Suckerpunch: (2011) (26 page)

“Where are you?”

“Passing the country club near Desert Inn.”

“Fuck, hurry.”

“I know.” I had to brake for a car turning right and almost clipped the rear bumper cranking around and pushing my speed up.

“Is Jairo with you?”

“Yeah, right here.”

“Is everyone okay?”

“More or less.” Probably better to let Gil see Jairo’s wound than mention he’d been slightly shot.

Gil said, “I got Javier and Edson here with me; they’re about ready to chew through the walls. Where have you guys been?”

“Man, I don’t even know where to start. I thought we were close to her, but things got out of hand.”

“Jesus. What is this? How did this happen?”

“I know. It’s bad. I gotta go. I’m at Flamingo and it’s snarled up.” I shut the phone, dropped it in the cup holder and turned right on red, despite the traffic turning left from the northbound lanes.

Jairo held tight and said, “What’s going on?”

I bobbed and weaved through traffic and told him what I knew. That took seven seconds. Then I told him what I was pretty damn sure about. Ten minutes into it we skidded to a stop in the service area behind the Golden Pantheon Casino.

A guy in a black security coat tried to intercept us halfway to the door. “Slow down. You got a pass to park there?”

We swept past him on either side, and he went for Jairo’s sleeve before seeing what was smeared on it. “All right, hey—”

“Take it up with Eddie,” I said.

He started talking into a radio as Jairo and I went through a big metal door into the service corridor that ran beneath the arena. I looked left and saw signs for the casino and hotel so I turned right and went blind.

A cameraman stuck a white light into my face and started walking backward as I stumbled toward him.

Jairo put one hand up to shield his eyes and tried to grab the camera with the other.

“Don’t do that,” the cameraman said. It wasn’t the same guy who’d interviewed me and Gil at the gym.

“Which way to the prep rooms?” I asked. I still couldn’t see anything, but I wanted to at least be fumbling in the right direction.

The cameraman said, “Goddamn, what’ve you two been doing? Wrestling pigs?”

“Which way?”

“Behind me. Can you walk slower?”

I shielded my eyes and looked around him and noticed a group of suits farther down the corridor. “Eddie.”

The cameraman scurried backward and pivoted to his right to capture everyone in the shot.

My eyes worked again, and I saw Banzai Eddie staring at me. If Kendall had called and warned him that I knew he was involved with Marcela somehow, he’d run. Maybe trip Benjamin and leave him behind to get more time. Instead, he dismissed the suits except for Benjamin and the two of them walked toward us.

I said to Jairo, “Don’t do anything yet.”

When Eddie was close he glanced at the cameraman. “There’s no sound on that, right?”

“Just pictures.”

Eddie turned on me, all smiles and shoulder claps, but his voice came through his teeth in a hiss. “Brah, what the fuck? You think I need this? You think I need
you?”
He used a handshake to pull me next to him and spun his body so we were side by side walking down the corridor, the cameraman in front of us with the spotlight in my eyes.

Behind us, I heard Benjamin ask Jairo, “What’s that smell? Is that you? Is that
blood?”

I looked at Eddie like I was going to eat his face.

He pointed at the camera and said, “Don’t give me that look. This is piped onto the big screens, so fucking behave yourself. Listen.”

The sound of the crowd welled and rolled down the corridor from somewhere ahead. The ceiling shook with stomping feet and heavy bass.

“Every time we show you or Burbank the place goes ape shit. You know how hard it was to put this together? Any idea? And you come strolling in here at seven goddamn forty-five? All dirty and
moist?
I got a long memory, and I hold grudges like they’re fucking stock in Google.”

“That’s true,” Benjamin said from behind me. “You better listen.”

“You remember where you were two days ago?” Eddie said. “I can make that seem like a vacation.”

Eddie jabbered away. I blocked him out to keep from committing murder on live TV. I tried to look past the camera’s spotlight. The corridor made a circle around the perimeter of the arena, and I could see only forty yards ahead before the curve cut my line of sight. I scanned the sparse security guys and entourages but didn’t see Gil.

Eddie was saying something about validating his concerns. We passed two closed doors; there were pieces of paper taped up with names of fighters written in black marker. I heard mitt work and music coming through the doors. The next door was open and the prep room was quiet; it belonged to one of the guys out in the cage.

The camera light went off. “Thanks, Mr. Takanori. Got it.” The cameraman spun and hustled away.

Eddie jabbed a finger at the floor. “You want to disrespect me? Here’s what happens—”

Enough of that shit. I grabbed him by the back of his belt and his blue silk tie and carried him through the door. Straight across from the doorway was a low leather couch. I turned Eddie horizontal and heaved him into the cushions. He bounced off and landed on the floor and rolled. I stopped him faceup by putting my foot on his throat.

The door closed. I looked back. Jairo had Benjamin in a one-armed rear naked choke; the other arm was holding the napkins, which sagged with blood. Benjamin kicked and pulled on Jairo’s arm with everything he had.

Jairo locked the door with his free hand and nodded at me. “Take your time.”

