“Oh, yeah. I boxed for Loyola in the forties, then I found my vocation but kept boxing. I still run a club here. St. Remigio’s remains the school to beat—gives the boys something to be proud of. We can’t play football against those big suburban schools. We can’t get enough equipment for eleven boys, let alone fifty or sixty the way they do. But I can outfit boxers. Lucy was one of my best. I was that proud of him.”
His jaw worked. For a minute he looked like a tired old man, his pale eyes filming over, then he shook himself, an unconscious motion, shaking off one more punch.
He looked at me aggressively, as if to make sure I didn’t try to pity him for his weakness. “The police came around suggesting Lucy was running drugs through his factory. They wanted me to spy on him. I told them what I thought of that. Then the papers and the television. Mexican boy makes good, so he must be selling drugs. All that innuendo—I saw what the Herald–Star’s been saying. This boy who drove an old car so he could pay his sister’s children’s fees here at Remigio? They couldn’t leave him alone.”
He stopped to drink some tea. I had some too, to be polite. It was light and flowery and surprisingly refreshing in the heat.
“When did you last talk to him?” I asked.
“He came here to mass once or twice a week. I’m thinking it was last Tuesday. He filled in as a server when he saw that the kid who was supposed to do it hadn’t shown. They used to laugh at him when he was fourteen, when I talked him into coming here, do some training and serve at the mass—little altar boy, that’s what they called him—but then he started winning boxing matches, and the tune they sang on the streets changed in a hurry.
“I’m getting sidetracked. I don’t like to think about him being dead, that’s all. It’s easy to say people are with Jesus when they die, and I even believe it’s true, but we need Lucy here. I need him, anyway. Jesus wept when Lazarus died—He’s not going to condemn me for crying over Lucy.”
He picked up the statue of the Madonna and twisted it around, smoothing the taffeta cape over her hips. I sat still. He’d speak when he was ready, but if I prodded him he might turn pugnacious again.
“So—he still came to mass. When he started his shop, Special–T, he could have gone someplace farther away, a safer neighborhood, but he liked to stay close to the church. Felt his life had been saved here. He went from being a lookout for the Lions, selling nickel bags, to citywide lightweight champ. Then my old school, Loyola, working nights at a downtown hotel to put himself through college, but he left those Lions and drugs behind for good when he boxed for me. I make it clear to all the boys: they can’t get in the ring with Jesus and drugs at the same time.”
There wasn’t any hearty piety in his voice, just the facts. No one looking at those forearms, or the stern set to his jaw, could doubt Father Lou’s ability to stand up to a gangbanger.
“Anyway, I’m thinking it was Tuesday, but maybe it was Wednesday, I can’t be sure. But we had a cup of coffee and a donut after the service.”
“Was he worried then?”
“Of course he was worried, all this—this crap about him and drugs!” the old man shouted, smacking the table hard enough to make the Virgin wobble. “And what’s it to you, anyway?”
“If it’s any comfort, I think someone was setting him up with the drugs.” Once again I went through the long story of Nicola Aguinaldo, of Alex Fisher and the studio asking me to look into Frenada’s finances, and the two very different reports on them.
“It’s disgusting,” Father Lou said, “disgusting that you could go pry into the boy’s private business like that.”
My cheeks grew hot. I didn’t try to defend myself—I know it’s a breach of privacy, and I wasn’t going to give that pathetic adolescent bleat that everyone did it.
Father Lou glared at me, his jaw working, then said, “Still, I suppose it’s a good thing you saw the accounts the way they really were. How could it happen, the report being changed like that, so that you get one version, that reporter friend of yours another?”
“I’ve thought a lot about that,” I said. “That’s one of the reasons I came to see you. You read from time to time about hackers trying to move money from a bank into their accounts; the security stops them when they try to take it out. I don’t think it would be so hard for someone with a lot of sophisticated resources to break into a system and make more money appear than was really there. But what will happen if the user tries to withdraw it? If Lucian Frenada’s sister is his heir, can you get her to try to take the money out? That will prove whether it’s really there or just a shadow.”
He thought it over. He didn’t react quickly, but he was thorough, asking a series of questions designed to make sure Frenada’s sister wouldn’t be in any danger if she tried to get the money.
“Okay. I won’t say yes or no tonight, but I’ll talk to Celia in the morning. I want you to promise me you won’t bother her. Are you a Catholic? Do you have a pledge that you honor?”