Miguel worked the lunch crowd at the busy intersection, knowing how to fade away when squads came down the block without drawing their attention. If a suspicious car came along too late for him to casually make it to a hiding place, his friends would hide him by pretending to be window shopping, their backs to the street with him in front, nearly pressed up against the glass. The teens were just tall enough not to draw more than one glance from the officers in marked or unmarked cars, looked just old enough always to get the benefit of the doubt that they weren’t underage as long as he wasn’t seen with them.
He made sure all of them had enough money to buy something to eat at the end of the day since commuters often singled him out for a little something extra. If someone got a little too friendly or asked him too many questions, his friends would intervene and create a distraction so he could quickly disappear.
When the handouts started to dwindle and the storeowners began to complain about their presence, they went a few blocks over to work a brand new crowd.
He was more than glad to share what he got in exchange for one small favor: “If you ever see the guy in the black Mercedes, you’ve got to warn me so I can hide,” he told them. “And if he asks you where I am, you have no idea. Deal?”
“Sure, man. Nobody’s taking you away again. Not if we can help it.”
Miguel felt somewhat reassured by the promise yet still knew that Dorning could show up at any time.
****
He was returning from visiting his mother one Saturday morning when he saw them coming towards him in a hurry, blocks from where they were panhandling. He could tell immediately from their worried expressions something was terribly wrong.
They grabbed him by the arms and carried him through a revolving door into a department store. Two clerks immediately frowned at them; they stopped where they were and set him down.
“What is? Cops?” he asked over the Muzak pouring from the speaker directly above them.
One of the teens shook his head and Miguel instantly knew.
“It’s him, isn’t it? Did he talk to you?”
“No, we ran when we saw him. I’m not even sure he saw us. But he’s around.”
“Yeah,” said another teen. “Go find a good place to hide before it’s too late.”
Miguel followed them out the door and looked fearfully up and down the block. He didn’t see the familiar car.
“Want me to come with, in case he does find you?” one of the teens asked.
“No,” Miguel said. “I’ve been thinking about some places to hide. I’ll be okay.”
“Good luck, man,” another teen said. “See you later.”
Miguel walked briskly away, head down, trying to use the sparse crowd on the sidewalk as a shield from the street.
“Crap,” one of teens said, watching him leave. “He better be okay. We don’t get half the money without him.”
The others nodded somberly in agreement.
Miguel walked straight past the rehab center where his mother was, knowing the doctor would look for him there first. He decided to keep walking, to get as far away as he could from where the doctor expected to find him. All the familiar churches and shelters in town were out of the question—Dorning was certain to visit them all.
He finally decided to go to one of the last places the doctor would ever think to look for him, the industrial park. With only trains and truck traffic, it was no place to panhandle or even hang out. And since it was the weekend, he could easily find a place to hide all day among the loading docks and trailer yards because there would be no one around.
Miguel took the alleyways, guessing they were too slow and difficult for Dorning to maneuver through but kept a sharp eye out for the Mercedes whenever he had to dash across a street.
At the sight of the factories up ahead, Miguel began to feel safe. He passed by rows of dumpsters and trash compactors, looking up at the nearly windowless buildings on either side that were each blocks long. Without the sound of traffic or the bustle of people on the sidewalks, there was only an eerie silence as if the factories were giants fast asleep on their sides.
He heard the unexpected squeal of tires behind him and spun around.
There was nothing there.
Miguel kept walking. He saw a recessed loading dock with a long row of tall overhead doors and noticed one door had been left open. He walked down the slight incline, cautiously peering into the bay.
“Hello?” he called. “Anybody there?” His voiced echoed in the empty chamber.
No one answered.
He boosted himself up and decided at once it was just the right place to stay.
Then he heard the squeal of tires again. He gasped to see the black Mercedes slowly drive past the loading dock, stop, and back up, then turn into the open bay, as if Dorning had read his mind. Miguel stood tight against the inside wall so he couldn’t be seen.
He heard the car door open and close, then approaching footsteps on the asphalt that stopped when they reached the dock.
“Clearly you’re not the professor,” he heard Dorning say. “Percival would be looking for me instead of running away. You’re probably wondering how I found you, aren’t you Miguel? Actually, you made it ridiculously easy. I simply thought to myself, ‘Where would I hide if I were the boy?’ and came to the same answer you did—where the doctor would never think to look. And so I drove by the factories a few times after failing to see you with your friends—who seemed quite nervous by the way, which told me they had tipped you off—and sure enough there you were in plain sight, just walking along all by yourself for the whole world to see. And when I saw this open door I realized you would think this was the perfect place to hide, when in reality it’s the worst because it’s much too obvious. And that’s how I found you as I knew I would in time. You might as well come out Miguel because I’m not leaving until you do. There’s no place to run anymore. The game is over.”
