“Who’s the other one?” said Sue Kramer, pointing to the larger boy.

Preston kept his head down.

“If you know, spit it out,” Al Nussbaum demanded.

“Don’t know his name. He’s here once in a while, never plays.”

“What does he do?” said Sue Kramer.

“Hangs out.”

“With who?”

“Troy.”

“Always Troy?”

“Yeah.”

“Troy plays and this one hangs.”

“Yeah.”

Al Nussbaum said, “Now that you know who they are, why aren’t you going after them pronto, finding that kid?”

Reyes turned to the clerks. “What does hanging consist of?”

“He stands around while Troy plays,” said Lance.

“He ever try to steal?”

Head shakes from the Kukach brothers.

“Ever see either of them with little kids?”

“Nope,” said Lance.

“Never,” said Preston.

“What else can you tell us about them?” said Reyes.

Shrugs.

“Anything, guys. This is serious.”

“Spit it out,” said Al Nussbaum.

Lance said, “I dunno, but maybe they live close by.”

“Why do you say that?” said Sue Kramer.

“Because I seen ’em leaving and walking out to the parking lot and keep going onto the street. No one picked ’em up in a car, y’know?”

“Leaving at which exit?”

“The one that goes out to the parking lot.”

Al Nussbaum said, “Three exits go out to the parking lot, Lance.”

“The one near the garbage,” said Lance.

Fernie Reyes glanced at his partner and left.

* * *

No body in the Dumpsters out back near the eastern exit.

Five more hours of neighborhood canvass finally ID’d the two boys. Both of them lived in a low-income housing project set like a scar across the scrubby park that paralleled the rear of the mall. Two hundred shoddily built, federally financed one-bedroom units distributed among a quartet of three-story buildings, ringed by chain-link fencing in which dozens of holes had been cut. A scruffy, prisonlike place well known by uniforms who patrolled the area— 415 City, they called it, after the penal code for disturbing the peace.

The manager of Building 4 watched the video for a second and pointed to the smaller boy. “Troy Turner. You guys been out here before on him. Last week, matter of fact.”

“Really,” said Sue Kramer.

“Yeah. He smacked his mother with a dinner plate, busted up the side of her face.” The manager massaged his own unshaved cheek. “Before that, he was scaring some of the little kids.”

“Scaring them how?”

“Grabbing and shoving, waving a knife. You guys shoulda locked him up. So what’d he do?”

“Who’s the bigger one?” said Reyes.

“Randolph Duchay. Kind of a retard but he doesn’t cause problems. He done something, it’s probably ’causea Troy.”

“How old are they?” said Fernie Reyes.

“Lemme see,” said the manager. “Troy’s twelve I think, maybe the other one’s thirteen.”

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 3

The detectives found the boys in the park.