The weigh-ins on Friday started early with a fan expo at the Golden Pantheon Arena, sponsor tables manned by Warrior fighters and lines of fans hopping up and down to get a photo.
“Choke me.”
“Can you punch me in the face?”
“Like you did to Corman, the knee to the ear.”
Everybody smiling, nobody’s teeth covered in blood. It was pretty nice. I stood in a corner with Gil and felt mildly racist for putting hard eyes on all the Japanese guys walking around.
“You’re scaring people,” Gil said.
I rolled my shoulders out and stopped squinting. Put on a nice face and looked over the crowd in time to see a man cutting a path toward us. Baseball cap, slight build, head down. I spotted the lower half of his face. Asian for sure, possibly Japanese.
I handed my bottle of water to Gil.
The baseball cap was twenty feet away.
Ten.
It tilted up.
Thirteen-year-old kid, maybe fifteen. He pushed an event poster and a Sharpie into my hands. To occupy them?
“You charge, bro?” SoCal accent.
I checked him over.
He checked me back, glanced at Gil. “Uh, for your autograph?”
It didn’t feel like a trap. “No.”
“Not yet,” Gil said.
I hovered the Sharpie over a blank spot on the poster while I thought of something to write.
“Just your name, man. I don’t need any affirmations.”
I signed it.
“Thanks. Wait, what’s this say?”
“Aaron Wallace.”
He considered it. “Can you—?”
I slashed Woodshed over my name, spun the poster back to him.
When he was gone Gil said, “You gotta relax. That kid thought you were gonna elbow him in the neck.”
“Nah.”
“Have we been here long enough?”
“Lady from Warrior said two hours. What’s it been?”
Gil checked his watch. “Twenty minutes.”
“Jesus. Let’s get out of here.”
We hugged the wall to an exit, which dumped us into the part of the arena they had curtained off for the weigh-ins. Security had the doors roped but recognized me or the fighter credentials around my neck. The production crew was running around tilting lights and checking sound.
Davie Benton spotted us and headed over. He did color commentary for Warrior broadcasts and hosted the weigh-ins. His red hair looked a foot high and his muttonchops were dyed black, possibly to mourn themselves.
“Gil, Woody, welcome back. What gives, man? You pull the biggest upset of the year, and Eddie has you fighting some no-name at the bottom of the card?”
“Thank you,” Gil said.
“Right on. Just seems like bad business. You got some heat going. He should be jumping you in line for a title shot.”
“Quite a few guys been working their way up to that. I don’t want to cut anybody out.”
“My man, rather knock ’em out, right? People are talking though. A fight between you and the Coroner? Don’t blink.”
The heavyweight champ was a slab of granite from Eastern Europe who’d served as a mortician in the Soviet Army. Gil and I had talked about the matchup and decided by the time I got a title shot—if it ever happened—the Coroner could be vanquished, even retired. It wasn’t worth the anxiety yet.
I asked Davie, “Heard anything about Zombi?”
“Not much. He’s a bit of an enigma—that’s what I’m gonna say on air, enigma—but it came down from Eddie this guy won’t be around long, so don’t hype him too much. Question is, why is he here at all?”
“You ask Eddie that?”
“When would I? Guy’s been a fucking ghost lately. We had a meeting last week about something big, I mean, big, an overseas event. He shows up on a computer screen, video chatting from some place looked like a bomb shelter. Cheap-ass Warrior banner behind him, acoustics all fucked up.”
“He around now?” I said.
“Somewhere. Look for the gang of hotel security. But don’t plan on talking to him. He’s got some British asshole giving everybody the pointy finger. ‘Fack off, mate.’”
Hard to pretend I didn’t know that was a dead-on Burch.
Then the real thing walked through the door leading a crowd of blazered security, a blue faux hawk in the middle somewhere.
Burch pointed at me. “You. Over here.”
Davie said, “See what I mean?”
Burch still looked rough. Waxy with dark circles under his eyes, which were too shiny and sucked back into his head. He secured Eddie in his nest of casino security below the stage and left him talking to a sweaty guy wearing a headset.
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.”
“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.”
“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.