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a gun. They wave it around at everybody. Somebody would have strung them up by now if they didn’t have it.”
    “So I heard,” he said. “Is it loaded?”
    “Don’t know for sure. But if you want to find out, bust that door in. We haven’t had any good entertainment around here in months.”
    He noticed the curtain on the front window being pulled back, someone looking out through the bottom of the miniblinds.
    What would his father do? Probably weigh the danger and walk away. But there was no way Jeff could do that. They had worked for weeks tilling the yards, cultivating the garden, and taking care of the plants; they had bartered everything they had of any worth. They’d traded an ax for a bag of potatoes. A shovel for some beans. Two of their flashlights for a couple of loaves of homemade bread. And these little thugs were not getting it.
    But they had a gun. And that meant he had to be smart about this.
    In a voice loud enough to be heard through the door, he told the woman, “Well, I guess they’re not coming out. I’ll have to come back later.”
    The woman stepped back into her apartment and closed the door as Jeff started back toward the stairs. But he didn’t go down. He waited just around the side of the building at the top of the stairwell, watching for the door to open.
    He hadn’t noticed the parking lot before, he’d been so focused on getting to the kids. Like every other parking lot in town, it was full of cars that hadn’t moved since May 24. Several people on the stairs stared up at him. No one looked inclined to interfere. If they felt as bitter toward the brats as that woman had, maybe they’d be glad to see them get theirs.
    He sat for half an hour or so, watching people bringing sloshing buckets of dirty water home. Where did they get it? There wasn’t a lake nearby.
    And how could they grow food when everything around them was paved? How did they cook with no electricity or gas? And what was up with that garbage piled up in the back of the buildings?
    Men clustered out in the parking lot as if they had nothing else to do. Women supervised children playing on the pavement. The smoke from a grill rose nearby. At least they had that.
    Finally, the door at 4B opened, and the two boys stepped cautiously out.
    Jeff watched, hidden, until they turned away from him, then launched himself and ran toward that door. The boys didn’t see him until he shoved their door open behind them and pushed his way into the apartment. The younger one shouted, “It’s him!”
    A little girl screamed.
    Undaunted, Jeff walked through the filthy, dark apartment, trying to look as threatening as he could. At five-eleven, he towered above the skinny children. The living room was smaller than his family’s laundry room, and the place smelled almost as rank as the garbage outside. Through an open doorway, Jeff could see a little red-haired boy sitting at the cruddy kitchen table, eating squash out of a jar with his fingers. Next to him, the screaming girl of about three stood on her knees, holding a carrot. Snot had dried under her nose and her hands were filthy.
    “Get out of here!” the oldest boy shouted.
    “You stole my food, you little punk! I want it back.” Jeff bolted into the tiny kitchen and saw that some of the jars of vegetables had already been opened and eaten. They hadn’t wasted any time. The boy at the table started to cry, and the preschool-aged girl screamed in a higher pitch.
    Jeff suddenly felt like he was the criminal, here to torment innocent kids. But they were anything but innocent. “I’m not turning you over to the police,” he said, quieter now. “Just give me back what you haven’t eaten and we’ll call it even.”
    “We’re not giving nothing back!” the kid cried.
    The second child — the other thief — emerged from a bedroom with a gun. “You better leave, Mister.”
    Jeff lifted his hands, palms out — placating rather than surrendering. “Chill out. I don’t