Hook and Shoot (14 page)

“Getting out of this suit, taking a shower, then I'm going to interrogate you.”

“Interrogate?” He stared at the black TV screen,
like it might remind him what the word meant.

“If there's any time left after that, I'm gonna sleep. So get ready to talk.” I dug through my duffel bag, found some shorts and a cotton shirt that didn't smell too bad.

“What about him?”

I glanced at Burch. “Doesn't seem to be getting worse, and Gil's asking a guy to look at him.”

Eddie took the sagging pack off and put it on the floor, patted Burch's cheek a few times. “Wake up.”

“You wake him up, I'll knock him out. This is you and me time.”

“Haven't I been through enough today? Let's talk tomorrow.”

“Any second somebody could come through that door and fling a sword at me. If I die tonight, I'm gonna know why.”

I got the water as hot as I could take, bumped it a notch hotter, and stood there until it felt good. I unfolded the photo and held it under the water. It was printed on regular paper, didn't take long to get heavy and start to come apart. I pulled it into pieces small enough to fall through the drain and ran the questions for Eddie: why the Yakuza wanted his money and blood, not necessarily in that order. Who the hell
Burch was, how he was connected to all this, and the same for Vanessa.

If Eddie was still able to speak at that point, I'd ask him about Zombi and my fight contract. I wanted to ask about that first, but it seemed insensitive.

When I came out Eddie was still on the couch. He truly had nowhere else to go.

I searched for a place to hang my suit. There were a bunch of hooks and nails poking out of the wall outside the shower room for towels, shorts, jocks, wraps. Leaving it there would be like putting filet mignon in a Ziploc with dirty diapers. Gil had a narrow wardrobe in his office for his good gi and Angie's coat. I crossed to the door and it opened in my face.

Gil stood there with a man in a blue silk kimono with fish on it and cargo shorts, a leather pouch hanging off the belt. He was shorter than Gil, thin as a straw, and had gray hair jumping off his head. He leaned to his left to counterbalance the tall and wide tackle box in his right hand.

Gil said, “Woody, Denny's here. You guys have met.”

“In this life?” Denny said.

I paused. “Pretty sure.”

“Hm.”

“Sorry if we woke you.”

“With Saturn where it is? Who can sleep?”

“Right. Is that for me?” Gil plucked the suit out
of my hand. “I'll hang this up; you're welcome. You kids have fun.”

Denny stepped through the doorway, popped his hips, and wiggled his shoulders. “This space is heavy. You should burn some white sage in here. Do you have any white sage?”

I turned to Gil.

He grinned and closed the door.

“I'll look.”

“Not right now. Stay with me. Is this our man?”

Eddie frowned over the back of the couch at Denny. “Who the fuck is this?”

“Wow. Fear lasers right into my mind. Breathe, my friend. Breathe.” Denny walked around the end of the couch and saw Burch lying there. “Yes.” He set the tackle box down and pulled one of Burch's socks off, tugged the big toe. “How long has he been like this?”

“An hour, maybe a little longer.”

“So you don't like him?”

I shrugged. “He's all right.”

“I'm asking why you didn't take him to a hospital.”

“That's complicated.”

“And it's a trick question.” He sat on the table in front of the couch, brushed the machine gun aside, put a hand on Burch's chest, and looked up at the ceiling. “Hospitals are just big, shiny waiting rooms for the morgue. Gil said you can't go to the police
or the western medical mafia. Whatever the reason, I say: duh. How did this happen?”

“He got shot in the neck with two poison darts.”

“Yes.” Denny rolled Burch's sleeve up to check his pulse or read his palm, then pointed at the bag of water on the floor. “What is that?”

“I had ice on his face,” Eddie said.

“Why?”

“He was burning up. Still is.”

Denny squinted at Burch. “Is this man British?”

Eddie's mouth hung open for a bit. “Yeah.”

“Guys, come on. These are details I need to know. What kind of poison?”

“Don't know,” I said. “I got some in my eyebrow, and it's making my face numb.”

“Is that what happened to it?”

“Hey.”

“I'm referring to your aura. It's clouded on that side of your face. I was going to ask later.”

