The punch to his forehead had come from the man’s left hand. Philo could ill afford to see the damage the right could do. He backed up a few steps and evaluated a smiling Magpie, who was relishing the respect and admiration that Philo no doubt had to have for the punch he’d just thrown.
That wasn’t quite where Philo was. A calming, inspiring—head-clearing—thought occupied his mind: this guy stands between me and four hundred thousand dollars.
Philo moved back inside, his head tucked between his fists, bobbed, weaved, then delivered an uppercut to Magpie’s double chin that lifted the big man off his feet. It wasn’t the gravity-defying aspect of a punch that raised three hundred plus pounds an inch or so off the dirt, it was the snapping back of the man’s head that did it. Magpie landed on his back outside the square, his wits scrambled, with Philo’s prospect of earning the large purse still intact.
“Was that necessary?” Lanakai said. “Seriously, Trout. This was supposed to be a sparring session. What the fuck?”
Magpie got no further than a sitting position, Suki now attending to him.
Philo looked Magpie’s way. “Sorry, guy, I got carried away.”
Magpie met his gaze, wiggled his jaw to make sure it wasn’t broken. He raised himself and managed a smile at the smaller man who’d just made a believer out of him. “I’ll live, Mr. Trout. Apology accepted.”
“That’s it, gentlemen. Let’s call it a day,” Lanakai said. “Trout. I trust you found this workout useful, maybe removed some of the cobwebs?”
“Sure. It reminded me I don’t miss this sport one bit. Tell me something, Wally: are you in the right ballpark with this fighter?”
“Your opponent? We shall see. Bigger than Suki-san, smaller than Magpie. But more of a killer than both these men combined. That’s the word. I have no choice. If you’re worried about your purse, I promise to pay you win or lose. Or your estate.” He paused. “That was a joke, Trout.”
“Yeah. Funny. But what about Yabuki? Will he honor the outcome after I, you know, KO his guy?”
All eyes were on Lanakai. Tough-guy crime boss, here and on the U.S. mainland. He couldn’t entertain the prospect of an unsatisfactory outcome of the fight. Philo could tell this from the man’s expression, puffy with emotion; could tell that this was serious business, and it was taking a toll.
Lanakai swallowed hard, blinked himself whole again, rallied. His grim, murderous bastard face returned. “You need to win, Philo. It will all be moot if you don’t.”
30
They rousted Kaipo at five a.m. She’d slept in her stretch workout clothes like she did the prior night. No knocking, no request for her to move away from the door. The entry was quick, efficient, and commando-like. Three men; Yabuki’s Yakuza thugs. Two dragged her out of bed, put her in cuffs, and chained her up in leg irons again. “You are moving,” the third Yakuza thug said, his gun drawn. “We have reached the home stretch. Today you learn your unmei.”
“My what?”
“Your fate.”
A push at her shoulder forced her to stutter-step toward the door. “I need to get my things…”
“No you don’t. All you will need is this…”
A cloth hood went over her head, making her gasp for air. She doubled over, put her head into her cuffed hands, tried to pull it up and over her head again, couldn’t get the leverage—
“Stop, you’ll smother yourself. This is not to suffocate you, it’s for travel. Stop fighting it—”
The man’s grip on her head through the cloth bag made her straighten up and quit the thrashing. She calmed herself with deep breaths, then thrashed violently while the men guided her out of the motel room, into the back seat of a car. Someone belted her into the center seat and tugged on the belt to make sure the shoulder harness was secure.
The car moved slowly through the parking lot, then slowly while on the local streets, then accelerated, had to be a highway, but the car was still in no hurry. Respecting the traffic laws, she told herself. To not draw attention. Dawn broke, the car driving into it, the sun lighting up the windshield and brightening the thin opaqueness of her black hood. She was between two men in the back seat, shoulder to shoulder, one taller than her on her right, the other shorter, based on where her shoulders touched his. No one spoke, five minutes, ten minutes, longer. She decided to change that, spoke through the hood.
“Where are we going?”
“Shut up,” the man on her right said.
“Why so nasty and mysterious?”
“Because you won’t like where we’re going. Shut up.”
“The chickens for sure didn’t like it,” the smaller man said, snickering.
The larger thug scolded his associate in Japanese. One word she recognized to mean “idiot.”
“Why are you treating me like shit? Your oyabun—”
“Quiet! We lost a good man because of you,” the larger guy said. “Oyabun… he is old-school Yakuza and Samurai, and does not tolerate people who do not follow orders. This relocation needs to be without incident. Which means you shut up, or we make you shut up…”
Ten, fifteen minutes passed this way, none of them speaking. The car suddenly left the blacktop and turned onto a dirt road, the potholes deep, the car rocking in and out and side to side, the seat belts doing their job. She wondered just how bad the terrain had to be off-road for on-road to be the better choice, the car moving ten miles per hour at best. Five minutes of this and then the road settled down again, the car accelerating briefly, then an abrupt stop. The four doors opened and they dragged her out, two sets of hands under the arms, hustling her up and over what felt like a grassy knoll, her feet barely touching the ground. She listened to the surroundings to pick up on any sounds, heard little: no barking dogs, no traffic, no horses or sheep
