"Ready?" she asked.
"If something happens to you, I will start a riot. So be careful."
"Shane, I ran the Patrol Division in Southwest for eighteen months. Thats the toughest division in the city. Stop mothering me"
Then she headed straight across the gravel lot toward the front door of the Hayloft.
Chapter 36
There was a bouncer on the door who looked bright enough for the job, but, as it turned out, not quite.
"I'm a Shooto fighter from NHB," I said, pointing to the butterfly bandage and the ugly cut on my forehead.
He nodded and let us inside without even asking for ID. Maybe it was because he couldn't take his eyes off my wife.
"Hi," he said, as she walked past.
"Not yet." Alexa smiled seductively.
Once we were inside it was pretty easy to mingle. The club was large, the theme corny. The Hayloft had a few old, worn saddles on poles sprinkled around as barstools, and there were bales of hay piled up for people to sit on.
There was a crowd of at least seventy-five people, most of them shouting encouragement at two bare-knuckle fighters who were going at it inside an octagon cage that had been set up in the center of the room. It was so loud it was almost impossible to talk.
One of the fighters was a sumo-sized white guy--a big, sloppy, slow-moving, four-hundred pounder with ugly rolls of body fat and Teutonic folds of flesh on the back of his neck. He threw looping punches in slow motion that took forever to land. His opponent was only five foot nine or so and about half the weight. But he was quick.
"What a mismatch," Alexa yelled in niv ear pointing at the two disproportionate combatants.
As we watched, it was clear the smaller man was scoring most of the points. After researching this today I now knew a little about the many different MMA fighting styles. The little guy was what this sport called a striker. He was using his speed to stay away from the giant grappler in the center of the cage, peppering him with brisk punches that landed efficiently on the big sumo's forehead. He'd already opened a nasty cut over his opponent's left eye.
Then the sumo made a sudden, unexpected charge. He grabbed the striker's legs, and both men went down. T he crowd went wild.
"Get him, Fannon!" a tattooed bald guy next to me screamed.
"Which one is Fannon?" I yelled over at him.
"Little guy. Fannon Bradshaw," he yelled back. "Kenpo Karate guy. They call him the Cannon. Fast as shit with heavy hands. He's gonna eat that tub a lard for lunch."
That was pretty much exactly what happened. It only took him three and a half minutes.
Alexa and I found out that this underground match was a no-holds-barred event. The gym in downtown L. A. owned by Team Ultima was obviously named after this fighting style.
It seemed like anything and everything was legal except hitting your opponent with a barstool. No gloves or weight classifications, and the most complete fighter, regardless of size or technique, should win. There were also no rounds, and different fighting styles were pitted against each other.
Alexa and I mingled. We found out from a bartender that Brian Bravo from Team Ultima was coming up shortly. We learned his fight name was "Little Bull" and that he was a middleweight who was the newest member of Team Ultima. The bartender told us this was only Brian's third unsanctioned fight.
Eugene Mesa was seated on a raised platform of tables in the back, surrounded by his peeps. His group had taken over four booths next to the rail.
"There he is," I told Alexa when I spotted him. We watched from a distance while a waitress took the Mesa groups order, then left.
"How re you gonna do this?" I asked. We had found a place near the fire exit where we were more or less out of the mix.
"I'm gonna be his cocktail server." Alexa smiled. Her eyes never left the waitress, who was a dumpy-looking ash blonde in tight short-shorts.
"Give me fifty dollars," Alexa said.
I dug into my pocket and handed her two twenties and a ten, then asked, "What are you up to?"
"Watch."
She waited for the waitress to fill her tray with drinks, then moved up and cut her off before she got ten steps from the end of the bar.
"Hey, is that for that group up in the back?" Alexa pointed at Mesas tables, and the waitress nodded. "Can you do me a favor and let me deliver it? They're friends of mine."
"No way, sis. You'll get me fired," the waitress said.
Alexa put the fifty dollars on her tray.
