Partners in Crime, page 15
“I vud love to help you, and I’m feeling quite magnanimous today, so I think that I will help you, my friend,” the princess said, surprising Peter.
“You will?” he asked.
“Yes. I think that I like happy endings. I recently subscribed to Disney Plus, and all of those happy endings have influenced me. I just finished watching The Santa Clause, The Santa Clause Two, and Three. How could I not help you after watching those three delightful movies?”
“I thought the third movie was a pale comparison to the first,” Adesh said. Peter elbowed him hard in the side.
“Alrighty then, your Majesty,” Peter said. “We’ll be going after you give us the information about the serial killer. Thank you so much for your hospitality, and keep an eye open for Amazon’s next day delivery.”
The princess put her hand up. “Not so fast, my dear friend. Yes, I do love happy endings, and I do want to help you, and I am going to help you. But you know that Princess Anna always gets payment for her assistance.”
“Anything,” Piper cried. “I’ll pay anything to tell us who the serial killer is and to let us go.”
The princess clapped her hands together and laughed in a high voice, letting the laughter trill off her tongue. “Delightful,” she gushed. “Delightful. Like mere money would have an effect on me. No, no, no, no, no. My darling, I do not need money from you. But I am terribly bored. All day long, I have the cockfighting, the dogfighting, the bear fighting, and the children fighting. Those shows used to amuse me, but they do not amuse me anymore. There is not enough danger.”
“Bear fighting? Child fighting?” Adesh whispered.
Peter elbowed him in the side, again to shut him up. “What kind of excitement are you looking for, princess?” Peter asked. He dreaded what the answer was going to be. The princess had a renowned penchant for thrilling in the pain of others. He could handle pain, but he worried that it would be directed at Piper, and that he couldn’t allow.
“I’m so glad you asked,” the princess said, smiling. “It’s very simple. I want to see you fight, my darling Peter.”
“Peter?” Piper asked.
“Peter is great at fighting,” Adesh announced.
“You want me to fight? That’s it?” Peter asked. It sounded too simple, which made him worried.
“Yes, that’s it, my darling. Your reputation precedes you. I’ve heard all of the stories, and I wanted to meet the man. Now that I’ve met the man, I want to see if the stories are true. I want to see what all the fuss is about. I want to see why the mere mention of your name strikes terror in the hearts of the most brutal, adept, and talented men I’ve ever known. Would you deprive me of seeing this firsthand? Would you deprive a poor princess of being amused one more time? Would you ask for something big and then not pay for it?”
“Sure, I’ll fight. Who do you want me to fight?” Peter asked.
“Let’s leave that as a surprise,” she said.
CHAPTER 17
Peter had taken his shirt and shoes off and was just wearing his khakis. His muscles flexed as he shadowboxed in a small structure in the compound. They were waiting for the chicken blood to be cleaned up before he was going to fight whoever he was going to fight.
Piper was scared for Peter but found herself ogling him, as he turned around, and punched the air. He was an amazing looking man. He hadn’t worked out since she had met him, but she had to imagine that he was a gym rat. He was large and muscular. Even his back was corded with muscles, and looking at his chest and abdomen made her remember their kiss and filled her with a desire for more.
“Caught you looking, Piper,” he said, smirking at her as he continued to shadowbox.
“I wasn’t looking. My eyes were open, but I wasn’t looking.”
“You were looking at all of this,” he said, gesturing to his body, as if he was the prize on The Price is Right. “I commend you on your appreciation of the male form.”
“I didn’t even notice your male form.”
He boxed the air with his back to her. “You noticed a little. You noticed my six-pack. It’s hard not to notice my six-pack.”
“Listen, frat boy, you don’t have to do this,” Piper told Peter.
“Are you kidding? It’s just a fight. I was born for this. My brother and I started fighting when we were barely walking. I have a ten-zero record in amateur boxing. I’ve sparred with some of the top MMA fighters. This is a piece of cake. In fact, this is a great deal. We’re going to find out who the serial killer is, who hired the paramilitary group, and we’re going to get out of here without getting eaten by a bear.”
He looked downright excited to fight. “How do you know you’re not fighting a bear?” Piper asked.
Peter put his finger up. “Good point. I wouldn’t put it past her to make me fight a bear, but it’s going to be a human. I already asked the psycho princess. I’m fighting a human with no weapons. Don’t worry. I’ve got this locked up.”
Adesh walked in, and all of the color had drained out of his face. “I managed to find someone who spoke a little English,” he announced. “He said that you’re going to fight The Hulk.”
“The actual Hulk? The green guy?” Peter asked.
