Well that’s not good, Philo told himself.
Mifumo was on him, arms around Philo’s waist, bearhugging him, lifting him, slamming him onto the cement floor, onto his shoulder, where he heard and felt a pop.
That’s not good either, damn it…
Mifumo heard it too, plus Philo’s pained grunt, and the close-in grappling began, Mifumo swiveling around Philo, lifting him by the waist from behind, off his feet…
A shoulder separation meant the match was over, or could be over, if his opponent saw it the same way. Philo was left to count on Mifumo’s killer instinct, that he would instead go for the pain, not the win. Mifumo twisted Philo’s torso while raising him up and overhead, would go for a throw-down against the shoulder, maybe snap a clavicle…
Pain rather than win. A bad choice, and the opening Philo needed.
He twisted in midair and jackknifed a leg around Mifumo’s neck, an acrobatic move that snagged his opponent’s raised arm while overwhelming his head. A tuck of Philo’s foot behind his knee locked his leg around Mifumo’s arm and neck together. When they slammed into the floor, Mifumo’s face took the brunt, not Philo’s shoulder, with Philo maintaining a submission chokehold. Mifumo shook, rolled, twisted, pinched, punched, and scratched, wiggling on the floor like a flounder, but like a hooked fish on a boat deck, he was unable to breathe with Philo’s locked leg around his neck, applying pressure. Mifumo was losing consciousness. His hand went out, clawed at the cement floor, then he pounded it, signifying his submission… the fight was over…
Philo ignored the signal, tightened the leg lock on his neck and arm, couldn’t be sure this wasn’t a trick. “I hate this fucking blood sport!” he shouted at the fading Mifumo, “but I’m told… I’d be good at it…”
Yabuki’s men screamed, pushed forward from behind their leader, intending to rush Philo, to make him unclench, but Yabuki’s arm went up as a stop sign to keep them from interfering. He shouted at them in Japanese until they all quieted and retreated. Stone-faced, he watched Philo as he squeezed the life out of a subdued man, Yabuki’s black, dead eyes telling him to finish the job…
…which made Philo unclench his opponent’s neck. Mifumo remained on his back, unconscious but alive. Philo rose to his feet in torn briefs, panting, one shoulder drooping, the shoulder separation real and painful as hell.
Yabuki waded in, stood over Mifumo, spoke to Philo. “You chose to spare him.” He eyed the defeated fighter at his feet. “But I will not. Get my fighter out of here,” he shouted at his men.
Mifumo coughed and sputtered groggy apologies as two Yakuza dragged him off, exiting the room.
“About our agreement, Lanakai—” Yabuki said, his bodyguards with their hands inside their jackets.
Wally’s own muscle surrounded him, all of them already on the move, arriving center ring, Magpie on the periphery, a phone to his ear while he eyed Wally. He nodded at his boss and Wally nodded back.
“Where the hell is she?” Wally grunted at Yabuki.
Philo joined Patrick in the back of the room. “Get all our stuff now, bud… we can’t be in here…”
Yabuki inserted his fist between his and Lanakai’s middle-aged, angry faces, and turned his thumb down, the gesture slow, dramatic. “I never had any intention of releasing her. She and her body parts will now sleep… with the chickens. Similar to everyone left on that island…”
He barked an order in Japanese. His men showed their guns. Lanakai’s men reciprocated.
“Go, Patrick, we need to get out…”
Gunfire erupted, Philo and Patrick making themselves smaller, less of a target in their retreat, and not looking back. They reached the loading dock, peeked out a door, scanned the parking lot. The two Yakuza protecting the vehicles were now rushing the steps keen to the gunfire, to enter the building through a different door.
“Go! You drive!” Philo said, pushing Patrick.
“What about Kaipo, sir?”
“I know. Just get in the car…”
“He said she’ll now sleep with the chickens, sir…!”
“I heard, Patrick! Close the goddamn door!”
Patrick backed the SUV up, slapped the transmission into drive, spinning the tires in the dirt until they caught traction, the vehicle rocketing into the tire ruts as it headed back into the jungle.
33
The SUV idled in a clearing. Philo pointed. “This one. Go up here.”
They were running out of farm property to investigate. Fifteen minutes post-fight, he was sure they were near the property line, could hear street traffic. He had his jeans back on, his socks, and his footwear, was now negotiating his shirt around a throbbing shoulder that needed medical attention.
“Seat belt back on now, sir,” Patrick said, turning where Philo pointed. “This trail looks really bouncy…”
It was one of a few offshoot tributaries they’d passed on their way to the chicken slaughterhouse that had been the fight venue. The vegetation grabbed at the SUV’s raised undercarriage and the side mirrors, stalky, heavy, with scraping noises against the car’s frame and the side panels, but a little less of it because they were inside tire ruts. Choking, enveloping vegetation that smelled like what it was, photosynthesis at work, leafy, dusty, sneezy, and chlorophyll-laden. Philo hit his head on the roof with the vehicle dipping into and out of the ruts—“owww!”—until he’d finally harnessed himself into the seat.
“There, up ahead, Patrick. What is that?”
“Dunno, sir.”
It sank into the hill, a landslide against one side of it. Another long building, this one spreading out left of where they sat. The landslide had reached the metal roof and nearly devoured it, the building underneath. This could not have been the main entrance, yet they couldn’t see the other end, the building disappearing into the jungle, although this jungle shrubbery seemed to border the developed parts of Kauai. The door leading inside the building was gripped by aggressive, advancing vegetation, was open, but barely. Could they even fit through…?
“We’ll check here, Patrick,” Philo said, exiting
