Montaine

by Rome, Ada

  I replayed my conversation with Trent. He said that Hades looked like someone from a past life. An idea sprang to life – a ridiculous and improbable idea – but one that I could not simply dismiss out of hand.

  I logged into my laptop and ran a search for “Peter Haverford.”

  Most of the results pertained to Peter’s father, the former New York State Senator, William Haverford. There were a few older articles about the Haverford family with photos of Peter as a child, round-cheeked and innocent under a mop of tousled dark hair. I even found one article from the Leidensburg Register dating to the time of Rosie’s murder. Peter was mentioned in passing as a possible suspect, but the newspaper stopped short of any direct accusations, clearly wary of treading on the toes of his powerful father.

  More recently, the press office of the State Senate had published a piece about William Haverford’s retirement after three decades of government service. The piece claimed that he was leaving the Senate in order to spend more time with his beloved family.

  Another more forthright article from one of the Albany newspapers noted that William Haverford’s supposed retirement actually coincided with an embezzlement scandal that had taken out his top lieutenant and left William tainted with an aura of corruption. His departure was not so much a voluntary retirement as a forced removal.

  This article was accompanied by an updated photo of the entire Haverford clan. The caption identified Peter in the front row. When I raised my eyes to Peter’s image, my heart nearly stopped with shock. I heard a rushing in my ears. My throat turned dry as a desert.

  The hulking figure in the photo clenched one iron fist at his side. His hair was shorn to the scalp. His light eyes were turned menacingly on the photographer. His thick, muscular arm was exposed beneath the seam of a short-sleeved shirt. On that arm was a familiar tattoo of a bleeding skull surrounded by curling barbed wire.

  Peter Haverford and Hades were one and the same.

  Chapter 16

  “Care for a reconnaissance mission?”

  It was Friday night at the KTFO offices. Trent stood beside my desk, tossing his keys in the air and catching them with an overhand grab.

  “What are you reconnoitering?”

  I rubbed my eyes. They were strained from staring at the computer screen all afternoon. I was nearly finished with my story and planned to spend the weekend polishing up the finished product for submission on Monday.

  “I’m heading to the warehouse in Brooklyn to do some on-the-ground research. Maybe our friend, Hades, will be there tonight. Or maybe I’ll get lucky and find someone who knows him.” Trent rapped his knuckles on the cold metal desk. “Are you in?”

  I flipped my laptop closed and popped it into my large purse. I had not told Trent about my previous day’s discovery regarding the true identity of Hades. I struggled with the knowledge, internally debating whether to tell Trent and wait for the terrible consequences of that revelation or to keep it from him in the hope that I might thereby save him. I was sure that Trent would seek revenge once he discovered the truth. I was also convinced that one of them, either Trent or Peter, would not survive the resulting showdown.

  I simply couldn’t take the risk. Maybe Trent would find out about Peter on his own, but I couldn’t bear to be the source of that awful discovery and the destruction it would undoubtedly unleash.

  “Sure, I’ll come with you.” I pressed my lips together in a thin smile and hauled the strap of my purse over my shoulder.

  “Great.” He lifted his duffel from the floor.

  “Are you fighting tonight?”

  He glanced at the bag. “If I get the urge. I figured we could stop by the hospital afterwards.” He spoke over his shoulder as we headed through the glass doors and toward the elevator. “I spoke to Ezzie earlier today. Oscar is still the same. I have some money to give her.” He patted a front pocket of the duffel.

  I nodded.

  “Are you ok, Kat? You’re awfully quiet.”

  “Yeah, I’m totally fine.” I gave another unconvincing, thin-lipped smile.

  Trent raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You would tell me if something was wrong, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course.” The lie tore at my heart. There was so much that I was not telling him.

  “I’m glad to hear that.” He circled an arm around my waist as we descended in the creaking and clanging elevator. “I need my best researcher on her A-game tonight.”

  A few minutes later, we sped through the pedestrian-clogged downtown streets on our way to the solid immensity of the Brooklyn Bridge and its string of fairy lights over the black and silent water.

