Triad Death Match (6 page)

The drum beat again, and Bolo advanced across the ring, fists ready.

"Shit." Jack got up and followed Jane out the back exit from the stage. He ran down the dark corridor and found her alone in the dressing room, cell phone in hand. She was staring at the phone's screen, as if trying to decide who to call.

"What the fuck are you going to do?" Jack asked.
 

"Fuck this," she said. "I'm calling in Dockery. There's enough going down here for us to bring in the troops and tear this shit down. I'm not just going to sit back and watch Chen die."

She pushed a few buttons and raised the phone to her ear. "Doc," she said when someone answered. "We got big problems here."
 

But Jack knew there was no way the Feds could get enough soldiers through that thin alley, past the Zanzibar door and down into the arena, to do shit about the fight. Jane went on explaining, but Jack had another idea.

He pulled out his own phone and scrolled through the names. It was a long shot, he knew, but maybe they would already be downtown, checking out the strippers at one of the clubs in North Beach, able to get here in time.

He pushed enter when he got to Vlade's name and the phone started to dial. Vlade would be with Niki, and maybe the two of them could do enough to at least disrupt the situation.

Vlade's phone rang, and Jack listened to the sound. He counted three rings. Jane was clearly still explaining herself to her superior. It wasn't going well; frustration showed on her face.

 
"No, what I'm saying– " She got cut off, tried butting in again, got cut off, and finally decided just to listen. Jack watched her mouth the word
fuck
three times in succession.

Vlade's voicemail picked up, and Jack echoed Jane's sentiment out loud.

Niki would be with Vlade. And Niki was guaranteed to answer his phone.

Jack scrolled back to Niki's name, thinking he should have just called him first. He hit
send
and brought the phone to his ear, glad already to hear it ring.

"Yes, hello?" It was Niki's voice. Music to Jack's ears.

Five

"Yes, hello?"

"Niki. It's Jack."

"Jack Palms, my man. How can we help the brother out?"

"Where are you?"
 

"Club of the Larry Flint. I watch, I wait, and Vlade is in back room, getting on the red carpet."

"That's red carpet treatment, homes."

"No, the red carpet. He like the girl with the–"

In front of Jack, Jane Gannon paced the fighter's locker room underneath the lone bulb. Her face told a story of rejection: Dockery was chewing her out for getting too far in with her rogue investigation of the Triads and their Death Match. But Jack didn't care. None of the Feds would like how this turned out, so the less they knew the better. It was good if they didn't show up at all.

As Jane flipped her phone closed, Jack mouthed Vlade's name to her.
 

"Oh, no!" she said, shaking her head. "No way! I'd rather deal with this myself."

Jack held up his hand, mimed slitting his own throat. "Niki, we got a need for you two to help us deal with some Triads up Chinatown."

"Is that close?"

"Very," said Jack, following up with his best explanation of where they were and how to get there.

"Well then we can–"

"Not after Vlade gets finished with his lap dance! We need you here now. Let Vlade get his nut on later. Or just come alone."
 

Jane started out of the room, heading back toward the stage. Jack heard a chorus of cheers.
 

"A man's life depends on this," said Jack .
 

When Jack got back to the stage, he saw Chen had started to fight back. He was blocking some of Bolo's punches instead of taking them all full-on with his head. But he was still far from one hundred percent.

And yet Bolo still moved casually, toying with Chen instead of inflicting real damage. It was like he knew Chen's drugs would wear off and he wanted to wait for an honest fight. He took his time, crept in and out of range, peppering Chen's front leg with kicks and occasionally taking a shot at Chen's head.
 

If Bolo fought like this against him, Jack could stand in for a while. He knew enough of what to do. But he also knew this fighter wouldn't waste his time waiting for Jack to improve. The dramatic turn-around wouldn't come; this was no Rocky movie. Big Bolo would send Jack out on a stretcher, peeled off the canvas of the ring, sand still stuck in his skin.

Standing at the edge of the stage, Mr. Ruby started the crowd into a rhythmic hand clap that picked up speed as it went. The big drum overhead joined in on the ones and twos, and the crowd started to whistle and cheer. Soon they might turn against Bolo, lose patience with waiting for the carnage they'd come to see.

