by Tod Goldberg
“Mike,” Barry said, “it’s not like the Girl Scouts show up at my house with questions about how to move their cookie money around. Good people don’t need me, present company excluded.”
“Did you tell Junior all of this before or after he paid you?” I asked.
“He’d already made a down payment,” Barry said, though he seemed a bit unsure about that answer. “I let him put the rest on a layaway plan.”
“You’ve become the Kmart of money launderers.”
“We actually had a trade agreement at first,” Barry said. “He had some credit cards he needed to get rid of; I had a guy who would buy them. I don’t like to work in trade usually, because it’s a dirty business. People always end up thinking that they can get more out of you than if you pay cash, which is sort of what happened with Junior. He came back with more questions, and I told him I needed to be paid this time, which is when things got dicey.”
“So you received stolen property from the Latin Emperors and then sold it?”
“If you want to look at it that way,” Barry said.
“Is there another way of looking at it?”
“I guess not,” Barry said. “I guess it’s pretty much 3-D as it is.”
“4-D,” I said.
“I’m not familiar with that,” Barry said.
“It’s called reality,” I said.
“I’m just trying to find some middle ground with you, Michael. I came hear willingly to talk to you, Mike. You don’t have to interrogate me.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said. “If Sam hadn’t found your number on Junior’s phone records, you’d still be in the same place you were: hiding.”
“What would I need to hide from?”
“I don’t know, Barry. Why don’t you tell me?”
“You went to his place, right?”
“Right.”
“Pretty sweet setup, wasn’t it? That was my consulting work right there. Pretty proud of that.”
“You told him to buy that house?”
“No,” Barry said. “But I told him to quit-claim it to Julia Pistell. And I told him about, you know, a lot of secret criminals-only stuff.”
“You mean the rental houses, the security cameras someone stole from RadioShack and the cars with the dealer plates?”
Barry looked fairly astounded. “How’d you know?”
“I’m a spy,” I said. “And the work is shoddy.”
“I just told him what to do,” Barry said. “I didn’t go in there with a hammer and chisel.”
“It’s good enough to fool a fool,” I said, “which means he’s probably very safe there from the local police and anyone not trained at Quantico.”
“Well, anyway, he was happy with that work, and that’s when he gave me the money, and that’s when I called him on it being crap. He didn’t like that.”
“So you told him how to make good money?”
“I might have given him some hints, yes.”
“And what did you get for that?”
“He said he’d give me a hundred K from the fine cut,” Barry said, “plus ten grand of real money if I served as, you know, a quality-control expert. So I went down to the hotel—and yes, before you ask, I told him to do this at the hotel, okay?—and saw what they were making and it was surprisingly good for a bunch of amateurs. But I told him that I wasn’t going to take any of that pre-’96 money. That’s like waving a huge red flag. Who has that much money all from one year, you know? You gotta get a mix from the last ten years to make it look right, but they didn’t have that technology, which I told them. So I said I wanted my money all in cash, that I wasn’t taking their rags.”
“Did you add ‘or else’ when you made this demand?” I said.
“Well, I implied it.”
That’s what I was afraid of.
“How did you do that?”
“I said I had guys who, uh, worked for me who, uh, were, uh, ex-, uh, military and CIA and uh, other, uh, agencies of the, uh, spy variety and who, uh, might have been involved with some large-scale terrorist actions in, uh, the greater, uh, Ireland area. And, uh, that, uh, if I didn’t get my money, well, he’d be hearing from him.”
“Him?”
“Him. Them. You know.”
“And that’s when he threatened to kill you?”
“No, worse,” Barry said. “The cops showed up at my mother’s house. Guess that’s my last known.”
“That’s worse?”
“I told you,” Barry said, “I’ve got eczema on my knees. My mom was out of town, so the cops put a pretty big scare into my aunt Lois, who’s down from Ocala to watch the cats, water the plants and such, so she called me and I figured it was time to lie low for a piece. So I’ve been sort of waiting it all out at sea. Hopped on a friend’s houseboat and have been just sort of chilling in international waters for a couple days. Until Sam called. If I’d known the Latin Emperors had cops on the payroll, I’d have just kept sailing until I hit Australia. But it makes a lot of sense now, since they told my aunt that they were just coming by to see if I was still alive, which, at the time, didn’t sound like what cops normally go around saying.”
“Why didn’t you call me?” I said.
“I didn’t know what to do, Michael, on account of—well, the, uh, fact that I may have misrepresented our working relationship to Junior.”