  ***

  “Hey, Kat!”

  I recognized Tanya’s smoky voice in the crowd. She waved us over to a couple of open seats in the bleachers.

  “You’ve made friends?” Trent eyed me with amusement.

  “I sure did. You’re not the only popular one around here.”

  The spectators milled and chatted during a lull between fights. Tanya’s husband, the lumberjack turned software engineer, sat next to her. She wrapped me in a strong hug, her armful of bangle bracelets clinking against my back.

  “Y’all know each other already.” She pointed between Trent and Eugene.

  They shook hands firmly.

  “Sorry about that, man,” Trent said.

  “No need to be sorry. It was a good fight. You won fair and square.”

  They both nodded in silent acknowledgment.

  “Is there anything new with Oscar?” Tanya plunked onto the bench and slapped the open space beside her.

  “No, nothing at all,” I lowered myself to the bench with a sigh.

  “That’s kind of why we’re here, though.” Trent sat on my other side and placed the duffel bag between his ankles. “I want to find that Hades guy. Do you two know anything?”

  Tanya turned to Eugene, who shook his head sadly. “I wish I did. I’ve never seen him before.”

  “I’ve been watching for him tonight,” Tanya added. “He’s not here. At least, not that I can tell. I even checked the list of fighters when we arrived and didn’t see his name.

  Trent gazed thoughtfully in the direction of the ring, where two ripped and tattooed fighters joined in a pre-fight handshake.

  “I’m going to go have a talk with Len,” he said. “Watch this.” He set the duffel between my feet and tenderly kissed the top of my head before he set off through the stands.

  “He sure is dreamy.” Tanya poked me in the ribs with her elbow.

  “Come on, I’m right here,” Eugene grumbled.

  “Not as dreamy as you are, my love,” she fluttered her eyelashes.

  “Yeah, right,” Eugene grunted. “He’s way dreamier.”

  Tanya laughed with a full-throated guffaw, smooshed her husband’s meaty face between her red-taloned palms, and kissed him on the nose.

  Trent returned a few minutes later. His serious expression and a quick shake of his head told me that he had not learned anything new about Hades.

  “At least I can get in a good fight tonight.” He reached into the duffel for equipment and a change of clothes. “I’ll work off some tension.”

  The fights continued at a rapid pace. Eugene won his bout handily. Tanya pocketed a wad of bills with a relieved sigh.

  Trent sat bolt upright, his knees jouncing in a way that reminded me of Oscar. His head turned in a quick swivel as he surveyed the crowd with an eagle eye, seeking in vain for Hades.

  When his number was called, his fingers brushed my knee, bare under the hem of my short pencil skirt. He jogged toward the ring without a backwards glance.

  I next spotted him climbing into the cage and shaking hands with a sinewy fighter covered from his neck to his waist in a swirl of black tribal ink. Trent seemed distracted, pacing the ring and scanning the crowd.

  I thought about my conversation with Esmeralda. She said that Oscar had lost his fighting edge once the pressures of life settled onto his shoulders a
nd stripped him of his confidence. The version of Trent who now paced the sideline was no longer the brash, devil-may-care fighter that he had been only a week ago. He was preoccupied. He was wary.

  The fight began with a grasping, whirling fury from his opponent that knocked Trent off balance and sent him careening and bouncing against the boundary cage. Trent took a mighty punch and knee to the jaw and fell to his knees. A trickle of blood from his mouth pooled onto the mat below him. He angrily flicked away the string of blood, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and rose to his feet.

  He squared up, fists at his sides. His opponent leapt into a roundhouse kick, but Trent was ready this time, grabbing the other fighter’s leg and flipping him onto the mat with a thud of pounded flesh and muscle. They continued in a tense see-saw battle of strength and will. Each change in momentum elicited a throaty roar from the crowd. Trent delivered a vicious slam to the side of his opponent’s head. The other fighter staggered backwards and bent double as the final bell sounded and the spectators whistled and shouted their approval.

