rapped at the barricades of ankles and legs and a reluctant opening was made for them. At the center of the mob were three crumb stands, one of them knocked off its legs and half overturned, with bags of weedcrumbs dribbling to the ground.

“They been jacking the price!” a thin-faced harridan screamed. “Against the law jacking the price. They asking double for crumbs.”

“No law says, we can ask what we want,” a stall owner shouted back, clearing the area in front of him with wild swings of an old connecting rod. He was ready to defend with his life his stock of broken bits of weedcracker. Weedcrumbs, the cheapest and most tasteless nourishment ever consumed by man.

“You got no rights, crumby, those prices don’t go!” a man called out, and the crowd heaved and surged.

Andy blasted on his whistle. “Hold on!” he shouted above the voice of the mob. “I’ll settle this — just hold on.” Steve stood and faced the angry crowd, swinging his club before him, as Andy turned to the stall owner and talked in a low voice. “Don’t be stupid. Ask a fair price and sell your stock out…”

“I can ask any price I want. There ain’t no law—” he protested and broke off when Andy slammed his club against the side of the stall.

“That’s right — there’s no law unless the law is standing right here. Do you want to lose everything, including your own stupid head? Fix a price and sell out, because if you don’t I’m just going to walk away from here and let these people do whatever they want”

“He’s right, Al,” the crumby from the next stall said, he had sidled over to listen to Andy. “Sell out and get out, they gonna walk all over us if we don’t. I’m knocking the price back.”

“You’re a jerk — look at the loot!” Al protested.

“Balls! Look at the hole in my head if we don’t. I’m selling.”

There was still a lot of noise, but as soon as the crumbies started selling at a lower price there were enough people who wanted to buy so that the unity of the crowd broke up. Other shouts could be heard, on the Fifth Avenue side of the Square.

“This’ll keep here,” Steve said. “Let’s get circulating.” Most of the stalls were locked now and there were gaps between them where the pushcart owners had closed up and moved shop. A tattered woman was sprawled, sobbing, in the wreckage of her beanwich stall, her stock, cooked beans pressed between weedcrackers, looted and gone.

“Lousy cops,” she choked out when they passed. “Why didn’ you stop them, do something? Lousy cops.” They went by without looking at her, out into Fifth Avenue. The crowd was in a turmoil and they had to force their way through.

“Do you hear that, coming north?” Steve asked. “Sounds like singing or shouting.”

The surging of the crowd became more directed, taking on a unity of movement heading uptown. Each moment the massed chanting grew louder, punctuated by the stentorian rasp of an amplified voice.

“Two, four, six, eight — Welfare rations come too late. Three, five, seven, nine — Medicare is still behind.”

“It’s the Eldsters,” Andy said. “They’re marching on Times Square again.”

“They picked the right day for it — everything is happening today.”

As the crowd pressed back to the curb the first marchers appeared, preceded by a half-dozen uniformed patrolmen, their clubs swinging in easy arcs before them. Behind them was the first wave of the elderly legion, a gray-haired, balding group of men led by Kid Reeves. He limped a bit as he walked, but he stayed out in front, carrying a compact, battery-operated bull horn: a gray metal trumpet with a microphone set into the end. He raised it to his mouth and his amplified voice boomed over the noise of the crowd.

“All you people there on the curbs, join in. March with us. Join this protest, raise your voices. We’re not marching for ourselves alone, but for all of you as well. If you are a senior citizen you are with us in your heart because we’re marching to help you. If you are younger you must know that we are marching to help your mother and father, to get the help that you yourself will need one day…”

People were being pushed in from the mouth of Twenty-fourth Street, being driven across the path of the marchers, looking back over their shoulders as the force of the crowd behind them drove them forward. The Eldsters’ march slowed to a crawl, then stopped completely in a jumble of bodies. Police whistles shrilled in the distance and the policemen who had been marching in front of the Eldsters fought vainly to stop the advance, but were swallowed up and lost in a moment as the narrow exit from Twenty-fourth Street disgorged a stampede of running figures. They crashed into the crowd and merged with the advance guard of the Eldsters.

“Stop there, stop!” Reeves’s amplified shout boomed out.

“You’re interfering with this march, a legal march…” The newcomers pushed against him and a heavy-set man, streaked with blood on the side of his head, grabbed for the bull horn. “Give me that!” he ordered and his words were amplified and mixed with Reeves’s in a thunderous jumble.

Andy could clearly see what was happening, but could do nothing to stop it since the crowd had separated him from Steve and carried him back against the quacking row of stalls.

“Give it to me!” the voice bellowed again, overridden by a scream from Reeves as the bull horn was twisted violently from his hands.

“They’re trying to starve us!” the amplified sound hammered across the crowd; white faces turned toward it. “The Welfare station is full of food but they locked it up, won’t give us any. Open it up and get the food out! Let’s open it up!”

The crowd roared agreement and surged back into Twenty-fourth Street, trampling over many of the Eldsters, pushing them to the ground, driven on by the rancorous voice. The crowd was turning into a mob and the mob would turn into a riot if they were not stopped. Andy lashed out with his club at the people nearby, forcing his way through them, trying to get close enough to the man with the bull horn so that he could stop him. A group of Eldsters had locked arms about their injured leader, Reeves, who was shouting something unheard in the uproar, holding his right forearm in his left hand to protect it; it dangled at an odd angle, broken. Andy flailed out but saw that he would never get through, the mob was surging away, faster than he could move.

“…keeping the food for themselves — anyone ever see a skinny cop! And the politicians, they’re eating our food and they don’t care if we starve!” The nagging boom of the voice drove the crowd closer and closer to riot. People, mostly Eldsters, had already fallen and been trampled. Andy tore open his satchel and grabbed out one of the riot bombs. They were timed to explode and release their clouds of gas three seconds after the fuse was pulled. Andy held the bomb low, tore out the ring, then hurled it straight-armed toward the man with the bull horn. The green canister arched high and fell into the crowd next to him. It didn’t go off.

“Bombs!” the man bellowed. “The cops are trying to kill us so we don’t get that food. They can’t stop us — let’s go — let’s get it! Bombs!”

Andy cursed and tore out another gas grenade. This one had better work, the first one had only made things worse. He pushed the nearest people away with his club to make room to swing, pulled the pin and counted to two before he threw.

The canister exploded with a dull thud almost on top of the man with the stolen bull horn, the tearing sound of his retching cut across the roar of voices. The crowd surged, its unity of purpose lost as people tried to flee the cloud of vapor, blinded by the tear gas, with their guts twisted by the regurgitants. Andy tore the gas mask from the bottom of his satchel and swiftly and automatically put it on by gas-drill procedure. His helmet slid down his left arm, hanging from its strap, while he used both hands, thumbs inside, to shake out the mask and free the head straps. Holding his breath, he bent his head and tucked his chin into the mask and, with a single swift motion, pulled the straps over his head that held the mask in place. His right palm sealed the exhaust valve over his mouth as he expelled the air violently from his lungs, it rushed out of the vibrating sides of the mask clearing away any traces of gas. Even as he did this he was straightening up and putting his helmet back on with his other hand.

Though the whole operation of donning the mask had taken no more than three seconds, the scene before him had changed dramatically. People were pushing out in all directions, trying to escape from the spreading cloud of gas that drifted in a thin haze over a widening area of road. The only ones remaining were sprawled on the pavement or bent over, racked by uncontrolled vomiting. It was a potent gas. Andy ran to the man who had grabbed the bull horn. He was down on all fours, blinded and splattered by his own disgorgement, but still holding on to the loudspeaker and cursing between racking spasms. Andy tried to take it away from him, but he fought back viciously and blindly, clutching it with a grip of death, until Andy was forced to rap him on the base of the skull with his club. He collapsed onto the fouled street and Andy pulled the bull horn away.

This was the hardest part. He scratched the microphone with his finger and an amplified clattering rolled out; the thing was still working. Andy took a deep breath, filling his lungs against the resistance of the filters in the canister, then tore the mask from his face.

“This is the police,” he said, and faces turned toward his amplified voice. “The trouble is over. Go quietly to your homes, disperse, the trouble is over. There will be no more gas if you disperse quietly.” There was a change in the sound of the crowd when they heard the word “gas,” and the force of their movement began to change. Andy fought against the nausea that gripped his throat. “The police are in charge here and the trouble is over…”

He clutched his hand over the microphone to deaden it as he doubled over with agony and vomited.

3

New York City trembled on the brink of disaster. Every locked warehouse was a nucleus of dissent, surrounded by crowds who were hungry and afraid and searching for someone to blame. Their anger incited them to riot, and the food riots turned to water riots and then to looting, wherever this was possible. The police fought back, only the thinnest of barriers between angry protest and bloody chaos.

At first night sticks and weighted clubs stopped the trouble, and when this failed gas dispersed the crowds. The tension grew, since the people who fled only reassembled again in a different place. The solid jets of water from the riot trucks stopped them easily when they tried to break into the Welfare stations, but there were not enough trucks, nor was there more water to be had once they had pumped dry their tanks. The Health Department had forbid the use of river water: it would have been like spraying poison. The little water that was available was badly needed for the fires that were springing up throughout the city. With the streets blocked in many places the fire-fighting equipment could not get through and the trucks were forced to make long detours. Some of the fires were spreading and by noon all of the equipment had been committed and was in use.

The first gun was fired a few minutes past twelve, by a Welfare Department guard who killed a man who had broken open a window of the Tompkins Square food depot and had tried to climb in. This was the first but not the last shot fired — nor was it the last person to be killed.

Flying wire sealed off some of the trouble areas, but there was only a limited supply of it. When it ran out the copters fluttered helplessly over the surging streets and acted as aerial observation posts for the police, finding the places where reserves were sorely needed. It was a fruitless labor because there were no reserves, everyone was in the front line.

After the first conflict in Madison Square nothing else made a strong impression on Andy. For the rest of the day and most of the night, he along with every other policeman in the city was braving violence and giving violence to restore law and order to a city torn by battle. The only rest he had was after he had fallen victim to his own gas and had managed to make his way to the Department of Hospitals ambulance for treatment. An orderly washed out his eyes and gave him a tablet to counteract the gut-tearing nausea. He lay on one of the stretchers inside, clutching his helmet, bombs and club to his chest, while he recovered. The ambulance driver sat on another stretcher by the door, armed with a .30-caliber carbine, to discourage anyone from too great an interest in the ambulance or its valuable surgical contents. Andy would like to have lain there longer, but the cold mist was rolling in through the open doorway, and he began to shiver so hard that his teeth shook together. It was difficult to drag to his feet and climb to the ground, yet once he was moving he felt a little better — and warmer. The attack on the Welfare center had been broken up, maybe his grabbing the bull horn had helped, and he moved slowly to join the nearest cluster of blue-coated figures, wrinkling his nose at the foul odor of his clothes.

From this point on, the fatigue never left him and he had memories only of shouting faces, running feet, the sound of shots, screams, the thud of gas grenades, of something unseen that had been thrown at him and hit the back of his hand and raised an immense bruise.

By nightfall it was raining, a cold downpour mixed with sleet, and it was this and exhaustion that drove the people from the streets, not the police. Yet when the crowds were gone the police found that their work was just beginning. Gaping windows and broken doorways had to be guarded until they could be repaired, the injured had to be found and brought in for treatment, while the Fire Department needed aid in halting the countless fires. This went on through the night and at dawn Andy found himself slumped on a bench in the precinct, hearing his name being called off from a list by Lieutenant Grassioli.

“And that’s all that can be spared,” the lieutenant added. “You men draw rations before you leave and turn in your riot equipment. I want you all back here at eighteen-hundred and I don’t want excuses. Our troubles aren’t over yet.”

Sometime during the night the rain had stopped. The rising sun cast long shadows down the crosstown streets, putting a golden sheen on the wet, black pavement. A burned-out brownstone was still smoking and Andy picked his way through the charred wreckage that littered the street in front of it. On the corner of Seventh Avenue were the crushed wrecks of two pedicabs, already stripped of any usable parts, and a few feet farther on, the huddled body of a man. He might be asleep, but when Andy passed, the upturned face gave violent evidence that the man was dead. He walked on, ignoring it. The Department of Sanitation would be collecting only corpses today.

The first cavemen were coming out of the subway entrance, blinking at the light. During the summer everyone laughed at the cavemen — the people whom Welfare had assigned to living quarters in the stations of the now-silent subways — but as the cold weather approached, the laughter was replaced by envy. Perhaps it was filthy down there, dusty, dark, but there were always a few electric heaters turned on. They weren’t living in luxury, but at least Welfare didn’t let them freeze. Andy turned into his own block.

Going up the stairs in his building, he trod heavily on some of the sleepers but was too fatigued to care — or even notice. He had trouble fumbling his key into the lock and Sol heard him and came to open it.

“I just made some soup,” Sol said. “You timed it perfectly.”

