The Reformed

by Tod Goldberg

  “No,” I said.

  “Yes,” my mother said.

  “Let me get the father over here, then,” he said, and off he went into the church, leaving my mother and me to stand there beside my bloodstained car.

  “You’re really going to take five dollars off your taxes, Ma?”

  “No,” she said, “I’m going to take forty-five dollars off my taxes.”

  I sighed. I rolled my eyes. Then I did both things again. I checked my cell phone. It wasn’t ringing. For as often as Sam called to let me know he had a buddy who needed help dodging the mob’s bullets, or who’d ill-advisedly entered into an agreement with Hamas, he never seemed to do so when I really needed him to. I was certain that it was only a matter of time before lightning would begin to crack down around me or perhaps a good, biblical hailstorm would start pelting me from above. A torrential flood also seemed like a possibility.

  Instead, it was the past that came rushing toward me. Or, to be precise, it came lumbering out the double doors of the Church of the Gleaming Spire in the form of Eduardo Santiago. All six foot five and 320 pounds of him. The last time I had seen Eduardo had been at least fifteen years ago, when I was asked to help out with an “urban renewal” project that involved the capture and extinction of certain members of the Latin Emperors prison gang, who’d begun a robust drugs and extortion business in El Salvador. And even then, I’d only seen a photo of him since he was still locked up. From his prison cell, he had been purportedly calling shots that had bodies showing up on the streets of foreign countries. And now he was fifty yards away and gangster-limping his way across the blacktop toward me, which made me consider that, in light of the current order of things, my previous thoughts on churches were misguided. Who believed in anything anymore?

  “Ma,” I said, trying to stay as calm as possible, “I need you to hand me your purse, and then I need you to get into the car, lock the doors and, whatever happens, don’t get out.”

  “I’m not giving you my purse, Michael,” she said. “My cigarettes are in there.”

  “Ma,” I said, “do you see that man walking across the parking lot toward us? The one with neck tattoos?”

  “Yes.”

  “He’s not a friendly person.”

  “Little Eddie Santiago? You went to school with him for ten years, Michael.”

  “What?” I took off my sunglasses and squinted at the mass of man. He didn’t look like Little Eddie Santiago, but then I hadn’t seen Little Eddie Santiago since the ninth or tenth grade.

  “That’s Eddie Santiago. He’s a priest now. Don’t you know that?”

  “You’re thinking of someone else. That man is a gangster,” I said, but now I wasn’t so sure, since it wasn’t as if my mother was generally up on the business of churches and such. She was up on neighborhood gossip, however, and that sounded like something people would gossip about. Nevertheless, since my mother wouldn’t hand me her purse, I positioned myself next to the trunk in case I needed to pop it open and grab the AK. Not that I wanted to unload an AK-47 in front of a church on a lovely summer day, but I also didn’t think the alternative of being shot in the face by Eduardo Santiago sounded very appealing, either.

  “Same person,” my mother said. “He’s very big in the community now, Michael. Don’t you read the newspaper?”

  “No.”

  “Do you ever watch the local news?”

  “No.”

  “He’s turned his life around, Michael. You should ask him for some pointers.”

  I’d get the chance, since Eduardo Santiago, or Little Eddie Santiago, or the man who’d shoot me in front of my mother, was ten feet away from us and about to pull something from his pocket.

  “This is for you,” he began to say, but then I reached out and grabbed his arm—the one connected to the hand that was shoved in his pocket and that was pulling out a gun, a knife or, well, a receipt—but I couldn’t be too careful—and pressed into the pressure points on either side of his elbow, bringing the big man to his knees slowly.

  “Whoa, easy there. It’s slippery,” I said, and bent down to his eye level, which wasn’t difficult, since even on his knees Eduardo Santiago came to about my chest. “Do you know me?” I whispered.

  Eduardo Santiago glared at me. Presuming he had a gun in his hand, the best he’d be able to accomplish from this angle would be to shoot himself in the foot and hope I was made squeamish by the sight of blood. He wouldn’t get that chance, however, because if I even felt a muscle twitch, I’d break his arm.

