Sons of Mayhem 3: The Full Force (13 page)

W
e pulled
into the parking lot of the warehouse. Initially Lonnie had wanted to drive us on his motorcycle but I'd pointed out that the car was much more practical. If all went as planned we'd be leaving with Si and Lily, and who knows whether they had a vehicle or not. Grudgingly Lonnie had returned to the passenger seat of my car.

I understood his feelings. After having ridden on the back of his motorcycle earlier that day I found myself missing it already. It had felt like I was flying on his back and I imagined it was a little like Lois Lane felt when carried by Superman. Lonnie was much hotter than Superman though, I thought to myself. I looked over at him and gave him a grin.

"Alright, let's find out what the hell is going on in there," said Lonnie.

I nodded. "Is this legal?"

"The underground fight club?" he asked.

I nodded.

He shrugged. "It's not a legally sanctioned sport like boxing or MMA. But I don't think it's technically
illegal
either. It's kind of a gray zone. I'm sure there is some dodginess along the side which is definitely illegal though."

"Dodginess? Like what?"

We walked across the lot past rows of cars, some of which included luxury Benzes, BMWs, Audis and more. He nodded toward an S-class Mercedes. "It can't be just some ghetto kids fighting in there. There's money involved. My guess? Gambling. So the fights themselves might not be illegal, but I bet some of the other activity is."

I nodded. Gambling made sense.

We reached the door of the warehouse. It was in fact a door within a door. There was a massive shutter large enough to let a truck through that was pulled down and locked, but within the shutter was a regular people-sized door. And at the door were two large, shaven headed white men, each about the size of an old phone booth. They barely looked like they could fit through the door themselves.

"Alright boys," said Lonnie with confidence as he led us between them.

I followed right behind, scared one of the silent men would reach out and grab me and pick me up. I wondered if Lonnie felt as intimidated by them as I did. If he was scared by them he didn't show it.

Inside we were confronted by a makeshift wall which created a fairly narrow passageway. We turned right, walked a few feet and there was a sliding glass opening in the wall. A little man with thick glasses looked out at us. "Two? That's $20"

Lonnie pulled out a slim wallet from his jeans and slid a twenty through the gap under the glass. "Got a list of the fights for tonight?"

The man slid a piece of paper under the screen. It was a low quality photocopy, but it had the information we needed.

Lonnie held it up and jabbed a finger at it. "Look," he said, pointing at the fourth fight listed "The Burmese Python," that's gotta be him.

The man in the box was still peering at us through his thick glasses when Lonnie turned back to him. "We need to see the, uh, Burmese Python, has he got a dressing room or something?"

The man let out a wheezing laugh and ignored the question. “Why do you want to see him anyway?"

"We're here to support him," I lied, trying to win him over with my most charming smile, "In fact, my sister is with him."

"That's your sister with him, huh?" asked the bespectacled man in the box.

I nodded smiling again. I looked over at Lonnie who was also offering a friendly grin. With any luck we'd be ushered over to our targets in no time.

The man picked up a walkie talkie and raised it to his lips. "They're here," he said into the bottom of it.

I looked at Lonnie quizzically. "They're here?" I asked him.

His grin had turned to a frown. It sounded like they had been waiting for us. I looked back toward the entrance. The light that had been pouring in from outside was gone, blocked out by one of the doormen who was now hulking toward us. I looked to my right, past the ticket box to inside. Another man was coming toward us, and behind him another.

"Well," said Lonnie looking at me, "this should be interesting. Let's see where the Oompa Loompas want to take us."

I shivered. Despite Lonnie's upbeat words I could see from the wary shifting of his eyes that he was nervous too.

The man coming from the entrance reached me, and with a gentle tap on my arm that seemed to contain the pent up force of a giant tree blowing in the breeze pointed me inside.

"Come on." said the big man who had reached Lonnie from the other side.

With my whole body shaking I gulped, and began to follow Lonnie as we were marched into the warehouse.

W
e emerged
from the narrow entryway into the main part of the warehouse. It was a cavernous space, the ceiling far above our heads, invisible in the darkness cut with interspersed floodlights that shot down on us blinding any attempts to look upward. There were several dozen people milling around, not of any identifiable cultural sub-group. There were blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians. There were people in their teens and early twenties, and others up to maybe their sixties. It was a real mixed crowd.

The center of the room was dominated by the ring. Raised off the ground it was the focus of most of the lighting and seemed much like the rings I'd seen on television for wrestling matches, at least to my untrained eye. There were four posts, ropes around them and in the middle three men. Two of them were shirtless, all ripped muscles, sweat and tattoos and the other appeared to be a referee. The fight was about to begin, but neither of the guys was Si and my sister was nowhere to be seen.

But we weren't going in the direction of the ring anyway. There were now four large men around us, marching us along the front wall of the warehouse to a metal staircase. Up we went. Clang, clang, clang with each and every step as the four bodyguards and Lonnie thumped up in their heavy boots. My sneakers barely made a sound among their ringing steps.

“Will we be okay?” I whispered to Lonnie.

