Page 89 of Sean's Sunshine
“Yeah, I’ll buy us some witch hazel pads. They’ll make sitting so much easier after we spend a day like that. Trust me.”
Sean chuckled again because Billy was done with porn but he still knew more about sex than Sean, and Sean totallycouldtrust him.
And at that moment, Billy sucked air in through his teeth. “Look.”
They were in the Peach Stem cul-de-sac, facing the park thruway, and Sean grunted because he saw it too.
The figure was dressed all in black, including a watch cap over a ponytail that looked like it was tucked under the person’s collar.
“What do we do?” Billy murmured.
“Wait until they go into the garage,” Sean said softly. “Then get out of the car and hurry to the end of the thruway, because they have to go that way.” There had been just enough rain the week before to fill in the creek and keep it running, so there would be no going through the creek bed with the stolen merchandise.
“We can’t stop them midtheft?” Billy asked, outraged, and Sean sent him an annoyed look.
“We aren’t even supposed to be here!” he retorted. “I don’t have my service weapon with me. I mean, yeah, if we hear thumping or shouting, we call for backup, but this way we can be credible witnesses to a theft.”
“This is so disappointing,” Billy muttered, and then they both slunk farther down in their seats and shut up so as not to draw any attention to the Charger as it sat with the other cars that didn’t fit in the driveway or the garage.
Their perpetrator didn’t give them a second look. Thin and lithe, a young man or a woman with easy, athletic grace slid in through the side gate and, Sean assumed, started to pick the lock, which they’d done in the previous heists. It didn’t matter. As soon as he was out of sight, they were out of the car, closing the doors gently with silent clicks and then sprinting to the thruway so they could be invisible.
Or Billy was sprinting. Sean was jogging and wishing hecouldsprint. It was okay, though. They were virtually silent and in place shortly, Sean’s breath coming in quick little puffs of the cool night air, but not labored. He felt absurdly proud of that.
Together they crouched in the deep shadows of the overhanging trees, behind the walls that separated the thruway from the yards of the adjacent houses. Sean peered out over the top of the wall, making sure to keep his face out of the light from the streetlamp and blessing the angle that gave him a full view of the house their thief had just entered.
They had finally situated themselves when Sean heard footsteps coming notfromthe house but behind them. He glanced at Billy and then peered in the direction of the footsteps.
From the shadows came another figure, also dressed in black, this one older, moving purposefully. Sean’s first thought was “military,” and his second thought was “violent.”
Billy bumped his arm, and Sean mouthed “partner” at him. Billy nodded and then frowned, squinting at the figure. It was a man—that much Sean could see—with a watch cap on his head but his face exposed. There were trees planted for shade here, but the canopies were big and the trunks were far apart, so light from a bright harvest moon illuminated him every few steps, and he and Billy got an eyeful.
Billy’s muttered “Oh no” in Sean’s ear was enough for all the pieces to fall into place.
Sean’s eyes went back to the partner, who was now hugging the shadows as though he knew he was being observed. He had a square jaw that came to a point of a chin, a hawk-like nose, and a craggy brow. But if he looked beyond the nose and the brow, he could still see the resemblance. He wondered if this man’s eyes were flat and cynical, made characterless with anger, if his mouth was thin with cruelty.
He wondered if Billy knew who the other perpetrator might be, the lithe young person with the bleached ponytail and the ingenious ways of stealing large objects.
He wondered if he should call Andres now or if he should wait until this played out, wait to see what Billy would do, trust in his lover’s adulthood in a situation that might test the trust of any man, old or young.
Before he could make a decision, their thief emerged from the house, steering two new mountain bikes down the sidewalk and into the thruway. When he got to the park proper, his partner stepped out of the shadows.
“Fucking mountain bikes again? Are you kidding me?” he growled.
“I’m sorry,” said his younger counterpart. “He had some good woodworking tools, but I can’t carry all that stuff.”
“You’ve done it before,” the guy snapped, grabbing one of the bikes for himself.
“You stole my fucking skateboard!” the younger one said, and Sean could have predicted the fist that came out and struck the younger figure in the face, but it still surprised him.
Apparently it didn’t surprise Billy, because he stood, hopped the wall, and practically flew to the shadows to clock the guy in the face.
“You leave him alone, you sonofabitch,” Billy yelled. “You too much of a coward to fucking do your own goddamned crime? You gotta get your son to do it?”
“Guillermo?” Roberto said, his voice shaking. “The hell are you doing here? You gotta go! Your cop boyfriend’s gonna find out and—”
“Too late,” Sean said, approaching from the wall with a solid stride, hoping he could make up for in imposing what he lacked in speed. “His cop boyfriend is here. Mr. Morales—”
“Guillermo Senior,” Billy spat with disgust, his hands still tangled in his father’s sweatshirt.