  “Yes,” he said. “You’re Michael Westen. And I’ve been looking for you.”

  I tightened my grip and Eduardo winced. “Who do you work for?”

  A thin smile crossed Eduardo’s face. “God,” he said.

  2

  If you find yourself in a threatening situation, it’s best to take people’s actions at face value. If someone pulls a gun on you, more than likely he intends to shoot you. If someone is strapped with C-4, it’s probable she’s about to blow herself—and you—up. So if someone is facing serious injury—like, say, Eduardo Santiago—and is asked a serious question, it’s unlikely he’d tell a joke to lighten the situation. That only happens on television.

  “I told him you were a priest,” my mother said to Eduardo. We were sitting in a small business office just off the main chapel inside the Church of the Gleaming Spire, and Eduardo kept rubbing at his elbow absently as we spoke. “He didn’t believe it.”

  “No one does,” Eduardo said. “No one who knew me back in the day, anyway.”

  Back in the days I knew him, Eduardo Santiago was a junior-level hard knock: the kind of gangster who played sports, didn’t commit crimes in his own neighborhood and still attended school on a somewhat regular basis. Even then, however, it was clear he was set for bigger and better things in the gang world. At sixteen, he was already well over 250 pounds and none of it was fat. He played linebacker on the high school team, and rumor had it that the University of Miami already had him penciled into their starting lineup. Rumor also had it that a few Hurricane alums had already put him on scholarship; the black Mercedes he drove to school seemed a bit outside of his credit rating.

  The truth, though, was that he was on a Latin Emperors scholarship and was already working as an enforcer for the gang. It was a job he was uniquely qualified for and he rather enjoyed. He rose through the ranks until, by the age of just twenty-five, he was already a top dog, the kind of guy who both called shots and occasionally took some just for kicks, and to let the young ones know he was still in the game. Getting sent to prison only improved his stock, which was how I’d heard of him. That I hadn’t connected him to the kid I grew up with shouldn’t be much of a surprise—the name Eduardo Santiago is like Joe Smith in the Cuban community.

  “Shouldn’t you still be in prison?” I asked.

  “The old me? Yeah. Yeah. And he still is in prison. Or someone like him, you know? But this person? Who I am today? No, man. You’re looking at a man who changed. You don’t read the newspaper?”

  “No,” I said. “No one does anymore. That’s why they’re all going out of business.”

  “You got the Internet? You should Google me. I’m a success story, if I do say so myself.”

  “Really?” I said. “Then why do you look like a guy who just got out of prison?”

  Eduardo grinned big. He did everything big. He was still a pretty muscular guy, but he was also a guy who’d clearly spent some time in front of an all-you-can-eat buffet on more than one occasion. But beyond that, he didn’t exactly dress like a success story. He had on a tank top that revealed his dozens of tattoos, tan shorts that looked like they’d been cut off from an old pair of Dickies and, just like the kids, a pair of flip-flops. He wore a huge cross around his neck, but it was absurdly blinged up.

  “Michael,” he said, “this is a car wash. You think I’m going to wear a suit to a car wash? And besides, this isn’t even my church.”

  “Then what are
you doing here?” I asked.

  “Father Fremon took ill last week, and I volunteered to help out so he could get some more bed rest before the big Disney World trip. Plus, if I come out here, maybe a few more cars come rolling through because they know I’m involved.”

  It sounded plausible enough, probably because it was perfectly plausible. Still, sitting across from Eduardo Santiago didn’t feel comfortable, especially not with my mother sitting there, too.

  “Then I apologize for trying to break your arm,” I said.

  “When was the last time you two saw each other?” my mother asked.

  Eduardo chuckled. “Man, what? Back when you were a freshman? I remember you being one of those kids who wasn’t afraid to look me in the eye. You were a tough kid.”

  “And you were a thug,” I said.

