Hook and Shoot (18 page)

“He had a knife,” Vanessa said.

I winced.

Nestor's eyes got big. “A weapon? Where is it?”

I nodded across the truck. “Think it ended up over there somewhere.”

Nestor walked around the tailgate, his head pulled in like the knife was waiting to jump out and scare him.

I scuffed at the pavement, kicked a domino that knocked over the next one, raced along the thread back to Gil's gym, the guys, Burch and Eddie. The cops would follow it, bringing a slew of inconvenient questions with them.

Vanessa leaned against me. Maybe the other way around.

Nestor came back. “I don't see it right away, but I'll get some more guys out here. Fuck, where'd he go?”

I turned.

Nobody there.

We left Nestor in the service lot after he threw his hands up, said, “Sorry. Not much I can do without the perp here. And hey, don't sweat it—I won't tell Mr. Takanori about this.”

I watched the mirrors for anybody following and
the skyline for plumes of smoke, the gym besieged and burned while I was away. Nothing either way. Good news, if confusing.

Shit. I needed to talk to Burch.

Vanessa rode with her feet on the seat and her face on her knees. I wanted to pat her on the back but figured she might flinch sideways right through the window.

In just about any situation there are two phrases that let the other person know exactly where you stand.

One is: “Fuck you.”

I tried the other: “I'm sorry.”

She didn't say anything, but I heard the first phrase all the way back to the gym.

Burch was awake, sitting up and shivering with a blanket wrapped around him. He dropped his scowl long enough to smile at Vanessa, then went right back to it.

She pursed her lips, wouldn't look at me. “Did you hit him again?”

“Not yet. Showers are in there, hot enough to burn just about anything off. Kitchen through that door if you're hungry. If you see an Australian named Roth, come get me.”

She carried her bag into the showers. The water kicked on.

I laid my new suits on the foosball table, walked over to Eddie's mess, and showed him the black tube.

“Good, she remembered.” He put his hands out:
gimme gimme.

“Whatever this is, do we need to keep it away from children?”

He plucked the tube away from me. Popped one end off and pulled out a handful of what looked like plastic explosive. Then a thick roll of vinyl. He went to the grayish, scuffed wall behind the table and unrolled the shiny black banner with the Warrior logo all over it, used the handful of poster putty to secure it.

He sat down, checked the laptop's camera feed to make sure his backdrop took up the whole frame. Then he put on a headset with a microphone and hit a few laptop keys. “You guys see me okay? All right, let's go.”

I leaned in to see who he was talking to and caught a glimpse of a beer logo before Eddie kicked me away without moving his torso.

I left him arguing with the screen, sat on the table in front of Burch. “You look better.”

He huddled in the blanket and glared. “Than what? Convulsing into a coma because some idiot slopped hot water on me?”

“You remember that?”

“I remember all of it. Another awful beauty of the poison, according to Denny.”

“Where is he?”

“Out helping crippled orphans walk and grow parents. Bloody miracle worker, that one. Saved my life.”

“You up for talking tactics?”

“With you? Put me back in a coma.”

“We ran into one of them.”

He stopped shivering. “You and Vanessa?”

“Yeah. Shuko.”

“Did anything happen to her?”

“She's fine. A little shaken up. She's tough.”

“You have no idea.”

I told him what happened, got all the way to Vanessa driving out of the garage alone before he swore and tried to choke me. I pushed his hand back under the blanket. “Stop that.”

He shook while I told him the rest, but he wasn't cold anymore.

“Now listen. I thought they might have somebody watching and he'd expose himself if the truck sat there long enough. I see where he is, then I go around and blindside him. I never thought he'd walk over and knock on the window.”

“And what if ten of them had knocked on the window with an Escalade?”

“For one, broad daylight behind a Vegas casino. They have to know anything that overt brings cops pronto. I had a tussle with one guy and security was on top of it.”

“Security,” he said, like I'd called piss beer.

“Main reason I thought it would be one guy is because that's what they send. The first time, one man through the moonroof. I bet it was one guy who took
that photo of us. Then your friend by the pool. Now this clown.”

