Hook and Shoot Read online

  “And Brandenberg’s just letting this slide.”

  “Hell no. He and his wife want her back, but what’re they gonna do? Hire somebody to rescue her from the last guy she hired? They’re all ex-operators. Once they find out Burch is involved, they tell Brandenberg to fuck off. But he calls Burch all the time, even tries to get to me through the Warrior office, saying he has a great deal on some hotels going under. Bullshit. Goddamn, this wears me out.” He pulled his knees up and rested his forehead on them.

  I threw it all in a pile, shook it to see what settled at the bottom.

  Yakuza, Dojin-gumi, Shinto, Warrior.

  Omori, Brandenberg.

  Burch, Vanessa, Eddie.

  “So the Yakuza took Shinto away from Omori, but they wanted something for their trouble.”

  Eddie’s head stayed down. “Smart guy.”

  “Then you stalled and promised, and when you couldn’t do that anymore you gave them me against Burbank. The whole mess with Kendall.”

  “Yes.”

  “Which didn’t work out so well. For them, anyway. And now they want to kill you. Us.”

  “No. When you beat Burbank, they said they’d get paid one way or another, and they need me alive for that. That’s why they’re sending Zombi.”

  “Ah, shit. That guy. So why are they trying to kill us?”

  Eddie looked up. His eyes were flat, dead. Honest. “I don’t fucking know.”

  Eddie shuffled behind me into the kitchen. I got him a glass of water, and he held it with both hands, took small sips.

  “We need to find out what happened,” I said. “Why this went from cash to blood.”

  “I’ve called everybody I can think of. Same with Burch. Even the ones who know about the Shinto deal don’t know why it turned into this.” Eddie twirled a finger around. I found it a casual gesture for multiple murders and continuing attempts. Toss in a throat slash, something.

  “What did the Yakuza say?”

  “Uh, besides we’re going to kill you? Not much.”

  “They said that?”

  “Actions, brah. Somebody tries to choke and stab me, shoots poison torture darts at me, I get the message.”

  “But you haven’t talked to them directly?”

  “Hold on.” He pulled his phone out. “Hello, Yakuza? Eddie. Hey, why you trying to kill me? I should go fuck myself? Okay, thanks.” He gave me a look and tossed the phone onto the island, leaned over it. “Jesus, seventeen messages. I still got a company to run, you know.”

  I saw it in his face. A small animal dropped in the deep end, paddling like mad to find something to grab onto. Wearing out, starting to sink.

  “Let’s get some sleep.”

  He laughed but didn’t smile. “Know what I used to say when somebody talked about sleep? ‘I’ll sleep when I’m dead.’ Now that I’ve almost been killed a few times, sleep sounds pretty good.”

  I set up a cot for Eddie while he checked his messages, called Vanessa at the penthouse, made sure she was alive, and let her know we were generally likewise. He came out of the kitchen and tipped onto the cot before I could throw a pillow down.

  “She okay?”

  “Yeah.” He spoke into the thin mattress. “Scared but safe. Told her I’d get her out of there tomorrow. Maybe she should stay. Who knows.”

  He was asleep by the time I’d walked to the couch to check on Burch and Denny. I heard Gil snoring in his office, probably crashed on the sofa in there. Denny sat crossed-legged on the coffee table with his eyes closed, chanting something barely above a whisper. If I had to guess, the language was monkish. He cracked an eye at me and kept chanting, tilted his head at Burch, and nodded. It seemed like a good sign, but everything about Burch denied that.

  He was rolled onto his stomach with his face hanging off the edge of the couch so it could drain into a mop bucket. A thick cord of drool connected his bottom lip to the puddle at the bottom of the bucket, which was being filled by a steady stream of mucus from his nose. His back looked like a quivering slab of blue cheese. I thought about him rescuing Vanessa from whatever hell she’d been dragged into, and the only thing I hated worse than his ugly mug was the fact that I didn’t want to smack it anymore.

  Not much, anyway.

  I flashed an okay sign at Denny with a question on my face.

  He nodded and waved me toward the cots, the chant still going.

