by Alan Lee
“You know we did?” said the woman. “We call him. We call the man, you say.”
“You did? The tailor at Sa Majesté a few blocks away? That was fast.”
“You know we did? We ask for it all!” She laughed and so did her friends, an unusual high cackling. “We say we take everything!”
She pronounced it, “errytheeen!”
Veronica, a sucker for enthusiasm and gorgeous dresses, laughed with them. If they practiced law, these women would be her sisters.
She asked, “I’d like to bid on the winners. Do you know how? Is that horrible of me?”
“No, not horrible,” said one of the lady’s friends. “We fuck too! Don’ bid on Riku! He Japan!”
“We bid America! We love him also!”
Veronica nodded, flustered. Said, “How do I—”
“Phone number on screen! We love you, so pretty!”
Then, like the winds shifted, they turned and hurried back to the bar. Short-stepping in heels, cackling.
“Phone number,” said Veronica, walking around the bar. She found a screen with Mackenzie’s photograph and video from tonight’s fight. There was a phone number with instructions. She had to text in her bid.
She looked at her phone and a blush burned her cheeks.
Considering her history, she thought, how on earth could this embarrass her?
As she toggled her phone, someone across the bar screamed. She jumped and automatically clutched her purse and phone to her chest.
A man (maybe Russian?) lay on the ground, a knife protruding from his shoulder. Above him stood another man (maybe Colombian?).
The angry man with flashing Bluetooth headsets swooped in with his cadre of enforcers to intercept the violence.
Veronica didn’t get to see the conclusion because a gentleman (maybe Italian?) in a tuxedo placed himself directly in her line of sight. A handsome guy, if a bit on the heavy and puckered side. Too much gel in the hair, too much entitlement in the smirk.
He held a drink out to her. “Too many criminals in the room, no?”
She stared at the drink but didn’t take it. “Too many criminals, not enough lawyers.”
“You are bidding on a champion?”
“Maybe.”
“I’m Antonio,” he said, still offering the drink. “And you need not bid for me. I am here, mi amore, and I am yours.”
“Oh…” she said, trying to see around him. The Russians and Colombians seemed exceptionally unhappy with each other, shouting with guns drawn.
“From the moment I saw you,” he said.
“Thank you, Antonio. But I decline.”
Another man (Chinese? With the Triads?) joined Antonio, also offering a drink to Veronica, and made essentially the same proposal, irking the Italian gentlemen. Veronica maneuvered enough to get a glimpse of the phone number for Mackenzie. She backed away from the bar, entering the number as quickly as she could as her two suitors argued.
She pressed Send and received a text response immediately.
>> BID AMOUNT FOR MACKENZIE AUGUST - AMERICAN CHAMPION
“Shit,” she said to herself. How much? Not the foggiest. A grand? Two grand? Three?
“Bid high,” said a voice at her ear. She turned. Another Italian man, this one older and losing his hair. Smelled good, though.
“You think?”
“The recent average? Twenty thousand euros,” he said.
Veronica’s jaw dropped. “You’re kidding.”
“Not to a woman as bellissimo as you.” He was also offering a drink, but Veronica didn’t notice.
“I never charged a fourth that much,” she muttered to herself.
She punched in a number.
30,000
And gulped.
Mackenzie was worth it.
Or, she thought, he better be.
>> GRAZIE. BID RECEIVED.
The gentleman was standing so close to her that his pelvis rubbed against her hip, and he did his best to look down her dress.
“Perhaps,” he said. “We could talk in my room, no?”
“Flattering, but my heart is set on a champion.”
“I saw your bid. I can pay that much.”
“For me.”
“For you,” he said.
“Damn it, I’ve been undercharging. You mob guys are loaded. Good for you.”
“So—”
“Also, no. Hell no,” said Veronica. She moved away, finding a spot at the bar. Caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.
No wonder the sweaty mafia men were after her—she looked perfect, in her professional and critical opinion. Amazing what money can do. She wished Mackenzie could see her…
Should she bid more? Maybe. He seemed a crowd favorite.