Adesh shook his head. “No, it’s just the guy on the island who looks like him, except he’s not green. Same size, though. Same muscles. They said that he killed his mother with one punch. When they tried to vaccinate him for tetanus, he beat three doctors and four nurses to death. He’s scary, Peter.”
Peter dismissed this announcement with a wave of his hand. “I’m big too, remember? And I’ve got cardio on my side. Those big hulk-kind of guys gas out pretty fast. I’ll run him all around the ring, do a little rope a dope, and then I’ll go in for the kill. It’ll be over in three minutes.”
“That’s what we’re afraid of, that it’ll be over in three minutes,” Piper said.
“I know what I’m doing. This is my wheelhouse. This is my bailiwick. Nobody fights better than me.”
“That’s true,” Adesh said. “Nobody fights better than Peter. But I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of fighting involved against The Hulk. I heard he punched a horse. The horse went down and never got up again.”
“There are two hundred and six bones in the human body,” Piper told him.
Peter stopped boxing and crossed his arms in front of himself. “I’m sensing a distinct lack of belief in my abilities from you two. Trust me. I got this.”
There was a thunderous roar of cheers outside.
“What was that?” Piper asked.
“I’ll check,” Adesh said and left.
“You really don’t need to do this. We’ll figure a way out of here,” Piper told Peter.
Peter took a step toward her and gazed into her eyes. “I like that you’re worried about me. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Do you like my outfit?” He flexed his pectoral muscles, making them jump and dance.
Piper rolled her eyes. “I can’t believe you’re hitting on me. If this is hitting on me. I’m not sure. Your technique is kind of rusty.”
Peter clutched his chest, as if he had been struck. “You’ve wounded me. The Hulk isn’t going to touch me, but you know how to get to me, Piper.” He took a step closer. “Kiss me and make me feel better.”
He took another step toward her, but she pushed him away. “I’ll never kiss you. You’re a frat boy. You don’t take life seriously.”
Peter looked hurt. “You’ll never kiss me? You did kiss me, if memory serves, and you liked it.”
Piper was about to argue with him when Adesh came back into the room. He was out of breath, and he was still pale and afraid.
“The fight’s been delayed,” he said breathlessly. “There’s another fight happening first.”
“Is that what the cheers were about?” Piper asked. “They were cheering on the fighters?”
“They were cheering a dead guy.”
The three of them walked outside to the ring to see what was going on. The princess was sitting on a raised platform on her throne, overlooking the fighting ring. The crowd had grown to ten times the original size. There must’ve been at least a thousand people waiting to see more blood and guts.
In the ring, a man lay dead. The princess gestured at Peter, and they all walked toward her.
“Glad you came. It’s a terrible tragedy. A suicide,” she said, pointing at the dead man who had one knife in his chest and one knife in his back.
“What did you call it?” Piper asked.
“Suicide. It happens. Men get depressed. They can’t handle life. They commit suicide.”
“He stabbed himself to death with one knife in his back?” Peter asked, obviously incredulous at her obvious lie.
“Yep,” the princess said.
“Okay. Works for me,” Peter said. “It’s best not to ever argue with a psychopath,” he whispered in Piper’s ear. “They don’t appreciate logic and reason. They work on a totally different level. Psychopath level.”
It looked like the first fight had been impromptu. It seemed that the princess had decided to have someone murdered and let the crowd enjoy it. The dead man was removed from the ring, and the princess stood. She announced something in Indonesian and gestured toward Peter. She was playing him up a lot, as if he was the world’s greatest fighter. The crowd erupted in cheers, and the princess instructed Peter to get into the ring. As he turned to leave, Piper grabbed him and gave him a quick kiss on his lips.
He smiled at her and gave her a wink. It annoyed her that he was so cocky and unafraid. She was scared to death. He leaped into the ring and took a quick jog around the perimeter, as if he owned it.
When he settled into position, the princess announced the other fighter, speaking in Indonesian. The crowd erupted twice as loudly as it had for Peter. Piper watched as money exchanged hands in a flurry of bets.
A door of a nearby makeshift structure opened, and Adesh screamed. Piper stumbled backward and clutched at her chest, as if she was Red Foxx. An enormous man—if it was actually a man—stepped out and walked toward the ring. He must’ve been seven feet tall and Piper didn’t know how many feet wide. But it was a lot of feet wide. He had muscles on top of muscles on top of muscles. He even had muscles in his face, which seemed to push at his mouth and eyes, making him look like he had just sucked on a lemon.
Peter was so going to die.
