Fredo grabbed the struggling girl, dragging her with him as he tried to follow Riverton. She was showing incredible strength. If he didn’t get a hold of her soon, he’d be forced to do something he didn’t want to do.
“Julio, run!” the girl shouted to the occupant of the bedroom. Fredo didn’t want to, but he gave her a backhanded slap across the chops, and she collapsed, unconscious. He needed to aid Riverton in case the Detective faced hostiles. He laid her down carefully and rushed to Riverton’s side.
The drapes were pulled, making the darkened room impossible to navigate. Riverton tripped over something and was on his knees with a groan. Fredo heard the unmistakable thud of Clark’s gun falling to the wooden floor. Following the sound, he lurched forward, clutching for what seemed like thin air before he felt clothing and a mop of stiff hair. His nostrils scented teenage sweat, and he heard the heavy breathing of a young man not nearly as strong, while Riverton groaned in the background.
He felt the metal of the gun, grabbed it toward his chest, and stiff-armed the youth away from him. He shoved the gun into Riverton’s chest until the detective could grab hold of it then found the front of the kid’s shirt and yanked him to standing position.
Riverton scrambled to stand, gasping.
“I got it,” Fredo barked.
Riverton pulled at the drapes, letting in some light just as they heard a baby wail in the room next door. The kid was still wiggling to get loose from Fredo’s iron grip.
“Quit it. I don’t want to hurt you,” Fredo whispered. “We just want to talk. Cut it out, you little motherfucker!”
It did little to stop the youth. Riverton threw handcuffs on him from behind then pushed him onto the mattress sitting directly on the floor. The bright blue eyes stared back up to Fredo, revealing a cocktail of hatred and fear.
“Anyone else here?” Fredo asked.
The teen shook his head slowly, resigned.
Fredo bent over the girl as she began to regain consciousness. He noted she’d have a bruise over her left eye and cheekbone. He felt awful about hitting a woman, but his overwhelming concern for other occupants of the house who might have weapons caused his quick and violent reaction. It was part of his training that would never leave him alone. He was forever expecting and being prepared for deadly force.
The baby wailed again. Fredo and Riverton shared a look. The unspoken call to action fell on Fredo’s shoulders.
“I’m good with the kids here,” Riverton said.
The bedroom next to the darkened room was also pitch black. He followed the sound, nearly running into a crib in the corner. He leaned over the wooden rails and instinctively picked up the frightened child.
“Shhh. Shhh. You’re okay,” the SEAL said, as he bounced the toddler, pressing him against his chest. To the top of his curly head, he whispered, “Everything’s fine now. Don’t be scared.” Then he kissed the small warm head and heard the huge inhale as the child settled.
Fredo shuffled in the dark over to where he saw a thin crack of sunlight, pulled back the drapes, and let the room flood with light. A single bed was made up in the corner opposite the crib. An old dresser with a cracked mirror was the only other piece of furniture. The top was fashioned with a plastic pad for diaper changing.
The two of them, the warrior and the toddler, took stock of each other briefly before the child’s lower lip began to quiver and he started another series of mournful cries. This time, the bouncing didn’t help, as the boy realized he was being held by a stranger.
Fredo brought the baby into the other bedroom. The girl was sitting next to her brother, unrestrained, so Fredo handed her the child.
Riverton cleared his throat. “We just want to talk. First, I gotta ask you, do you guys live here alone?”
“No,” the girl said. Her face was swelling. Fredo felt horrible about the pain it must cause her. She put the baby to her breast, and it seemed to ease everyone in the room as the unmistakable sounds of feeding began. “Our mother lives here, too. But she’s at work.”
“Okay, so missy, we have some questions we want to ask your brother here. This is your brother?” Riverton asked.
She nodded.
“He’s Julio?”
Again, she nodded.
“And you’re?”
“Lupe. Lupe Hernandez.”
“Okay, thanks. Now, we think he saw something we need to find out about,” Riverton added.
