Hook and Shoot Read online

  I checked times, got to Saturday night after the meeting with Lou, the one at the restaurant when he hadn’t been dead. A few numbers around then with no names attached. I punched one into my phone, listened to it ring while I checked the hallway: clear.

  “Thank you for calling Elite Combat Sports. If you know your party’s extension—”

  I killed it and tried the next number. I could hear someone banging around in the kitchen, willed whoever it was to stay there.

  “Law Offices of Argo and Taylor, how may I help you?”

  Who and who? “I’m trying to reach the management team for Zombi.”

  A pause, the woman on the other end either confused or stalling. “I’m sorry?”

  “Zombi, he’s a fighter. I need to talk to whoever’s in charge of him.”

  Another delay. Then: “Who’s calling, please?”

  “Woody.”

  “Woody?”

  “Aaron Wallace. I’m the guy he’s fighting a week from Saturday.”

  “We don’t handle attempts at promotion through this office. Please have your management—”

  “Can you keep a secret? You tell whoever runs Zombi I’m on the phone, and I want to talk about taking a dive.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Roth and Terence squatted against the fence in the parking lot behind the gym under a ragged tree that drooped over from the property next door. The single oasis of shade was sliding toward their shoes and would soon be gone for the day.

  “Question,” Roth said.

  I squinted in the heat blasting up from the asphalt, checked the lot and fence line for Japanese guys trying to look casual, twirling their blowguns. “Go ahead.”

  “Is that Banzai Eddie sitting at our card table?”

  “Yes.”

  Eddie had his phone back, slipped under a pile of papers on my way past while he was cranked around watching Denny feed leaves to Burch.

  Roth said, “Probably makes that his limousine.”

  “Correct.”

  He and Terence mumbled to each other, conspiring.

  “Ask him,” Roth said.

  Terence looked at me. “Is he here to scout our gym? Us?”

  “Act like he is. Maybe that’s what it’ll turn into.”

  Roth got a sour face. “The hell kind of answer is that? And who’s the asshole in there chanting with Denny, taking up the whole couch?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Oh. Hear that, Terence? Woodrow says don’t worry about it. It’s just our careers, livelihoods, and such.”

  “I ain’t worried.”

  “Nor I,” Roth said. “Just curious about why the president of Warrior and some guy who looks half-dead are hanging out at our gym.”

  They’d earned the right to know everything that happened inside those walls. At the same time, they didn’t deserve the trouble that came with this. “Eddie’s putting a fight together for me, a Japanese guy named Zombi. Ever heard of him?”

  “Awesome fucking name, but no, we haven’t, have we, Terence?”

  “Nope.”

  “And I doubt very much that Eddie makes house calls for the men he pays to fight. I imagine those men go to Eddie.”

  “You do, huh?” I nodded, squinted some more. “Let’s get the tire out.”

  Roth gave a low whistle. “This must be very serious if you’d rather play with Gil’s tire than talk about current affairs.”

  I couldn’t look at them, sitting there hoping this could be their shot at catching Eddie’s eye, needing it to be, when I was already in and rising and I’d just talked to a man about throwing it all away. “It is serious.”

  Roth was silent until Terence nudged him. “How can we help?”

  Jesus, these guys. These brothers of mine. I blinked a few times. “If you can, just act like everything’s normal.”

  Gil opened the gym door and saw us huddling around the shade. “Assholes. Where’s the tire? Where’s the sled?”

  “Fuck me. The sled too?” Roth stood and clapped me on the shoulder. “You wanted normal. Misery awaits.”

  I don’t know how long the workout lasted.

  It started with me and Terence taking turns flipping the four-hundred-pound tractor tire, then jumping on, off, while Roth dragged the steel sled with three hundred or so pounds of steel and concrete piled on across the parking lot and back.

  When Roth touched the fence he sprinted over and tagged me, took my place on the tire while I ran to the sled and started pulling. When I got back I tagged Terence, both of us already forcing the jagged asphalt air in and out.

