Hook and Shoot (22 page)

We walked to the far end of the stage. Nobody close but Burch still pulled me in. He smelled like he was rotting. “Brandenberg's here.”

“Vanessa's father?”

“He's searching for her. Got some men with him who look like cops, but I'm not sure.”

“Yakuza?”

“Not Japanese. Besides, the whole mess with his daughter led to Omori's suicide. I doubt they're on good terms.”

“Is she here?”

“Come on. I put her someplace safe. Don't ask me where. Listen, if they take me, you have to cover Eddie. Glued to his side, yeah?”

Babysitting Eddie the night before a fight. I tried to keep my face from souring. “All right.”

“We're staying in the penthouse here until after the fights. Roads are too risky.”

“Don't let them take you.”

“I don't fight cops. That's a whole new load of trouble.”

“Kick Brandenberg's ass out of the casino. Him and his crew, whatever they are.”

“He's already on the unwelcome list. We don't know how he got in, but fucking management doesn't want to make a scene unless it's necessary. Trust me, it already is. The men around Eddie are prepared. If Brandenberg gets close, they take him down. I'll drag him out myself, take the long way. Face on the carpet, stairs, the whole bit.”

Noise from the other side of the room made us look. Fans were streaming in from the expo floor, hustling for the front rows, separated from the stage by a narrow lane. Well within blowgun range. Could probably poke a guy with a sword, you give it a good stretch.

“Enough people here to qualify for a public humiliation.”

“He'll wait,” Burch said. “Not to say he isn't here now, though, so smile.”

We grinned and checked the crowd. I scanned for Brandenberg too, the tan face that loomed from billboards promising great deals on time-shares, commercial property, burial plots. “Don't know if I'd recognize Shuko. He had sunglasses on. Happened pretty fast.”

“I'll know him.”

“How close did you get?”

“Not as close as you,” Burch said. “Still can't believe he let you creep up on him like that. Won't happen again, so don't plan on it.”

“Face-to-face, I'll still put him down.”

Burch let that sit for a while. He kept smiling and scanning. “When I went into the building to grab Vanessa, I had a man with me. Hired him to keep the exit clear and drive. He had a shotgun and a .45. I went in and cleared the rooms. It was a Yakuza brothel, where they kept sex slaves. Shuko had his own floor, because none of the gang members wanted to hear what went on and they sure as hell wouldn't touch any of the slaves he'd claimed.”

“The snake tattoo.”

“Stage one. Stage two he shaves their heads. Stage three he slices open the skin over their clavicles and tucks it behind the bone, lets it heal so the bone stays exposed. He likes handles.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Couldn't believe what I was seeing. I moved down the hallway, kicked in a door, and saw what he likes to do next.” Burch's jaw muscles boiled under the skin. “It's the only woman I've knowingly killed, and I'm glad I did. I still hear her beg for it.”

“This motherfucker needs to go.”

“Agreed. But don't for a second think you can handle him.”

“My experience, guys who like to hurt women don't like to fight men.”

“Half of the slaves on Shuko's floor
were
men.”

Some guy with press credentials and a camera that looked like it could shoot down a plane skidded to a stop. “Hey, Woodshed, give us a smile.”

I gave him a face.

He looked at his screen, raised his eyebrows. “Hm.” Hurried away.

I turned and Burch was gone.

Gil caught my eye, pointed backstage, and headed that way.

I followed, remembering what it felt like to choke Shuko unconscious. I replayed it, kept him off his feet, and squeezed harder and tighter until things started to crack and collapse.

A flash went off.

The same photographer, clicking away. “There's that smile.”

We occupied a corner backstage while Davie got the crowd rolling. Talked to some fighters and trainers we knew. I tried to act like the fight with Zombi was the most important thing in my life. Must have done
a piss-poor job; Gil ended up sealing me off behind him, telling guys, “He's really focused right now.”

When they called me onstage I glared at the ring girls, the crowd, the scale.

“Somebody has his game face on,” Davie said, then apologized when I turned it on him.