“We cleaned the dart that hit me, so it might not help. The ones we pulled out of him are out in the car somewhere.”

“It's only a matter of life and death.”

“Be right back.”

I pushed through the steel door into the rear parking lot and stopped, listened. I heard a few cars rolling by on the street in front of the gym. Under that was
the constant traffic of the roads farther out and the highway. The building had security lights mounted high on the corners that showed every detail of the facing sides of the vehicles and the Dumpsters and pushed long shadows away on the far sides. I waited for pieces of those shadows to break off and turn into men with swords and blowguns.

Nothing.

I opened the driver's door of the limo and killed the interior light so I wouldn't be onstage. I patted around the seat and floor, ready for the prick of a needle on my finger or the stab of a blade in my back. Finally my thumb brushed something fuzzy under the passenger seat. I pinched a few tufts of the dart and held it like a dead rat, closed the limo door, and made myself walk back to the gym, my ears twisted around for the slap of shoes on asphalt.

When I closed the gym door behind me, Denny looked me over. “Still that hot outside?”

I was drenched in sweat. The air-conditioning rolled over me, stretched everything tight. “Must be.”

He winked. “Let's have a look.”

I laid the dart on a white cloth folded across his palm.

He stared at the tip, smeared with dried blood and something else, then leaned in and sniffed it. “Sure.”

“Sure what?” Eddie said.

Denny ignored him, opened the top of his tackle
box, and took out some kind of leaf. He used it to wipe the tip of the dart and watched what happened to the leaf, then popped it into his mouth and chewed. “No. Really?”

Eddie ran a hand through his faux hawk, pulled in a breath, and glared at me.

“Okay,” Denny said, still chewing. “Wow, this guy, all right.” He swallowed and slapped his knees. “The good news is this isn't a lethal paste. Whoever made it will probably spend his next life as a dung beetle, but it's not meant to kill. Your face is numb?”

“It's wearing off but yeah.”

“That's just the first phase so you're lucky. The next is unconsciousness, like we have now. Fever, nightmares, runny mucus. Here.” Denny turned Burch's head to the side. Thin green liquid ran out of his nose onto the couch and pooled on the leather.

Eddie got off the couch.

“Yes,” Denny said. “But the genius comes next, when he wakes up. Every nerve ending will be buzzing with high voltage. Stroke him with a feather, it'll feel like a baseball bat. Guys, this cocktail was designed for capture and torture.”

Eddie was gray. “Can you help him?”

“Yes, which sounds like more good news, but it's not. He'll be a mess for a while. And by that I mean messy. Drainage.”

“But he'll live.”

Denny patted Burch's leg. “He might cross to the next plane a few times, but I'll keep him rooted here.” He held the dart by the shaft and pointed it at me. “Now please take this to the nearest fireplace and—” He squinted at the red plume, then poked at it and pushed some of the tufts aside. “Slide that coaster to me, please.”

I set one of the cork and wood discs next to him.

He eased the dart over and dropped it point-first into the cork, leaned above it, and stared. “Who shot these darts at you?”

“Some Japanese guys,” I said.

“Yakuza?”

“Why do you ask that?” Eddie said.

Denny reached into his tackle box, came out with a thin paintbrush. He used the solid end to push tufts down and away from the center of the dart until there were just a few left standing. They were shiny and jet-black. “This is why. Are these men still after you?”

Eddie didn't say anything.

Denny turned to me.

“Yes.”

He closed his eyes. “Please, please tell me you locked that door.”

When Denny was done checking all the doors and peeking into closets, he sat on the table and felt the breath coming out of Burch's nose. His hand was shaking.

I said, “You gonna tell us why that dart means the boogeyman is around?”

“By the waves coming off him, I think your friend there already knows. His energy is jangling like a wind chime in a hurricane.”

I looked at Eddie. He looked at the floor.

“He doesn't want to talk about it.”

“I don't blame him,” Denny said. “I need a cup of hot water. Hot, not warm.”

“Start talking. I can hear you from the kitchen.”

Denny glanced at Eddie. “Will that make you uncomfortable?”

“Fuck his comfort. He's lucky he isn't hanging upside down from the pull-up bar.”

