The Prince and I - 6

For the next few days and nights I spent a lot of time cruising the area where the old man had said he might have seen Connor. If the kid was a regular around there you couldn’t have proved it by me.

I was beginning to doubt that I’d ever actually find him, Arthur’s belief to the contrary. Like I’d told him, there are hundreds of homeless kids on the streets and that’s just downtown. Add in everywhere else in the city and I’d have bet it was ten times that many. How do you find just one kid? For damned sure from what Arthur had said, the PI couldn’t. So what were my chances?

And why did I care? I had enough problems of my own just staying safe and under radar. I didn’t look like I had when I left home, that’s pretty much a given, but I still checked over my shoulder just to be sure someone wasn’t looking for me the way Connor’s people were looking for him. Yeah I didn’t grow up here but that doesn’t mean my dad hasn’t sent out feelers. He’s got the connections.

That’s neither here nor there though. I dug Connor’s pictures out again. They were getting pretty worn thanks to my flashing them at any of the guys I knew on the streets to see if they recognized him. Studying them now, I tried again to picture how he’d look after three weeks of living rough. His hair would be longer for sure, though it wasn’t exactly short in the photos. Not a buzz cut by a long shot. And, I thought, it’s probably not so blond unless he’s made stops at some of the drop-in places to grab a wash-up.

If he’d been smart he’d have found more to wear than what he left home in, whatever that was. I should have asked Arthur but it hadn’t crossed my mind then. Bet he’s thinner too. I know I lost a lot of weight my first few weeks out. Not eating much does that.

So Connor whoever you are, where would you be hiding if you thought your father was looking for you?  This of course was the real question. Even though the old man said he thought he’d seen him, if there was a real reason for Connor’s running other than to find out ‘how the other half lived’ then he probably was staying off the streets as much as possible. Hell, he could have left the city.

“Fuck it, I give up,” I muttered to myself, causing some lady walking by with her friends to step well away from me. I flipped her off and headed back to the Mall. At least there I could pick up some spare change if I was lucky. I found a spot by one of the fast-food joints. Most of the kids avoided that particular one because the place piped out classical music instead of the usual junk. It didn’t bother me at all because it left me pretty much the only one spanging in the area.

I got there in time to catch the last of the lunch crowd. Since I know the game I managed to make enough to go inside and get a six inch sub. I sort of knew the servers so I didn’t get hassled… by them. Some of the customers looked like they’d be happy to give me a hard time but limited it to making comments to their friends while looking at me. I couldn’t hear them but for damned sure I knew what they were saying. Probably time to stop by a drop-in center for a wash-up.

I spent the afternoon on the Mall, keeping one eye out for Connor even though I knew it wasn’t happening. Then I headed off towards Stout again, checked out the Spot where I ran into a couple of guys I knew. One of them asked to see Connor’s picture again.

When I showed him he nodded. “Probably ain’t there any more but I think it was him at ‘Boots’ yesterday. He looked rough, like he’d run into trouble. More than the usual kind.”

I thanked him and headed out after taking advantage of the facilities to get washed up some with the stuff in the hygiene pack the counselors handed out if you asked. I even brushed my teeth which made me feel almost human.