She punched more numbers into her phone.
35,000
>> GRAZIE. BID RECEIVED.
There was a digital clock counting down on the screen. Three more minutes.
Ugh. Forever.
She ordered a sauvignon blanc. The swarthy bartender set a wine glass in front of her and said, “For the lady? Free.”
“Thank you.” She sipped. Exquisite. The Teatro di Montagna was serving bottles of wine in the hundreds. Maybe higher. “How much do you think I should bid on a popular champion?”
The man, perhaps a few years younger than her, winked. “Signorina, for me? You pay nothing.”
“Never mind, god,” she said with a groan.
The Colombians and Russians were still shouting on the far side of the bar. Her favorite Chinese ladies cackled at their phones, punching numbers and sloshing champagne. Girls across the room, girls she recognized as prostitutes, were capturing the drunk and hungry men like shooting prurient fish in a barrel. She spied more men being carried on stretchers through a salon down the hall.
“This place better have excellent in-house counsel,” she muttered into her glass. “Unless those are judges walking away with the girls.”
At 11:40, the timer hit zero and her phone buzzed.
>> THANK YOU FOR BIDDING ON THE AMERICAN CHAMPION. UNFORTUNATELY YOU WERE OUTBID. GRAZIE.
She stared. And stared. Couldn’t move. “Fuck.”
Someone wealthier than her had just bid an astronomical amount for the right to have sex with her husband.
The woman had good taste. And if Veronica ever found out who she was, she’d drown the slut.
She drank half her wine, hoping Manny was having better luck.
At 11:45, Manny finally found a hotel employee his size. A room serviceman walked down a guest hallway carrying a bucket of ice and chilled champagne, and Manny hung back ten feet. The man stopped at 3014 and let himself with a keycard.
Without breaking stride, Manny followed.
The man saw him and smiled ingratiatingly. “Ah, Signore, hai ordinato lo champagne? Posso mettere—”
The lavish suite was empty so Manny pulled his new Beretta and pressed the nozzle hard into the man’s nose.
“Amigo,” said Manny. “Take off your pants.”
To the serviceman’s credit, he acted as though accustomed to absurdities at the Teatro di Montagna. He obeyed Manny’s requests with polite acquiescence, and in five minutes was handcuffed to the bed, wearing only his boxer shorts.
“Here’s how this goes,” said Manny, straightening the crimson vest over the black shirt, and inspecting his reflection. “I’m leaving. But I’ll come back and release you. If you are not here…” He referenced the name tag on his vest. “Niccolo, then I find you and sodomize you with my pistol.”
“Yes sir,” said the man, gravely.
“You know what that means? Sodomize?”
“No sir.”
“Stick my gun in your butt. Maybe I pull the trigger. So you stay here. Sí?”
“Yes sir. Very good.”
“I'll come back and release you, and buy you a drink. To apologize.” He picked up the bucket and popped a piece of gum into his mouth. “I’m taking the champagne.”
“A
s you like.”
“Wish me luck, hombre.”
“Good luck, sir.”
Manny strode to the second floor, following Marcus’s directions to the unmarked guarded door. Withdrawing the guest serviceman’s identification from the vest pocket, he flashed it but the two bored sentries didn’t spare him a second glance and he went straight through.
Once inside, Manny slowed. He took out the piece of gum he’d been chewing and pressed it underneath the cold champagne bottle. The moisture ruined the adhesion so he wiped it with a hand towel and tried again. Two handcuff keys were in his pocket, on a small ring. He separated them and forced one into the gum and, satisfied, replaced the bottle into the ice.
He turned a corner and nearly collided with a small metal pushcart, guided by a young boy. The boy smiled shyly at him and said, “Mi scusi, signore.”
“You speak English?”
“A little.”
Manny stood at a hallway T-junction. Armed guards patrolled all three directions. He lowered his voice. “Which way to the American?”
The boy laughed. “I go there too! We both bring champagne.”
