The Reformed bn-4

by Tod Goldberg

  “Can’t say I do.”

  “You should keep it that way,” K-Dog said. “He’s out now. Literally ran into him at Publix one day. You know, that’s the funny thing. Standing in line, buying your shit-you know, Pop-Tarts, Fruit Roll-Ups, whatever-and you look across the aisle and there’s some gangster in line buying the same shit, plus, you know, a big thing of Woolite, paper towels, whatever. Even a gangster needs to wash his shit, right?”

  “You guys talk about old times in the parking lot?” Sam hoped he wasn’t overplaying his hand, but, then, he couldn’t really feel his hands anymore.

  “We talked some shop. I told him I was keeping it on the narrow, got my own printing company now, all that. He told me he was ruling, which I took to mean he wasn’t giving up the life.”

  Ruling. Interesting.

  “Was he top dog in prison?” Sam asked.

  “Oh, indeed,” K-Dog said. Just then, one of K-Dog’s three cocker spaniels came bounding into the room and leaped onto the couch with Sam. For a guy named K-Dog, it didn’t really fit that he was housing spaniels, but even Sam had to admit they were cute. He could have lived without seeing K-Dog giving the one on the sofa a kiss on the lips, however. “Know what I missed most in prison? These little guys. All my life, I’ve had spaniels. They’re just good, nice dogs. Now, Junior? He was bad news my first couple of years. But by the time I got out? He was working in the library, leading education groups, had the warden’s ear on things. Complete turnaround. Homeboy had already done twenty-five, right? He learned to play the game like all the rest. Me? I just had five years, so I knew I could get out in three, four, if I kept my nose clean. Ernesto? He had my back until that shank, but even still, people didn’t give me too much trouble, on account of what I could do with paper and ink. But Junior was LE to the fullest. Even if he was toeing the line, you knew he was running that gang, inside and out.”

  Sam reached over and scratched the dog behind its ear, which caused the dog to emit a low growl of pleasure. If only all things were so easy. He decided to move the conversation closer to the finer points, seeing as the dog’s growl echoed in his head like he was at a Pink Floyd concert in 1974, minus the floating pig and the laser, though he had the feeling that any more pruno would bring those forth, too.

  “Did you know Father Eduardo was a Latin Emperor?” Sam said. “I saw him on television the other day and then got on the Google, and there it all was. Can’t see him doing that gang-life stuff.”

  K-Dog took a deep gulp of his concoction and then grimaced. It occurred to Sam that K-Dog might want to get his liver examined by medical experts, because there was no way he was human. “He was out of Coleman, time I got there,” K-Dog said. “Man, those peppers. That’s some burn.”

  “What was the word on him, though? He must have caused a stir getting out of prison like he did and becoming a big deal.”

  “Oh, you didn’t say his name around the LE. You say his name around Junior and you were asking for a beat down. Know what I heard? After he found Jesus and all that? After he started writing kids’ books and shit, he actually turned state’s and rolled up on Junior and maybe ten or eleven soldiers.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “Man found God,” K-Dog said. “What can you do? You can’t do anything, that’s what. You can’t very well go out and kill a priest, right? Because those LE boys, they might be gang affiliated, as they say, but half of them are Catholic, go to church on the regular, all that. You kill a priest. They bury you under the prison. So what can you do?”

  “You can’t do anything,” Sam agreed. “But now that they’re both out on the streets again, you think Father Eduardo has a reason to be worried? I just see him on TV all the time, and you tell me this Junior is a lunatic. Wouldn’t that put him over the edge?”

  K-Dog shook his head slowly. “See, that’s the kind of thing that makes you forget dude is of the cloth and all that. Pride. Loyalty. All that crap? I wouldn’t be surprised if Father Eduardo wakes up dead one day soon. You won’t be able to put Junior on it, I’d bet, because he’s smooth now. But if Father Eduardo trips and lands on an upturned blade? That shit could happen on the real.”

