Hillman had all the police looking for me, to put me back in Laguna-' He became aware of his present situation. He peered around furtively, scrambled under the wheel to the far door. I pulled him back into the middle of the seat and put an armlock on him.
`You're staying with me, Tom, if I have to use handcuffs.'
`FUZZ!'
The jeering word came strangely from him, like a foreign word he was trying to make his own. It bothered me. Boys, like men, have to belong to something. Tom had felt betrayed by one world, the plush deceptive world of Ralph Hillman, with schools like Laguna Perdida on the underside of the weave. He had plunged blindly into another world, and now he had lost that. His mind must be desperate for a place to rest, I thought, and I wasn't doing much of a job of providing one.
A bus came down the street. As it turned into the loading area, I caught a glimpse of passengers at the windows, travel-drugged and blare. California here we come, right back where we started from.
I relaxed my grip on Tom. `I couldn't let you go,' I said, `even if I wanted to. You're not stupid. Try for once to figure out how this looks to other people.'
`This?'
`The whole charade. Your running away from school - for which I certainly don't blame you-'
`Thanks a lot.'
I disregarded his irony. `And the phony kidnapping and all the rest of it. An adopted son is just as important as a real one to his parents. Yours have been worried sick about you.'
`I bet.'
`Neither one of them gave a damn about the money, incidentally. It's you they cared about, and care about.'
`There's something missing,' he said.
`What?'
`The violin accompaniment.'
`You're a hard boy to talk to, Tom.'
`My friends don't think so.'
`What's a friend? Somebody who lets you run wild?'
`Somebody who doesn't want to throw me into the Black Hole of Calcutta, otherwise known as Laguna Perdida School.'
`I don't.'
`You say you don't. But you're working for Captain Hillman, and he does.'
`Not any more.'
The boy shook his head. `I don't believe you, and I don't believe him. After a few things happen to you, you start to believe what people do, not what they say. People like the Hillmans would think that a person like Carol was a nothing, a nothing woman. But she wasn't to me. She liked me. She treated me well. Even my real father never raised his hand to me. The only trouble we had was about the way he treated Carol.'
He had dropped his brittle sardonic front and was talking to me in a human voice. Stella chose this moment to come out of the loading area onto the sidewalk. Her faced was pinched with disappointment.
Tom caught sight of her almost as soon as I did. His eyes lit up as if she was an angel from some lost paradise. He leaned across me.
`Hey! Stell!'
She came running. I got out of the car and let her take my place beside the boy. They didn't embrace or kiss. Perhaps their hands met briefly. I got in behind the wheel.
Stella was saying: `It feels as though you've been gone for ages.'
`It does to me, too.'
`You should have called me sooner.'
`I did.'
`I mean, right away.'
`I was afraid you'd-do what you did.'
He jerked his chin in my direction.
`I didn't, though. Not really. It was his idea. Anyway, you have to go home. We both do.'
`I have no home.'
`Neither have I, then. Mine's just as bad as yours.'
`No, it isn't.'
`Yes, it is. Anyway,' she said to clinch the argument, `you need a bath. I can smell you. And a shave.'
I glanced at his face. It had a pleased silly embarrassed expression.
The street was empty of traffic at the moment. I started the car and made a U-turn toward the south. Tom offered no objection.
