I put out my arm and waited for him to climb on.
"It's all show, he's actually a sweetheart".
In that moment, the connection was interrupted and the video call ended.
"Jean? Can you hear me? Hello?"
I tapped a knuckle on the screen. The sign was still on in the motel parking lot, so the problem was in Boise.
And there's the fourth blackout, I thought.
I waited ten minutes, but it must have been one of those long ones because Jean didn't come back online, so I closed the laptop and took Fireball for a walk. Then, I went to sleep.
The next day the three of us left for Las Vegas. I got back on the Veterans highway heading south-east. I passed the border with Arizona and half an hour later I was entering Nevada.
On my left, the Virgin mountains. On my right, desert as far as the eye could see. The road was a long weave of cracks closed with small asphalt patches, irregular and black like the stripes on a tiger's back.
Once, a writer said the Autumn is a second Spring, where every leaf is a flower. It's not like that now in the southern states, it hasn't been for decades. There's only one season here: the Drought.
Everywhere I looked all I saw was dry dirt and a few gusts of sand. There wasn't a single tree in a sixty mile radius. The long green strip that followed the Virgin River up to Lake Mead had disappeared, the river's bed was dry. Beaver Dam, Littlefield, Mesquite, Bunkerville, the towns that had grown on its banks were now abandoned ghost villages.
When I got to Las Vegas there was a big sand storm arriving, and the north-east panels were already working. I got into the city before the police blocked the roads and spread the alert. Whoever hasn't been to Las Vegas in the last ten years hasn't seen the Anti-Wind panels. It was the first time I was seeing them myself.
As I passed by I watched them move like the shields of a Roman legion toward the outside, hundreds of feet high. All together, they covered an arch of 2.8 miles, protecting the Nellis air base and the northern side of the city. In the southern part, more exposed to the storms coming from the Mojave, they were even more imposing. One thing was certain: you couldn't find a grain of sand on the Strip if you looked for it with a microscope. On the other hand, in the poorer neighborhoods people had to keep a shovel and bucket handy to get the sand out of their house.
It was the same with the blackouts. When I got a room in a hotel close to the McCarran airport, the only thing that still worked was the air conditioning. Well, yeah, really just a fan on the room's ceiling. On the wall close to the door was a timer, every fifteen minutes you had to switch it on again and every crank cost two dollars. Thieves, damn it all. But there were 93 degrees in the room during the day, I had to either pay or cook like a hamburger along with my two dragons.
There wasn't any Wi-fi, so I had to go out to the Strip to call LeBon, the next day. Jean told me that, according to his friend, the tournament fights took place in a different building each year. Usually, they bribed the owner to get in and you had to know a password only the invited people knew. Jean sent me the address of a building still under construction in the Sunrise Manor neighborhood, north of the city, and I put it into the car's navigator.
"There's only one problem, Jeq".
"Um, what's that?"
"Online everyone is talking about this new fight, but according to them it'll take place Saturday night".
I punched the steering wheel. It was only Wednesday.
I can't stand being in that room for another two days. And neither can Deirdre and Fireball.
I had to find another accommodation right away.
"Damn it, I see", I said to LeBon. "Listen, if there's any updates send me an email. I don't know how long the laptop's battery will last, with these blackouts".
We said goodbye, and I spent the rest of the day looking for a new room. I tried at the MGM Grand, the Flamingo, Caesar's Palace and a dozen other hotels. The problem, when you travel with dragons, is that not all hotels let you keep them in your room. Actually, almost nobody to tell you the truth. And I certainly couldn't leave them in the car.
In the end, I went back to the Blue Paradise, surrendering to living with that damned timer.
During those two days, I went to check out the building. It was in the north-eastern part of the city, close to the Stone Hills. In that area there were tons of lots under construction, pieces of earth torn from the desert and divided into perfect rectangles by the new roads. Some lots were already abandoned, others showed the first signs of new homes: small walls, a few plants, foundation holes. The lot where they were organizing the tournament was one of the biggest.
The building had a vaguely circular shape, on three levels, with two towers for elevators on the east and west sides and a large see-through dome in the middle of the roof. Once completed, it would be a shopping mall. To save space, the builders had decided to give it an underground parking lot, in addition to the external one, which wasn't finished yet.
Observing the building, I started creating a plan. I would pass as a participant, and then I would stop Tajihara's men in the parking lot before the fight. Deirdre and Fireball would be my entry tickets and my bodyguards.
On Friday, the day before the match, there was a big blackout in the whole city. Half of Las Vegas went dark from three p.m. to five a.m. on Saturday. The only buildings that stayed lit were the casinos and their hotels.
On Saturday I called LeBon again to tell him what I had in mind. My laptop's battery was almost empty, and during the night I hadn't been able to charge it. The smartphone one had already left me back in St. George.
"Jeq, where are you?" he said as soon as the video call started. His tone seemed worried.
"At the hotel", I answered. "Why, did something happen at Wild Dragons? Tell me quickly because the battery's about to die".
"No, no, everything's fine here".
"Good. Do you have any news?"
