Another Pan (5 page)

An alleyway a few blocks down from the British Museum, full of industrial-size trash cans, was the perfect hiding place for a secret meeting. On this particular morning, seven dirty faces huddled together: seven teenage runaways, all baring that one missing tooth, the one that showed that regardless of color or height or weight, they were friends of
Peter
.

“Everybody, shut up!” shouted Tina. She was Peter’s number two, assembling his LBs (for Lost Boys, but shortened for texting) wherever Peter went in the world. She was a little shorter than the rest of them, a little tougher, and always by Peter’s side. She had long brown hair and tan skin, and her eyes were always half shut, as if she were appraising something or about to fall asleep. She was probably Hispanic, but nobody knew for sure. She had a dark beauty toughened by the streets. She was sexy, for sure, but not beautiful. She was just so . . . so . . .

“And if anyone else touches my can, I’ll stuff your head in a toilet. Got it?”

Yeah, that was it . . .

“Peter’s flying to New York in a couple of hours to start his new job. We need you guys to keep an eye out on the museum while we’re gone,” said Tina.

“Yeah, yeah. We know the drill,” said a redheaded kid in the back. “Old Egyptian books. Got it.” His name was Red. All the boys had nicknames like this so that Peter wouldn’t have to bother with tedious chores like remembering their real names.
Red. Steroid. Hoodie. Newbie. Fattie. Spock
. And so on. Only Tina got to be herself, because Tina was Peter’s undisputed favorite.

“What’s the new gig?” asked Hoodie.

“Peter and me, we’re gonna be RAs at some fancy school in New York,” said Tina almost proudly.

“I heard he nicked the book from the British Museum,” said Newbie.

“Nah, man, if he had the book, it’d all be over,” said Spock.

“I heard he killed someone.”

Tina rolled her eyes. Peter’s legend just wouldn’t stop growing. His fanboys knew him as a god of street kids and orphans. A phantom criminal. An underworld adventurer with a worldwide network of lost boys bent on finding one lost treasure.

“What’s an RA?” asked Red from the back. “Hey, can we come?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Tina shrugged. As she walked away, she added, “The LBs in New York would cut y’all open and sell you for parts.”

Simon sat in the airport lounge, waiting for his flight and texting his mother. He was looking down when he heard, “Anybody sitting here, pardner?”

Simon looked up to see a young man dressed like a cowboy. He had on Levi’s jeans, a white shirt, and a straw hat. His eyebrows and sideburns looked too thick to be real, and they were a darker shade of brown than the hair on his head. The cowboy gave him a wink and a smile.

He had a not-too-tall, not-too-lanky body. He was a handsome boy, tan-faced, cocoa-haired, with eyes just a shade too hazel. He wasn’t thin, or fat, or tall, or short. He was just an American cowboy, tightly packed and nimble, able to blend in or stand out on a whim, and completely unrecognizable as the young man who had driven Simon to his meeting that very morning.

Simon shook his head.

“Great,” said the cowboy. “My name’s Petey Peterschmidt. Put ’er there.”

The cowboy shook Simon’s hand up and down. He sat next to Simon and propped his muddy boots on the facing row of chairs. He let out a loud sigh. “Well, friend,” said Petey the cowboy, slapping Simon on the back, “you headed out of town on business or pleasure?”

Simon was already uncomfortable, huddling down and putting away the message to his mom. “Business,” said Simon.

“That’s a shame,” said Petey. “You coulda hit the town with your buddy Pete, here.”

“Important business,” Simon added.

“Ooh, well, don’t let me stop you. You seem like one of those genius types. Am I right? Somebody payin’ you the big bucks for that brain of yours?”

Simon smiled. It was nice to have his genius noticed. Maybe this cowboy wasn’t as stupid as he looked. Simon didn’t want to brag. “I’m a very important man, actually.”

“Seems that way,” said Petey.

“I’m overseeing a major Egyptian exhibit in New York.”

“Like,
Egypt
Egypt? Must be at the United Nations or some such. You’re like an ambassador?”

“Well, kind of. Yes, yes, I guess I am,” said Simon. Simon went on telling Petey about every detail of his important exhibit, with just a few things left out or exaggerated here or there. After Simon had exhausted every subject revolving around himself, he finally turned to Petey and said, “So what do
you
do?”

“Well,” said Petey, “I’m no ambassador to Middle Eastern peacekeeping, but, you know, I do well for myself.” Then Petey gave a conspicuous look-see this way and that (presumably to make sure the coast was clear). He leaned in to Simon and said in a conspiratorial whisper, “The truth is, Mr. Grin, I’m in the self-help business.”

“You write about how to stop being a child and get your life together?” said Simon, not stopping to ponder how the cowboy knew his name.

“Oh no, nothing like that.” Petey laughed. “I help people help themselves. I give them the identity they’ve always wanted. Plus maybe a few added years if they’re underage.”

“You’re saying you make fake IDs?”

“I guess so, yes. That’s exactly the phrase for it. Leave it to the professor. But what I mean is age is just what you make of it, right? Look at me, for instance. Heck, most clubs
still
card me. I can’t convince a daggum soul of my age. They all think I’m a teenager!”

At this, Petey put his head back and guffawed at the fluorescent ceiling lights. Simon chuckled nervously. Petey did have a baby face.

“But that’s all between you and me, right, Professor?” said Petey. “I wish it was fate for me to come out a director of Egyptological studies for two major museums, but we can’t all be Einstein. You know what I mean?”

An up-and-coming scholar like Simon didn’t want to have anything to do with the kind of riffraff that made a living off petty fraud. But Petey was such a likable guy. And great men were always nice to the plebeians. Simon nodded and smiled. Petey slapped him on the back. “Good!” said Petey. “Now, let’s get on that plane and see what kind of stewardesses they got. But first I gotta see a man about a dog, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t, actually,” said Simon. It stung him to admit that he didn’t understand something.

“It means I gotta go to the bathroom.”

“Oh, right, I should do that, too.”

“Well, how about I stay here and watch your bag? You don’t wanna be putting that thing down in these airport bathrooms — get all kinds of hepatidal choleroids. I’ll go after you.”

“All right,” said Simon. Simon headed to the men’s room feeling like a smooth operator.

Sure, the cowboy was an uneducated dimwit with the slight tangy odor of a cheese wheel, but Simon had regaled him with his academic exploits, and now he was like a personal porter. Some people struck up conversations to make friends; Simon tolerated them to get something useful out of it.

The second Simon was gone, Peter grabbed the travel bag and started walking to the boarding gate. He dumped Simon’s passport and boarding pass into the trash and then flashed his own papers to an attendant who looked more like a teenager than an airline employee. The attendant gave him a wink and said, “Have a good trip, Pete.”

As Peter disappeared into the tunnel, he pulled out a wad of crumpled pink papers, shipping orders from the Egyptology Department dated several months ago, and examined them one more time.
New York City. The Marlowe School
. He may not have intercepted the shipment in time, but at least Simon wasn’t going near Peter’s prize anytime soon.

Meanwhile, back at the security gate, Simon Grin was panicking about his lost bag and trying to get on his flight regardless. He tried to explain why he didn’t have a passport or a ticket or any other essential document. He called the attendant a few names and tried to run past him. But the uneducated types had a way of outrunning Simon, so he was tackled, Tased, and escorted out by security.