“But … but I don’t have him with me,” said Robin, his voice trembling.
“Don’t try to make a fool out o’ me, boy, or you’ll come to wish you’d never been born,” said Hawker. “You can’t tell me you never took him with you when you run off.”
“Oh, I … I did take him, Hawker,” said Robin. “Remember how he was crying the night I left? You told me to keep him quiet or get him out of there. So I took him for a walk.”
This honesty stopped Hawker for a moment. Then he pulled Robin away from the wall by the shoulders, and slammed him back again.
“I told you not to make a fool o’ me, boy. Think I’m stupid, do you? Well, here’s stupid for you. Stupid is tryin’ to tell me you took the brat for a walk when all his stuff was missin’ with him. You think I’ll buy that?”
“All right,” said Robin. “I … I guess I have to tell you. I was running away with Danny. I … I saw how you were going to hit him, and I thought … I thought you didn’t want us around any more.”
“You’re breakin’ my heart,” said Hawker. “But snivelin’ ain’t goin’ to get you anywhere, boy. And so far you ain’t answered my first question. Where you hidin’ the little brat?”
For this question, Robin needed another St. Something miracle. Did miracles extend to providing someone with a lie? Well, for this kind of lie, apparently yes!
“I … I walked a long time because I didn’t know where I was going,” said Robin. “Then I began thinking maybe I was wrong about everything, and I’d better just go home. But by then I was so tired I sat down on a step in front of a building to rest. Danny was asleep by then, and I … I must have gone off to sleep for a while too. When I woke up, Danny and all this things were gone. I was so scared, I went on walking away, and never came home. It’s what happened, Hawker, honest.”
“You’re lyin’,” said Hawker.
Some moments passed as they stared at one another, Hawker menacing, Robin quaking.
“I’d kill you, boy,” said Hawker. “But I expect you know somethin’ you’re not teilin’. And dead you ain’t any use. So your life is now spared. But one thing you’ll be showin’ me, and that’s where you’re holed up. And you’ll be showin’ me right now.”
“Now?” Robin felt as if he had been slammed against the wall again.
“Now,” said Hawker, grabbing him by the collar once more and marching him down the street. “You lead the way, boy.”
And just where was Robin going to lead him? The only place he knew he was not going to lead Hawker was to St. Something. Other than that he did not have the wildest idea in the world. But miracles from St. Something seemed to be falling on his head like raindrops. For as he started walking, he suddenly did have an idea—the pier where the boys had lived before they found their new home! He had never been there, but they had given him a good description of where it was, and he was certain he could lead Hawker right to it.
The only thing he now needed to pray for was that none of the boys who had shared the pier with his friends would be “at home” when he and Hawker arrived. They, of course, would not know Robin, and what then? Robin’s brain, by now all but completely paralyzed, could not come up with an answer to that. It was still early enough, however, that the street boys were still out there in the streets. So all that was needed was for the space under the pier to look lived in, but with no boys in it.
Robin was able to find the pier with little difficulty, but when they went under it, he found that his luck had run out. For by the light of a single fluttering candle, a ragged young boy, who looked like any one of the hundreds who roamed the streets, sat cross-legged on the ground gnawing on the tag end of a chunk of bread. He looked up as Robin arrived with Hawker, but went right on chewing without saying a word.
“This the place?” Hawker asked Robin.
“Y-yes,” stammered Robin.
“You know this boy?” Hawker addressed the boy on the ground, jerking his head at Robin.
Standing frozen at Hawker’s side, Robin managed to nod his head so slightly it was almost no nod at all. Probably only a street boy, schooled in the art of signalling, would have caught it.
“Sure,” said the boy, chewing away with his mouth open.
“Live here, does he?” asked Hawker.
Robin nodded again.
“Sure he lives here,” the boy said, appearing more intent on picking something crawling across his bread than answering Hawker’s questions.
“What’s his name then?” Hawker asked slyly.
The boy looked at Robin for a signal. Of course, getting none, he mumbled something unintelligible.
“What was that?” Hawker shot at him. “I didn’t get it. Say it again.”
“It’s Jocko,” the boy said, giving Robin a helpless shrug.
“Well, it ain’t. So what do you think of that?” said Hawker, pouncing on this gleefully.
“It is Jocko,” Robin burst out, finally locating his voice. “It’s my street name. You remember how Maggot said when I got out on the street, I’d have to change my name for protection. Well, that’s what I did.”
This had the desired effect of stopping Hawker. But after mulling it over and being unable to find any loopholes in this reply, he came up with another thought.
“Did he have a brat … a baby with him when he first got here?” he asked the boy.
Robin quickly shook his head.
“Baby?” said the boy. “Yer crazy, man. Who’d be bringin’ a baby here? We got trouble ter spare carin’ fer usselves. Wot we want with a baby?” Then the boy grinned at Robin. “You stayin’ or leavin’ fer the evenin’,
