Takedown (17 page)

“Lying? What did I say that was a lie?”

“It’s what you didn’t say, Gav. You can’t fool me. I know you too well—not that you’re that tough to figure. This WWX guy
doesn’t know you from Adam, and you know it. So what’s the deal here? I don’t like walking into places when I don’t know why
I’m there.”

Gavin took a moment to think. Chris was right. Being his partner and not knowing the truth could be very dangerous. But this
wasn’t something he could just come out and say. Chris wouldn’t believe it and would only cause more trouble by getting in
the way. But then again, there comes a time when there’s so much trouble that more trouble doesn’t mean anything. Chris had
always been a voice of reason, and a little reason could go a long way right now. Maybe he was selling him short. Maybe he
would understand. He could use someone to confide in, and Chris was always one he could trust.

“Chris,” Gavin said as he drove into the Nassau Coliseum parking lot.

“I’m listening.”

“There is more. But when I was first told what I’m going to tell you, I didn’t believe him.”

“Who?”

“Buck.”

Chris smiled. “I knew he had something to do with this. You’ve been acting strange ever since you got his call.”

Gavin nodded. “Yeah, well you were wrong when you said Jack-hammer ‘Krogan’ Hoban doesn’t know me from Adam. In fact, you
couldn’t have been more wrong.”

“He
does
know you?”

Gavin nodded. “The truth is… he not only knows me, he probably knew Adam.”

K
rogan was hungry. He threw opened the door to the concession booth and looked past the startled faces to the hot-dog machine.
None of the workers in their blue uniforms said a word as he made his way to the glistening wieners rolling under the hot
lights. The fans waiting in line were enthralled. Krogan’s name rippled outward from the counter like a tremor. Soon a crowd
was clamoring, with children being propped on shoulders to see their hero… or villain.

“Where are the buns?” Krogan snarled, his eyes darting.

A young girl with a ponytail and blue cap pointed fretfully at a drawer under the stainless-steel rollers. “There.”

Krogan snapped open the drawer, tore open a plastic bag, produced a white hot-dog roll, picked off a turning frankfurter,
then ate it in two bites. “Mmmm,” he said, oblivious to the staring crowd. He heard the fans yelling out his name, pleading
for an autograph or at least his attention, but he was only interested in another hot dog on a bun… and then another and
another.

“Hey,Tiger,” said a familiar female voice from behind. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Krogan turned. Tanya the Terrible. She had on more makeup than when he’d last seen her at her father’s office and was dressed
in her customary skin-tight black leathers and low-cut top. “I was hungry,” Krogan said.

“I… can see that. It’s great that you have a healthy appetite, but don’t you think you should take it easy? You act like
you’ve never had a hot dog before.”

Krogan took a final bite and smiled. “Eighteen-seventy-one. Coney Island.”

Tanya tilted her head like a confused dog. “Eighteen-seventy-one? Coney Island? What does that mean?”

“First hot dog on a milk roll.”

Tanya raised her brow. “I didn’t realize you were such a history buff. Or frankfurter, uh, expert. Anyway, you’re late for
makeup. You need to get down there pronto. You’re on soon… and I really hope for everyone’s sake you don’t get sick,” she
said, looking at the ravaged frankfurter machine.

“I don’t want makeup.”

“Since when?”

Krogan ignored her question and strode away, out of the concession booth and into the main lobby. Fans parted before him like
water around a boat. Tanya, also crowded by fans, asked people around for some of their makeup for Krogan. They willingly
rummaged though purses and backpacks and handed her what they could as she hurried after him. “Okay, Tiger. I need you to
slow down for a minute,” she said. “You’re about to go on national television and we need to make sure you’re on the same
page—I mean, that we’re in sync with your, er… performance. Just give me one minute, in there,” she said, motioning to a
nearby men’s room door. “And I promise to give you my undivided personal attention.”

Krogan stopped. He looked at Tanya, taking her in. He then turned and went into the men’s room with Tanya hurrying after him.
As the door closed behind them the background music coming from the arena increased in both volume and intensity.

“Out,” he ordered two men at the urinals, who quickly obeyed,
their faces filled with surprise and confusion at the sight of the two celebrities.

Tanya produced the makeup she’d collected and began to organize it as she said, “The preliminary bouts will be over soon.
Then you’ll be introduced as—”

“Preliminaries?” Krogan growled.

“Of course, baby. We want to warm them up for you,” Tanya said, reaching toward his face with a powder pad.

“There will be no preliminaries.”

“Don’t worry. It’s just the two new guys, Fire and Mace Mur-dock. You’re the main event.”

“I am the
only
event.” He scowled, pushing her hand away, then knocking a man down who’d entered the lavatory just as Krogan was exiting.