He gave my hand a squeeze. “No one is going to harm a hair on your head,” he growled.

I smiled, grimly reassured.

At the top we found ourselves on a kind of catwalk, and ahead I could see where we were going. There was a suite of what looked like portable offices, but raised far up from the ground on crisscrossed metal supports. I could see they had floor to ceiling windows and a commanding view over the ring. The offices had been almost invisible when we were on the ground as the bright spotlights and floodlights were mounted along the bottom of the offices, blinding anyone looking up in their direction.

Glancing across the cavernous space of the warehouse I saw there were three more similar 'offices', and a series of catwalks connecting them.

When we reached the door one of the big shaven headed men thumped on it a couple of times and then turned the handle and pushed it open.

"In you go," he said to us.

Lonnie turned around and offered me a hand. With a nod of his head to the men who'd led us, he squeezed my hand reassuringly and led us inside.

"Good evening. Mathew, is it?" The Asian man who greeted us was sitting in a leather recliner, feet propped up on an ottoman. He gestured at a two seat leather sofa and indicated for us to sit down. It was a comfortable looking room and I could tell it was a kind of VIP box, set up so its occupants could comfortably observe the fight below.

"Most people call me Lonnie, now."

"I'm Ava," I told him even though he hadn't asked.

“Mark Choi. This is my little,” he paused, hands waving around to indicate everything, “my little
fight clu
b, as it were.” He had an accent that seemed half Chinese and half British. Perhaps he was from Hong Kong, I thought. “Please have a seat.”

Lonnie led me over to the sofa and we sat down. To my left I could see down to the ring where the two men had begun to fight. The crowd downstairs was now packed around all four sides of the ring, no longer milling around. From my brief look the fight looked vicious. I winced as one of the men whipped an elbow through the air and caught the other one on the chin. I saw blood begin to flow and, feeling queasy turned back to focus on the room we were in.

"You've come here for Simon, I take it?"

"We were hoping to run into him," said Lonnie with nonchalance, as if we'd just been passing through the neighborhood and decided to pop in for a quick underground brawl.

"He's up next," said Choi.

"Can we go and see him?" I asked

Choi shook his head. "After. We don't want him getting distracted before the fight. A lot of people are quite excited to watch him, you know. He was on the news this evening. The media are quite excited about his mysterious disappearance."

Lonnie sighed. "We were hoping to offer some encouragement," he lied.

"He's already got a cheerleader."

"Lily?" I blurted out.

"Young red headed girl? A bit out of it? Yeah, that's her."

A bit out of it. What the hell was that? "Can I see her?"

"After the fight. Let him do his thing, then you can go and see them. That's why you're up here. We'd been warned you might try and dissuade Si from fighting. We thought it might be best for all concerned if you watched from up here instead."

Lonnie tapped his chin thoughtfully. "So why have you got him fighting anyway? He's going to get his arse kicked, you know."

Choi laughed. "Maybe he is. Maybe he isn't. Care to wager?"

"No thanks. I'm not going to bet against my friend. And I’m certainly not gonna waste my moolah betting on him to win. "

Choi let out a laugh. "Fair enough. Can I offer you both a drink?"

I began to relax a little. My blood pressure had gone almost through the roof when we'd been escorted away by the four heavies, but this Choi guy didn't seem to be too bad. As long as he let us see Si and Lily after the fight it'd be okay. Just knowing where she was and that she was safe was enough for now. I was almost even getting used to the idea of her being with Si, distasteful as that idea was.

"A cold beer will do me fine. Ava?" Lonnie asked.

I shrugged. "Yeah, a beer would be good."

"Three beers, if you please!" yelled Choi from his seat, and within a couple of seconds a head had popped around the door. "Right away. Anything else, sir?"

Choi waved a dismissive hand and the shaven head disappeared as quickly as it arrived, its owner rushing off to fulfill his request.

Lonnie was tapping his chin thoughtfully again as he looked out the window. I followed his gaze and immediately wished I hadn't. One of the fighters was staggering, blood pouring down his face, his hands hanging limply down by his waist instead of held up to guard. His opponent turned to face the crowd and raised his hands up in the air to make the crowd roar, who obliged him with a combined yell that easily filled the warehouse. The fighter turned around again from the audience and unleashed a massive roundhouse punch which tore through the air before landing on the weakened contestants cheek. His eyes seemed to go wide with shock as his face was compressed before he was lifted bodily off the ground for an instant. His whole body crumpled and in a second later he had landed in a tangled bloody heap on the floor.

"Oh!" I said letting out an involuntary shriek. I'd never been seen anything like that it. I was glad I was sitting down already.

Choi let out a deep laugh. Lonnie meanwhile continued to stare out the window, unphased by the violence below.

Three foreign beers in cold bottles, condensation forming beads over the green glass bodies, were brought in by a smaller Asian man, whose short height was countered by an abnormally thick neck and broad shoulders. He offered a beer to Choi who took it without looking, then Lonnie who gave the man a polite nod, and then me. Ladies last, huh.

"Mr. Choi, I was thinking..." started Lonnie.

