“Agreed. What concrete things should the sons and daughters of women and men do?”
He pursed his lips, considering. “Provide jobs for those who need work. Treat workers with respect. Pay them a living wage. It is a simple thing, really. Is that why you came to find me today? Because Billy’s father and grandfather are searching for hidden meanings? I am not educated enough to speak in codes or riddles.”
“Billy was very upset yesterday morning because of the way his father and grandfather reacted to you. He chose not to go home last night. His father wanted to know if Billy is staying with you.”
“So you are working for the family now, for the Bysen family?”
I started to deny it, reflexively, and then realized that, of course, yes, I was working for the Bysen family. Why should that make me feel ashamed? If things kept on at the current rate, the whole country would be working for By-Smart within the decade.
“I told Billy’s father I’d try to locate him down here, yes.”
Andrés shook his head. “I think if Billy does not want to talk to his father right now, that is his right. He is trying to grow up, to think of himself as a man, not a boy. It will do his parents no harm if he stays away from home for a few nights.”
“Is he staying with you?” I asked bluntly.
When Andrés turned as if to walk back into the house, I quickly added, “I won’t tell the family, if he really doesn’t want them to know, but I’d like to hear it from him in person first. The other thing is, they think he has come to you. Whether I tell them I can’t find him, or that he’s safe but wants to be left alone, they have the resources to make your life difficult.”
He looked over his shoulder at me. “Jesus did not count any difficulties as a reason to turn back from the way to the Cross, and I pledged myself long ago to follow in His steps.”
“That’s admirable, but if they send the Chicago police, or the FBI, or a private security firm, to break down your door, will that be the best thing for Billy, or for the members of your church, who count on you?”
That made him turn back to me, with a glimmer of a smile. “Sister Warshawski, you are a good debater, you make a good point. Perhaps I do know now where is Billy, but perhaps I do not, and if I do know I can’t tell someone who works for his father because my duty is to Billy. But—by five o’clock, if the FBI breaks down my door, they will find only my cat Lazarus.”
“I’m certainly plenty busy between now and five; I won’t have time to call the family before then.”
He bowed his head in a courtly fashion and started back to the house. I walked with him. “Before you go back inside, can you tell me anything about Fly the Flag? Did Frank Zamar explain to you why he wouldn’t call the police about the sabotage in his plant?”
Andrés shook his head again. “It will be a good thing for you to work with the girls on their basketball, instead of all these other matters.”
It was a pretty stinging slap in the face. “All these other matters are directly connected to the girls and their basketball, Pastor. Rose Dorrado is a member of your church, so you must know how worried she is about losing her job. Her kid Josie plays on my team—she took me home to her mother, who asked me to investigate the sabotage. It really is a simple story, Pastor.”
“South Chicago is full of simple stories, isn’t it, each beginning in poverty and ending in death.”
This time he sounded pompous, not poetic or natural; I ignored the comment. “And now something has gone even more amiss. Rose has taken a second job, one that keeps her away from her children in the evening. It’s not just that her children need her, but I have the feeling she was coerced into taking this job, whatever it is. You’re her pastor; can’t you find out what the problem is?”
“I cannot force anyone to confide in me against their wishes. And she has two daughters who are old enough to look after the house. I know in the ideal world that you live in, girls of fifteen and sixteen should have a mother’s supervision, but down here girls that age are considered grown up.”
I was getting extremely tired of people acting like South Chicago was a different planet, one that I couldn’t possibly comprehend. “Girls of fifteen should not become mothers, whether they are in South Chicago or Barrington Hills. Do you know that every baby a teenage girl has chops her lifetime earning potential by fifty percent? Julia already has a baby. I don’t think it will help her or Rose or even Josie, if Josie starts running around the streets and has one of her own.”
“It is necessary for these girls to put their trust in Jesus, and to keep their lives pure for their husbands.”