I drilled into the faces in the seats, praying to find Shuko raising his fucking blowgun or sword or just sitting there with a smug look I'd peel off and shove down his throat.

Be here. You wanted public. Let's show these people what you're made of. Start with cracking your ribs open.

I didn't notice Zombi was onstage until Davie pulled me over for the stare down. Eddie was between us, gray and tired, Burch behind him with half the security team trying to look like they were always onstage, perfectly normal.

“Anything to say?” Eddie asked.

Zombi's interpreter was behind him. She murmured in his ear. His expression didn't change, chiseled out of sandstone.

Eddie said, “Fine, let's do it.”

We put our fists up, leaned in, and stared.

Zombi looked into me.

I looked through him, still hoping for a sign of Shuko.

Big mistake.

Gil didn't know exactly what was going on, but he knew what to do. Backstage he put a hand on my arm, checked my eyes. “Okay. Let's get you out of here.”

We were ten feet from the door to the service hallway when a thick guy in a brown suit stepped in front of it and clasped his hands over his belt buckle.

“Coming through,” Gil said.

The guy gave him a bored face, set his feet.

I wasn't in the mood. “Move or be moved.”

“Mr. Wallace.” Brandenberg came in on my right, trailing another side of beef. The two thugs could have been brothers, but no mother would do that to the world. White teeth flashed, and a tan hand cut toward me. “I'm Tim Brandenberg.”

I stared at the hand, a graham cracker hanging there waiting to be crushed.

He let it drop. “I understand you've been doing some extracurricular work with Mr. Takanori and Mr. Burch.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Whoa. Sorry, I don't speak caveman. Before you go completely primal, you should meet Detectives Karp and Eugene. They're big fans.”

“Buncha queers humping each other in Speedos,” the one blocking the door said.

Brandenberg smiled. “I lied. Detective Eugene hates it, more of a boxing fan. Where the fuck is my daughter?”

“We're leaving,” Gil said. He pulled my arm.

Karp swung around in front of us and adjusted his suit coat so we'd see the badge and heavy revolver tucked underneath, the wooden grip scuffed and dented.

The backstage crowd flowed around our little pressure tank, everybody wrapped up in their own fights.

Gil asked me, “What is this?”

“It's mine. Walk out. I'll handle it.”

“He stays,” Brandenberg said. “You're too stupid to help yourself. Maybe he'll chime in. Where is Vanessa?”

“Why? You lose her to some crackhead playing Go Fish?”

White flashed again through tight lips and he snapped a hand across his body, showing me the back of it. A heavy, wicked ring caught the light.

I pushed my face toward it. “Please. You get a free one. After that, I keep any teeth I catch.”

“Careful, Woody,” Gil said. “Guys, I train plenty of cops at the gym. Maybe I'll ask about you two, see what they have to say.”

“Same thing I'm telling you now,” Karp said. “Shut your fuckin' yap.”

Gil shifted his weight, a subtle relaxation that rooted him to the floor. Only reason I noticed, I'd seen it hundreds of times right before I got tossed through the air.

“Last chance,” Brandenberg told me.

“You're right.”

“Look. I understand your frustration. You're in the midst of all these significant moments—Eddie's business problems, my family issues, your great big fight—and you are not a significant man. Let me help you, take some of this pressure off. Tell me where she is.”

“Happy and safe. Because she'll never see your face again.”

Brandenberg sighed. Nodded.

I spread my feet and got ready for the bum-rush, felt Gil dip into a slight crouch next to me.

Detectives Karp and Eugene didn't close in.

Eugene reached under his coat and brought out a pair of nicked-up stainless steel handcuffs. He leaned in close so only I could hear: “Aaron Wallace, you are
under arrest for the kidnapping of Vanessa Brandenberg and the murder of Louis Gerrone.”

They didn't make a show out of reading me my rights, but enough people saw and got the word going until the room was all wide eyes and open mouths.

Gil tried talking sense to them the whole time. They ignored him until he said to me, “I'll meet you at the station with a lawyer.”

Karp pulled everything out of my pockets and put it in his. “Get a good one. Maybe you can get bail under a million.”

