‘They won’t.’ Ramone shook his head. ‘Them ’wolves ain’t so stupid as you think, Tom. They stick to the shadows so no one knows the truth.’

Tom shot him a sideways glance. ‘And the truth is?’

‘That the ’wolves are recruiting,’ Ramone said simply. ‘Cops don’t know they’re there … the nice people of the city don’t know they’re there … But in the run-down neighbourhoods, the bad-lit places that my people got to live in, those bastards are getting stronger all the time.’

g

Ramone’s hangout was located in a slum tenement on 110th Street. It was a hell of a walk but somehow they made it. The neighbourhood was run-down and threatening in the cold, mistrustful air of the night.

Tom and Kate helped Ramone up the steps.

He knocked on the pitted, battered old door in a distinctive tattoo. ‘You better keep quiet about being a howler,’ he warned Tom.

‘Sure. Believe it or not,’ Tom replied, ‘it’s not something I like to advertise.’

A minute or so later some bolts were thrown and the door creaked open a little.

A camera pushed its way out. Tom was blinded by its flash.

‘Quit that, Polar,’ Ramone complained, and shoved open the door.

Polar backed up and shrugged. He was a tall skinny kid with skin the same colour as Ramone’s, but beyond that Tom couldn’t really say, since Polar kept the camera up at his face. It was a Polaroid self- printing job, which maybe explained his name. He plucked out the developing picture and silently handed it to Kate.

She stared at it, baffled, then slipped it in her purse.

‘Life looks better to Polar through his camera,’ was all Ramone offered by way of explanation.

They were standing in a filthy, dusty kitchen. Damp mould had crawled up around the black-painted windows, and there seemed to be more plaster on the garbage-strewn floor than on the walls.

The look of disdain was clear on Kate’s face.

‘Hey, this is just the lobby,’ Ramone assured her, and pointed in the direction Polar was disappearing. ‘Presidential Suite’s through there.’

‘Ramone? You back? ¿Tienes algún problema?’ A girl’s voice, hard and clear in its urgency, carried through to them.

‘No es nada,’ he called back. At once, he shook off the support of Tom and Kate and stood alone.

Tom understood why when, a second later, a cute girl with a nose stud swept into the scuzzy room. She wore a red cropped top beneath a hooded sweatshirt, and tight black pants. Her thick black hair had been straightened and pulled tight back away from her high forehead. Hands on her hips, her wide, appraising eyes full of attitude, Tom imagined she took some impressing.

‘This is Jasmine,’ Ramone told Tom with a crooked smile. ‘She loves me.’