  “I was a bad person,” he said, “but the Lord, you know, he taught me the way. Live by the gun, die by the gun. All that. You take a look at the Bible, and it’s in there, too, but that isn’t about how I’m living now. You recognize that and change, man, and the world opens up for you. I got a theology degree. Went to seminary. And here I am.”

  “How much time did you do?”

  “Fifteen,” he said.

  “Out of what?”

  Eduardo got a bashful look on his face, as if this wasn’t the kind of conversation he normally had in pleasant society. Either that or he’d figured out the subtext of my question: Who did you snitch out to do less time?

  “Fifty,” he said.

  “Fifteen out of fifty,” I said. “They don’t usually chop thirty-five years off a federal sentence for finding the Lord.”

  “How’d you know I was doing federal time?”

  “I’ll answer that as soon as you tell me why you’ve been looking for me,” I said.

  Eduardo’s gaze shifted from me to my mother and back to me. When I didn’t say anything, he did it again. Life would be much easier if people just said what they wanted to say and didn’t bother with nonverbal communication.

  I stood up. “C’mon, Ma,” I said. “Eduardo needs to tend to his flock.”

  Eduardo stood, as well, and extended his meaty paw in my direction. He had scars on his knuckles from where he’d had old tattoos lasered off, but I could still make out the faint outline of the Roman numerals XII-V: the sign of the Latin Emperors.

  “Why don’t you come by my church tomorrow?” Eduardo said as we shook. He told me where it was located—about five blocks from the old Orange Bowl, and just blocks from Little Havana. A good central location to save some souls, I guess. “I’ll show you around the campus,” he continued. “Let you meet some of the kids. And then we can talk about what you know and what I know, and what I need help with.”

  “I can’t wait,” I said.

  “Good luck with your car wash,” my mother said, and gave me the same look Eduardo had given me moments before, and then continued to do so until I set another twenty bucks on the desk. Sixty dollars for half a car wash. That’s inflation.

  “Way I see it,” Sam Axe said, “the only thing Eduardo Santiago could need from you is the name of your investment guy.”

  It was just after six in the evening, and Sam and I were eating dinner inside Perricone’s, an Italian restaurant that was housed inside an old barn shipped in from Vermont, which essentially meant it was just like every other tourist in town. Sam said he liked the place because it was inside a barn and it made him yearn for his country childhood, a childhood that—to the best of my knowledge—was lived nowhere near a barn or the country. It was also one of the few places in Miami that served Peroni beer, which, I suspect, was the true reason he’d suggested we meet there on this particular evening. I’d called him after I met with Eduardo and asked him to see what he could find about the good Father Santiago.

  “I gave everything to Madoff,” I said, “so he’s out of luck.”

  “My sources tell me your old buddy is a big player these days. Maybe he wants to pick your brain on fashionable sunglasses.”

  “He’s not my old buddy,” I said. “And who are your sources?”

  “You ever hear of NBC?”

  “That some CIA front?”

  “No, the network. He’s on one of those local chat shows about twice a week, talking about helping the poor and all that. Always wears a smart-looking suit. Good hair. He’s got a smile that people trust, too.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, you know, one of those local rags said he was the most trustworthy man in Miami. I read all about him at the dentist’s office.”

  “He was a shot caller for the Latin Emperors,” I said.

  “And you were a spy,” Sam said.

  “I’m still a spy,” I said.

  “And I’m still a hundred eighty pounds. They’re just buried under the other seventy-five.” Sam took a sip from his Peroni. “I ever tell you about the time I dated a model from Milan?”

  “No, I never heard about that.”

  “Her father owned a small fraction of Peroni. Whole house was like one big keg. I tell you, Mikey. I’ve made some mistakes in my life, but that relationship was not one of them.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “Turns out she was KGB,” Sam said. “It only lasted a weekend. One long, glorious weekend. Didn’t find out she was KGB until I Googled her about a year ago. She’s written a memoir and everything. I’m waiting for the English translation to see if I made it in.”

  “Your point?”