  At the beginning I focused on how the tire carried over to takedown defense, stuffing the shot and lifting, opening my hips and popping the guy back. Then the jump—exploding into a counter, feeling the burn in my lungs and legs and fighting through it, dropping into my stance and sidestepping to keep my feet from getting crushed by the next flip.

  The sled was a grind, weathering a clinch or driving the other guy back, constant tension, working, working.

  After a while I stopped thinking and just worked.

  Flip. Jump. Step.

  Breathe.

  Flip. Yell. Jump. Move.

  Tag. Run. Pull.

  Pull. Dig. If you stop you have to start all over again.

  Sweat in my eyes, burning, boiling in the sun, and heat blasting up from the ground. Squeeze them hard enough to wring it out, spots skittering across the blacktop.

  Chase them.

  Touch. Sprint. Tag somebody, just a hand sticking out.

  Flip. Jump. Scream.

  I couldn’t think about anything and it was beautiful.

  I left the showers feeling good, comfortable. The kind of tired I was used to and liked, instead of Eddie’s brand. He was still at the card table, his laptop screens pinging and flashing.

  Burch was sleeping on the couch with his legs straight, arms tight against his sides, his chest making small dips and rises. No sign of blood or spasms. Denny wasn’t around.

  “You have to go get Vanessa,” Eddie said.

  “And take her where?”

  “Here.”

  Someone in the showers—Roth by the violence of it—blew a snot rocket.

  Eddie jumped. “Jesus.”

  The other nostril went, louder than the first.

  “Vanessa knows she’s coming here?”

  “She just doesn’t want to be alone.”

  “Anybody trying to get into the penthouse?”

  “Not yet. But she says they’re watching it.”

  “How does she know?”

  “Just do it. And Dorian called. Your suits are ready.”

  I thought about the one hanging in Gil’s office, my first: I won’t forget you. What we had. “Do I need them?”

  “They’re paid for. You don’t want them?”

  “Just don’t know when I’ll wear them.”

  From the shower, Roth hawked something that landed with mass.

  “Probably not around here.”

  Eddie leaned back and scrubbed his face. “I’m taking care of what I can online, but there are places I have to show my face. That means you do too.”

  I looked at Burch twitching on the couch. “How soon?”

  “I’m pushing things out. I’ll let you know.”

  “You guys are okay here?”

  “What’s okay anymore?”

  No answer for that. I headed for the back door.

  “Hey, Woody?” Eddie still had his eyes covered. “Don’t bring them back with you.”

  I found Dorian’s place with Eddie’s shitty map drawn on the back of some spreadsheet.

  Dorian opened the door, looked me up and down, shook his head at my sneakers, jeans, T-shirt. “This is offensive. Where’s my baby?” He glanced over my shoulder at my truck idling in the covered parking area. “Never mind. Don’t wear any of my suits while you’re driving that around.”

  He pulled six garment bags off a rod inside the door, handed them t
o me like he was throwing fine china into a landfill.

  “Thanks.”

  “How’s Eddie doing? Looked a little ragged the other day.”

  “He’s okay. Busy.”

  Dorian nodded. “None of my business what you’re dealing with, but take care of him. Even if he is an asshole.”

  “If?”

  I carried the suits to the truck, didn’t want to fold them over in the passenger seat, and they’d have to move for Vanessa anyway. I laid them flat in the truck bed and gently set the spare tire on top to keep them from blowing away. Got in and started to pull around when I saw Dorian still watching from the doorway, peeking through his fingers at my defilement.

  My window was already down, no AC in the truck. “Sorry.”

  He pushed me away with both hands.

  I turned out of the lot and had to stop right away, a line of cars waiting at the light ahead. Almost five on a Monday, business traffic mashing into the tourists, clogging everything up.

  Vanessa knew I was coming but not what time. I checked my own map, a much better sketch on a paper towel. When I got to the light I turned left, away from the Strip and the Golden Pantheon, toward the Law Offices of Argo and Taylor.

  The building was tucked between a four-story parking ramp and a mirrored cube of office suites, those modern structures looking like they’d elbowed in on the Victorian mansion with its thick lawn and wraparound porch draped in ferns.

