Dean looked at me with stars in his eyes. “Want to get in a round?”
Oh boy. I was in it now. Here was the decision tree of death I had been forced to navigate my entire professional career as the so-called Sensei to the Stars. There was no winning. Say no and I lost Dean’s respect, maybe made an enemy. Say yes and rough him up and surely make an enemy—if not Dean, then Dina. Say yes and let myself get roughed up, then I lost Dean’s respect and it got around Ken Allen was a fake.
I should have looked for a way out of this, but there was something about Dean that made him hard to refuse. It was clear how much he wanted it, the way he was bouncing up and down. For whatever weird reason, gloving up with me was on his wish list.
“All right, kid,” I said, heading over to the shelves. “But for Christ’s sake don’t tell your mother.”
“Deal.”
I faced away as I bent out of the gel-jacket, but there was no hiding the harness and holster.
“Holy shit, dude,” Dean said. “You walk around like that?”
“Don’t tell your mother,” I replied, laying the blazer over the stockpile.
“Badass.”
“What weight gloves?” I asked.
“Let’s do fours. I just want to play around.”
Dean would pick the lightest gloves. Nobody was hitting the golden goose or complaining when he hit them. I slipped on shin pads and gloved up before sliding into the ring.
“Where’s your headgear?” I asked.
“Aw, come on.”
Dean paced around while I loosened up, running through static then dynamic stretches. I didn’t rush it. The longer Dean waited, the more anxious he was going to become. Impatience was a killer in the ring.
“I’m a long way from eighteen,” I apologized. There was no harm in highlighting our age difference. Young guys thought it was their big advantage. But the trade-off was experience. I’d been training almost twice as long as Dean had been alive.
Goldpecker, his sister called him. The prince of Calabria Cove. Here I was, in a position to teach him a lesson. One I could have used at his age.
“One round,” I said.
“Three minutes.” Dean nodded.
Stavros hit a button on a remote and the screens switched to display a three-minute timer. A beat later a bell sounded through the speakers.
Dean skipped right into range and aimed a low kick at my lead leg. It was a common move at his level, a noncommittal way to measure range that also had psychological value. It gave you the sense you’d scored. That you got a shot in.
I didn’t bother to check it. Instead, I lifted my leg to let Dean’s kick pass under before extending my foot to catch him high on the chest. I made the kick a shove rather than setting anything into it. Off balance and on one leg, Dean stumbled back.
“Nice,” he said, smiling.
I gave Dean nothing, neither returning his smile nor mean-mugging him. He was trying to set the mood, to get in his comfort zone. By remaining totally neutral, I kept the engagement uncertain. Never provide your opponent information, not even so much as what kind of fight they were in.
Dean got his feet under him and crept back into range, feinting with a low round kick before switching high. He did everything right: turned his hip over, got his head out of line, kept his hands up.
I ignored the feint and closed the distance, checking his kick with an elbow as I stepped behind his base foot. A little application of my hip and down Dean went.
I kept my guard up while I withdrew. I learned the hard way, sometimes when you’re doing a partner a favor and letting them off the hook, they would still tag you on the way out.
Dean rolled backward, bridging into a handstand to regain his feet. He kept his distance, formulating an approach. I liked what it told me about him. He wasn’t at the mercy of his emotions. And he wasn’t a brat, because he wanted to keep going.
I stepped into my phone booth. Imagine you are trapped in a phone booth barely wider than your shoulders. You could only be hurt if an attack came into your booth. Attacks outside the booth couldn’t reach you, so you didn’t chase after them. You guarded your booth.
Dean tried a jab. I checked it with a lead hand chop to the underside of his wrist. His jab-cross got another chop, rolling into a scything elbow that sent his rear hand sailing off course. Dean grimaced and tried a body kick. Instead of a parry, I dropped my elbow, the point colliding with the top of his foot. Without foot pads, it was a break. With them it was merely excruciating.
