Caged Love: MMA Contemporary Suspense (Book One) (2 page)

One Year before UCC 132

T
he darkness probed Nick Maris’ headlights as he cruised along Highway 93 at 90 miles per hour. The thin two-lane road was a bridge cutting through a sea of dirt and shrubs. It was just after midnight and he had the road to himself. His eyes burned and the knot on his shin pulsated with each beat of his heart.

Nick was returning from a Tae Kwon Do tournament in Prescott, Arizona. He took second place in the red belt division. He would’ve liked to have won, but he’d come a long way in a couple years. His younger brother, Bretten, actually got him into combat sports. He was a college baseball player and started training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Nick was a little envious of his brother, but proud of him too. The very next day his team was playing in the championship game and Nick planned on watching it on TV. He wanted to fly out in person, but it was too expensive.

Structure was important for Nick and BJJ and Tae Kwon Do gave it to him. For years he’d been in and out of trouble, burglary, drugs, assault in a bar fight, you name it. Now he was cleaning up though, and oddly enough he was doing so in Sin City. He’d moved to Vegas a year ago and worked as a limo driver for a spell before getting a job as a bouncer at a trendy club. He made enough money to get by, and when he wasn’t working he was training his ass off. A lot of his training partners thought Tae Kwon Do wasn’t as efficient as other combat sports, but he didn’t care. He loved kicking.

Nick glanced at himself in his rearview mirror. His eyes were as red as they felt, and his dark hair was a mess. Even the light gray scar above his right eye, the result of a bottle upside the head, seemed to droop with fatigue.

As he looked away from the mirror he noticed that he was racing up on a car on the shoulder. He swerved to the middle of the road and slowed to 80 as he passed. It was a nice Chrysler 300, and apparently abandoned. Nick guessed the driver was pissed that his car had broken down out here. At least it was just 15 minutes outside of Boulder City.

Nick kept his Toyota Celica at 80 as he rounded a slight bend. His headlights showed a rocky hill that butted up to the right shoulder. Then he noticed that something resembling a fat snake was draped across the asphalt, except it was shining in the beam of the headlights.

Nick tried to swerve, but the object was too close. He hit it and his right front tire blew. Then his back right tire exploded. The car pulled hard to the right and Nick already had it aimed in that direction as he went around the bend. He pushed hard on the brakes, but was going too fast.

The right side of the Celica hit the rock wall at 30 mph and bounced off of it before coming to a stop. The impact jolted Nick even though he was wearing his seatbelt. He didn’t think he hit his head, but it was throbbing.

He released his death grip on the steering wheel and climbed out. He rubbed his head and felt for blood. Just a little bit on the left side, nothing serious. Nick started to walk around the car to check the damage. His leg now hurt all over, not just his shin. Then he heard something behind him. He turned and a gloved fist slammed into his jaw. Nick fell, his head careening off the side view mirror. He was dazed, not unconscious. Then a booted foot slammed into his ribs. The air drained from his lungs and he gasped.

He rolled to his side, hands up, looking for his attacker. He was kicked again, this time in the chest. A car had pulled up behind his, but it stayed on the asphalt. Nick hoped it was the police. Instead it looked like the Chrysler he’d just passed. Someone approached, and Nick pushed his back up against his car in an effort to get up. Another kick to the chest and he groaned in agony.

Two men squatted down. Through blurry vision Nick saw a bald-headed man and a man with short blonde hair. They looked vaguely familiar. “You got us on a dark road mother fucker,” the blonde guy said.

The statement didn’t make sense. “Don’t remember us?” the bald one asked.

Nick wiped blood off his face and shook his head. “The club, last week,” the bald one said.

It came back to him. He was off last week, but hanging out at the club. These two were there and acting like asses. The blonde guy bumped into him and despite doing better with his life, Nick still didn’t back down from anyone. They briefly exchanged words. “You’re lucky we’re not on a country road,” Nick had said. “I’d stomp your ass.”

As if the bald guy read his mind, he said, “You’re not stomping shit are you.”

Then the blonde punched Nick again and looped something over his head. Nick realized that it was some kind of wire. He reached for it. The wire cut into his fingers and he was punched in the stomach. He doubled over and tried to roll. He could feel the wire against the bone of his fingers.

He fought to keep it off his neck, but the blonde guy was strong. The man adjusted and grunted as he pulled. The wire sunk into Nick’s flesh. Nick felt the warm blood spilling from his neck and his breath came in rasps.

This just didn’t make sense. A brief confrontation that wasn’t a big deal and now he was fighting for his life. He couldn’t have known that these two were sociopaths who liked to kill.

The man strained as he pulled with everything he had. Nick fought until his eyes rolled back into his head. His last thought was of his brother playing in the World Series, and then his body went limp.

The man smiled as he continued to apply pressure. The wire was a half inch deep by the time Nick’s heart contracted for one final beat.