Krogan ignored the stir of the crowd as he walked down the dark aisle toward the lighted ring. He could hear Tanya calling
from behind. He would deal with her later. The air was cloudy, pungent with the smell of the fireworks that should have introduced
him rather than the two clowns in the ring.
Idiots!
As he neared the ring the buzz in the audience grew.

When he was about to climb into the ring, Tanya caught up to him and grabbed him by the arm.

“You can’t go in there now. You need—I mean, don’t you want to be properly introduced?”

Krogan paused as he heard his name being called out like a drum beat, instantly reminding him of ancient Athens. With each
second the chant took on new voices, louder, louder. He looked at Tanya the Terrible and laughed at what he saw. Confusion
in her face. Fear in her eyes. The emptiness of her soul. Pathetic human. She needed to be occupied, empowered, dominated,
possessed… and then taken down like all the rest. “I am the only one who can properly introduce me,” he said, then paused
again to look
deeply into her eyes. “Find me later and I will introduce you to some old friends. If you please them, they will be with you
the rest of your life.”

Krogan left Tanya unblinking and speechless as he climbed through the ropes. The two wrestlers, Fire and Mace Murdock, were
locked up with each other in a corner, apparently unaware of his presence. Fire, who wore only red briefs, had long red hair
flowing over his sculpted muscles, shiny from oil. Murdock sported a shaved head and black beard. He was huge but fat. Krogan
heard the announcer enthusiastically speaking to the crowd, heard him mention his name along with the two clowns. The announcer
was a fool.

One of the wrestlers, Fire, threw Murdock backward in Krogan’s direction. Krogan stuck out his foot and tripped the corpulent
wrestler. There was a thud and a groan, but Krogan had already turned to face Fire, who was looking very confused.

It was time for their routine to come to an end.

“Your pain will introduce me,” Krogan said in a deep whisper. “All will bow down.”

Fire looked angry. “What’s up with this? You don’t just come in here and mess with us. I don’t care who you are.”

“You will.”

Fire paused, then laughed. “Hey, fine, you want to go with me… here… now… no rules? We can do that. All that means is I
get the million before someone else does.”

Krogan didn’t have to glance over his shoulder to know that Mace Murdock was on his feet and about to charge. Fire had his
hands up, moving cautiously forward. He lunged, leading with a right fist aimed at Krogan’s head. Cat quick, Krogan caught
Fire’s fist with his left hand and in one motion turned the fighter’s palm inward and pressed hard against the back of Fire’s
hand with his thumb, bending the wrist acutely so it appeared as though Fire was
pointing his fingers at his own face. The redheaded wrestler’s scream silenced the crowd as he dropped to his knees, Krogan
controlling his position effortlessly with one hand.

Mace Murdock’s right fist was about to crush Krogan’s right ear when he found that Krogan had likewise caught his punch with
his free hand.

“Aggghhhhh,” Murdock shrieked in the highest pitch to leave his mouth since his circumcision. In an instant he was on his
knees alongside Fire, the two wrestlers agonized, unable to lift their heads.

Krogan jerked his chin toward the shocked audience. “All will bow,” he roared. “All will bow down to Krogan.
Shadahd!
” He then applied thumb pressure on the back of the wrestlers’ hands until he heard two snaps. The wrestlers screamed and
rolled on the mat. Krogan lifted his arms in the air. A moment later, the four corner posts of the ring ignited like giant
Roman candles, shooting colorful sparks high into the air, a dazzling effect the WWX had originally planned on for Krogan’s
introduction. The audience exploded in cheers and boos, just as the producers had hoped they would.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” The crazed announcer excitedly proclaimed the contest for a million dollars that had been megahyped
through television, radio, newspapers, posters, and flying banners along the South Shore beaches. A giant digital clock was
lowered from the ceiling above the ring to display the three-minute countdown.

Krogan stood motionless in the center of the ring staring out at the audience. He knew many of his comrades were looking on.
Outside the boundaries of the ring a line of contestants had formed. The WWX had arranged things so that street contestants
would split time with their own wrestlers in alternating bouts. Anyone willing to sign an injury waiver was eligible to try
the three minutes for one million. Since Krogan had entered the ring early
with Fire and Murdock, the organizers decided the next competition would be against a walk-on.

Two WWX girls escorted the first challenger, a hooded man in a black Ninja suit, up a steel staircase to the ropes, then held
them open for him to climb through. The announcer introduced the man as Johnny “The Phantom” Bromante. Some of the crowd began
chanting, “Krogan, Krogan, Krogan.”

At the sound of the bell, The Phantom quickly ran to a corner and climbed up until he was standing on the top rope, his feet
wide apart. “Before you beat me you first have to catch me, Big Man.”

