Bysen didn’t kneel on the platform. He was yelling at Andrés, as far as anyone could see, but of course it was impossible to hear anything over the music. In the second row of the choir, Billy stood stock-still, his face white.
I pushed through the mob packing the center aisle to the far left side, which was empty, and trotted to the front of the church. The band was also on this side. The choir director and the musicians seemed to know that something was amiss: the organist stopped the insistent disco beat of the call to salvation in favor of something more brooding, and the woman began humming in harmony, fumbling her way toward a song. What hymn was appropriate for tycoons haranguing ministers during the service?
I picked my way through the thicket of electric cords to the choir. The children who’d been marching for Jesus when I arrived were kicking bored heels against their chairs; two boys were surreptitiously pinching each other. The harmonium player frowned at me; the man with the acoustic guitar put his instrument down to come over to me.
“You can’t be back here, miss,” he said.
“Sorry. Just leaving.” I flashed a smile and walked behind the Marching Troop for Jesus, past the massive woman in front of Billy, to the Kid himself.
He was staring at his grandfather, but when I touched his sleeve, he turned to me. “Why did you bring him here?” he demanded. “I thought I could trust you!”
“I didn’t bring him. It wasn’t too hard to figure out that you might be here—you’ve been worshiping at Mt. Ararat, you admire Andrés, you sing in the choir. And then Grobian told someone he’d seen you on Ninety-second Street with a girl.”
“Oh, why can’t people just mind their own business? Boys walk down the street with girls all over the world, every day! Does it have to go up on the By-Smart Web site because I do it?”
We’d both been hissing at each other to be heard above the electronic music, but his voice rose to a wail now. Josie was eyeing us along with the rest of the choir, but while they were frankly curious she looked nervous.
“And now what’s he doing?” Billy demanded.
I looked behind me. Buffalo Bill was trying to get to his grandson, but the five men who’d been helping with the service were blocking his path. Bysen actually tried to strike one of them with his walking stick, but the men made a circle around him and moved him from the dais—even the old one with the bobbing head and quavering voice was shuffling along, one hand on Bysen’s coat.
Mrs. Bysen struggled out the far side of the pew, her arms stretched out toward her grandson. I noticed Jacqui stayed in her seat, wearing the catlike smile of malicious pleasure she put on for Bysen family discomfiture. Mr. William and Uncle Gary knew their duty, though, and joined the bodyguard in the aisle. For a moment, it looked as though there was going to be a pitched battle between the Bysen men and the Mt. Ararat ministers. Mrs. Bysen was being buffeted dangerously in the melee; she wanted to reach her grandson, but the ministers and her sons were squeezing her between them.
Billy watched his family, white-faced. He made a helpless gesture toward his grandmother, then jumped down from the riser and disappeared behind a partition. I clambered over the riser to follow him.
The partition blocked the body of the church from a narrow space that led to a robing room. I ran through the room as its second door was swinging shut. When I pushed it open, I found myself in a big hall where women were fussing around with coffeepots and Kool-Aid pitchers. Toddlers crawled unsupervised at their feet, sucking on cookies or plastic toys.
“Where’s Billy?” I demanded, and then saw a flash of red and a door closing at the far end of the room.
I sprinted across the room and out the door. I was just in time to see Billy climb into a midnight blue Miata and roar south on Houston Street.
22
Poverty’s Whirlpool
“Billy’s been sleeping here.” I made it a statement, not a question.
Josie Dorrado was sitting on the couch with her sister and the baby, María Inés. The television was on. I had muted the sound when I came in, but, for once, Julia seemed more interested in the drama of her family’s life than in what was happening on the screen.
Josie bit her lips nervously, pulling off a piece of skin. “He wasn’t here. Our ma don’t let no boys sleep over.”
I had driven straight to the Dorrado apartment from the church, waiting outside in my car until Rose walked up the street with her children, and then following her to their front door.
“You,” Rose said dully when she saw me. “I might have guessed. What devil was in me the day I asked Josie to bring you home? Ever since that day it’s been nothing but bad luck, bad luck.”
It’s always good to have an outsider to blame your troubles on. “Yes, Rose, that’s a terrible blow, the destruction of the factory. I wish either you or Frank Zamar had talked to me frankly about what was going on there. Do you know who burned down the plant?”