  “People aren’t always who they end up being.”

  That was true enough, but if Eduardo was really a different guy, why did he need my help?

  “Apart from NBC,” I said, “you pick anything else up?”

  “I talked to a buddy of mine in the Department of Corrections, and he couldn’t wait to talk about Eduardo. Says he’s the reason he has faith in his job.”

  “No one talks like that,” I said.

  “I know. That’s what I’m saying. He’s not just clean. He’s damn near an angel. His church is just one aspect of what he’s doing. He’s got a nonprofit called Honrado Incorporated that puts ex-gangsters to work doing everything from making T-shirts to running a bakery to learning how to invest their money, plus it sponsors a basketball league, operates its own Little League outlet, even has a huge bingo night and ladies’ Bunco tournament. Honrado employs two hundred people, most of them either ex-cons or at-risk kids, and the board of directors is made up of athletes, politicians, financiers, artists—you name it. Mikey, they’ve even got their own newspaper that they write, print and deliver.”

  “This is a guy who used to shake down fifth-graders for their lunch money,” I said.

  “And there are photos of me where I look like Sonny Crockett,” Sam said. “We all make mistakes.”

  “When did he go from gangster to gang star?”

  Sam tapped my bottle of Peroni with his. “Nice turn of a phrase there,” he said.

  “I thought you’d like that.”

  “Anyway,” Sam said, “looks like he got released from Coleman in 2000.”

  “That’s a lot of progress in ten years,” I said.

  “He was already brokering peace deals between rival gangs from the joint,” Sam said. “Wrote a children’s book about the ills of gang life, and someone tried to get him nominated for a Nobel Prize. President Clinton mentioned him in a speech.”

  “While he was in prison?”

  “I told you, Mikey, the guy is bulletproof now. He’s made a complete change in his life. A standard-bearer for the good that prison can do for a guy.”

  “Just so I’m clear,” I said, “they executed the guy who founded the Crips, right?”

  “Eduardo wasn’t up on murder charges,” Sam said. “They had him on RICO charges—a lot of them—but he didn’t have a single conviction on violent crimes.”

  “He got sentenced to fifty years for RICO?”

  “Latin Emperors are a worldwide organization, Mikey,” Sam said. “
And he was near the top of the chain. By the time he got into prison, he was the top guy in Miami. So he might have been calling shots, but no one ever was able to trace them back to him.”

  I shook my head. “That can’t be,” I said. “Remember that thing we did in El Salvador in 1994?”

  “With the tanks?”

  “No,” I said, “the other thing.”

  “Oh ... with the Russians?”

  “No,” I said. “I forgot about that. No, the other thing.”

  “The urban renewal?”

  “Yes. He was involved with that. He was the top of the pyramid. Even from prison, he was the guy making the calls.”

  “Mikey, that was a covert operation. Even if he was involved, what we did in El Salvador didn’t actually happen.”

  “So your guy says he’s a hundred percent legit?”

  “It’s not just my guy,” Sam said. “Eduardo Santiago is known around the world for the work he does, Mike. This is a guy who is making a difference, which is a lot more than I can say for you and me.”

  It seemed hard to believe that a guy like Eduardo Santiago could be completely rehabilitated, but everything Sam said seemed to indicate it was true. Which I guess is why people go to prison.

  “I’m still having a hard time with the fact that he got thirty-five years clipped off of his sentence,” I said.

  “He’s got influential friends,” Sam said. “Or he snitched out the right guy.”

  “Or a combination of both,” I said.

  “And what’s so wrong with snitching?” Sam asked. “He found the Lord and stopped covering for the cowards he ran with. That’s good behavior right there.”

  “I guess you’re right,” I said. “You want to come with me tomorrow?”

  “No can do, Mikey,” Sam said. “I’ve got a big date.”

  “Really?”

  “No,” Sam said. “I just thought I’d see what you’d say when I told you I couldn’t come. You want Chuck Finley for this?”

  “I think Sam Axe will do just fine,” I said.