by Jeremy Brown
Carrasco swore and concentrated on breathing. Malhar twitched on the crushed concrete like his brain was doing a systems check.
Rubin looked for a bloodless spot on my shoulder, patted it with two fingers. “Congratulations my friend. You survived the final Coluna da Cobra of the Axila da Serpente.”
“You got everybody?”
“Those who stayed to fight are dead.” He made a face. “Or arrested. The fire will do the rest. Remember what I said about dropping Napalm at the top, watching it roll down? Man, I didn’t think my flares would do this, but it’s all right. And hey, the fire don’t care if we’re with Exu or not, so let’s get moving.”
He waved Marcela out of the armored car.
She checked with me. I nodded. She popped the door and came to me, wrapped my right arm over her shoulders and pulled me away from Carrasco.
Rubin tilted his head and listened to the sporadic gunfire. Whatever it told him, he tugged on a radio mic strapped to his shoulder and spoke in Portuguese. A man’s voice responded with something brief.
I asked Rubin, “Everybody else—Gil, Antonio—they’re safe?”
“Yes, my men escorted them back to the estate.”
The Arcoverde estate. I flashed on the picture Carrasco showed us, Exu’s soldiers waiting to storm the gate and slaughter the innocents inside.
Marcela’s grip tightened. “My home. My family.”
Rubin shook his head. “It is unfortunate. Carrasco had some of his people there. But I also had some of mine, in place since before the sun went down. His people were trapped and should have surrendered, but would not. They are dead. Everyone else, your family? They are fine.”
Marcela squeezed me even harder.
Rubin brightened. “Hey, do you like the Caveirão? It’s good to have it back. So embarrassing, to have one go missing. This Carrasco, man. Come on, get in. We will drive you down. I have a trauma station set up and buddy, I think you need it.”
Two of Rubin’s men emerged from one of the alleys, guns and flashlight beams sweeping every surface. They wore heavier armor and had black balaclavas on under their helmets.
Rubin spoke with them in a low voice. They opened the back doors on the armored car and helped me and Marcela into the jump seats, facing each other, then walked around and got into the cockpit.
Rubin stood below us, hands on the doors. “I’m happy you two are safe.”
“You coming with us?”
He winked. “Just a couple things left to do.”
He closed the doors and we rolled away. Marcela reached for my hands and found them searching for hers. We leaned forward into each other and shared uneven, hitching breaths. She put her head on my right shoulder and I turned toward her neck, smelled her hair.
When I opened my eyes I could see through the rectangular window in the door. Rubin stood over Carrasco, who was trying to crawl into the tunnel.
Rubin had the chrome pistol out, reloading it.
We tipped over the edge of the courtyard and bumped down the mountain. Branches and vines scraped along the armor.
The gunshots were louder than the others, closer, but otherwise no different.
19
The surviving members of Exu’s army knelt along one of the abandoned buildings across from the Dumpsters with their hands zip-tied behind their backs and their heads pressed against the cinderblock walls.
If the cops had a bus, they would only need one trip.
The medics at the trauma station asked if I’d been hit by a car.
“Close enough.”
They poked at my elbow, rubbed our cuts with alcohol pads and cut away my pant leg to get a look at the holes in my thigh.
“Claw hammer,” I said.
The lead medic shrugged. “Seen it before. What happened to your face?”
“He’s like that always,” Marcela said.
He grunted. “Your head is lumpy too. Hammer?”
“Mostly.”
He told Marcela, “Watch him for a concussion. The elbow is badly sprained with a partial tear in the biceps tendon. Don’t let him use it for a while.”
He wrapped my arm in a sling and kicked us out to make room for a policeman who’d been shot in the foot.
Two uniformed officers, male and female, approached.
The woman said, “You are Mr. Wallace and Miss Arcoverde?”
“Yes,” Marcela said.
“Detective Rubin sent us. We are to take you home.”