Miguel tensed himself, then burst out of hiding and leapt over Dorning’s astonished head. He landed hard on his feet and ran as fast as he could. Behind him he heard the car door slam and the squeal of tires once more. The car engine roared, as if furious he wouldn’t do as the doctor said and surrender without a fight.
Miguel heard the Mercedes coming up fast. He made a sudden left turn at an intersection, knowing Dorning wouldn’t expect it. The Mercedes sailed past, the brakes screeched in protest, and the car came around to pursue him again.
His lungs burned, and his legs grew wobbly. Miguel saw another intersection up ahead, gambled on turning right this time.
He ran into a dead end with stark, windowless walls all around, collapsed in a heap to catch his breath.
The Mercedes blocked the exit. Dorning got out, his expression grim.
“That was foolish, very foolish Miguel. You could have been hurt. Percival could have been hurt.”
“I’m not Percival,” he replied when he could speak again. “I’m Miguel, and I want to stay Miguel.”
Dorning stepped forward. “I’m afraid that’s impossible now. You know full well how important it is the professor continues his work. Why, that’s exactly what he was doing before the unfortunate incident with the police. I didn’t spend the last twenty years of my life trying to save the professor’s life for nothing, Miguel. You can’t just walk away.”
Miguel finally turned his head and looked at Dorning, surprised to see the doctor in a rumpled shirt with his hair unkempt.
“You can’t make me be the professor if I don’t want to.”
Dorning laughed bitterly. “Make you? No, the professor ‘makes you’ because he wants to live too, you know. Here, let me show you something.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out something round. “I’ll prove it.”
“No!” Miguel scrambled backwards on all fours into a corner. “What is it, the same trick you used before to make the professor appear?”
“It’s not a trick. It’s just a little something I’d like you to look at, that’s all.” Dorning came forward and opened his hand, revealing a brass medal. “Here, take a look and I’ll tell you all about it. It won’t hurt you; in fact, it has a very interesting story.”
“No! Leave me alone!” The boy closed his eyes, covering them with both hands.
“Miguel, I’m growing weary of this. I just spent a small fortune on bail for trumped-up obstruction of justice charges and have been reduced to living in a seedy motel room. I don’t have time for this.”
“I won’t. I won’t do it,” Miguel said, and curled up tight into a ball, his hands over his head.
Dorning stood in front of Miguel, staring down at him. “The police are looking for you, Miguel. You’ll be arrested, too, for running away from them. You won’t have much fun or freedom in jail. Is that what you want? But the professor is smart, Miguel, smarter than you and me. He can find a way to keep you out of jail. He can keep both of us out of jail. I need the professor right here and now, and so do you, whether you like it or not.”
“Go away!”
Dorning dropped to his knees in front of the boy, his teeth bared. “Stop this nonsense! I’ve wasted enough time. You will look at this.”
He grabbed Miguel’s arms, forcing them behind the boy’s back. He held them there with one hand and put the medal on the ground in front of the boy.
Miguel yelled as loud as he could, his eyes still tightly closed. “Help!
Police! Help!”
“Shout as much as you want. There’s no one around to hear you.”
Miguel sobbed and buried his head as far in his chest as he could.
Dorning grabbed Miguel by the back of his hair. He pushed the boy’s head forward, just inches from the medal on the ground.
“What are you doing?” Miguel asked, still afraid to look.
“Listen to me, then, if you won’t open your eyes. On the ground is something the professor was very proud of, something that meant everything to him when he was about your age.”
Miguel shook his head. “No! I won’t listen to you.” He sang to drown out Dorning’s words. “Hush little baby, don’t say a word—”
Dorning yanked on Miguel’s hair; the boy winced and cried out.
“Don’t sing. You will listen to me, or I’ll pull your hair even harder the next time. Now, what it is you’re refusing to look at is the swimming medal the professor won. It’s brass, about two inches in diameter I would say, and on one side it says ‘First Place’ and on the other there’s a picture of a swimmer diving into the water with the words ‘Cambridge, 1938.’ I’m sure you remember it, don’t you, Miguel?”
Miguel whimpered softly, his eyes still closed.