The woman looked at the cash, had an abrupt change of heart, then handed the tray over. "Knock yourself out, honey."
Alexa took off with the drinks.
I moved in as close as I dared. O'Shea and Calabro knew me, and they were at the crowded tables with Mesa, not too far away from where I stood.
There was a fighter up there who was already stripped down to his fight trunks and was moving around on the platform nearby, ducking his head, bobbing and weaving, shadowboxing by the table, sweating profusely. The guy was way too pumped, overdosing on his own adrenaline. He looked to be about five seven and one fifty, with a ripped, conditioned body. Had to be Brian Bravo.
Alexa moved to the table and began flirting with the group as she served the drinks. The table got very animated as they all started competing for her attention. A couple of men grabbed for her, but she laughed and slipped around them as she handed out the last cocktail. Then they must have asked her to join them. She looked around as if she were trying to spot her boss, shrugged, and sat down.
I moved to a table that had just come empty several booths away and sat with my back to them, facing the octagon, where two ring attendants were wiping the sumo s blood off the mat. By using the antique mirror on the wall next to my table I could keep an eye on the action at Mesas booth behind me.
I was scared to death for Alexa s safety, so I never took my eyes off the glass.
I already knew that there was something decidedly wrong with these characters from NHB. I didn't like seeing her sitting with Eugene Mesa surrounded by street fighters and easy women. But she seemed to be handling it. She was chatting them up, and from what I could see in the mirror, Eugene Mesa was clearly enchanted.
As time wore on, Mesa began getting bolder. He changed seats with Calabro. A few minutes later he tried to put his arm around my wife, who smiled but brushed off this clumsy advance.
I was too far away to hear anything, but Jack Straw had spotted me when he passed by my booth on his way back from the can.
After that, he kept leaving the Mesa crowd and going to the bar, where he turned and faced me from across the room.
I could see him trying to catch my attention. When our eyes met, he would start shaking his head slowly. Once he actually drew his index finger across his throat.
Just before Brian Bravos fight began, I picked up some company at my table. Four dockworkers from San Pedro sat down uninvited. I didn't protest because being in a crowd called less attention to me than sitting alone.
When his fight finally started, Brian "Little Bull" Bravo only lasted four and a half minutes. He was a wrestler who also used tai chi, but according to my tablemates, who were deep into this sport, he was up against a very efficient Muay Thai practitioner who was undefeated and outweighed him by at least eighty pounds.
Brian Bravo didn't have a lot of cage experience and seemed burned out by all that prefight energy he'd wasted showing off at Mesa's table. He walked into a devastating short right and went down. The damage he sustained rendered him unconscious in the next five seconds.
After Brian Bravo was revived, Team Ultima made a mass exit. Alexa was pulled along with them.
I didn't know where they were heading, but I was damned if I was going to lose her in this crowd. I tried to stay close, but as they headed toward the exit, I got blocked.
A fistfight had unexpectedly broken out in the parking lot. People were clustered in the main threshold in front of me, yelling encouragement to the fighters, blockin
g my exit. Two guys I could barely see through the crowd were trading punches just outside the door. The bouncers swarmed in, trying to break it up.
I pushed a big tattooed ape out of the way and almost got flattened for the effort. But I ducked past him and made it out into the parking lot. By the time I got there one of the combatants, a big tattooed biker, was already down. The other fighter had disappeared.
I looked up and saw that Team Ultima was just pulling out of the lot. Their motorcycles and cars were all rolling. This time as they left, everyone turned in a different direction.
I couldn't tell which vehicle Alexa was in, or if she was on the back of one of the Indian motorcycles. Her car was parked a block away, and I was on foot.
My heart started pounding. I'd totally fucked this up. I'd lost her, which was the one thing I'd promised myself I wouldn't let happen.
I took off running toward her BMW.
I sprinted as fast as I could to the spot where we'd left the car. I didn't know how I would ever find her. I was too far behind. My only idea was to go back to Avalon Terrace and hope she was there. But then what? Go inside alone and throw down on this bunch of animals?