Andy pulled the broken remains of some weedcrackers from his coat pocket and spilled them onto the table.

“Been stealing food?” Sol asked, picking up a piece and nibbling on it “I thought no grub was being given out for two more days?”

“Police ration.”

“Only fair. You can’t beat up the citizenry on an empty stomach. I’ll throw some of these into the soup, give it some body. I guess you didn’t see TV yesterday so you wouldn’t know about all the fun and games in Congress. Things are really jumping…”

“Is Shirl awake yet?” Andy asked, shucking out of his coat and dropping heavily into a chair.

Sol was silent a moment, then he said slowly, “She’s not here.”

Andy yawned. “It’s pretty early to go out. Why?”

“Not today, Andy.” Sol stirred the soup with his back turned. “She went out yesterday, a couple of hours after you did. She’s not back yet—”

“You mean she was out all the time during the riots — and last night too? What did you do?” He sat upright, his bone-weariness forgotten.

“What could I do? Go out and get myself trampled to death like the rest of the old fogies? I bet she’s all right, she probably saw all the trouble and decided to stay with friends instead of coming back here.”

“What friends? What are you talking about? I have to go find her.”

“Sit!” Sol ordered. “What can you do out there? Have some soup and get some sleep, that’s the best thing you can do. She’ll be okay. I know it,” he added reluctantly.

“What do you know, Sol?” Andy took him by the shoulders, half turning him from the stove.

“Don’t handle the merchandise!” Sol shouted, pushing the hand away. Then, in a quieter voice: “All I know is she just didn’t go out of here for nothing, she had a reason. She had her old coat on, but I could see what looked like a real nifty dress underneath. And nylon stockings. A fortune on her legs. And when she said so long I saw she had lots of makeup on.”

“Sol — what are you trying to say?”

“I’m not trying — I’m saying. She was dressed for visiting, not for shopping, like she was on the way out to see someone. Her old man, maybe, she could be visiting him.”

“Why should she want to see him?”

“You tell me? You two had a fight, didn’t you? Maybe she went away for a while to cool off.”

“A fight… I guess so.” Andy dropped back into the chair, squeezing his forehead between his palms. Had it only been last night? No, the night before last It seemed a hundred years since they had had that stupid argument. He looked up with sudden fear. “She didn’t take her things — anything with her?” he asked.

“Just a little bag,” Sol said, and put a steaming bowl on the table in front of Andy. “Eat up. I’ll pour one for myself.” Then, “She’ll be back.”

Andy was almost too tired to argue — and what could be said? He spooned the soup automatically, then realized as he tasted it that he was very hungry. He ate with his elbow on the table, his free hand supporting his head.

“You should have heard the speeches in the Senate yesterday,” Sol said. “Funniest show on earth. They’re trying to push this Emergency Bill through — some emergency, it’s only been a hundred years in the making — and you should hear them talking all around the little points and not mentioning the big ones.” His voice settled into a rich Southern accent. “Faced by dire straits, we propose a survey of all the ee-mense riches of this the greatest ee-luvial basin, the delta, suh, of the mightiest of rivers, the Mississippi. Dikes and drains, suh, science, suh, and you will have here the richest farmlands in the Western World!” Sol blew on his soup angrily. “ ‘Dikes’ is right — another finger in the dike. They’ve been over this ground a thousand times before. But does anyone mention out loud the sole and only reason for the Emergency Bill? They do not. After all these years they’re too chicken to come right out and tell the truth, so they got it hidden away in one of the little riders tacked onto the bottom.”

“What are you talking about?” Andy asked, only half listening.

“Birth control, that’s what. They are finally getting around to legalizing clinics that will be open to anyone — married or not — and making it a law that all mothers must be supplied with birth-control information. Boy, are we going to hear some howling when the bluenoses find out about that!”

“Not now, Sol, I’m tired. Did Shirl say anything about when she would be back?”

“Just what I told you…” He stopped and listened to the sound of footsteps coming down the hall. They stopped — and there was a light knocking on the door.

Andy was there first, twisting at the knob, tearing the door open.

“Shirl!” he said. “Are you an right?”

“Yes, sure — I’m fine.”

He held her to him, tightly, almost cutting off her breath. “With the riots — I didn’t know what to think,” he said. “I just came in a little while ago myself. Where have you been? What happened?”

“I just wanted to get out for a while, that’s all.” She wrinkled her nose. “What’s that funny smell?”

He stepped away from her, anger welling up through the fatigue. “I caught some of my own puke gas and heaved up. It’s hard to get off. What do you mean that you wanted to get out for a while?”

“Let me get my coat off.”

Andy followed her into the other room and closed the door behind them. She was taking a pair of high-heeled shoes out of the bag she carried and putting them into the closet. “Well?” he said.

“Just that, it’s not complicated. I was feeling trapped in here, with the shortages and the cold and everything, and never seeing you, and I felt bad about the fight we had. Nothing seemed to be going right. So I thought if I dressed up and went to one of the restaurants where I used to go, just have a cup of kofee or something, I might feel better. A morale booster, you know.” She looked up at his cold face, then glanced quickly away.

“Then what happened?” he asked.

“I’m not in the witness box, Andy. Why the accusing tone?”

He turned his back and looked out the window. “I’m not accusing you of anything, but — you were out all night. How do you expect me to feel?”

“Well, you know how bad it was yesterday, I was afraid to come back. I was up at Curley’s—”

“The meateasy?”

“Yes, but if you don’t eat anything it’s not expensive. It’s just the food that costs. I met some people I knew and we talked, they were going to a party and invited me and I went along. We were watching the news about the riots on TV and no one wanted to get out, so the party just went on and on. That’s about all, a lot of people stayed overnight and so did I.” She slipped off her dress and hung it up, then put on wool slacks and a heavy sweater.

“Is that all you did, just spend the night?”

“Andy, you’re tired. Why don’t you get some sleep? We can talk about this some other time.”

“I want to talk about it now.”

“Please, there’s nothing more to be said…”

“Yes there is. Whose apartment was it?”

“No one you know. He’s not a friend of Mike’s, just someone I used to see at parties.”

“He?” The silence stretched tight, until Andy’s question snapped it. “Did you spend the night with him?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Of course I want to know. What do you think I’m asking you for? You slept with him, didn’t you?”

“Yes.”

The calmness of her voice, the suddenness of her answer stopped him, as though he had asked the question hoping to get another answer. He groped for the words to express what he felt and, finally, all he could ask was “Why?”

“Why?” This single word opened her lips and spilled out the cold anger. “Why? What other choice did I have? I had dinner and drinks and I had to pay for it. What else do I have to pay with?”

“Stop it, Shirl, you’re being…”

“I’m being what? Truthful? Would you let me stay here if I didn’t sleep with you?”

“That’s different!”

“Is it?” She began to tremble. “Andy, I hope it is, it should be — but I just don’t know any more. I want us to be happy, I don’t know why we fight. That’s not what I want. But things seem to be going so wrong. If you were here, if I was with you more…”

“We settled that the other night. I have my work — what else can I do?”

“Nothing else, I suppose, nothing…” She clasped her fingers together to stop their shaking. “Go to sleep now, you need the rest.”

She went into the other room and he did not stir until the door clicked shut. He started to follow her, then stopped and sat on the edge of the bed. What could he say to her? Slowly he pulled off his shoes and, fully dressed, stretched out and pulled the blanket over him.

Tired and exhausted as he was, he did not fall asleep for a very long time.

4

Since most people don’t like to get up while it is still dark, the morning line for the water ration was always the shortest of the day. Yet there were still enough people about when Shirl hurried to get a place in line so that no one ever bothered her. By the time she had her water the sun would be up and the streets were a good deal safer. Besides that, she and Mrs. Miles had fallen into the habit of meeting every day, whoever came first saved a place in line, and walking back together. Mrs. Miles always had the little boy with her who still seemed to be ill with the kwash. Apparently her husband needed the protein-rich peanut butter more than the child did. The water ration had been increased. This was so welcome that Shirl tried not to notice how much harder it was to carry, and how her back hurt when she climbed the stairs. There was even enough water now to wash with. The water points were supposed to open again by mid-November at the very latest, and that wasn’t too far away. This morning, like most of the other mornings, Shirl was back before eight and when she came into the apartment she saw that Andy was dressed and just ready to leave.

“Talk to him, Shirl,” Andy said. “Convince him that he is being a chunkhead. It must be senility.” He kissed her good-by before he went out. It had been three weeks since the fight and on the surface things were the same as before, but underneath something had changed, some of the feeling of security — or perhaps love — had been eroded away. They did not talk about it.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, peeling off the outer layers of clothing that swaddled her. Andy stopped in the doorway.

“Ask Sol, I’m sure he’ll be happy to tell you in great detail. But when he’s all through remember one thing. He’s wrong.”

“Every man to his own opinion,” Sol said placidly, rubbing the grease from an ancient can of dubbing onto an even more ancient pair of Army boots.

“Opinion nothing,” Andy said. “You’re just asking for trouble. I’ll see you tonight, Shirl. If it’s as quiet as yesterday I shouldn’t be too late.” He closed the door and she locked it behind him.

“What on earth is he talking about?” Shirl asked, warming her hands over the brick of seacoal smoldering in the stove. It was raw and cold out, and the wind rattled the window in its frame.

“He’s talking about protest,” Sol said, admiring the buffed, blackened toe of the boot. “Or maybe better he’s talking against protest. You heard about the Emergency Bill? It’s been schmeared all over TV for the last week.”

“Is that the one they call the Baby-killer Bill?”

“They?” Sol shouted, scrubbing angrily at the boot. “Who are they? A bunch of bums, that’s who. People with their minds in the Middle Ages and their feet in a rut. In other words — bums.”

“But, Sol — you can’t force people to practice something they don’t believe in. A lot of them still think that it has something to do with killing babies.”

“So they think wrong. Am I to blame because the world is full of fatheads? You know well enough that birth control has nothing to do with killing babies. In fact it saves them. Which is the bigger crime — letting kids die of disease and starvation or seeing that the unwanted ones don’t get born in the first place?”

“Putting it that way sounds different. But aren’t you forgetting about natural law? Isn’t birth control a violation of that?”

“Darling, the history of medicine is the history of the violation of natural law. The Church — and that includes the Protestant as well as the Catholic — tried to stop the use of anesthetics because it was natural law for a woman to have pain while giving birth. And it was natural law for people to die of sickness. And natural law that the body not be cut open and repaired. There was even a guy named Bruno that got burned at the stake because he didn’t believe in absolute truth and natural laws like these. Everything was against natural law once, and now birth control has got to join the rest. Because all of our troubles today come from the fact that there are too many people in the world.”

“That’s too simple, Sol. Things aren’t really that black and white…”

“Oh yes they are, no one wants to admit it, that’s all. Look, we live in a lousy world today and our troubles come from only one reason. Too goddamn many people. Now, how come that for ninety-nine per cent of the time that people have been on this earth we never had any overpopulation problems?”

“I don’ know — I never thought about it.”

“You’re not the only one. The reason — aside from wars and floods and earthquakes, unimportant things like that — was that everybody was sick like dogs. A lot of babies died, a lot of kids died, and everybody else died young. A coolie in China living on nothing but polished rice used to die of old age before he was thirty. I heard that on TV last night, and I believe it. And one of the Senators read from a hornbook, that’s a schoolbook they used to have for kids back in colonial America, that said something like ‘be kind to your little sister or brother, he won’t be with you very long’. They bred like flies and died like flies. Infant mortality — boy! And not so long ago, I tell you. In 1949 after I got out of the Army, I was in Mexico. Babies there die from more diseases than you or I ever heard of. They never baptize the kids until after they are a year old because most of them are dead by that time and baptisms cost a lot of money. That’s why there never used to be a population problem. The whole world used to be one big Mexico, breeding and dying and just about staying even.”

“Then — what changed?”

“I’ll tell you what changed.” He shook the boot at her. “Modern medicine arrived. Everything had a cure. Malaria was wiped out along with all the other diseases that had been killing people young and keeping the population down. Death control arrived. Old people lived longer. More babies lived who would have died, and now they grow up into old people who live longer still. People are still being fed into the world just as fast — they’re just not being taken out of it at the same rate. Three are born for every two that die. So the population doubles and doubles — and keeps on doubling at a quicker rate all the time. We got a plague of people, a disease of people infesting the world. We got more people who are living longer. Less people have to be born, that’s the answer. We got death control — we got to match it with birth control.”

“I still don’t see how you can when people still think it has something to do with killing babies.”

“Stop with the dead babies!” Sol shouted, and heaved the boot the length of the room. “There are no babies involved in this — alive or dead — except in the pointed heads of the idiots who repeat what they have heard without understanding a word of it. Present company excepted,” he added in a not too sincere voice. “How can you kill something that never existed? We’re all winners in the ovarian derby, yet I never heard anyone crying about the — if you will excuse the biological term — the sperm who were the losers in the race.”

