The Reformed by Tod Goldberg Page A

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