Samantha Moon: First Eight Novels, Plus One Novella (130 page)

“So, you often pick fights with your unsuspecting victims.”

He shrugged. I’d seen the
dim mak
being delivered, a ferocious blow that left his opponents reeling and dazed.

“
You’ve killed dozens of people,” I said.

He shrugged again. “Who’s keeping track?”

I stared at him, unblinking. He looked back at me, and promptly blinked and looked away. I sensed his fear, I also sensed he was about to do something stupid.

I said, “Who hired you to kill Caesar Marquez?”

He shook his head. “Sorry, babe. That’s where my cooperation ends, vampire or no vampire.”

Except as he spoke the words, I saw a brief flash. An image. It appeared briefly in his thoughts and was gone. I released his hands and he sat back with the bag of peas.

“You can’t prove any of this,” he said. “No one would believe you.”

“
True,” I said. “They wouldn’t believe me, but they would believe you.”

He sat there and thought about it and smoked, and high above us, a low cloud briefly obscured the stars. The wind also picked up. Somewhere in the Malibu Hills, a coyote howled.

“No one can know about what I’ve done,” he said.

I said nothing and watched him closely. I was certain I hadn’t blinked in many, many minutes. He went on.

“My family is so proud. Everyone is so proud. That feels good. It feels good knowing that I did my family proud. We were so poor. The money was so easy.” He was babbling now, and I saw the tears. “Just one punch and I make thousands, tens of thousands. Sometimes, even more.”

I watched and waited, catching a brief glimpse of what he was planning on doing.

“I can’t let my family down. I can’t. They’re so proud.”

I said nothing, and watched as Andre Fine, a five-time champion fighter, was reduced to tears and incomprehensible mumbling.

I got up and left him there on the balcony.

Chapter Forty-four

It was two days later, and I was back at the gym in downtown Los Angeles.

I watched from the shadows as a cadre of boxers did their best to punch the stuffing out of everything from punching bags to speed bags to padded mitts.

Seated with me was Allison Lopez. I held her hand in a comforting, reassuring way. I didn’t worry about my cold flesh, and, indeed, she seemed to revel in it. She wanted to meet me here, a place she always found comforting. Apparently, she loved hearing the sounds of boxing. The scuffing feet, the smell of sweat. It was here, after all, that she had watched Caesar Marquez blossom into a world-class fighter.

Now, we were watching a young flyweight, smaller than me, even, punching the unholy crap out of his trainer’s mitts.

“
His own brother,” she said again, shaking her head.

“
Yes,” I said.

“
But why?”

I looked at the posters that surrounded the gym. Most were of Caesar Marquez. None, as far as I could tell, were of Romero. “My best guess,” I said, “was that he was jealous.”

“Romero was an accomplished trainer. He was never a boxer.”

“
Never a boxer
of note
,” I corrected. “His official record was nine wins and twenty-three losses.”

She blinked and squeezed my hand. “I had no idea.”

“Few did. A very unremarkable career.”

“
But he was so successful as a trainer.”

I shook my head. “He was successful at training his successful brothers. Many of whom have had title shots. And Caesar, according to all reports, was the best of the lot.”

“Still, why kill him?”

“
Maybe he never expected him to die,” I said. “Or he never believed he would die.”

“
He had to believe that some injury would occur.”

I nodded. I assumed so, too.

“But how did he know to hire Andre Fine?”

A good question. Two days ago, after meeting with Andre Fine, I had spent the morning doing some investigating. A quick call to Caesar’s promoter, Harry, confirmed that Romero had arranged for the exhibition against Andre Fine. This had surprised Harry, as Romero was rarely involved in fight promotions, or even publicity events. And what Harry told me next surprised me, although it shouldn’t have: Andre Fine had once been an up-and-coming boxer, until he turned to martial arts.

“Let me guess,” I had said to Harry over the phone. “Romero had been his trainer.”

“
Bingo,” said Harry.

I had next called Allison Lopez and asked her the one question that I knew would break this case wide open. She confirmed my suspicions, and a few hours later, I was at the LAPD in downtown Los Angeles, meeting with a homicide investigator named Sanchez. Sanchez was a big guy with wide shoulders, who sported pictures of his UCLA football days on his desk. His desk also sported pictures of a very lovely wife.

Sanchez listened to my story, listened to the wild tales of
dim mak
and of hired killers and touches of death. To his credit, he didn’t laugh or joke or even crack a smile. I told him of Romero’s connection to Andre Fine, of Romero setting up the exhibition, and who had benefited the most from Caesar’s death. Romero. Romero also happened to be the beneficiary of his brother’s life insurance.

Detective Sanchez listened to all of this, then told me he would get back to me.

And he did, a few hours later. They had sent a squad car out to Andre Fine’s residence in Malibu, where they had found his body swinging from a rope off his third-story balcony. All indications suggested a suicide. I tried to feign shock and horror at hearing this news, but in truth, I had seen it coming.

They next picked up Romero for questioning. To his credit, he admitted to almost everything. Apparently, Romero was looking to get out of the family business. And he also confessed that he planned to fly the coop, all the way to Bermuda.

Now, I caught Allison up on my investigation.

