Shadowboxer (25 page)

Literally.

Truth and the Single Girl

A
FTER
I
SHUT
the door I heard a muffled crash from the kitchen. I went in there and Girl in a Red Dress had her hand in the cookie jar. For real.

She saw me and froze. Her expression didn’t change. There was something just too calm about this kid. She pulled her hand away slowly and turned to face me. But I couldn’t meet her eye, because I was staring at the
giant snake
that lay in coils on my kitchen floor.

Did I say
giant snake
? Sorry, correction. I meant
giant snake with a baby’s face.

The thing filled most of the kitchen and its chubby face stared up at me with an open, curious expression. The baby part of it looked about a year old, if a one-year-old baby could have a head the size of a basketball.

The girl’s eyes turned toward the plant on the windowsill and I could tell she was going to disappear again.

‘Wait!’ I blurted, and grabbed a stale bagel from the counter. I started to offer it to the baby-faced snake and then wondered if babies were allowed to eat bagels, or whether this one had teeth... too late, the creature had opened its big pink mouth and swallowed the whole bagel like it was a Lifesaver. Then it turned, slithered into Malu’s spider plant, and was gone.

Oh, man. We need a cuckoo clock to go with all the other stuff goes on in this apartment.

The girl turned towards the spider plant, too.

I fumbled for Thai words and came up with the equivalent of ‘Wait up!’ The girl didn’t move. Her eyes watched me steadily. Just looking at her made me more aware of my own anxiety.

‘Wait,
please
,’ I said again. I reached for my phone. The hint of an emotion flickered across her expression, just for a second; then she was back to being unreadable again.

Thank god, Shea picked up on the first ring.

‘Really sorry about before—’

‘Get over here. Now. I’m not kidding.’

‘I—’

‘The girl is here. Red dress? Vanishes into thin air?’

‘Oh, you mean Mya. All right, well then, I suppose—’

I hung up.

‘Mya? Your name Mya? I Jade. Stay, OK?’ I gestured to the food. ‘Please you eat?’

She shook her head.

‘Thank you, I’m not hungry,’ she said softly, but she looked worried now.

Why was she stealing food, then?

The buzzer went off. It was Shea. He took the stairs three at a time.

‘That was fast. Were you lurking around in the bushes?’ I said.

‘Er... is Mya still here?’

I ushered him in. Mya even smiled a little, which made me feel jealous—not of her, but of him. Mya trusted him. Who would trust
Shea?

And for the record, sleeping with someone and trusting them are two completely different things, OK?

I took Mya to my room and showed her my posters and the fight program from my match at Lumpinee. She didn’t seem to get it, so then I pulled out my camera and showed her pictures and video from Coat’s gym. There was a picture of me and Waldo. She pointed at the cat and said, ‘Kala Sriha.’

Then she looked at Shea. So did I.

‘Never mind that,’ Shea said. He started talking to Mya about me, how I was a friend. I ran her a bath and brought her a stack of clean clothes. She could wear my shorts and t-shirts. They’d be too big, but at least they were clean. I showed her the shampoo and towels and gave her a toothbrush. Then I left her to do her thing.

I had no idea how to deal with this.

I found Shea sitting on the floor drinking straight out of the wine bottle we’d opened last night. I leaned against the wall and folded my arms. He didn’t look at me. We could both hear sounds of splashing from the bathroom.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I wish there were some sort of blanket apology I could make. To cover everything I’ve done wrong.’

‘Whoa, hold up. Before you start in with the I’m sorry stuff, maybe you want to tell me exactly what happened. Like, I think I know how you got in the country without a passport,
Waldo
.’

He took another swig, and when he lowered the bottle I reached down and took it off him.

‘That’s enough of that,’ I said. ‘We don’t want you turning into anything furry.’

He shuddered.

‘I did have my reasons for everything I did. Mya said I needed human experiences, and I felt so drawn to you that I may have let myself forget how much younger than me you are.’

I snorted. ‘Now you’re annoying me. As if age difference means anything compared to, like,
species
difference.’

‘And of course there was the phone. I couldn’t let Fuller’s men take the phone back to him. I had to try to do something.’

‘You were up on the roof that night. You, or... something to do with you. That thing is too big to be a panther. It’s more like a lion.’