Dean shook it out and started circling, but without the same pep in his step. His power leg was starting to cramp and his foot was swelling. He was going to wait for me now, as uncomfortable as it made him. Offense was easy. Lots of guys won fights on pure aggression. It was defending that was hard.
I didn’t hit Dean. I played him like he was a set of bongos. Left to the body, then right to the body as my left trapped his arm, left to the jaw, right to the temple. The whole sequence took maybe two seconds. I kept tight on his leg the whole time, sticking with him as he failed to retreat. Eventually, he turned his back and put his hands up, the universal sign for enough, enough already!
I slapped him on the shoulder. “Not bad, kid.”
“Yeah, I really had you there.” Dean sulked.
I took a seat on the mat. “Let’s talk about it.”
Dean sat down with me, rubbing the knot out of his leg. The bell went off to signal the end of the round.
“Control the engagement, so you can pick your moment,” I said. “Don’t let your opponent choose when and where.”
Dean quit looking at me, but not because he wasn’t listening.
“Once you control the time and space, let your tools flow. The goal is to remove any decision making. To make technique an instinct.”
“When’s that happen?” Dean smirked and we laughed together. “Hey, can I show you something?”
I got up and helped Dean to his feet. “Sure.”
Dean led me into the room where he stored Stavros: a den with leather furniture, a dry bar and a galley sink.
“You follow fighters?” Dean asked.
“I do.”
It was the answer Dean was hoping for. He pointed to the corner left of the door, the blind spot Mom wouldn’t see if she ducked her head in. “Check that out.”
There was a grappling dummy set up in a ready stance, dressed in gloves and fight shorts. The broad gold belt strapped around the dummy’s waist declared it to be heavyweight champion of the world.
“You like Alexi Mirovich?” Dean asked.
“Who doesn’t?”
Alexi Mirovich had appeared out of the primeval forests of Russia to conquer the fighting world. He was the greatest of all time. Anyone who disagreed was a contrarian by nature. I moved in to get a better look at what was scribbled on the shorts. The only word not in Cyrillic was a name.
“This is signed to you.”
“Yep.”
“Isn’t Alexi Mirovich in prison right now? In Russia?”
Dean scratched his head sheepishly. Stavros snorted to announce his presence. I was treading into his territory.
“Want water?” Dean asked.
“Sure,” I said.
Dean went over to the fridge himself to get it. He had turned out about as good as someone could, growing up under house arrest.
Stavros leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, which made his already big forearms massive. We played a round of Don’t Blink.
“Calm down. I’m not looking to evict you,” I said.
“You can’t,” Stavros replied. He raised his chin as his pectorals jumped in sequence.
I nodded toward the glass wall. “You push gear on this kid and I’ll throw you out that window without opening it first.”
Dean must have noticed us jawing on the way back because he had a glimmer in his eye when he handed me the water bottle. “Why don’t you guys go one round?”
“I should get going,” I sa
id, stepping back into the gym.
“Yes, you should,” Stavros said. “Take your fake fighting and run away.”
I came to a stop with a wince, weighing the situation. What kind of lesson did I want to teach Dean? Should I be the bigger man here? Those questions were swept away pretty quick. I had one major weakness. One vice. For some people it was booze and for others it was blow. There were people who chased tail until it ruined them, and others who dove after adrenaline out of airplanes and off bridges.
Me, I couldn’t say no to a fight.
I set course for the ring. “I don’t have three minutes. But this will only take one.”
Dean hobbled double-time to grab the remote before I changed my mind. Stavros slid into the ring on his stomach and bounced to his feet. How a guy was built was a tip-off. It told you what kind of workouts they did. There were guys who worked out for form. They had a pronounced V shape: big arms, full chests, but slim waists. Other guys trained for function. Those guys looked more like a block, their torso a straight line from armpit to hips.
