Lying flat on her back, her gaze still fixed on the ceiling above, Erika made no attempt to look over. “Yeah, Ma, I’m up.”
The response was just four words, but instantly the older woman grasped the resignation in the tone, the underlying meaning present. Another sound of metal straining against metal could be heard as she pushed the door open a little further, a floorboard creaking beneath her weight as she stepped into the room.
“Dream or knee?”
Without being invited in, she shuffled across the bare floor, her slippers sliding over the polished surface, and perched herself on the edge of the bed, her weight shifting the entire thing a few inches to the side.
For a moment Erika considered not answering, or even better making up a lie, telling her mother that in truth she was just feeling good and had sprung up before the sun, anxious to get across town, to try something new.
Just as fast she dismissed the notion, knowing her mother would see right through it, would not appreciate the effort Erika had put into lying to her.
“Knee.”
A long sigh was the immediate response, Erika able to picture the expression on her mother’s face, before hearing, “Well, that’s better than the alternative. At least we know that will heal.”
This time Erika chose to remain silent, instead shifting her focus to the side.
For as long as she could remember, everybody in town had told her what a striking resemblance she bore to her mother, a fact she couldn’t rightly refute, no matter how many times she had wanted to over the years. Even now as she was just past 30 and her mother was into her mid-50s, the similarities were jarring.
If someone did not know Robin Wernick, they would think she was in her early-40s at most. Blessed with white blonde hair, the thick locks looked exactly as they always had, nature protecting her from the steady march of graying that befell so many.
Descendant from Viking stock, she had wide cheekbones and clear blue eyes, a heart-shaped face tapering into a thin mouth. Standing a few inches below 6’ in height, her entire form was wrapped in a padded flannel nightgown, appearing to give her much more bulk than Erika knew really existed.
“How’s everything else feeling?” Robin asked.
Again rolling her attention toward the ceiling, seeing the random pattern of light grow stronger as the sun forced its way above the horizon, Erika ran through the list of injuries in her mind.
Just two days before the cast had come off her fractured wrist, and while she was still adjusting to life without the added weight, she was immeasurably glad to be free of it.
Most of the cuts she’d sustained were now healed, a few still remaining as ugly streaks of gnarled pink tissue, some having already begun to fade.
“Fine,” Erika said. “I think I just banged my knees together when I rolled over.”
“Hmm,” Robin replied, in one sound letting Erika know she accepted the answer, even if she didn’t quite believe it. “Well, I didn’t mean to intrude this morning, I was just coming in to check and make sure you were up.”
“I know,” Erika replied. “And I am.”
Sliding a hand up onto Erika’s shoulder, Robin squeezed it tight, the older woman’s grip having not receded a bit with age. “Most days I would be happy to let you rest, but you don’t want to be late. Big day today.”
How big of a day it was Erika wasn’t so sure, but again she knew better than to argue with her mother.
As the sister of Big Ern, she would bear the brunt of any transgressions Erika committed.
“I know, Ma. I won’t be late.”
Giving another squeeze, Robin said, “Besides, I think this might be good for you. Get you out of the house, let you talk to some folks, get your mind on something else for a while.”
In one sentence, her mother had managed to nail every reason why Erika didn’t want to go. No part of her wanted to leave the sanctity of the house, wanted people around town casting glances her way or asking awkward questions she wasn’t yet ready to face.
Didn’t know if she even had the answers to, if it came down to it.
Per usual, though, there was no way she could actually say any of that.
“I know, Ma. I won’t be late.”
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Sneak Peek #2
The Ham
Prologue
The ground absorbs any sound made by my footfalls. Walking heel-to-toe, I make sure each foot is placed down carefully, the thick bed of pine needles insulating the earth and masking my movements.
Moving in a serpentine pattern, I trace a path through the thin underbrush of the forest, this place one of the few in the world I have ever called home.
And right now, this man is here violating that. Not just with his mere presence but with everything he represents. Everybody he is associated with, every intention he has in mind.
With every thought, every realization, every moment, I am in his presence I can sense my animosity growing higher. I can feel as it raises my pulse, increases my body temperature, even tightens the grip on the rock in my hand.
To shoot this man would be easiest. To simply sight in on the back of his skull and ease back the trigger, knowing from this distance there is no possible way I can miss.
But the easiest path right now won’t necessarily be the easiest moving forward.
And it would damned sure be far, far kinder than this man deserves.
Chapter One
The last sliver of orange has just slid beneath the western horizon as the ring announcer steps through the ropes. It sends a thousand shards of shimmering light across the surface of the Pacific Ocean with its last gasps, the sudden absence plunging the world into a state of exaggerated darkness.
And just as they always do, the strands of bare bulbs strung high above the ring kick on a moment later, casting a straw-colored pallor over everything below.
