FAUSTINO HAD SPENT two days in Brazil, where work and high humidity had kept him away from his usual temptations. On his return, he’d startled Marta and his colleagues by turning up at the office before nine in the morning. He had a lot of stuff to write up, but a backlog of e-mails and numerous phone calls thwarted his efforts. By lunchtime he was irritable. It would have been sensible to work through the break, but he needed air — by which he meant a cigarette or two. He’d go and sit on the patio, get Bush to fetch him a toasted sandwich and a juice. Besides, it was a beautiful day.

And because it was a beautiful day, the patio was pretty crowded. The benches were all taken, so Faustino propped his backside on the edge of one of the plant troughs. He looked around for the familiar glimpse of the kid’s dreads and smile. After a while he went over to Rubén.

“He ain’t been here since the day you left, Señor Paul.”

Like there was a connection between the two things.

Faustino had just returned to his desk when his phone rang again.

“Yeah.”

“Paul? It’s Marta.”

“Hi, Marta. What’s up?”

“Well. You know that kid, the one from the street, with all the hair?”

Faustino clicked the save icon on his screen. “Yes. What?”

“Paul, he’s down here in reception. Says he wants to talk to you.”

“He’s at the desk?”

“I sent him over to the waiting area. He’s got a girl with him, and a middle-aged guy.”

“What did he say?”

“Just that he wanted to talk to you. Do you want me to tell him you’re busy?”

“No. No, keep him there. I’ll be right down.”

“He shouldn’t be in here, Paul.”

“I know. Just make sure he stays put.”

Faustino stepped out of the elevator and looked across to the waiting area, an arrangement of chairs and sofas partly screened off from the lobby by potted plants in square marble tubs. Bush was perched on one of the sofas, his forearms on his knees, his head lowered so that his face was invisible behind the tumble of dreads. The young girl sitting beside him had a longish, rather lovely, and very somber face. Her arm was against Bush’s back, the fingers resting on his shoulder. The man standing with them wore a baggy cotton suit that had seen better days. As a group, they looked like a couple of kids who’d been nabbed by an undercover store detective and were waiting for the cops to arrive.

Bush raised his head when Faustino came over, but didn’t stand. Nor did the girl. The guy was in his mid-fifties, maybe. Paunchy. His graying hair was pulled back into a short ponytail. A bandido-style mustache drooped down to the corners of his mouth. He might have been someone who’d been in a rock band in the seventies, then gone to seed.

“Señor Faustino? My name is Fidel Ramirez.”

Faustino shook the man’s hand, then looked down at Bush. The boy seemed terribly tired. No, worse: stricken.

“Bush? What’s up? What did you want to see me about?”

“I’m sorry, Maestro. I didn’ wanna bother you. It was Felicia’s idea.”

Faustino looked at the girl. “You’re Felicia?”

She nodded.

Faustino said, “Uh, listen, shall we go outside and talk? It can get kind of busy in here.”

Bush and Felicia sat on one of the steel benches, adopting exactly the same positions as before. Fidel sat on the other side of Bush. Faustino didn’t feel right about forming a line of four, so, as earlier, he leaned against the nearest trough, from where he could see their faces. He lit a cigarette and offered one to Ramirez, who shook his head.

“Bianca’s gone missin’,” Bush said, not looking up.

“Bianca?”

“My kid sister.”

“Ah. How long has she been gone?”

“She ain’t been back for three nights. She took off Monday mornin’. Me an’ Felicia an’ Fidel been lookin’ everywhere, man. Everywhere. Jesus.”

He shook his head and inhaled wetly through his nose. Felicia’s fingers tightened on his shoulder. Faustino would have liked to put an arm around the boy also, but thought better of it.

He said, “So, Señor Ramirez, you are a, er, relative?”

“No,” Fidel said. He looked slightly uncomfortable. “I, my wife, Nina, and me, we have a bar. On Trinidad, down in the Triangle. And we, well . . .”

“He give us a place,” Felicia said quietly. “When we didn’ have nowhere to go.”

“I see.”

“Well, it’s not much of a place,” Fidel said hastily. “There’s this shed out back, and . . . Look, Señor Faustino, the thing is, we can’t go to the police about Bianca. For all sorts of reasons. You understand?”

