Ghosts

by Matt Rogers

It was worth making a Good Samaritan uncomfortable. That was a small price to pay if he could truly aid Josefine.

  He looked down at the European guy and put an enormous hand on the man’s shoulder and said, ‘You’re right. I’m sorry. My bad.’

  It disarmed the guy just enough to make him hesitate. He was ready for a fight, no matter how badly it might go for him, and King couldn’t help but admire the bravery. King calculated again.

  Will he leave this alone?

  His brain came back with a resounding, No.

  So what came next was inevitable.

  Ego fell aside, and King figured, Okay, I’ll be the bad guy.

  He popped the man in the left side of his ribcage, a gentle punch to the liver, which still absolutely crumpled him. The guy lost all balance and dropped forward and sunk to all fours, face contorted in a grimace, liver spasming.

  King pushed his head down, sending him all the way to the sidewalk, which would make getting to his feet a whole lot harder.

  He muttered, ‘Sorry,’ left the guy there and walked off.

  Josefine didn’t even see it. She was crossing the street, eyes fixed forward, beelining for cover. Probably hoping to lose her pursuer in the maze of residential housing.

  King broke into a sprint, and she heard him coming and did the same, but he was a whole lot faster and a whole lot bigger. He circled around her, screeched to a halt, and she had to stop in turn.

  He looked her right in the eyes and said, ‘I’m not who you think I am. I’m not an enforcer. I have no connection to any part of this story.’

  ‘I don’t want your help,’ she said, still pale despite the sun beating down on her face.

  She was spooked.

  He didn’t answer immediately. He let her breathe. The exhalations were claustrophobic — they came out in ragged clumps, with no consistency between breaths.

  Eventually he said, ‘If you walk away now, I won’t follow you. But I think you should let me hear you out.’

  ‘There’s nothing you can do.’

  ‘You don’t know.’

  It was true.

  She didn’t.

  Not really.

  And she started to recognise it.

  He didn’t push for answers. He was comfortable right where he was. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at his feet. They were round the corner now, out of sight of the bystander he’d dropped. The guy would pick himself up eventually, feeling awfully sorry for himself, but otherwise unharmed. He might go to the cops. He might not. Either way, King would be long gone before there was any sort of response.

  Josefine’s breathing settled.

  King said, ‘You didn’t see Elsa. You didn’t see Melanie.’

  She paused for a long time, then he saw her think, Screw it, and she said, ‘Which was weird, right?’

  King nodded. ‘They’re hanging out there every day after school. Except they’re not.’

  Josefine nodded too.

  King said, ‘So Wan’s is a front.’

  She stared at him, flabbergasted. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘I told you.’

  ‘You didn’t mention the mind-reading part.’

  Despite everything, he smiled. It seemed to cool her nerves, as much as they could be cooled. He knew they’d been battered left and right for much of the past few months. He could see it on her face, in her eyes.

  She was at her wits’ end.

  Which was maybe why she was even entertaining this conversation in the first place.

  King said, ‘So you dug deeper.’

  ‘I didn’t know how to ask Elsa about it,’ Josefine said. ‘Because that would reveal I’m trying to spy on her, right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So I followed her from school one day,’ she said. ‘She and Melanie went to the mall. They went inside. As far as I could tell they went into Wan’s. I walked past five minutes later, and they weren’t there. Proving it was a front, just like you said.’

  ‘So there’s something going on out back.’

  ‘That’s what I realised. And at the same time someone realised I was walking past the shopfront way too frequently for it to be a coincidence. I’m not good at that stuff, after all.’

  ‘Who saw you?’

  ‘The same guy who was in there half the time I walked past. Just hanging around, talking shit with the workers. He looked like trouble, but I could tell he had — what would you call it? — a certain bad-boy charm. He was tall. Taller than you, and skinny, but not weak-skinny, more…’

  ‘Wiry? Athletic?’