  K-Dog clicked on the flat-screen TV he had mounted above his fireplace, and for a few minutes he and Sam watched Bobby Flay challenging someone to make the best apple pie on earth. “This guy?” K-Dog said, and motioned at the television. “He’s a real gangster. Shows up at someone’s house and tells them he’s gonna beat their ass in what they do well.”

  Sam watched the show in silence for a bit while K-Dog kept up a running dialogue about how Bobby Flay was going to lose the competition because he didn’t understand you gotta put your heart into a good apple pie. All Sam had learned up to this point was what he sort of knew already, so he decided to make a leap.

  “You end up doing any business with Junior after you saw him at the market?”

  “Oh, sure, sure,” he said. “You see a guy like that on the outside? You let him know it’s all cool. Because two things can happen: He can think you’re avoiding him because you’re scared of him, or he’ll think you’re avoiding him because maybe you snitched on him or something. And either way, if you end up back in prison-not that I intend to ever go back to prison, you understand, Axe Man-that’s a death sentence. And even on the street, I don’t want the LE having me down as an enemy. I mean, I pay my taxes now and I’m running a legit business.”

  “Really?”

  “For the most part. For the most part. You know how it is, Sam. Nothing that’ll put me away. So I gave Junior my card and told him if he needed any printing or laminating or what have you, to come see me at my shop, avoid those Kinkos assholes. Couple weeks later, he brings me photos he wants blown up. Dead homies and the like. I also did some invites for one of his girl cousin’s wedding. He’s actually a pretty steady client.”

  “He always bring the stuff?”

  “Nah,” K-Dog said, “he’s got homies who do his running around most of the time.” K-Dog refilled his glass and Sam’s, too. Crap, Sam thought. How much have I drank? He looked up at the television and Bobby Flay was gone, replaced by the Starship Enterprise. How long had he been sitting there watching television? Or had the channel just changed? Sam looked over his shoulder and through the window and saw that it was dark out. He had no idea what time it was. That was why pruno was good in prison. It messed with your time-space orientation.

  “Why you so interested in Junior Gonzalez?” K-Dog asked finally, though Sam wasn’t sure how much time had passed since they’d actually spoken.

  “You’re the one who started talking about him,” Sam said.

  K-Dog whistled and then started to laugh like he’d been told something especially hilarious.

  “What are you laughing at?” Sam asked.

  K-Dog got up from the sofa and disappeared into his kitchen. Sam could hear him rummaging around for something. Sam hoped to God it wasn’t more ethanol. K-Dog came out a few minutes later holding a piece of paper, which he handed to Sam. It had an address on it.

  “What’s this?” Sam asked.

  “Where Junior’s been kicking it,” he said. “One of my delivery guys made a drop there about a week ago.”

  “Why would you think I’d want that?”

  “You’re wearing a wire,” K-Dog said. He pointed at Sam’s chest, and Sam realized he’d unbuttoned his shirt at some point. It was those damn peppers.

  “Sorry,” Sam said. “I didn’t want to forget anything.”

  “It’s all right,” K-Dog said, “I’m not gonna remember that you were wired up, either. That’s the joy of pruno, right?”

  “Right,” Sam said. He read the address aloud so that it would get on his wire, since he was pretty sure he’d lose the paper before all things were said and done with K-Dog.

  5

  The aim of terrorism, in all its forms, is maddeningly simple. If you blow up a plane or yourself or a car parked in front of a busy hotel, or even
if you just walk up and shoot a political figure, the reasoning can usually be broken into one of three things:

  A desire for revenge.

  A desire for acknowledgment.

  A desire for publicity.

  On the occasion that terrorism is used for strictly religious purposes, it’s very rarely what any god has told someone to do, but rather the skewed interpretation that a god seeks revenge for being put behind the eight ball of some other religious idol.