“A clown you let get away, pissed off with a headache. We'll see him again.”

“They've sent a single man each time, except for once.”

“The RV lot.”

“Then it was how many? I counted six.”

Burch nodded. “I slotted a few, saw more.”

“So what was the difference? Night, secluded location they chose or got from Lou before they killed him. One way in and out. What else?”

“That's the recipe for an ambush. Don't need anything else.”

“There's something.”

He didn't disagree. We stared at each other, no answers flashing.

The door to Gil's office opened. He leaned through, spotted me. “Hey, you're back. Wanna wrassle?”

I thought it would be nice to get more training in, clear my head and let the missing pieces fall into place while I was looking away.

Then I met the Snarl brothers, standing in the cage in denim shorts and tank tops, thick hairy arms
crossed over barrel chests, and the only thought I had was: survive.

“This is Vince,” Gil said, pointing to the older one, I assumed. He was about five and a half feet tall, bald, built like a bricklayer. “And this is Robbie.”

Robbie was exactly like Vince, only his name was Robbie.

I shook their hands, which were much too big, and tried to match the grips. They didn't seem to notice.

Gil said, “They run a catch wrestling school out of their garage, were nice enough to come down and help us out.”

“Great. Thanks, guys. How'd you get that name?”

“Our pop's name was Vince,” Vince said, with enough New Jersey in it I could smell the ocean. “How much you know about catch wrestling?”

“Pretend he knows nothing,” Gil said. I appreciated the straight face.

“Well,” Vince said, cuffing Robbie in the side of the head hard enough to tip him sideways, “couple centuries ago all these immigrants came over with their different fighting styles.”

Robbie squared up to him. They stalked around the cage, trying to grab each other's hands and wrists.

“Tough guys hooked up with travelling shows, carnivals and whatnot, challenging any local to a
match. Winner got cash and bragging rights.”

Robbie dropped to a knee, shot in, and tried to grab Vince's foot. Vince sprawled, shoved him away with a forearm to the face.

Vince smiled. “So these guys, they're fighting hard-as-nails hillbillies. They gotta know all sorts of tricky shit. And they can't be taking all day with a match, you know? They gotta get it over with quick, save their energy, and take on the next comer, hopefully get his money too.”

Vince got hold of Robbie's hands and they collapsed into a clinch, forearms draped over ducked heads, until Vince spun and dropped in a blur, reached between his feet, and clamped onto Robbie's left ankle, sat back and they both went down in a tangle. Vince curled around Robbie's foot, working for something. Robbie latched his arms around Vince's face, muffling him.

“Course, it was usually the nastiest guy in town who stepped up. His rep's on the line, and he'll be damned he's gonna let this carnie whup him. They'd eye gouge, fishhook, bite, you name it. But you'd never hear a catch wrestler complain. He'd just think: all right, motherfucker, if that's how you want it.”

Vince scrambled to the side and got Robbie's left knee in his left armpit, both of them facing me and Gil. Robbie was still going for the choke until Vince switched, dug his left elbow under Robbie's
shinbone. Something bad happened inside Robbie and he rocked backward, couldn't sit up anymore. He slapped Vince on the shoulder. Vince ended that torture and went for another type, cranking Robbie's ankle around while Robbie kicked him in the spine.

Vince said, “The end result was a brutal, efficient fighting style that maimed people. Broke bones, ripped tendons, ended lives. This here is the sport version, much nicer.”

Robbie grabbed Vince's nose and yanked it sideways.

Through the plug, Vince said, “It's about control. Catching any hold you can and making your opponent as uncomfortable as possible, as quickly as possible.”

I nudged Gil. “I'm uncomfortable from over here.”

“This is spectacular.”

Robbie finally got Vince's head around. He tucked it under his arm and grapevined his legs through Vince's, pulled an arm up, and stretched him until I heard skin creak. Vince tapped his brother on the face. Robbie let go and they both sat there, not even out of breath.

