The Reformed

18

The final execution of a counterinsurgency plan is to not just defeat the insurgency, but cripple the will of anyone who might want to follow in the insurgents’ footsteps.

For a man like Eduardo Santiago, there would always be people gunning to bring him down. He was too powerful now. He’d forgotten where he came from. He was no more than a crook with a collar. And then people really gunning for him: The Latin Emperors were not going to disappear. As long as there were prisons, as long as there was poverty and drugs and violence, there would be the Latin Emperors. And as long as Father Eduardo was alive, there would be a Latin Emperor who would think that the way to earn his stripes would be to get the man who snitched out Junior Gonzalez.

Unless they were too damn scared of the power Father Eduardo still had from his perch in the church. That meant creating a mystique of fear. And the only way you scared hard knocks like the Latin Emperors was to attack them in a way they could not quantify.

Like through the air.

Fiona and I sat idling in the Charger across the street from Honrado when we saw an eighteen-wheeler roll tentatively down the street. I couldn’t make out the face of the driver in the cab, but thought that the tattooed arm draped out the window was a pretty good sign that the driver wasn’t under the employ of Harding. It was seven P.M. and the Honrado campus was clear of people… except for the ones Barry and Sam were training in the art of counterfeiting this fine evening.

I called Sam. “Delivery is here,” I said.

“That’s great,” Sam said.

“You sound a little distracted,” I said.

“Mikey, we’re printing money in here.”

“I’d like to remind you that you’re a federal employee,” I said.

“You know that pension I was worried about?”

“Sam.”

“I just saw it roll off a press and get cut into exact replicas of twenty-dollar bills. And that was just on a practice run.”

“Where’s Barry?”

“He’s holding forth with the gangsters,” Sam said. “You know, in another life, he might have made a pretty good professor. The kids really respond to him.”

“Don’t let him leave with anything in his pockets tonight,” I said.

“Mikey, I’m not going to frisk him.”

“Sam, I will have Fiona frisk both of you,” I said.

“Fine, Mikey, fine. Just know that I have seen temptation and I have walked away from it a better man. Or I will. I will. Yes, I will.”

“Where’s Father Eduardo?”

“He finished up the bake sale at three, and I brought him back to your mother’s. He’s far away from here.”

“No one followed you?”

“There was a car that picked us up leaving here,” Sam said. “And then another that picked us up at the corner. So I had Father Eduardo call the mayor and see if he could pop into the mayor’s quarters for a quick talk about something pressing. But the mayor wasn’t in.”

“So what did you do?”

“Drove over there, anyway, and sat around for twenty minutes while Father Eduardo chatted up the security detail and mentioned that it looked like some gangsters were loitering around out front. So the security detail went out and arrested them. Turns out they were bad guys. I gotta tell you, Mikey, it’s hard to be a covert operative and a hard-core gangster at the same time. Tough to be inconspicuous while you’re thumping your bass.”

“Occupational hazard,” I said.

“I got the truck in my sights here,” Sam said.

“Let it back into the loading dock and then get rid of the driver. Don’t open the container until the driver is gone. Got it?”

“On it,” Sam said, and hung up.

Outside, a young woman pushed a baby in a stroller. A man sat on the porch of his apartment and read the newspaper. Two boys rode by on matching low-rider bicycles.

“What’s the point of that?” Fiona said.

“The bikes?”

“Yes, the bikes.”

“Look cool, I guess,” I said.

“Father Eduardo needs to start talking to these kids from the moment of conception.”

In the backseat of the Charger was the residue from fifty cakes of portosyt. We’d stopped off at Lowe’s on the way over and purchased enough of the chemical to either stave off an entire football field of wild grass or render unconscious, with the help of fentanyl, an entire generation of gangsters. It was now stacked innocuously inside a garbage can just beside the loading dock where Sam was.

“You sure we have the right combination of chemicals?” I asked.

“If not,” Fiona said, “what’s the worst that could happen?”

“Fiona, I’d prefer not to deal with those kinds of scenarios. It’s the grounds of a church.”

“Oh, Michael, always so pious,” she said. “We’ll need at least five hundred fentanyl patches’ worth of gel to dissolve with the portosyt.”

“We should be fine,” I said.

In an optimum situation, we’d pump the gas into the ventilation system of the printing-press room, but the entire facility was enjoined by the same system, which meant that we’d need to dissolve the chemicals in the same space as the gangsters in order to control it.

Our plan was extraordinarily high-tech: We’d combine the two chemicals, along with the appropriate amount of distilled water, in this case two jugs, which we’d already poured inside the garbage can, and place it in the facility while they worked. It would take about five minutes for the chemicals to become a strong enough gas to knock them out. The sustained propagation of the gas, combined with the oxygen in the room, would keep them under like an anesthetic for the duration of the dissolve time. Which in this case would be about three hours.

