On their way out of the precinct Monica stopped at the reception desk. Behind a pane of bulletproof glass perforated for voice sat a bald man who, Viral thought, looked like the last potato at the bottom of his mother’s pantry. The Potato Man’s eyes sunk deep beneath his brow, and a five o’clock shadow studded the crown of his head. “What you need, Treyna?” he asked.
She told him she needed the kid’s belongings. Rolling back his chair, he cross-checked the names on his printout with the numbers of each cubby in a steel-bored shelf that looked to Viral like it had once held Jordans and Reeboks at a South Side Chicago skate rink. After waddling his chair back to the window without standing, he pushed a one gallon Ziplock through the opening at the bottom of the glass.
Holding it under the light, Monica studied it. “Pretty rad,” she said, handing the bag to Viral.
Viral asked the Potato, “Is that it?” Pushing his lips out with a shrug, the Potato looked like the fourth head on a Mt. Rushmore of bad Brando impressions.
“What’s the trouble, Viral?” Monica said.
Holding the bag to her face, Viral asked, “Does this look like my wallet?”
Tilting her head to the side, Monica looked more closely at the velcro-strapped, chain-wallet with the logo of a band called 311 steam-ironed to the outside of its fold. Then she looked at the 5 foot, 6 inch Indian American teenager with the pimple-pocked pores, tired eyes, and nose that looked like an acorn. “It kind of does, yeah,” she said.
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“Well, it’s not,” Viral said, slamming the bag on the counter. “I had a dark blue backpack that said Jansport on it when they picked me up, and I was wearing a plaid, short-sleeve collared shirt and green chinos,” he said to the Potato.
Wearily, the Potato asked Viral for his name. After Viral told him, he said, “I got a Chopra.”
“It’s probably a typo,” Viral said, “I’m sure you don’t get enough Indians in here to mix us up.”
“You’d be surprised,” Monica said. “A lot of the Dunkin’ Donuts on the turnpike are run by your kind. We bring more than a few in every year on tax evasion.”
“Well, does the Chopra cubby have a backpack and my clothes in it?”
Pointing at the Ziplock Viral held, the Potato said, “That’s Chopra.”
Viral felt his Virgo coming out. “So you don’t have a Chodha, but you have a Chopra, which is me, but what you have for Chopra isn’t mine. Does anyone’s cubby back there have a blue backpack, chinos, and a gingham button-down?”
Looking at Monica the Potato asked, “Is he special?”
“C’mon, check the ID, smart guy,” Monica told Viral.
The wallet was empty except for a condom, a Blockbuster Video membership card, a Sacagawea, and an expired Brown University ID for a student named Tyler Osterhauf.
“Son of a bum,” Viral said under his breath. Looking more closely at the photo on the ID he could see a faint resemblance to the oaf who’d nearly lit him and Lron on fire. But the boy in the photo was almost one hundred pounds lighter and nearly twenty years younger. Between the sallow cheeks, glasses, thin neck, and poorly cut brown hair, Viral thought the student in the photo looked a lot like someone else. He looked a lot like Edward Snowden.