“Okay, you and Robbie. Let's see what you got.”

Gil held up his little HD video camera. “You mind? For training.”

“Hey, your gym.”

I eyeballed Gil. “Training?”

He was giddy with professionalism. “Potty, if
nothing else. I'm almost certain you're going to shit your pants.”

I did not. It was worse.

Another new noise came out of me from somewhere, and I tapped. Again.

Robbie and I were starting from our knees, getting me used to the hand fighting and transitions to the clinch. No striking yet, which was good for both of us—for him because I couldn't punch him, for me because that would just make him mad.

Vince walked around us, reaching in to tug my elbow up or down, move a hip into place. “The terminology's different from MMA, jiu jitsu and all that, but you'll see a lot of the same stuff. Robbie, give him a Saturday Night Ride.”

“Wait,” I said.

Robbie hooked his hands behind my head and yanked, shot his legs around my waist, and landed on his back.

“You call that full guard. Same shit.”

I spoke into Robbie's sternum. “Feels a little different.”

“That's catch wrestling,” Vince said. “He's using his whole body against your whole body. He's controlling you from his back, which a lot of grapplers can
do, but what's he gonna do next?”

I shifted my weight, got hold of his forearms, and pulled my head out. Felt for the tension, the spring he had coiled and ready to snap. Was he trying for a kimura? A sweep? “I have no idea.”

“Damn right. You don't know what's in danger because everything is. He ain't going for a hold. Why should he? That's a waste of his energy, and you're gonna give him something soon enough.”

“I don't want to.”

“Too bad, friend. And this Zombi guy, Gil said he's got judo too?”

“Rumor has it.”

“See, that's gonna give you more trouble. Keep going.”

Robbie started to pull my head back down. I pushed his arms away, tried to pin them to his chest and break out of his guard.

Vince said, “This guy knows judo. He can come in all nice and gentle for a friendly hip toss or something, then
bang,
he's into lock flow. Next thing you know he's handing your arm back to you.”

Robbie snaked his right arm around my left, pulled my hand underneath him, and popped my elbow straight. I tapped three times, once each for the simultaneous locks he put on my wrist, elbow, and shoulder.

“Jesus,” Gil said. “Do that again.”

Two hours of it, Vince narrating and stepping in every now and then to make sure I felt what he was talking about, then handing me back to Robbie so I could tap out.

Gil had given up on the video. Now he had his nose an inch away from my foot so he could note the exact angle Robbie was using to saw my Achilles tendon back and forth. “Yes,” he said.

I tried to kick him in the face, but Robbie wouldn't let me. Then he let go and we scrambled, ended up on our knees hand fighting again. Robbie took a deep breath, shook his right arm out like it was giving him trouble, let it drop to his chest.

Don't mind if I do.

I pounced onto his right side and hooked my arm over his, wanting to gnaw it, got my hand through his armpit and against his chest, and started to pivot into a whizzer to drive his face into the canvas.

He reached around my back and grabbed my hip, shot his left hand across to my right knee and dropped to his left, rolled, tossed me over, and knelt on my ribs with my shoulder cranked.

Vince tsked. “He sugar footed ya, and you fell for it like a bum chasing a Lotto ticket down the street.
You're fighting a catch wrestler. This is what you gotta remember: what you think he's doing, he ain't. What you think he's giving up, he ain't. What you think is safe, brother, it ain't.”

“That's a lot to remember.”

“Well, here's the good news for you. You been gettin' your ass kicked, but we've just been wrestling so far. You fight the Zombi guy, you get to strike too. Robbie, you wanna glove up?”

“Whatever.”

Vince socked a fist into his palm. “Right. Couple more things I want you to see, then let's take a little break, come back, and do some sparring. Gil, that work for you?”

“Just be careful. We can't have anybody getting cut.”

All three of them looked at the lumps over my eyes, the white lines slicing through my eyebrows, like they were storm clouds over a picnic.

Vince said, “Woody, so far you been getting caught, but not with anything too uncomfortable.”