Krogan looked up at the man and was about to move toward him when his attention was distracted by a flying object that broke
through the outer darkness of the audience into the strong show lights above the ring. A Frisbee! The toy flew a few feet
over his head, then landed behind him near the ropes. He was about to turn back to his opponent when he noticed an image taped
to the Frisbee with some words written under it.

“Krogan. Krogan, Krogan.”

The chants became louder and louder, drawing his attention back again to the man on the ropes. Suddenly Krogan was hit in
the chest by another Frisbee, which fell at his feet, twirled on end, and finally came to rest faceup. His eyes widened as
he clearly saw the picture of a Galapagos Island tortoise and “
Shadahd
This!” written underneath. His gaze snapped up, looking in the direction the Frisbee had come from. How dare he!
How dare he!
Who is this human that he should taunt? Mock!
Threaten!

“Two minutes remaining,” called the announcer.

Krogan angrily picked up the Frisbee and threw it back into the darkness and yelled, “Down, Pierce! I’m going to take you
down— Uuuhhhh.”

Johnny “The Phantom” Bromante had taken advantage of Krogan’s lack of focus and had jumped off the ropes and onto his shoulders.
The surprise lunge took Krogan off his feet and landed him hard, face first, onto the mat. The Phantom, with his arm around
Krogan’s neck, pulled with all his might.

Krogan, his neck stretching back, saw Tanya at ringside. She was frowning, the first Frisbee in her hand. He could think of
nothing he wanted more in all the world than to have Pierce in his hands. He hadn’t felt this kind of humiliation and rage
since, since… since he’d first found himself in the tortoise over two years ago. And that was also Pierce’s fault.

Tanya’s face was becoming hazy. His host wasn’t breathing and hadn’t been for some time, with The Phantom’s tightening choke-hold.
He was losing consciousness. He quickly thought about death and a new host, but then just as quickly thought of the further
humiliation of having been defeated by Pierce and the man on his back in the black Ninja pajamas in front of both the earthly
and spiritual arenas watching him.
Never!

“Thirty seconds,” called the announcer.

Krogan rose to his feet with The Phantom pulling tightly on his neck. He grabbed the man’s arm with both hands, pulled it
away from his neck, then threw the shocked challenger over his shoulder and hard to the mat. The Phantom immediately tried
to scramble away on his hands and knees, but Krogan grabbed his ankle, then swung him around once before throwing him out
of the ring, where he crashed onto the television commentators’ table some twenty feet away with five seconds left on the
clock.

Krogan paced the mat, looking in the direction he thought Pierce might be as medics rushed to Johnny “The Phantom” Bromante’s
unconscious body.

G
avin flashed his badge, and the two coliseum security guards with flashlights looked at each other, shrugged their shoulders,
and walked away.

“You throw any more of those Frisbees of yours and I’ll be the one flashing the badge. And it will be at
you
while I’m reading you your rights.”

“Relax, Chris. I got my point across.”

“Apparently, though I’m not exactly sure what that point was, except to infuriate the Krogan clone and almost get that Phantom
Johnny guy killed.”

“I needed to prove to myself that Jackhammer Hoban is harboring the same Krogan entity that Karl Dengler was harboring two
and a half years ago and to let him know that I know and that his days are numbered… again.”

Chris paused. “You can’t be serious. This is a joke, right? Entity? You mean you think there was some kind of spirit inside
Dengler, and it left him and is now in this guy?” Chris motioned toward the ring.

“You heard me right.”

“This is what Buck told you?”

Gavin was about to answer but then winced along with Chris at what Krogan had just done to another wrestler. The fans’ response
was passionate, albeit mixed. A fight broke out just three rows away.
Chris started to get up, but the security guards were on it immediately.

Chris settled back down in his seat, keeping an eye on the source of the disturbance. “Can we leave now?” he said. “You did
what you came for… unless you plan on getting in line to fight him while you’re at it. You can use a million bucks right
about now.”

“It’s not the money I want. It’s him.”

“I was only kidding. Forgive me for forgetting who I was with. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

“Wait,” Gavin said, rearranging himself in his seat. “Remember Karianne Stordal?”

“The airline stewardess who was a passenger in the car when the
real
Krogan crashed into and killed John Garrity and put me in the hospital? Of course I remember. How could I ever forget?”

“Okay, remember when we hypnotized her because she couldn’t remember the driver?”

“Yeah, and then she remembered his name was Krogan.”

“Right. And what happened when she was asked to recall the first time she met Krogan?”

Chris rolled his eyes. “She started speaking Hebrew. Something tells me we’re getting back to the entity thing.”

“Ancient Hebrew.”

“Okay, ancient Hebrew. Dr. Katz said she was probably experiencing a past-life event.”

“And you believe that?”