I couldn't meet Gil's eyes and didn't want to see any of the other faces. If I looked at the cops or Brandenberg I'd start kicking, tripping, stomping, so I kept my mouth shut and didn't look at anybody.

“Hey.” Eddie's shout cut the whispers off. “What the fuck is going on here?”

“Stay back,” Eugene said, his hand on the butt of his pistol.

Eddie and Burch and the security guards made a half-circle around us and the exit. Some of the security moved people away.

Eddie looked at Brandenberg. “What is this?”

“What happens when you don't cooperate.”

Burch's suit coat was open, his hands loose at his
sides. He stared at Eugene with flat eyes.

Eddie said, “You serious? You come in my place and embarrass me with your trained dogs?”

“Not everything is about you, Eddie.”

“How about I get some real cops in here?”

“I'm sure they'd like to talk to you about a few things, just like these detectives are going to talk to Mr. Wallace. Or you could tell me where Vanessa is.”

Burch glanced at me.

I shook my head, as if he was asking.

“No?” Brandenberg shrugged. “All right. Let's go.”

Brandenberg got into a silver Town Car without saying anything or looking back. It floated away while Karp and Eugene folded me into an unmarked sedan, the upholstery cracked and stained. It smelled the same as every other cop car: industrial disinfectant draped over a stadium of body odor.

They got to the Strip and turned left.

My pulse perked up. Las Vegas Metro was north of the Strip, not south. “Police station is the other way.”

Karp drove on. “Now he talks.”

“That's the new station,” Eugene said. “We're still operating out of the old one. Don't mind it, though. We like to do things the old way.”

“The way that works,” Karp said.

Karp rolled through the parking lot past a few dusty squad cars, backed into a spot with empty slots all around and no lights above. Nobody said anything while they walked me, hands cuffed behind, to a solid metal door set in a cinder-block wall, rust growing down from the steel handle.

Eugene pulled a wind chime of keys out and found a thick one. He only needed his thumb and forefinger to flick the dead bolt open. Walking through I could smell fresh oil.

The hallway was dim and stale, a piece of paper stuck on the yellow brick wall with brown masking tape, letting everybody know about the family cook-out on Saturday. I was only four years late.

At an intersection past a few banks of dead fluorescents a sign was hanging from the ceiling. It showed an arrow pointing left, Holding, and right, Booking.

I turned right.

“Wrong.” Karp yanked me forward through the intersection past a row of blank gray doors. “I ran your sheet. You been a good boy, stayed out of trouble 'til now. You don't really want your picture took and fingers rolled, do you?”

I walked and stared down the hallway at nothing. The building was silent around us.

“This'll do.” Eugene opened a door. The room was square and yellow and cold, a single bulb on the wall behind a metal cage. Four wooden chairs around a chipped green table. Eugene kicked one. “Park it.”

Karp put me in front of the chair and shoved it against the back of my knees. I dropped into it, didn't show the jolt of pain from the wood digging into my arms.

Eugene closed the door.

This was bad. No record of my arrest, no one saw me enter the building or get hauled into this room. Used to be if cops wanted to have a private chat they'd take you for a drive in the desert or arrange a chance meeting in the bowels of a casino next to the laundry tanks that thumped and hissed and moaned and sounded a lot like somebody getting worked over.

These two having the balls to do it right in the police station—even an abandoned one—was an admirable level of brutality.

Karp stayed behind me.

Eugene sat across and put his feet on the table. “Anytime you're ready.” He waited, then said to Karp, “He's giving me the dead eyes.”

Karp smacked me across the back of the head with something, either his forearm or a log.

“He blinked,” Eugene said. “Least we know he's still alive.”

“Using up all my good air in here.”

“You see the scars on his face? The light in here, they pop right out.” Eugene spent a while looking at them, puckering his lips and nodding. “You're a tough guy, huh? Like to throw down.”

The Zombi fight was about twenty-four hours away. Felt about as close as the other side of the moon.

“You ever been shot, tough guy? When we strip you down, we gonna find any bullet holes?”