“Sol — what on earth are you talking about?”

“The ovarian derby. Every time an egg is fertilized there are a couple of million sperm swimming along, racing along trying to do the job. Only one of them can win the derby, since the very instant fertilization takes place all the rest of them are out in the cold. Does anyone give a damn about the millions of sperm that don’t make it? The answer is no. So what are all the complicated rhythm charts, devices, pills, caps and drugs that are used for birth control? Nothing but ways of seeing that one other sperm doesn’t make it either. So where do the babies come in? I don’t see any babies.”

“When you put it that way, I guess they don’t. But if it is that simple how come nothing was ever done before this?”

Sol breathed a long and tremulous sigh and gloomily retrieved the boot and went back to polishing it.

“Shirl,” he said, “if I could answer that they would probably make me President tomorrow. Nothing is ever that simple when it comes down to finding an answer. Everyone has got their own ideas and they push them and say to hell with everyone else. That’s the history of the human race. It got us on top, only now it is pushing us off. The thing is that people will put up with any kind of discomfort, and dying babies, and old age at thirty as long as it has always been that way. Try to get them to change and they fight you, even while they’re dying, saying it was good enough for grandpa so it’s good enough for me. Bango, dead. When the UN sprayed the houses with DDT in Mexico — to kill the mosquitoes who carried malaria that killed the people — they had to have soldiers hold the people back so they could spray. The locals didn’t like that white stuff on the furniture, didn’t look good. I saw it myself. But that was the rarity. Death control slid into the world mostly without people even knowing it. Doctors used better and better drugs, water supplies improved, public health people saw to it that diseases didn’t spread the way they used to. It came about almost naturally without hardly being noticed, and now we got too many people in the world. And something has to be done about it. But doing something means that people must change, make an effort, use their minds, which is what most people do not like to do.”

“Yet it does seem an intrusion of privacy, Sol. Telling people they can’t have any children.”

“Stop it! We’re almost back to the dead babies again! Birth control doesn’t mean no children. It just means that people have a choice how they want to live. Like rutting, unthinking, breeding animals — or like reasoning creatures. Will a married couple have one, two or three children — whatever number will keep the world population steady and provide a full life of opportunity for everyone? Or will they have four, five or six, unthinking and uncaring, and raise them in hunger and cold and misery? Like that world out there,” he added, pointing out of the window.

“If the world is like that — then everyone must be unthinking and selfish, like you say.”

“No — I think better of the human race. They’ve just never been told, they’ve been born animals and died animals, too many of them. I blame the stinking politicians and so-called public leaders who have avoided the issue and covered it up because it was controversial and what the hell, it will be years before it matters and I’m going to get mine now. So mankind gobbled in a century all the world’s resources that had taken millions of years to store up, and no one on the top gave a damn or listened to all the voices that were trying to warn them, they just let us overproduce and overconsume, until now the oil is gone, the topsoil depleted and washed away, the trees chopped down, the animals extinct, the earth poisoned, and all we have to show for this is seven billion people fighting over the scraps that are left, living a miserable existence — and still breeding without control. So I say the time has come to stand up and be counted.”

Sol pushed his feet into the boots, laced them up and tied them. He put on a heavy sweater, then took an ancient, moth-eaten battle jacket from the wardrobe. A row of ribbons drew a line of color across the olive drab, and under them were a sharpshooter’s medal and a technical-school badge. “It must have shrunk,” Sol said, grunting as he struggled to close it over his stomach. Then he wrapped a scarf around his neck and shrugged into his ancient, battered overcoat.

“Where are you going?” Shirl asked, baffled.

“To make a statement. To ask for trouble as our friend Andy told me. I’m seventy-five years old and I reached this venerable state by staying out of trouble, keeping my mouth shut and not volunteering, just like I learned in the Army. Maybe there were too many guys in the world like me, I don’t know. Maybe I should have made my protest a lot earlier, but I never saw anything I felt like protesting about — which I do now. The forces of darkness and the forces of light, they’re meeting today. I’m going to join with the forces of light” He jammed a woolen watch cap down over his ears and stalked to the door.

“Sol, what on earth are you talking about? Tell me, please,” Shirl begged, not knowing whether to laugh or to cry.

“There’s a rally. The Save Our Babies nuts are marching on City Hall, trying to lick the Emergency Bill. There’s another meeting, of people in favor of the bill, and the bigger the turnout there, the better. If enough people stand up and shout they might be heard, maybe the bill will get through Congress this time. Maybe.”

“Sol…” she called out, but the door was closed.

Andy brought him home, late that night, helping the two ambulance men carry the stretcher up the stairs. Sol was strapped to the stretcher, white faced and unconscious, breathing heavily.

“There was a street fight,” Andy said, “almost a riot when the march started. Sol was in it. He got knocked down. His hip is broken.” He looked at her, unsmiling and tired, as the stretcher was carried in.

“That can be very serious with old people,” he said.

5

There was a thin crust of ice on the water, and it crackled and broke when Billy pushed the can down through it. As he climbed back up the stairs he saw that another rusted metal step had been exposed. They had dipped a lot of water out of the compartment, but it still appeared to be at least half full.

“There’s a little ice on top, but I don’t think it can freeze all the way down solid,” he told Peter as he closed and dogged shut the door. “There’s still plenty of water there, plenty.”

He measured the water carefully every day and locked the door on it as though it were a bank vault full of money. Why not? It was as good as money. As long as the water shortage continued they could get a good price for it, all the D’s they needed to keep warm and eat well.

“How about that, Pete?” he said, hanging the can from the bracket over the seacoal fire. “Did you ever stop to think that we can eat this water? Because we can sell it and buy food, that’s why.”

Peter squatted on his hams, staring fixedly out the door, and paid no attention until Billy shouted to him and repeated what he had said. Peter shook his head, unhappily.

“Whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame,” he intoned. “I have explained to you, Billy, we are approaching the end of all material things. If you covet them you are lost…”

“So — are you lost? You’re wearing clothes bought with that water and eating the grub — so what do you mean?”

“I eat simply to exist for the Day,” he answered solemnly, squinting through the open door at the watery November sun. “We are so close, just a few weeks now, it is hard to believe. Soon it will be days. What a blessing that it should come during our lifetimes.” He pulled himself to his feet and went out; Billy could hear him climbing down to the ground.

“World coming to an end,” Billy muttered to himself as he stirred ener-G granules into the water. “Nuts, plain nuts.”

This wasn’t the first time he had thought that — but only to himself, never aloud in Peter’s hearing. Everything the man said did sound crazy but it could be true too. Peter could prove it with the Bible and other books, he didn’t have the books now, but he had read them so much he could recite whole long pieces out of them. Why couldn’t it be true? What other reason could there be for the world being like this? It hadn’t always been this way, the old films on TV proved that, yet it had changed so much so quickly. There had to be a reason, so maybe it was like Peter said, the world would end and New Year’s Day would be Doomsday…

“It’s a nutty idea,” he said out loud, but he shivered at the same time and held his hands over the smoking fire.

Things weren’t that bad. He was wearing two sweaters and an old suit jacket with pieces of inner tube sewed on to patch the elbows, warmer than anything he had ever worn before. And they ate well; he noisily sucked the ener-G broth from the spoon. Buying the Welfare cards had cost a lot of D’s but it was worth it, well worth it. They got Welfare food rations now, and even water rations so they could save their own water to sell. And he had been sniffing LSD dirt at least once a week. The world wasn’t going to come to an end for a long while yet. The hell with that, the world was all right as long as you kept your eyes open and looked out for yourself.

A jingling clank sounded outside, from one of the pieces of rusty metal hanging from the bare ribs of the ship. Anyone who tried to climb up to the cabin now had to push past these dangling obstacles and give clear warning of their approach. Since the discovery of the water they had to be wary of any others who might want to move in as occupants. Billy picked up the crowbar and walked to the door.

“I made us some food, Peter,” he said, leaning over the edge. A strange, bristle-bearded face looked up at him.

“Get down from there!” Billy shouted. The man mumbled something around the length of sharpened automobile leaf spring that he had clamped in his mouth, then hung by one hand and took out the weapon with his free hand.

“Bettyjo!” he shouted in a hoarse voice, and Billy jumped as something whizzed by his ear and crashed into the metal bulkhead behind him.

A squat woman with an immense tangle of blond hair stood among the ribs of the ship below, and Billy dodged as she hurled another lump of broken concrete at him, “Go on, Donald!” she screeched. “Get up there!”

A second man, hairy and filthy enough to be a twin to the first one, scrambled over the rusty metal and began to climb up on the other side of the ship. Billy saw the trap at once. He could brain anyone who tried to get to the strip of deck in front of the door — but only one at a time. He couldn’t guard both sides at once. While he was beating off one attacker the other would climb up behind him.

“Peter!” he shouted as loud as he could. “Peter!”

Another piece of concrete burst into dust behind him. He ran to the edge and swung his crowbar at the first man, who bent lower and let it clang against the beam above his head. The noise gave Billy an idea and he jumped back and pounded his crowbar against the metal wall of the deckhouse until the hammering boom rolled out across the shipyard. “Peter!” he shouted once more, desperately, then leaped for the other end where the second man had thrown an arm over the edge. The man withdrew it hurriedly and swung down out of range of his weapon, jeering up at him.

When Billy turned back he saw that the first man had both arms over the edge and was pulling himself up. Screaming, more afraid than angry, Billy ran at him swinging down his crowbar; it grazed the man’s head and thudded into his shoulder, knocking the auto spring out of his mouth at the same time. The man roared with rage but did not fall. Billy swung his weapon up for another blow but found himself caught roughly from behind by the second man. He couldn’t move — could scarcely breathe — as the man before him spat out fragments of teeth. Blood ran down into his beard and he gurgled as he pulled himself all the way up and began beating Billy with granite fists. Billy howled with pain, lashed out with his feet, tried to break free, but there was no escape. The two men, laughing now, pushed him over the edge of the deck, prying at his clutching hands, sending him toward destruction on the jagged metal twenty feet below.

He was hanging by his hands as they stamped at his fingers when they suddenly jumped back. This was the first that Billy realized Peter had returned and climbed up behind him, swinging his length of pipe at the two men above. In the moment’s respite Billy transferred his grip to the skeletal side of the ship and eased his aching body toward the ground that looked impossibly far below. The invaders had occupied the ship and had the advantage now. Peter dodged a swing of the leaf spring and joined Billy in a retreat to the ground. Words penetrated and Billy realized that the woman was screaming curses, and had been for some time.

“Kill ’em both!” she shouted. “He hit me, knocked me down. Kill ’em !” She was hurling lumps of concrete again, but was so carried away by rage that none of them came close. When Peter and Billy reached the ground she waddled quickly away, calling curses over her shoulder, her mass of yellow hair flying around her head. The two men above blinked down at them, but said nothing. They had done their job. They were in possession of the ship.

“We shall leave,” Peter said, putting his arm around Billy to help him walk, using his pipe as a staff to lean upon. “They are strong and have the ship now — and the water. And they are wise enough to guard it well, at least the harlot Bettyjo is. I know her, a woman of evil who gives her body to those two so they will do what she asks. Yes, it is a sign. She is a harlot of Babylon, displacing us…”

“We have to get back in,” Billy gasped.

“…showing us that we must go to the greater harlot of Babylon, there across the river. There is no turning back.”

Billy sank to the ground, gasping for breath and trying to knead some of the pain from his fingers, while Peter calmly looked back at the ship that had been their home and fortune. Three small figures capered on the high deck and their jeers came faintly through the cold wind from the bay. Billy began to shiver.

“Come,” Peter said gently, and helped him to his feet “There is no place to stay here, no dwelling any more. I know where we can get shelter in Manhattan, I have been there many times before.”

“I don’t want to go there,” Billy said, drawing back, remembering the police.

“We must. We will be safe there.”

Billy walked slowly after him. Why not? he thought; the cops would have forgotten about him a long time ago. It might be all right, specially if Peter knew some place to go. If he stayed here he would have to stay alone; the fear of that was greater than any remembered fear of the police. They would make out as long as they stuck together.

They were halfway across Manhattan Bridge before Billy realized that one of his pockets had been torn away in the fight. “Wait,” he called to Peter, then, more frightened, “wait!” as he searched through his clothing in growing panic. “They’re gone,” he finally said, leaning against the railing. “The Welfare cards. They must have got lost during the fight. Maybe you have them?”

“No, as you recall, you took them to get the water yesterday. They are not important.”

“Not important!” Billy sobbed.

They had the bridge to themselves, an aching winter aloneness. The color of the slate-gray water below was reflected in the lowering clouds above, which were driven along by the icy wind that cut sharply through their clothes. It was too cold to stay and Billy started forward, Peter followed.

“Where are we going?” Billy asked when they came off the bridge and turned down Division Street. It seemed a little warmer here, surrounded by the shuffling crowds. He always felt better with people around.

