“His name is Andres, Andres Carmen. And he does not have good friends, Mr. Freeman. I am afraid for both him and myself.”

Nothing new here, I thought. Same game with a different name: numbers running, working the outlets, gathering the tickets, hoofing them to a place where they are sorted and used. Can you say Italian lottery, or the numbers game? Bolita?

If I am surprised at all, it’s because in this day of electronic communication, instant messaging, and email at the press of a finger, this kind of enterprise wouldn’t usually be employing a hand-delivery system. It made me think of old-school criminals doing something new that they weren’t quite used to, so they stick to the tried and true.

“Your brother makes these deliveries when, at the end of the day? Twice a week?”

“Only once a week, on Fridays, I think,” Carmen said.

“And does he go straight there after leaving your office?”

“I don’t know. I tried to follow him once, but I couldn’t keep up.”

“OK. What does your brother look like? How can I recognize him?”

Now she hesitated. This had gone beyond making a whistle-blower complaint, and had taken on the feeling of a personal betrayal. This was where it always got them: a mother turning in a son’s drug use, a daughter confessing her father’s sexual abuse.

I’d seen it a dozen times in my own home, tucked in a space at the top of the stairs when my father’s own friends, the blue brotherhood, would show up in uniform to answer a complaint from one of the neighbors. They’d always take my father outside first. Then a uniform would stand in the kitchen with my bruised and tearful mother.

“This is the third complaint this year, Mrs. Freeman. Is he hitting you?”

My mother knew that if she answered, her husband could lose his job. She knew her son would lose his father. She knew it would be the end of a family, the loss of a confidant, a shoulder, even if the shoulder was sometimes hard and often brutal. I never heard my mother answer. And the uniformed cop would never ask twice.