  The difference between a terrorist organization and a prison or street gang is negligible. The Latin Emperors didn’t rise in prominence because of their political bent in the late nineties; they rose because they controlled a vast network of drug dealers and gave back to their own community-which is to say, they hired people in their own neighborhoods to do menial tasks, handed out money on holidays and gave the people of the projects a sense of identity and even a little bit of hope. When you’re hopeless, even a gang seems like a good idea. The difference between Hamas and the Latin Emperors isn’t that large: for both, it’s about defending a piece of land and defending a particular identity, and the conflicts between power and preeminence.

  How you defeat terrorism is more complex. But it begins with counterinsurgency. The level of violence-or the threat of violence-determines the response. Blow up the World Trade Center, for instance, and expect to have your country, or countries, invaded. Threaten the president via e-mail, and expect to have a Secret Service agent outside your door in about five minutes, just to make sure you’re not producing anthrax in your mother’s basement. Begin organizing an anarchist organization that believes violence is the only way to achieve the aims of the revolution-what this revolution will entail is anyone’s guess-and expect to have a new member within a few weeks who, eventually, will be writing your FBI file.

  As it related to Junior Gonzalez, I suspected we’d need a little of all of the above to stop his campaign against Father Eduardo.

  “Why don’t we just shoot him?” Fiona asked. I was at her place fixing her sink and explaining the situation I’d decided to enter all of us into, and, as per usual, Fiona had a very simple solution. That she had it while I was under her sink wasn’t my choice. I called her that night and told her we needed to talk about a new client, and she told me that she’d love to discuss our latest venture over dinner, except that she was having a household problem and only I, with my superior skills, could fix the issue.

  I thought she was speaking euphemistically.

  She wasn’t. So with wrench in hand, I told her all we knew.

  “He hasn’t actually done anything yet,” I said. “He plans to extort Father Eduardo. He plans to blackmail him. He’s maybe planning on killing him, but there’s nothing criminal in what he’s done yet, apart from maybe having some cops on his payroll, and that sort of makes it difficult to kill him, too.”

  “But let’s be honest, Michael. Eventually he will put himself in a position where it would be easier if we just shoot him or put a bomb in his house. Why not just jump ahead? Darwin would approve of this plan. And so would Sam.”

  Fortunately, Sam was off getting information on Junior and wasn’t there to nod his head or tip his beer in assent. Unfortunately, I wasn’t in a position to really start arguing with Fiona, seeing as I was on my back and attempting to unscrew the elbow joint of her sink. Since she’s prone to sudden violence, I thought it would be wise to keep things, you know, calm.

  “I see your point,” I said. “But no.” I finally popped the joint, and a slow drip of water came out. I reached into the pipe and pulled out what looked to be clogging her drain: an eight-inch knife that could gut Big-foot. “Have you been looking for this?”

  “I knew I left it somewhere,” she said.

  “Were you expecting ninjas to come after your stamp collection?”

  “Michael, you can never have enough sharp objects in your home. You know that.” She took the knife from my hand and admired it a bit. “I bought this in Switzerland. It can cut meat, vegetables or human flesh with equal acuity.”

  “That’s wonderful.” I rescrewed the joints together and then stood up.

  “Anyway,” she said. “My point here, Michael, is it would be nice not to play these games. You’re always saying you want your job back. Yet you never exactly used due process when you were a spy.”

  “Which is precisely why I can’t go put a bullet in Junior’s head,” I said.

  “But it was so much sexier when you could,” she said.

  “I guess we all lose, then,” I said. I went into Fi’s fridge and pulled out two beers and a blueberry yogurt I’d left a few days previous. It’s always smart to store rations in a safe place. I opened Fi’s sliding door and stepped out onto her patio and sat down at her picnic table. It was just after seven in the evening, and there were a few people out on the water in small boats, oblivious to the plots and scenarios of the bad people. That wouldn’t be such a horrible thing, I suppose.

  A few minutes later, Fiona came out with a plate of fruit and some cheese.

  “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.
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  “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.