She nodded again and turned to frown at her brother.
“I didn’t do anything. He’s a frog, Lupe. One of those.” The kid was sneering at Fredo.
“Yeah, and I’m a fuckin’ monkey. Don’t get smart. We just want some information, son, and depending on what you tell us, we’ll be on our way.” Riverton checked with Fredo and then continued. “This the man whose life you saved, son?”
Riverton’s thumb curled back in Fredo’s direction.
The boy didn’t want to answer. Fredo changed his stance, placing his fingers on his hips, and it made the boy flinch.
“Yes.”
“Where’d you learn that?”
Traces of an evil smile appeared on the kid’s face. “If you spend much time here, you learn about things like this. And my brother taught me a few things.”
Riverton turned to Fredo, asking for advice to proceed. Fredo took his cue.
“He the one who tried out for the teams?”
Both brother and sister solemnly nodded.
“We’re sorry about that. Your brother was a good man. The Navy lost a good Corpsman.” Fredo could tell the boy didn’t trust him. He looked around the room.
“You kids home alone a lot here? In this neighborhood? Your mother leaves you alone like this?”
“Sometimes we have someone else come in. I work, too. Julio does—”
“I’m a student,” Julio said defiantly, cutting off his sister.
“I take the baby with me to high school. They have an after school program for girls like—me.” She looked down at her baby, her palm smoothing over his curls. “There’s a neighbor lady friend of our mother’s who sometimes looks in on us. Not like we’re children,” she added.
Fredo knew Mia and Armando were both kids raised under similar circumstances. Felicia Guzman had worked cleaning motels and doing laundry. It wasn’t legal, especially with the baby. They were wise to be cautious. Fredo could see the girl didn’t want to give up her baby.
“Look, we’re not here to get into all that,” Riverton reassured them.
“You see who shot me?”
Julio looked away immediately. It was just as Fredo suspected. He knew who had shot him.
“You know someone who owns a small caliber gun? Like a woman’s gun. Did I get shot by a woman?”
The kid shrugged. His non-cooperation was pissing Fredo off. Plus, he was getting increasingly uncomfortable in the neighborhood where they were easily outnumbered and outgunned.
“You were a target. I think you popped someone’s cherry.” The kid grinned, enjoying Fredo’s pain.
Riverton was familiar with this scenario and told him so. “They get the kids to go shoot someone, usually kill someone, or someone’s pet, as an initiation to become one of the members. And with all the witnesses, you gotta rely on them not to snitch. Nice family bonding experience.” Riverton’s face reflected the disgust Fredo knew he felt inside.
The kids had no future. It saddened him.
“So who do you run with?”
“I’m clear.”
“I find that impossible to believe.”
“I don’t want to go that way. Trying to stay out of it. I wanna go to school. Maybe work in a hospital.”
“Yes. Ephron was teaching him all kinds of first aid. He’s actually saved some lives already at his young age,” said Lupe.
“You saw him get shot, didn’t you?” Riverton was also losing patience.
“Nah, I didn’t.”
Fredo knew the kid was lying. His heart still ached that the boy had
to do this to survive. Patch together some scumbag so he could go terrorize the rest of the neighborhood another day. He decided the kid had less of a future than he initially thought. He prayed no one knew Julio had seen the shooting.
They kept asking questions, and the boy dodged them smartly, being used to dealing with law enforcement. Something became apparent to Fredo the longer they stayed in the home; the kid was brave. His medical skills were helping to keep the family under the protection of someone; but for how long, Fredo wasn’t sure, although he could understand Julio’s thirteen-year-old logic.
Riverton gave both kids his card. Julio looked at Fredo as if he wanted his card, too, which Fredo found touching. “We don’t do that shit. Sorry, man.” Then he had an idea. He grabbed Riverton’s card and wrote his cell on the back, handing it to Julio, and then did the same to Lupe’s card. “You call me if something’s going down.”