“Yes,” Faustino said. “Yes, I do.”

“Yeah. And Bush says you are a good guy. That he trusts you. And we thought maybe you could help. In some way.”

Bush was jigging his legs up and down, like someone listening to music. “I’m real sorry, Maestro,” he said, still not quite able to look directly at Faustino. “I jus’ run out of other ideas.”

“No, it’s all right. I’m glad you . . . Listen, Bush, how old is Bianca?”

“Thirteen and some. Nearly fourteen. Looks older, though.”

“Right. She ever done this before? Like take off for a day or two?”

“No. Felicia keeps her tight most of the time. When she can.”

Faustino thought about that. “So you don’t think she might’ve, you know, gone off with someone? Of her own accord?” He tried again. “I mean, with a boyfriend or something?”

“No way,” Bush said. But Felicia’s eyes flickered, and Faustino noted it.

Bush lifted his face at last, and Faustino realized why it had taken him so long to do so. The boy’s eyes were wet, and he was ashamed of it.

“I got a real bad feelin’ about this, Maestro. Real bad.”

Faustino stubbed his cigarette out. “Right. Listen. I need to go talk to someone. Wait for me here, okay?” He looked at Fidel, who nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

He strode to the door that wouldn’t open and swore at it. Rubén opened the other one and let him in. Faustino went over to the desk and spoke to Marta above the heads of a couple who were taking an age to fill in the visitors’ book because they couldn’t agree upon what their car registration was.

“Marta? Call Nola Levy for me, would you? And give me the phone if she answers.”

There was only one spare seat in Nola’s office, and because it wasn’t obvious who should sit in it, her guests all stood. Bush recognized her as the woman he’d seen weeping out on the patio a long time ago. She made notes as they spoke. She wrote down their description of Bianca and her clothes.

“Is there anything else? Like, for example, are her ears pierced? Does she wear a bangle, or anything around her neck? Does she have any scars, or a birthmark?”

“No,” Felicia said.

Fidel cleared his throat. “She is very beautiful, señora,” he said unhappily. “That is her main distinguishing feature.”

Nola wrote that down too. Then she said, “Paul, maybe Bush and Felicia might like a Coke or something.”

Faustino looked at her. She tipped her head in the direction of the door. “I’d like a few moments with Señor Ramirez.”

When they were alone, Nola said, “Please sit down, señor. Now, I have some experience when it comes to missing children. I have to say that not many of the stories I could tell you have happy endings.”

“No,” Fidel said. “I would not think so.”

“I would not wish to offer you any false hopes.”

“No.”

Nola gazed at him for a couple of seconds, then said, “You put yourself at risk, harboring these children.”

Fidel shrugged. The shrug meant several things, including Yeah, but what can you do?

“Okay. So, I need to ask you two questions. The first is, do you have a number I can reach you at?”

Fidel gave her the number of the bar, and Nola wrote it below her notes and drew a rectangle around it.

“The second question is, what can you tell me about Bianca that you didn’t want to say in front of the others?”

Later, when Fidel and the kids had gone, Faustino and Nola lingered on the patio.

“So,” he said. “What do you think?”

Nola drew in a long breath and let it out as a sigh. “Well, the least worst scenario is that she’s gone off with someone. From what Ramirez told me, that’s quite possible. And if that’s the case, she’ll most likely show up when whoever it is has finished with her. Unless that person trades in girls.”

“Yeah,” Faustino said. “It’s not terrifically good news that she’s a beauty, is it? What about Ramirez, anyway? Is he kosher, do you think? He doesn’t exactly look it.”

“My instinct is that he’s okay. But then my track record when it comes to judging men is lousy.”

Faustino was intrigued by this confession but stashed it away silently for future reference.

“I’ve got a contact at the Central Criminal Bureau,” Nola said. “I’ll call him. But if he knows who Bianca is, it’ll mean she’s dead.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got a piece to finish. If I hear anything, I’ll call you.”

“Please.”

“Paul, I know you care about this boy. But these kids live in a world people like you and me have no access to. I’m sure you want to help, but get yourself ready for the fact that you can’t.”

“Yeah,” Faustino said. “Don’t worry. I’m pretty expert at being useless. But call me, huh?”