He walked most of the way to First Avenue, then headed back the way he had come, only sliding uptown little by little as he followed the pattern of the WALK lights (perhaps knowing, on some deep level, that even they served the Beam). Around ten o’clock he found himself in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue. He was hot, tired, and depressed. He wanted a soda, but he thought he ought to hold onto what little money he had for as long as he could. He’d taken every cent out of the box he kept by his bed, but it only amounted to eight dollars, give or take a few cents. A group of school-kids were lining up for a tour. Public school, Jake was almost sure—they were dressed as casually as he was. No blazers from Paul Stuart, no ties, no jumpers, no simple little skirts that cost a hundred and twenty-five bucks at places like Miss So Pretty or Tweenity. This crowd was Kmart all the way. On impulse, Jake stood at the end of the line and followed them into the museum.
The tour took an hour and fifteen minutes. Jake enjoyed it. The museum was quiet. Even better, it was air-conditioned. And the pictures were nice. He was particularly fascinated by a small group of Frederick Remington’s Old West paintings and a large picture by Thomas Hart Benton that showed a steam locomotive charging across the great plains toward Chicago while beefy farmers in bib overalls and straw hats stood in their fields and watched. He wasn’t noticed by either of the teachers with the group until the very end. Then a pretty black woman in a severe blue suit tapped him on the shoulder and asked who he was.
Jake hadn’t seen her coming, and for a moment his mind froze. Without thinking about what he was doing, he reached into his pocket and closed his hand around the silver key. His mind cleared immediately, and he felt calm again. “My group is upstairs,” he said, smiling guiltily. “We’re supposed to be looking at a bunch of modern art, but I like the stuff down here a lot better, because they’re real pictures. So I sort of … you know . . .” “Snuck away?” the teacher suggested. The comers of her lips twitched in a suppressed smile.
“Well, I’d rather think of it as French leave.” These words simply popped out of his mouth.
The students now staring at Jake only looked puzzled, but this time the teacher actually laughed. “Either yon don’t know or have forgotten,” she said, “but in the French Foreign Legion they used to shoot deserters. I suggest you rejoin your class at once, young man.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you. They’ll be almost done now, anyway.” “What school is it?”
“Markey Academy,” Jake said. This also just popped out. He went upstairs, listening to the disembodied echo of foot-falls and low voices in the great space of the rotunda and wondering why he had said that. He had never heard of a place called Markey Academy in his life.
HE WAITED AWHILE IN the upstairs lobby, then noticed a guard looking at him with growing curiosity and decided it wouldn’t be wise to wait any longer—he would just have to hope the class he had joined briefly was gone. He looked at his wristwatch, put an expression on his face that he hoped looked like Gosh! Look how late it’s getting!, and trotted back downstairs. The class—and the pretty black teacher who had laughed at the idea of French leave—was gone, and Jake decided it might be a good idea to get gone himself. He would walk awhile longer—slowly, in deference to the heat—and catch a subway. He stopped at a hot-dog stand on the comer of Broadway and Forty-second, trading in a little of his meager cash supply for a sweet sausage and a Nehi. He sat on the steps of a bank building to eat his lunch, and that turned out to be a bad mistake.
A cop came walking toward him, twirling his nightstick in a complex series of maneuvers. He seemed to be paying attention to nothing but this, but when he came abreast of Jake he abruptly shoved his stick back into his loop and turned to him.
“Say-hey, big guy,” he said. “No school today?” Jake had been wolfing his sausage, but the last bite abruptly stuck in his throat. This was a lousy piece of luck … if luck was all it was. They were in Times Square, sleaze capital of America; there were push-ers, junkies, whores, and chicken-chasers everywhere . .. but this cop was ignoring them in favor of him.
Jake swallowed with an effort, then said, “It’s finals week at my school. I only had one test today. Then I could leave.” He paused, not liking the bright, searching look in the cop’s eyes. “I had permission,” he concluded uneasily. “Uh-huh. Can I see some ID?”
Juke’s heart sank. Had his mother and father already called the cops? He supposed that, after yesterday’s adventure, that was pretty likely. Under ordinary circumstances, the NYPD wouldn’t take much notice of another missing kid, especially one that had been gone only half a day, but his father was a big deal at the Network, and he prided himself on the number of strings he could pull. Jake doubted if this cop had his picture . . . but he might very well have his name.
“Well,” Jake said reluctantly, “I’ve got my student discount card from Mid-World Lanes, but that’s about all.”