Over his shoulder on the other side of the road, I saw a man with a stapler and a handful of flyers look up at the noise. He had been about to attach one of the flyers to a phone pole but instead started walking toward us. I groaned. A salesman was the last thing we needed right now. The idiot didn’t even look for traffic before he crossed the pavement.

“Sorry to interrupt, boys,” he said, “but—”

“Not a good time,” Tub muttered.

“I’m sorry. I just wanted to ask if you’ve seen my little girl.”

“We just got up,” Tub said. “We haven’t seen anyone.”

“Last night, maybe. Maybe you were out last night and saw—”

“Listen, man—”

Tub whirled around to give the guy a mouthful, but it died on his tongue. The man was around forty, with a dyed black goatee and eyes that were red and exhausted. Dog poop was smeared on the side of his shoe and he didn’t seem to care. Every sign suggested he’d been out for hours canvassing the neighborhood.

The man held out a flyer with a trembling hand. On it was the color-photocopied face of an eight-year-old girl with purple glasses, a sweet face, and a grin missing at least three baby teeth. The seven block letters above her head must have been pure hell to type:

MISSING

“There’s a reward.” The rise in the man’s voice conveyed that he didn’t believe in the inherent goodness of kids, just their perennial need for cash.

Tub took the flyer.

“We’ll let you know if we see her,” he mumbled.

The man forced a rumpled smile and nodded. He backed away, still nodding, the pictures of his daughter crinkling in his grip. His shoulders relaxed when he returned to the telephone pole across the street. It was easier, it seemed, pinning his hopes on inanimate wood rather than on the whims of self-involved, shiftless teens.

Tub stared at his feet for a few seconds before lifting his eyes in a glare.

“Don’t let us down, Jim. Don’t you goddamn do it.”

He shoved the little girl’s face into my palm and charged away.

25.