Choi gave an amused laugh as he watched the losing contestant dragged away before turning his eyes to Lonnie. "Yes?"

"Could we perhaps buy Si out?"

"You want me to cancel his fight?"

It seemed like a reasonable idea to me. Although I had heard of massive purses in the world of official boxing, this underground stuff couldn't be worth much, could it?

Lonnie nodded. "You and I both know he's going to get his arse kicked worse than that mess," Lonnie nodded to the fight that had just finished, "it seems like a waste of time, doesn't it?"

Choi laughed and shook his head. "You couldn't afford it."

Could he afford it? That was the question. And should he pay it anyway. I wondered whether the fight might not actually knock some sense into his erstwhile friend. Maybe Lily would be less enamored by him if she saw him get the shit roundly beaten out of him.

"Ten thousand. Cash."

I blinked. Wow. That was serious money to pull out on a whim.

"Ten thousand, in cash?" asked Choi, to confirm.

Lonnie nodded.

Choi was silent for a moment before slowly shaking his head. I watched the man with concern, annoyed by his seeming lack of respect. He'd just been offered ten thousand dollars in cash and didn't seem to have much to say about it at all. Then he let out a chuckle.

"Ten thousand? That's it? I'm afraid not. Maybe if you offered ten times that we could begin negotiations. But ten thousand? Hell no."

Lonnie looked confused. "Wait, really? We're talking about the same guy right? Si the English muppet in a band?"

"He may not seem important to you," Choi took a swig of beer and held it in his mouth a moment savoring the flavor before swallowing. "But to me, tonight, he's very valuable."

Lonnie paced away from the window before taking a swig of beer himself and turning around again. I watched him, sharing his confusion at the value of this fighter.

"But, why? Go to any boxing gym or, hell, any night club with bouncers in the country and you'll find a more competent fighter. Someone who could really kick some arse."

Choi nodded. "Yep. But that's not my thing. You think guys like Si are the best
fighters
I could find? Hell no."

"Then... what..."

"You see those boxes over there," Choi waved an arm across the warehouse to the other three boxes like this one, "each one of those is filled with millionaires. Asian businessmen. From Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Japan, Korea. Guys with
real
money. Down there," he waved at the crowd below, "those dumb fucks are just here for the atmosphere. Can't have a proper fight without a crowd of idiots cheering it on. But that's not where the money is. The money's up here in the rafters."

"But why do they want Si?"

Choi shook his head again. "They don't want Si, as such, but more the idea of him."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"They like to gamble. But they don't just want to gamble on a bunch of street thugs and hoodlums who can't make it in professional boxing or the MMA or whatever. They want to see
real
people fighting."

"What the hell are real people?" asked Lonnie.

"Not you. Not this girl," he waved at me, "not even me. They want people they
know
, or could know. They want to see a story in the news of a C list actor with a black eye and think 'I know how he got that.' They want to see a top banker's son with a broken arm in the society pages and know that when it says he fell of a horse playing polo it's a lie. They'd gambled on him in a fight. They want to see," and now Choi pointed down at the window as he spoke, "an up and coming rockstar with a drug problem fight to pay off his debts and then see on the news that he got in a fight with his own security guards," he said with a laugh and a nod at Lonnie.

"So you've got, what, low-rate celebrities fighting?" asked Lonnie.

Choi nodded. "Yep. That and some of these guys' relatives, business partners, children of their business partners, that kind of thing. Anything they can feel a connection too. Some amateur boxer from Brooklyn doesn't mean shit to them, they don't care. A business rival's nephew though? That's interesting. A guy who played a minor character in the Cosby Show? That's real. A washed-up Hong Kong action star? Perfect.”

“So who was that fighting just now?”

“Nobodies, unfortunately. Just a warmup act. Do you know how hard it is to get people like your man to fight? I’ll tell you: Very fucking hard. The supply just isn’t there. What I wouldn’t give for more D list celebs with coke habits they can’t afford.”

“So he’s gotta fight?” asked Lonnie.

Choi nodded.

“Well, shit.” Lonnie looked at me. “Not much we can do. Let’s hope he doesn’t fuck up his hands.”

I nodded at him and out the corner of my eye saw Choi wincing. It didn’t look like had high hopes for Si’s hands.

“What was up with the goon squad on the way in?” I asked.

“Just making sure you didn’t try anything dumb. As I said, this fight is worth a lot of money to me.”

“So is there really no money in the regular underground fight scene?” asked Lonnie, a thoughtful look on his face.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong. There’s money. But not for me. I make most of my scratch off these rich Asian businessmen, I wouldn’t know how to make money without those guys. It’d sure be a hell of a lot easier to find worthwhile fighters though.”

I saw Lonnie nod thoughtfully and could see his mind whirring, as if he was planning something.

“Look out. It’s your boy next.”

I peered down again and felt butterflies in my stomach. There was Si, with Lily’s arm wrapped locked through his as they walked down a narrow aisle between the crowd toward the stage. I felt a surge of relief when I finally saw my wayward sister and young charge again. She really was here.

But now it was showtime.