  I dumped myself onto a cot and dreamt about Lou Gerrone standing next to a fountain shaped like Burch’s head, bitching about the green water with a sword sticking out of his chest.

  CHAPTER 13

  “You look fat,” Gil said.

  I stopped jumping rope. “I’ve had a few days off.”

  He squinted at my torso and sipped from his giant coffee, his eyes hidden until he brought the cup down and was still squinting. “You’re two forty at least.”

  “You let me finish this workout, I’ll leave five pounds on the floor.”

  “I’m wondering if two weeks is enough time to replace it with muscle, bulk you up a bit so you’re harder to toss around. Even that goosh you have now might help.”

  “You want me to put a shirt on?”

  “Why?”

  Eddie staggered out of the hallway at the rear of the gym, hair stuck to his forehead and clothes looking like used Kleenex.

  Gil feigned terror.

  Eddie frowned at us for standing up straight. “Can I have some of your coffee?”

  “Help yourself.”

  Eddie shuffled out of sight.

  “Coffee cannot help that man,” Gil said. “I took a peek back there. Looks like Burch is still alive.”

  “Kinda. Denny left a note, said he had to get more supplies. And if Burch starts sleepwalking, we’re supposed to strip him naked and lock him in the bathroom.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Read it yourself.”

  He glanced toward the front of the gym, the giant windows showing the parking lot and steady morning traffic. “So what should I expect today? Anybody stopping by to blow the place up? Drive-by? Darts and throwing stars when I go get the mail?”

  “Man, I have no idea. There’s no reason anybody should know where we are, but it’s just a matter of time before they come looking for me here. It’s weird, though. So far these guys haven’t used guns. They’re almost—I don’t know—polite about killing.”

  “I don’t think that’s the right word.”

  “Honorable?”

  “Better, but I’m not reassured. Is there anything we can do about it?”

  “I talked to Eddie last night, found out everything he knows. I’m working on a way to get us all free and clear.”

  “How’s that going?”

  “So far I’ve decided to jump rope.”

  Gil drained the coffee. “Well, I’m gonna make a few calls, see about getting some judo guys and catch wrestlers in here to spar with you. We don’t know dick about this Zombi guy yet, but we can start with the basics.”

  “Hey, about that. Eddie mentioned something about our game plans and the way I fight.”

  Gil got a look on his face like he was ready for the punch line.

  “He said we’re wasting time with strategies. All I do is go out there and fight like my life depends on it.”

  “He picked up on that, huh?”

  “You agree with him?”

  “Yeah, because it’s true. But our strategies aren’t a waste of time. They relax you before a fight, give you something to focus on.”

  I twirled the jump rope around on the mat, trying to make it into a noose.

  “See,” Gil said, “now you’re thinking about the reasons behind it, the strings, which I didn’t want. That fucker. Eddie isn’t welcome to my coffee anymore.”

  “No, I think it’ll help. My way gets wins but at what cost? I got more scar tissue than I do face.”

  “That is a problem. But don’t shut it down; there’s a balance somewhere between your instincts and whate
ver I come up with. We’ll find it. Meantime, stick with your natural strategy of hitting the other guy so hard he forgets his.”

  The front door chimed and we both jumped.

  I turned, expecting a horde, but it was just Roth and Terence rolling in for the morning workout.

  Gil grinned. “You boys are just in time.”

  “For what?” Roth said. He saw me smiling too. “Aw, fuck me.”

  We did six-minute rounds with thirty seconds in between, Roth and Terence rotating in every other round to give me a fresh target. They’re both smaller and faster than me, irritating when you’re only going 75 percent to work on timing, slipping punches, and countering. They didn’t like it when I hit them, so they worked extra hard to make sure I didn’t.

  Gil stood outside the cage with a notepad and mumbled about Zombi, every now and then nodding to himself and scribbling something down. “Guy is gonna attack or counter. We want him to attack. He counters, we fall into a trap.”

  Roth bobbed in and flicked a jab, sprang back, and worked his head around. I chased him with a looping hook that made me feel like a bear trying to catch salmon.