“I see. Actually, that might help him.”

I headed for the kitchen. “The dart.”

“Water first. In case you decide to leave.”

I watched the microwave take ten minutes to count down from two.

The mug of water was steaming when I put it on the table next to Denny, who didn't even look at it. “Thank you.”

Eddie was in the corner of the sectional staring at the dart growing out of the coaster. Burch's gun and chest rig were on the floor, and his shirt was open. His flesh was mottled with pink, and his ribs seemed to be collapsing. There was a small white bowl of smoldering herbs on the table near his head, giving off a smell somewhere between wet grass clippings and marijuana.

Denny removed a thin case from the tackle box, opened it, and slid out an acupuncture needle. He closed his eyes and stuck it just above Burch's collarbone. “Dojin-gumi.”

Eddie sat back and pressed his palms against his eyes.

Denny looked at me. “That doesn't mean anything to you?”

“I thought you were chanting.”

“Not that name. Ever.”

“Wait. There was a guy, a Japanese guy, who said that to me.”

“What was the context?” Denny said.

The tattooed man Burch shot into Eddie's pool. Something about Marcela's clan against the Dojin-gumi and how it would be a slaughter. I considered the best way to explain that. “He had a sword.”

Denny put another needle into Burch's chest. “So a man with a sword mentions the Dojin-gumi to you, and you didn't think to look it up?”

“I figured it was another word for Yakuza.”

Denny smiled. “That's like saying the
plague
is another word for
infection.
The Dojin-gumi is a syndicate within the Yakuza. They've been around since the nineteenth century.”

“How do you know this?”

“Since you had one of their darts in your face, I'm wondering how you don't.” He put a needle in Burch's cheek, sat back, and watched it. “Maybe you also didn't notice I'm wearing a kimono and practicing moxibustion.” He pointed a needle at the bowl of herbs.

“I've been a little busy the past few days.”

“Yes. Well, it's time to focus, my friend. When the Dojin-gumi joined the Yakuza, they were a family of executioners. And guess what? They still are.”

I sank onto the couch near Burch's feet. “You're sure it's them.”

“Yes, from the dart. The black plumes within the red is their signature.”

“Makes it easy for the forensics team.”

“See, you're thinking like a modern man. They are from another time, another code. They claim their kills with pride. I said before this toxin was made for capture and torture, and now that we know who made it, make no mistake: death will follow. It is their trade.”

“Eddie.”

He was still hiding behind his hands.

“Eddie, you knew all this?”

“Yes.”

“Get up.”

I closed the cage door behind us.

“I swear to God,” Eddie said, “I'm so beat right now, you lay a finger on me I'll die. And I'll sue you from the grave.”

“Calm down. This is a place of honesty, with yourself and the man across from you. If you lie in here, you only hurt yourself in the long run.”

“Then what are those for?”

I tossed my sparring gloves onto the cage floor. “The short run.”

Eddie moved as far away as he could, skirting around the gloves like they were a nest of cobras. He stopped directly across the cage from me and sat, looked down, and saw the old bloodstain beneath him. He scooted to the side until he was on relatively clean fabric.

I sat and leaned back against the fence. “What did you do?”

“Will you believe me if I tell you I don't even know for sure?”

I picked up one of the gloves.

“It's the truth. I mean, I know what I
did,
but I don't know exactly what happened after that. Me and
Burch, we've been trying to figure that out. It's not like the Yakuza puts out a newsletter.”

I pulled the glove on, opened and closed my fingers. The leather creaked. “You think they'd let me off the hook if I delivered you? I know for a fact you fit in a duffel bag.”

“Okay, shit. About six months ago, a small MMA promotion out of Japan called Shinto started sniffing around for a Vegas debut. Little fish like that are always trying to jump into the big pond—my pond—and I always find a way to keep them out. I buy, I bankrupt, or I make sure the commission finds all the good reasons not to issue a license. So I do some digging, and Shinto is backed by the Yakuza. Well, no shit. They've kept all kinds of promotions and fighters in business over there, no big news. But coming over here, elbowing their way in without sitting down with me or anybody else, that's a problem. If I keep talking, will you take that glove off?”