Stavros was a function guy. He was concerned with moving a lot of weight as fast as possible. He bent deep, folding into himself, tucking his chin into his shoulder with his hands high—the stance of a guy looking to get inside and make use of all that power.
I knew what Stavros was thinking. He had suffered through Dean emulating Near Death and other movies full of fancy, useless crap. Stavros had been praying for the opportunity to show Dean all about real fighting. Now he finally had his chance. The gods had smiled upon him and delivered Dean’s false idol to the sacrificial altar.
“Ready?” Dean asked.
Neither of us acknowledged him. I gave Stavros exactly what he wanted to see: a traditional stance, dominant foot forward, fairly upright, facing in profile. We stared each other down. I knew better than to call for the bell. When I opened my mouth, Stavros would pounce and later justify his gun jumping to Dean as a lesson about the real world.
Stavros broke and rushed in. His left hook was meant to anchor me in place more than knock me out. He had gone and made the mistake of thinking he was fighting the Ken Allen of eighteen years ago, before the mixed-martial-arts boom. As if a guy who had spent his entire childhood traveling from dojo to kwoon wouldn’t later step into the cage.
I slipped the hook and was already turning the corner when Stavros shot for the takedown. I took his back before he was done scooping for my leg. His left hand came up to block his throat but I was already there.
I became a human backpack, my heels locked on Stavros’s hips, as I squeezed hard and inflated my chest to further shrink the space between us. Give a guy time to start thinking maybe he could escape and he would fight until he blacked out.
Stavros slapped my thigh three times in under a second. I turned him loose, bridging him while we untangled, in case he got any ideas. For the same reason, I kept in his blind spot when I stood up.
Dean’s mouth was hanging open. He had forgotten to ring the bell.
Stavros spun up to face me, his hand snapping out to offer a shake. If he had aspirations of being in the next Jove Brand film, it was time to give them up. The second I put my hand out, he shot for the takedown again.
I replaced my hand with a knee, driving it forward with a skip, my elbow chambered to counter the torque. Dean was right—the switch knee was my best counter.
My target was the solar-plexus, but Stavros was too fast for his own good and I caught him square on the chin. He was instantly teleported to the shadow realm all fighters dreaded, an abyss that forever devoured any illusion you were invincible.
I rolled Stavros onto his back and straightened his legs out. Bodies did weird stuff when the mind was on vacation. You could tear things, twitching around. “You have medical staff on the premises, kid?”
“Uh. Yeah,” Dean replied. His eyes were popping out of his head.
“Get them here.”
By the time I had buckled on my harness and holster, Stavros was winking back into existence. I swung my blazer on. “Time to go.”
“I’ll have to unlock the elevator,” Dean replied.
On the walk to the doors, I could sense Dean wanted to say something. He finally got it out when I stepped into the elevator.
“I tried to get you, when I found out you were a trainer, but Mom said no.”
It was at that moment I started to suspect why.
“Mother knows best,” I managed as the doors closed.
I was back on the White Stag when I realized what scene Dean’s gym had been in Endless Watch. It was the dining room where Jove Brand and pirate king Roman Brackish broke bread, measuring each other’s depth while the tide rolled in and the sharks circled.
11
I was hunting for a hotel when Missy called. I tried to fill her in on my meeting with Dina but all she wanted to hear about was Dean.
“Does he look like Kit?” she asked.
“Not really.”
Kit had been a notch better looking than his dad, who had the charisma and clout to fish above his league. Dean was a notch above Kit. The rich were the new royalty. They got progressively better-looking as the generations passed. If you want to know who founded the fortune, look for the ugliest portrait in the mansion.
“There’s a little of Dina in there, but I’m guessing he takes after his dad.”
“The Venetian art dealer?” Missy asked.
“The Genoese banker. Good thing she got Dean out of him. The ones who gave Dina girls paid for it in divorce court.”
Dean also looked a lot like someone else I knew, but I kept that to myself.