  The outcome was a toss-up. I perched on the edge of the bench, wringing my hands and eagerly watching as the referee marched the fighters to the center of the ring and took a wrist in each hand. He paused for what felt like an eternity before raising Trent’s arm to a rumbling chorus of cheers. Only once I exhaled did I even realize that I’d been holding my breath. My palms were sweaty with nerves. I smoothed them over my skirt and closed my eyes.

  When I opened my eyes again, a hand with tattooed finger joints held a stack of money in front of my face. I lifted my head to a woman with dark arched eyebrows and a neckful of chains that fell into the deep cleavage of her leather bustier top. She dropped the bills into my lap, turned and melted into the crowd before I had a chance to say a word.

  “That was closer than I would have liked.” Trent yanked a towel from his bag and pressed it over his split lip. His chest and arms glistened with a sheen of perspiration.

  “Is your face alright?”

  He plopped onto the bench beside me, his knees spread wide.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m fine.”

  “Hey, I heard you were looking for that guy who calls himself Hades?” We turned simultaneously at the sound of a gruff voice with a Scottish accent. A young man, obviously a fighter judging by his bruised and scarred knuckles, sat on the bench behind us. He leaned forward expectantly.

  “I am,” Trent said. “You know him?”

  “Nah, I don’t,” the Scotsman said in a rolling brogue. “But I think he might know you.”

  “What do you mean?” Trent turned fully around to face the stranger. My heart jumped into my throat. My stomach roiled itself into knots.

  “Well, you’re Trent Montaine, right? The guy with the magazine?”

  “That’s right.”

  “My name’s Finnegan, by the way. Anyway, get this.” He bent forward and rested his hands on his knees, tilting his head to the side as he spoke. “I saw your man come into the warehouse last Friday night. He wasn’t alone. There was another fellow with him. Kind of tall and skinny, light hair, goatee.” Finnegan rubbed his chin for emphasis. “I heard them talking by the garage door. This Hades guy says, ‘Are you sure I’ll be fighting Montaine?’ The skinny guy nods his head and says something like, ‘I got you this far. The rest is up to you.’ Then he gets in a car and drives away. Hades goes into the arena. The rest is history.”

  “You’re sure you heard that? You wouldn’t bullshit me, would you?” Trent clenched and unclenched his fists, the muscles in his forearms rippling under the skin.

  Finnegan held up his hands, palms outward. “Nah, brother, I wouldn’t. Heard it plain as I’m talking to you now. And I’d never seen either of them before that moment. Haven’t seen either of them since.”

  Trent’s jaw tightened. He stared hard at the filthy cement floor.

  “Anything else you can tell me?” He raised his eyes to Finnegan.

  “I wish, but no. Oscar is a good man. I knew him back in our boxing days. I’d like to find the piece of shit who put him in the hospital just as much as you would.”

  “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

  Finnegan nodded with a quick downward jerk of his head and popped up from his seat.

  “Wait. One more thing,” Trent stood and grabbed him by the elbow. “What color was the car? The one that the skinny guy drove?”

  Finnegan squinted for a few seconds, as if replaying the scene in his mind.

  “Red,” he said with a sudden flash of memory and a snap of his fingers.

  “Red? Are you sure?”

  “Sweet little red racer, it was. I do remember that.”

  “Ok. Thanks.”

  With another parting jerk of his head, Finnegan disappeared into the crowd.

  “What the fuck is going on, Kat?”

  My pulse beat loudly in my temples. I opened my mouth to speak, trying to find proper words.

  “Is it just me,” he continued, “or did the skinny guy he described sound an awful lot like Kill?”

  This hadn’t even occurred to me. “I suppose maybe he did.” My voice was hoarse.

  Trent turned in my direction and placed a hand on my knee. “That’s why I asked him about the car. Kill drives a red sports car. I mean, am I nuts?”

  “No, I don’t think you’re nuts.”

  Given what I already knew about Hades, a connection to Kill did not seem altogether improbable.

  Trent shook his head. “It can’t be. That just wouldn’t make any sense. Why would Hades be looking for me? And why would Kill be helping him?”

