I smiled and shook my head. “Just an acquaintance of young Billy from South Chicago. He invited me here today. Why was Mr. Bysen so upset by Pastor Andrés’s remarks?”

She looked at me suspiciously. “Are you a journalist?”

“Nope. I coach basketball at a high school on the South Side.”

Marcena was leaning across me to listen in on the conversation, her nifty little fountain-pen recorder in her hand; at the journalism question, she gave a wolfish smile and said, “I’m just a visitor from England, so the whole thing was confusing to me. And I had trouble understanding the pastor’s accent.”

The woman nodded condescendingly. “You probably don’t get too many undocumented Mexicans in England, but we see a lot of them here. Anyone could have told young Billy that his grandfather wouldn’t enjoy hearing that kind of message, even if the pastor had delivered it in plain English.”

“Is he Mexican?” I asked. “I wasn’t sure from the accent.”

Marcena kicked my shin, meaning, they’re giving us information, don’t get their backs up.

Our informant gave a meaningless laugh. “Mexico, El Salvador, it’s all the same thing; they all come to this country thinking they have a right to a free lunch.”

A man in front of us turned around. “Oh, Buffalo Bill will get that nonsense out of Billy’s system fast enough. It’s why he sent the Kid down to South Chicago.”

“But what nonsense?” Marcena looked and sounded hopelessly ignorant; she was almost batting her eyelashes. What a pro.

“Didn’t you hear him talking about workers and the fruits of their labors?” the man said. “Sounded a lot like union organizing, and we won’t stand for that at By-Smart. Billy knows that as well as the rest of us.”

I looked to the front of the room, where Andrés was still talking to Billy. With his short, square body, he did look more like a construction worker than a minister. I suppose he could have been a union organizer: a lot of the little churches on the South Side can’t support a pastor, and the staff have to work regular jobs during the week.

But would Billy have really tried to bring an organizer into Buffalo Bill’s prayer service? The impression I’d gotten last Thursday had been that Billy loved his grandfather, that he thought only the best of him.

Billy clearly also was attached to Andrés; as the room cleared, he’d stayed next to Andrés, and his posture suggested embarrassment and apology. As I watched, the pastor put a hand on the young man’s shoulder, and the two of them made their way out.