CHAPTER 8 SHAWN—WHAT JORGE DOESNT SAY
Shawn's been waiting three days to ask it back. Figures turnabout's only fair, and Jorge's never struck him as a man who'd offer without being asked.
"You gonna tell me your side now," Shawn says, "or is that a one-way road."
Jorge doesn't look up from the shirt he's folding, corners squared off military-neat, same as everything he touches. "What side."
"You know cars. You had a shop. Guy who runs a shop don't usually end up in county over car thieves unless something personal's underneath it."
Jorge's hands go still on the fabric. Just for a second. Long enough that Shawn knows he's found a nerve, and short enough that he almost regrets touching it.
"My brother," Jorge says. Voice flat, like he's reading it off a form instead of living it out loud. "Rubén. He was two years older. Built the shop with me from nothing."
"Was?"
"Was." Jorge sets the shirt down, doesn't pick anything else up to keep his hands busy instead.
"Somebody stole my car out front of it. Regal I'd put a small fortune into.
I bragged about that build to half the block, more than half, probably.
Everybody within earshot knew what I had sitting in that lot. "
Shawn doesn't say anything. Knows better than to fill this particular silence.
"Rubén went looking for it himself. Middle of the night, alone, didn't tell me he was going. Ran into two guys who had nothing to do with the theft. Wrong place, wrong time, some beef that had nothing to do with either of us." Jorge's jaw works once, hard. "They shot him over it."
"Jorge—"
"Wasn't the car thief who pulled the trigger. Know that. Knew it the whole time." His voice doesn't rise, doesn't need to. "Doesn't change what put him in that lot at two in the morning."
Shawn's quiet a long moment, turning that over, understanding a piece of the last few weeks click into place that he hadn't had language for until now. "So how did this new charge come along?"
"Wasn't him. Some other kid, some other car, some other lot." Jorge's hands curl loose at his sides, like he's remembering the shape of something they used to hold. "Didn't matter. I saw the same thing happening to somebody else and I put him in a hospital before I even decided to do it."
"How long do you get for that?"
"Depends on the judge. Depends on a lot of things I don't control." A pause. "Not the first time I've done a stretch for putting my hands on somebody, either. Long time ago. Before the shop."
Shawn sits with that a second, filing it next to everything else, not asking for details he can tell Jorge's not ready to hand over yet. "What'd that one cost you?"
"Couple of years. Different reasons. Same hands." Jorge finally looks up, eyes flat and tired in a way Shawn hasn't seen on him before. "Cars are the only thing that's ever kept them steady. Everything else, I go looking for something to break."
"You don't seem like you're looking to break anything right now."
"Not right now." Something almost soft passes over Jorge's face before he shuts it down. "Ask me again after my hearing goes bad."
Shawn doesn't have an answer for that. Doesn't try to find one.
Down the tier, a guard's radio crackles static nobody bothers translating into words.
Jorge picks the shirt back up, resumes folding like the conversation never happened, and Shawn watches him do it, wondering how a man carries that much and still keeps his hands that careful with something as small as cotton.
He doesn't know yet how close that question's about to get tested.