by Jeremy Brown
Shuko the demon came closest. Back when the Dojin-gumi had Vanessa, Shuko started a tattoo on her back that marked her as his property. Most people like to keep their property nice. Shuko liked to torture his, mangle it for his depraved pleasure until it died, and move on to the next piece.
He snatched Eddie, Burch, and Vanessa into the tunnels below the fight arena while I went to war for three rounds with Zombi, who had me beat until I smashed both our faces into the canvas as hard as I could. My face was used to that kind of thing, his wasn’t.
I got my hand raised and followed Shuko down.
Just like he wanted.
What he didn’t know: I wanted it too.
When I found them, Eddie, Burch, and Vanessa were all prepped for a marathon torture session. I got them out, left Shuko unconscious and locked in an airtight freezer.
Whatever happened after that, blame science.
Eddie signed the three-fight contract and told me my next match would be in Brazil. When I called Marcela to tell her, she thought I was crying with happiness.
Partially.
After Kendall and Shuko, I knew I didn’t deserve her.
It washed over me when we pulled into the Arcoverde estate. The entire family waited in the circular driveway, close to fifty people ranging from infant to elder, everybody wearing white and smiling and waving.
I was so busy plastering the smile on my face and waving back, pretending to be worthy, I didn’t notice theirs were fake too.
I didn’t realize they were a tribe under siege.
4
We got out of the van and I stood there wanting something in my hands while everybody flooded toward Gil, welcoming him back. Marcela and Jairo dove in too. When it broke up she walked back with her arm around a lean man as tall as my shoulder. He had cropped gray hair and lines on his bronze face like a map of frowning.
Marcela said, “Woody, this is my uncle Antonio, Jairo’s father.”
The patriarch. The man responsible for this clan of warriors. I shook his hand. It was dry and might have been the prototype for car-crushing machines.
“It’s an honor, Mr. Arcoverde.”
He turned to the woman standing next to him. “My wife, Cecilia.”
“Mrs. Arcoverde.”
She nodded and attached herself to Gil, leaving me with Antonio and Marcela.
He said, “You love Marcela?”
I looked to her for help. She was too busy hiding amusement.
“Yes.”
“You’re going to marry her.”
He had a thick Portuguese accent. Maybe I’d heard it wrong.
“I’m going where?”
“Today, in the courtyard. We have the priest and lots of food. You will marry and you will dance and eat.”
Jairo had the van keys. I’d have to go through a few women and children to get to him, but they looked durable.
Antonio said, “You know I’m busting your balls.”
His charade broke and the frown lines flowed into a smile so big it jumped onto my face. He clapped me on the shoulder, wrapped his arms around mine and squeezed. I outweighed him by fifty pounds and had the sense he could toss me over the roof.
Marcela laughed. “Look at you, more nervous than going into a fight. Don’t be scared, Woody. I know you love me.”
“We know it too,” Antonio said, one arm around my back. “Now come with me. We really do have the food ready in the courtyard.”
“No priest?”
“You want one?”
“No,” Marcela said. She took my free arm and put it around her shoulders. “I’ll say when we need the priest.”
Antonio was wise enough to keep quiet.
I followed his lead.
Sometimes the paths of wisdom and confusion lead to the same place.
We walked on a flagstone path toward a wide, single-story house with teak floors and trim and white walls. The double front doors led into a sitting room full of long, well-used couches facing each other and piled with pillows. A few children’s toys were in the center.
“My home,” Antonio said.
Two of the walls had built-in teak shelves, each one filled with books, framed photos, and small chests. Most of the books bristled with yellowed scraps of paper stuck between the pages.
The sitting room opened into a large, airy kitchen with modern surfaces and appliances. Past that a hallway continued into the southern wing of the house.
Marcela and Antonio walked me across the room to a wall made of French doors with sheer white curtains held aside by pewter hooks. The doors led to a courtyard, about fifty yards square. Paths of river rock led left, right, and straight. The edges of the paths were lined with tall plants and bright flowers, everything growing together in a wall of foliage above the rich black soil.
Antonio pointed left. “That is where my sister Christina lives.”
A similar house sat at a right angle to Antonio’s. He pointed around the square to other houses, naming each resident. Those houses were smaller; two or three together took up the same space as his.
I asked Marcela, “Which one is yours?”
“I stay here, with Uncle Antonio and his family.”
Marcela’s parents weren’t in her life, the same as me. Might have been one of the things we recognized in each other from the first moment, in addition to us being good-looking as long as I crouched behind her and kept my mouth shut.
She touched my face. “Are you hungry?”
I fell in love again. “Very.”
They pulled me along the path leading to the center of the courtyard, a small field of soft green grass filled with tables and chairs and blankets. A huge stone grill sat at the corner of a concrete countertop that ran twenty feet along two sides of the field. The flat surface was piled with trays of fruit, vegetables, grilled meat, fresh bread, and desserts I didn’t recognize but would greet as best friends.