Manny pointed at the boy’s cart. “That champagne is for Mack?”
“Mackenzie the King! Mackenzie the Yankee! Yes, signore.”
“Here,” said Manny. He picked up the ice bucket from the cart and replaced it with his own. “The kitchen made a mistake. You deliver mine. I’ll return yours.”
“Good idea,” said the boy. He smiled so big Manny thought about adopting him. “My bottle of champagne is no good. I was worried.”
“Why?”
“I think the Mexicans poisoned it. Revenge for beating their champion.”
“That happens?”
“Of course. You are new, no?”
Manny nodded. “I am new. You go, I’ll follow.”
The boy turned left and then right down the opulent hallways, stopped at a door with an American flag placard. He knocked and tall bearded man opened.
“Champagne,” the boy said. “A gift from the hotel. For the American.”
“Ja,” said the man. He irritably jerked his head in. “Come in with it, then.”
Come in viz it, zen.
Manny angled himself enough to peer inside the room. White walls, white couches, floor the color of wine. No Mackenzie. A guard sat on a chair, his feet up.
Two guards only? Like winning the lottery.
Manny’s hand dropped to his side. The HK-23 was clipped to his belt, under the vest. The barrel and attached suppressor pointed upwards along his spine.
Two guards only…
A radio squawk echoed down the hall. A roving sentry. Big guy, buzz cut, walking with his Beretta ARX held in both hands, pointed at the ground. Impressive assault rifle. He wasn’t a fat Italian guard with his feet up. This guy meant business. Special forces. He looked Asian, but maybe not far East?
Asians all looked the same, Manny thought, very unlike Hispanics.
The man regarded Manny with the hostility all professional badass guards possessed and turned his direction.
Change of plans—deal with the frowny roving sentry, and then bust into Mack’s room.
The young Italian boy returned and shot Manny a thumbs up. The German closed the door. Still the sentry came on.
Manny’s pulse went from 60 beats per minute to 64.
The man asked Manny, “Sei nuovo?”
Manny didn’t know Italian but nuovo sounded like nuevo, the Spanish word for new. He grinned and nodded.
“Sì,” he said, shoving as much Italian into the syllable as possible. It was one of the few Italian words he knew.
The man looked at the boy. “Gennaro, chi è questo straniero? Non lo riconosco.”
The man’s Italian was clipped. Formal, not his first language.
Manny said, “You speak Italian with a British accent, señor."
The sentry, clearly startled, turned his baleful eyes back on Manny. “And you speak English.”
“I do, though us Hispanics sound better in English than you ugly British.”
“I’m not British and you don’t work here, amigo.”
Manny snapped his finger. “Ay dios mio, you’re a Gurkha. Good for you.”
A Gurkha was a member of the British special forces group comprised entirely of elite Nepalese super fighters. Gurkha’s were some of the world’s best. Manny knew enough to take the man seriously.
Shame if he had to kill him.
The man said, “Who are you.”
Manny tapped his name tag. “You can’t read, Gurkha? Name’s…errr, Ricky?”
“Tag says Niccolo.”
Manny did a shrug. “Same thing. Italian names all sound alike.”
Gennaro laughed.
“You don’t work here,” the man said again.
“Are Gurkha’s usually this rude, bebé? No manners in the special forces. You notice these hallways don’t have security cameras?”
“Last thing rich people want,” said the giant Gurkha. “Is their behavior recorded.” His hand went to the radio on his shoulder, most likely to call for clarification about the smart-ass guest serviceman in the champion hallway. “Wait here.”
“What is this?” said a new voice. A beautiful woman walking towards them, wearing a green evening dress. Or, wearing most of it; her breasts were about to spill out. “Is something wrong with the American champion?”
“No, signora,” said Manny.
The man nodded deferentially to her. “No, Mrs. Chambers.”
The woman stopped between them. Smelled like ten-thousand-dollar perfume.
Mrs. Chambers, the Gurkha called her. Duane’s wife. She’d been on the plane with Mackenzie.
Gennaro smiled, looking on.
