End of Days (8 page)

“Thank you for telling us that,” Billy said. “We appreciate what you did. We’ll take care of things. I want you to go back to where you normally hide and—”

“But what do they want?” the boy asked.

“I’m not sure,” Billy said, “but I’m sure it will be okay.” He turned and looked into the shadows. “Can somebody get him something to eat—an apple or a piece of bread—and help him get back down below?”

At the mention of food the boy’s face lit up. “Thank you so much, thank you!”

“No, no, thank
you
for coming here. That was very brave of you,” Billy said.

The boy was led away. Almost instantly more than a dozen others materialized out of the shadows, male and female, all in their late teens.

“I don’t understand why you gave him anything!” one of the two guards—the bigger of the two—snapped. “It’s not like he told us anything we didn’t know!”

“Sometimes it’s just wise to be kind,” Billy said.

“And sometimes it isn’t!” the boy exclaimed.

A hush fell over the room. This wasn’t just a statement—this was a challenge, to Billy and his position.

Slowly, silently, Billy walked across the room until he was standing directly in front of the guard. He didn’t look angry and he certainly didn’t look afraid. There was a slight smile on his face, as if he were amused. That look sent a chill up the spine of the boy he was approaching.

“Sometimes you
do
have to be
brutal,”
Billy said, his voice barely audible. “Do you think this is one of those times?”

“Umm … no … no … I didn’t mean anything … I was just—”

“Just being concerned for all of us, right?” Billy asked.

“Yes, of course, just being concerned!”

“Like a good guard should be,” Billy said. “And I appreciate your concern. Well done!” He smiled and slapped him on the back, and the tension in the room vanished. Another challenge averted, and another person who could have become an opponent remained an ally.

“Good, now I want you to go down that stairwell with your partner. We don’t want any more guests right now. I’m counting on you,” Billy said.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir!” he said as the two of them hurried out.

What had just happened came as no surprise to anybody in the room. They were those closest to Billy, his most loyal “troops,” and they’d often seen him commit similar acts of kindness—and equal acts of violence. Keeping hundreds of people in line, controlling this thin slice of the city, had required both. Right up until that last second nobody could have predicted how he was going to react. Was he going to
slap that guard on the back and thank him, or plunge a knife in? Either way, they would have supported him.

Billy wasn’t somebody you wanted to cross, and the balance of fear and respect, violence and kindness, had brought some order to their lives—an order that had somehow translated into more food and drinking water and more safety than they had known for years. The outside world was still vicious and life was violent. But here, it was a little less so. And so he was their leader … at least until somebody else stepped forward.

“So what are we going to do about the cops down there?” a girl asked.

“Nothing … at least not yet,” Billy said. “Let’s see what they want. No point in provoking a fight we don’t need. It might be nothing.”

He knew that many police didn’t appear in one place for nothing, but he wanted to keep things calm, and his people were afraid of the police. Not as much as they were afraid of the rival gangs, but in some ways the cops were just as unpredictable and dangerous. And with the police, brutality came with a thin veneer of respectability. Death was death. Murder was murder, no matter whose hand was holding the gun.

“They’re entering the building!” a female voice called out. “They’re covering all the exits and moving in!”

All eyes turned to Billy. His word was as close to law as any of them knew.

“Get everything prepared, but take no action … yet.”

People scrambled away to get the “reception” ready. They all knew what they had to do.

Room by room, floor by floor, the police swept through the building. Their progress was neither fast nor safe. The absence of doors on the apartments made entry easier, and the open windows allowed daylight to penetrate, but it was still difficult work. Each time they entered an apartment, each time they entered a room in that apartment, they risked running into something unexpected, something dangerous. It could have been a person with a brick or a knife or a crude zip-gun. All three could injure or even kill. And with the shortage of medicines, with doctors and hospitals falling to ruin, even a simple injury could result in death.

