“About what?” Chet asked.
“He isn’t a black belt. The highest level he ever achieved was brown belt—just before black.” Which still made him a pretty lethal fighter, as my aching body could prove.
“Are you serious?” Chet cried happily. “So I was right! He was scamming students!”
“Yup, you were right,” I said. “You’re a pretty good detective after all.”
Frank came over and sat down at the table, sticking his cell phone back into his pocket. “That was Dad,” he said. “He had an update on Samantha and Marty. Samantha’s fine—they checked her out last night and sent her home. Marty is still in the hospital, but he’s doing okay. The doctors say he had a heart episode just like John Mangione. The heavy steroid use weakened their heart muscles, which can lead to collapse during times of exertion.”
“Like when John was jogging,” I said. “And when Marty was fighting me.”
Frank nodded. “There are a lot of side effects. The way Marty would fly into rages—that was caused by the steroids.”
“John Mangione was pretty angry when we met him too,” I said.
“I can’t believe this was going on and I didn’t even know it,” Chet grumbled.
“Nobody knew it,” Frank told him. “The police think almost half of Huang’s students had started taking steroids and they all thought they were taking harmless Chinese herbs.”
“Huang and Duke will be facing some pretty serious charges,” I said. “Finn, too, I guess. He was involved in extorting money from the students.”
“He’ll get a lesser sentence,” Chet replied. “He’s cooperating with the police—he’s going to testify against Huang and Duke, and he can name a few other guys who were involved too. That whole group from the reform school has been working together, getting the illegal drugs, transporting them, mugging and killing that PI. All kinds of things. Finn knows them all because he was their teacher way back when. But he wasn’t involved in anything illegal until Huang gave him the job at the Rising Phoenix a year ago.”
“You sure know a lot about Finn Campbell.” I waggled my eyebrows at him. “Been talking to Liz? Hmmm?”
Chet didn’t even blush. “Yeah. She’s pretty upset about her dad. But I think she’ll be okay.”
“So is she your girlfriend now?” Frank asked, impressed.
“Nah. We’re just hanging out,” Chet said casually.
“Huang pretended he wanted to help kids gain more self-confidence,” I said. “Looks like it actually worked on you.”
Chet grinned. “I don’t think he planned it this way. I’m kind of bummed, though. I really wanted to learn karate.”
“Me too,” Frank said.
“I know what you mean,” I told them. “After seeing those guys in action, I want to learn to fight like that too.”
Frank shot me a look, and I knew what he meant: The moves we learned would come in handy for our future ATAC missions.
“So what do you say, guys?” I asked. “Want to take some karate lessons?”
“We already have our gis,” Frank replied.
“Okay.” I held out my hand, knuckles facing them. My brother and Chet bumped fists with me. “It’s a plan.”
Martial Law Page 10
