Page 90 of Sean's Sunshine
“Guillermo Morales Senior,” Sean said, wanting to kick the guy in the balls on general principles. “You are under arrest.” He pulled his badge from his pocket and his handcuffs and got ready to do some fancy footwork here, if he was going to make everything turn out okay.
HE CALLEDthe local police and identified himself by badge number, asking for a unit to come pick up one adult male suspect of local robberies. Then, while Billy held his father’s handcuffed hands behind his back and frog-marched him toward the street, he called Andres. He was going to need Andres to give this whole thing some respectability.
He’d just finished hanging up on Andres’ sputtered promise to be there in ten when the cruiser arrived.
It took ten minutes and some hot badge flashes to get Senior (as he would forever call the man, because in Sean’s mind he had no relationship to the man in Sean’s life besides sperm donor) handcuffed in the back of the unit for safekeeping. Then he took in Billy, standing with his arms crossed and glaring at his little brother, who was mirroring his posture with the exact same expression on his narrower, softer face.
Sean had known—deep in his gut he’d known. As soon as Roberto had failed to show up for dinner with Billy, he’d known. As soon as he’d heard about the dyed ponytail and his mother’s mysteriously missing money, Sean had known. The dog-walking business, the missing dog—all of it had told the story.
And as soon as he’d seen Billy’s father on the walkway, he’d known why.
But what to do about it now?
“The fuck you doing here, Roberto?” Billy snarled, breaking the silence at exactly the same time Roberto did.
“The fuck you doing in my life, Ghee? You fuckin’ bailed, remember?”
“I wasthrown out, you little shithead! Dad beat the shit out of me, remember? He broke my nose, and I pissed blood for three days! You had a chance to befreeof that motherfucker, and you came crawling back?”
Roberto took a step away, and his aggressive, upright posture folded a little, his shoulders hunching in. “He… he….”
“He tricked you,” Sean said, glancing at Billy.C’mon, Billy, trust me here.“Didn’t he?”
Roberto wasn’t a hardened criminal. His lower lip quivered, and he swallowed loudly. “Nobody tricked me into nothin’,” he snarled.
Sean lowered his head, rubbed the back of his neck, and pulled Billy aside. “Work with me here, Guillermo,” he said softly.
“Let him get what he deserves,” Billy snarled, his chest heaving and his blood obviously up.
“What he deserves is a second chance, just like you got,” Sean said, but he didn’t raise his voice. “You don’t get it. You know what happens if Roberto gets arrested here?”
Billy froze. Yeah. He knew. “He goes into the system,” he rasped.
“Yeah, he does. And even if they seal his records since he’s a juvenile, it doesn’t matter. He’s seventeen. He’ll be in the system as an adult because enough stuff of enough value has been stolen to make a case for grand theft. He might even end up doing gen pop time, and look at him.” Roberto was Billy’s height, but he hadn’t worked out for years, turning his body into a machine. In fact, he looked like he was on the verge of an ulcer, which, given what Sean guessed, only made sense.
“He’ll get slaughtered,” Sean said, hating that in his bones. “And once he’s in the system, if he so much as looks at a cop funny, he’ll end up back in the same place.”
Billy growled and then glanced at Roberto surreptitiously. Sean saw what Billy did—the kid wiping under his eyes with the back of his hand and looking around to see if anybody had taken note.
“Fuck.” Billy’s next breath sounded decidedly shaky. “What do we do?”
Sean glanced at the kid again and then saw Andres’ unmarked pulling into the cul-de-sac. “Wait for the officers to take the statement of the homeowners,” he said, because that was already in progress. “And wait for Andres to come and witness this since I’m not officially anything right now.”
“And then what?” Billy asked, and this time the pleading, the supplication in his voice, was evident.
“Trust me,” Sean said, ordering his thoughts like little soldiers. “Can you do that for me, Guillermo? Can you trust me?”
Billy looked at him for a long time and then nodded. Given how the man in the back of the unit had let Billy down, Sean knew this for the huge furry deal it really was. “Please,” he said. “Please, cop, let’s do my little brother right.”
“I’ll do my best,” he promised. Inside, he was shaking. God, please let this turn out okay.
IT TOOKhim five minutes to finish briefing Andres, who was both irritated and impressed.
“This?” he asked, clearly exasperated. “This is what all those, ‘Hey, could you just get me some info,’ calls were about? You were trying to bust a robbery ring while on leave?”
Sean winced. “I was bored,” he said. “We were walking in the park daily—it sort of evolved.” They’d hidden the “murder board” in the guest bedroom during the Halloween party; if Andres didn’t know “evolve” was a vast understatement, he probably had a good guess.
Andres snorted. “Well, you’ve managed to evolve a successful relationship and a healthy career bump out of a punctured lung. Maybe next time you’ll really get shot and figure out world peace!”