It was then that my mother finally broke and stopped eavesdropping from the sink area—where she’d been washing the same dish for the previous ten minutes—and sat down at the table next to me. She lit up a cigarette and exhaled the smoke directly into Barry’s face.
“Ma,” I said.
“Shut up, Michael,” she said.
Barry smiled. “Wow, that was pretty cool. That’s your mom. I guess I never really understood that she’s your mom, so she can tell you to shut up. Wow.”
“Shut up, Barry,” my mother said, and he did. “Do you mind, Michael?”
“Have at it, Ma,” I said.
“You know what your problem is, Barry?”
“Uh, no, Mrs. Westen,” he said.
“You consort with assholes. I’m sorry for my language, Barry, but that’s the truth. Did I hear you say the police came to your mother’s house?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Barry said.
“Do you know what that would have been like if she’d been home? You would have ruined her whole week. Maybe her whole year. Do you have any skills, Barry, other than whatever criminal things you do with Michael?”
“No,” Barry said, “that’s all I’ve got.”
“Well, then, you’d better be a bit more selective with the people you work with so that Michael doesn’t need to come in and save your ass like he does with everyone else. Do you understand?”
“Uh, yes, Mrs. Westen.”
That made my mother happy. She stubbed out her cigarette. “Now, can I get you some pot roast, Barry?”
“Sure, that would be great, Mrs. Westen,” Barry said.
She stood up, reached across the table and mussed up Barry’s hair. “That was a good chat. We should do that again.” She turned to me. “Michael, help this idiot out before he gets his mother killed.”
And suddenly I had another unpaid client. That made three.
11
You can do all the planning you want, but when it comes to fighting a battle, eventually you’re going to need guns.
Unless, it turns out, you’re defending Father Eduardo Santiago.
“That’s the first thing,” Father Eduardo said. “And I am firm on this.” He’d come to my loft that same evening so I could explain to him all that we’d learned and all that was at risk, including what Fi had learned about Leticia, which seemed to break Father Eduardo’s spirit more than any other single detail. But before I could even tell him my plan, he made the proclamation about the guns, which was no insignificant thing, since I generally keep two pieces on me at all times, as does Sam. I suspect Fiona tries to form a more rounded-looking number, like
six, but all of that is really predicated on her outfit.
Sam and Fiona, who were both standing in my galley kitchen, sighed audibly and in perfect synchronicity. Barry was also in my loft, because he was too scared to go anywhere else. I’d instructed Barry that under no circumstances was he to let his fear manifest into a situation where he thought he should hit on Fiona—something he does on a fairly regular basis—because I was pretty sure Fiona would react with malice. And to keep that from happening, I’d instructed Sam to fix Barry a drink containing as many varieties of rum as he could find, which in short order had knocked Barry out.
“Do you understand what you’re saying?” I asked.
“Do you?” Father Eduardo said. “Seventy-five percent of the people who work for me—nearly everyone!—are convicted felons, parolees, ex-gang members. If someone under my guise comes onto my property with a gun and is anywhere near them, they could all go back to prison. I will not put them in that position.”
“What about knives?” Fiona asked. “Or swords. Swords would be fun, Michael.”
“No concealed weapons,” Father Eduardo said.
“Grenades?” Sam said.
“I still have some C-4,” Fiona said. “We could blow up Junior’s car in the parking lot. That would solve this all very quickly. Make it look like an accident.”
“How are you going to make a C-4 explosion look like an accident?” Sam said.
“I have my ways,” Fiona said.
“No,” Father Eduardo said. “No. No. No. I cannot have any of this. Do you understand? I am a man of faith. I will not let you blow up his car. I cannot have my campus turned into something on CNN. Don’t you understand?”
I did. Really. It’s just difficult to imagine fighting a gang without ammo.
“So, when I inform Junior what the score is going to be,” I said, “and he pulls a gun, what am I supposed to do? Talk to him sweetly until he puts it away?”
“He won’t pull a gun,” Father Eduardo said. “He has too much to gain from this shakedown to kill anyone. And he’s a coward now, from what you tell me. Hiring a person like your sleeping friend? Thirty years ago, your friend would have been like a chew toy for Junior. No, he’d have someone else kill you. Or have you picked up by the police. At no time do I want you to bring any guns onto my campus. I would rather go down myself than put these kids in jeopardy of losing everything because of my own foolish past.”
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 e
yes, 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.
