Or he could be dead. Considering that possibility, I scanned the Deuce and wondered how many of the young men on the street right that minute would ever see thirty-five. Drugs would waste some of them and disease would do for some more, and a fair number of the rest would kill each other. It was a grim thought, and one I didn't care to entertain for long. Forty-second Street was hard enough to bear when you stayed right in present time. When you took the long view it was impossible.
TESTAMENT House had gotten its start when an Episcopal priest began allowing runaways to sleep on the floor of his apartment in Chelsea. Before long he had talked a property owner into donating a decaying rooming house a few blocks from Penn Station, and other donors had contributed funds which enabled him to buy the buildings on either side. Two years ago another benefactor had purchased a six-story industrial building and donated that to the cause. I went there after I left Forty-second Street, and a woman with gray hair and unsparing blue eyes told me the institution's history.
'They call this building New Testament House,' she said, 'and of course the original complex is Old Testament House. Father Joyner has been trying to arrange for the donation of a piece of property in the East Village, and I can't imagine what the kids will call that. All that's left is the Apocrypha, and somehow I don't think that's quite catchy enough for them.'
We were in the building's entryway, with a sign running down the building's rules. Anyone under twenty-one was welcome, but no one was allowed on the premises with alcohol or drugs or weapons in his or her possession, and no one would be admitted between the hours of 1:00 and 8:00 A.M.
Mrs. Hillstrom was being charming but cautious, which was understandable; she didn't know yet if I was a prospective donor or someone with a predatory interest in her charges. Whichever I might be, I wasn't going to get past her and into the building proper. I was unarmed and drug-free, but I was clearly over the age limit.
I showed her the sketches of the two boys. Without looking she said, 'I'm afraid it's not our policy to disclose who is or isn't staying with us.'
'There's nothing to disclose.' She looked at me. 'Neither of these boys is staying here.'
Now she looked at the sketches. 'These are drawings,' she said. 'That's unusual.'
'I think one or both of them may have come here. I think they were runaways.'
'Lost boys,' she said. She peered at each sketch in turn. 'They could almost be brothers. Who are they?'
'That's what I'm trying to find out. I don't know their names or where they're from.'
'What happened to them?'
'I think this one is dead. I think the younger boy is in danger.' I thought for a moment. 'Or beyond danger,' I said.
' 'Beyond danger.' That means he may be dead also, is that what you're saying?'
'I guess it is.'
She cocked her head and searched my eyes. 'There's more than you're telling me. Why would you have sketches instead of photographs? How can you be looking for boys if you don't know who they are?'
'There are things you don't want to know about.'
'Yes,' she said, 'and I already know most of them. I'm a paid employee, Mr. Scudder, not an unpaid volunteer. I work twelve hours a day, six days a week, but I don't always take my day off. I get a room of my own and three meals a day and ten dollars a week. That didn't cover cigarettes so I quit smoking, and now I usually give half of my salary away. I've been here for ten months, Mr. Scudder, and I've quit three times. When they train you you agree to stay for a year, so the first time I quit I was afraid I would get yelled at. I told Father Joyner I couldn't take it anymore, that I had to quit, and he said, 'Maggie, I envy you, I wish to God I could quit.' I said, 'I changed my mind, I'm staying.' 'Welcome back,' he said.
'Another time I quit screaming and another time I quit crying. I don't mean I ceased to scream or cry. I was angry, so I quit, and I was weeping, so I quit, but then each time I calmed down and decided to stay. Every day I see something that makes me want to walk down the street and grab every person I meet and shake them all and tell them what's going on. Every day I learn another of the things you say I don't want to know about. One of the three buildings at the Old Testament House is our HIV wing now, did you know that? All the boys there have tested positive for the virus. They're all under twenty-one. You have to leave here when you're twenty-one. Most of them will never have to leave because they'll be dead by then. You think there's something you can't tell me? You think you know something worse than that?'
I said, 'The reason I think the older boy is dead is I saw a film he was in with a man and a woman. At the end of the film they killed him. I think the younger boy is either dead or in danger because last week I saw him with a man who I think was one of the performers in the film.'
'And you drew these sketches.'
'I couldn't draw water. A police artist did these.'
'I see.' She looked off to one side. 'Are there many movies like that? Is it very profitable to make them?'
'I don't know how many there are. And no, I don't think it's particularly profitable. I think these people made the film for their own amusement.'
' 'For their own amusement.' ' She shook her head. 'There was a figure in Greek mythology who devoured his own children. Cronus. I forget why. I'm sure he had a reason.' Her eyes flashed at me. 'We are devouring our children, a whole generation of them. Wasting them, trashing them, throwing them away. Literally devouring them, in some cases. Devil worshipers sacrificing newborns and… and… cooking them, eating them. Men buying children on the street and having sex with them and then killing them. You say you saw this man, you saw him with the younger boy? You actually saw him?'
'I think it was the same man.'
'Was he normal? Did he look human?' I showed her the sketch. 'He looks ordinary,' she said. 'I hate that. I hate the thought that ordinary people perform such awful acts. I want them to look like monsters. They act like monsters, why shouldn't they look like monsters? Do you understand why people do such things?'
'No.'
' 'I envy you,' Father Joyner said. 'I envy you, I wish to God I could quit myself.' Afterward I thought, well, Buster, that was a pretty well calculated way to get me to stay. That was pretty crafty. But I don't think so. I think he meant it, I think it was the literal truth. Because it's true for me. I wish to God I could quit.'
'I know what you mean.'
'Do you?' She looked at the sketches again. 'I could have seen them here, the boys. I don't recognize them but it's possible.'
'You wouldn't have seen the older one. You said you've been here ten months, and I think they'd already made their picture by then.'
She asked me if I'd wait for a moment and disappeared into the building. I stood there while a couple of kids entered the building and a few others left. They just looked like ordinary kids, not streetwise like the ones on Forty-second, not as woebegone as their circumstances would warrant. I wondered what had driven them out of their homes and into this crumbling city. Maggie Hillstrom probably could have told me, but I didn't much want to hear it.
Brutal fathers, negligent mothers. Drunken violence. Incest. I didn't have to hear it, I could figure it all out for myself. Nobody walked out of The Brady Bunch and wound up here.
I was reading the rules again when she returned. No one recognized either of the sketches. She offered to keep them and show them around later. I told her that would be good, and gave her extra copies of both. 'My number's on the back,' I said. 'Call anytime. And let me give you some copies of the third sketch, the older man. You might want to show those around and tell your kids not to go anywhere with a man who looks like that.'
'We tell them not to go with any men,' she said. 'But they don't listen.'
Chapter 12
'Father Michael Joyner,' Gordie Keltner said. 'I get mail from him, I suppose most of the free world gets mail from him, but I'll receive his newsletters forever because I sent him money once. 'I can save a boy for twenty-five dollars'- that was the headline of one of his fund-raisers. 'Here's fifty,' I wrote. 'Save two of them for me, won't you?' And I sent it back with my check for fifty dollars. Have you met the good father?'