Gil, Jairo, and the rest of the family followed us into the courtyard. Gil was laughing, wiping tears from his eyes and walking with Javier and Edson, Jairo’s younger brothers. They’d been in Vegas for the thing with Kendall and had wanted to rampage through the city looking for Marcela, tipping over slot machines and biting the MGM lions. Jairo made them stay at Gil’s gym while we went out. They didn’t appreciate it.
Now they hugged me and slapped my shoulders.
Javier said, “Gil is telling us he made you fix the holes we put in his walls.”
“All seven,” I said.
“Hey, sorry about that, man. But we were upset, you know?”
“Don’t worry about it. The fist-sized ones were easy.” I rubbed Edson’s forehead. “But this makes one helluva hole.”
Edson nodded; not the first time he’d heard it. They walked away.
Gil held a hand out to the food, people, land. “Not bad, huh?”
“Was it like this when you were here before?”
“Pretty much.”
“It’s like a resort. Or the Bellagio.”
“Better,” Gil said. “This is family.”
Marcela stuck a plate in my hands and piled it with grilled beef and vegetables.
“What about those chocolate things there?” I said.
“You have a fight this Saturday?”
“Maybe.”
“After. But not those, they will be gone because they are so delicious. I will make more for you.”
“You cook?”
“I do everything.” She put a banana on top of the vegetables. “Dessert.”
We mingled. I tried not to talk with my mouth full or spit on anyone—the beef had some kind of spiced glaze and I didn’t want to waste a drop of it. The vegetables tasted like meat, the finest compliment they could hope for.
We worked our way to Antonio, sitting in a straight-backed wooden chair, feet spread with his hands on his knees. Gil sat next to him, talking about his wife Angie back in Vegas, the gym, his jiu jitsu students.
Marcela and I pulled over chair
s to make a circle. She saw me holding an empty plate and the banana, pushed some beef from her plate onto mine.
“Get that priest,” I said.
Antonio touched my knee. “Tell me about Eddie Takanori. I’m not sure we should be in business with him, as a family. Jairo wants to fight, show the world what our name means, but I don’t trust any of these Warrior people.”
I’d never heard “warrior” used as an insult. “Eddie is a scumbag. He’s sneaky, self-serving, and he’d walk over all of us to keep his shoes from getting dirty.”
Antonio made a sour face.
“But he keeps his word,” I said. “He says something, he means it. Especially if he says he’s going to screw you over.”
Antonio nodded. “We see how this fight goes. If he treats us with disrespect, we are done with him.”
Thinking Eddie would care . . . I wasn’t sure if it was ignorance or confidence, but I admired it. I took a bite of the banana.
“Holy shit, what is this?”
Marcela smacked my arm. “Woody!”
“A banana,” Antonio said.
“Yeah, but is it some special kind?” I ate the rest in two bites while Antonio looked to Gil for an explanation.
“Woody is a moron,” Gil said.
Antonio patted my knee. “You are fighting Aviso.”
I nodded and scanned the area for more bananas.
“You know he’s very dangerous.”
“Mm.”
Antonio said, “You have a way to beat him?”
“Punch him in the face until he goes to sleep or the ref saves him.”
Antonio said to Gil, “He seems pretty smart to me.”
Marcela and I walked the stone paths in the courtyard, followed one between two of the houses. We crossed a wooden bridge over a small pond with a few lazy orange and white fish floating in it and she led me to a bench with a view down the mountain. The deep green rolled over ridges and valleys until the city cut it off.
We sat there as close to each other as we could get and kept busy without talking for not nearly long enough.
She broke away and said, “I don’t believe you’re here.”
“I wanted to get out and push the plane, make it go faster.”
“You’re only here until Sunday.”
“Eddie and his crew are leaving late Saturday, right after the fights. Gil and I want to stay a little longer.”
“Why not a lot longer?”
“Why don’t you come with me?”
“I can’t.”
“It’s safe there, I promise. No more craziness like last time.”
“That’s not why,” she said.
“Eddie’s been talking to Gil. I win this fight, I might be slotted for the number-one contender shot. I win that, I’m fighting for the title.”
“Sounds like you’ll be very busy.”
“No, I’m saying I’ll be able to buy us a house. Something outside the city if you want, a place like this.”
Her eyebrow peaked. “In the desert?”
“Well, not exactly like this. But it would be ours.”
“Ours. You want me to come live with you?”
“Yes.”
“And not in your apartment?”
“When I packed for this trip, I moved out.”
She leaned back. “Where are you going to live? And sleep?”
“The gym. I spend all my time there anyway. Just makes sense.”
“I get to stay with Gil and you and all the other fools?”
“Other fools?”
“You know you are.”
“Not in the gym.”
“I can’t.”
“If I can’t get a house in time I’ll find another place.”
“Woody, you’re not listening. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Footsteps on the bridge made us turn. Jairo stood there with a gym bag over his shoulder. “We going to the academy to train a little. Come on, you can see it.”
“I’m too full,” I said.
