Wednesday Night
Sean was surprised to get a call from Michael at seven thirty. Lucy was in the middle of an interview with her temporary partner—though Sean wasn’t sure he liked him much after his piss-poor attitude—and Jesse was in his room. He’d been quiet and sore after soccer. Sean asked if practice was bad, and Jesse simply said, “Tough.” He said he wasn’t hungry and went to shower and Sean wondered if the coach had yelled at him. Sean had never participated in team sports. His parents never put him in anything, and in high school he was too angry to commit to a team. He just wanted to do his own thing.
The first thing Jesse asked to do when they came back from California after his mother’s funeral was to find a soccer team. Brian’s team had a position for him, and though it wasn’t in the neighborhood, Sean didn’t mind driving him to and from. It was a competitive team so they didn’t have regional boundaries. Jesse tried out and made it. Sean was so proud of him, and Lucy felt strongly that team sports, especially soccer—which Jesse loved—were a great way for Jesse to adjust to living in a new city as well as make friends with similar interests.
But Sean had never seen him so down after a practice. It had only been a month, but still—Jesse was unusually tired and sullen.
He shook it off and answered Michael’s call. “What’s up?”
“I need math help. I have a test tomorrow.”
“Ask away.”
“It’s geometry. It’s complicated. Father tried to show me, but he made it worse, now I’m completely confused.”
St. Catherine’s was more than twenty minutes away, and Sean had just been on that side of town picking Jesse up an hour ago. But Michael rarely asked for help in anything, and Sean didn’t want to say no. “Okay. I’ll come over. Thirty minutes?”
“Thank you.” He hung up.
Sean went upstairs to tell Jesse he was going out. “I won’t be long—and Lucy should be home in an hour or so.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“You look tired. You should go to bed early.”
“I am, but I want to go. Unless you don’t want me to come.”
Why would he think that? “Of course not. We’ll bring Bandit and make it a party.”
Jesse got out of bed and winced. A small moan escaped.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s not nothing. Did you get hurt?”
“Just got hit with the ball. I wasn’t paying attention and it knocked me down. Totally took the wind out of me. I’m fine, just feel stupid, and the coach yelled at me for not paying attention.”
That could explain his moodiness, but Sean wasn’t sure. “Maybe Lucy should look you over when she gets home. She’s an EMT, and she has a lot of experience taping up bruises and cuts between Kane, Jack, and me.”
“I’m fine. I promise. But I’m glad we don’t have practice tomorrow.”
Sean was still adjusting to this whole parenthood thing, and he didn’t want to make something from nothing, but he didn’t want to miss something important, either.
Sean was glad he had Jesse’s company, even though Jesse wasn’t chatty. They pulled up at St. Catherine’s, and Michael met them at the door. They went to the family room where Frisco and Tito were playing games. When Bandit saw them, he ran around the couch three times at high speed. Sean whistled and Bandit stopped, then looked up at him with anticipation of playing.
“Can we take him out back?” Frisco asked. “We won’t let him get in the pool.” Bandit loved to swim, but driving thirty minutes in a car with a wet dog wasn’t fun.
“Sure,” Sean said, and the two boys grabbed a baseball that was in a basket by the door and ran out with the dog.
Jesse spread out his own homework. Not for the first time, Sean reflected how much he loved his kid. He might not have raised him, but Jess was a Rogan. His son. And he was certainly a better kid than Sean had been. Jess cared about school, he wanted to do well. He played sports, made friends easily, and was friendly. That was because of Madison. Genetics may have played a part in it, but Madison had raised Jesse and he’d turned out well.
Sean wished everything had been different. He loved having Jesse living with him, but not how it happened. In an ideal world, Madison would have left Carson, moved to San Antonio, and bought a house in the same neighborhood so Jesse could have both parents nearby. But he’d lost his mother, and Sean knew exactly how that felt. The burning rage. The deep, unspeakable sorrow.
Sean shook it off. It was foolish to dwell on the past. He had to find a way to move forward, to make sure Jesse felt loved, safe, and happy.
“Here’s the study guide,” Michael said and handed Sean a green sheet of paper. They went over it for the next thirty minutes. Sean loved math, so it wasn’t a hardship for him, and Michael caught on quickly. His problem seemed to be memorizing the formulas because Michael was a kid who had to understand why. Sean had been the same way. So Sean explained why the formulas worked, and gave some history as to how they came about.
Paolo ran in. “I heard you were here, Sean. Can you help me with something?”
“Math?”
“No, the computer isn’t working. Please? I have to type this essay for English and I think I lost everything and I don’t want to do it again.”