The aging ring is built on pressure-treated 4x4’s buried directly into the sand, spots of blood and assorted detritus dotting the canvas mat. The twin aluminum risers are on either end, both loaded with drunken revelers, their skins painted shades ranging from tomato red to dark tan. Beers in both hands, tobacco juice or sunflower seeds hang from their lips and the assorted forms of facial hair stuck to their chins.
Per usual, the overwhelming majority of onlookers are men, the few women that are mixed in serving clearly as accompaniment, still dressed in bikini tops from the day or already in leather anticipating the night ahead.
No in-between.
On the east and west ends of the ring are scads of wooden folding chairs, what were once even rows already a twisted jumble. Housing most of the regulars, they’re grouped into random clusters, seats turned so they can see some combination of the sunset, the ring, or each other.
Considering that every last one of them had to pay to get in, I’m not sure anybody rightly gives a damn what they look at.
Least of all, me.
Despite the open-air venue, the recent sunset, the faint breeze pushing in from the sea, there is a palpable charge in the air. That familiar buzz that I’ve known for decades now, the unshakable feeling that seems to reach deep inside, igniting the parts of me I spend most of the week keeping tamped down.
For the last hour, the crowd has sat and watched the undercard for the night. Beginning with less than half of what is now on hand, the combination of buckets of beer and the cheap cover charge has managed to pull in enough to fill the bleachers, easily the largest crowd we’ve drawn in a while.
It also doesn’t hurt that the first several bouts turned into little more than backyard brawls. Bloody affairs with over-muscled men that had once been high school athletes and can’t let it go, so they come out here to the sand every weekend. Smaller guys that work the fields nearby, carrying resentment for damn near everything in their lives, entering the ring with something to prove.
And of course, a healthy sprinkling of fools that have watched a few too many MMA bouts on television
and figured it didn’t look that hard. Little more than chum for the crowd, they have done their part, sacrificial lambs for the maddened rabble.
With each passing bout, I sat in the back and felt the energy rising. Starting low, it worked steadily upward, cresting into a veritable hunger, bordering on lust, the feeling so strong I can feel it pushing in from every angle.
Goose pimples cover my exposed forearms and calves as I assume my stance in the corner, waiting as the ring announcer steps through the ropes. A cordless microphone in hand, he doesn’t pretend to be some sort of Michael Buffer knockoff, showing up in the traditional attire of a tuxedo and polished wing tips.
Opting for little more than board shorts and a tank top, the tail of his unbuttoned Aloha shirt flaps to either side. No more than a couple of hours from the surf, his long hair is sun bleached and pulled back, a crooked grin on his face.
All in all, a look that holds no pretense, neither confirming nor denying the fact that he’s a Los Angeles trust-fund baby down here hiding from his family and the real world and all the responsibility both brings with them.
Not that I give a shit. This isn’t the place anybody ends up unless they’re hiding from something.
Myself included.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he says, his sandals slapping against his heels as he saunters to the center of the ring. A quick squawk of feedback through the cheap mic echoes through the speakers, vocal displeasure sounding out from the audience.
Pretending not to notice, he pushes on. “Let’s hear another round of applause for our last combatants, Charlie Reed and Eric Montrose!”
Calling the last two guys combatants is something like calling the Grand Canyon a ditch. Both big and beefy, the bout quickly devolved into a couple of gorillas trying to see who could withstand more haymakers.
It was like watching three rounds of the last forty seconds of every Rocky Balboa fight.
The crowd had loved it.
The reception to his request is weak at best, what clapping there is accompanied by a healthy smattering of boos. Already the crowd has moved on from the last spectacle, ready for the next in line. A small shower of peanut shells and paper napkins rain down, the items dotting the outer edges of the ring, some even landing within a few inches of my feet.
Not that the announcer seems to notice. Even with the top of my head buried into the corner pad, my gaze aimed straight down at the ground, I can imagine the look on his face. One corner of his mouth is rising higher, his grin growing ever more lopsided.
He lives for this shit, inciting the masses, feeling like he’s some sort of ringmaster in his own personal circus.
All bought and paid for with his daddy’s money.
Not that he — or any of us — have any delusions about where we are and what we’re doing. The last guys beating the hell out of each other just means there are a few more stains on the mat going forward. Pelting the ring with garbage doesn’t mean we’re going to slow things down to sweep up. It’s just that much more crap for me to now roll around in.
This isn’t Las Vegas, or New York City, or even Rio. The people that have shown up to watch know that. Those of us that step inside the ring damned sure know it.
And here we are in spite of it.
Or, some might even argue, because of it.
“All right,” the announcer says, a bit of his surfer accent sliding out, making him sound like McConaughey in Dazed and Confused. Rotating at the waist, he looks to either side before saying, “and with that, I’ll get us straight to what we all came here to see tonight.”
“Ham!” a stray voice calls out. “Ham!”