T
he club’s security tapes weren’t great, but good enough for Detective Mitch Westingham to go through. He adjusted his lanky frame in his worn gray chair and saw the 26-year-old muscular man who just days earlier was found dead a hundred yards off Highway 93 with his neck ripped up. The Crime Scene Investigators thought it was a body dump at first, but then found paint and chunks of tire just south of the Willow Road turn off. Then they found more chunks along Willow Road itself. This led to a blue Toyota Celica in the Colorado River. It was just a few feet under water.

The body was found in Arizona, but Westingham was working with them because the car was in the Colorado River and Nick Maris was a resident of Las Vegas.

Soon the story was clear. Somebody had killed Nick right on the shoulder of the road. Two sets of footprints were found, and one left deep impressions in the dirt as a man had carried Nick’s body up the slope and out of sight. Detective Westingham thought,
must be a strong guy to haul that much weight
.

It appeared that while the body was being carried, the other man had driven the crashed Celica the couple miles down Willow Road and then eased it into the river.

Westingham ran a freckled hand over his stubbly chin and watched the video. He’d requested every night on which Maris had worked over the last month. Maris was in and out of the shot, mostly just walking around the giant club. Every so often he’d talk to a pretty girl and even less often break up a little skirmish. Nothing serious, but Westingham had made notes to track down a few guys. He guessed they were just overzealous tourists high on booze and the Vegas nightlife. If this was the case they probably weren’t even in the area on the night Maris was killed.

After hours of video, Westingham made a few trips to the club and made the necessary calls. He was able to track down a couple of the club goers, one from Seattle and another from Milwaukee. Neither was still in Vegas at the time of the murder.

The killing seemed random, yet premeditated. The Crime Scene Investigators had turned up very little. They could tell Westingham the type of boots the guys were wearing, that they used a homemade spike strip to blow out the tires, that they were wearing gloves, and that whoever strangled Nick Maris with the wire didn’t hesitate a bit. He enjoyed it or he’d done it before.

No blood except for Maris’ was found at the scene, no hair, no prints. There were no second set of tire tracks and no witnesses either. It was a long shot to find a connection at Maris’ club, and Westingham had run through other possible connections. He talked with the guys at the gym where Maris trained, and even his old employer at the limo service. Nothing.

After six weeks he seemed completely out of leads. Detective Westingham stood next to his desk, his hands shoved in his pockets and his red head bent as he stared at the photo of a dead Nick Maris in the Arizona day. He hated it, but it looked as if this case might go unsolved. It certainly wouldn’t be the first. He’d keep it open, but it would go in a pile of cases that were open and unsolved.

He knew he couldn’t find every murderer, but pictured himself calling the family and telling them in his best Humphrey Bogart voice that he’d solved the case and the men were behind bars. Instead, when he called he spoke in his regular voice and told the family much different news.

Eight Months before UCC 132

K
orean Air flight 738 nonstop from Chicago to Seoul, Korea waited on O’Hare International Airport’s crowded tarmac. A crackly Asian voice broke the hum of the engines. “We are currently fifth in line for takeoff,” the speaker cut off for a moment, “we will be in the air in fifteen minute. I apologize for the early delay...routine engine maintenance.”

Bretten thrust his head back against the worn seat cloth. He placed his hands over his face and rubbed his temples with his index fingers. The delay of which the captain spoke made him nervous. He hated planes and remembered some reassuring statistics regarding flying he’d found on
Wikipedia
, but it didn’t ease the stress. Taking the fight was easy, and win or lose it would be easier than the journey across the Pacific.

The fight was easy to take because Bretten had to find his place. Fighting was it, he thought. There were big gyms where he could train and really make a go of it. He desperately needed that because he feared that after losing his brother he could spin out of control. A big fight gave him a better chance at a big gym.

He’d said fuck it when it came to being the hero. When younger, his older brother was always in and out of trouble. He was arrested a handful of times and it put a lot of stress on the family. His parents decided they needed to go to family counseling. Bretten thought it was a crappy idea. He was 14 and living his life, he didn’t need any bullshit counseling.

The scrawny counselor with his long face and uneven beard talked to the family at length in his droning voice. He gave them all labels and Bretten was called the hero. He got good grades, stayed out of trouble, tried to keep the family from struggling. He didn’t want to be the hero, but the title stayed with him like a cinder block on his narrow shoulders.

He didn’t feel like a hero a year later. After a high school football game he got in a fight. It was a stupid thing. He was jawing back and forth with a guy he knew, nothing serious. Then it turned serious and Bretten was in a fight he didn’t want to be in. He got his ass kicked badly and was half conscious when the police showed up.