A gong rang to end the round.
 

Chen retreated to his corner and sat on a small stool that an attendant produced. There were no corner men in this sport, just a short break for the fighters to catch their breath. Chen's chest heaved, while Bolo took long, measured breaths through his nose, his shoulders rising and falling as he did.

Jack wanted to go down and talk to Chen, coach him to stay out of Bolo's reach, wave smelling salts under his nose–anything. But two bouncers came up alongside Jack as he stepped toward the edge of the stage. He looked up and around the arena at the eager faces: row after row of men holding tickets, smoking, talking, waving their fists. Even with Niki, this was not going to be an easy crowd to tame. Maybe they'd be better off with the police.

The gong beat again, and Bolo popped onto his feet. Chen stood slowly and started to backpedal around the ring as Bolo approached him. Chen moved as well as could be expected on the sand, his left calf and thigh swollen to twice their normal size. Bolo lunged forward to kick out Chen's front leg, and Chen leapt over the kick. Bolo came again, and this time Chen only got his front leg out of the way. When Bolo hit his back calf, Chen went down for a moment and toppled sideways. In a second he was able to push himself up. But by then it was too late.

In the second Chen had taken to right himself, Bolo leapt forward with his right hand cocked beside his ribs. He lunged and delivered, splitting Chen's nose open with a wicked straight punch. Chen fell back onto both hands, his face covered in blood, and Bolo kept on. He kicked Chen's feet out from under him and fell onto his chest, straddling the smaller man.
 

As if someone had cued him to end the fight, Bolo started to unload. Immediately, Jack heard Jane scream. He didn't need to look to know it was her; she was the only woman in the house.
 

Bolo's right arm pumped up and down like a piston in an Indy car, methodically beating what was left of Chen's nose, cheeks, and eyes into the sand. When Bolo finally stood up, he had destroyed Chen's face and whatever was left of his soul.
 

Bolo shook out his right hand, scattering drops of blood across the ring. He turned toward the stage and bowed once to Mr. Ruby. The crowd cheered as though they'd finally lost the last bit of sanity in their collective mind.
 

Jane looked down at the stage, Mr. Ruby standing over her, clapping in time with the crowd. Bolo bowed at all four corners of the ring, then stepped down. He crossed to the stage and climbed up to stand next to Mr. Ruby, where he took a final bow and then turned to leave.

As he did, he gave a slow nod to Jack, a look in his eye like he wanted Jack to be next.
 
Jack was no lunatic; he knew he'd never last a round with Bolo. He doubted even Niki or a healthy Freeman would stand a chance.
 

Then Niki was across the arena, standing at the top of the rows, just at the bottom of the entrance steps. He glanced around, realizing the life he'd come to save was already over. Two attendants climbed up to the ring and began to carry Chen's head off the floor in chunks, the separate parts of his skull just so many pieces inside a bag of skin that had once been a human head.

"Jesus," Jack said out loud.
 

Gannon shot him a look. If anyone inside the bureau found out that a potential informant and witness had been brutally killed on Jane's watch, in front of her eyes, there'd be hell to pay. And after Jane's ex-husband had betrayed the bureau, Jane's career was already on the line.
 

Jane stood up, as did many of the others in the stands. Jack saw people filing past Niki to be among the first to get out.

Niki and Jack stood on a street corner in China Town, waiting for Jane to come out of a bar. They'd hit two different places, moving on when Jack felt the prying eyes of former fans. Now Jane was using a bathroom, and Jack had his eye up the block at the Li Po Lounge. He'd listened to a story about man-eating zombies who dropped a major mob hit at this bar; it'd been podcast by one of his favorite authors, Scott Sigler. Scott sounded funny as all shit and barely had any teeth in his head, but he could tell a great story. That couldn't be denied.

The Li Po had been rumored to have a secret basement, but as soon as the rumor got out and people wanted to see it, the management started opening it all the time. Anything to please the customers, put the place on the map, or sell another overpriced drink, heavy on the ice.

