Hook and Shoot (6 page)

“Over one hundred thousand members.”

I did the math. “This is terrible.”

“Yeah, but that's worldwide. Here in Vegas, maybe a couple hundred Yakuza, tops.”

“Oh, that's it?”

“How bad is it for you if they get him? Hey, don't give me that look; you've thought about it.”

“If Eddie dies, I'm right back where I was. Worse, actually, because I've seen how good it could be.”

“That hope thing, huh? What a bitch. This doesn't work out the way you want, I could use you.”

“Legit?”

Walt looked at my shoes and suit, winced at my scars. “We can't have anybody with a criminal record on staff.”

“I never did time.”

“I never been caught jerking off, but guess what? Everybody knows I do.”

“Everybody?”

“The work you were doing before, that's always around.”

“Protecting scumbags so they can be bags of scum in safety.”

“Hey, it's money. Whether they're our clients or gunning
for
our clients, scumbags are job security.”

“Thanks.”

“Some free advice: they come hard for him, get out of the way.”

“I thought that cost ten grand a day.”

“I'll call you if I hear anything more about Eddie.” Walt smiled as the door closed.

I could see the halo of the Strip to the northeast, shimmering past the blacktop and roofs still giving up the day's sun.

Burch waited at the limo, scanning the parking lot and the shadowed doorways. “You're in back.”

“Get on 215 and head east, then—”

“We aren't going to your gym.”

“Where are we going?”

He opened the door and stared at me until I got in.

I couldn't tell a man had been murdered in the limo. The smell was gone, back to the baseline of leather and Eddie's body odor. I wondered how many murder scenes I'd been in without knowing it. Add them to the ones I was aware of, and I deserved an honorary homicide badge.

Eddie was in his seat, studying the damage in a shaving mirror. I sat across from him. The limo rolled out of the complex and headed west, backtracking toward the storage facility. I strained to hear anything from the front seat, like Burch ordering another box freezer.

Eddie tossed the mirror into a cabinet, slapped it shut. “I'm gonna have to wear fucking turtlenecks for a month.” He crossed his legs and looked me over. “Things have changed since I picked you up this afternoon.”

“Just a bit.”

“I thought the Yakuza wanted to battle. Turns out they're looking for war.”

“I always assume the latter, work back toward battle, then a tiff. If anyone's still around afterward, it's good for laughs.”

“Explains why you've had to apologize to everybody tonight.”

I let him think so.

“Who do you trust?” he asked.

“Marcela. Gil. Jairo. The guys at the gym.”

“Not me?”

“The only time I'm sure you told me the truth is when I had a foot on your throat. You wanna do that every time we talk, I'll trust you.”

Eddie tugged his collar away from the bruises. “Don't even talk about my throat right now. The
Brazilians are out of town. Who can we count on?”

“For what?”

“We need numbers. We need an army.”

“You think I'm gonna bring people I care about into this to save your ass?”

“Our
ass. I equal Warrior; Warrior equals you. You equal success for Gil and his gym.”

“Yeah, put my face on the sign out front. See how many people stop in for Halloween masks.”

“What's more important to a fighter than money?”

I stalled, hoping it would turn into multiple-choice. He waited me out. “Respect.”

“Reputation, which includes respect. You go up against a guy who's five hundred lifetime, but everybody he's fought says they never been hit harder. His record says he's so-so, but his reputation says he'll knock your ass out. Expand on it from the fighter to the trainer. The team, the gym. You go out as a massive underdog and beat Burbank. Fighters tend to notice that kind of thing. What's enrollment like at Gil's place since that fight?”

“It's up.”

“How much?”

I didn't like getting tugged along toward his point, but he was right. “A lot. Only one or two have what it takes.”

“Doesn't matter. It's the nerds and poseurs who
pay the bills, and for every guy who has a shot, you'll get twenty hobbyists. They want the secret. They want your workouts and Gil's training. All of them coming through the door because you're winning in Warrior.”

“Am I? Did you sign that contract yet?”