But so far there had been nothing except the sound of rats scurrying away. That was good and bad. Good because they were clearing floors. Bad because after clearing each unoccupied apartment the officers would relax a bit more. Ramsey didn’t want that to happen. Being relaxed led to people being hurt.

He motioned for Gordon to provide cover as he got ready to go into the next apartment. The door was gone but there were a couple of boards nailed across the entrance, partially blocking it—a sign that somebody was, or had been, in there and wanted to restrict others from entering. Ramsey took off his hat, holding it in one hand and his revolver in the other. He had ducked down, ready to go under the boards, when he heard a sound … a human sound. He froze in place and listened, waiting. Silence. Whatever it was, it wasn’t there anymore. Still, better to announce his entry.

“Police,” he called out into the opening. “We’re coming in.”

“Who are you talking to?” Gordon asked.

“I’m talking to whoever might be in there.”

He eased forward ever so slowly, stepping through an opening between two of the boards, head up, eyes forward, scanning the room. It was strewn with garbage but there wasn’t anybody visible. He put his back against the wall and his hat back on top of his head. Gordon followed behind him, and then a second officer. They were working in teams of three as two more sealed off the stairwells on either side.

Room by room they searched the apartment. It was empty. Whatever sounds they’d heard hadn’t come from here.

“Another one down,” Gordon said. “Looks like we’re not going to find anything, including a bounty.”

“Let’s keep looking and—” Ramsey was silenced by a sound coming from one of the other rooms. “Did you check the closet in there?” he whispered.

Gordon looked guilty.

“No point in searching if you’re not going to search everything,” he said.
Lazy idiot
is what he thought.

All three men returned to what had been a bedroom. The window was smashed out and it was completely empty. Unlike the rest of the apartment, the floor here was free of garbage. Ramsey walked across the room and the two other officers split off, coming at the closet from opposite sides. Ramsey dropped to one knee, his revolver in front of him, and motioned to Gordon.

In one swift motion Gordon pulled open the door. There was somebody in the closet. Ramsey brought his gun up and froze in place. A woman and two small children were huddled on the floor. The children were wrapped in her arms.

“Please don’t hurt us!” the woman cried out. “Please!”

“Jeeze …” Ramsey lowered his gun and tried to hide the fact that he was shaking. “I could have killed you.”

“Please don’t hurt my children,” she pleaded desperately.

“Nobody is going to harm anybody,” Ramsey said. “Just get up, get out of the closet.”

He reached out to offer her a hand and she instinctively recoiled. He grabbed her hand and helped her, still holding the two children in her arms, to her feet.

“Why didn’t you answer when I called in?” Ramsey asked.

“I was afraid. How was I to know that you really were the police?”

Of course she had a point. “Why were you in the closet?”

“I heard you coming, so we hid.”

Ramsey pulled out two chocolate bars from his pocket. “For the kids.”

“Thank you … thank you so much.”

She put her children down and quickly unwrapped the two bars for them. The older child was a boy who couldn’t have been more than four, and the little girl was maybe a year younger. They started to eat greedily.

“How long has it been since you last ate?” he asked.

“Not that long. We had something yesterday.”

Her response made him cringe. Things had certainly changed when eating nothing for a day meant “not long.”

“My partner, the children’s father, went out looking for something for us to eat. When I first heard you coming along the hallway I thought it might be him.”

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” Ramsey offered. “Maybe you can help us. We’re looking for somebody.”

“There are lots of people in this building I think the police should arrest.”

“We have a picture of him.”

Ramsey showed her the picture.

“No, I don’t know him,” she replied instantly.

It was obvious that she was lying—he could tell by her expression, the slight widening of her eyes.

“The picture is a couple of years out of date, so he’d look older. Maybe his hair is different,” Ramsey said.

“No, I haven’t seen him.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Ramsey said reassuringly. “Nobody will know that you told us anything.”

He looked at her harder. She didn’t look afraid. In fact, she seemed calmer, as though looking at the picture of this boy reassured her. She did know him—probably well—but wasn’t willing to talk about it. What could that mean?