All Jack wanted to do was get drunk. It was simple as that. One drink led to another, and soon all his fingers wanted was another glass to hold. His head was starting to buzz, but the cigarettes kept him steady, brought him back down. Jane hadn't said much since they left the fight ring, and Niki was still working to get the full story out of them. The more Jack drank and tried to explain it, the less things made sense.
 

Why had Chen decided to fight again? How had he gotten into the club? Why would he let himself end up in a situation that bad?
 

None of it mattered as much as the fact that he was gone. Left to be carried off by a couple of ring jockeys like a bull after a
corrida
, leaving only a trail of blood.

Niki flattened Jack with his eyes. "This Chen was your friend, no? So we must go back and avenge him. We must get in and fight again in this ring."

"Oh, no," Jane said, coming up on them from behind, "that's about the worst idea I've ever heard. We're not going anywhere near that fight ring."

She took a deep breath. "But–"
 
Even before she started explaining what she had in mind, Jack knew he was going to appreciate her plan as a work of genius.

A week later, they were back in Chinatown, on the border of North Beach with Vlade: four figures dressed in black.
 

Pooling their resources and connections to information, Jane and Vlade had learned the name of Mr. Ruby's restaurant, the place he could most often be found. The building stood around the corner from City Lights and the new Beat Museum. But this was a block tourism had yet to change. The front of the restaurant looked much like any other: big red wooden doors topped in red tiles and set into a wall of bright gold. Foot-high Chinese letters lined the sides of the door.
 

"This is the spot," Jack said. "Anybody up for a bite to eat?"

Niki nodded. "Yeah. I want a soup from the nose of a gangster. I see his face, I bite his nose off and take it home to make the stew."

"With that. . . " Jane said, and she started up the wide, red stairs. She un-tucked her shirt and drew her weapon from the small of her back. The Beretta hung at the end of her arm, alongside her thigh. It was dark and so was she. Vlade reached up with the barrel of the AK-47 he held and knocked out the bulbs above the entrance. If there were any cameras, they weren't going to catch much now.

Jack gripped the weapon they'd given him: a .44 Charter Arms Smith & Wesson. It held six shots, and Jack meant to make every one of them count. In his pockets, he had a series of speed-loading cylinders ready to go. He'd hang back, but he wanted to be able to light somebody up if he had to.

All the work with Shaw, Vlade, Niki, Freeman, and Jane had hardened him to this. He wanted to see someone go down for what happened to Chen. Shit, if he got a clear shot at Bolo Yeung, that motherfucker was over.

Inside, the only people Jack saw were a couple of waiters, skinny old men who looked so harmless he wanted to laugh. Jane waved them down onto the floor with her gun, and the old men pressed their faces into the cheap carpet, avoiding the sight of Jack and the others.
 

Jack's group went through the kitchen at a trot, Jane and Vlade waving down the cooks and dishwashers as fast as they could. Mercifully, none of them made a sound. Jane stopped at the back door and listened. Then, satisfied with what she heard, she nodded once and stepped back.

Niki started his run at the biggest chef's station and crashed, in a mid-air side kick through the door. It hung in pieces as Jack followed Jane and Vlade into Ruby's back room.

Inside, Mr. Ruby sat at a small, round table with three other men. Two of them were bald and the third hard a short crew cut across the sides of his head. "Tsk, tsk, tsk," Ruby said, sucking his teeth. He wagged a finger at Jane.

The other men were eating noodles out of small bowls. For a moment they had lowered their food, but now they raised the bowls and chopsticks back to their faces and continued to eat.

"Shut the fuck up," Jane said.
 

"What are you going to do, Agent Gannon? You have your guns, and I am not impressed. You want to live in this city, then you will not cross me. You will behave."

She nodded at Niki, and the big Czech moved behind Ruby. He dragged Ruby up onto his feet, then produced a knife from his sleeve and held it up to Ruby's neck.

"Careful," Jane said, "is a quality you might consider. What you don't seem to understand right now is you're dealing with a federal agent who does not give a simple fuck. You hear this? Whatever you're thinking, it doesn't hold now.