I snatched the hide-a-key from the magnetic box in the rear wheel well, barking my knuckles and tearing skin in my haste. Then I fumbled the key out and into the lock. I yanked the door open and jumped behind the wheel.
As soon as I was inside I saw her sitting there.
She was leaning against the passenger door, still looking smoking hot.
"Where you been?" Alexa said, smiling.
Chapter 37
"I thought I'd lost you" I blurted, my heart still pounding. I was sweating from my panic.
"Jack saved me," she said. "He saw me getting pulled out of there and started a fistfight with some Hell's Angel in the front entrance. I slipped away in the commotion."
"God bless Jack," I said softly.
"I don't know about you," she said, "but that guy's kinda beginning to grow on me."
"No kidding."
I started the car, and we pulled away from the curb, heading home. As I drove, I felt a blanket of heaviness start to come over me. My body was starting to crash. I'd only had four hours sleep in two days. The sudden adrenaline burn and days of sleep deprivation were now bringing 011 a case of fatigue. My mind was beginning to waiver.
"Wanta hear what I found out?" Alexa said.
"Go." I struggled to regroup.
"Eugene Mesa's hobby is MMA and he owns Team Ultima. He collects these guys like fighting pit bulls. Holds their contracts, manages them, controls that Delaware corp that owns the NHB Gym.
"They're all kissing his ass because he can snap his fingers and make their fight careers overnight. Turns out in his spare time he's becoming one of the best-known promoters in the sport and has the contacts to book them into big-money MMA events on TV.
"Rick O'Shea and Chris Calabro have each had fights on Spike TV with six-figure purses. TV fights are the brass ring. Everybody at Team Ultima is trying to be like those two.
"Tonight was a tune-up for Brian Bravo. He needed to win to impress the big man, but he lost. He doesn't know it yet, but while he was unconscious on the mat, Mesa decided Brian's gonna get cut."
"Why do they all live in the same house?"
"Nobody, except O'Shea and Calabro, has any real money yet, and that's only been in the last few months when they started fighting on TV. Mesa keeps all of his fighters financially solvent so they can train all day and not have to work. He gives them a monthly stipend to live on. That house on Avalon Terrace is a place where they can live for free. They call it Fight House.
"If Mesa likes you and if you kick ass like O'Shea and Calabro, he'll loan you one of his classic Indian motorcycles to ride. It's his thing. Took me a while to get the significance, but it finally dawned. Indians live up on mesas, get it?"
"You mean he doesn't love the bikes as much as he loves the name of the bikes?"
"Near as I can figure that's more or less it," she said.
I was wishing I'd let Alexa drive because as interesting as this all seemed, I was now really fighting to stay awake.
"Anything else?" I asked.
"Yeah. He likes me."
"It always was a long line," I said. "Even when I was in it."
She smiled. "He gave me his card and invited me to a party lies throwing on Sunday." She paused, then added, "One other thing. I found out they have a big competition coming up. Another fight club called Team Spartacus has challenged them to a match.
"Mesa told me the way a team match works, both clubs put up a purse. In this case, ten grand apiece. They pair off and have seven bouts. One point for each match, the team with the best total score wins all the money. The cash goes to help support the fighters and the gym.
"This challenge match is somewhere out of town. They're very jacked about it. Excluding Mesa, if you take all twenty IQs in that crowd and add them up, you don't have a four-digit number."
I finally made it home, parked the car in the drive, and we went inside. I was totally bushed, but I took Alexa into my arms.
"You are a very beautiful and sexy woman," I said. "You had me scared to death, but you got more in one hour than I would have in a week."
Fear must be an aphrodisiac because as wiped out as I was, as I watched her undress, she was turning me on. Once the lights were out and we were under the covers, I reached for her.
"I thought you were sleep deprived," she teased.
"I can do this in my sleep."
I held her close as I entered her. Tired as I was, I was overcome with a powerful lust. We made love for a wonderful twenty minutes.