Julio gave them a smirk. Fredo decided it was his most common form of expression, those half-lidded eyes telling everyone in the room he didn’t take shit from anyone and he didn’t believe anyone was there to help him, either.
“You think somethin’s funny?” he asked Julio.
“Yeah, the fuckin’ SEALs. Bring in the SEALs. Now that would be something to watch.”
Chapter 6
‡
FREDO THOUGHT ABOUT the kid’s remarks for the next couple of days as he helped Mia get the house ready for Christmas. He helped Mayfield and Armando string lights around Felicia Guzman’s front porch. He replaced a window for her, fixed her dishwasher, and picked up a new mixer for her holiday cooking.
He bought a miniature plastic tool set for Ricardo that came in an authentic-looking plastic tool case. Felicia made the toddler a carpenter’s apron with numerous pockets, embroidered with the outline of a particular tool. One afternoon, while making repairs, Ricardo followed him around, wearing his apron, the pockets stuffed with Fredo’s plastic tools.
“You do this, Ricardo,” Fredo said as he helped chubby fingers wrap around a red screwdriver, pushing it into the window sill. Ricardo did it several times, and squealed with delight.
“Now, look at this. You’re gonna love this!” he said as he whacked a piece of scrap wooden window trim with his hammer. Ricardo got out his plastic screwdriver and raised his arm over the wood.
“No, no, no! Ricardo, you need to pay attention.” Fredo showed him the hammer, with the flat nose and arched backside that matched his own. “See? This one.”
Ricardo screamed again and hit the wooden piece several times, nearly falling down in the process.
Mia came up behind Fredo, lovingly melting into his back, whispering in his ear, “You are soooo good with him, my lover. He’s going to grow up to be a carpenter because of you. Look how he can use his tools already.”
Fredo chuckled. He was sure Mia didn’t understand the double entendre she’d used. While thinking about tools, he got hard again.
Mia was always easy to be around, so beautiful, making every excuse to touch him, rub against him, and keep him in a state of continual arousal. She’d brought up the subject of getting pregnant, again, and Fredo was close to letting her know the truth about his doctor’s visit. Coop even asked if he’d talked to her yet.
“No, and I’m waiting for the right time. Maybe I should do it after Christmas, Coop.”
“You better tell her.”
“Why, did you go and fuckin’ tell Libby? That what you’re sayin’?”
“No. I wouldn’t do that. Who do you fuckin’ think I am?”
“Oh, I get it. When you get all aroused and you’re pumping her, you feel the need to unload all your burdens, and you tell her about my little tadpoles with the dented heads?”
Coop laughed. “Man, you’re twisting this all out of shape, Fredo. No fuckin’ way I would tell her. I’m just sayin’ Mia will be pissed if she finds out you’ve known for a long time.”
“I’m getting adjusted. I got shot, for Christ’s sake. Give me a fuckin’ break.”
Fredo knew Coop was right. The wives had a circle of communication that was faster than being hard-wired. Almost like they had a hive mentality. If a word was mentioned about his sterility, everyone would know within a matter of hours, perhaps minutes.
He thought about the kids living in that little house. He even drove past it on several occasions when he needed to pick up things for Felicia. He thought about them when he gave money to the bell ringers by the Post Office. He took it upon himself to get a couple of nice thick beef sandwiches to carry around in the truck so he could stop and feed some homeless men. He brought cans of dog food for some of their dogs that probably ate by scrounging garbage.
It was the Christmas spirit, filling his heart. The season was about doing good, taking care of each other. The team took up a collection for a simple wedding for one of their froglets, a new guy on the team. It was uncommon for the SEALs to come from well-to-do families, so collections were always being taken so they could help each other.
One day, he had an idea.
Kyle, T.J., Cooper, Danny, Lucas, and several others were passing time at the Scupper.
“You hear some of the guys on Team 5 are building a brewery?” Kyle asked.
“Well, we got us a winery up in Sonoma County,” said Coop.