  “Lucky we aren’t grappling, son. I’d show you what’s what.” Roth had fought two weeks earlier and won via omoplata, a leg-over-the-shoulder submission he didn’t know the name of and had pulled off by accident. Since then he hadn’t shut up about his ground skills.

  I slapped him with a leg kick and cuffed him with a straight right that knocked his headgear askew. He pawed it back and got the crazy Australian gleam, one eye pinched shut, and ran forward with fists pumping.

  I covered, slipped and leaned and sidestepped. A few got through, just pats, then one landed with weight behind it. My neck cracked, and I felt some tension back there go. I sighed. “Thanks, man.”

  “Thanks?”

  I dug a left hook into his ribs and he went sideways, a little scream popping out.

  The ring timer buzzed.

  “All right,” Gil said, “gear off. Get some water. It’s a beautiful day outside, great for getting tired.”

  Roth frowned.

  “He’s using it like a verb,” I said. “Tired. The tire.”

  Dread fell across his face. “No. It’s already a hundred fucking degrees out there.”

  “We can go in the shade,” Gil said.

  “We.” Roth spat it out with his mouthpiece, stomped down the steps. He and Terence walked toward the back hall like they were headed for a onetime appearance on the gallows.

  “It’s like vegetables. The more you hate it, the better it is for you.” Gil hooked my arm, walked with me to my water bottle. “I got a few catch wrestlers coming in today or tomorrow. And I found some bootleg DVDs with some of Zombi’s fights. We gotta be careful, though—those fights could be fixed or just exhibitions.”

  “What about guys he’s fought?”

  “Dead ends. Anybody out of Japan, I say the name Zombi, I get a dial tone. Figure your friends with the darts told everybody to shut the hell up. I’ll call around to the guys he went against in the Olympics if I have to, but that was judo. Might help. Might not. Shit. I’ll call ’em.”

  I nodded and gulped water, tried not to think about how this was all supposed to keep me relaxed, focused on tactics instead of fighting. The recipe instead of the meal. It wasn’t working so far; since waking up and having some time to think about it, I’d tried to picture how the man across from me would look, act, move. He was just a black shape, a ghost. I put faces and poses on him and they just fell off, made a nice soft pile for me to land on when he finally came to life.

  “I will guarantee you this,” Gil said. “No matter what Zombi brings into the cage, you’ll be stronger than him and your gas tank will be bigger. That’s the fight right there, anyway. Where it’s won or lost. Mostly.”

  “Okay.” I watched him nod to himself and realized he needed the game plan as much as I did. It gave him control over something up until the cage closed and the bell rang. He was staring at a ghost too, but he couldn’t give it a smack. At least I had that.

  “See you out back. Five minutes.”

  “Hey, there might be guys out there watching. You know, the killers.”

  “Nice try. Anybody shows up to kill you, drop the tire on him.” He muttered into the hallway and turned left toward his office.

  Maybe it was the gym, this altar of suffering we all knelt before, or the ridiculous amount of testosterone ground into every surface of the place, but it seemed normal to joke about death threats.

  Impending doom? Yeah, we did that workout yesterday.

  But I was worried about Gil. He and I had arrived at this point from opposite directions—me dropping down from a couple days of adrenaline and paranoia, unfamiliar faces and places, Burch and his mouth. Gil had to ramp way up out of his comfort zone, personally and professionally, his sanctuary turned into our safe house.

  If he latched onto strength and conditioning as his anchor, drilled it too hard, I’d limp into the fight with no reserves and a fried central nervous system. He knew better. Least he did when we knew who the hell we were fighting and could develop a strategy.

  Fucking Eddie and his pep talk.

  Summoned by the curse, Eddie stuck his head in. His hair looked a little better. “Burch is awake.”

  I followed Eddie into the Hole. He had his papers and laptops spread over the card table, covering a playground with manure. I glanced at the screens—multiple chat windows scrolling and blinking, stock charts, a database. Combined, it looked like the instruction manual for going cross-eyed and having a seizure.