"Yes, in fact. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I'll be quick: these past few days I did some research on my own and found - "
My laptop shut off on the best part. I sat there staring at the screen, shaking my head.
Not quick enough, Jean.
Doesn't it always go that way? It's a kind of universal law of important conversations: they're always interrupted during crucial moments.
Damn it, what did he want to tell me? And why didn't he send me a message?
I didn't have time to wait for the pc to charge. In the car I had a transformer for the smartphone I could connect to the battery. If it was something important, Jean would send me a message. I took the two dragons and went back to Sunrise Manor. I parked close to a house, under a giant palm. A hundred and fifty feet away was the mall's construction site, surrounded by a tall metal fence. The main entrance gate was still closed. I turned off the engine and waited.
At eleven, a car stopped in front of the gate and four men got out. Three of them went down to the underground parking lot, one stood in front of the gate, keeping watch. After a few minutes the trail of cars started. I had seen Tajihara's men's black SUV twice. I counted on recognizing it again, if they had passed in front of me.
I waited for half an hour, as spectators and participants went into The Round. A couple of SUVs stopped in front of the gate, but Tajihara's men weren't inside them. The smartphone, after I had let it charge a while, vibrated with a message. I lowered my eyes to the screen and read:
"Jeq, I found Dao. Rendez-vous with him at The Round tonight. Raleigh is on her way".
I read the message again.
Mister Dao? Raleigh? Jean must have gone crazy.
When I brought my eyes back up to the road, a familiar looking canary yellow van was going through the gate. I would have surely recognized it, if I had been on the other side of the road, where you could see the left side. Or if I had concentrated on remembering where I had already seen it. But I was still disoriented by Jean's message. I looked at the time. It was almost midnight and there was
no trace of Whiskey or Tajihara's henchmen. Could it be they had already gone in? Since I had been waiting, about fifty cars had gone into the parking lot, including three large vans and a dozen pick-ups.
Was it possible I hadn't seen them go in?
I have to go check in person, I thought.
I got Fireball's box and put it in the front, on the passenger seat. Then, I started the engine and reached the gate. As I passed by, I looked at the man keeping watch and placed a hand on Fireball's box, just above the writing in flaming letters. The man nodded and let me know I could go in.
Beyond the gate, I turned right and went down the ramp to the underground parking lot. The builders had just recently covered the parking lot's cement with a type of hard rubber, dark blue, that made the tires screech every time I moved the steering wheel. I parked the car next to a white Chrysler with an enormous dragon painted on the hood.
"Be good", I told Deirdre and Fireball. "I'll be right back".
I got out of the van and looked around. In the middle of the parking lot there was the emergency stairway door and a few feet away the empty openings of the elevators. Close to the stairway door I noticed two men, standing straight and still.
The bouncers, I thought. That had to be the entrance to The Round.
Slowly, I walked toward them. As I got closer, above my head the noise of the people on the first floor, who were watching the fights, got louder. They were screaming above their lungs, they all incited their favorite fighter in chorus and stomped their feet on the ground. The fights had already started. At the door, the two bouncers asked me the password. LeBon's friend had told me that that week it was "Goldmine".
"Spectator or participant?"
"Spectator", I answered.
I paid the one hundred dollar entrance fee, the man stepped aside and pointed to the stairs. For me, that place was like the entrance to hell.
Zen calm, Jack. Zen calm.
After the first steps, the noise of the crowd became louder. On the ground floor, the door was blocked, so I continued up to the second floor. The voice of an announcer echoed between the walls.
"...another jab for Cujo! He hasn't given up yet!"
I found an emergency exit door and went through it. On the other side, most of them spectators, about a hundred people, maybe more, had gathered around a railing and were looking down, shaking their fists and screaming above their lungs. Someone came up to me and offered me green crystals. I shrugged him off and started elbowing my way trough the crowd. Once I got to the railing, I looked down, toward the ring. My stomach turned over.
On the ground floor they had built a steel cage around the artificial pond structure, which was still empty. The pool had an oval shape, and was thirty feet long. On both sides of the cage there were two openings, where the dragon owners had their dragons go in. The crowd was delirious.
Inside the cage, two dragons, a green Tang and a light purple Brit, were fighting against a big mastiff. The dragons were tied to the cage with a rope that didn't let them fly more than six feet in the air or escape. If they stopped attacking, from outside men prodded them with electrified sticks.
"Look", yelled the announcer, "the dragons are preparing for the final attack!"
The mastiff was losing. He had an injured leg, and every time he moved he left a trail of blood on the pool tiles. The two dragons slammed down on him. The mastiff bit a Tang in the air, opening up his throat. Instead the Brit attacked the dog's right side with his claws. The mastiff whimpered in pain, let go of the dead Tang, throwing it aside, and tried turning around to bite the Brit. He flipped onto his back and together they started rolling around, tight in a mortal embrace.
Around me the crowd kept on yelling, divided between who was rooting for the dog and who was rooting for the remaining dragon. I turned my eyes away, disgusted.
Just then, at the edge of the pool I saw Raminskij and his two partners and another man who I couldn't see in the face. They were waiting for their turn to fight next to a large steel trunk, five feet long.