She said, “God, I remember now. Romero practically forced Caesar to do the fight. He claimed it was great exposure and publicity. Caesar didn’t want to do it but his brother reminded him it was for charity and finally, Caesar gave in.” She shook her head. “Jesus, set up by his own brother. What a bastard. I fucking hate him.”

We were quiet. The gym wasn’t. It was a cacophony of grunts and thumps and pounding. It sounded sexier than it was.

“
Has the insurance money been awarded to Romero?” asked Allison.

I shook my head. “Not yet. These things take some time on the insurance company’s part.”

“And now?” she said.

“
He paid to have his brother attacked. That will nullify the life insurance policy.”

“
So, what will happen to Romero now?” she asked.

“
He’ll be charged for soliciting Andre Fine to hurt his brother. There’s no way a murder charge will stick, not with something like
dim mak
.”

“
Maybe he never meant for his brother to die,” she said.

“
Maybe,” I said. “But he was willing to take that chance.”             

Allison nodded. “His brothers won’t look kindly on what he did,” she said.

“I don’t expect they will,” I said. “I have no doubt that Romero’s life will be a living hell from this moment on.”

She nodded and squeezed my hand and rested her head on my shoulder, and, as she wept silently, I watched two young fighters in the center practice ring exchange a flurry of punches. Both were wearing padded helmets. Both were sweating profusely. More importantly, one of them was bleeding from his lip.

I was dismayed to discover that it was the blood, above all else, that interested me the most.

Chapter Forty-five

On Wednesday evening at 6:30, Russell Baker and I were jogging at Huntington Beach.

He was shirtless and jaw-droppingly sexy, and it was all I could do not to stare at him as we spoke. Staring at him while we spoke might have led to me running into a trash can. Still, I stole glances, every chance I had. I wondered if it was unethical to lust after my client.

“
That’s a wild story, Samantha Moon,” he said. He always sounded so damn polite when he spoke to me. Too polite. I wanted him to sound...interested. This surprised the hell out of me. A few weeks ago, when he’d first appeared at my house, I had not thought of him as anything other than a client. But watching his fights, watching his skills, seeing the compassion in his heart, and his surprisingly peaceful aura for a fighter, well, something shifted.

That, and the fact that Kingsley had broken my heart all over again.

“It’s more than a theory,” I said.

“
How can you be so sure, Samantha?” he said easily, smoothly, confidently.

“
Call me Sam,” I said.

“
Sure thing, Sam,” he said and looked at me and winked and something inside me did a sort of flip. My stomach? Or, perhaps, something further down?

I considered how much to tell Russell, and decided to keep things fairly sanitized for now. “Romero hired Andre Fine to deliver the
dim mak
to his brother.”

“
The
dim mak
,” said Russell, shaking his head, “is only a myth.”

“
Myth or not, Caesar Marquez died two weeks later during your match, from no apparent punch or series of punches from you. Most people I’d spoken to—from the referee to Jacky—don’t think you hit him hard enough to do any real damage.”

Russell shook his head. “I’m not sure if I should feel relieved or discouraged.”

“It is what it is,” I said, hating myself for using such a generic idiom, but I was finding being in Russell’s presence, jogging together at the beach, so damn exciting that I wasn’t thinking straight anyway.

“
I suppose so,” said Russell smoothly. “Caesar was a tough fighter. It was hard to land anything on the guy.”

“
Could he have been champ?” I asked.

“
Maybe,” said Russell, and he looked at me and winked again. “’Course, he woulda had to go through me first.”

“
Of course.”

I smiled. He smiled. His stomach muscles undulated. I somehow just missed running into a blue trash can.

Russell said, “You believe there’s something to the touch of death?”

“
I do.”

“
Why?”

“
The police have gone through Andre Fine’s records. There’s evidence that he’d been paid for many such hits. For someone who wanted to preserve his legacy in fighting, he sure kept a nice paper trail of his illegal dealings.”

“
What exactly do you mean by evidence?” asked Russell. He breathed easily, smoothly, his elbows relaxed at his sides.

“
Investigators found evidence of nine paid hits, totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. Seven of the targets are dead.”

“
Let me guess,” said Russell. “They died of unknown brain trauma.”

I nodded, although I don’t think Russell saw me nod. “Good guess.”

“Weird,” said Russell.

“
Weird is right,” I said.

“
So, maybe there’s something to this
dim mak
.”

“
Maybe,” I said.

Russell looked at me. “Weren’t you afraid that he might hurt you?”

“Naw,” I said.

“
I would have protected you,” he said.

And for some reason, that bravado seriously warmed my heart. “That might be the nicest thing anyone’s said to me in a while.”

He grinned and flashed his perfect teeth. “Except, why do I get the impression you don’t need any protecting?”

“
Oh, I need
some
protecting,” I said.

He slowed down and so did I. He placed his hands on his hips and sucked in some wind, although I got the feeling he wasn’t very tired. By my estimate, we had jogged five miles.

“You’re not breathing hard,” he said.

“
Nope.”

“
You’re an interesting chick, Ms. Moon,” he said.

“
Like I said, call me Sam.”

“
Would you like to get some dinner, Sam?”

“
I thought you would never ask.”

Chapter Forty-six