He looked back through the door and saw truck after truck rumbling past. Each was empty in back except for one black youth with a gun of some sort. Ron stopped counting after twenty trucks had gone by, but still more came.

Dewey stood behind his counter and watched them without moving. When the last truck had passed, he turned and pushed through the doorway to where Ron was standing.

“You said you’re with the Gramercy gang?” Dewey asked.

“Yes.”

“Well, you won’t be getting back there today. Better stay with me tonight.”

“If there’s going to be trouble . . .”

Dewey shrugged. “The Muslims did this last year, just before the summer season opened up. There was a lot of trouble then.”

“Did what? What’s going on?”

“The Muslims don’t come into the market like you kids do. They come in force, like an invading army. They stay for a day or two, load up all their trucks with what they want, then they go back uptown. Last year they took over the whole market for a couple days, and the white gangs went wild. They fought a big battle down on Thirty-eighth Street—”

“But why?”

Dewey made a sour face. “White and black don’t mix. Don’t ask me why, they just don’t. These white kids just go crazy when they see the Muslims—crazy . . . Funny thing is, the Muslims treat us pretty fair here in the market. They pay fair prices for whatever they take. Of course, they decide what’s fair, and if they think you’re tryin’ to cheat them . . .” Dewey shook his head.

“Then I’m stuck here for as long as they’re around?” Ron asked.

Nodding, Dewey said, “It’s best not to get in their way. There’s bound to be trouble and you never know where it’s going to start. You can stay with me tonight. I live right upstairs here.”

Ron stayed in the cool shadows of the lobby all afternoon, watching the street outside.

The lobby had once been beautiful. But now its marble walls were cracked and stained. Sliding doors that had once opened onto gleaming sleek elevators now hung crookedly, halfway open. The elevator shafts were dark and empty.

Outside on the street things were very quiet. Dewey sat on his stool for a long time, looking up the street, squinting in the slanting afternoon sunlight. Ron couldn’t see what he was watching.

Then a patrol of black warriors came past and stopped at Dewey’s counter. They were dressed no better than any of the white gang kids, but somehow they looked sharper, more together. Like they had an exact job to do, and they knew how to do it well.

Ron had never seen blacks close-up before. Not at home. No blacks lived in any of the housing Tracts he knew of. The only blacks he had ever seen had been soldiers on TV.

These kids looked serious and alert. But they weren’t afraid to laugh. One of them cracked a joke that Ron couldn’t hear, and it broke all of them up. Even Dewey was laughing. After watching them for a while, Ron wondered what all the fuss was about. These were ordinary guys, acting pretty much the way anybody would act. Except that each of them carried a rifle slung over his shoulder, and even Dewey seemed to fear something about them.