“To the lots. There are a large number of them near the housing developments,” Peter said.

“You’re nuts, the lots are full, they always have been.”

“Not this time of year,” Peter answered, pointing to the filthy ice that filled the gutter. “Living in the lots is never easy, and this time of year it is particularly hard for the older people and invalids.”

It was only on the television screen that Billy had seen the streets of the city filled with cars. For him it was a historical — and therefore uninteresting — fact, because the lots had been there for as long as he could remember, a permanent and decaying part of the landscape. As traffic had declined and operating automobiles became rarer, there was no longer a need for the hundreds of parking lots scattered about the city. They began to gradually fill up with abandoned cars, some hauled there by the police and others pushed in by hand. Each lot was now a small village with people living in every car because, uncomfortable as the cars were, they were still better than the street. Though each car had long since had its full quota of inhabitants, vacancies occurred in the whiter when the weaker ones died.

They started to work their way through the big lot behind the Seward Park Houses, but were driven off by a gang of teen-agers armed with broken bricks and homemade knives. Walking down Madison Street, they saw that the fence around the small park next to the La Guardia Houses had been pushed down years earlier, and that the park was now filled with the rusting, wheelless remains of cars. There were no aggressive teen-agers here and the few people walking about had a shuffling, hopeless look. Smoke rose from only one of the chimneys that projected from most of the automobiles. Peter and Billy pushed their way between the cars, peering in through windshields and cracked windows, scraping clear patches in the frost when they couldn’t see in. Pale, ghostlike faces turned to look up at them or forms stirred inside as they worked their way through the lot.

“This looks like a good one,” Billy said, pointing to a hulking ancient Buick turbine sedan with its brake drums half sunk into the dirt. The windows were heavily frosted on both sides, and there was only silence from inside when they tried all the locked doors. “I wonder how they get in?” Billy said, then climbed up on the hood. There was a sliding sunroof over the front seat and it moved a little when he pushed at it. “Bring the pipe up here, this might be it,” he called down to Peter.

The cover shifted when they levered at it with the pipe, then slid back. The gray light poured down on the face and staring eyes of an old man. He had an evil-looking club clutched in one band, a bar of some kind bound about with lengths of knotted cord that held shards of broken, pointed glass into place. He was dead.

“He must have been tough to hold on to a big car like this all by himself,” Billy said.

He was a big man and stiff with the cold and they had to work hard to get him up through the opening. They had no need for the filthy rags bound around him, though they did take his Welfare card. Peter dragged him out to the street for the Department of Sanitation to find, while Billy waited inside the car, standing with his head out of the opening, glowering in all directions, the glass-studded club ready if anyone wanted to dispute the occupation of their new home.

6

“My, that does look good,” Mrs. Miles said, waiting at the end of the long counter, watching as the Welfare clerk slid the small package across the counter to Shirl. “Someone sick in your fambly?”

“Where’s the old package, lady?” the clerk complained. “You know you don’t get the new one without turning in the old. And three D’s.”

“I’m sorry,” Shirl said, taking the crumpled plastic envelope from her shopping bag and handing it to him along with the money. He grumbled something and made a check on one of his record boards. “Next,” he called out.

“Yes,” Shirl told Mrs. Miles, who was squinting at the package and shaping the words slowly with her mouth as she spelled out the printing on it. “It’s Sol, he had an accident. He shares the apartment with us and he must be over seventy. He broke his hip and can’t get out of bed! This is for him.”

“Meat flakes, that sure sounds nice,” Mrs. Miles said, handing back the package and following it with her eyes as it vanished into Shirl’s bag. “How do you cook them?”

“You can do whatever you like with them, but I make a thick soup with weedcrumbs, it’s easier to eat that way. Sol can’t sit up at all.”

“A man like that should be in the hospital, specially when he’s so old.”

“He was in the hospital, but there’s no room at all now. As soon as they found out he lived in an apartment they got in touch with Andy and made him take Sol home. Anyone who has a place they can go to has to leave. Bellevue is full up and they have been taking over whole units in Peter Cooper Village and putting in extra beds, but there still isn’t room enough.” Shirl realized that there was something different about Mrs. Miles today: this was the first time she had seen her without the little boy in tow. “How is Tommy — is he worse?”

“No better, no worse. Kwash stays the same all the time, which is okay because I keep drawing the ration.” She pointed to the plastic cup in her bag, into which had been dropped a small dollop of peanut butter. “Tommy gotta stay home while the weather is so cold, there ain’t enough clothes for all the kids to go around, not with Winny going out to school every day. She’s smart. She’s going to finish the whole three years. I haven’t seen you at the water ration a long time now.”

“Andy goes to get it, I have to stay with Sol.”

“You’re lucky having someone sick in the house, you can get in here for a ration. It’s going to be weedcrackers and water for the rest of the city this whiter, that’s for sure.”

Lucky? Shirl thought, knotting her kerchief under her chin, looking around the dark bare room of the Welfare Special Ration section. The counter divided the room in half, with the clerks and the tiers of half-empty shelves on one side, the shuffling lines of people on the other. Here were the tight-drawn faces and trembling limbs of the sick, the ones in need of special diets. Diabetics, chronic invalids, people with deficiency diseases and the numerous pregnant women. Were these the lucky ones?

“What you going to have for dinner tomorrow?” Mrs. Miles asked, peering through the dirt-filmed window, trying to see the sky outside.

“I don’t know, the same as always I guess. Why?”

“It might snow. Maybe we might have a white Thanksgiving like we used to have when I was a little girl. We’re going to have a fish, I been saving for it. Tomorrow’s Thursday, the twenty-fifth of November. Didn’t you remember?”

Shirl shook her head. “I guess not. Things have been turned upside down since Sol has been sick.”

They walked, heads lowered to escape the blast of the wind, and when they turned the corner from Ninth Avenue into Nineteenth Street, Shirl walked into someone coming in the opposite direction, jarring the woman back against the wall.

“I’m sorry,” Shirl said. “I didn’t see you…”

“You’re not blind,” the other woman snapped. “Walking around running into people.” Her eyes widened as she looked at Shirl. “You!”

“I said I was sorry, Mrs. Haggerty. It was an accident.” She started to walk on but the other woman stepped in front of her, blocking her way.

“I knew I’d find you,” Mrs. Haggerty said triumphantly. “I’m going to have the court of law on you, you stole all my brother’s money and he didn’t leave me none, none at all. Not only that but all the bills I had to pay, the water bill, everything. They were so high I had to sell all the furniture to pay them, and it still wasn’t enough and they’re after me for the rest. You’re going to pay!”

Shirl remembered Andy taking the showers and something of her thoughts must have shown on her face because Mary Haggerty’s shout rose to a shrill screech.

“Don’t laugh at me, I’m an honest woman! A thing like you can’t stand in a public street smiling at me. The whole world knows what you are, you…”

Her voice was cut off by a sharp crack as Mrs. Miles slapped her hard across the face. “Just hold on to that duty tongue, girlie,” Mrs. Miles said. “No one talks to a friend of mine like that.”

“You can’t do that to me!” Mike’s sister shrieked.

“I already done it — and you’ll get more if you keep hanging around here.”

The two women faced each other and Shirl was forgotten for the moment. They were alike in years and background, though Mary Haggerty had come up a bit in the world since she had been married. But she had grown up in these streets and she knew the rules. She had to either fight or back down.

“This is none of your business,” she said.

“I’m making it my business,” Mrs. Miles said, balling her fist and cocking back her arm.

“It’s none of your business,” Mike’s sister said, but she scuttled backward a few steps at the same time.

“Blow!” Mrs. Miles said triumphantly.

“You’re going to hear from me again!” Mary Haggerty called over her shoulder as she drew together the shreds of her dignity and stalked away. Mrs. Miles laughed coldly and spat after the receding back.

“I’m sorry to get you involved,” Shirl said.

“My pleasure,” Mrs. Miles said. “I wish she really had started some trouble. I would have slugged her. I know her kind.”

“I really don’t owe her any money…”

“Who cares? It would be better if you did. It would be a pleasure to stiff someone like that.”

Mrs. Miles left her in front of her building and stamped solidly away into the dusk. Suddenly weary, Shirl climbed the long flights to the apartment and pushed through the unlocked door.

“You look bushed,” Sol told her. He was heaped high with blankets and only his face showed; his woolen watch cap was pulled down over his ears. “And turn that thing off, will you. It’s an even chance whether I go blind or deaf first.”

Shirl put down her bag and switched off the blaring TV. “It’s getting cold out,” she said. “It’s even cold in here. I’ll make a fire and heat some soup at the same time.”

“Not more of that drecky meat flake stuff,” Sol complained, and made a face.

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” Shirl said patiently. “It’s real meat, just what you need.”

“What I need, you can’t get any more. Do you know what meat flakes are? I heard all about it on TV today, not that I wanted to but how could I turn the damn thing off? A big sales pitch program on taming the wilds in Florida. Some wilds, they should hear about that in Miami Beach. They stopped trying to drain all the swamps and are doing all kinds of fancy things with them instead. Snail ranches — how do you like that? Raising the giant West African snail, three-quarters of a pound of meat in every shell. Plucked, cut, dehydrated, radiated, packed and sealed and sent to the starving peasants here in the frigid North. Meat flakes. What do you think of that?”

“It sounds very nice,” Shirl said, stirring the brown, woodlike chips of meat into the pot. “I saw a movie once on TV where they were eating snails, in France I think it was. They were supposed to be something very special.”

“For Frenchmen maybe, not for me…” Sol broke into a fit of coughing that left him weak and white faced on the pillow, breathing rapidly.

“Do you want a drink of water?” Shirl asked.

“No — that’s all right.” His anger seemed to have drained away with the coughing. “I’m sorry to take it out on you, kid, you taking care of me and everything. It’s just that I’m not used to lying around. I stayed in shape all my life, regular exercise that’s the answer, looked after myself, never asked anybody for anything. But there’s one thing you can’t stop.” He looked down gloomily at the bed. “Time marches on. The bones get brittle. Fall down and bango, they got you in a cast to your chin.”

“The soup’s ready—”

“Not right now, I’m not hungry. Maybe you could turn on the TV — no, leave it off. I had enough. On the news they said that it looks like the Emergency Bill is going to pass after only a couple of months of yakking in Congress. I don’t believe it. Too many people don’t know about it or don’t care about it, so there is no real pressure on Congress to do anything about it. We still have women with ten kids who are starving to death, who believe there is something evil about having smaller families. I suppose we can mostly blame the Catholics for that, they’re still not completely convinced that controlling births is a good thing.”

“Sol, please, don’t be anti-Catholic. My mother’s family…”

“I’m not being anti-nothing, and I love your mother’s family. Am I anti-Puritan because I say Cotton Mather was a witch-burning bum who helped to cook old ladies? That’s history. Your Church has gone on record and fought publicly against any public birth control measures. That’s history too. The results — which prove them wrong — are just outside that window. They have forced their beliefs on the rest of us so we’re all going down the drain together.”

“It’s not really that bad. The Church is not really against the idea of birth control, just the way it is done. They have always approved of the rhythm technique…”

“Not good enough. Neither is the Pill, not for everybody. When are they going to say okay to the Loop? This is the one that really works. And do you know how long it has been around and absolutely foolproof and safe and harmless and all the rest? Since 1964, when the bright boys at Johns Hopkins licked all the problems and side effects, that’s how long. For thirty-five years they’ve had this little piece of plastic that costs maybe a couple of cents. Once inserted it stays in for years, it doesn’t interfere with any of the body processes, it doesn’t fall out, in fact the woman doesn’t even know it is there — but as long as it is she is not going to get pregnant. Remove it and she can have kids again, nothing is changed. And the funny part is that no one is even sure how it works. It’s a mystery. Maybe it should be spelled with a capital M, Mystery, so your Church could accept it and say it’s God’s will whether the thing is going to work or not.”

“Sol — you’re being blasphemous.”

“Me? Never! But I got just as much right as the next guy to take a guess as to what God is thinking. Anyway, it really has nothing to do with Him. I’m just trying to find an excuse for the Catholic Church to accept the thing and give the suffering human race a break.”

“They’re considering it now.”

“That’s great. They’re only about thirty-five years too late. Still, it might work out, though I doubt it It’s the old business of too little and too late. The world’s gone — not going — to hell in a hand basket, and it’s all of us who pushed it there.”

Shirl stirred the soup and smiled at him. “Aren’t you exaggerating maybe a little bit? You can’t really blame all our troubles on overpopulation.”