Eddie judged the distance between us. No chasms or moats close at hand. “No.”

“Burch uses a frozen corpse. You use a pen.”

“Weapons of choice, man.”

“Puppet strings work both ways. I pull back, you're coming all the way down.”

“Along with Gil, his gym, his students. That's the way you want to go, I'm sure he'll understand.”

“Jesus. You're a fucking oil slick.”

He shrugged. “All I want is to keep Warrior. And stay alive, which goes without saying, but just to be clear.”

The limo turned west off 215 onto Flamingo Road and accelerated. We were climbing into real estate with multiple commas. Looking out at the luxury and comfort—the entitlement—did not improve my mood.

“If you want me to keep you alive, that's all you get. Me. Nobody else. I've caused them enough grief.”

“If they can help—”

I leaned forward and thrapped his purple Adam's apple.

“Gack!” He flopped over and kicked the door. I sat back.

The limo rolled through a twelve-foot wrought iron gate that looked like a wall of black ivy.

Eddie survived, sat up, and almost fainted. “Shit, all right, calm down.” He sounded like he'd swallowed a Muppet.

“I'm quite relaxed.”

The limo floated through another gate, this one with thicker steel bars and a few swirls, not trying as hard to look nice.

Eddie said, “I need a shower. Then we need a strategy.”

“You'll do what I tell you?”

“If it keeps me alive.”

“Let's start with you shutting the fuck up.”

We went through two more gates, serious heavy gauge steel with concrete abutments, the houses getting bigger and farther apart. Maybe they were mansions, like once boats were big enough you have to call them yachts or people get upset. Somehow, through the tires and suspension and leather seats, I could tell the asphalt was plush. There were signs for golf cart crossings and par five holes in front yards, and I wondered what the line was between mansion and palace.

Eddie's place was on or over that line. The limo pulled around a cul-de-sac and through a final gate
into a parking lot that turned out to be Eddie's driveway. I got out and saw six garage doors, curved multilevel roofs, corners at all angles, and enough glass to make the place a mission statement at Windex.

I saw four chandeliers through the windows but had no idea what rooms they were in. Maybe the same room. The landscape had hidden lighting tucked everywhere, showcasing piles of rocks and flowers, the ten-foot stone wall surrounding the place, a gurgling fountain that looked like a naked woman standing under a waterfall.

Burch said, “I'll check the house.”

“See you in two years.”

He disappeared along a stone path.

Eddie got out and tried to take a deep breath that caught halfway through. He bent over and coughed, spat something onto the textured concrete. When he was done he straightened, smoothed his jacket. “What do you think of the place?”

“It's all right.”

“Please. You ain't been to a museum this nice.”

“I've never been to a museum.”

“Brah, you gotta get some culture.”

“What happened to you keeping your mouth shut?”

He muttered something about his house and he'd do whatever he wanted, but I lost most of it with him scuffing his shoes around.

Burch came out and waved us in. We followed him along the path that curved through bushes and cactus, over a short bridge that spanned a dry, narrow creek bed, finally to the front door. The entrance was recessed stonework and two eight-foot doors made of thick, dark wooden planks banded together with black iron.

“Did these come with battering ram insurance?”

Nobody answered.

Burch and Eddie walked into the foyer, polished marble tile on the floor and walls. From the door I could see all the way through a perpendicular hallway and a dim living area to the back of the house made of glass walls, beyond that a glowing pool and more concrete and landscaping that spread into darkness.

Burch and Eddie didn't see the man standing inside the door, wearing some kind of armored helmet and holding a samurai sword. I braced and lunged and realized too late it was a statue.

Burch and Eddie turned. I tried to play it off as a stretch, but nobody stretches with the war face I had going. Eddie sucked a tooth and went left down the hallway.

Burch spent a few seconds appraising me and the statue. “Want me to put that in the closet?”

“It's fine where it is.”

“Let's take the tour.”

“I've seen enough.”

“Not by my standards. We'll start with the security room.”

“Wait, what do you think I'm signed up for here? Eddie wants my help keeping him alive; you call me when you need something. And I mean really need it, like oxygen need.”

