“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.”