`But you didn't come here to inquire after my health.'
`I'd like to have a few minutes with Fred Tyndal.'
`I'm sorry,' she said, `the boys are all in class.'
`It could be important.'
`You want to ask Fred some questions, is that it?'
`Just one, really. It wouldn't have to take long.'
`And it won't be anything disturbing?'
`I don't think so.'
She left me in the lounge and went into Patch's office to make a telephone call. I wandered around the big battered homeless room, imagining how it would feel to be a boy whose parents had left him here. Mrs. Mallow came back into the room: `Fred will be right over.'
While I was waiting, I listened to the story of her marriages, including the one that had lasted, her marriage to the bottle. Then Fred came in out of the sunlight, none of which adhered to him. He sort of loitered just inside the door, pulling at the hairs on his chin and waiting to be told what he had done wrong this time.
I got up and moved toward him, not too quickly. `Hello, Fred.'
`Hello.'
`You remember the talk we had the other day?'
`There's nothing the matter with my memory.'
He added with his quick evanescent smile: `You're Lew Archer the First. Did you find Tom yet?'
`Not yet. I think you can help me find him.'
He scuffed the doorframe with the side of his shoe. `I don't see how.'
`By telling me everything you know. One thing I can promise - they won't put him back in here.'
`What good will that do me?' he said forlornly.
I had no answer ready. After a moment the boy said, `What do you want me to tell you?'
`I think you were holding back a little the other day. I don't blame you. You didn't know me from Adam. You still don't, but it's three days later now, and Tom is still missing.'
His face reflected the seriousness of this. He couldn't stand such seriousness for very long. He said with a touch of parody: `Okay, I'll talk, I'll spill everything.'
`I want to ask you this. When Tom broke out of here Saturday night, did he have any definite person or place in mind that he intended to go to?'
He ducked his head quickly in the affirmative. `Yeah, I think so.'
`Do you know where he was going?'
`Tom didn't say. He did say something else, though, something about finding his true father.'
The boy's voice broke through into feeling he couldn't handle. He said: `Big deal.'
`What did he mean by that, Fred?'
`He said he was adopted.'
`Was he really?'
`I don't know. A lot of the kids here want to think they're adopted. My therapist calls it a typical Freudian family romance.'
`Do you think Tom was serious?'
`Sure he was.'
Once again the boy's face reflected seriousness, and I caught a glimpse there of the maturity that he might reach yet. `He said he couldn't know who he was until he knew for sure who his father was.'
He grinned wryly. `I'm trying to forget who my father is.'
`You can't.'
`I can try.'
`Get interested in something else.'
`There isn't anything else.'
`There will be.'
`When?' he said.
Mrs. Mallow interrupted us. `Have you found out what you need to know, Mr. Archer? Fred really should be going back to class now.'
I said to him: `Is there anything else you can tell me?'
`No, sir. Honestly. We didn't talk much.'