Brazilians know how to hug. And they love to show it, even when you’re busted up and whimpering with every embrace. I made several rounds through the Arcoverde family with Gil glued to my side. He established a pattern of one hug from an Arcoverde, one from him.
When I crossed paths with Marcela we would ask, “You okay?”
Answers were muffled in arms and shoulders.
Antonio bawled like he was performing an opera. Jairo draped a dishtowel over his shoulder and Antonio threw it across the room with glee. Javier and Edson sang something in Portuguese.
At three in the morning Marcela kissed me goodnight. The celebration had dwindled to some sniffing and laughing.
“I am falling over,” she said.
“Long day.”
“You are okay?”
“Great. You?”
She nodded. “You aren’t supposed to sleep. You might have a concussion.”
“Oh, I’m gonna sleep.”
She rolled her eyes. “After all of this, don’t die from going to bed, okay?”
“I’ll do my best.”
She kissed me again and padded away, exhausted.
I hit the pillow and had the most well-earned sleep of my life.
Everyone was up before me. Easy enough when you sleep until eleven. Our flight to Vegas was at three.
I had work to do before then.
I rolled out of bed and every cell in my body stomped the brakes. My elbow was checked out, not even interested in moving. The perforated thigh responded to increased blood flow by convulsing and clacking my knees together. All the cuts, lumps, and bruises piped up, not to be ignored.
Fuck all of ’em.
I swore and staggered my way into the kitchen.
Someone gasped about it.
Antonio’s wife Cecilia had a spread of ham, fruit, and cheese on the counter. I clear-cut it on my way through, carried the plate around with my right hand and tilted it to slide the food into my mouth while I Frankenstein’s Monstered my way around. I finally found Marcela sitting on the bench near the pond, overlooking the green hills rolling down toward Rio.
She had some scrapes on her forehead and knees, her knuckles were swollen, and one ankle was wrapped with a compression bandage.
“You look gorgeous.”
She stole the rest of my ham and swung her feet.
“I have to leave today.”
Her mouth was full. “I know this.”
“Come with me.”
“Woody . . .”
“You can’t tell me we don’t belong together. After everything.”
“We do. You are life to me. I think about you and have to pull my knees up to my chest because my stomach won’t hold still. But I can’t come with you.”
“Before, you said—”
“Yes, before they burned our academy to the ground. Everything I said then is still true, and now we must rebuild. That academy is our family. I am the reason it was destroyed.”
“No way. You can’t think that.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think. I can’t leave everyone else to clean up our mess.”
We stared at the trees. All I could see was an unacceptable future.
“What about after?”
She leaned against my shoulder. “There is no after. You will go home, I will stay here, and things will change.”
“No.”
“I will be here, running the academy, all sweaty and smelly with many children trying to choke me. You will find some ring girl o
r dancer with a perfect nose and nothing to say.”
“Hell no.”
“I will miss you every day. And I will be sad, not having a next time to look forward to. Not planning what I will do when I first get to see you again, touch you again.”
“But that could be every day,” I said. “Come with me. The next time we see each other will be every morning.”
“How I would love that. But I can’t. I’m sorry.” She sniffed and wiped her eyes on my sleeve. “You know what I will miss the most?”
I used the other sleeve. “Everything.”
She nodded.
We watched the trees and saw nothing until it was time to go.
Gil met us at the back door of Antonio’s house. He winced at the shuffling approach of broken hearts.
“Eddie’s here.”
“What the hell for?”
Gil shrugged and sipped his coffee. “I ever start understanding Eddie, something has gone horribly wrong.” He put his arm around Marcela. “I’m sorry I have to steal him from you.”
She slumped a punch into his ribs, hard enough to jostle his mug.
“Damn, be careful. I deserve it but the coffee didn’t do a thing.”
Eddie stood in the kitchen with Jairo and Antonio. When he saw me limping in his mouth fell open. “Aviso did all of that?”
“Sure, why not. I thought you were leaving last night.”
