Prodigal Son

Prodigal Son
By Lewis Shiner

Distributed under Creative Commons license. Some rights reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/

He wore the kind of cheap Nike knock-offs that you see at Target, faded jeans, and a Lone Star Beer T-shirt that was last year's size. I made him to be about twelve years old, might even have guessed younger if his eyes hadn't been so hard. He was tan and fit, and his hair was the shade of blond that women in Dallas and Houston begged their hairdressers for.
"I want you to find my parents," he said.
I pointed to a chair and watched him sit in it, carefully, like it might move under him. "Now that's a new one," I said. "Don't tell me they ran away from home?"
"It's not a joke, Mr. Sloane. I got money."
"I'm sorry," I said. I got rid of my smile and straightened up in my chair. "Why don't you go back to the beginning and tell me about it?"
"Not much to tell, I don't guess. Just that I don't know who my parents are, and I want you to find them for me."
"You're adopted, is that it?"
"No sir," he said. "Kidnapped."
Either the kid had the world's best deadpan delivery or else he was serious. "Kidnapped?"
"That's right." He was looking at me like I'd left my mouth open, and I probably had.
"Go on," I said, waving a hand at him. "Talk to me."
"It was about ten years ago, here in Austin. Took me right out of a ... mister, are you sure you're okay?"
"Fine," I said. "Jesus Christ. This kind of thing happens to me every day. Shouldn't we be calling the cops?"
The kid shook his head. "I don't want to make trouble for nobody. Andy-that's the guy that took me-he's been real good to me. I know what he done was wrong, but I don't want nothing to happen to him. Okay? Me taking off like I did is going to hurt him bad enough."
"Ten years ago, you said?" Suddenly I could hear a buzzing in my head, and it wasn't just the AquaFest speedboats a few blocks away on Town Lake.
"Yeah. He always called me Buddy. I don't know if that was my real name or something he just came up with. He took me right out of a shopping cart outside some grocery store. It was raining, and..."
"Jesus Christ!" I said, and jumped out of my chair so hard that it slammed into the wall behind me. Buddy came out of his chair at the noise and put out one hand to make sure he knew where the door was.
I banged open the file cabinet and walked my fingers across the folders. "Burlenbach," I said, and yanked one out.
The kid stared at the folder, started to reach out a hand toward it and then snapped it back. "Just like that?" he said.
"Man," I told him, "if you knew how famous you were, you wouldn't have to ask that. Now, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself, and maybe it was some other shopping cart, but about ten years ago a guy named Burlenbach lost his son just that way. He was Councilman Burlenbach then, but he's a State Senator now."
"State Senator?" It was the kid's turn to look stunned, and I couldn't blame him. I had a feeling it was going to be a hell of a step up for him.
"He must have had half the PI's in this town scrounging for something the cops had missed. Me included. I even got my name in the paper over it."
"No shit," he said, and then glanced up quickly. "Pardon me."
"That's okay," I said. "Listen, have you got anything that might identify you? A baby ring, or a locket or something?"
"There's this," he said, pulling a bag out of his back pocket. It was the kind of little paper sack that they put single beers in at a 7-Eleven. "I was supposed to be wearing this when he found me."
Inside the bag was an infant's T-shirt. It had blue and yellow stripes, and Mrs. Burlenbach's description of it was on page 2 of the file.
*
The secretary didn't want to put me through so I said, "Tell him it's about his son."
"Senator Burlenbach doesn't have a--"
"Just tell him that, will you?"
A moment later a deep voice said, "This is Frank Burlenbach. Now what the hell is this bull crap about my son?" The voice had a lot more authority than it used to, but I recognized it just the same.
"This is Daniel Sloane," I said. "I was one of the investigators looking into your son's kidnapping ten years ago. Um, to be blunt, sir, he just turned up."
"Now?" he said.
It wasn't what I was expecting to hear. "Pardon?"
"After ten years?" he asked. "He shows up now?"
"He's just fine, sir," I said to the phone,