Sean glanced at Michael. “You good? Any more questions?”
“I think I understand.”
“You’ll do fine on the test.”
Sean got up and walked out with Paolo. The computer was upstairs in the study area, though most of the boys used the larger family room to do their homework. Paolo was chatty, and Sean sat down to fix the computer, listening to Paolo talk about school and Father Mateo and what he’d had for dinner.
Michael waited until Sean had left the room, then said to Jesse, “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“Brian is in Father Mateo’s office. He came in an hour late and didn’t call. Father is at the hospital giving last rites to a parishioner, and Sister Ruth told him to stay there until Father came home.”
“You told Paolo?”
“I had to do something, Jess. When Brian was late, I called a meeting with everyone and told them what was going on. They need to be careful. I can’t let Brian’s mistakes hurt anyone else. So I messed with the computer and told Paolo to come in at nine and tell Sean something was wrong. We don’t have a lot of time—I don’t know how long it’ll take Sean to fix it.”
They walked through the kitchen to the small office in the back of the house. It had its own entrance and looked more like a principal’s office than anything—except that there were a bunch of religious things all over, and Jesse noticed a picture on the wall with the boys, Father Mateo, and Sean standing in front of the house. It reminded Jesse that he should have told Sean from the beginning what was going on. It was clear that Brian, Michael, and Jesse were out of their depth.
Brian was doing his homework at the desk. His face was red and damp from crying. He looked up as soon as the door opened.
“You can’t be in here,” Brian said and sniffed.
Michael closed the door behind them. “This has gotten out of hand, Brian.”
“Go away.”
“Jesse is hurt. What would you be saying to Sean now if Jesse had been shot? If he had died?”
“I told him to stay out of it!”
“It’s Jose, isn’t it?”
“You don’t understand. Just leave me alone, Michael.”
His voice cracked and Jesse wondered what he’d already done. But he didn’t say anything. He sat down because his stomach still hurt from being punched. In the shower he’d noticed a big bruise, and he wasn’t surprised because it really hurt.
“Is this the path you want? You want to join Jose’s gang? To kill? Did you like killing for the general? Did you like hurting other people?”
“I hate you.”
“Hate me. Leave. Go and join Jose and his gangbangers and you won’t live to see eighteen. You know the truth and yet you betray us!”
“Hey,” Jesse said. The emotion and intensity made him very uncomfortable. He didn’t really understand why Michael wanted him here, the whole good cop, bad cop conversation not making much sense. “Brian, I’m okay, really. But they had guns. What do they want you for?”
“Jose is my brother. You can never understand. He’s blood. He’s family.”
“The same family as your father who sold you,” Michael said, his voice low and filled with quiet rage.
“Jose didn’t know.”
“Lie to yourself all you want, Brian. I don’t care. But you are putting everyone here in danger. You don’t care about me or Jesse, fine. But Tito is innocent. Frisco and Kevin and everyone else. They have a chance for more. For better than what we were all born in. And you would bring the violence back to our door?”
“No. I won’t. I promise, it’s not like that.”
“What is it like?” Jesse asked quietly. “What does your brother want from you?”
Brian clung to the question like a life preserver. “He just wants to be a family again.”
“Then why hasn’t he petitioned the court to be your guardian?” Jesse asked.
“He has a record—he doesn’t think he would be allowed.”
“You know, my dad can move mountains,” Jesse said. “If you really want to live with your brother, Sean can probably make it happen.”
Brian paled. “No. You can’t tell him.”
“Why? This is your family. Sean understands family.”
“He wouldn’t understand. Because of Jose’s record, he would think—”
“Fuck that,” Michael said. “You are making excuses. He has a record and he carries a gun, what does that mean? He’s already back in the gang life. He’s living in Saints territory. He doesn’t care about you, he cares only because you’re young and stupid.”
“Screw you.”
“You need to leave, right now,” Michael said. “I will not risk everyone here because you are weak and stupid.”
“No, Michael, don’t,” Jesse said. Was he serious? Would he really force Brian to go? “We can fix this.”
Brian closed his eyes and fought with tears. “I—I—”
“Tell me what’s going on,” Michael said. “Tell me the truth, right now, or I will call Kane and he will find it for me.”
At the mention of Kane’s name, Brian shook his head. “Please no. Kane would kill my brother. He’s the only family I have left.”
Jesse didn’t know what to think about this conversation. Why would Michael call Kane? Why not just tell Sean? Or Father Mateo? Would Kane really kill someone?
Jesse knew the answer to that. He’d been in Guadalajara when Kane, Sean, and others came down to rescue him and take his stepfather into custody. But they wouldn’t kill in cold blood. Not without a threat. Without a reason.