‘Mya says I belong to Kala Sriha, who is a sort of god that lives in the legendary forest of Himmapan... go on, Google it, I’ll wait.’

‘I can Google later. Tell me.’

‘Kala Sriha is a... black lion. Actually, a black vegetarian lion, which would explain...’

‘... why the only meat you eat is people’s arms and stuff.’

‘Something like that. Well, bear in mind I didn’t actually swallow.’

He paused for me to laugh at his pathetic joke. I didn’t. He said, ‘I think, Jade, that we need to not get sidetracked by the supernatural things that are going on here, and focus on what really matters. Like the evidence in the phone. There is footage of two murders on there, and I think we can link Johnny Cook, the guy who committed them, to a number of violent crimes. But it’s Richard Fuller I want to bring down. Cook worked for him, but Fuller’s got everybody convinced he’s some kind of pure-hearted philanthropist.’

‘Medicines do it,’ Mya said softly from the doorway. Her hair was wet. She was dressed in the clothes I’d given her, and she held a crumpled piece of pale blue paper in her hand. ‘Make him seem immortal. Powerful. He can convince you of anything when his medicine is working.’

Shea looked at her sharply, and I saw pain pass across his face. Then he turned back to me.

‘There’s a link between Richard Fuller and the gym, so there’s a link to you.’

He might as well have slapped me across the mouth.

‘So what am I, some kind of suspect? What was that last night, softening me up or something?’

I could still feel him in my body, I had his sweat in my pores. My heart went cold.

‘There’s no need to be like that,’ Shea said. ‘All I meant was that when the phone came to you, Fuller’s attention fell on you. And I involved you again the other night at the diner. You’re as much of a target now as I am.’

‘Could he be drugging all of us? This Richard Fuller character? Making me hallucinate wild animals, or making you turn psycho?’

‘No,’ said Mya sharply. ‘Not imagination. Mr. Shea is
dead
without Kala Sriha
.
Sorry, but true.’

She was way too young to know all of this. It kind of broke my heart.

‘I saw you in Mr. B’s office, Mya. On CCTV. You gave a package to someone. Do you know the name of the person?’

She shook her head.

Mr. B,
I thought.
What the hell?
I couldn’t turn a blind eye. Drugs. Human trafficking, too, according to Shea. I had to walk away from both of them. I went into Malu’s room and looked at the fish tank. I could smell Malu’s perfume, and I looked at her shelf of books organized by subject and her stack of notebooks and her desk with its cubbies and four different colored highlighters. Malu was the most organized person I knew. What would Malu do in this situation?

Don’t panic. Gather information
.

I could almost hear her say it.

Yes. Malu wouldn’t go in with guns blazing. She would find out as much as she could and then make a calm, rational decision.

My hands were clenched into fists unconsciously; now I put a fist to each temple and pressed my skull as if I could squeeze my brain into understanding this better.

Deep breaths.

Taking a deep breath just made me want to hit something.

I went back into the living room and found Shea and Mya sitting on the sofa, talking quietly in Thai.

‘Don’t you think you could have said all this last night?’ I said. ‘What were you thinking, getting close to me knowing what could happen? I’m lucky to be alive, right? I woke up next to a man-eating lion. Do you have any idea how insane that is?’

Shea hung his head.

‘So why did you pick me?’ I said to him.

‘I’m sorry? What do you mean?’

‘In Bangkok. You were the only friend I had. You found me and you... you attached yourself to me. I thought I was a mule, but now I’m starting to think Waldo was just using me to get entry to the United States.’

Shea ran a hand through his hair and looked at the ceiling. Then he looked me in the eye. He was angry.

‘I’m a human being, Jade,’ he said. ‘Whatever is happening when... when I’m not myself? I can’t be responsible for it.’

‘Nice,’ I said. ‘I’m starting to see Perez’s point.’

‘What point?’ Shea’s nostrils flared.

Mya made a small sound.

‘You got something to say?’ I snapped at her, and she flinched away from my tone. Damn. All my
jai yen
out the friggin’ window.

‘Maybe it’s your destiny,’ she said. ‘Kala Sriha knows why he picked you. Shea doesn’t.’

