The boy had won the ring game again. Smiling widely, he left his cue on the pool table and gathered all the money.

Marty Malloy had watched all the while, fascinated. He wasn't completely sure, but ready to bet that the amazingly skillful kid and the young bearded man had hustled the third player. But who would have suspected that the skinny kid with his innocent, wide blue eyes, could be such a pro?

Legally, the boy didn't even have the right to be there. He was rather tall, but didn't even look to be 16. The owner of the place, who was casually wandering around, was probably in on it.

The boy pocketed the money (he'd probably give a share to his accomplices later) and picked up a large drawing pad resting against the wall. A drawing escaped from it and fell near Marty's chair. His eyes widened. If not for the poor quality of the paper, he could have sworn that that study of a woman's head had been drawn by Leonardo himself. He took the sheet and asked the boy:

"Who did that, kid?"

The boy looked at him cautiously. He had delicate, almost angelic features framed by unruly dark curls, and the most stunning, bright blue eyes Marty had ever seen. He was definitively less than 16.

"I did," he said, rather reluctantly.

A pool hustler and a master copyist at 14 or 15 years old? That seemed a little extraordinary.

"Are you sure?" Marty asked.

The boy shrugged, obviously not caring in the least if Marty believed him or not, and turned on his heels. "Wait!" exclaimed Marty on impulse. "I may have some work for you. Sit down, and have a drink."

The boy hesitated, then came back and sat at Marty's table. "What kind of job?" he asked. Marty assessed the worn out tee shirt and faded jeans the boy was wearing, and assumed it wouldn't be difficult to get what he wanted for cheap.

"I'm Marty. What's your name, kid ?"

"Danny."

"Well, Danny, if you can draw me that," he said, showing a printed copy of a drawing, "I'll give you $ 200."

The boy looked at Marty carefully through his long lashes, then shook his head.

"You can't do that, can you?" said Marty.

"Oh, I can do it all right. But I'd want ten grand for that."

"Are you crazy?" exclaimed Marty, feigning outrage whereas he was inwardly berating himself for his sudden impulse. The boy was too clever.

"Come on, man," the boy said. "You ask me to draw you the replica of 'Solomon's Judgment', a drawing from Rembrandt which is currently on display at a sale–exhibition at the Ritz Carlton. What I'm supposed to assume? That drawing's estimated value is $ 260,000. Some have questioned the legality of the exhibitor's ownership, but that's of no concern to us."

Marty was dumbfounded. How could a street kid he'd found in a shabby pool hall know all this? What could he do, now?

Danny smiled, an extraordinarily charming smile, and seemed to guess what Marty thought, for he said:

"I've always been interested in art. I read a lot about it. There was a story about the drawing being on display in the newspaper. Then, it was not that hard to guess what you plan to do. I know how it works. People talk here, and they aren't always careful enough. What harm could a boy like me do? Would the police ever believe me if I went to them with a story like this? "

Marty understood that the kid was implicitly telling him that he had nothing to fear from him. And he was right. Who would believe a boy that age? Marty's ID was as good as a genuine one, his cover was perfect.

The casing was done; everything was ready for the heist. Except that Bert, Marty's partner, hadn't shown up at their meeting point. He'd apparently gotten into trouble with some of the local mobsters, and had left town. The drawing would be removed from the Ritz-Carlton within a few days, and the client had already advanced funds. Stealing the drawing was a two-man job. And if Marty could leave a convincing copy in place of the original, it would take more time for the theft to be discovered. Enough time for him to get out of the state.

Using the boy's skills had been too tempting. But now that he had guessed his line of work, he had to know more about him before letting him go.

"Are you living alone? Who is supposed to be responsible for you?" he asked.

Danny looked at Marty for a while, as if he was assessing him. Marty knew he hadn't a very threatening appearance, with his skinny 5'7" form.