“Brah, did you see what happened last night? Yeah. The place was crazy. Because of you two.”
Jairo popped his eyebrows and biceps.
Eddie slapped two stacks of paper on the table. “We’ve been working all morning on this.”
Gil said, “One of those better be a title shot for Woody. After Aviso, there is no argument against him being the top contender.”
“Not an argument,” Eddie said, conducting the room. “An opportunity.”
Gil closed his eyes. “Ah, fuck me.”
“Blood Brothers,” Eddie said. He let it hang for a moment. “Two friends, practically brothers. They trained together, they lived together. Hell, one even loves up on the other’s sister.”
Portuguese outrage made him retreat.
“All right, maybe we’ll leave that part out. Probably not. But we already have the footage of Woody wanting to fight Antonio, Jairo telling him to get the hell out. The foundation is set, gentlemen.”
Jairo frowned.
Antonio’s head tilted forward. His jaw muscles rippled as he chewed Eddie’s bullshit and tried to spit it out.
“We hype it up,” Eddie said. “Woody trains at the WarriorDome in front of the whole world. Jairo trains here in his family’s sanctuary, like a goddam warrior monk. In a few months, maybe half a year, we make you two the main event in Las Vegas. Winner fights for the championship. I know we just had Jairo’s first fight, but he brings enough history to make it legit.”
“And enough Brazilian fans,” Gil said.
Eddie shrugged. “Don’t hurt.”
“No way in hell,” I said. “I’m not fighting Jairo.”
“Okay, let me remind you. Your contract states if you refuse a fight, I can terminate the agreement altogether. You’re out. Maybe you don’t think it’s fair for Jairo to get a shot at the belt alongside you, but tough shit. At least this way you get a chance to beat him out for it. You don’t fight him, I’ll give him another top contender. You can watch him fight for the title from the undercard. Or the street, whatever.”
Marcela looked like she was going to choke him with his own legs.
“We all need to talk about this,” I said.
Eddie shook his head. “No time. If Blood Brothers is gonna happen we’ll leave a crew here, start filming today.” He slid one of the contracts toward me, one over to Jairo. “Bleed some ink, brothers.”
I turned to Gil.
He shook his head.
Eddie saw it. “Jairo? You want to be the man here and show these guys how to be a professional fighter? A true Warrior?”
Jairo chewed his lip, whispered with Antonio, and finally said, “I will do what my brother does.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Eddie said. “Woody, just sign the damn thing. Woodshed versus Arcoverde. Bragging rights over the most famous martial arts family in the western hemisphere. A chance to fight for the heavyweight championship. This is what you’ve been fighting for your whole life, isn’t it?”
He was right.
I looked Antonio in the eye, nodded at Jairo.
Hugged Gil.
Kissed Marcela and felt her breathing against me.
Pulled the contract close, found the spot for my signature at the bottom. Tore the whole thing to shreds and dropped them at Eddie’s feet.
“Everything worth fighting for is in this room, and I already have it. I’m done. I’m staying here.”
Then I tried out one of the Portuguese phrases I’d been listening to the whole trip.
“Vá se foder.”
Go fuck yourself.
20
Also by Jeremy Brown
The Complete Woodshed Wallace Series
Suckerpunch
Hook and Shoot
Anaconda Choke
Find > Fix > Finish
Show No Teeth
The Kalamazoo Kid
Akon’s Mission
Crime Files: Four-Minute Forensic Mysteries: Body of Evidence
Crime Files: Four-Minute Forensic Mysteries: Shadow of Doubt
About the Author
Jeremy Brown is a novelist working in many genres, including crime thrillers, murder mysteries, and military thrillers. He has worked as a narrative designer and lead writer for a massively popular video game and enjoys kettlebells, stockpiling firewood, and using coffee as a delivery system for cream. He lives in Michigan with his wife, sons, and various animals.
For more information and to sign up for the Reader Club, please visit
jeremywbrown.com