My eyes slide shut. This is the worst part. That damn chant that some drunken idiot always gets started.
“Ham!”
Ignoring him, the announcer calls, “For tonight’s main event, we have one of the most anticipated bouts in Shakey Jake’s history.”
His voice cracks as he walks around the ring, pretending that he’s trying to whip them up a bit more, though there’s no need. The collective energy has continued to rise, the lack of walls or a roof having no negative effect on the tension brimming in the air.
No, this is about him siphoning off a little piece of things for himself, reminding everybody here who is responsible for all this.
Because it has been a whopping fifteen minutes since he last pointed it out.
“Two women, different in every way,” he continues. “One Latina, the other white. One from South America, the other North. One making her Tijuana debut here tonight, the other putting her crown and perfect record on the line!”
The hype achieves some modest bit of effect, enough to at least push a swell of cheers and applause from the crowd.
Again, I hear the same inebriated bastard attempt to get a chant going, calling, “Ham! Ham!”
Once more, the announcer ignores him. My time will come. Right now, he’s still milking his moment.
“In the blue corner,” he continues, his voice rising and ebbing, “a woman coming to us straight from the underground club circuit of Colombia. Standing six foot two and weighing one hundred and sixty pounds, with a 38-2 record, the Bogota Brawler herself, Victoria Rosales!”
I don’t bother moving from my spot in the corner, already knowing exactly what the woman looks like, her actual physical description enhanced the standard twenty percent by announcer hyperbole.
On a good day — in boots — she might go six feet even. Weigh maybe a pound or two above a buck forty. Striated muscle lines her arms and shoulders but her midsection is a bit softer, free of definition, with small bulges visible above her trunks.
Not that all of that is easy to see, most of it obscured by dark ink etched into much of her skin. Beginning around her ear, it wraps down one side of her neck before spreading over her back and, eventually, making it all the way to her calves.
With basic coloring and blurry lines, it’s the sort of thing referred to in the States as prison ink, though I don’t have enough knowledge of the girl or parlors in Colombia to know if she got hers inside or if that’s just how tattoos look down there.
Not that it much matters, my lifetime interaction with her is about to come to an abrupt end in about ten minutes.
Perfunctory cheers ring out as a bit more debris lands in the ring. Right now, I imagine she has a fist or two raised into the air, making a small circle, the announcer remaining silent, extending the moment as long as he can.
Same cocksure smile on his face.
The first few times I was down here, I played the part. I stayed upright in the corner, responding to all the cues, doing what was expected.
That was long ago, well before I came to see that it went the same way every time, that the kid was more interested in playing out his own little fantasy than actually doing justice to the venue or the fighters.
Now, I just stay in my corner, wrists draped over the ropes, top of my head pressed into the pad, waiting it out.
“And her opponent,” he eventually pushes out, “a woman that you all already know. Making her way down from just over the border and standing before you tonight with a perfect twenty-eight-and-oh record, your champion — Haaaaam!”
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Dustin’s Books
Works Written by Dustin Stevens:
Reed & Billie Novels:
The Boat Man
The Good Son
The Kid
The Partnership
Justice
The Scorekeeper
The Bear
Hawk Tate Novels:
Cold Fire
Cover Fire
Fire and Ice
Hellfire
Home Fire
Wild Fire
(Coming soon)<
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Zoo Crew Novels:
The Zoo Crew
Dead Peasants
Tracer
The Glue Guy
Moonblink
The Shuffle
(coming soon)
Standalone Thrillers:
Four
Ohana
Liberation Day
Twelve
21 Hours
Catastrophic
Scars and Stars
Motive
Going Viral
The Debt
One Last Day
The Subway
The Exchange
Ham
Standalone Dramas:
Just A Game
Be My Eyes
Quarterback
Children’s Books w/ Maddie Stevens:
Danny the Daydreamer…Goes to the Grammy’s
Danny the Daydreamer…Visits the Old West
Danny the Daydreamer…Goes to the Moon
(Coming Soon)
Works Written by T.R. Kohler:
Standalone:
Shoot to Wound
Peeping Thoms
The Ring
The Hunter
My Mira Saga
Spare Change
Office Visit
Fair Trade
About the Author
Dustin Stevens is the author of more than 20 novels, 15 of them having become #1 Amazon bestsellers, including the Hawk Tate and Zoo Crew series. The Boat Man, the first release in the best-selling Reed & Billie series, was recently named the 2016 Indie Award winner for E-Book fiction and the 3rd Grand Prize Winner for all books – hard cover, paperback and ebook.
He is an award-winning screenwriter in the prestigious Harvardwood and Emerging Screenwriters competitions, as well as the Nashville International Film Festival and the Honolulu Film Awards. In addition, he is the only multi-time finalist at the Big Bear Lake International Film Festival.
Motive ; One Last Day ; Going Viral Page 73