Or enough time to alert the proper authorities to a bunch of gangsters who’d broken into the plant and started making counterfeit money.

Provided nothing went wrong, which seemed to be the case until Junior Gonzalez and Killa pulled up in front of us in the parking lot, hood to hood. Except that Junior and Killa were in a lowered Honda Accord and we were in the Charger.

“Act natural,” I said through my smile to Fiona. “And by that I mean don’t shoot them until it seems like the last resort.”

“Always with the rules,” she said.

I got out of the car and walked to the driver’s-side window and peered in. “Something I can do for you, Junior?”

“Just wondering what you were doing sitting here on point,” Junior said.

“Wanted to make sure the truck arrived,” I said. “How’s your knee, Killa?” Killa kept staring forward. His eyes were hidden behind a pair of black wraparound sunglasses.

“Where’s the boy?” Junior asked.

“Safe,” I said. “You’ll get him tomorrow. As we previously determined.”

“You see, that’s funny,” Junior said, “because Leticia doesn’t know anything about that.”

Shit.

“Why would she?” I said.

“You separate a mother from her child, maybe you think you’d let her know,” Junior said. “You think I’m stupid? You think I can’t get to her? You think her home-girls will keep her secrets? You’ve never had her or him, have you?”

“Junior,” I said, “you really want to play this game? You’re an old man working in a young man’s game now.” I looked over my shoulder at Fiona. Her focus was unwavering. I didn’t know how to tell her with simple body language that she needed to let Sam know that he needed to rush the chemicals right this very instant.

“And something else,” Junior said. “Julia Pistell? She’s on a cruise right now. Yeah. Summer at Sea, her mother called it. You wanna know how I found out? I picked up the phone and called her. Four-one-one. Still works.”

Shit again. I looked back at Fiona, and this time she had her head down for just a brief second. When I looked back into Junior’s car, Killa had a nine pointed at my chest.

“Why don’t you get in the backseat,” Junior said. “And you and I can have the conversation we should have had a week ago.”

“And if I say no?”

“I got five guys in the printing press with your two friends,” he said. “They don’t hear from me, your friends are going headfirst into the pulper.”

I looked back at Fiona again, but this time more deliberately.

“Don’t worry,” Killa said, speaking for the first time, “we’ll come back for her later.”

I had a couple choices. I could run and get shot in the back. I could reach into the car, attempt to break Junior’s neck and disarm Killa, but there was a high likelihood that Killa would get off a shot in the process, since the angles of attack were difficult because the Honda was at about hip level for me.

Or I could trust that Fiona would do the right thing.

“Fine,” I said, “let’s have that talk.”

I reached for the door handle at the same moment the Charger slammed headfirst into the Honda Accord, the airbags exploding immediately into Junior and Killa’s faces. Fiona, from the passenger’s seat, floored the Charger into the Accord, shoving it across the street like a toy, spinning it around back to front as it careened toward the grassy area in front of Honrado. Fiona kept ramming the Accord, finally spinning it into a tree, where she then pinned it with the front of the Charger.

If you’re going to be a menace to society, it’s wise to think of the car you drive. A lowered Honda Accord, stripped for racing speed, as it appeared this one was, weighs about 2,600 pounds. A 1974 Dodge Charger weighs about 3,800 pounds. It’s a significant difference if you happen to be sitting in a Honda Accord when it’s hit by a Dodge Charger.

I ran up to the Charger.

“You okay?” I said to Fiona.

“Of course,” she said. “I buckled up first. You might have a small transmission problem, since I just threw it into park while it was running. My legs weren’t long enough to reach the brake. And I think I heard one of the lights break.”

“It’s all right,” I said. I reached into the glove box and took out one of the paintball guns, shoved it into my belt, and then walked toward the Honda. Inside, I could see that both Junior and Killa were a bloody mess. Junior was knocked out. Killa was blinking and gasping for air. I walked around to the passenger’s side and pulled him out and put him on the pavement. His nose was broken for sure-it was turned at a terrible angle on his face-and his right arm, which had held the gun, was broken in at least two places, and was roughly the shape of the letter S. I went back to the Honda and found the gun in the backseat. I picked it up and walked back over to Fi and gave it to her.

“Put this somewhere safe,” I said. “And call Sam. Tell him to set off the…”

Before I could finish my sentence, a fireball erupted from behind Honrado. It billowed up a good fifty feet into the air and set off every car alarm in the neighborhood.

“What the hell was that?” I said.

