“You’d live peaceably alongside a guy who just tried to throw you out of your own home at gunpoint?” Sam said. “Please. You’d bide your time until you could coldcock me with a hammer.”
“All the same, honey,” Tanya whispered. “The kids haven’t eaten all day—”
“She can rustle up something in that kitchen, then we can, too. Between a whole house and one room? I don’t feel especially torn.”
“Ever hear of the sit-in?” Dad snarled, huddled in his sooty blanket like an extra in The Ten Commandments. “When I was a kid, college students figured out just how hard it is to remove large numbers of heavy, thrashing, righteously pissed-off people who refuse to leave.”
“Yeah, and some of those numb-nuts protesters got shot.” Sam was growing impatient. “Now, I’ll give you fifteen minutes to gather a few things. I don’t have to, but I’ll let you keep your coats. Take your toothbrushes.”
“Kurt’s right about my niece’s generosity, but her aunt has a mean streak,” Nollie snarled like a crazy old lady who lured little boys with gingerbread, and Jake shrank in terror. “First thing I’ll advise Florence to do is cut off your utilities. So much for those showers.”
“Go ahead,” Sam tossed back, though he looked rattled. “Everybody’s jury-rigging hookups to the grid anyway, and tapping into gas lines for free.”
“There’s only four of you, hombre,” Esteban said, putting on an accent like the Mexican lowlife whom honks like Sam would fear. “Two are niños. How you expect to control thirteen hostages not in the mood for a midnight stroll?”
“Good point. Very helpful—muy útil, sí?” His pronunciation was faultless. Beckoned, poor Bing edged wide-eyed to within reach, and to Avery’s horror Sam took a firm grip on her petrified boy’s arm. “Anyone tries anything, I shoot the kid. Think I won’t? Don’t try me.”
Sam was talking himself into this role, but Avery couldn’t discount the possibility that he would do so with some success. Released to “gather a few things,” they all just stood there.
“Move it,” Sam said. “Or I’ll take back the offer, and you’ll be shuffling Linden Boulevard in socks.”
“Why did you pick on us?” Avery asked Tanya as the others slowly, as if in a trance, dispersed. “This house is home to fourteen people.”
Tanya explained, “Because you’re the only ones who let us in.”
• CHAPTER 14 •
A COMPLEX SYSTEM ENTERS DISEQUILIBRIUM
Willing hadn’t the hubris to claim that he’d seen this coming. But something like it, yes. Which was why an assembled knapsack was already tucked under his bed. Its checklist: ID, bottled water, trail mix, first-aid kit, graphene blanket, pocketknife, matches and lighter, gloves, glasscutter, large heavy-duty tarp, cheaper plastic sheeting, duplicate house keys, and toiletries. His mind freed from these essentials, he pulled on two extra sweaters and checked his pocket for the balled-up fleX; its satellite contract was in arrears, but it would work as a flashlight. Ignoring Goog’s incredulous disgust—“What, our in-house clairvoyant is already packed?”—he marched calmly back downstairs to make a formal request.
From gripping Bing’s arm, Sam’s muscles must have stiffened. Slumped against the doorjamb, even Bing had tired of looking terrified. The gun was heavy. Only when Sam spotted Willing advancing did its barrel lift.
Willing stopped mid-flight. “I would like, if it’s all right, to take my bicycle.”
“Tricycle, popsicle,” Luella mumbled, still leashed to the banister. “Icicle, capital. Typical, topical. Tropical, mythical, mystical, mandible…”
“Can’t you shut her up?” Sam pleaded.
“Greater men than I have tried,” Willing said.
“Master bin the ties that bind,” Luella echoed.
“The bike?” Willing pressed gently. “You have the SUV.” It was important to remain unemotional. The man would feel bad, and he wouldn’t like feeling bad, which would make him angry. So all negotiation had to be conducted free of judgment. As if it were the most reasonable thing in the world, to ask a stranger from a few streets over if you could take your own bicycle.
“No,” the redhead said, arms bunched at his mother’s side. “I want his bike.”
Willing settled the boy with a steady gaze that said patiently: a whole bike for a little hamburger and cherry drink is not a fair trade.
“But you never ride one,” his mother said.
“Daddy has a gun,” Jake said. “We can take whatever we feel like. It doesn’t matter if we use it. We could smash the bike up if we want. And maybe I will,” he directed to Willing. “I’ll take your bike and smash it.”
Willing could see the boy’s injunction backfire: look, already, what we are doing to our son.
“Yeah, sure, take the bike,” Sam said.
“Blah, purr, make a tyke,” Luella said.
“Thank you,” Willing said. Permission to be dismissed, sir. He almost saluted.
Upstairs, he found his mother and Esteban in their bedroom, surrounded by a disarray of clothes. “He’s not that big a guy,” Esteban murmured. “I could take him, ningún problema.”
“Doubtless, but someone might get hurt,” his mother said softly. “I can forgive you for not being a hero. I might not forgive you for getting one of the children shot.”
“That pussy’s not going to shoot anybody,” Esteban said.
She turned to Willing. “Are we supposed to be plotting? Coming up with an ingenious ploy to get these people out of our house? That’s what we’d do in a movie.”
“We could set this house on fire, too,” Willing said matter-of-factly. “They would have to leave. But so would we. The fire could get out of control. Then neither family would have a place to live. It would be spiteful. Like what those intruders did to the garden.”
“So, then—what?”
“If we’re seriously letting that cabrón house-jack us out of our own home,” Esteban said, “can’t we hang at Adelphi? Has to be some advantage to your drear job.”
“The shelter’s already at 200 percent capacity,” his mother said. “Other staff have tried to sneak in family. They were fired.”
“This is my fault,” Willing said.
“Lost me there, muchacho,” Esteban said.
“We should have left earlier,” Willing said. “I miscalculated. This city. It’s a complex system, which has entered disequilibrium. It’s unstable. That is why there’s no reason to ‘plot.’ We have to leave anyway. The people downstairs won’t end well. Even if you don’t follow through on Nollie’s threat to close the accounts, they won’t be able to pay the utility bills. The water, gas, and electricity will be cut off. And he’s a computer modeler. He won’t have a clue how to access a gas line illegally, not without blowing up the whole block. Besides—think how easily they can take this house from us. It will be just as easy for someone else to take it away from them.”
“You think we should leave, but go where?” his mother asked. She was frantic. She would have to calm down. “Grand Man’s practically a hundred! Luella’s a handful at the best of times, and my parents aren’t spring chickens, either!”
“For now, to the encampment,” Willing said. “In Prospect Park. It’s dangerous, but not as dangerous as being isolated. We can barter there. The encampments are self-enclosed economies.”