“Oh, that.” He hunched an impatient shoulder. “That’s so old now. I told my—my father, and Uncle Roger, I’d support a union bid in Nicaragua, that I’d go to the shareholders and tell them I was going to send money to the guys who the Red River manager is locking out in Matagalpa so they could afford to take their case to the World Court. Of course, that has Father and all my uncles freaked. I didn’t really plan on hurting the family, not then, but now, oh, Jesus, now—!”
He broke off, real anguish in his face and voice, and dropped his head in his hands. This time, it was I who leaned over and patted him consolingly.
“What happened? Something about Zamar?”
“Everything was about Zamar.” His hands muffled his voice. “They—Aunt Jacqui and Grobian, I mean—were threatening Zamar, see, threatening to destroy his plant, that was the business with the rats, because he was saying he’d have to break the contract. Pat, Pat Grobian, he and Father said no one could break a By-Smart contract. If Frank Zamar did, then everyone would think they could walk away if they didn’t like the terms. Everyone wants to do business with us because we’re so big, and then we make people agree to prices they can’t afford…”
He stopped.
“So?” I prodded.
“I’ve gotten pretty good at Spanish,” he said, looking up briefly. “I studied it in high school, but because of the warehouse, and worshiping at Mt. Ararat, I understand it really well. So this fax came in from the Matagalpa manager, in Spanish. He was sending Pat the name of one of the local jefes, chiefs, you know, who get bad jobs for illegals and pocket half their pay, and, you know—”
I nodded.
“So the guy in Matagalpa, he was saying they should send Frank Zamar to this one guy, this local jefe here in South Chicago, and he’d see Frank got a stream of Central American illegals desperate for work. And Pat Grobian kind of told Frank, do it or else.”
“But Frank started to run that sweatshop,” I objected. “Josie’s mother was working there. That was two days before the plant burned down.”
“Yeah, but, see, Frank was so bitter and ashamed he didn’t tell Aunt Jacqui or my father that he’d started making these things. He was taking the finished ones to his own home, waiting until he had a full load. Then he was going to deliver it, but he didn’t want to talk about it.” Billy looked at me with his wide, guileless eyes. “If he’d told them! But they thought he was still holding out, so they wanted more sabotage.”
I remembered the cartons I’d seen being loaded into a panel truck the last time I was at the plant before the fire. That must have been the partial load Zamar was taking home.
“Your family sent in Freddy,” I supplied. “How did Bron get involved?”
“Oh, you don’t know anything!” he cried out. “Bron was the person doing it! Only he hired Freddy to do the actual dirty work. They’d just tell Bron, do something to the plant, they wouldn’t spell it out, and he’d get Freddy Pacheco to collect all those dead rats, or—or take that frog dish and put it on the wires.”
My phone rang. Morrell, saying they’d had a look around and hadn’t found anything, meaning Marcena’s recording pen, and he was going to bed.
“Mary Ann okay?”
“I think so,” I said; I remembered in time not to blurt out the news that Billy and Josie were there, just said there were a few things that I needed to take care of since I hadn’t been here for a week.
I turned back to Billy. “How long have you known about the frog? Why didn’t you go to the cops?”
“I couldn’t.” The words came out in a whisper. He was staring fixedly at the tabletop, as if trying to fall into it and disappear, and I had to prod him for some minutes before the rest of the story emerged.
On Monday, he said he’d drive Bron to the warehouse in time for Bron to pick up his rig. Billy was planning to clean out his locker, and he’d leave the Miata in the employee parking area for Bron to drive home at the end of his shift. Bron, in turn, would drop Billy at the South Chicago commuter train station before going to his first delivery point.
On their way to the warehouse, Billy asked Bron what his plan was for getting the money for April’s heart surgery, and Bron said he had an extra insurance policy that Grobian had signed up for, and he showed Billy the frog picture, the same one I’d been carrying around. Billy asked what it was, and Bron said part of his policy, Billy didn’t have to know more than that, he was too nice a kid.