“Kit and I were going to start right away. I was hoping our first would be a girl.” Missy paused to pulse her food processor. “Dina was so striking. Kit wanted a boy, of course.”
This would have been a good time to ask if she and Kit had gotten married on the sly in Hong Kong or if maybe she had any leads on the location of Kit’s secret will, but I couldn’t summon the gumption.
“Dean’s got a good head on his shoulders, for being the boy in the bubble. Jove Brand will outlive us all.” A Range Rover cruising into my sideview caused me to tense, but it was blue with a phone-wielding mom at the wheel. “Hope Ray made progress with the flash drive. I’m done with Layne’s dossiers.”
“This Russian producer, Fedorov, was he on the list?”
“No,” I admitted, “but Layne interviewed Dina before Sir Collin was killed. Maybe she was trying to keep Layne out of trouble.”
Missy knew better than to directly ask me to throw in the towel. “Meeting with a person like Fedorov is dangerous, Ken.”
“Yeah, and no one has had their throat crushed in like five days. Maybe I’ll retire. Emigrate to Bali, or wherever presumed serial killers settle down.”
“I’m starting to think you’re enjoying yourself,” Missy said.
She was right. Every meal, even the ones that came out of vending machines, was a joy. Colors were brighter. The air had more oxygen in it. I didn’t miss my condo or my clients or the conventions. I was even happy when my phone rang. The less I acted like Ken Allen and the more I acted like Jove Brand, the better life felt.
But there was more to it. Among fighters, sucker punching was a cardinal sin. It required a response. Framing me for two murders was one hell of a sucker punch, and I had hit my lifetime quota for cheek turning.
“I have to see this through. If I go down, whoever is behind this gets away.”
Missy went quiet. She knew plenty about unavenged deaths.
“I need to find a safe place around here while Dina works her magic.”
“Use my beach house,” Missy said. “I’ll text you the codes.”
“You sure? Nothing has blown up today. I’m due.”
“That’s what insurance is for.” Missy ended the debate by hanging up.
A minute later an address and two key codes flashed on my watch screen, one for the gate and the other for the door. I set course
in the GPS and called Ray, who picked up on the first ring.
“Any luck?” I asked.
“You first. Daddy needs his details.”
I filled Ray in, including all the fighting parts I had kept from Missy.
“I got to improve your jacket,” Ray said after I finished. “Having to take it off all the time leaves you vulnerable.”
“If it could also be air-conditioned, that would be great. Now, about the flash drive.”
“You shipped me a brick,” Ray said.
Cliff diving would have been gentler on my stomach. “No. No way. That thing had a whole deal on it. An interface and dossiers and who knows what. Did you read Missy’s note?”
I could feel Ray restraining himself. “Yeah. I didn’t go and plug the damn thing in all willy-nilly. How about you?“
“Ah, jeez. In my defense, I pulled it out with like two seconds left on the countdown.”
“Two whole seconds?” Ray asked. “You know what, forget that for now. Did you eject the thing or just yank it out? It might have been set up to delete if you ripped it out during a security check.”
“Ah, jeez.”
Ray went quiet for a moment, and I got the distinct impression he was listening to someone else.
“A flash drive has to be plugged into something,” he said. “What did Lackey use to take notes?”
“He had an app on his phone.” I didn’t remember seeing a phone anywhere near Layne Lackey in the VIP lounge. I told Ray I’d call him back, then hung up and dialed Stern.
“Allen.” She sighed. “Let me guess: There’s a black helicopter chasing you.”
“Not yet. Did you find a phone on Layne Lackey?”
“No,” she said. “Why, have you seen it?”
“I think the killer took it.”
“Why?”
From the background noise, Stern was on the road too. I checked my mirror, fully prepared to spot her unmarked, but I was all alone.
“Lackey used it to record interviews, take field notes, that sort of thing. Can you trace it?”
Jove Brand is Near Death Page 14