The boy shrugged."My mother," he said. But she's drunk half the time, so don't bother about her. I can even help you with the heist, if you want. I have a few ideas about how it could be done. I've spent a lot of time around there."

Marty thought about it for a moment.

"We'll see about all that," he said at last. "Meet me here tomorrow, same time."

"OK," said the kid. He took his drawing pad and left. Marty waited a few minutes, then rose, put money on the table for the drinks, and left the pool hall. He spotted the boy ahead of him in the street, and began to follow him. Better safe than sorry.

The shadowing led him to a quiet, residential area with modest houses. The boy entered one of them, with a neat yard and a facade in a really poor state. Marty waited a little, then, seeing that there was no one in the street, slipped past a hedge separating it from the house next door with a "For Sale" sign in the yard and made his way to the back of the boy's house. He peered through a back window. He didn't see Danny, but inside the room was a woman sprawled on a couch, with empty bottles around her. At least the kid hadn't lied about that.

In the morning, posing as a social worker, he asked about Danny in the neighborhood. He learnt that the boy actually lived alone with his mother, of whom he took as much care as he could. The neighbors considered him a quiet boy, who never got into trouble. He had done odd jobs for some of them, like mowing the lawn or walking the dog. All of them spoke nicely of him. So, he wasn't a thug.

Could he be a snitch? Marty had to take the risk. Fred's troubles with the local mobster meant that he couldn't try to find another man to do the job without risking attracting attention. He had already spent the money the client had given to him for the job, now it had to be done quickly. The boy had an exceptional talent, and probably wanted to make good money with it for once. Marty decided that he'd go to that meeting.

"So, that's how everything began?" asked Peter. "You became a professional forger and a cat burglar at 14?"

"Yes," smiled Neal. "Mozzie would tell you that Marty was a rather incautious and sloppy thief. He was desperate, but trusting an unknown boy like me wasn't very professional. He was reckless."

"Look at who's saying that! What about you trusting him? Seeing your skills, he could have locked you up somewhere to make you work for him for free. And by the look of your story, even if someone had reported to the police that you had disappeared, they wouldn't have searched for you for very long, assuming you had got tired of your alcoholic mother and had gone to live somewhere else."

"You're right," said Neal. "Lucky for me that Marty was one of the good guys. We did that job together and I made one of two suggestions that made him understand that, as a bonus to my skills as a forger, I could be a valuable asset in a heist; I knew how to observe. So, we began to work together. I did several other forgeries for him and he taught me 'the finer points of lock-picking and B&E', as you would say."

Peter seemed lost in thought. He finally asked: "What did you have in mind for what to do with the ten grand – a tour of the European art centers?"

Neal didn't answer immediately and Peter's trained eyes saw a furtive expression on his face, the one he had when he was considering whether to tell the truth or not.

"The truth, Neal," Peter said. "Remember? Full truth, full immunity tonight."

Neal nodded. Full truth, for once. Why not ?

"I needed the money for my mother, he said at last. "She was killing herself with the booze, and she had already been in three rehab programs to no avail. I wanted to put her in the best rehab clinic in the state."

"And you did?"

"Yeah."

"What became of her after that?"

"I promised to be honest about myself, Peter, not about my relatives and friends. She's been cured, and now she lives in a peaceful place."

Peter sighed, but didn't insist. "Did you stay with Marty for a long time ?"

Neal's eyes darkened. "No. Not very long. A little more than a year. I became better at forgeries, so most of the time we only sold copies of long lost pieces of art as if they were stolen originals. You'd be surprised of how many people are ready to buy a masterpiece of dubious origin if they think the price is interesting. But we did some heists as well. Marty was like me, he needed the thrill."

"And then he got himself shot during a heist because of a half-baked plan. I had warned him that the arms dealer whose house we were targeting was rather likely to know how to use a gun, but he didn't listen to me. I was the one entering in the house, I was the more skilled at the time, and things went well at first, but Marty hadn't studied the garden enough There were warning devices in it as well, and the owner shot Marty from his bedroom window. He killed him on the spot. One bullet in the head. I was hidden in a bush; the man didn't see me and I managed to run away."