Michael stared at Brian. Brian looked from him to Jesse. “Jess—I’m sorry about today. I didn’t mean for any of that to happen, and I was scared.”
“I know,” Jesse said. “I’m not mad at you.”
“I don’t know what to do, Michael! I want Jose to have the same chance I had—but he doesn’t understand that there are options outside of the gang. He calls them his family. Says I am family, too, that I need to be with him.”
“He knows there are options, but he doesn’t want to take them.”
“They’ll kill him.”
“He’s not scared of the gang,” Michael said. “He’s a part of it. If he was scared, there are ways to disappear. You and I both know that. But that would mean hard work and sacrifice, and Jose only believes in himself and the gang, in violence and money and drugs. Tell me the truth: What does he know about Saint Catherine’s?”
“Just that it’s a group home run by the church. I didn’t tell him everything.”
“But he knew about the general.”
“He was in prison, he couldn’t come for me.”
“Do you think he would have? Do you really believe he would have rescued you and taken you away from the life?”
“I—I—”
“If you can’t be honest with yourself, you can be honest with no one.”
“I don’t know,” Brian whispered. “I want to believe, but … I think he would want me with him, in the Saints.”
Jesse leaned forward and put his hand on Brian’s arm. Moving made his chest hurt, but he tried to conceal the pain. “We’re here for you, no matter what. Okay?”
“What’s he up to?” Michael demanded. “What do you do with him and his gang?”
“Just stuff.”
“Drugs? Guns?”
Brian slowly nodded.
“Is that what you want?”
“No,” he whispered.
“Are you sure? Are you sure you don’t want the gang life?”
“I don’t. But … he’s my brother.”
“Grow up. Stay away from him. That is your only choice if you want a life.”
“I don’t know how. He expects—” Brian stopped talking.
“What does he expect?”
“My help.”
“You cross that line, there is no coming back. Before you had no choice. Now you do.”
“I don’t know how to stop. I don’t—he knows where we live.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“Not me.” Brian looked at the picture on the wall.
“Fuck!” Michael kicked the desk, the sound loud in the small room. “Why didn’t you tell me? From the beginning?”
“You can’t fix everything, Michael. But I can do this. To protect everyone. He saw you, Michael! When you were following me. He knows who you are and what you did last year. He thinks you’re a traitor. But I can protect you! If I do what he wants, I can protect all of you.”
“You are not responsible for me,” Michael said.
“This has gotten way out of control,” Jesse said. “We have to tell Sean.”
“No—Jose is part of the Saints,” Michael said. “He has the power of the gang behind him. Alone, Sean can’t defeat them. We can’t let him get on their radar. We have to figure this out.”
“I’ll leave,” Brian said quietly. “I’ll go to El Paso and blend in. I’m good at that.”
“I’m not letting you run away.”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said. But if you’re willing to fight for what you have, for what we have here, then tell me the truth, right now. Do you want to be part of the Saints or do you want to live here? Are you willing to give up Jose? Because he will not change, and you know it. In your heart, you know it.”
Brian was crying again, but he wiped the snot and tears away with the back of his hand. “I am so sorry about all this. I didn’t know what to do when he found me. He’s my brother, I wanted to try … but I’m scared, Michael.”
“I have an idea, and it will work—but there’s no going back, Brian. You have to cut all ties.”
“I will. I promise, Michael.”
“Tell me everything about what you’ve seen. I need to know where the drugs and guns are. If the police raid the house and find Jose with anything illegal, he will go back to prison. He’s on probation. He doesn’t get another chance.”
“You want me to send my brother back to prison?”
“I want my brothers—and that includes you—to be safe. You brought Jose and the Saints into our lives again. You have to help get them out. Or you go with them, and I pray you survive.”
Brian looked to Jesse, as if begging him for another answer. Another idea.
“Michael is right,” Jesse said. “We do this or we call my uncle Kane and let him take care of it.”
Brian took a deep breath, put his head in his hands. A moment later he looked up. “You are right. I can’t risk Father Mateo, Tito—everyone. I will help. The Saints have a house on East Santiago Street. That’s where they package drugs for distribution. They get new shipments late Friday afternoon, package them all night, and their distributors come by and collect for the weekend. I’ve never seen so many drugs in one place—not even when we were mules.”
“I need the layout, quantities, anything you remember. And you have to make sure Jose is there tomorrow—and you’re not.”
“I can do that. But they have a lot of guns, a lot of people.”
“That’s why I’m going to call the DEA. I know exactly what to say to get them to act. Listen to my plan. We won’t have a second chance.”