James saw Chuckles’s shadow looming, black on black night. He went to him.

“We’ve checked every house on that side of the street where people are home,” Chuckles said. “We need to finish this side, then cross over.”

They were in front of the brothel house. The windows were dark, almost invisible. An empty cat food tin, congealed, lay on the patchy grass by James’s foot.

“I think this house is a brothel,” said James. “I think there’s sex trafficking going on in there.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” said Chuckles.

James shook his head. He sounded insane. He always sounded insane around this guy. “Ah, fuck! I don’t know. I have no idea what I’m talking about.” He went to the door and banged hard. No answer. He banged again. Chuckles stood behind him, saying nothing.

“Come on!” James kicked at the door, and his swollen foot shot heat up his leg. “Fuck! Motherfucker!” He jumped up and down on his good foot, grabbing at his damaged toes.

Chuckles stepped in front of James and rang a doorbell.

“I didn’t see the bell,” said James.

The door flew open. A warm yellow light flooded the stoop, and churning music escaped, accordions and guitars and incomprehensible foreign moaning. A young woman with thin brown hair stood in front of them wearing sweatpants with the word “Juicy” crawling up one thigh.

“Yes?” she said.

Chuckles was forceful: “We’re looking for a kid. A kid’s missing. He’s almost three, blond. Have you seen him?”

She peered behind the men, at the police car down the street.

“You are missing a boy? Lots of kids come to the door tonight but I don’t have candy. I don’t know. My English not so good. I sorry. You are police?” she said.

“No. He’s my son,” said James, not tripping on the word. “We’re just trying to find him. You’re not going to get in trouble.”

“No trouble. I have papers. I am legal. You want to come in?”

James nodded. He moved inside and stood in the living room while Chuckles wandered through the rest of house. If the girl objected, she said nothing about Chuckles’s explorations.

The living room contained nothing but an old couch, pink and faded. Books and notebooks lay scattered across the floor, English language textbooks, books with titles in unidentifiable, swirling script. On the fireplace sat a row of empty wine bottles enclosed in candle wax. The thin curtains were nailed to the windows, above the molding.

“You live alone?” asked James, scanning for nooks and crannies and Finn inside them.

“No. We are three girls, all from Georgia. We come as nannies but it doesn’t work out for us. Now we are students. I am legal. My friends are not here.” She looked at him, squinted. “You live on street also, yes? I see you. You want one drink?”

“No, thank you,” said James. After months of speculating, this reality seemed worse somehow: There was no one to be liberated here, no Russian pimps, no gangsters. Just girls. Pretty girls. Students who didn’t mind a little squalor and couldn’t take their garbage out on the right days. Girls he would have tried to fuck two decades ago.

“Sit, please,” but James could not. He stood in the middle of the room, smelling something pungent, the music loud enough to block his thoughts.

“What do you do?” she asked.

“Do?”

“For job.”

James looked at her. “I’m unemployed,” he said.

She nodded. “Is very difficult time. Economy.”

Chuckles appeared.

“I don’t see anything,” he said.

“You, sir, you want drink?” Chuckles glanced at James.

“No thanks, lady.”

James reached into his pocket and held up the photo of Finn, Sarah, and Marcus. The girl took it in her hands and held it close to her face.

“He is very beautiful, yes.” She passed it back. “Wait here.” She disappeared through a door. James avoided looking at Chuckles, knowing the relationship couldn’t sustain too much extra meaning.

The girl reemerged, swiping her hair from her face. She held out a photo: a young girl, the hostess, only a few years ago. She sat on her knees between two boys, each on the edge of adulthood, wispy facial hair and acne. Above them stood her parents, tall and unsmiling. A Christmas tree covered in tinsel took up the background. The father’s downward smile matched his mustache. The mother had one arm on the girl’s shoulder, the other dangling uselessly at her side. They all wore cheap-looking sweaters. The photo was glossy, with fingerprints on the edges.

“This is my family,” said the girl. “My brother was hurt. You know about the war?”

James stared at that arm, that hanging arm.

“Of course,” he said. “What happened?”

“Oh, is grenade, you know. He is different now, but he is fine. It is a miracle.”

Chuckles cleared his throat.

“Is sad, yes. But my parents are still in Georgia. This is good news. And I think they will come here, and stay on this street. You can meet them.”

James imagined this, all the Georgians in his white living room, Ana passing flutes of prosecco to spill on their polyester sweaters.

“I hope I do meet them,” said James. “Thank you.” Chuckles could sense that James was unable to move now; he put a hand firmly on the center of his back, guiding him to the door.

To the girl, Chuckles said: “He’s at number ninety-four. Come by if you hear anything, please.”

She nodded, pushing her hair behind her ears.

“Yes, I will,” she said at the door. “Yes, we are neighbors. So I will look for the boy.”

The girl stood in the doorway with her arms wrapped around her torso, watching the men, one supported by the other.

They completed the street, door to door, ahead of the police, their pleas generating alarmed faces and offers of help. Neighbors put on their coats and followed them. Mothers stood on porches and watched them walk away, teary, grasping their children’s hands.

James crossed the street and continued south, banging on doors, while Chuckles stayed a few steps behind him, working his cell phone.

Finally, it was too late for trick-or-treaters, and the children vanished from the streets. Pumpkins were extinguished. At the top of James and Ana’s block, a police officer ran a piece of yellow tape between two stop signs. No cars were permitted to drive on the road, and people gathered under the streetlights, organizing into groups to descend onto the streets beyond. A few of the adults were in costume. One middle-aged man was trailing mummy bandages. Ana, staring through the picture window, her arms wrapped tight around her body, recognized the mother of that new baby. She was dressed as Pippi Long-stocking. The woman walked from car to car, peering in windows, the wire in the wig of red braids holding them in the air like smiles.

It had been nearly three hours.

James’s foot was throbbing, his stomach churning with hunger. He was far from home, so far that he couldn’t imagine Finn could have made it through the traffic alive. But he had no thought of stopping. Finn was somewhere, and he would find him.

Suddenly, Chuckles cried out. James turned. Chuckles was close behind, running, holding up his phone. His face was alight.

“Get home!” he yelled.

James broke into a run on his beaten toes. He tried to push aside the thought of the worst ending, ignoring the distant wail of an ambulance. It could not go that way, back to the morgue, back to the drawers in the bottom of a city hospital.

Then Sandra was coming toward him, jogging past the skinny Victorian houses, deking between the hovering people.

“You didn’t answer your cell phone!” she called.

“I didn’t hear it—” said James, and then he saw her face: joy. “We found him! We found him! Come home!”

He limped and dragged as fast as he could until he reached his house, the picture window framing a crowd of strangers. In the center, Ana. And Finn, his head buried in her shoulder, the panda hood slack around his neck.