“I damned well can, if you’ll pardon the expression. The coal that was supposed to last for centuries has all been dug up because so many people wanted to keep warm. And the oil too, there’s so little left that they can’t afford to burn it, it’s got to be turned into chemicals and plastics and stuff. And the rivers — who polluted them? The water — who drank it? The topsoil — who wore it out? Everything has been gobbled up, used up, worn out. What we got left — our one natural resource? Old-car lots, that’s what. Everything else has been used up and all we got to show for it is a couple of billion old cars that are rusting away. One time we had the whole world in our hands, but we ate it and burned it and it’s gone now. One time the prairie was black with buffalo, that’s what my schoolbooks said when I was a kid, but I never saw them because they had all been turned into steaks and moth-eaten rugs by that time. Do you think that made any impression on the human race? Or the whales and passenger pigeons and whooping cranes, or any of the hundred other species that we wiped out? In a pig’s eye it did. In the fifties and the sixties there was a lot of talk about building atomic power plants to purify sea water so the desert would bloom and all that jazz. But it was just talk. Just because some people saw the handwriting on the wall didn’t mean they could get anyone else to read it too. It takes at least five years to build just one atomic plant, so the ones that should have supplied the water and electricity we need now should have been built then. They weren’t. Simple enough.”

“You make it sound simple, Sol, but isn’t it too late to worry about what people should have done a hundred years ago?”

“Forty, but who’s counting.”

“What can we do today? Isn’t that what we should be thinking about?”

“You think about it, honeybunch, I get gloomy when I do. Run full speed ahead just to stay even, and keep our fingers crossed, that’s what we can do today. Maybe I live in the past, and if I do I got good reasons. Things were a lot better then, and the trouble would always be coming tomorrow, so the hell with it. There was France, a great big modern country, home of culture, ready to lead the world in progress. Only they had a law that made birth control illegal, and it was a crime for even doctors to talk about contraception. Progress! The facts were clear enough if anybody had bothered to look. The conservationists kept telling us to change our ways or our resources would soon be gone. They’re gone. It was almost too late then, but something could have been done. Women in every country in the world were begging for birth control information so they could limit the size of their families to something reasonable. All they got was a lot of talk and damn little action. If there had been five thousand family-planning clinics for every one there was it still wouldn’t have been enough. Babies and love and sex are probably the most emotionally important and the most secret things known to mankind, so open discussion was almost impossible. There should have been free discussion, tons of money for fertility research, world-wide family planning, educational programs on the importance of population control — and most important of all, free speech for free opinion. But there never was, and now it is 1999 and the end of the century. Some century! Well, there’s a new century coming up in a couple of weeks, and maybe it really will be a new century for the knocked-out human race. I doubt it — and I don’t worry about it. I won’t be here to see it”

“Sol — you shouldn’t talk like that.”

“Why not? I got an incurable disease. Old age.”

He started coughing again, longer this time, and when he was through he just lay on the bed, exhausted. Shirl came over to straighten his blankets and tuck them back in, and her hand touched his. Her eyes opened wide and she gasped.

“You’re warm — hot. Do you have a fever?”

“Fever?” He started to chuckle but it turned to a fit of coughing that left him weaker than before. When he spoke again it was in a low voice. “Look, darling, I’m an old cocker. I’m flat on my back in bed all busted up and I can’t move and it’s cold enough to freeze a brass monkey in here. The least I should get is bedsores, but the chances are a lot better that I get pneumonia.”

“No!”

“Yes. You don’t get anywheres running away from the truth. If I got it, I got it. Now, be a good girl and eat the soup, I’m not hungry, and I’ll take a little nap.” He closed his eyes and settled his head into the pillow.

It was after seven that evening when Andy came home. Shirl recognized his footsteps in the hall and met him with her finger to her lips, then led him quietly toward the other room, pointing to Sol, who was still asleep and breathing rapidly.

“How is he feeling?” Andy asked, unbuttoning his sodden topcoat. “What a night out, rain mixed with sleet and snow.”

“He has a fever,” Shirl said, her fingers twisting together. “He says that it’s pneumonia. Can it be? What can we do?”

Andy stopped, halfway out of his coat. “Does he feel very warm? Has he been coughing?” he asked. Shirl nodded. Andy opened the door and listened to Sol’s breathing, then closed it again silently and put his coat back on.

“They warned me about this at the hospital,” he said. “There’s always a chance with old people who have to stay in bed. I have some antibiotic pills they gave me. We’ll give those to him, then I’ll go to Bellevue to see if I can get some more — and see if they won’t readmit him. He should be in an oxygen tent.”

Sol barely woke up when he swallowed the pills, and his skin felt burning hot to Shirl when she held up his head. He was still asleep when Andy returned, less than an hour later. Andy’s face was empty of expression, unreadable, what she always thought of as his professional face. It could mean only one thing.

“No more antibiotics,” he whispered. “Because of the flu epidemic. The same with the oxygen tents and the beds. None available, filled up. I never even saw any of the doctors, just the girl at the desk.”

“They can’t do that. He’s terribly sick. It’s like murder.”

“If you go into Bellevue it looks as though half the city is sick, people everywhere, even in the street outside. There just isn’t enough medicine to go around, Shirl. I think just the children are getting it, everyone else has to take their chances.”

“Take their chances!” She leaned her face against his wet coat and began to sob helplessly. “But there is no chance at all here. It’s murder. An old man like that, he needs some help, he just can’t be left to die.”

He held her to him. “We’re here and we can look after him. There are still four of the tablets left. We’ll do everything that we can. Now come inside and lie down. You’re going to get sick too if you don’t take better care of yourself.”

7

“No, Rusch, impossible. Can’t be done — and you should know better than to ask me.” Lieutenant Grassioli held his knuckle against the corner of his eye, but it did not stop the twitching.

“I’m sorry, lieutenant,” Andy said. “I’m not asking for myself. It’s a family problem. I’ve been on duty nine hours now and I’ll take double tours the rest of the week—”

“A police officer is on duty twenty-four hours a day.”

Andy held tight to his temper. “I know that, sir. I’m not trying to avoid anything.”

“No. Now that’s the end of it.”

“Then let me off for a half an hour. I just want to go to my place, then I’ll report right back to you. After that I can work through until the day-duty men come on. You’re going to be shorthanded here after midnight anyway, and if I stay around I can finish off those reports that Centre Street has been after all week.”

It would mean working twice around the clock without any rest, but this would be the only way to get any grudging aid out of Grassy. The lieutenant couldn’t order him to work hours like this — if it wasn’t an emergency — but he could use the help. Most of the detective staff had been turned out again on riot duty so that the routine work had fallen far behind. Headquarters on Centre Street did not think this a valid excuse.

“I never ask a man to do extra duty,” Grassioli said, grabbing the bait. “But I believe in fair play, give and take. You can take a half an hour now — but no more, understand — and make it up when you come back. If you want to stay around later, that’s your choice.”

“Yes, sir,” Andy said. Some choice. He was going to be here when the sun came up.

The rain that had been falling for the past three days had turned to snow, big, slow flakes that fell silently through the wide-spaced pools of light along Twenty-third Street. There were few other pedestrians, though there were still dark figures curled up in knots around the supporting pillars of the expressway. Their crowded numbers, along with the other citizens of the city, pressed out from the buildings with an almost tangible presence. Behind every wall were hundreds of people, seen now only as dark shapes in doorways or the sudden silhouette against a window. Andy lowered his head to keep the snow out of his face and walked faster, worry pushing him on until he had to slow down, panting to catch his breath.

Shirl hadn’t wanted him to leave that morning, but he had no other choice. Sol had been no better — or worse — than he had been for the past three days. Andy would have liked to have stayed with him, to help Shirl, but he had no choice. He had to leave, he was on duty. She had not understood this and they had almost fought over it, in whispers so that Sol wouldn’t hear. He had hoped to be back early, but the riot duty had taken care of that. At least he could look in for a few minutes, talk to them both, see if he could help in any way. He knew it wasn’t easy for Shirl to be alone with the sick old man — but what else was there to do?

Music and the canned laughter of television sounded from most of the doors along the hall, but his own apartment was silent; he felt a sudden cold premonition. He unlocked the door and opened it quietly. The room was dark.

“Shirl?” he whispered. “Sol?”

There was no answer, and something about the silence struck him at once. Where was the fast, rasping breathing that had filled the room? His flashlight whirred and the beam struck across the room and moved to the bed, to Sol’s still, pale face. He looked as though he were sleeping quietly, perhaps he was, yet Andy knew — even before his fingertips touched — that the skin would be cold and that Sol was dead.

Oh, God, he thought, she was alone with him here, in the dark, while he died.

He suddenly became aware of the almost soundless, heartbreaking sobbing from the other side of the partition.

8

“I don’t want to hear about it any more!” Billy shouted, but Peter kept talking just as if Billy hadn’t been there, lying right next to him, and hadn’t said a word.

“ ‘…and I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea,’ that is the way it is written in Revelation, the truth is there if we look for it. A revelation to us, a glimpse of tomorrow…”

“SHUT UP!”

It had no effect, and the monotonous voice went on steadily, against the background of the wind that swept around the old car and keened in through the cracks and holes. Billy pulled a corner of the dusty cover over his head to deaden the sound, but it didn’t help much and he could hardly breathe. He slipped it below his chin and stared up at the gray darkness inside the car, trying to ignore the man beside him. With the seats removed the sedan made a single, not too spacious room. They slept side by side on the floor, seeking what warmth they could from the tattered mound of firewall insulation, cushion stuffing and rumpled plastic seat covering that made up their bedding. There was the sudden reek of iodine and smoke as the wind blew down the exhaust-pipe chimney and stirred the ashes in the trunk, which they used for a stove. The last chunk of seacoal had been burned a week before.

Billy had slept, he didn’t know how long, until Peter’s droning voice had wakened him. He was sure now that the man was out of his head, talking to himself most of the time. Billy felt stifled by the walls and the dust, the closeness and the meaningless words that battered at him and filled the car. Getting to his knees, he turned the crank, lowered the rear window an inch and put his mouth to the opening, breathing in the cold freshness of the air. Something brushed against his lips, wetting them. He bent his head to look out through the opening and could see the white shapes of snowflakes drifting down.

“I’m going out,” he said as he closed the window, but Peter gave no sign that he had heard him. “I’m going out. It stinks in here.” He picked up the poncho made from the plastic covering that had been stripped from the front seat of the Buick, put his head through the opening in the center and wrapped it around him. When he unlocked the rear door and pushed it open a swirl of snow came in. “It stinks in here, and you stink — and I think you’re nuts.” Billy climbed out and slammed the door behind him.

When the snow touched the ground it melted, but it was piling up on the rounded humps of the automobiles. Billy scraped a handful from the hood of their car and put it in his mouth. Nothing moved in the darkness and, except for the muffled whisper of the falling snow, the night was silent. Picking his way through the white-shrouded cars he went to Canal Street and turned west toward the Hudson River. The street was strangely empty, it must be very late, and the occasional pedicab that passed could be heard a long way off by the hissing of its tires. He stopped at the Bowery and watched in a doorway as a convoy of five tugtrucks went past, guards walked on both sides and the tugmen were bent double as they dragged at the loads. Must be something valuable, Billy thought, food probably. His empty stomach grumbled painfully at this reminder and he kneaded it with his fingers. It was going on two whole days since he had last eaten. There was more snow here, clumped on an iron fence, and as he passed he scraped it off and wadded it into a ball that he put into his mouth. When he came to Elizabeth Street he crossed over and peered up at the spring-powered clock mounted on the front of the Chinese Community Center building, and he could just make out the hands. It was a little after three o’clock. That meant there were at least three or four more hours before it got light, plenty of time to get uptown and back.

As long as he was walking he felt warm enough, though the snow melted and ran down inside his clothes. But it was a long way up to Twenty-third Street and he was very tired; he had not eaten much the last few weeks. Twice he halted to rest, but the cold bit through him as soon as he stopped moving, and after only a few minutes he struggled to his feet and went on. The farther north he walked, the larger the fear became.

Why shouldn’t I come up here? he asked himself, looking around unhappily at the darkness. The cops have forgotten all about me by now. It was too long ago, it was — he counted off on his fingers — four months ago, going on five now in December. Cops never followed a case more than a couple of weeks, not unless somebody shot the mayor or stole a million D’s or something. As long as no one saw him he was safe as houses. Twice before he had come north, but as soon as he had got near the old neighborhood he had stopped. It wasn’t raining hard enough or there were too many people around or something. But tonight was different, the snow was like a wall around him — it seemed to be coming down heavier — and he wouldn’t be seen. He would get to the Columbia Victory and go down to the apartment and wake them up. They were his family, they would be glad to see him, no matter what he had done, and he could explain that it was all a frameup, he wasn’t guilty. And food! He spat into the darkness. They had rations for four and his mother always hoarded some of it. He would eat his fill. Oatmeal, slabs of it, maybe even fresh cooked and hot. Clothes too, his mother must still have all of his clothes. He would put on some warm things and get the pair of heavy shoes that had been his father’s. There was no risk, no one would know he had been there. Just stay a few minutes, a half an hour at the most, then get out. It would be worth it.