The team and several others, including Libby’s parents, had invested in Devon and Nick’s winery a couple of years ago. It wasn’t yet a profitable venture.
“What are they calling it?” someone asked.
“Brotherhood Brewing Company.”
Of course.
Fredo decided the time was right for discussion of his idea. “I’ve been thinking about the kids we met, you know, living in the neighborhood where I got shot. I was thinking, because it’s Christmas, maybe we could take on a family, you know, adopt them?”
“We do that at church,” someone said.
“This is different. I’m talking about doing a community improvement project.”
“What did you have in mind, Fredo?” asked Kyle.
“Well, they basically have a dying neighborhood. Houses boarded up, even the Catholic middle school—” he leaned over and nodded to Armando—“You and Mia went to school there, I think. Right, Armani?”
“Yes. Used to be a decent school.”
“You want to open up a school, Fredo?” asked T.J.
“No. Just a basketball court. A place for the kids to play. Fenced, maybe with some lights so they are protected at night.”
“Basketball? You don’t play basketball, Fredo.”
“Doesn’t matter. What else is there for the kids to do? They have to take a bus to go to any Boys or Girls Club. No one wants to teach there, so the school closed. If they had a place to play, a safe place, maybe some good could come out of it. Maybe we could start something that could grow into something nice.”
Like any task the Team did together, they started making lists of all the things that needed to be done. It took nearly ten napkins to write down the thirty or so important things that would have to happen before the project could be launched.
“What do we call it?” Coop asked him.
Fredo scratched his head. “How about “Operation Freedom: A Place to Play?”
THEY SET UP a meeting with the Archdiocese, who agreed to allow them access to the old school so they would have a place to store tools and materials for the project. A donor’s list was started, beginning with a fence company who donated all of the chain-link fencing. One of the wives found a small private school that was going to be demolished. The basketball court lights were donated to the project. The Archdiocese agreed to pay for the water and electricity to run the property, and to have a functioning kitchen, and bathroom facilities.
They found a road grading contractor who agreed to re-blacktop the whole playground. The courts were painted and re-striped. Hoops were replaced.
Fredo and Kyle got on the City Council agenda, in an emergency session, asking for the city’
s support for the project; they were given a community block grant of over fifty thousand dollars as seed money, with local banks and other businesses providing matching funds in exchange for promotional rights. A local news station got wind of their project and did a series of stories, which were picked up by crews from Los Angeles. A couple of professional players from the Warriors agreed to donate time, do television spots, and help set up and run basketball clinics.
Christy Lansdowne and several of the realtors from her company donated a work day. Boarded up houses were painted and re-opened. The properties that had been abandoned had reverted back to the City of San Diego, so work crews and several contractor firms took on projects, house by house, donating labor and materials. Julio, Lupe, and their mother were able to move into a newly refurbished rental home run by the San Diego Housing Authority, overlooking the basketball court.
By the time the New Year had started, the old school had been inexpensively converted to a club house that the Archdiocese agreed to run, in partnership with one of the local service clubs. There were plans to install computers and classrooms teaching painting and creative writing, as well as other crafts.
Fredo’s project took on a life of its own. But of all the things he enjoyed, they paled in comparison to the relationship he was building with little Julio, who had learned to be quite the community organizer, and became the “grass roots” unofficial spokesman for the project. Lupe and her mother helped with bookkeeping. In essence, Fredo had created gainful employment for the entire Hernandez family.
“Why you do all this, man?” Julio asked him one day.
“Just because we can. Because someone has to do it.”
“I’m not complaining. Just why doesn’t our government do things like this?” Julio asked.
“Oh, who knows? Probably trying to defend against lawsuits, trying to manage the media, all that shit. This is just simple. We get people to help us because it’s fun, it feels right, and everyone likes to work together. Maybe these sorts of things should never be government-run.”
Fredo's Dream: SEAL Brotherhood: Fredo Page 24