“My mother does. And so does Pat. They say that kind of stuff happens all the time. Hey, half the world believes in reincarnation.
Tell you what: if it’s true, I wouldn’t want to know what you’re coming back as. Probably a bulldog. Here, Gavin! Here, boy!”

“Are you finished?”

“Sorry.”

Heavy-metal music blared with more fireworks as the next challenger
was introduced. All the fighters were beginning to look the same to Gavin, as were all the results of fighting Krogan. The
cloud of smoke drifted from the ring area, out over the seats, and hung there like a mist. After the music stopped and the
bout started, Gavin focused back on his conversation with his partner.

“So what if it wasn’t reincarnation, Chris? I mean, we can’t remember conversations we had last week, or even yesterday, most
of the time. How can someone remember what someone else said to them in another lifetime… many other lifetimes… thousands
and thousands of years ago? Human memories can’t do that.”

“I don’t know, Gav. Maybe the soul remembers better than the brain.”

“You’re grabbing for straws. The past lives of Krogan and Kari-anne were meeting constantly through the centuries, and she
remembered every one of them in perfect detail. How does reincarnation explain that?”

“If I remember correctly, Dr. Katz was pretty excited about them meeting in other lives. He said it was ‘unprecedented.’”

“Yeah. You should talk to Katz now. I’m sure he’s singing a different tune after Karianne kicked the stuffing out of him.”

“Karianne did what? Why? How?”

“With her past life.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You heard me. Karianne’s past life—”

“The one that was speaking ancient Hebrew?” Chris said sarcastically.

“That one, yes. And the one that spoke French, Hun, Mongolian, Japanese, Norse, Roman, and who knows how many other languages.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think you’ve completely lost your mind.”

“Chris, what I’m trying to tell you is that it wasn’t reincarnation,
at least not human reincarnation. The past lives existed, yes. But they weren’t Karianne’s.”

“So what’s your answer? And I hope you didn’t dance me around this crap without having an answer of your own.”

“You bet I do.”

“So what is it already? Say it!”

Gavin leaned close. “Demons,” he said quietly, as if to soften the impact of his words. “All kinds of demons. Demons that
like drunks. Fear demons, lazy demons, weak demons. And,” Gavin went on, turning his gaze in the direction of the lighted
ring, “very, very strong demons that want to get together and party with other demons and celebrate the end of the party with
a wild crash for no better reason than because they hate God’s creation and want to see it taken down piece by piece. And
some carry a grudge from one life to the next, because to them… it’s all one lifetime. Theirs.”

Chris was silent. The kind of silent that made Gavin think his partner was cautiously afraid he actually
had
lost his mind. Together they had arrested countless EDPs whose alibis sounded frighteningly similar to Gavin’s explanation.

“Don’t do this to me, Chris,” Gavin said angrily.

“Do what?”

“Act like I need to be handled carefully, like a cracked egg filled with nitro.”

“Is that how you see yourself?”

“I swear, Chris, if you don’t start arguing with me soon, I do to you what Krogan did to Johnny ‘The Phantom’ Bromante.”

Chris frowned. “This is no joke. The demons, I mean. You really believe this?”

“You missed a lot while you were in the hospital, Chris.”

“Well, how come you didn’t fill me in?”

Gavin sighed, then went for it. “Because the tortoise wasn’t supposed
to die, and Krogan wasn’t supposed to get free and come after us.”

Chris looked at him blankly. “You mean the tortoise on the Frisbee?”

“No. That was just a picture. I wanted to see what kind of response I would get. Anyone else wouldn’t have cared, but as you
noticed…”

“Maybe you’d better start at the beginning.”

“Gladly, but not here. I need something to eat,” Gavin said, his body reminding him the only thing he’d eaten all day was
a salted pretzel from the zoo and a lone chocolate-chip cookie he’d found at the coffee machine back at Homicide.

“I’m for that. My treat. I’ll call Pat and tell her we’re on our way.”

“Sounds good, but I need to stop at my house first to try to find some clothes.”

“You can wear mine,” Chris said with a smile, getting up to leave.

“Yeah, right,” Gavin said as he followed, but then stopped in the aisle and turned for a last look at Krogan. The monster
had just started another match. Could anyone in the ring with him possibly know what he or she was up against? Gavin thought
again about Amy in the hospital with the baby clinging to life inside her. He thought about the demolished house. He thought
about the dead decorator and cement truck driver. Buck’s advice to take Krogan on himself seemed ridiculous in light of what
was happening in the ring before him. Even if he killed the man, the demon would be back. He needed help. What could he possibly
do? Nothing. Almost nothing. He opened the plastic bag he’d brought with him. He still had another two Frisbees. He threw
both of them. One went wide, but the other landed in the ring. Krogan picked it up and yelled something, but without a microphone
it was impossible to hear him over the crowd.

“I’ll be back,” Gavin said, quietly, weakly.