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 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?”