He's there, Whiskey is there.
But how did they get in without me seeing them?
Many, in the crowd, put their hands on their head and the announcer declared: "Incredible, gentlemen, it's a tie. One of the longest matches I've ever seen!"
I looked in the cage again. Some workers were moving the lifeless mastiff and dragon bodies from the floor. Just after, the announcer started talking again.
"And now, the grand finale! Welcome the five time champion of the Round, our champion...Monstron!"
The roar that followed made the floor shake. The assistants opened the cage's bars and a steel and titanium robot appeared in the ring, half spider and half human. Each of his lower eight legs was equipped with claws, while the two arms attached to the torso ended in two circular saws a foot and a half wide.
Instead of the face was a retractable tube with sharp teeth like the mouth of a shark. The robot, remote controlled, didn't have a chain and used its claws to climb on the cage bars. This way, it didn't have the disadvantage of not being able to fly.
"And who will challenge Monstron, in a fight to the death?"
The announcer paused for effect, then said: "Gentlemen, for the first time here in Las Vegas, the dragon that has burned ground from Montana to Arizona. The one, the only...Seido Ryu!"
With horror, I saw Raminskij and his men move the steel trunk toward one of the cage's openings.
"No! Whiskey, no!"
My cry was lost among the crowd's excited screams. I didn't know what to do. In a panic, I ran toward the stairs. In the noise somebody called my name, or at least I thought so, but I didn't stop.
I went down to the ground floor, where the closed door was. I tried pulling and pulling, with all my strength, trying to open it. The handle bent, but the lock didn't break open. So I hit the metal surface until I hurt myself, and I screamed. I kept on seeing the dead bodies of the mastiff and dragons, and the robot killer moving between the bars. Whiskey was about to die cut up to pieces by that monster, I knew it.
I felt like throwing up. I bent over and coughed up yellowish bile.
I have to get back to the car, I thought getting back up.
Stumbling, with a lost gaze, I went down the stairs to the parking lot. I had only one thought in mind. Get Deirdre and find Tajihara's men.
Sons of bitches. I'm gonna kill you all.
I walked in front of the white Chrysler with the dragon painted on it and I stopped, taken by surprise. Instead of my car I found an empty spot. It had disappeared.
"What..."
They stole my car? And with my dragons inside!
I sat there staring at the empty spot in a daze for about ten seconds. I couldn't believe it. It was impossible.
A shadow appeared behind me, and something firm grazed my back, between my shoulder blades. I turned around, coming face to face with a big man with almond shaped eyes and a shaved head. He was wearing an elegant coat, and he had a gun in his hand. I widened my eyes.
"Mister Ports?"
"Y-yes?"
"Mister Dao would like to speak with you. Now".
I stared at the big man without understanding.
"What is this, a joke?"
The man looked at me without any expression. He didn't move a muscle and he didn't put the gun down.
No, it's not a joke, apparently.
He motioned with his chin for me to walk in front of him.
I obeyed. What else could I do? The man guided me toward a black Land Rover guarded by another Chinese man in a dark suit. He opened the back door and moved aside.
From inside the car a voice invited me to go in.
"Mister Ports, please, come in".
On the seat was a man with white hair. I almost had a heart attack seeing him. He was nearly identical to Liu Dao, only with about ten more years on his shoulders and some wrinkles. He was wearing a dark blue military uniform, full of medals. I'm not familiar with Chinese army levels,
but judging by the flashes he had to be a big shot.
A colonel, a general maybe. I got in the car on the seat next to him and the man smiled at me. If I hadn't seen Mister Dao die at the station, I would have thought he had been saved, somehow.
Then I remembered what Jean had told me a while before.
"You...must be his brother".
Whiskey's Death
SITTING IN THE BACK SEAT of the Land Rover it took me several seconds to get over the surprise. Whiskey was involved in a mortal fight against a metal monster, Deirdre and Fireball had disappeared, almost surely stolen. Could it get any worse for me?
And now there was this as well: Dao's brother and his men.
Tons of questions were swimming around my head. Who had stolen my car? Why was Dao's brother there? And how did he find me?
It must have been Jean. He was the only one that knew where I was going.
The Land Rover started up again and we began moving around the parking lot without ever going over fifteen miles an hour, as if Dao's men were waiting for something.
"Relax, mister Ports", Dao told me with a heavy accent. "We'll take care of it from here on".
"What does "we'll take care of it" mean?"
Dao didn't waste any time answering me. With his eyes, he was more preoccupied with where his men were going. He hadn't come all the way to Las Vegas to meet me, in fact maybe I was just a setback. All of a sudden, I had an idea.
"It was you who stole my car, right?"
General Dao took his eyes away from the road for a moment and nodded.
"We didn't want you to get into any...trouble", he said.
Translated into military jargon it meant: we didn't want you around during our mission. I sighed with relief.
At least Deirdre and Fireball are safe.
That news had lifted my mood a bit. I just had to understand what Dao's mission was. Maybe I still had a chance to get Whiskey back and take him home.
The Dragon Seller: A Tale of Love and Dragons Page 16