Tod Goldberg - The Reformed

“I thought you were making dinner,” I said. “I thought that was why I had to fix your sink.”

“No, you had to fix my sink because I asked you and you’re unable to say no to me.” She pushed the plate toward me. “Eat some solid food. It will be a shock to your system.”

I took a piece of cheese and gnawed on one corner.

“Something the matter, Michael?”

“I’m a little concerned about the fact Junior has cops on the take. That’s not good for Eduardo, but it really isn’t good for us, either. Last thing we need is some crooked cop deciding to make a name for himself by arresting someone like you.”

“They’d never take me alive,” she said.

“Fi, that’s noble, but let’s not get crazy here,” I said.

“I didn’t mean that I’d die,” she said. “I meant that they’d never be able to take me and live.”

“Great.”

“Does Sam know anyone on the police force?”

“Not really,” I said. “At least not since that trouble we ran into.” A rather adept Miami officer, Detective Paxon, thought she might find something of interest in my life a few months earlier-turns out that if you blow up half the city and leave a few bodies on the streets of Miami, eventually people tend to notice-and since then, Sam was a bit worried about his contacts there. But it’s not as if a bad cop sits around the locker room, telling everyone about the great gig he has working for a prison gang. “If Junior has cops working for him,” I continued, “I’m going to guess that it’s not as easy as paying someone off to deliver messages or look the other way when crimes are being committed.”

“You think the Latin Emperors have a mole in the police?”

“Moles. That’s what I’d do. Hell, that’s what I do. It would make sense for the long-term survival of the gang-get some boys loyal to the gang to go in to the police.”

Fiona took an orange from the plate and sucked the juice out of it. It had been a while since we’d been intimate with each other-we go through cycles where we want to love each other and where we want to kill each other, and where we just want to be near one another but not put that huge emotional investment at risk by actually having any real emotion-but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think about the possibility on a fairly regular basis.

“What would be the benefit for the bad cop?” Fi asked.

“Same as for anyone. Money. Power. Influence. A little street fame, maybe. And if they’re loyal to the gang, it’s either do what’s asked of them or take a permanent vacation from this life. At least this way they get health benefits and get to carry a gun legally.”

“That’s a long distance to go just for something childish like a gang.”

“You robbed banks for the IRA,” I said.

“That’s been slightly misrepresented. I just helped some fellow countrymen who needed money for a charity event.”

“Fiona, I know your file,” I said.

“And I know your file,” she said. “And as I recall that’s what cost you your job. A few discreet lies.”

“It might be what costs Father Eduardo,” I said.

“Do you believe he’s a hundred percent clean?”

“I do,” I said. “He reformed, and he’s doing good things, Fi. Better things than we are. That’s for sure. But I also know that there are probably a lot of people who look at him and can’t separate who he is now from who he was then. My mother, she took him at face value, but I had to get a full tour of his facility, sit down and talk with him and pull out a dreadful secret in order to believe that he’s not doing it all for some lower purpose. What’s wrong with me?”

“You’ve seen a few things that might cause you to question other people’s motives,” she said. “And you have inherent father issues.” That was the great thing about Fiona: She always knew the right thing to say. “And,” Fiona continued, “your mother sees very deeply into people.”

“No, she doesn’t,” I said.

“You don’t give her enough credit. Maybe she’s a psychic.”

“If she were psychic, she’d know when her car was going to run out of oil, and I wouldn’t need to pick her up from the Lube and Tune tomorrow morning.” Sometimes my mother can be a little frustrating. But, then, whose parents aren’t frustrating? “The mayor certainly didn’t have a problem with him. He’s doing all the right things, and then something like this shows up. I just can’t let him fail now.”

“So what’s the plan?” Fi asked.

Sun-tzu may have said, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer” more than fifteen hundred years ago, but that notion still applies when forming a strong counterinsurgency plan. If you really want to defeat a terrorist organization, which a gang certainly is, you need to understand their methodology, their aims and just how far they are willing to go to get what they want.

The best way to deal with a terrorist is to dictate the terms of the fight. If there are rules of engagement, it’s not all that terrifying to face an adversary. You know what kind of guns they have, you know what parcel of land they are after and you know just how much they are willing to lose. So to fight someone who leans on your fear, you need to bring him to a place where you have no fear at all.

“We give Junior what he wants,” I said. “We give him every single thing he demands. And then we make him wish he’d never stepped foot back in Miami again.”

“Oh, Michael,” Fiona said, her glee barely contained. “That sounds like a potentially violent and dangerous thing to do. Would you like me to get some armor-piercing rounds out of storage?”

Before I could answer, my cell rang. It was Sam.

“What do you have?” I asked.

“A hangover,” Sam said. “Or what do you call that feeling before a hangover when you’re not happy anymore?”

I put my hand over the mouthpiece and said to Fiona, “Brew some coffee. And do you have any bread?”

“I think I have some English muffins,” she said.

“Maybe run over to the store and get a loaf of something. Oh, and some Mylanta. Get some Mylanta for sure.”

“Will we be entertaining later, darling?”

“Sam’s been drinking pruno,” I said. “He sounds… off.”

That’s all Fiona needed to hear. “Say no more,” she said, and disappeared back into her house.

“Where are you?” I asked Sam.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “Oh, hell, Mike, I think the cab left me at the wrong place. I told him to take me to your mom’s place, thinking maybe I’d get a bowl of oatmeal inside me, maybe some soup, maybe something made of lard, and then I sort of thought about that sofa in the living room, which always is very soft in the small of my back, and…”

“Sam,” I said. “Focus. Where are you?”

“In front of that strip club Mom’s Place. Over by the airport. Some very nice ladies seem to work here. Have you ever noticed how loud airplanes are, Mikey? It’s like they are filled with jet fuel or something. Just one big roaring noise.” Sam stopped speaking for a moment, which concerned me, until I heard him say, “Hello to you, sweetheart. What’s that say on your back? Oh? Oh, I’m a bad boy? You’re a bad girl…”

“Sam!” I shouted.

“Oh, sorry, Mike. You know what I like? Those tattoos women get on the small of their back. Never stops being sexy.”

“Sam,” I said, “I want you to step away from the strip club. Is there a gas station nearby? Something with a mini-mart?”

“Let me tell you something, Mikey. Those mini-marts are ruining the mom-and-pop stores. I won’t go into them anymore.”

“Sam,” I said, “you go into them every single day.”