After two days in the hospital and way too much sympathy from his parents, the “hero” decided he wanted to learn how to fight. He got into a local kickboxing class and did it for two years. He was good, even won a tournament, but never needed to use his skill in a real fight. Then he drifted away from kickboxing to concentrate on the sport he had a shot of playing in college, baseball.

The last time he was on a plane was because of baseball. Four months earlier he was with his college team, Davenport University. They were flying home from Montgomery, Alabama where they played in the NCAA Division II World Series and his team marched through the bracket to reach the finals.

Bretten roamed center field and batted third in the lineup. He’d had a stellar tournament at the plate and in the eighth inning against the University of Tampa he hit a homerun that landed well beyond the left field fence. Almost made it to the Oakwood Annex Cemetery, not far from where Hank Williams Sr. is buried. It had also given his squad the lead for good and a spot in the championship game.

The following day Bretten laced up his baseball spikes and pulled on his cap for one last time. His team grabbed an early lead, only to give it up then regain it again. The two high-powered offenses went back and forth until the bottom of the ninth inning. Davenport University clung to a one run lead with two outs and runners on second and third. Bretten dug his spikes into the centerfield grass, squinted toward home plate and said under his breath, “Hit it my way, I want the last out.”

He got his wish. The next pitch was ripped into the right-centerfield gap. He got a great break on the ball and gave chase. He was there without having to dive as it held up in the Alabama wind. He heard his right fielder say, “You’ve got room.” And Bretten closed his glove around the baseball.

Except he didn’t. The ball hit off the heel of his glove. He saw it tumble toward the damp grass, and with it hopes of living up to that old hero label. The sure-handed centerfielder committed only three errors all season, but this one would sting for a long time. He’d had a great career, one that would make most athletes proud, but in the end he failed. In his mind that dropped ball showed exactly what he was feeling, he wasn’t a damn hero.

It was after that last plane ride when Bretten got the terrible news. His mom called and she was in tears. He remembered how the lump formed in his throat as she cried while telling him that his big brother had been killed. They hadn’t been close for years, but recently Nick had been doing better. They’d been talking much more and he even wanted to come to the World Series. Bretten always looked up to him despite his troubles. Then he found out his brother was gone. He remembered his last conversation just a week earlier. “I’m so proud of you, Bretten,” Nick had said. “I always knew you would do big things.”

“Thanks,” Bretten replied. “I’m proud of you too.”

As Flight 738 now zipped along at 550 miles per hour some thirty six thousand feet above Canada, Bretten thought of his brother and how senseless his death was. The anger swelled. He’d traded in his baseball career for another one, mixed martial arts, and Nick was a big part of the reason why.

The transition was fast. Two weeks after the error in the World Series and ten days after Nick’s funeral Bretten piled into the car with three of his teammates. Their destination was a local “Mixed Fight Competition”.

* * *

Bretten fell in love with the sport two years prior when his roommates and he ordered his first pay-per-view, UCC 86
Seek and Destroy
. As the fighters engaged, Blake, the team’s shortstop, said repeatedly, “Kick him in the head.”

And each time, Timmy Stanton, a squirrelly and funny left-handed pitcher responded, “Yeah, or in the balls, face or balls.”

The ring girl came out between rounds with a skimpy bikini covering her tight body. “You see that, she looking right at me,” Timmy said. “She can feel my presence right through the TV screen and she wants to get a piece of the Stan.”

Blake laughed. “What would you do with her Timmah, throw her a weak-ass curve ball?”

The group howled at the remark. “You can’t hit it dickhead,” Timmy said.

“And you can’t hit that, if you know what I mean,” Blake pointed to the ring girl as she sat down and blew a kiss to the camera.

This time the howls were even louder, almost as loud as each time a fighter landed a big punch or when blood began to spill.

Everyone except Bretten screamed for the violence. He wasn’t into all the hoopla surrounding the event, not even the hot ring girl, but the courage and skill of the fighters grabbed his attention. He watched their technique, the way they moved, how they worked for position. He recognized the amount of effort and concentration the cage commanded. A drop in effort or a slip in concentration resulted in very real consequences.

Bretten read as much as he could about mixed martial arts and bought a DVD and then found a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu gym. Each time he headed to what looked like an old abandon warehouse, his baseball coach’s words bounced in his head. “You boys keep your asses healthy, no motorcycles, pickup basketball games, roughhousing, no crap that might get you hurt during the season. And Stanton you’d better start jerking off with your right hand.”

His coach didn’t specifically point out BJJ, and the bit about Stanton made Bretten laugh, but he guessed the man would lose his mind if he learned of the new hobby. Luckily he never found out.

The Mixed Fight Competition was held in the community gymnasium. The fighting surface was marked off by a wrestling mat and a green one-foot-tall padded border that every so often read in faded crackling yellow, Border Patrol.

Bretten’s stomach rumbled. He looked at the dirty concession stand and despite fears of Botulism or Salmonella, grabbed a couple hot dogs. He returned to his seat, two dogs with mustard and relish in hand. “Dude, you’ve been training in BJJ right?” Blake asked.