It was over as suddenly as it started, and then without warning, the bottom dropped out.
I slept until almost one o'clock the next afternoon.
Chapter 38
I was in the shower, soaking under a hot spray, when Alexa tapped on the fogged door.
"You better wrap it up and come out here," she said through the glass.
"Whats up?"
"We've got visitors."
"Who?"
"FBI. Two of em." "Shit."
I toweled off, dressed, and put a fresh butterfly bandage on my forehead so I wouldn't have to try and BS our federal government with a leaking gash in my forehead.
When I walked out to my living room I was met by a Mutt and Jeff team of tired-looking feds wearing off-the-rack suits and comb-over hairstyles.
"Detective Scully?" the taller, thinner one said.
"Yes."
Tm Agent Kurt Westfall. This is my partner, Agent Leo Faskin."
Faskin was a sour, short, lunchbox-shaped guy who looked like he hadn't smiled since the Reagan administration.
"'Sup, guys?" I said, playing it loose and friendly. Of course, I already knew it was about Jack.
"We understand that you took custody of a wanted federal bank robber named Jack Straw two days ago."
"Yep."
"Where is he?
"Sorry, that's classified," I said as Alexa moved in beside me.
"Unclassify it right now, or I'm gonna start making some phone calls. You won't like how they end," Westfall threatened.
"Can't," I said.
Westfall continued. "According to Sergeant Acosta and Lieutenant Moon, you took custody of Straw on Wednesday at two fifteen A. M. in West L. A. We have an open warrant on that guy. He robbed the First National Bank in Soledad then hit the B of A in Temecula two hours later on the same day. The federal warrant is over two weeks old, and I'm under some heavy pressure to redeem it. A federal warrant definitely takes precedence over whatever it is you're investigating."
"For you, maybe. Not for me," I said.
Westfall took a step forward. "Do not fuck around with me, Detective."
"Excuse me," Alexa interjected.
Westfall shot her an angry look. "We're not talking to you, ma'am."
"No, but I'm talking to you," she replied. "I'm the commander of the
Central Detective Division of the LAPD and the classified case he's talking about is an important murder investigation that has a high police department priority. Mr. Straw is acting as a confidential informant in that situation. Our homicide investigation cannot be compromised. You'll have to wait until the LAPD case is resolved."
"You're commander of what?" Agent Faskin said. He was having trouble accepting the fact that such a beautiful woman could be in charge of anything more complicated than a shopping cart.
Alexa grabbed her purse off the chair and pulled out one of her business cards. She handed it to Westfall, who, after he read it, held the card like he'd just fished it out of a public toilet.
"I'm afraid that's not good enough," he finally said.
"Then I would suggest that you take this up with Chief Anthony Filosiani at your earliest convenience," Alexa replied firmly. "Until I hear from him to the contrary, this matter is closed. Was there anything else?"
Both feds stood there for a long moment, not sure how to deal with this. They had been prepared to just take the case from me. Now they had a sixth-floor LAPD commander to deal with, which momentarily trumped everything.
"You'll be hearing from our ASAC," Kurt Westfall said testily. Then he looked at Leo Faskin, and the two of them turned. Alexa held open the front door as they passed, then closed it firmly behind them.
When they were gone, she turned to me and said, "Of course, you know that will never stick."
"Come on. Why not? You told the truth. Jack's working undercover even though we didn't exactly sanction it. This is a high-profile murder just like you said. What's not to stick?"
"Honey, we have a new Homeland Security rule book. There's something in there called the interagency operational guideline. They aren't gonna accept that we're using their wanted federal bank robber as a protected UC. Those guys have open-felony paper on Jack. I'm going to be hearing from Deputy Chief Bradshaw within an hour.
I know he's gonna demand we turn Straw over, but of course we haven't got a clue where he is. So we're sorta fucked."
"Finally, you see how easy it is to get in trouble with Internal Affairs." I grinned.
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