“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
“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
“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