Bretten plopped down and took a chomp of the lukewarm dog. “Yeah...why?”

“I swear I’m not lying, they just had a fighter drop out and need a replacement, I told them I thought I had one.”

“Me, are you out of your mind?” Bretten said. “BJJ without worrying about getting punched in the head is a little different than
this
.” He made a sweeping motion around the gymnasium and almost dropped his second dog in the process.

“It pays fifty bucks,” Blake said. “You could call yourself a professional fighter and I’ve got some shorts in my trunk.”

“Fifty bucks, what if I get hurt, who’s going to pay the medical bill?”

Blake stormed off and Bretten watched as he talked to a couple of guys across the gym. Upon his return he said, “One hundred dollars, they have a doc on hand, and your medical bills will be covered up to five hundred bucks. I know you won’t need them though.”

Bretten was surprised at his response, “What the hell, I’ll do it.”

Maybe he was looking for punishment, or a chance at living up to that now almost ten-year-old moniker of hero. Or more likely he was saying fuck being a hero and he wanted to start over by punching and kicking his past into oblivion. He wanted to punish somebody for his brother’s murder since the killers had not been found. He needed a new beginning and maybe the fight offered it.

One hot dog, three signatures, a quick doctor checkup, and twenty minutes later Bretten found himself behind a curtain in the corner of the gym. He supposed his opponent was behind the opposite curtain, the guy he hadn’t even thought about to this point. Blake stepped through the makeshift wall. “You ready?”

Bretten got up from doing a few pushups, grabbed a jump rope. “Give me a minute man.”

“Alright, a minute man,” and disappeared.

One minute later the men stood behind the curtain and heard the announcer. “Introducing, in his first professional fight, weighing in at one hundred seventy three pounds, Bretten “Minuteman” Maris!”

Bretten shot a sideways glance at Blake. “Minuteman?”

“Hey, you came up with it.”

Bretten, wrinkled shorts and all, stepped over the Border Patrol barrier and was in the arena of combat. An oversized boom box sitting on the first row of bleachers burst to life with ominous music. A man with a southern twang started singing about the Mississippi River and the stock market. The fans went nuts. Bretten couldn’t place the song at first. Then it came to him,
Country Boy Can Survive
by Hank Williams Jr. It caught him as rather ironic that two weeks earlier he’d hit a baseball within a hundred yards of Hank Williams Senior’s grave. Bretten hopped around a little, shook his arms, threw some punches at the air, and waited.

A pimple-faced kid in cutoff jean shorts and a tank top turned a knob on the boom box and Hank Williams Jr. sang at a more docile level. “And in the red corner,” the announcer said, “your hometown hero, with an amateur record of 9-1 and a professional record of 5-0, weighing in at a solid one hundred ninety one pounds, Bobby “Bone Crusher” Baker!”

A muscled up farm boy jumped the border, and the two hundred or so fans once again went wild. “Bone Crusher” Baker tromped by Bretten and gave him a push. “I’m gonna pummel you.”

Bretten turned to Blake, who shrugged and mouthed, “Sorry.”

The music continued. Now Hank sang about spitting beechnut into somebody’s eye.

A man in a gray t-shirt stepped between them. “Get after it,” he said.

A bell sounded, and with the encouragement of his beer-drinking buddies, Bobby Baker charged.

He threw numerous looping overhand punches. Bretten’s feet felt glued to the mat, but just in time he back pedaled and turned to the right. Baker struggled to stop his momentum so Bretten threw a right hand into the farm boy’s ear. He wobbled to the side and then let out a guttural scream and dove. Fortunately, his BJJ kicked in and Bretten locked Baker in a tight Guillotine choke around his neck.

Baker, strong as a bull and red faced, pulled out of the choke to the delight of the crowd. But its joy was short lived. Baker gathered for another charge and Bretten unleashed a snapping left jab. Baker’s nose split. Bretten then delivered another perfectly timed shot. Baker howled and tried to throw a wild right hand. Bretten was too fast, and punished him with punch after punch.

The idiotic counselor, the beating after the football game, the kickboxing, the dropped fly ball, the murder of his brother, all of it flashed through Bretten’s head. He cocked his right hand intent on inflicting serious pain on Baker. He blasted him with it and dropped him with a left hook to the jaw. Both Baker and his cheap mouthpiece tumbled through the air and crashed to the floor at the exact same time. Bretten followed him to the ground, punched once and started to punch again, but the ref pulled him off.

Everyone in the gym stood in shock. Bretten glanced at Blake then raised his arms in triumph. Normally so laid back and not wanting to hurt anybody, Bretten was surprised by this side of him, and he needed to have this feeling again.

Bretten “Minuteman” Maris had found his calling.