“What happened?”
Sam lit up a cigarette and grinned as he blew out the smoke. “Buddy, what happened was, she knocked my ‘tough’ guy out in about a minute. He woke up a half hour later wondering how a truck could’ve hit him inside the building. Well, after that, I told El if she really got serious about fighting she could go somewhere. Have to be boxing or some unofficial stuff like we do here ’cause UFC don’t have weight classes that heavy. But she only did it locally when she really needed the dough. She fought recently against a real stud, an up-and-comer. El snookered the lady and broke her jaw with one of the hardest kicks I’ve personally ever seen, guy or gal. She grabbed her thousand bucks and walked out of here. Haven’t seen her since.”
“She ever tell you about herself? Her family?”
“As a rule, El didn’t talk about herself. But let me give you a warning, friend. The last time she was here she pulled a gun on me because I told her if she dressed up a little and acted a teenyweeny bit feminine, me and her might have a good time. I mean, some dinner and drinks and wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am and all. I saw the look in her eyes. She would’ve blown my damn head off without a second thought.”
“Goodness, and after you had expressed yourself so eloquently to the woman.”
“Exactly.”
“Thank you for the advice. I will watch myself when I find her.”
“If you find her.”
“No doubt that’s what I meant.”
He got the address of where Cain had last lived. He drove over there to find a fence erected around the property and guarded by security who could tell him nothing of the people who had once lived there.
“They’re all gone now,” the guard said. “And good riddance. They were all lowlifes.”
As Buckley got back into the car his phone rang. It was the hospital. He listened carefully, thanked the person, and said he would take care of all arrangements.
He didn’t start the car. Buckley stared out the windshield into the darkness as he thought about what the doctor had just told him. An undetected and now ruptured brain aneurysm. Nothing they could do. Ken was gone in under a minute. They weren’t sure if it was connected to his recent beating, but they couldn’t rule that out. In any case, they were very sorry.
Buckley started the car and put on his seat belt harness. So now he had to bury another brother.
This was no longer a matter of putting El Cain into the hospital.
It was now a matter of putting the woman into a grave.
CHAPTER
27
BUCKLEY CHECKED INTO AN UPSCALE HOTEL and ordered a late dinner from room service. He made phone calls and sent emails and texts while he ate his meal and drank his wine and thought about the details and decisions ahead of him. Ken would be cremated. There would be no religious ceremony; such spectacle would have been wasted on both brothers.
Buckley would scatter his youngest brother’s ashes at the site of their father’s brutal attack by the government. From human being, to a corpse, to residence in a jar before being sent headlong into the winds. All in the matter of the blink of an eye, really. It gave one pause, thought Buckley. Or it should.
His room was immaculate and comfortable, having all the expected high-end accoutrements. Buckley had grown up with none of these things, for his parents, despite the money coming in from their disciples and assorted business dealings, insisted on living simply, and thought that any largesse spent on their children was out of bounds strictly on principle. Buckley had resented that as a child. But he had come to agree with his parents’ philosophy that people needed to earn what they had. However, the living simply part was not something he had adhered to.
Buckley had acquired the ability to purchase such luxuries not all that long ago. These included multiple residences, luxury cars, a yacht, and a private jet. It had been a hard slough, but he had gotten there in the end. But these were just toys at the end of the contest. Prizes, nothing more. The real thrill was in gaining the money, in acquiring the power, in beating others out for it. The rest of it left him uninterested, even depressed.