She left him alone. Put a hand on his shoulder, then slipped out into the corridor to get some air, to move, to do something. In her old house in the country, Ruby could have wandered the fields out back, maybe found some empty dirt path, sat there with her sketch pad, and drawn until dark. Or walked the mile over to Lillian's.
Not here; there were only hallways and the constant need to watch for older kids, the dropouts and users, the kids who might come after you. In moments Ruby was up four floors, knocking on apartment 1113. A radio was on, voices and cooking smells radiated through the door.
"Ruby, what you doing?" said Rex, holding the door half-open.
"Rex, you coming out?" If she didn't get him out in one second, his mom or dad would come to the door and she'd be invited into the chaos of that apartment, with Rex's twenty brothers and sisters and Aunt Esther and Uncle Neville talking and eating and talking; it would be winter before she made her way out. "C'mon, quick."
Rex shouted something over his shoulder and escaped into the hall. "OK, OK, why you all dialed up?"
"Need to talk to you for a second. Not here."
He led her down the hall, around one bend and another, up some stairs to a landing between floors thirteen and fourteen that had a view east over the city and was usually off-limits; a gang of older kids played cards and smoked on this landing most days. "Don't you worry, they won't be back up here till later," Rex said. "What's up, now?"
"Trouble, that's what," Ruby answered. "My dad, I mean. I think they think it's him. The university police-that he's guilty. I never seen him so scared."
"But he didn't do it-the police will find out, that's their job. He just needs to tell the truth."
"I don't know, though," said Ruby. "He already talked to them once. I mean, what if you tell the truth and nobody believes you? My dad's not exactly… He's a janitor. They don't really care what he says."
Rex put a hand on her arm. "Aww, now, don't you look like that. It's gonna be all right. Hey, wait. You know what? You should figure out what happened. Who really killed Dr. Rama. Do it your own self. You know everybody who works there, right?"
Ruby was taking deep breaths. "I-yes, I do, but-Investigate how? I'm a kid; how do I even start?"
"You're asking me? I never had a good idea in my life. Seriously, not a one. But you could maybe-well, no, maybe not."
"What?"
"Nothing."
"No, really, what?"
"It wasn't a good idea."
"I don't care, it's something-tell me already."
"You could talk to the Window Lady, that's all I was thinking. I heard she used to work as some crime investigator type of thing. A long time ago."
"What-how come you never told me?"
"I just did. Besides, I'm not sure it's even true. And I can't-I probably shouldn't go with you."
"What? We'll just talk to her, that's it."
Rex looked away. "Nah, it's OK. You should do it, though."
"Huh?" Ruby studied him for a moment. "You scared? You are. I can tell. She's, like, ninety. You worried she's gonna ram you with her wheelchair or what?"
"Look, Ruby, I never should've said anything. It's nothing. I just heard she got a fake eye, that's all. Like a marble up in there. I can't be around that."
"What-where'd you hear that?"
"Jimmy said it."
Jimmy, the youngest of the three Woods brothers. The Minister of Information, he called himself. Jimmy's older (and much scarier) brothers were the Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister. Kids believed everything Jimmy Woods said, for some reason.
"Rex, c'mon. Jimmy?"
"I mean, Ruby, what if she sneezes or something? I don't want to be there when that cue ball is rolling around on the floor… "
"Rex! Stop-this is serious."
Ruby paced in a circle, counting three and one, three plus one. Unbelievable. A fake eyeball. It's something Rex himself would have made up. She pulled her sketch pad out of her back pocket and wrote something down.
"OK, ninja warrior, I have a plan," she said. "We'll ask the Window Lady for help, and you don't have to meet her. You won't even have to see her if you don't want to."
"Like how?"
A minute later, kneeling beside Rex outside the door of apartment 925, Ruby wondered if she'd ever had a worse plan. She pushed a note under the door, knocked twice softly, and fled behind Rex down the hall to the stairwell.
Peeking back around the corner, Ruby saw a light under the door blink once, twice; the note disappeared. "I feel like I'm in kindergarten," she whispered.
"Seriously," Rex said. "I'm gonna jet up these stairs if she comes out."
But she didn't. Strange, Ruby thought. You spend all day watching people from on high and don't even look when someone knocks on your door. Maybe the Window Lady was scared of something, too.
"Let's walk past, all casual," Ruby said, moving out into the hallway.
She had a strong urge to knock again, harder. This lady was her only lead, her only hope right now, and-maybe it was just impatience for a stroke of luck on a bad day-she stopped and pounded on the door: one, two, three.
Ruby turned to Rex-"There, that should wake her up"-as the door swept open and a man with no shirt and a long white beard towered over them.
"Mr. Nelson, Mr. Nelson, we don't mean nothing, sir!" Rex said. "We playing, is all."
Ruby couldn't move or speak. The Medicine Man, people called him, the tallest, darkest, most savage-looking human she'd ever seen.
"You play outside, not in the corridor. There's people living in here, boy," the man said. He gave them a wild, frowning stare, slammed the door, and turned the lock.
"OK, Mr. Terraces Expert, that's good work," Ruby said when her breath returned. "So she lives in 925, huh?"
"Yeah, I probably mighta got that wrong."
"Probably mighta? You almost got us eaten. Man probably drinks chicken blood in there."
"You sicker than I am, Ruby. I forgot about this here ninth floor; the apartment numbers don't line up with the other floors."
"Good to know. Is there a door we can try where a native healer doesn't pop out like a jack-in-the-box?"
"I'm counting the windows in my head right now," Rex said. "Don't say anything to mess me up… It's 921. Right down there."
"Oh no," said Ruby. "You mean the one with the DO NOT DISTURB sign on it?"
