The policeman looked approvingly at Michael. “You’re a real help, son. Now, ma’am, you say your wallet is missing? Do you think you might have dropped it, or did anyone brush against you? I mean, could it have been a pickpocket?”

“I don’t know,” Catherine said. “I don’t care about the wallet. But when I gave the boys money for the violinist, I probably didn’t push it down far enough in my purse. It was quite bulky and might have just fallen out.”

“Your son wouldn’t have picked it up and decided to go shopping?”

“No, no, no,” Catherine said with a flash of anger, shaking her head emphatically. “Please don’t waste time even considering that.”

“Where do you live, ma’am? What I mean is, do you want to call anyone?” The policeman looked at the rings on Catherine’s left hand. “Your husband?”

“My husband is in Sloan-Kettering hospital. He’s very ill. He’ll be wondering where we are. In fact, we should be with him soon. He’s expecting us.” Catherine put her hand on the door of the squad car. “I can’t just sit here. I’ve got to look for Brian.”

“Mrs. Dornan, I’m going to get Brian’s description out right now. In three minutes every cop in Manhattan is going to be on the lookout for him. You know, he may have just wandered away and gotten confused. It happens. Do you come downtown often?”

“We used to live in New York, but we live in Nebraska now,” Michael told him. “We visit my grandmother every summer. She lives on Eighty-seventh Street. We came back last week because my dad has leukemia and he needed an operation. He went to medical school with the doctor who operated on him.”

Manuel Ortiz had been a policeman only a year, but already he had come in contact with grief and despair many times. He saw both in the eyes of this young woman. She had a husband who was very sick, now a missing kid. It was obvious to him that she could easily go into shock.