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as an insult or anything. I just hear most of the, uh, business is online nowadays. It’s on Grindr and Scruff and apps like that.”
    The kid lowered his head. “It’s punishment.”
    “What’s punishment?”
    “The streets.”
    “For what?”
    The train stopped. “We get off here,” the kid said, rising. “Come on.”
    The street outside the station was crowded and noisy. They headed down Brixton Road, past a Sainsbury’s store, and ducked into a shop front called AdventureLand.
    The cacophony of sounds, none pleasant except perhaps in a nostalgic way, was the first thing to assault the senses. There was the crash of bowling pins, the digital ding-ding of arcade scoring, the harsh buzzing of missed shots, the mechanical whoop-whoop-whoop of made free throws. There were the artificial noises of virtual planes being struck down and monsters dying underheavily armed assault. There were neon lights and Day-Glo colors. There were Skee-Ball machines and Pac-Man and air hockey and shoot-’em-ups and race-car simulators and those claw cranes trying to snag generic stuffed animals from within a glass cage. There were bumper cars and Ping-Pong and pool tables and a karaoke bar.
    There were a lot of teenage boys.
    Myron’s eyes swept the room. There were two rent-a-cops by the door. They couldn’t have looked more bored without some sort of neurosurgery. He didn’t pay them much attention. What Myron did notice, almost immediately, were the several men milling about trying to fit in—no, trying to
blend
in.
    They wore camouflage pants.
    The kid with the dog collar weaved through the crowd toward an area called Laser Maze, which looked like one of those scenes in
Mission: Impossible
where someone tries to move without crossing one of the beams and setting off an alarm. There was a door marked EMERGENCY EXIT behind it. The kid moved over to it and looked up at a surveillance camera. Myron joined him. The kid gestured for Myron to look up into the lens. Myron did so, smiling widely and giving the camera a little wave.
    “How do I look?” he asked the kid. “My hair’s a mess, right?”
    The kid just turned away.
    The door opened. They walked through it. The door closed. Two more camouflage-pants-clad men were there. Myron pointed at the pants.
    “Was there, like, a really big sale on those?”
    No one found this amusing.
    “You got a weapon on you?”
    “Just my winning smile.”
    Myron demonstrated. Neither man appeared particularly impressed.
    “Empty your pockets. Wallet, keys, phone.”
    Myron did so. They even had one of those bowls where you empty your keys and change before heading through airport security. One of the men took out a metal wand and ran it over Myron. That wasn’t good enough. He started to pat down Myron with a little too much gusto.
    “Oh God, that feels good,” Myron said. “A little left.”
    That made the man stop.
    “Okay, second door on the right.”
    “Can I have my stuff back?”
    “When you come out.”
    Myron looked at Dog Collar. Dog Collar kept his eyes on the floor.
    “Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to find what I’m looking for behind that door?”
    This door too was locked. There was yet another security camera above it. The kid looked up at it. He gestured for Myron to do the same. Myron did it, but this time there was no winning smile. Show them.
    There was a clanging noise. The door, made of reinforced steel, swung open. The kid went inside first. Myron followed.
    The first word that came to mind: “high tech.” Or was that two words? AdventureLand was kind of a dump, with arcade games that had seen better days. This room was sleek and modern. There had to be a dozen, probably more, high-end monitors and screens on the walls, on desks, everywhere. Myron counted four men. None wore camouflage pants.
    Standing in the middle of the room was a heavyset Indian manwith a shaved head. He wore headphones and held a game controller. They were all playing a