Neal sighed. "Marty was only 32."

Peter was appalled. What an experience, for a boy under 16!

"Is that why you hate guns?" he asked.

"That's one of the many reasons, yes."

"What did you do, after that?"

"Well, Marty and I had a big stash. I used it to travel for two years."

"To travel? All alone, at little more than 15 years old ?"

"Well, I had a very good ID saying I was 18, of course. I wanted to see the world. I travelled all around it. I started with Europe, and its museums. But from there I went to Asia, then South America… I didn't do any jobs during that period. Except one time in Taiwan, in a rich villa. With such a poor security system, it was too tempting. And one other time in a museum in Mexico, because on the contrary, it was a challenge. But that time, again, I made a copy of the piece of art I'd stolen, sold it and sent the original back to the museum. After that, I travelled again, in Africa and back to Europe. And eventually I ran out of money."

"Well, considering you tastes in hotels, I'm not surprised."

"So I went to Monte Carlo. That's where I met Keller, playing backgammon."

Neal's face darkened again. "At first, I enjoyed working with him. He was a real planner, not like Marty. We pulled some very elaborate and lucrative heists. But I soon realized that I couldn't work with him. Keller didn't care about what kind of persons the targets were, or whether they could afford the loss or not, as long as he got what he was after. And then, he killed a man in front of me. I already told Diana the story."

"Yeah, she told me about it. And I assume that's the second reason why you hate guns."

Neal nodded, obviously still upset at the memory.

"After that, believe it or not, Peter, I thought I was done with the Life. I wanted to go straight. I came back to New York and went to see Ellen. I told her that I wanted to join the police force. Half to please her, half because it was almost the truth. I had played with the idea before. I had never gotten caught, I had worked under false identities, and I was about to be genuinely 18. Why not a complete change of life? But then Ellen told me about my father, and I understood that I was bound to follow his path, that I had already done it, and that all what I could do was to go on like this…. A few days later, I met Mozzie."

"And a few weeks later, I was beginning to chase you. Wait a minute… all this means that when I caught you, you were only 21 years old."

"Yeah. What difference does it make? Younger people go to jail."

Peter didn't answer. But he felt bad at the idea that his CI had been that young when he had put him behind bars. All this had been a game for the young man, he realized that. But prison was not a game… Peter made some quick calculations. He had been arrested near to his 21th birthday. He had served three years, gotten six months off for good behavior and had escaped three months before his final release. They had been working together for a year now. Which meant that he was probably in his 25th year at the moment.

Peter realized that he didn't even know Neal's birthday. It was clear that the birth certificate that was in Neal's file, asserting that he was born in 1977, was a fake of his own doing. No wonder Neal seemed so much younger sometimes. He'd apparently never had the opportunity to be truly a child, even in his youngest years. No matter how much he had enjoyed being a con artist in the intervening years, he had become a professional forger and a thief in the first place to take care of his mother.

Neal seemed deep in thought as well. He went on: "With Mozzie, the serious business began… and the real fun," he added with a smile.

"Then tell me about the 'serious business' now," said Peter. "We have still half the night."

"Well", said Neal, "it'll have to be a redacted version. I promised to say the full truth about my activities, not about Mozzie's."

Peter nodded and got ready to listen. But he was sure that whatever Neal still had to tell him, nothing could ever surprize him more than what he's already heard.

I always thought that Neal looked younger than MB actually is, because he doesn't look his age. And it fits better, IMO, with some of Neal's childlike behaviors, and above all his search for a father figure. I always thought as well that if Peter had chased Neal for 3 years and he was already 18 at the moment, he'd had only 3 years for acquiring all his skills, travelling all around the word, meeting Keller and Mozzie…That's why, making Neal begin his career at a young age seemed more plausible than just after Ellen's 'revelations.