I looked down. “Where’s Marcela?”

“Get the fuck off me!” Eddie thrashed and tried to kick me.

I caught his foot near my waist and levered it toward his head. His leg was short and inflexible. “Where is she?”

“I can’t
breathe.”

“I’m not even putting weight on you.”

Eddie started to gurgle.

“Jesus.” I took my foot off his throat. He gasped like a man saved from drowning. I dropped down and put a knee in his belly. He grunted and tried to sit up. I got a handful of his faux hawk and kept him down. Put my face a few inches from his.

Eddie licked his lips. “I’m in pain,” he said. Like he was surprised at how it felt.

“Where is she?”

He brought his hands up to hit or push me, then folded them on his chest and was ready to have a conversation. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“Kendall took her last night. Where?”

Eddie’s eyes popped. “How do you know Kendall?”

“You first.”

“Shit. Ah, can you get off me? Can I just sit down on the couch?”

“I’m comfortable like this.”

He took a breath. “I owed some people money. A lot of money. I knew Kendall from other transactions, and he offered to buy the debt. Pay it off for me. In return, he wanted a sure thing on a big fight, something he could cash in on through his sports book.”

Eddie licked his lips again. “That sure thing is you.”

I heard a thump behind me. Turned and saw Benjamin in a heap on the floor, snoring softly.

Jairo shrugged. “He wouldn’t stay still.”

I turned back to Eddie. “How am I a sure thing to win?”

Eddie frowned. “Win?”

“Kendall bet on me to knock Burbank out.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“He took Marcela and Lance hostage last night and said if I didn’t win by knockout they were both dead.”

Eddie gaped. “He did
what?
First of all, I don’t know any Marcela. Second—”

“But you know Lance?”

“Skinny guy, kind of greasy?”

“That’s him.”

“He works for Kendall.”

I said, “As in, places bets through him?”

“As in, is on his payroll.”

I had let Lance fool me. I wanted to kick myself in the face. If I thought about it too long I’d actually try. “Go on.”

Eddie said, “I have no idea why Kendall would seek you out, let alone say he bet on you to win.” He blinked a few times. “Actually, I do know. He’s a crazy fucking cowboy lunatic. And he’s going to get us all killed. Dammit. Why did I let him in on this?”

It was rhetorical, but I wanted the answer. “Why did you?”

“I told you, he offered to buy my debt.”

“How’d you fuck up so bad a guy like Kendall was your bailout?”

“Hey, man,” Eddie said, “everybody owes somebody.”

“So you’d rather owe him than . . . who?”

“Some bad folks. You don’t know them.”

“Tezo?” I asked.

Eddie looked at me like I was levitating. “Tezo? How the fuck—no, not him, but how do you know Tezo?”

“Can you smell me?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“If that doesn’t explain it, you’re lucky,” I said. Eddie didn’t mention Tezo had also bet on me to lose. One thing at a time. “Who did you owe?”

Eddie closed his eyes. “The Yakuza.”

Jairo gave a low whistle at the door. He was impressed, which impressed me. Japan and Brazil are closely connected in the fighting world, and that means money. And money means organized crime. The Arcoverdes had dealt with the Yakuza before, and every time Edson started talking about it, Javier and Jairo shut him down.

I said, “All right, I can see why you’d rather owe Kendall than the Yakuza. But there had to be other options.”

“I can’t believe I’m getting lectured by the fucking Swamp Thing.”

I thumped his head against the floor. Lightly. Sort of. “I’m not lecturing you; I’m trying to figure out how this fits together so I can take it apart. Why Kendall?”

Eddie let out a breath. “Because guys like him, they don’t last. He doesn’t have any discipline. He does shit for the thrill, not the profit. He’s lasted longer than anyone thought, but he’s going to end up in a hole in the desert or thrown off the Hoover Dam eventually.”

“Hopefully before you have to pay him back.”

Eddie shrugged.

I didn’t know what to say or do. I took some weight off Eddie, but he didn’t try to squirm away.

He said, “Listen, man, whatever Kendall’s been up to, it’s all him. Yeah, I put you in this fight hoping—shit,
knowing
—you’ll lose, but kidnapping? Murder? That’s not my style. I’m all business.”

“Funny, that’s what Kendall said.”

“Yeah, well, his business is being crazy. Mine isn’t.”

“Call him.”

Eddie fished his phone out. “Can I sit up?”

“No.”

He held the phone in front of his face and found Kendall’s number. Cleared his throat and sniffed a few times while it rang. And rang. “No answer.”

I took the phone and waited for it to go to voice mail. It didn’t. Just kept ringing. I closed the phone and gave it back to Eddie. Overall, I believed him. He screamed a little when I hauled him upright and sat him on the couch, but he recovered quickly to smooth his tie and hair and watch me pace.

“So he bet on me to lose?”

“Just like everybody else,” Eddie said. “But a lot more than most.”

“But why all this? Why the ruse with Lance, why Marcela, and why tell me to win by KO or they’re dead?”