To that I reply: Don’t worry about it.

The second question, which is far more pressing in my mind: What if Rhys does not show up?

I am not much of a “crossing that bridge when we get there” sort of fellow, so I hatch a backup plan, which involves staking out this area and then following Patrick at a discreet distance. I am planning exactly how that might work when something goes wrong.

The trade is picking up. Life is about categorization. This street urinal is no different. One underpass caters to heterosexual men seeking female companionship. This underpass is the busiest. Old-fashioned values, I suppose. You can talk all you want about genders and preferences and kinks, but the majority of the sexually frustrated are still heterosexual men not getting enough. Old-school. Girls with dead eyes take their spots against the concrete barriers, cars drive by, girls drive off, other girls take their places. It is almost like watching a soda-dispenser machine at a petrol station.

In the second underpass, there is a small contingency of transgender or cross-dressing women of various alterations and stages, and then, at the tail end, where Patrick is now standing, is the young gay trade.

I watch as a man in a melon-hued shirt struts toward Patrick.

What, I had wondered when Patrick first appeared, would I do if a client chose to engage Patrick’s services? At first blush, it would seem that it would be best that I intercede immediately. That would appear to be the most humane act on my part, but again, I can not lose sight of my goal: bringing both boys home. The truth is, Patrick and Rhys have been gone for a decade. They have been through God knows what, and while I don’t relish the idea of allowing either to suffer through even one more abuse, I had already added up the pros and cons and made my decision. There is no use in lingering on that point anymore.

But Melon Shirt is not a client.

I know that immediately. Clients do not strut with such confidence. They don’t keep their heads up high. They do not smirk. They do not wear bright melon shirts. Clients who are desperate enough to come here to satisfy their urges feel shame or fear discovery or, most likely, both.

Melon Shirt, on the other hand, has the walk and bearing and crackle of someone who is comfortable and dangerous. You can, if you are attuned to it, sense such things. You can feel it in your lizard brain, a primitive, inner warning trill that you cannot quite explain. Modern man, more afraid of embarrassment sometimes than safety, often ignores it at his own peril.

Melon Shirt glances behind him. Two other men are on the scene now, working Melon’s flanks. They are both very large, decked out in camouflage fatigues, and wear what we used to call wifebeaters over shiny pectorals. The other boys working the underpass—the smoker and the one with the stud collar—run off at the sight of Melon Shirt, leaving Patrick alone with the three newcomers.