  I pursed my lips together and shrugged.

  “Come on.” He picked up the duffel and reached for my hand. “Let’s get out of here. We won’t find out anything else tonight.”

  ***

  The machines beeped and blinked with robotic regularity. Oscar lay unnervingly still, one of his closed eyelids swollen and purple with bruising. Esmeralda slept in a gray upholstered armchair, an open paperback steepled on her thigh. She jumped awake at the sound of our footsteps and the soft thud of Trent’s duffel hitting the floor.

  “Oh, hey.” She stretched her arms out wide and rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. “What time is it?”

  “Almost eleven.” Trent stood beside Oscar’s bed, staring down at his friend with a look of helplessness.

  Esmeralda jerked upwards in her seat, her head swiveling quickly to Oscar’s bed. She exhaled slowly, her shoulders sagging with a strange combination of relief and resignation.

  “No change,” Trent said softly. “Still breathing and still asleep.”

  “So, how were the fights?” She turned down a page corner in her book and set it on a table that was crowded with half-filled coffee cups.

  “Not my finest moment, I have to say.” Trent stepped toward the wall and leaned his back against it, his arms crossed over his chest. “But I managed to squeak out a victory.” He glanced at me. Reading his mind, I knelt over the duffel and retrieved the wad of money.

  “For you.” I placed the roll of bills in Esmeralda’s palm and closed her fingers over it.

  “Thank you.” Her voice cracked. A single tear coursed down her smooth cheek.

  I settled into a cold plastic chair by the door and watched the steady blinking of Oscar’s monitors.

  “I looked for Hades, but he wasn’t there tonight.” Trent bit his lip and stared at the scuffed linoleum floor. “Another fighter gave me some information, but I’m not sure what to make of it.” He paused. “He said that Hades was looking for me the night Oscar was hurt. He wanted to fight me. I don’t understand. Hades seems familiar, but I can’t place him. He apparently knows me. But if he wanted to fight me, how did he end up fighting Oscar instead?”

  “The list.” Esmeralda’s eyes widened. She sat upright and gripped the square ends of the chair arms.

  “The list?” Trent pushed himself from the wall and stood up straight.

  “The regi
stration list. When I register you and Oscar every week, I give your names and I get the numbers. The girl at the table sometimes gets the names in the wrong order. I figure it doesn’t matter, so I don’t bother correcting her. Oscar always prefers to fight second, so he just takes the higher number. Who cares what the list says?”

  “Hades does. He took the number next to mine because he thought we would be fighting me. But that was the number that Oscar took.”

  “Exactly.” She rested her forehead in her palm. “If I had changed it…if I had corrected it…”

  “He would have fought me instead.”

  “But somebody on the inside had to have helped him, right?” I asked. “The numbers are distributed by random chance. In order to get a specific number, he had to pay somebody off.”

  Trent nodded, still staring at the floor.

  “Len?” Esmeralda asked.

  “I doubt it.” Trent scratched his chin and ran his hand absent-mindedly through his thick black hair. “Len is clean. He wouldn’t take money under the table.”

  “If Hades wanted to fight you,” she asked, “why wouldn’t he have come back tonight to finish the job?”

  “Maybe he’s nervous because of what happened to Oscar,” Trent said. “He’s lying low to see how things shake out.”

  “Who is he, though?” Esmeralda peered into the collection of cups with cold coffee dregs and wrinkled her lip in disgust. “You said that you recognized him.”

  “Sort of.” Trent rested his hands on the edge of Oscar’s bed and leaned forward, his meaty shoulders curling inward. “I mean, I can swear that I’ve seen him before, but I have no idea when or where.” He bit his lip thoughtfully. “There is something else. Hades was with another guy who sounds an awful lot like my buddy, Kill. I could be jumping to conclusions. Kill has become a bit of a problem lately, but I can’t imagine that he’d want to see me hurt. I don’t know. None of this makes any sense to me.”

  Esmeralda pushed herself to her feet and arched her back in a long stretch. “I could use another cup of coffee.”