“That's not my understanding.”

“Update your software.”

He put his hands in his pockets. “Remember what I said about the only way you'd get out of my sight?”

“Something about you being dead. I remember it made me happy.”

“You're with me 24/7. You know the ‘or else' bit, so let's skip it and get on with the tour.”

Burch and I took a right at the hallway and entered the kitchen, a long room with high ceilings decked out like a Viking dining hall. Exposed beams, cookware, and cutlery hanging on the walls and a huge slab of carved wood for a table. The appliances were stainless steel and commercial grade. The wall along the left was made of panels that could fold on each other to make the kitchen and living room one huge space. The far wall was more glass, looking out on the pool.

We cut across the kitchen and went through a
door, down some steps into a sunken hallway.

Burch stopped at one of the doors and punched buttons on a keypad. “Code's 12-07-41.”

It sounded familiar. “Pearl Harbor?”

“Our Eddie's a student of war, warriors, battles. You'll notice a theme throughout the home. I'll warn you when statues are imminent.” Burch opened the door.

The room was ten by ten, white walls with a desk and one wall covered in flat-screen security monitors. It crashed me back to Kendall's bookie room at the bakery.

“I didn't need to search the whole house just now. I came in here and checked the screens. If a camera had picked up any movement, there'd be a red light blinking in the corner of the screen and the time it happened. See, now we have red lights in the foyer, hallway, kitchen, and the hallway behind us. I clear those.” Burch punched buttons on a keyboard, and the red lights disappeared. “Those lights for the staircase, upstairs hall, and master suite are Eddie going up to take a shower.” He pointed at one of the monitors. “That's the master bathroom. And … there's our guy.”

Eddie padded in bare feet over the bathroom tile in high-definition. He took off his jacket and let it puddle on the floor, went to work on his belt.

“I'm good,” I said.

“Anytime we leave, we clear all alerts and hit this
button. It gives us thirty seconds to leave the house before the alerts start up and the alarm is enabled.”

“How do I get back inside?”

“Don't worry about that. You need in, I'll let you in.”

“Fine. Let's just get out of this room.”

“Don't want to see the boss's penis, huh?”

I headed for the kitchen.

Burch yapped from the security room, “What if it makes you feel better about yourself? Not taking a chance?”

Burch led the way upstairs. The wide stone steps had a plush runner up the middle and made a quarter turn clockwise to the second-floor hallway. We turned right and stopped on a railed bridge that looked down on the foyer and the living room with the pool outside.

Burch pointed at a set of double doors at the end of the hallway. “Eddie's suite. Door just before it on the right is mine, with access to the master suite through the closet.”

“You put that in?”

“Original construction. I believe it's called a mistress hatch.” He continued across the bridge into the enclosed hallway and opened a door on the right into a room bigger than my entire apartment. “This is you, for two reasons. If somebody comes down this hallway,
I don't want all three of us cornered at one end. Either way they go, one of us will be behind them. And if they head your way, I hope you can entertain them long enough for me to get Eddie out. That reminds me.” He hit some buttons on his phone.

I heard a recorded voice, then a beep.

“Dorian, Burch. Those suits for Mr. Wallace need to be let out under each arm. Call me if you need to see him again.” He put the phone away.

“I'm not carrying anything,” I said.

“You'll come around.”

“You already have a dead guy to put on me whenever the mood strikes. I'm not giving you a weapons charge too.”

“Then you can carry spare clips for me. Be my pack mule.”

He dragged me through the rest of the house, pointing out escape routes and choke points and dead ends.

I ignored him for the most part and stared at the weapons hanging on the walls—everything from crossed stone axes over the living room fireplace to a Russian sniper rifle that pointed at a guest bathroom. There were tapestries of knights laying siege to cities, statues of gladiators in victory and defeat, and paintings that ranged from David vs. Goliath to Ali vs. Foreman. One showed an entire Roman legion fighting a dinosaur. I squinted at it until Burch noticed I'd
stopped walking.