  ‘Yeah. He was Central American, I think. Like from El Salvador or Honduras or Guatemala. He spotted me. Looked right at me and his eyes went black. I thought he’d kill me right there. I felt like he knew everything. I panicked and ran out.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘I confronted Elsa that night. I was scared. She turned it into a screaming match. Told me to fuck off out of her business, and she left for Wan’s again. Stormed right out of the house. An hour later I drove to the strip mall, and then I saw…’

  She trailed off.

  Took in a deep, shaky breath.

  Said, ‘I didn’t dare walk past the shopfront again. So I circled round back of the mall, and lay low, and within the space of thirty minutes I saw — I don’t know, eight, nine? — different cars go into the alley behind Wan’s. And these were Mercedes’, Range Rovers, Bentleys, Rolls Royces. Cars that had no business in Chinatown. Right then I knew what it was.’

  ‘An unlicensed club.’

  5

  She stared again.

  Finally she said, ‘Okay, yeah, you are good at this.’

  ‘Trust me when I say I’ve seen it all.’

  She didn’t respond.

  He said, ‘And then?’

  ‘I can’t … easily explain. There’s no clean timeline. Weeks went by. I was crippled with stress. I didn’t know whether to keep spying, or go to the police, or just try my best to pull Elsa out of whatever was happening there. Elsa got worse. She came home with bruises and cuts. She started self-harming. I changed my tune, and started reassuring her instead of clashing with her about it. I knew I was on the verge of losing her forever. And then … she opened up.’

  King sensed a pause, but didn’t interject.

  Josefine said, ‘When she started talking, she couldn’t stop. She confirmed everything. There were girls there — her and Melanie’s age. She didn’t actually say that, but I got the sense most of them were still in school. You know, just old enough to look legal, but young enough for it to be a murky line.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Nothing in the club. They’d dance, and guys would come in — mostly old and rich — and buy drinks … for themselves and for the girls. Everyone would talk. The Central American guy … his name was Gates—’

  ‘First name?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Gates.’

  ‘Gates ran the whole thing. It was his … I don’t know, operation? Business?’

  ‘What had Elsa done?’

  ‘Nothing yet. She was new. She liked hanging out there. They gave her drinks and weed. Some other stuff, maybe. But she saw her new friends leaving with some of the visitors. They’d always come back. They always seemed happy. They all had money, but they never clarified where it was from. Melanie had the most money, and vanished most nights. Elsa put it together. I guess she always knew, but she didn’t want to admit to herself what was happening. What she’d be coerced into doing…’

  ‘Hence why she finally opened up to you.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘How many girls were there?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Josefine said, and her voice cracked. ‘It all came out so fast… I don’t know.’

  She looked away, clenching her teeth to stop emotion spilling out.

  Her breathing quickened.

  Too many questions, King told himself. Too much prodding. Let her talk.

  She
met King’s gaze again and said, ‘So she told me everything. The next day I went to the cops.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I gave them everything I had. They reassured me that they’d do everything possible to look into it and shut it down if it was illegitimate. They sent me on my way. I thought it was odd. They seemed in a rush to get me out of there.’

  King didn’t respond.

  She said, ‘The next day I was pulled over driving to work by a Vegas PD cruiser. I swear it was lying in wait, but maybe I’m paranoid. It was a young guy, maybe early twenties. He said I was speeding. I wasn’t. He said he wanted to take a quick look around the car. I said sure. I was standing by the hood. He went to the trunk, popped it open, and supposedly found a kilo of cocaine in there. I was arrested then and there.’

  ‘Did you see him plant it?’

  ‘He was obscured by the trunk lid. I didn’t see.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have mattered anyway,’ King said. ‘It was your word against his.’

  ‘Like I said, that was months ago. There’s been the trial. It dragged out for so long. I mean, I’d heard stories, but…’

  ‘And your daughter?’