“Good. Now the reason why this medal meant so much to the professor is because his whole life changed for the better after he won it, just like your life is going to change for the better once the professor returns. You see, the professor was always smart but not so popular when he was a boy. But once he won this medal with its impressive red and white ribbon, everyone wanted to be his friend, and he wore the medal all the time to show everyone how grand he was now. Even his family looked up to him like they had never done before. All the kids at school followed him wherever he went, eager to see and hear what he was going to do and say next. They came to him with all their problems, and he helped solve them, winning even more respect and admiration like a true hero. His teachers suddenly found him fascinating, too, and the grades they gave him were always excellent. But that’s not the best part. You know what the best part was?” He put his mouth closer to Miguel’s ear, talked softer to him. “It was the girls. All the girls flocked to him, loved him, wanted to be with him. He could pick and choose, there were so many. And you did, Professor, you did. So many, many girls.”
Miguel peeked down at the medal through narrow slits as if he could no longer resist.
Dorning put his mouth even closer to Miguel’s ear, nearly whispering now. “That’s right. Now notice the familiar smell the medal has. Doesn’t that bring back fond memories? Of course it does, of course it does. It wasn’t long after you won that medal you lost your innocence to a girl you always wanted. Remember, Percival? Remember now? She was so beautiful and you had her, you had her as you always dreamed you would. And there were others, there were so many others that followed, all so beautiful. That was when you knew you were no longer a boy but a man, Professor, a man. So very, very proud to finally be a man.”
Miguel’s arms and head went limp; Dorning let go and patted the boy’s shoulder. “That’s right,” he said. “Believe me, this is for your own good.”
The boy groaned low, slowly straightened up.
“Good afternoon, Professor.”
Dorning sat back, picked up the medal and put in his pocket.
Marlowe raised his head and looked at the factories around him. “What? Where the devil are we now?” He put a hand on the back of his head. “And why is my neck sore? What did you just do, Doctor?”
“That doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you’ve returned.”
Marlowe stood up and put his hands on his hips, towering over the doctor for a change. “Dorning. Why didn’t you tell me?”
The doctor remained seated, not understanding. “Tell you what?”
“The boy. He has a mother. And a father. They’re here, Dorning, in this city. He’s not an orphan like you led me to believe.”
Dorning stood up and dusted himself off. “I don’t remember ever saying he was an orphan. I said he was homeless. And he is. Or was.”
“But that could have changed. He could have had a meaningful future. I saw the possibility of his family reuniting, or at the very least the boy could have finally had a roof over his head with a mother who genuinely loves him.”
“A possibility? I suppose anything’s possible, but the certainty is your future will enrich civilization to a vastly greater degree than someone who merely achieves a roof over their head.” He motioned towards the car. “Come on. We can debate this on the way home.” He turned to go.
The professor sighed and followed Dorning. “Is that the only way you can justify what we’ve done? That I’ll achieve more than the boy could?”
“That’s not a bad reason, is it? In fact, I think it’s terrific.”
Marlowe opened the passenger door then paused. “I wish I could be as certain as you, Doctor. But I’m no longer convinced any reason can ever justify it.” He looked to the city behind them. “What I really wish is that I could share my life somehow with the boy on a regular basis like he wanted.”
Dorning took a deep breath. “Professor, I think we’ve had enough of that talk. Believe me.”
They got into the car. Dorning carefully backed out of the dead end, no longer in any hurry.
“So what happened after I ran away from the detective?”
Dorning drooped then glanced at the professor. “I’m out on bail.”
“You’re kidding. Are the police still looking for me?”
“Oh, yes. Most definitely. In fact, they were convinced I knew where to find you.”
“I had the distinct impression the detective thought I was in on some kind of scam with you regarding my own estate.”
“That’s their theory.”
“Hmm.” Marlowe tapped his mouth. “There must a way out of this. Everyone thinks I’m dead, but my attorneys are still alive. Maybe I can still pull a few strings with them somehow. ”
Dorning finally allowed himself to grin a little. “Professor, I’m counting on it. That’s why I went through all that trouble to help you return as soon as I could.”
“Too bad Miguel doesn’t have someone helping him return.”
Dorning’s grin faded. “I’m sorry, Percival, but with any luck that will be the last time you’ll ever have a relapse if I have anything to do about it. I can’t take much more of Miguel. I hope the boy is gone forever, and good riddance if he is.”
The professor was silent as he stared out the window.
Here we go again, Miguel, he thought. Are you getting as weary of this as I am?
The only thing he heard in response was the steady purr of the car engine as they sped away from the forlorn factories behind them.