‘Kala Sriha my ass,’ I said, and immediately regretted it. There had been something else in Shea’s eyes last night, something more to him than just a nice-looking boy—and let’s face it, that
something
was what I had gone for.

‘Kala Sriha wouldn’t harm you,’ Mya said softly. ‘Kala Sriha saved Shea because of his true heart and the merit of his mission. Trust him. Help him. Please.’

‘Oh,
Madre de Dios
,’ I cried, rolling my eyes. It’s funny how when things get crazy I start to act like Nana. Now Nana is dying and I feel like an imposter.

I went back into Malu’s room, like I was fighting and Malu’s bed was my corner.This time Mya followed me. She went to the Norfolk pine and touched its needles.

‘Jade,’ she said softly in English. ‘I am sorry for stealing your food. I will repair, I promise.’

‘Sorry for stealing—? Mya, you can have as much food as you want. Don’t even worry about it for one second.’

I wanted to laugh, to run, to hide—to do
anything
that would get me out of this position—but there was something about the kid that stopped me in my tracks. What must she have been through? If she could deal with it, then I could, too.

Mya handed me the paper she was holding.

‘What’s this?’ I scowled at the handwritten list of names and addresses on a piece of expensive stationery. They were all different countries.

‘It’s a list of the people Mr. Richard deals with.’

My heart thumped faster. The addresses were all over the world.Combat Sports Emporium was not on the list.

Shea stuck his head around the door frame.

‘I’ve got to be in New York,’ he said in a tight voice. ‘I have an appointment at the Consulate.’

‘Yeah? Well I have to be in Las Vegas.’ It was an exaggeration because my flight didn’t leave until the afternoon.

‘You don’t need to worry about Mya,’ Shea said. ‘She can come and go on her own steam. Don’t ask me how. I’m probably losing my mind anyway.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, making my voice hard. ‘That explains all this. It’s all about you.’

Right? Because what other reason would Shea have to be interested in me, except to help
himself
? It’s the same old story. This. Is. Why. I.
Don’t have a boyfriend
. It always ends up being about him. Drama all the time, and always his drama.

Take control,
Malu said from my mental corner.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Here you go, Shea. Mya just gave me this. I believe it’s evidence.’

Color rushed into Shea’s face when he read the list. ‘What... how...?’ he stammered. I interrupted him.

‘Here’s the plan. We’re going to take you to the Consulate to get your passport. Shea, you’re going back to Thailand to talk to the police and do what you have to do. I got a fight tomorrow, and even if Mr. B turns out to be the dirtiest mofo in the history of the sport, I’m not backing out of this one. That’s my damn decision.’

I picked up Khari’s Corvette keys.

‘Oh, look!’ I broke out laughing. ‘Fast car. Icing on the cake.’

Crunch Time

I
NEVER CRY
. I just hit things. On the drive to the East Side in Khari’s Corvette I packed all my emotions into my angry bones, saving them for tomorrow’s fight. At the George Washington Bridge toll booths Shea leaned across to my side of the car and murmured, ‘Are you OK?’

I just grinned and said, ‘Stupid question.’

It was probably for the best that this thing with Shea wasn’t working out. Because to fight I had to stay sharp, and I needed rage in my system. Not endorphins and cuddly shit. Gretchen was the one who’d need a boyfriend to put ice packs on her boo-boos, after I was through with her. Me, I’d stay hard.

Nobody said nothing during the trip. Mya slumped under her seat belt looking small in the back, and she stared out the window, taking everything in but not making a sound. As we got closer to the British Consulate we passed through one of the richest neighborhoods in New York, and I dealt with my nerves by making a little game of counting women with handbag-sized dogs on the sidewalk. I got up to five, and then we were there. I pulled over in a no-standing zone.

Shea turned to Mya in the back seat and they exchanged a flurry of quick reassurances to each other. I heard her wish him luck. Then he turned to me.

‘Thanks for the lift. And good luck in the fight. I’ll call you.’

I knew he wouldn’t kiss me in front of Mya, so I just nodded and waved with no real feeling. It had to be obvious I was pissed off, but Shea didn’t have the nerve to talk to me about it. Like the big bag of wimp he is, he just shut the door and loped across the street to the Consulate.