  ‘Gone,’ Josefine said, her eyes bloodshot, a lump in her throat. ‘My ex-husband covered bail. We’re not on good terms, but he knows I’m not a drug dealer, and he came back to look after Raya and Pip. As soon as I was out I went home, and he said he hadn’t seen Elsa. He assumed she ran away. Raya and Pip told him about our fights. Neither of them heard her final talk with me. As far as they’re all concerned, we parted on horrible terms. No one believes me. I think they blame me…’

  Movement, to their left.

  The European gym junkie.

  Rounding the corner.

  Determination in his eyes.

  6

  King looked hard at him and said, ‘Cool it.’

  Josefine stepped in between them, facing the stranger.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘It’s okay. He’s not—’

  ‘Fuck that,’ the guy spat. He’d seemingly forgotten Josefine’s presence. All his rage was fixed on King. He jabbed a short fat finger at King, storming around her. ‘You can’t hit me, you piece of shit.’

  She said, ‘What?’

  King said, ‘It’s okay. Everything’s fine.’

  ‘No—’ the guy started, then lunged.

  King sidestepped.

  Josefine staggered to the right, separating herself.

  She cried, ‘Hey!’ but King was already in the mix, wrapping a giant arm around the guy, pinning his arms to his sides. Which only made him angrier. Expected, of course, but it was the fastest way to—

  King turned to Josefine and said, ‘It’s fine.’

  But it wasn’t.

  Too many stressors, too much confrontation, too long to think…

  She said, ‘Please stop.’

  The guy was oblivious, still livid. He squirmed and shouted, ‘Leave her alone! Get off me!’

  King let him go and shoved him aside, which sent him stumbling several feet down the sidewalk.

  The guy wheeled. ‘What part of—?’

  King said, ‘Everyone relax.’

  Which had the opposite effect.

  Josefine backed off a couple of steps, gaze careening from man to man.

  The guy started in again, striding at King, shouting obscenities.

  King backed off. ‘Josefine. Look at me.’

  She didn’t.

  She reacted to the burst of movement from the stranger, and backed into the middle of the street. Which didn’t matter from a risk standpoint — there was no passing traffic. The neighbourhood was quiet in the late-morning lull. But the silence made everything louder, shoving the guy’s anger right in her face.

  It was enough to rattle anybody.

  King switched approaches instantly, and wheeled to face the man.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m an idiot. I’m leaving her alone. Settle down.’

  The guy didn’t care. It wasn’t about justice anymore. It was all frustration at being made to look like a fool.

  Ego was front and centre.

  The man kept coming.

  King took a step to the left, stepping down to the sidewalk, getting closer to Josefine.

  She backed off further.

  King said, ‘Wait.’

  She said, ‘What’s going on?!’

  ‘Yeah!’ the guy shouted. ‘Motherfucker took a swing at me.’

  He’d misheard her. The guy’s brain was going haywire, evidenced by his next outburst.

  ‘Stop harassing her!’ he yelled. ‘She wants to be left alone!’

  So now it was about her again.

  Apparently.

  He strode at King, and now the three of them were in a straight line — King in the middle. The guy tensed up and swung again. It came nowhere close, but King was forced to sidestep, and the momentum carried the guy a couple of steps forward.

  Right at Josefine.

  They were still six feet apart, but she got spooked.

  King didn’t blame her.

  It was reflexive, impulsive.

  Human nature.

  Overwhelmed by everything, she turned and ran.

  ‘Don’t follow her!’ the guy roared.

  King stayed right where he was.

  Staring the man down.

  Who said, ‘Yeah, damn right. You got some sense in you now?’

  King said, ‘It’s my bad. My fault. Move on.’

  The guy thought about another swing, but an iota of common sense wormed its way through the red haze. Like, You’ve been trying to beat this guy up for minutes now, and you’ve got absolutely nothing to show for it.

  So to preserve his fragile ego he spat on the ground in front of King, checked to make sure Josefine was out of sight, then stormed off.

