In a neighborhood where twenty people with Bibles and an empty storefront constitute a church, I hadn’t known what to expect, but Mt. Ararat was big enough to have an actual building, with a steeple and a few stained-glass windows. The church was locked, but a sign on the door listed the hours for services (Wednesday choir practice, Thursday evening Bible study, Friday AA meetings, and on Sundays, Sunday school and church) along with Pastor Robert Andrés’s phone numbers.
The first number turned out to be his home, where I got an answering machine. The second number, to my surprise, connected me to a construction company. I asked for Andrés, somewhat uncertainly, and was told he was out on a job.
“A funeral, you mean?”
“A construction job. He works for us three days a week. If you need to reach him, I can give the foreman your phone number.”
The woman wouldn’t direct me to the jobsite, so I gave her my cell phone number. A few minutes later, Andrés called back. Construction noise at his end made conversation difficult; he had trouble understanding who I was or what I wanted, but “Billy the Kid,” “Josie Dorrado,” and “girls’ basketball” seemed to get through, and he gave me the address where he was working, over at Eighty-ninth and Buffalo.
Four town houses were going up in the middle of a long, empty block. The little boxes, rising out of the rubble of the neighborhood, had a kind of gallant optimism about them, splashes of hope against the general gray of the area.
One house seemed close to completion: someone was painting trim, a couple of guys were on the roof. I took a hard hat from my trunk-I keep one handy because of all the industrial sites I visit-and walked over to the trim painter. He didn’t look up from his work until I called out to him; when I asked for Robert Andrés, he pointed his brush at the next building over and went back to work without speaking.
No one was outside the second house, but I could hear a power saw and loud shouting from within. I picked my way around rusted pipe and wedges of concrete, the crumbling remains of whatever had stood here before, and climbed over the ledge through the open hole where the front door would be.
A stairwell rose in front of me, the risers fresh sawn, the nailheads new and shiny. I could hear desultory hammering from the room beyond me, but I followed the sound of shouting up the stairs. All around me were open joists, the skeleton of the house. In front of me, three men were about to lift a piece of drywall into place. They bent and chanted a countdown in unison in Spanish. On “cero” they started lifting and walking the wallboard into place. It was heavy work; I could see trapeziuses quivering even on this muscular crew. As soon as the wallboard was up, two more men jumped to either end and began hammering it home. Only then did I step forward to ask for Pastor Andrés.
“Roberto,” one of the guys bellowed, “lady here asking for you.”
Andrés stepped through the open area that would eventually be another wall. I wouldn’t have known him in his hard hat and equipment apron, but he apparently recognized me from our encounter on Tuesday outside Fly the Flag-as soon as he saw me, he turned and went back to the other room. At first, I thought he was running away from me, but apparently he was merely telling the foreman that he’d be taking a break, because he came back a minute later without the apron and gestured to me to go back down the stairs.
Buffalo Avenue was relatively quiet in the middle of the afternoon. A woman with a pair of toddlers was heading toward us, pushing a shopping cart full of laundry, and on the far corner two men were having a heated exchange. They were listing so precariously I didn’t think they’d be able to connect if they came to blows. The real action in South Chicago heats up as the sun goes down.
“You are the detective, I think, but I’ve forgotten your name.” One on one, Andrés’s voice was soft, his accent barely noticeable.
“V. I. Warshawski. Do you do counseling at jobsites in the neighborhood, Pastor?”
He shrugged. “A small church like mine, it cannot pay my full wage as a pastor, so I do a little electrical work to make ends meet. Jesus was a carpenter; I am content in His footsteps.”
“I was at By-Smart yesterday morning and attended the service. Your sermon certainly electrified the congregation. Were you trying to give Billy’s grandfather a lecture on unions?”
Andrés smiled. “If I start preaching about unions, the next thing I know I’ve invited pickets to jobsites like this one. But I know that’s what the old one believes, and that poor Billy, who wants only to do good in the world, had a fight with his family because of what I said. I tried to call the grandfather, but he wouldn’t speak to me.”
“What were you preaching about, then?” I asked.
He spread his hands. “Only what I said-the need for all people to be treated with respect. I thought that was a safe and simple message for such men, but apparently it was not. This neighborhood is in pain, Sister Warshawski; it is like the valley of dry bones. We need the Spirit to rain down on us and clothe our bones with flesh and animate them with spirit, but the sons of men must do their part.”
The words were spoken in a conversational tone; this wasn’t prayer or preaching or public show, just the facts as he saw them.
“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.”