“Yes, the banana. I heard. Come on.”
He walked away.
Marcela stood and pulled me up.
“Why not?” I said.
She touched my face. “We shouldn’t keep them waiting. Let’s run to the van, get the food moving.”
She took off over the bridge and disappeared along the path.
Away from me.
I rode in the backseat with Marcela again, Jairo driving and Gil next to him. We went down the mountain and retraced our path from the airport until we cut north before the big patch of trees and nature with my pal the Redeemer in it.
I held Marcela’s hand and nodded at the things she pointed out. What I wanted to do was ask her why this wasn’t playing out the way it had thousands of times in my head: I ask her to come home with me, she jumps on me and climbs all over and can’t wait to start packing. I remind her we don’t even have a house yet, she tells me to shut up and stop ruining it.
Ideal.
Instead I sat there and didn’t bring it up because of Jairo and Gil, and Marcela worked her ass off trying to distract me from my heavyweight pout. We crossed a bridge and she pointed left. “Down that road is the HSBC Arena, where you’re fighting on Saturday.”
“Mm.”
“We can drive past it on the way home.”
“Home?”
“Yes.”
“You mean where I’m staying.”
“Yes.”
“So your home, not ours.”
“Okay.”
Any other day, that much brattiness would have earned me a smack, maybe a loose choke. All deserved. She just looked out the window with her shoulders slumped.
We broke into the western outskirts of Rio. Jairo sped along narrow roads, the patchwork buildings and graffiti-tagged security walls almost on top of us. When he and I had driven through some of the worst parts of Vegas, he’d been unimpressed. I saw why.
We shot through an intersection. On the corner outside my window I caught a glimpse of red candles arranged in a circle, along with bottles of rum, a few damp cigars, and what might have been a knife.
At the end of the next block I saw another arrangement through the windshield on the left, this one with a meat cleaver stuck in what looked like a dead chicken. I tried to get a better look as we passed, and it still looked like a dead chicken.
“Was that a dead chicken?”
“It was nothing,” Marcela said, her tone letting everyone know they’d better agree. It brought me back to the tension between us, momentarily forgotten in the wake of what seemed like a street-side sacrifice. I would not be distracted from my righteous silent treatment again.
She pointed at a tiny blue and white storefront with black iron bars on the windows. “We always used to stop there for lemon drinks, after training. Uncle Antonio said the citrus was good for the blood.”
For a moment I pictured her as a little girl, tired from the workout but excited for the treat—
I pushed it away.
I would not be distracted.
We pulled up in front of the Arcoverde Academy and I saw the four guys standing in front of the door, and I got distracted almost to death for the next few days.
5
The four men looked rough. Dark skin stretched tight over sharp bones, hair buzzed or shaved down to the scalp. That kind of toughness can be faked with decoration, but the flat shark eyes had to be earned.
Jairo used his driver’s-door buttons to put the windows all the way up.
All seven eyes—one guy sported a Brazilian flag patch over his right eye—drilled into the van. The men carried faded and stained duffel bags made of heavy green canvas designed for combat. My first guess was some kind of convict rehabilitation program. Get out of prison and learn self-control through jiu jitsu. If that was the case, they’d just started. Not one cauliflower ear in the bunch.
Behind them, the front of the two-story academy building was a faded white brick with white
steel bars over the windows. Academia de Arcoverde was painted in green letters above a black and white striped awning. The glass door had steel mesh bolted over it, color posters of fighters and events taped to the inside. The whole place was a little more war-zone chic than I’d expected.
I said, “These guys train here?”
“No,” Jairo said.
The van was still running, still in drive.
I asked him, “Are we getting out?”
“Wait.”
The guy with the eye patch waved, tried to smile. His face wasn’t ready for it.
Gil said, “Who are these knuckleheads?”
“Trouble,” Jairo said.
He, Gil, and I stared back. I felt Marcela next to me, realized she was tight as a bowstring. She looked straight ahead, no expression, her jaw muscles working.
“You know these guys?”
Five seconds later: “I’ve seen them before.”
“They bothering you?”
“They’re nothing.”
I checked them again. They hadn’t moved.
“Why are they all staring at you?”
“It’s what they’ve been told to do.”
“Told?” I said. “By who?”
Eye Patch stepped forward and rapped on my window. “Hey, welcome. Come out and say hello.”
His eye was six inches away from mine. It was streaked with yellow and brown clouds. He had a thin black mustache under a crooked nose.
He said, “You American? I need to practice my English. Hi, how are you today? I like soda pop.”
“Move back,” I said.
“What? I can’t hear you through the glass. Maybe I break it so we can talk like regular people. How would that be?”
Gil said, “Jairo, do we need to leave?”
“Probably.”
He shut the van off and got out. Eye Patch lost the fake smile and stepped back with his men. I followed Marcela out the driver’s side and moved to the back bumper. If these boys came forward again, I’d be between them and her.
Jairo opened the rear doors and handed gear bags out to Gil, held one in front of me.