  King turned.

  She was gone.

  He thought about pursuing. But he knew people, understood the nuances of fear. She wouldn’t talk anymore. She’d barely managed to give him what he had already. Now there was sensory overload in the mix. She wanted no part of this.

  It didn’t matter.

  He had enough.

  ‘Wan’s,’ King muttered to himself. ‘Chinatown.’

  I’m getting sentenced tomorrow.

  No time to waste.

  He restarted his fitness watch, noted no increase in heart rate whatsoever, and set off running for home.

  7

  Will Slater lowered the Muay Thai pads attached to his forearms.

  He said, ‘No. You should have elbowed there.’

  Alexis Diaz stepped back and doubled over, hands on her knees, sucking in air like her life depended on it. She was dressed for exercise — tight black tube top revealing a washboard stomach, abdominal muscles pronounced as her mid-section heaved with each breath, and black high-waisted compression shorts that ended only a few inches below her hips. Any observer would have ogled, either out of lust or jealousy. They’d be convinced she was in peak physical condition. And she was — she’d exercised practically every day for years. Slater had seen it first hand.

  But, as he and King reiterated time and time again, commercial fitness was nothing but a respectable foundation for the world they lived in.

  You can lift weights all day, run for miles each morning, but when you first step foot in an MMA gym and spar a live body for five minutes, every muscle fills with lactic acid and screams for relief, and you’ll fall in a heap at the bell, convinced you can’t even lift your arms.

  But stick with anything long enough and you adapt.

  The human body, above all else, is designed to endure.

  Alexis had been training with Slater for a month, and already her capacity was increasing.

  Now, she focused on the breath — just as he’d taught — and her heart rate lowered.

  She stood up to her fullest height, put her hands on her hips, and looked at him with those full green eyes. ‘Why elbow? It’s always elbow
.’

  He stepped in close and held up the pads, six inches above her right shoulder.

  ‘You were in this position,’ he said. ‘And you swung with your left fist. A big looping hook.’

  ‘It felt right.’

  ‘Because it’s the natural impulse.’

  ‘I can hit harder with my fist.’

  ‘For one strike,’ he said. ‘Then your hand is broken.’

  She looked down at her hands, bound with combat tape that hid the callouses and cuts. ‘Your hands are tougher?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But I’d break them all the same if I hit at full strength.’

  ‘But then I’d just break my elbow, wouldn’t I?’

  He shook his head. ‘The elbow is biomechanically stronger. Watch.’

  He stripped the Muay Thai pads off his forearms and dropped them to the floor of the training room. It was a big echoey space up the back of their estate, some of the reverberation suppressed by the wrestling mats laid out on the floor.

  Slater backed up to the giant bag suspended from the ceiling. He stood right next to it, putting it close to his right shoulder, just as Alexis had been positioned.

  He stood still.

  She watched.

  He exploded, fast-twitch muscle fibres flaring, and twisted at the hips. Impeccable footwork helped. He swung a left hook into the leather, connecting with a closed fist. The bag rattled on its chain. All one hundred and forty pounds of filling rippled.

  Alexis said, ‘See? That’d kill someone.’

  ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘But you can only punch as hard as your anatomy allows. If I put more force into it, I’d break my knuckles. That’s why boxers need gloves.’

  ‘Okay,’ she said, throwing her hands up in the air. ‘What exactly are we getting at?’

  He reset his position, waited for the bag to stop swinging, and then said, ‘Ready?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  He repeated the explosion of movement — the hips twisting, the left foot stepping round, every muscle corded, every ounce of kinetic energy taken advantage of.

  This time he connected with a cocked elbow.

  This time he didn’t hold back.

  Because in a street fight you can use an elbow like a baseball bat.

  The connection sounded like a gunshot. The thwack of bone on leather blasted out of the training room, echoing through the house. The bag swung away like a pendulum and came back. Slater stopped it with a closed fist, silently returning it to place.