Ramsey reached deeper into his pocket. He pulled out two more chocolate bars and a package of beef jerky.

“We’d be really grateful for any information you might have that could assist us,” he said, trying to be charming.

“It’s just that I don’t have anything I can say.”

“Can
say or
will
say?” Ramsey asked. “Come on, I know you know him.” He smiled. “We just want to talk to him. Don’t worry,” he lied.

She shook her head. “I don’t know—”

Just then Gordon rushed forward and pushed her, pinning her against the wall, his hand around her neck. “I don’t know if you’re protecting this punk or you’re afraid he might hurt you. But you have to know that it’s a certainty I
will
hurt you if you don’t give us what we want to know!”

“I don’t know anything,” she hissed.

“Brave words. How about if I hurt somebody else?” he said, looking at her children sitting on the floor, licking the wrappers of the chocolate bars.

Ramsey stood there, silent and without expression. He knew that he wasn’t going to let this go too much further. It was important that the woman didn’t know that, though. Nothing like this would have happened in the olden days, in the
before
days, but now … what choice did he have? They both understood the roles they were playing. It was time for him to play
good cop
to Gordon’s
bad cop
.

Ramsey grabbed Gordon and spun him around with such force that he released his grip. “That’s not the way we do things.”

“That’s the way
I
do things!” Gordon snapped. “You want to find this kid or what?”

Ramsey stared him down. “Not on my watch. Wait in the hall.”

“I’ll wait in the hall, at least until she doesn’t give you what you want. Then I’m coming back, and I won’t be coming back happy!” Gordon stomped into the hall.

Ramsey was impressed. Even though he knew it was all play-acting, it was frighteningly believable.

“You go too,” Ramsey said to the second officer. He turned back to the woman. “Sorry about that. Are you all right?”

“I’m okay,” she said. She was rubbing her throat where he’d been holding her.

“Look, just between me and you, you do know this boy, right?”

She nodded her head ever so slightly. “I’ve seen him,” she said, her words so soft he could barely hear her.

“That’s what I thought. Come on, we just want to talk to him. We have information for him about his parents.”

“But his parents are—” She stopped herself, but not before she’d revealed more than she meant to.

“You’ve more than just seen him around,” Ramsey said. “You know that I’m trying to do right for you here, but you’re not doing right by me. Any more lying and I can’t be responsible for what might happen.”

He took a quick glance toward the hall, where they both knew Gordon was waiting.

“Just tell me what you know … between you and me. Nobody else will have to ever know anything. Okay?”

She hesitated, but then she said, “He’s a good kid.”

“That’s what I heard,” he said.
Yeah, right, such a good kid that they sent half the police station to capture him
. “We just want to talk. Where can I find him?”

“Top floor … that’s where they all live.”

“All? How many of them are there?” Ramsey asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t know. A lot. Maybe a hundred or two hundred or more. They don’t bother us … none of them … he makes sure everybody is okay.”

“That’s what we want to talk to him about,” Ramsey said.

He cleaned out his pocket, pulling out the last package of jerky he had. That was supposed to be his supper. “You take this, and make sure that you eat some of it too. Your kids need you to keep your strength up.”

“Thank you. And thanks for not letting him hurt me.”

As he got up to leave she gathered the children, and all of them retreated back into the safety of the closet.

Ramsey ducked out into the hall to the waiting officers.

“Forget the next eleven floors. We go straight up to the top and seal it off. He’s up there.”

The officers filed up both stairwells, their big boots on the concrete steps foiling their attempt to move silently. They’d have to rely more on speed than stealth.

Ramsey and Gordon led the group of seven. Three other officers, asked to seal off the other stairwell but not assault the floor, rushed up the opposite end of the building. With each floor the noise level increased and the officers’ speed decreased in direct proportion.

“Two more floors,” Ramsey puffed, “and then—”