At Twentieth Street” he crossed under the elevated highway and worked his way out on Pier 61. The barnlike building of the pier was jammed full of people and he did not dare pass through it. But a narrow ledge ran around the outside, on top of the row of piles, and he knew it well, though this was the first time he had ever gone there at night — with the ledge slippery with moist snow. He sidled along, feeling for each step with his back to the building, hearing the slapping of waves against the piles below. If he fell in there would be no way to get back up, it would be a cold, wet death. Shivering, he slid his foot forward and almost tripped over a thick mooring line. Above him, almost invisible in the darkness, was the rusty flank of the outermost hulk of Shiptown. This was probably the longest way to get to the Columbia Victory, which meant it would be the safest. There was no one in sight as he eased up the gangplank and onto the deck.

As he crossed the floating city of ships Billy had the sudden feeling that it was going to be all right. The weather was on his side, snowing just as hard as ever, wrapping around and protecting him. And he had the ships to himself, no one else was topside, no one saw him pass. He had it all figured out, he had been preparing for this night for a long time. If he went down the passageway he might be heard while he was trying to wake someone inside his apartment, but he wasn’t that stupid. When he reached the deck he stopped and took out the braided wire he had made weeks earlier by splicing together the ignition wires from a half-dozen old cars. At the end of the wire was a heavy bolt. He carefully payed it out until the bolt reached the window of the compartment where his mother and sister slept. Then, swinging it out and back, he let it knock against the wooden cover that sealed the window. The tiny sound was muffled by the snow, lost among the creakings and rattlings of the anchored fleet. But inside the room it would sound loud enough, it would wake someone up.

Less than a minute after he started the thumping he heard a rattle below and the cover moved, then vanished inside. He pulled up the wire as a dark blur of a head protruded through the opening.

“What is it? Who is there?” his sister’s voice whispered.

“The eldest brother,” he hissed back in Cantonese. “Open the door and let me in.”

9

“I feel so bad about Sol,” Shirl said. “It seems so cruel.”

“Don’t,” Andy said, holding her close in the warmth of the bed and kissing her. “I don’t think he felt as unhappy about it as you do. He was an old man, and in his life he saw and did a lot. For him everything was in the past and I don’t think he was very happy with the world the way it is today. Look — isn’t that sunshine? I think the snow has stopped and the weather is clearing up.”

“But dying like that was so useless, if he hadn’t gone to that demonstration—”

“Come on, Shirl, don’t beat it. What’s done is done. Why don’t you think about today? Can you imagine Grassy giving me a whole day off — just out of sympathy?”

“No. He’s a terrible man. I’m sure he had some other reason and you’ll find out about it when you go in tomorrow.”

“Now you sound like me,” he laughed. “Let’s have some breakfast and think about all the good things we want to do today.”

Andy went in and lit the fire while she dressed, then checked the room again to make sure that he had put all of Sol’s things out of sight. The clothes were in the wardrobe and he had swept shelves clear and stuffed the books in on top of the clothes. There was nothing he could do about the bed, but he pulled the cover up and put the pillow in the wardrobe too so that it looked more like a couch. Good enough. In the next few weeks he would get rid of the things one by one in the flea market; the books should bring a good price. They would eat better for a while and Shirl wouldn’t have to know where the extra money came from.

He was going to miss Sol, he knew that. Seven years ago, when he had first rented the room, it had been just a convenient arrangement for both of them. Sol had explained later that rising food prices had forced him to divide the room and let out half, but he didn’t want to share it with just any bum. He had gone to the precinct and told them about the vacancy. Andy, who had been living in the police barracks, had moved in at once. So Sol had had his money — and an armed protection at the same time. There had been no friendship in the beginning, but this had come. They had become close in spite of their difference in ages: Think young, be young, Sol had always said, and he had lived up to his own rule. It was funny how many things Sol had said that Andy could remember. He was going to keep on remembering these things. He wasn’t going to get sentimental over it — Sol would have been the first one to laugh at that, and give what he called his double razzberry — but he wasn’t going to forget him.

The sun was coming in the window now and, between that and the stove, the chill was gone and the room was comfortable. Andy switched on the TV and found some music, not the kind of thing he liked, but Shirl did, so he kept it on. It was something called The Fountains of Rome, the title was on the screen, superimposed on a picture of the bubbling fountains. Shirl came in, brushing her hair and he pointed to it.

“Doesn’t it give you a thirst, all that splashing water?” Andy asked.

“Makes me want to take a shower. I bet I smell something terrible.”

“Sweet as perfume,” he said, watching her with pleasure as she sat on the windowsill, still brushing her hair, the sun touching it with golden highlights. “How would you like to go on a train ride — and a picnic today?” he asked suddenly.

“Stop it! I can’t take jokes before breakfast.”

“No, I mean it. Move aside for a second.” He leaned close to the window and squinted out at the ancient thermometer that Sol had nailed to the wooden frame outside. Most of the paint and numbers had flaked away, but Sol had scratched new ones on in their place. “It’s fifty already — in the shade — and I bet it goes up close to fifty-five today. When you get this kind of weather in December in New York — grab it. There might be five feet of snow tomorrow. We can use the last of the soypaste to make sandwiches. The water train leaves at eleven, and we can ride in the guard car.”

“Then you meant it?”

“Of course, I don’t joke about this kind of thing. A real excursion to the country. I told you about the trip I made, when I was with the guard last week. The train goes up along the Hudson River to Croton-on-Hudson, where the tank cars are filled. This takes about two, three hours. I’ve never seen it, but they say you can walk over to Croton Point Park — it’s right out in the river — and they still have some real trees there. If it’s warm enough we can have our picnic, then go back on the train. What do you say?”

“I say it sounds wonderfully impossible and unbelievable. I’ve never been that far from the city since I was a little girl, it must be miles and miles. When do we go?”

“Just as soon as we have some breakfast. I’ve already put the oatmeal up — and you might stir it a bit before it burns.”

“Nothing can burn on a seacoal fire.” But she went to the stove and took care of the pot as she said it. He didn’t remember when he had seen her smiling and happy like this; it was almost like the summer again.

“Don’t be a pig and eat all the oatmeal,” she said. “I can use that corn oil — I knew I was saving it for something important — and fry up oatmeal cakes for the picnic too.”

“Make them good and salty, we can drink all the water we want up there.”

Andy pulled the chair out for Shirl so that she sat with her back to Sol’s charging bicycle; there was no point in her seeing something that might remind her of what had happened. She was laughing now, talking about their plans for the day, and he didn’t want to change it. It was going to be something special, they were both sure of that.

There was a quick rap on the door while they were packing in the lunch, and Shirl gasped. “The callboy — I knew it! You’re going to have to work today…”

“Don’t worry about that,” Andy smiled. “Grassy won’t go back on his word. And besides, that’s not the callboy’s knock. If there is one sound I know it’s his bam-bam-bam.”

Shirl forced a smile and went to unlock the door while he finished wrapping the lunch.

“Tab!” she said happily. “You’re the last person in the world… Come in, it’s wonderful to see you. It’s Tab Fielding,” she said to Andy.

“Morning, Miss Shirl,” Tab said stolidly, staying in the hall. “I’m sorry, but this is no social call. I’m on the job now.”

“What is it?” Andy asked, walking over next to Shirl.

“You have to realize I take the work that is offered to me,” Tab said. He was unsmiling and gloomy. “I’ve been in the bodyguard pool since September, just the odd jobs, no regular assignment, we take whatever work we can get. A man turns down a job he goes right back to the end of the list. I have a family to feed…”

“What are you trying to say?” Andy asked. He was aware that someone was standing in the darkness behind Tab and he could tell by the shuffle of feet that there were others out of sight down the hall.

“Don’t take no stuff,” the man in back of Tab said in an unpleasant nasal voice. He stayed behind the bodyguard where he could not be seen. “I got the law on my side. I paid you. Show him the order!”

“I think I understand now,” Andy said. “Get away from the door, Shirl. Come inside, Tab, so we can talk to you.”

Tab started forward and the man in the hall tried to follow him. “You don’t go in there without me—” he shrilled. His voice was cut off as Andy slammed the door in his face.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” Tab said. He was wearing his spike-studded iron knucks, his fist clenched tight around them.

“Relax,” Andy said. “I just wanted to talk to you alone first, find out what was going on. He has a squat-order, doesn’t he?”

Tab nodded, looking unhappily down at the floor.

“What on earth are you two talking about?” Shirl asked, worriedly glancing back and forth at their set expressions.

Andy didn’t answer and Tab turned to her. “A squat-order is issued by the court to anyone who can prove they are really in need of a place to live. They only give so many out, and usually just to people with big families that have had to get out of some other place. With a squat-order you can look around and find a vacant apartment or room or anything like that, and the order is a sort of search warrant. There can be trouble, people don’t want to have strangers walking in on them, that kind of thing, so anyone with a squat-order takes along a bodyguard. That’s where I come in, the party out there in the hall, name of Belicher, hired me.”

“But what are you doing here?” Shirl asked, still not understanding.

“Because Belicher is a ghoul, that’s why,” Andy said bitterly. “He hangs around the morgue looking for bodies.”

“That’s one way of saying it,” Tab answered, holding on to his temper. “He’s also a guy with a wife and kids and no place to live, that’s another way of looking at it.”

There was a sudden hammering on the door and Belicher’s complaining voice could be heard outside. Shirl finally realized the significance of Tab’s presence, and she gasped. “You’re here because you’re helping them,” she said. “They found out that Sol is dead and they want this room.”

Tab could only nod mutely.

“There’s still a way out,” Andy said. “If we had one of the men here from my precinct, living in here, then these people couldn’t get in.”

The knocking was louder and Tab took a half step backward toward the door. “If there was somebody here now, that would be okay, but Belicher could probably take the thing to the squat court and get occupancy anyway because he has a family. I’ll do what I can to help you — but Belicher, he’s still my employer.”

“Don’t open that door,” Andy said sharply. “Not until we have this straightened out.”

“I have to — what else can I do?” He straightened up and closed his fist with the knucks on it. “Don’t try to stop me, Andy. You’re a policeman, you know the law about this.”

“Tab, must you?” Shirl asked in a low voice.

He turned to her, eyes filled with unhappiness. “We were good friends once, Shirl, and that’s the way I’m going to remember it. But you’re not going to think much of me after this because I have to do my job. I have to let them in.”

“Go ahead — open the damn door,” Andy said bitterly, turning his back and walking over to the window.

The Belichers swarmed in. Mr. Belicher was thin, with a strangely shaped head, almost no chin and just enough intelligence to sign his name to the Welfare application. Mrs. Belicher was the support of the family; from the flabby fat of her body came the children, all seven of them, to swell the Relief allotment on which they survived. Number eight was pushing an extra bulge out of the dough of her flesh; it was really number eleven since three of the younger Belichers had perished through indifference or accident. The largest girl, she must have been all of twelve, was carrying the sore-covered infant which stank abominably and cried continuously. The other children shouted at each other now, released from the silence and tension of the dark hall.

“Oh, looka the nice fridge,” Mrs. Belicher said, waddling over and opening the door.

“Don’t touch that,” Andy said, and Belicher pulled him by the arm.

“I like this room — it’s not big, you know, but nice. What’s in here?” He started toward the open door in the partition.

“That’s my room,” Andy said, slamming it shut in his face. “Just keep out of there.”

“No need to act like that,” Belicher said, sidling away quickly like a dog that has been kicked too often. “I got my rights. The law says I can look wherever I want with a squat-order.” He moved farther away as Andy took a step toward him. “Not that I’m doubting your word, mister, I believe you. This room here is fine, got a good table, chairs, bed…”

“Those things belong to me. This is an empty room, and a small one at that. It’s not big enough for you and all your family.”

“It’s big enough, all right. We lived in smaller…”

“Andy — stop them! Look—” Shirl’s unhappy cry spun Andy around and he saw that two of the boys had found the packets of herbs that Sol had grown so carefully in his window box, and were tearing them open, thinking that it was food of some kind.

“Put these things down,” he shouted, but before he could reach them they had tasted the herbs, then spat them out.

“Burn my mouth!” the bigger boy screamed and sprayed the contents of the packet on the floor. The other boy bounced up and down with excitement and began to do the same thing with the rest of the herbs. They twisted away from Andy and before he could stop them the packets were empty.

As soon as Andy turned away, the younger boy, still excited, climbed on the table — his mud-stained foot wrappings leaving filthy smears — and turned up the TV. Blaring music crashed over the screams of the children and the ineffectual calls of their mother. Tab pulled Belicher away as he opened the wardrobe to see what was inside.

“Get these kids out of here,” Andy said, white faced with rage.

“I got a squat-order, I got rights,” Belicher shouted, backing away and waving an imprinted square of plastic.

“I don’t care what rights you have,” Andy told him, opening the hall door. “We’ll talk about that when these brats are outside.”

