Tod Goldberg - The Reformed

Father Eduardo was probably correct on all points. Convincing Sam and Fiona of this would be more difficult.

“That’s noble,” Sam said. “When they make the movie of your life, this will be a very moving scene. We’ll be dead then, but I’m sure audiences will love it.”

“Not helping,” I said to Sam. I rubbed my palms into my eyes. I’d have to figure this one out. “Okay. Okay. We’ll do it your way, Father Eduardo.”

“Thank you,” he said. “And what is your plan?”

Just as I’d told Fiona earlier, I told Father Eduardo. “I’m going to give him exactly what he wants. I’m going to let him in.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “If you want to bring him down without violence, which I promise we will not have on your property, we need to allow him to build a criminal conspiracy of his own that would so far outweigh whatever he might think he has on you that it would be fruitless for him to even try.”

“But there are so many others than him,” Father Eduardo said. “And there are the dead to consider. That has begun to weigh on me.”

Sam and Fiona both rolled their eyes. And suddenly I had another set of nonpaying clients. This was beginning to become very complex.

“We’ll deal with the living first,” I said.

I explained to Father Eduardo that when Junior arrived tomorrow and saw Fiona and me-two people he would clearly remember, and two people he was probably already suspecting in light of all of his missing property-I’d explain to him that he was already entering a criminal enterprise, one run by me, and that if he wanted in, there would be a price to pay.

“And just so we’re clear,” I told Father Eduardo, “whatever I say, you agree with. And if I hit you, or if Fiona hits you, or breaks a chair over your head, it’s not personal.”

Father Eduardo had about a hundred pounds on me, maybe two hundred on Fiona, and was made mostly of muscle and menace, even at this point in his life. I had a pretty good sense that he could take a punch.

“I understand,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “Is there anything you haven’t told me? Anything I should know before tomorrow happens?”

This was just a routine question. The sort of question I occasionally forget to ask clients because I figure that they’ve told me all they possibly could, that all the avenues of intersection had been covered-and we had so many avenues already, I practically needed MapQuest just to navigate it all in my mind-and all that was left was for me to perform, which I was confident I could do… until I saw that Father Eduardo had broken into a sweat.

“You’re sweating,” I said.

“There’s something I haven’t told you.”

This got Sam and Fiona interested again.

“Don’t tell me you actually did kill these people Junior has on you,” I said.

“No, no,” Father Eduardo said. “It is not that.”

“You’re not already running an illegal business with the mayor, are you?”

“No. It’s my brother, Adrian,” Father Eduardo said.

Oh, no.

Brothers are difficult. My own brother, Nate, was, fortunately, in Las Vegas, which meant that in about eight days I’d get a call from him letting me know he had a problem only I could solve for him.

This, as usual, was not good. “Tell me,” I said.

“He’s still in the Latin Emperors,” Father Eduardo said. “He’s just coming up. I couldn’t save him from it. Our whole family, we’ve been LE to the fullest forever. I am the one who got out, but only after doing my time. Now he’s in and in deep. I don’t want him to get hurt. I can save him.”

I knew where this was headed.

“Let me guess,” I said. “He’s Leticia’s boyfriend.”

Father Eduardo nodded.

“Tell me something,” Fiona said, now fully invested. “Why would you let your brother have a street name as obvious as Killa? Couldn’t you have advised him that Powder Puff or Nice Boy could have saved him a significant amount of trouble?”

“We don’t talk,” Father Eduardo said. “I gave Leticia her job to help her son. My nephew. I thought she’d get out of the life. I suppose I didn’t account for the level my brother would go to.”

“It’s probably not him,” I said, though I had no idea. I had hope, and that’s a good thing to have if you can spare it. “Assume it’s Junior’s pull.”

“He has to have a chance to get out of this with a chance,” Father Eduardo said.

“He’s not a good person,” Fiona said.

“Neither was I,” Father Eduardo said. “And I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but I have a suspicion that you weren’t exactly the best version of yourself at twenty-three, either. I know Leticia better than you do. I have known her since she was sixteen. I knew her before she was cut.”

“What happened?” Sam asked.

“She sold crack for a living,” Father Eduardo said matter-of-factly. “And one day, someone tried to rob her and she fought back. They left her for dead. My brother, Adrian, he took care of that… situation for her. So they have that bond, and she has the knowledge of what he’s capable of, too. It’s a different world from what you three know.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I said. “You don’t know the things I’ve done.”

“You’re a good man, Michael,” Father Eduardo said.

“Not according to the United States government,” I said.

“It sounds like we’ve had some of the same enemies.” Father Eduardo wiped at his forehead and his eyes, and I realized he wasn’t just sweating now; he was also on the verge of tears. “I have worked so hard,” he said, “to do the right thing. I must have this turn out, Michael.”

“It will,” I said. “You’ve told no one we are coming?”

“No one,” he said.

“Good,” I said. “Keep it that way. If my plan is to work, we need every move to be a surprise, even to you.”

“I trust you,” he said.

“You have to,” I said. “No matter what happens tomorrow, understand that you should react in the only way you can, which is to say, don’t fight me, and don’t fight Junior. Let me do the work.”

“Have you ever read The Art of War?”

Fiona let out a little snort. “Boys,” she said, but Father Eduardo ignored her.

“Yes,” I said.

“‘He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious,’” Father Eduardo said. “I have lived by that for a long time now. I have won all my battles, including my freedom, with that in mind.”

“Good,” I said.

Father Eduardo thanked us and said he’d see us in the morning, and began to make his way out of the loft. He paused after he opened the front door and then stepped back inside. “Your father,” he said to me, and then pointed, but concentrated on some point in his mind and didn’t finish his sentence.

“What about him?” I said.

“That car you drive. It was his?”

“Yeah, for a while,” I said.

“Junior and I tried to steal it once from in front of the high school.”

“What stopped you?”

“Your father was sitting in the front seat,” Father Eduardo said, “and when we told him to get out, he just laughed at us and told us to keep on moving down the road. Those were his exact words. ‘Keep on moving down the road,’ just as cool as can be. It… unnerved me. That’s the word. He wasn’t afraid.”

“He was probably drunk,” I said.

“No,” Father Eduardo said, “no, I don’t think that’s true. And neither do you.”

“No,” I said, “I guess I don’t.”

Eduardo Santiago, who used to rob little kids, who ran the Latin Emperors, who did federal time, snitched out his gang, found God and came out a changed man, came out a priest, smiled at me in a way I found unnerving, too. “Maybe he was a spy, too?”