  Eddie dropped into a chair and pointed toward the couch, then leaned into a screen and attacked the keyboard.

  Burch was sitting on the couch with a mug of steaming water held near his chin, the water trembling a bit. His eyes were bloodshot, sucked back into his head, his skin like damp wax. Denny sat on the table with his hands hovering above Burch’s knees, whispering to him.

  “Morning, Burch,” I said. “You look like dog shit.”

  Denny frowned. “Please, no negativity.”

  “You look like living dog shit.”

  Denny closed his eyes, waved at the air around Burch’s head.

  “Will he be okay for a few minutes if you go get some tea or something?”

  “He’s stable,” Denny said. “What are you going to do?”

  “Just talk. Thanks for keeping him alive, really.”

  Denny nodded. “You can’t touch him. Like we talked about, his nerves are wide open right now. One finger will feel like a gunshot.”

  “How come he can touch the mug?”

  “He’s touching it, not the other way around.”

  I suspected nonsense.

  Denny looked at Burch. “Remember: breathe in, hold, release. Feel it in your genitalia.” He picked up the drainage bucket and carried it to the kitchen, the weight or smell of it making him lean away.

  I took his place on the table. “How you feeling?”

  Burch sipped his hot water, those bloodshot eyes waiting for a question worth answering.

  “I talked to Eddie last night. Found out about Vanessa, her father. The Dojin-gumi, all that. If you know why they want to kill us, you need to tell me.”

  Burch cleared his throat. Sounded like concrete sliding down a metal chute. “You think I’m keeping secrets after this?”

  “So who do we need to talk to?”

  “We tried that route. Silence.”

  “Told you,” Eddie said without turning around.

  Burch shuddered. A drop of water fell out of the mug and landed on his chest. He gasped and made a face like someone had jabbed him with a red-hot poker, glared down at the drop as it rolled between his ribs.

  Without thinking I wiped it off.

  Burch’s eyes rolled back in his head and he went rigid, spittle frothing out between his teeth.

  “Shit, sorry. Ah, breathe. Genitals.”

  Eddie peeled away from the laptops.
“What’d you do?”

  “Nothing. We’re good here.”

  Burch spasmed and blood fell out of his nose. More water slopped onto his chest. He rocked forward, then stuttered back.

  “Goddamn it. Denny.”

  Denny ran in with his kimono flapping behind him. “Did you touch him? I told you not to touch him.”

  “Water fell. I wiped it off and—”

  “You need to get that cup away from him.”

  “Can I touch him?”

  “Try not to. Try, try, try.”

  Burch had the mug clamped in both hands under his chin. I hooked two fingers from one hand over the rim and got two from the other underneath, tried to pull it away. No good.

  Water fell. Burch started to hiss.

  “Well,” Denny said and slapped Burch’s stomach with both hands.

  Eddie’s gasp was loud enough to cover mine.

  Blood sprayed out of Burch’s nose and he went limp, passed out from the shock.

  Denny caught the mug as it fell and handed it to me. “You can go now.”

  I carried the mug and a good helping of shame toward the kitchen.

  Shaking his head, Eddie turned back to the screens.

  I dumped the water in the sink and watched it fall down the drain. A black hole, plenty of room down there for me and Gil and the rest of the gym. Eddie, Vanessa, Burch. Or Burch’s body, if I kept trying to help.

  One by one or in a big thrashing clump, we’d get pulled down.

  I left the kitchen, leaned on the table next to Eddie. “Any good news?”

  He didn’t look away from the screens. “Oh yeah. I just approved the concessions contract for the next Warrior event. Now we’re gonna have hot dogs as well as hamburgers. Pretty fucking exciting when you’re fighting for your life and guys are passing out from water drops, right?”

  “Yeah, thrilling.” I walked back into the kitchen, scratching my stomach to keep Eddie from seeing his phone in my hand.

  I ducked into the gym, found my phone near the cage and scrolled through Eddie’s call list. A bunch of names I didn’t recognize with the same phone number and different extensions—had to be drones at Warrior’s corporate office.