Tab settled it by grabbing the nearest child by the scruff of the neck and pushing it out through the door. “Mr. Rusch is right,” he said. “The kids can wait outside while we settle this.”

Mrs. Belicher sat down heavily on the bed and closed her eyes, as though all this had nothing to do with her. Mr. Belicher retreated against the wall saying something that no one heard or bothered to listen to. There were some shrill cries and angry sobbing from the hall as the last child was expelled.

Andy looked around and realized that Shirl had gone into their room; he heard the key turn in the lock. “I suppose this is it?” he said, looking steadily at Tab.

The bodyguard shrugged helplessly. “I’m sorry, Andy, honest to God I am. What else can I do? It’s the law, and if they want to stay here you can’t get them out.”

“It’s the law, it’s the law,” Belicher echoed tonelessly.

There was nothing Andy could do with his clenched fists and he had to force himself to open them. “Help me carry these things into the other room, will you, Tab?”

“Sure,” Tab said, and took the other end of the table. “Try and explain to Shirl about my part in this, will you? I don’t think she understands that it’s just a job I have to do.”

Their footsteps crackled on the dried herbs that littered the floor and Andy did not answer him.

10

“Andy, you must do something, those people are driving me right out of my mind.”

“Easy, Shirl, it’s not that bad,” Andy said. He was standing on a chair, filling the wall tank from a jerry can, and when he turned to answer her some of the water splashed over and dripped down to the floor. “Let me finish this first before we argue, will you.”

“I’m not arguing — I’m just telling you how I feel. Listen to that.”

Sound came clearly through the thin partition. The baby was crying, it seemed to do this continuously day and night; and they had to use earplugs to get any sleep. Some of the children were fighting, completely ignoring their father’s reedy whine of complaint. To add to the turmoil one of them was beating steadily on the floor with something heavy. The people in the apartment below would be up again soon to complain; it never did any good. Shirl sat on the edge of the bed, wringing her hands.

“Do you hear that?” she said. “It never stops, I don’t know how they can live like that. You’re away so you don’t hear the worst of it. Can’t we get them out of there? There must be something we can do about it.”

Andy emptied the jerry can and climbed down, threading his way through the crowded room. They had sold Sol’s bed and his wardrobe, but everything else was jammed in here, and there was scarcely a foot of clear floor space. He dropped heavily into a chair.

“I’ve been trying, you know I have. Two of the patrolmen, they live in the barracks now, are ready to move in here if we can get the Belichers out. That’s the hard part. They have the law on their side.”

“Is there a law that says we have to put up with people like that?” She was wringing her hands helplessly, staring at the partition.

“Look, Shirl, can’t we talk about this some other time? I have to go out soon—”

“I want to talk about it now. You’ve been putting it off ever since they came, and that’s over two weeks now, and I can’t take much more of it.”

“Come on, it’s not that bad. It’s just noise.”

The room was very cold. Shirl pulled her legs up and wrapped the old blanket tighter around her; the springs in the bed twanged under her weight. There was a momentary lull from the other room that ended with shrill laughter.

“Do you hear that?” Shirl asked. “What kind of minds do they have? Every time they hear the bed move in here they burst out laughing. We’ve no privacy, none at all, that partition is as thin as cardboard and they listen for everything we do and hear every word we say. If they won’t go — can’t we move?”

“Where to? Show some sense, will you, we’re lucky to have this much room to ourselves. Do you know how many people still sleep in the streets — and how many bodies get brought in every morning?”

“I couldn’t care less. It’s my own life I’m worrying about.”

“Please, not now.” He looked up as the light bulb flickered and dimmed, then sprang back to life again. There was a sudden rattle of hail against the window. “We can talk about it when I get back, I shouldn’t be long.”

“No, I want to settle it now, you’ve been putting this off over and over again. You don’t have to go out now.”

He took his coat down, restraining his temper. “It can wait until I get back. I told you that we finally had word on Billy Chung — an informer saw him leaving Shiptown — the chances are that he had been visiting his family. It’s old news too, it happened fifteen days ago, but the stoolie didn’t think it important enough to tell us about right away. I guess he was hoping to see the boy come back, but he never has. I’ll have to talk to his family and see what they know.”

“You don’t have to go now — you said this happened some time ago…”

“What does that have to do with it? The lieutenant will want a report in the morning. So what should I tell him — that you didn’t want me to go out tonight?”

“I don’t care what you tell him…”

“I know you don’t, but I do. It’s my job and I have to do it.”

They glared at each other in silence, breathing rapidly. From the other side of the partition there sounded a shrill cry and childish sobbing.

“Shirl, I don’t want to fight with you,” Andy said. “I have to go out, that’s all there is to it. We can talk about it later, when I come back.”

“If I’m here when you come back.” She had her hands clenched tightly together and her face was pale.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t know what I mean. I just know something has to change. Please, let’s settle this now…”

“Can’t you understand that’s impossible? We’ll talk about it when I get back.” He unlocked the door and stood with the knob in his hand, getting a grip on his temper. “Let’s not fight about it now. I’ll be back in a few hours, we can worry about it then, all right?” She didn’t answer, and after waiting a moment he went out and closed the door heavily behind him. The foul, thick odor of the room beyond hit him in the face.

“Belicher,” he said, “you’re going to have to clean this place up. It stinks.”

“I can’t do nothing about the smoke until I get some kind of chimbley.” Belicher sniffled, squatting and holding his hands over a smoldering lump of seacoal. This rested in a hubcap filled with sand from which eye-burning, oily smoke rose to fill the room. The opening in the outer wall that Sol had made for the chimney of his stove had been carelessly covered with a sheet of thin polythene that billowed and crackled as the wind blew against it.

“The smoke is the best smell in here,” Andy said. “Have your kids been using this place for a toilet again?”

“You wouldn’t ask kids to go down all them stairs at night, would you?” Belicher complained.

Wordless, Andy looked around at the heap of coverings in the corner where Mrs. Belicher and the smaller Belichers were huddled for warmth. The two boys were doing something in the corner with their backs turned. The small light bulb threw long shadows over the rubbish that was beginning to collect against the baseboard, lit up the new marks gouged in the wall.

“You better get this place cleaned up,” Andy said and slammed the door shut on Belicher’s whining answer.

Shirl was right, these people were impossible and he had to do something about them. But when? It had better be soon, she couldn’t take much more of them. He was angry at the invaders — and angry at her. All right, it was pretty bad, but you had to take things as they came. He was still putting in a twelve- and fourteen-hour day, which was a lot worse than just sitting and listening to the kids scream.

The street was dark, filled with wind and driving sleet. There was snow mixed with it and had already begun to stick to the pavement and pile up in corners against the walls. Andy plowed through it, head down, hating the Belichers and trying not to be angry with Shirl.

The walkways and connecting bridges in Shiptown were ice coated and slippery and Andy had to grope his way over them carefully, aware of the surging black water below. In the darkness all of the ships looked alike and he used his flashlight on their bows to pick out their names. He was chilled and wet before he found the Columbia Victory and pulled open the heavy steel door that led below deck. As he went down the metal stairs light spilled across the passageway ahead. One of the doors had been opened by a small boy with spindly legs; it looked like the Chung apartment.

“Just a minute,” Andy said, stopping the door before the child could close it. The little boy gaped up at him, silent and wide-eyed.

“This is the Chung apartment, isn’t it?” he asked, stepping in. Then he recognized the woman standing there. She was Billy’s sister, he had met her before. The mother sat in a chair against the wall, with the same expression of numb fright as her daughter, holding on to the twin of the boy who had opened the door. No one answered him.

These people really love the police, Andy thought. At the same instant he realized that they all kept looking toward the door in the far wall and quickly away. What was bothering them?

He reached behind his back and closed the hall door. It wasn’t possible — yet the night Billy Chung had been seen here had been stormy like this one, perfect cover for a fugitive. Could I be having a break at last? he wondered. Had he picked the right night to come here?

Even as the thoughts were forming the door to the bedroom opened and Billy Chung stepped out, starting to say something. His words were drowned by his mother’s shrill cries and his sister’s shouted warning. He looked up and halted, shocked motionless when he saw Andy.

“You’re under arrest,” Andy said, reaching down to the side of his belt to get his nippers.

“No!” Billy gasped hoarsely and grabbed at his waistband and pulled out a knife.

It was a mess. The old woman kept screaming shrilly, over and over, without stopping for breath and the daughter hurled herself on Andy, trying to scratch at his eyes. She raked her nails down his cheek before he grabbed her and held her off at arm’s length. And all the time he was watching Billy, who held out the long shining blade as he advanced in a knife-fighter’s crouch, waving the weapon before him.

“Put that down,” Andy shouted, and leaned his back against the door. “You can’t get out of here. Don’t cause any more trouble.” The woman found she couldn’t reach Andy’s face so she raked lines of fire down the back of his hand with her nails. Andy pushed her away and was barely aware of her falling as he grabbed for his gun.

“Stop it!” he shouted, and pointed the gun up in the air. He wanted to fire a warning shot, then he realized that the compartment was made of steel and any bullet would ricochet around inside of it: there were two women and two children here.

“Stop it, Billy, you can’t get out of here,” he shouted, pointing the gun at the boy who was halfway across the room, waving the knife wildly.

“Let me by,” Billy sobbed. “I’ll kill you! Why couldn’t you just leave me alone?”

He wasn’t going to stop, Andy realized. The knife was sharp and he knew how to use it. If he wanted trouble he was going to get it.

Andy aimed the gun at Billy’s leg and pulled the trigger just as the boy stumbled.

The boom of the .38-caliber shell filled the compartment and Billy pitched forward, the bullet hit his head and he kept going down to sprawl on the steel deck. The knife spun from his hand and stopped almost at Andy’s feet. Shocked silence followed the sound of the shot and the air was strong with the sharp reek of gunpowder. No one moved except Andy, who bent over and touched the boy’s wrist.

Andy was aware of a hammering on the door behind him and he reached back and fumbled to open it without turning around.

“I’m a police officer,” he said. “I want someone to get over to Precinct 12-A on Twenty-third Street and report this at once. Tell them that Billy Chung is here. He’s dead.”

A bullet in the temple, Andy realized suddenly. Got it in the same spot that Big Mike O’Brien did.

It was messy, that was the worst part of it. Not Billy, he was safely dead. It was the mother and the sister, they had screamed abuse at him while the twins had held on to each other and sobbed. Finally Andy made the neighbors across the hall take the whole family in and he had remained alone with the body until Steve Kulozik and a patrolman had arrived from the precinct. He hadn’t seen the two women after that, and he hadn’t wanted to. It had been an accident, that was all, they ought to realize that. If the kid hadn’t fallen he would have gotten the bullet in the leg and that would have been the end of it. Not that the police would care about the shooting, the case could be closed now without any more red tape, it was just the two women. Well, let them hate him, it wouldn’t hurt him and he wasn’t ever going to see them again. So the son was a martyr, not a killer, if they preferred to remember him that way. Fine. Either way the case was closed.

It was late, after midnight, before Andy got home. Bringing back the body and making a report had taken a long time. As usual the Belichers hadn’t locked the hall door — they didn’t care, they had nothing worth losing or stealing. Their room was dark and he flashed his light across it, catching a fleeting glimpse of their huddled bodies, a glimmer of reflection from their eyes. They were awake — but at least they were all quiet for a change, even the baby. As he put his key into the lock on his door he heard a muffled titter behind him in the darkness. What could they possibly have to laugh about?

Pushing the door open into the silent room, he remembered the trouble with Shirl earlier that evening and he felt a sudden dart of fear. He raised the flashlight but did not squeeze it. There was the laughter behind him again, a little louder this time.

The light sliced across the room to the vacant chairs, the empty bed. Shirl wasn’t here. It couldn’t mean anything, she had probably gone downstairs to the lavatories, that was all.

Yet he knew, even before he opened the wardrobe, that her clothes were gone and so were her suitcases.

Shirl was gone too.

11

“What do you want?” the hard-eyed man asked, standing just inside the bedroom door. “You know Mr. Briggs is a busy man. I’m a busy man. Neither of us like you telephoning, saying someone should come over, just like that. You got something you want to tell Mr. Briggs, you come and tell him.”

“I’m very sorry that I can’t oblige you,” Judge Santini said, wheezing a little while he talked, propped up on pillows in the big dark double bed, smooth blankets carefully tucked in around him. “Much as I would like to. But I’m afraid that my running days are over, at least that’s what my doctor says, and I pay him enough for his opinions. When a man my age has a coronary he has to watch himself. Rest, plenty of rest. No more climbing up those stairs in the Empire State Building. I can confide in you, Schlachter, that I really won’t miss them very much…”

“What do you want, Santini?”

“To give you some information for Mr. Briggs. The Chung boy has been found, Billy Chung, the one who killed Big Mike.”

“So?”