She said, “You two men work for the hotel?”
Manny said, “Only until you make me a better offer, mamita."
He was maintaining eye contact with her and smiling, something he knew caused occasional and temporary insanity with women his age. Or older. Or younger.
The Gurkha said, “I work directly for Signore Rossi, Mrs. Chambers. And I have my doubts about this man.”
“You work for Rossi?” said Manny and he made a tsk’ing noise. “Mercenary working for an evil man? Makes you evil too.”
“You’re about to find out,” said the man. “Just how evil I am.”
Mrs. Chambers took a slow breath and said, “If I ordered you two to go into my bed room and undress, are you compelled to obey? I’d settle for one, but I’d prefer both.”
“Your wish, my command,” said Manny.
“I am on duty,” said the Gurkha. “And I will not leave my post. Ma’am.”
Manny scoffed. “Coward. You would not know what to do with a woman like this anyway.” He nodded his head at the hulking sentry and told Mrs. Chambers, “He’s a Gurkha. Had his penis cut off for the sake of Her Majesty.”
The little boy named Gennaro gasped.
The man said, “We…? No, that’s untrue.”
“Prove it.”
“What?”
“Right now,” said Manny. “Prove it. Drop them pants.”
“All kinds of bad things are about to happen to you, Niccolo.”
“Wait here,” said the woman. “I need to check on my champion. And then the three of us, we’re going to my private suite.”
She strode past them, giving Manny an especially smoky stare down. She went to the American door and opened it.
Manny told the fuming sentry, “Go patrol somewhere else, Bruce Banner. I want this one.”
“You don’t work here,” the man said in his disorienting British accent. “And that makes you a dead man.”
“Go on, big guy. Keep walking, I don’t share.”
At that moment, Mackenzie crashed through the door, his hand around Mrs. Chambers’s throat. Manny was too stunned to move. She kissed him on the mouth and whispered, “You may not leave yet.” Mackenzie began to deflate like a balloon. His knees
went out and the rest followed.
“Guards?” Mrs. Chambers called. “Some help, s'il vous plaît.”
Manny reached her first. He grabbed his friend by the arm. For a minute, Mack looked as though he recognized him.
“What is…what is happening to him?” asked Manny. “What’d you do?”
“I have taken back what’s mine.”
The Gurkha reached them. Growled, “This fucking prisoner keeps trying to escape.” He raised his fist, ready to break Mack’s face.
Manny caught the Gurkha’s wrist. Held it in an iron grip. He whispered, quiet as death, “No, señor Gurkha. You are finished.”
Their faces were inches apart. Eyes locked.
The man said in a growl, “You definitely don’t work here, Spic.”
Guards came running. A lot of them.
The Gurkha understood Manny was more than a serviceman. He tried jerking his hand free, tried bringing his assault rifle up, but Manny was too quick—his free hand produced a five-inch fixed blade from his belt, a SEAL Pup. Manny delivered two short savage punches—burying the steel under the man’s ribs, into the lung, and thrusting over the hip bone, ripping the lower internal organs. Immediate and irreparable damage.
The man had less than five minutes, his spleen spilling poison into the destroyed kidneys and liver and pancreas.
Just as quick, Manny’s knife disappeared. Surgical destruction in less than a second.
No one noticed the Gurkha’s silent agony and collapse, because too many guards were arriving, too much mayhem. The Gurkha and Mackenzie huddled on the floor, struggling to stay awake.
Manny cursed quietly. Be hard to carry Mack and fight his way out…
Not hard. Impossible.
He turned and hurried Gennaro before him, down the hall. “Come on, mijo. This is no place for you.”
More guards sprinted their way, ignoring the hotel staff.
Manny’s jaw was set, his eyes hard like diamond, his heart burning. So close. The key had worked, but Chambers had some other method of controlling Mackenzie.
He was beginning to hate this hotel.
33
A hotel reception clerk and two porters arrived at Manny’s door at one in the morning, as he and Veronica returned to their room, defeated.