“I’m going to guess Sam didn’t quite know the right prescription for setting off the chemicals,” Fiona said. “Like maybe he didn’t bother to use the fentanyl at all and just set fire to the portosyt.”

“Why would he think to do that?” I said.

“I have no idea,” she said.

“Fiona,” I said, but I couldn’t be too angry. She had just saved my life, after all. Whatever had just happened had likely saved Sam and Barry’s lives. “Get behind the wheel.”

I ran back over to Killa and grabbed him by the face. “Can you talk?” I said.

He nodded weakly. “What happened?”

“You got played,” I said. “Your brother is a nicer man than me, and he has an offer for you. You want to be reformed?”

Killa’s eyes darted back and forth. “Am I dead?”

“Not yet,” I said. “You have to listen to me. Do you want to be reformed?”

“I just want to be with my kid,” he said.

“Good enough,” I said. I hefted Killa up and dragged him to the Charger and shoved him into the backseat.

“What are you doing?” Fiona said.

“I promised Father Eduardo that we’d give his brother a chance,” I said. I walked around the trunk of the Charger and dragged out a small box of items that would be of interest to any law enforcement officer who might come across Junior. Any box that contains a severed finger wrapped in counterfeit bills tends to draw attention. I’d FedEx another box of items the next day, just to be sure.

I reached inside the driver’s-side window of the Accord and placed the box on Junior’s lap. I reached down and grasped his left wrist, which caused Junior to moan. A good sign. He was alive enough to be in pain. I checked his pulse-it was strong and steady, but judging by the amount of broken teeth in his mouth, the cuts on his face and the way his left leg was crumpled over his right leg, I was going to guess he had a broken pelvis, which is no fun. I had a good sense that he wasn’t going to be waking up anytime soon, with any intention of going through any boxes on his lap. The one thing I needed to make sure of, however, was that Officer Prieto wasn’t the first on the scene.

I was about to hop into the passenger’s seat of the Charger when the eighteen-wheeler, this time not being driven very tentatively at all, and now down to just ten wheels, since the payload had been left behind, therefore allowing it to barrel down the street with far more ease, did just that.

“That would be Sam,” Fiona said.

“I would have never guessed,” I said. “Call Father Eduardo and tell him we have his brother, and then take him wherever Father Eduardo says, okay?”

“If he tries anything, I will shoot him,” she said.

“I don’t think he’ll try anything,” I said. I looked over at him in the backseat. “Especially since he’s passed out from the pain again.”

“Where are you going to be?”

“Finishing this,” I said. I pounded on the roof. “Now go. And thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, and then she backed the Charger away from the wreckage of the Honda and drove off. It was nice to see that there wasn’t too much damage to the front end of the car. The benefits of solid, American craftsmanship.

The truck screeched to a stop, and Barry opened up the passenger’s door and let me in. We eased down the street as if there wasn’t a smoldering fire somewhere behind us. “What the hell just happened back there?” I said once we were safely away.

“Fi texted and said you were in trouble and that I should set fire to those chemicals,” Sam said. “I was just following orders.”

“Where are Junior’s guys?”

Sam looked at Barry. Barry looked at Sam. “They might be locked in the payload trailer.”

“Might?”

“They came at us. One thing led to another, there was a big explosion, they ran into the trailer and, well, that’s where they sit,” Sam said.

“Barry?” I said.

“Whatever Sam says,” Barry said. “The man is a ninja.”

“All right,” I said, “Barry, I’m afraid your friends are only going to get a truck, not a payload.”

“They’re flexible,” Barry said. “And I’ll pay them. Whatever, okay?”

Sometimes, Barry makes more sense than I give him credit. “We need to take care of Prieto,” I said. “I’ve got photos on my phone. We can’t have him messing this up.”

“Aye, aye,” Sam said, and he took out his phone and made a call. “Ross? Ross, it’s Sam Axe. Listen. I just saw someone illegally parked inside a tree in front of Honrado’s headquarters, over by the Orange Bowl. Yeah, looked serious. Can I e-mail you some photos that might be of interest to you? Great, great. I’ll send them right over. And Ross? Get there quick. I think your friend Officer Prieto might be the person involved here. Maybe another hit-and-run.”

When he hung up, Sam had an odd smile on his face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“You ever do something for someone and you know it’s the right thing even before you do it?”

I thought about pulling Killa out of the car and offering him his brother’s salvation, even when I knew I didn’t have to, and probably shouldn’t. “I guess I do,” I said.

Barry sighed.

“What?” I said.

“I guess I do, too,” he said. He pointed his thumb over his shoulder. Sitting in the sleeping compartment of the truck was the money plate.