“So — I had hoped you would remember a meeting we had where we discussed this subject. There was a suspicion that the killer might be connected with Nick Cuore, that the boy was in his pay. I doubt if he was, he seems to have been operating on his own. We will never know for certain because he is dead.”

“Is that all?”

“Isn’t that enough? You might recall that Mr. Briggs was concerned about the possibility of Cuore moving in on this city.”

“No chance of that at all. Cuore has been tied up for a week in taking over in Paterson. There’ve been a dozen killings already. He was never interested in New York.”

“I’m pleased to hear that. But I think you had better tell Mr. Briggs about this in any case. He was interested enough in the case to put pressure on the police department, they have had a man on the case since August.”

“Tough. I’ll tell him if I get a chance. But he’s not interested in this any more.”

Judge Santini settled wearily into the covers when his guest had gone. He was tired tonight, tireder than he could ever remember. And there was still a memory of that pain deep inside his chest.

Just about two weeks more to the new year. New century too. It would be funny to write two thousand instead of nineteen something or other as he had done all his life.

January 1, 2000. It seemed like a strange date for some reason. He rang the bell so Rosa could come and pour him his medicine. How much of this new century would he see? The thought was a very depressing one.

In the quiet room the ticking of the old-fashioned clock sounded very loud.

12

“The lieutenant wants to see you,” Steve called across the squad room.

Andy waved his hand in acknowledgment and stood and stretched, only too willing to leave the stack of reports he was working on. He had not slept well the night before and he was tired. First the shooting, then finding Shirl gone, it was a lot to have happen in one night. Where would he look for her, to ask her to come back? Yet how could he ask her to come back while the Belichers were still there? How could he get rid of the Belichers? This wasn’t the first time that his thoughts had spiraled around this way. It got him nowhere. He knocked on the door of the lieutenant’s office, then went in.

“You wanted to see me, sir?”

Lieutenant Grassioli was swallowing a pill and he nodded, then choked on the water he was using to wash it down. He had a coughing fit, and dropped into the battered swivel chair, looking grayer and more tired than usual. “This ulcer is going to kill me one of these days. Ever hear of anyone dying of an ulcer?”

There was no answer for a question like this. Andy wondered why the lieutenant was making conversation, it wasn’t like him. He usually found no trouble in speaking his mind.

“They’re not happy downtown about your shooting the Chink kid,” Grassioli said, pawing through the reports and files that littered his desk.

“What do you mean—”

“Just that, Christ, just like I don’t have enough trouble with this squad, I got to get mixed up in politics too. Centre Street thinks you been wasting too much time on this case, we’ve had two dozen unsolved murders in the precinct since you started on this one.”

“But—” Andy was dumbfounded, “you told me the commissioner himself ordered me onto the case full time. You told me I had to—”

“It doesn’t matter what I told you,” Grassioli snarled. “The commissioner’s not available on the phone, not to me he’s not. He doesn’t give a damn about the O’Brien killer and no one’s interested in any word I got about that Jersey hood Cuore. And what’s more, the assistant commissioner is on to me over the Billy Chung shooting. They left me holding the bag.”

“Sounds more like I’m the one with the bag.”

“Don’t get snotty with me, Rusch.” The lieutenant stood and kicked the chair away and turned his back on Andy, looking out of the window and drumming his fingers on the frame. “The assistant commissioner is George Chu and he thinks you got a vendetta against the Chinks or something, tracking the kid all this time, then shooting him down instead of bringing him in.”

“You told him I was acting on orders, didn’t you, lieutenant?” Andy asked softly. “You told him the shooting was accidental, it’s all in my report.”

“I didn’t tell him anything.” Grassioli turned to face Andy. “The people who pushed me onto this case aren’t talking. There’s nothing I can tell Chu. He’s nuts on this race thing anyway. If I try to tell him what really happened I’m not only going to make trouble for myself, for the precinct — for everybody.” He dropped into his chair and rubbed at the twitching corner of his eye. “I’m telling you straight, Andy. I’m going to pass the buck to you, let you take the blame. I’m going to put you back into uniform for six months until this thing cools down. You’ll stay in grade, you won’t lose any pay.”

“I wasn’t expecting any award for cracking this case,” Andy said angrily, “or for bringing in the killer — but I didn’t expect this. I can ask for a departmental trial.”

“You can, you can do that.” The lieutenant hesitated a long time, he was obviously ill at ease. “But I’m asking you not to. If not for me, for the good of the precinct. I know it’s a raw deal, passing the buck, but you’ll come out of it okay. I’ll have you back on the squad as soon as I can. And it’s not like you’ll be doing anything different, anyway. We might as well all be walking a beat for the little detective work we do.” He kicked viciously at the desk. “What do you say?”

“The whole thing stinks.”

“I know it stinks!” the lieutenant shouted. “But what the hell else can I do? You think it’ll stink less if you stand trial? You won’t stand a chance. You’ll be off the force and out of a job and I’ll probably be with you. You’re a good cop, Andy, and there aren’t many of them left. The department needs you more than you need them. Stick it out. What do you say?”

There was a long silence, and the lieutenant turned back to look out of the window.

“All right,” Andy finally said. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do, lieutenant.” He went out of the office without being dismissed; he didn’t want the lieutenant to thank him for this.

13

“Half an hour more and we’ll be in a new century,” Steve Kulozik said, stamping his feet on the icy pavement. “I heard some joker on TV yesterday trying to explain why the new century doesn’t start until next year, but he must be a chunkhead. Midnight, year two thousand, new century. That makes sense. Look at that.” He pointed up at the projection TV screen on the old Times Building. The headlines, in letters ten feet high, chased each other across the screen.

“Scores,” Steve grunted. “I bet they don’t even keep score any more, they don’t want to know how many die.”

Andy glanced up at the screen, then back at the milling crowd in Times Square. He was getting used to wearing the blue uniform again, though he still felt uneasy when he was around any other men from the detective squad. “What are you doing here?” he asked Steve.

“Same as you, on loan to this precinct. They’re still screaming for reserves, they think there’s going to be a riot.”

“They’re wrong, it’s too cold and there’s not that many people.”

“That’s not the worry, it’s the nut cults, they’re saying it’s the millennium, Judgment Day or Doomsday or whatever the hell you call it. There’s bunches of them all over town. They’re going to be damn unhappy when the world doesn’t come to an end at midnight, the way they think it will.”

“We’ll be a lot unhappier if it does.”

The giant, silent words raced over their heads.

The crowd surged slowly back and forth, craning their necks up at the screen. Some horns were blowing and the roar of voices was penetrated by a ringing cowbell and the occasional whir of rattles. They cheered when the time appeared on the screen.

“End of the year, and the end of my service,” Steve said.

“What are you talking about?” Andy asked.

“I’ve quit. I promised Grassy to stay until the first of January, and not to talk it around until I was ready to go. I’ve signed on with the state troopers. I’m going to be a guard on one of the prison farms. Kulozik eats again — I can hardly wait.”

“Steve, you’re kidding. You’ve been ten, twelve years on the force. You’ve got seniority, you’re a second-grade detective…”

“Do I look like any kind of detective to you?” He tapped his riotstick lightly against the blue and white helmet he was wearing. “Face it, this city is through. What they need here is animal trainers, not policemen. I got a good job coming, me and the wife are going to eat well — and I’m going to get away from this city once and for all. I was born and raised here, and I have news for you — I’m not going to miss it. They need police with experience upstate. They’d take you on in a minute. Why don’t you come with me?”

“No,” Andy said.

“Why you answering so fast? Think about it. What’s this city ever give you but trouble? You break a tough case and get the killer and look at your medal — back on a beat.”

“Shut up, Steve,” he said, without animosity. “I’m not sure why I’m staying — but I am. I don’t think it’s going to be that great upstate. For your sake, I hope it is. But… my job is here. I picked it up, knowing what I was getting into. I just don’t feel like putting it down yet.”

“Your choice.” Steve shrugged, the movement almost lost in the depths of his thick topcoat and many wrappings. “See you around.”

Andy raised his club in a quick good-by as his friend pushed his way into the press of people and disappeared.

As the words slipped from the screen and were replaced by a giant clockface the crowd cheered and shouted; more horns sounded. Steve worked his way through the mass of people that filled the Square and pressed against the boarded-up windows on all sides. The light from the TV screen washed their blank faces and gaping mouths with flickering green illumination, as though they were sunk deep in the sea.

Above them, the second hand ticked off the last seconds of the last minute of the year. Of the end of the century.

“End of the world!” a man shrieked, loud enough to be heard above the crowd, his spittle flying against the side of Andy’s face. “End of the world!” Andy reached out and jabbed him with the end of his stick and the man gaped and grabbed at his stomach. He had been poked just hard enough to take his mind off the end of the world for a while and make him think about his own guts. Some people who had seen what had happened pointed and laughed, the sound of their laughter lost in the overwhelming roar, then they vanished from sight along with the man as the crowd surged forward.

The scratchy, static-filled roar of amplified church bells burst from the loudspeakers mounted on the buildings around Times Square, sending pealing waves of sound across the crowd below.

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!” the thousands of massed voices shouted, “HAPPY NEW CENTURY!” Horns, bells and noisemakers joined in the din, drowning out the words, merging them into the speechless roar.

Above them the second hand had finished a complete circle, the new century was already one minute old, and the clock faded away and was replaced by the magnified head of the President. He was making a speech, but not one word of it could be heard from the scratchy loudspeakers, above the unending noise of the crowd. Uncaring, the great pink face worked on, shaping unheard sentences, raising an admonitory finger to emphasize an unintelligible point.

Very faintly, Andy could hear the shrill of a police whistle from the direction of Forty-second Street. He worked his way toward the sound, forcing through the mass of people with his shoulders and club. The volume of noise was dying down and he was aware of laughs and jeers, someone was being pushed about, lost in a tight knot of figures. Another policeman, still blowing on the whistle he held tight-clamped in his teeth, was working into the jam from the side, wielding his club heavily. Andy swung his own and the crowd melted away before him. A tall man was on the pavement, shielding his head with his arms from the many feet about him.

On the screen the President’s face flicked out of existence with an almost-heard burst of music, and the flying, silent letters once more took its place.

The man on the ground was bone-skinny, dressed in tied-on ends of rags and cast-off clothing. Andy helped him to his feet and the transparent blue eyes stared right through him.

“ ‘And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes,’ ” Peter said, the shining skin stretched tight over the fleshless bones of his face as he hoarsely bellowed the words. “ ‘And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.’ ”

“Not this time,” Andy said, holding on to the man so he would not fall. “You can go home now.”

“Home?” Peter blinked dazedly as the words penetrated. “There is no home, there is no world, for it is the millennium and we shall all be judged. The thousand years are ended and Christ shall return to reign gloriously on Earth.”

“Maybe you have the wrong century,” Andy said, holding the man by the elbow and guiding him out of the crowd. “It’s after midnight, the new century has begun and nothing has changed.”

“Nothing changed?” Peter shouted. “It is Armageddon, it must be.” Terrified, he pulled his arm from Andy’s grip and started away, then turned back when he had only gone a pace.

“It must end,” he called in a tortured voice. “Can this world go on for another thousand years, like this? LIKE THIS?” Then people came between them and he was gone.

Like this? Andy thought as he pushed tiredly through the dispersing crowd. He shook his head to clear it and straightened up; he still had his job to do.

Now, with their enthusiasm gone, the people were feeling the cold and the crowd was rapidly breaking up. Wide gaps appeared in their ranks as they moved away, heads bent into the icy wind from the sea. Around the corner on Forty-fourth Street, Hotel Astor guards had cleared a space so the pedicabs could come in from Eighth Avenue and line up in the taxi rank at the side entrance. Bright lights on the marquee lit up the scene clearly and Andy passed by the corner as the first guests came out. Fur coats and evening dresses, black tuxedo trousers below dark coats with astrakhan collars. Must be a big party going on in there. More bodyguards and guests emerged and waited on the sidewalk. There was the quick sound of women laughing and many shouts of “Happy New Year!”

Andy moved to head off a knot of people from the Square who were starting down Forty-fourth Street, and when he turned back he saw that Shirl had come out and stood, waiting for a cab, talking to someone.

He didn’t notice who was with her, or what she was wearing or anything else, just her face and the way her hair spun out when she turned her head. She was laughing, talking quickly to the people she was with. Then she climbed into a cab, pulled the storm cover closed and was gone.

A fine cold snow was falling, driven sideways by the wind and swirling across the cracked pavements of Times Square. Very few people remained, and they were leaving, hurrying away. There was nothing for Andy to stay for, his duty was done, he could begin the long walk back downtown. He spun his club on its lanyard and started toward Seventh Avenue. The glaring screen of the gigantic TV cast its unnoticed light on his coat, putting a spark into each melted drop of snow, until he passed the building and vanished into the sudden darkness.

The screen hurled its running letters across the empty square.