Everything Philo had rattled off was in the cooler or the bag. With him busy toileting, and Patrick’s ear to the bathroom door making sure Philo actually was busy on the phone while toileting, Patrick picked up a nearby kitchen towel and considered it carefully. It wasn’t white, but it was close enough to be symbolic of it. When he checked Philo again he was still on the phone, he and Commander Malcolm synching their timetables. He unzipped a side pocket on the gym bag, folded the hand towel flat, and tucked it in. He whispered a preemptive apology. “I believe in you, Philo sir, but… forgive me. I don’t want you to die.”
Philo emerged from emptying his bladder and completing his phone conversation. “You check us down, Patrick? We have everything?”
“I did, sir. Yes.”
“Great.”
“But I’m confused, sir.”
“About?”
“Commander Malcolm. What you just told him on the phone, sir. A later start time for the fight, and he should go there by himself?”
“Yeah, about that. He’s too close to this bareknuckle clusterfuck, Patrick. He’ll lose his shit all over the Yakuza if he’s part of the fight. These pricks killed his fiancée; Evan won’t abide by any Japanese honor code. If he gets a chance he’ll come out blasting, go right at them. That wouldn’t end well for any of us. So now he’s going to get there too late; it’ll be after everyone’s gone. It has to be this way, bud. Too much of a risk otherwise.”
“I dunno, sir. Maybe he won’t believe you. Maybe he shows up on time anyway.”
“It’s covered, Patrick. It’ll be fine.” A look through rustling curtains out the cottage window. Lanakai’s gold limo had arrived. “Our Ka Hui escort is here. Let’s go.”
Arriving at the farm, they passed the barn they’d used for the sparring session yesterday and headed into a jungle of trees where Philo’s SUV rental found tire ruts in the dirt. They were one of two SUVS and an RV that followed Wally Lanakai’s limo, the four vehicles bouncing through muddy pocks in the terrain. Philo didn’t have to ask who or what was in the other vehicles behind them. Insurance was the best answer, by way of men with guns. Their mood was somber, reflective, the silence a veil that was on them as soon as they’d reentered the farm property.
“You okay with all this, Patrick?” Philo said.
“I’m okay, sir.”
But Philo knew this barrage of new info that Patrick had learned about his identity had slammed his damaged employee with insights that even a person of average intelligence might struggle with.
“I’m here to help you sort this all out, bud. Mission accomplished, right? At least now you know your origin.”
“Mission accomplished, Philo sir.” After a beat, “I texted Grace about it, sir. She wants me to come home ASAP.”
“I heard from her, too. We’ll head home soon as we see this thing through. Either tomorrow or the next day.”
“You need to come back with me, sir.”
“I will, Patrick.”
“Alive.”
“Patrick—”
“Promise me you won’t do anything stupid, sir.”
A little bit strange hearing Patrick’s plea. You mean beyond what I’m already doing? But the concern was genuine, and it hit Philo in the feels. “Copy that, Patrick. Promise.”
They bounced into a clearing that fronted an unpainted cinderblock building, three stories and long, like multiple military barracks end to end. Other vehicles, Philo counted six, were already there and empty of their occupants. Two Japanese men with long rifles stood guard. Beyond the cars was a dual loading dock with overhead doors, cement steps leading up to them.
Lanakai, Mr. Suki, Magpie, and eight other mob guys exited their cars. Lanakai spoke, his people assembled behind him. “I see you were able to ditch your Navy CO friend.”
It had been a ruse he’d felt uncomfortable executing, making Evan think the barn they’d sparred in was the real deal, complete with the spray paint on the dirt floor. Evan would show up late for the party, and at the wrong place, after all this was over.
“Not one of my better moments. He will never forgive me.”
They’d parked in an open area in front of the building. The jungle had crept against the building on two sides, growing up and onto the metal roof, the rear not visible.
“Evan said there are three of these slaughterhouses out here,” Philo said. “So they all look like this, all overgrown?”
“I have no idea, Trout,” Wally said. “I heard the same thing. If the other two are on the farm property somewhere, the jungle’s done a good job of reclaiming them. Let’s head inside. We’re already late.”
One overhead door was open floor to ceiling. Once inside, they realized the door wasn’t open, it was missing, the interior walls overgrown with creeping vines. The jungle’s assault on the interior continued through glassless loading dock windows, the leafy green vines creeping up and over the sills. Philo started paying attention to the floor, to make sure nothing was moving on it, except things were. Magpie drew his handgun; his men drew theirs.
“Pacific rats,” Magpie said. “With the sugarcane gone from the islands, they’ve gotten bold. Watch your step.”
They reached a set of metal doors abutting each other, rubber-tipped, on swivel hinges. Magpie pushed through, held one side open. Inside was the front end of a chicken farm slaughterhouse, a large space illuminated with natural light coming from second-story windows. The cement floor was outlined in white paint with no vegetation on it: the boxing ring, this one also larger than regulation. Beyond the center space was the room’s shadowy edges where silhouettes had gathered. The shadows emerged en masse following a dark-suited Japanese male, his charges well-dressed Japanese men also, their suits looking identical. All had raised weapons in
