“Perry Downing was reportedly in stable condition at the Naval Medical Center. His unidentified passenger was reported in critical condition.”

When they went to other breaking news stories, Ivan looked at Lucina for what he had missed.

She said, “He was driving with a woman in his car and swerved into the other lane, causing a three-car wreck. And it sounded like they were doing something they were not supposed to be doing in the car. Neither one of them had their seat belts on,” she concluded.

Ivan didn’t hear the whole report and so he couldn’t begin to speculate on it. But he could verify that Perry was probably past the legal driving limit. However, he hadn’t seen him leave the club with any woman.

He could have picked a girl up at any time, Ivan reasoned. He was already thinking about damage control and going to visit Perry at the Medical Center.

“Shit. He needs to start negotiating a new contract,” he informed Lucina. “He was even ready to invest in some real estate deals with me.”

Lucina didn’t like the sound of that. Ivan’s continued thoughts about business were insensitive.

“How could you think about real estate and new contracts at a time like this?” she asked him.

Ivan said, “You think he’s not thinking about it? Because I can tell you right now that he is, especially now. Tragedies make your need to have your business in order more important.”

“Ivan, he needs to think more about getting well again. And I hope the woman is okay, too,” Lucina countered.

Ivan was already thinking about what the breaking news might do to Jeffrey, Zee-Dog, and the rest of the guys on the team, once they knew that Perry had been hanging out at another party promotion before the crash. The Chargers might start to believe that Ivan and Lucina were bad influences. And just when he was trying to open up his own cash-cow club for Mexican-Americans. How would Jeffrey respond to all of that after Perry’s accident?

IVAN DIDN’T have to wait long to find out. Soon after he had dropped Lucina off at home that morning, Jeffrey Morefield called him up on the cell phone to talk about Perry.

“Did he get a chance to talk to you about real estate yet?” Jeffrey asked him.

“Yeah, right before the accident,” Ivan told him. “He was over at our party, man. I told him to call me Monday on it. But I didn’t see no woman with him.”

There was no sense in Ivan lying about it. It was what it was.

Jeffrey said, “Well, you know how he is with women. That don’t take much for him at all. But it took a lot for me to talk him into doing something with his money before he runs out of it.”