  Problem was, this part of Vegas had been desert ten years ago. Somebody had spent a lot of new money to look like old money.

  I was parked on a side street, pulled up just enough to see the place around the corner of a cafe. Through the ferns I could see couches and chairs arranged on the porch, cushions with a green and white floral pattern that looked like they hadn’t touched human skin since the movers dropped them in place. The sign on one of the porch pillars was small: Argo and Taylor, Attorneys at Law.

  What did I expect it to say?

  Yakuza, Las Vegas Franchise

  No Solicitors (Excluding Souls)

  I stared at the windows, most of them as big as doors, draped to keep me and the Vegas sun out. I pictured Argo in there somewhere, just a blank face floating above a suit, talking on his phone.

  “He wants to throw the fight with Zombi.”

  Omori, Brandenberg, or a messenger flunky says, “In return for what?”

  “He didn’t say. Wants to meet with me. I told him I’d be in touch.”

  “Do it. See what he has.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I stared at my phone, willing it to ring.

  Waited an hour, carried my phone into the cafe, and got the biggest black coffee they had, strong enough to make my ears twitch.

  No call. The sun started to disappear. People would worry soon, ask me where the hell I’d been. Couldn’t tell them the truth and lying takes a lot of work. I rolled past the mansion, the tall windows leering down at me, small me in my small truck.

  I’d offered to trade the one thing I had of tangible value. Set it on the table and wiped the smudges off. Everything I’d worked for.

  Their response so far: We’ll call.

  Maybe.

  The code scrawled next to Eddie’s map got me into the private lot under the Golden Pantheon, no cars or people waiting inside or trying to dash under the steel door as it dropped behind me.

  I called Vanessa from the phone next to the elevator, watched the lights in the panel drop. The doors slid apart, and the first thing I noticed was she probably hadn’t slept since we’d left for the meeting with Lou. She sat on the pile of luggage in a wrinkled sundress, hair falling out of a ponytail, eyes and the skin around them looking stung.

  The second thing was what she carried.

  “Is that a bazooka?”

  She glanced down at the long tube, capped at both ends, the dull black surface swallowing the fluorescent lights. “I don’t know. Eddie told me to bring it.”

  “For him or Burch?”

  “Can we just go?”

  I took the luggage and the tube—much lighter than expected—and dropped them in the back of the truck around my suits. Carefully. Wanted to peek inside the tube, but if it was Burch’s, the damn thing was probably booby-trapped. I left it alone and got the truck up near the steel door and stopped. “You think they’re watching this place.”

  “Feels like it, yes. But I always feel that way.”

  I saw the small flowers blooming on the back of her neck. Hidden farther down, the snake, watching. Owning.

  “Eddie told me what he and Burch did for you. Not everything, just how they got you out.”

  “Hm. They tell you how I got there in the first place?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry about that.”

  Vanessa picked at the dress on her thigh. “At least they put the tattoo on my back, so sometimes I can forget about it. For a while. But my father—that’s always there. Whether I think about it or not. You know?”

  “Yeah. You know what helps?”

  “What?”

  “Punching people in the face.”

  She tried not to smile. “I’ll have to try that someday.”

  I opened my door, got out. “You know how to drive, right?”

  The steel door slid up and the truck rolled out into the service lot, idled toward the street access then cut right, stopped so the driver’s side of the truck made a sharp angle with the eight-foot concrete wall.

  I was staring at the passenger side from the service hallway of the Golden Pantheon Arena, one eye pressed to a crack in the same door I’d carried Eddie through in a duffel bag after the Burbank fight. One of my favorite door memories.

  I had a light sweat going from the last five minutes—to the elevator, out on the casino floor, bullshitting the security guys who recognized me, finally finding this door and calling Vanessa. She sat out there in the truck with the tinted windows up, engine running.

  Waiting.

  I watched the street outside the lot and wondered what Burch would think about me talking her into the bait bucket. Looking in her eyes, the fear running deep in them like veins in granite, and telling her I would keep her safe. Then putting her out there on the hook to wriggle.

  Hell, I felt like a scumbag. Burch would be right to want to shoot me.

  “Can I help you?”

  I turned and saw a stocky guy in a maroon blazer with a walkie-talkie in his hand. “I’m just waiting for a ride.”

  “Do you work here?”

  “Kinda.” I checked the street again. Cars rolled and people walked past the lot entrance. No sign of what I wanted.

  The security guy snapped his fingers and pointed at me. “You’re Woodshed.”

  “Busted.”

  “Hey, man, great fight. I lost two hundred on you, but still. You need a cab?” He held the walkie-talkie up. The ID badge on his chest said Nestor.

  “Thanks but I’m good. Just don’t want to hang around out there. Groupies.”

  “No shit?” He peeked through the crack, trying to glimpse all the naked women out there clamoring for me. He checked over his shoulder, leaned in. “You need a room, let me know.”

  “My guy.”

  “When’s your next fight?”

  I checked the street again. The hazard lights on my truck started flashing, Vanessa’s cue that she’d had enough. “Not sure. Soon, I hope.”

  “No doubt. And my money’s on you. Man, that kick.”

  I started to push the door open. “My shin hurt for a week after. Can’t imagine how his face felt. Looks like my ride’s here. Nice meeting you.”

  “Same here. Go get ’em.”

  I opened the door and spotted the Japanese guy crossing the street toward the lot entrance. I let the door close to a sliver.

  Nestor walked away, didn’t look back.

  I watched the Japanese guy check left, right, behind for traffic or witnesses. I couldn’t tell where he’d come from or if he was alone. He wore black pants, a blue d
ress shirt, and black sunglasses. Carried a loosely folded map. The only difference between him and the guy Burch had shot into Eddie’s pool was a lack of bullet holes.

  Brothers, maybe twins.

  Great.

  He sped up across the sidewalk and cut the corner around the wall, stepped to the driver’s window. I heard tapping. The truck rocked to the passenger side. I pictured Vanessa falling across the cab to get away from the guy’s face. Maybe a face she knew.

  I crouched and moved toward the tailgate as the guy opened the map and flapped it around. “Can you help me find something?”

  I got to the tailgate, stayed low around to the driver’s side.

  “Anybody in there?” He cupped his right hand next to his face and peered inside. “Oh. Hello, Vanessa.”

  I stepped past the rear wheel and uncoiled out of the crouch, drove my right elbow into the spot where his jaw met his ear. His feet left the ground. His sunglasses snapped off his head, flew over my shoulder. He drifted through the air toward the wall with his toes pointed and I had a moment of satisfaction before he came back to life, planted a hand on the wall, and kicked me in the chest.

  I turned to avoid the full impact, glanced at the truck window, and tried to show a reassuring face to Vanessa. We’re fine out here, all part of the plan.

  I moved in and he kicked me again, a solid shot with his heel to my pelvis.

  Still fine, but that hurt like a motherfucker. I considered the black tube in the truck bed, wondered if he’d stand still long enough for me to extract whatever was inside so I could destroy him with it.

  Nope.

  He shot out of the corner with his right hand and tried to spear rigid fingers into my throat. I slapped his arm to the right and drove in, got my head next to his shoulder, and wrapped my right arm around his neck. Clasped hands behind him and squeezed like I wanted to pop his head off. That would have been fine, but I’d settle for cutting off the blood flow to his brain.

  He went slack, started to twitch, then the truck door slammed into both of us and I had to drop him to keep from leaving most of my face on the concrete wall. I looked back at Vanessa sitting sideways on the driver’s seat, her feet still in the air from kicking the door open.

  “He has a knife,” she said.

  The twitching wasn’t him passing out. He’d been digging the eight-inch dagger out of his belt so he could stick it in my kidney, watch me bleed out. I almost deserved it, going for submissions in a street fight. He was a bit loopy, staring at my knees while he slashed the blade around in front of his face. Probably practiced it every day. I stomped his knee against the pavement. While he was grimacing about that I kicked him in the side of the head, a tight little arc, not too much hip.