“Peter is so going to die,” Adesh breathed. “The Hulk is real. He’s not green, but he’s real. I wish I had my phone. I wish I had a camera. I need to prove to the Marvel Multiverse that The Hulk is real. I can’t believe I can’t Instagram this or at least Tweet this. Imagine how many followers I would get when they heard that my best friend was killed by The Hulk?”
Piper smacked him. “What’re you talking about? Your best friend is about to die. That isn’t The Hulk. It’s just a man with some kind of terrible hormonal disease, which has turned him into The Hulk. And he’s going to kill your best friend.”
“He doesn’t look that bad,” Peter said to Piper and Adesh over the ring’s barrier. All of the color had drained out of his entire body, and he looked like he was going to pass out. “Right? Right? He doesn’t look that bad. He just looks bigger at a distance. But when he gets closer, he’s going to look a lot smaller. Right? Right?”
“Yes, because that’s how size works,” Piper said. “Things always look bigger at a distance.”
“You want me to trip you?” Adesh asked Peter. “You’d only break a leg, and then you wouldn’t have to fight.”
Peter seemed to think about the offer for a moment and then shook his head. “The psycho princess isn’t going to let me out of the fight because of a measly broken leg. The Hulk is about to break all of my bones anyway. He’s going to Hulk-smash me into dust.”
Peter’s bravado had completely evaporated. He had turned into a commercial for Xanax.
“You can beat him,” Piper said. “Remember that you’re a superspy. You’re great at fighting. You’re tall, and you have lots of muscles. Who cares if he’s big?”
“Big?” Peter screeched. “Big is the Empire State building. Big is the blue whale. Big is Godzilla. The Hulk is a lot more than big. Look at him. He’s so going to kill me. I don’t want to die like this. I want to die when I’m ninety-three. I am not even close to being ninety-three.”
“Are you scared?” Adesh asked him, surprised. “You’ve got this. It’s easy to kill The Hulk.”
“It is?” Peter asked. His eyes grew big with newfound hope. “How do they kill The Hulk in the comic books?”
“Oh, they’ve never killed The Hulk in the comic books. The only way you can beat him is for him to turn back into Bruce Banner, and then it would probably be really easy to win.”
“Wait for him to turn back into Bruce Banner?” Peter asked, his voice rising an octave. “He’s not going to turn back into Bruce Banner. There is no Bruce Banner. Bruce Banner died. The Hulk is alive, and The Hulk is about to kill me.”
The Hulk entered the ring, stomped both of his feet on the ground, like he was a Sumo wrestler, and flexed all of his muscles at once. The crowd oohed and ahhed, and heaven help her, Piper joined them. She couldn’t help it. He was impressive. She had amnesia, but she was sure that she had never seen anybody like him before. She didn’t even know it was possible to grow that big.
And he looked hungry. And angry. He opened his mouth and roared at Peter.
Normally, Peter was always the biggest man in the room. Tallest and most muscular. After all, he was at least six-foot-six. But standing in the ring facing The Hulk, he looked like a little boy. There wasn’t a chance in hell that he could beat The Hulk in a fight.
“You can do it,” Piper called to him.
“Liar!” Peter yelled back at her. “I require honesty in my relationships.”
“We’re not in a relationship,” she called back.
“If we had gotten married, you could get my pension. Now you’re going to get nothing,” Peter said, never letting his eyes drift from The Hulk.
“I’ve got over three hundred million. I think I can get by.”
The princess announced something, a loud bell rang, and the fight began.
Piper gnawed on one of her fingernails. Her chest felt like it was going to explode under the pressure of her pounding heart. Her pulse must’ve been going a mile a minute. She didn’t want to see Peter killed, but she had no idea how to help him.
“Do something,” she urged Adesh. “Help him.”
“Help him? The entire fifth infantry couldn’t help him. A drone attack couldn’t help him. A nuclear missile couldn’t help him.”
“Fine. I get it,” Piper said, annoyed.
They watched in horror as The Hulk charged Peter. Just as he was going to make contact, Peter jumped out of the way, and The Hulk fell off balance and landed on his face. The crowd booed loudly. They had come to see blood, and they weren’t happy about Peter running away.
“I’m so going to die,” Peter told Piper as he ran past her.
“You can do it!” she called. “Remember your training!”
“I was never trained to fight a Mack truck,” he called back.
“Then fight dirty,” she called.” “Fight really dirty.”
“I can do that!” he yelled back, looking happy for the advice.
The Hulk attacked, and Peter sidestepped him again. The Hulk went down hard, making a terrible noise when the wind got knocked out of him. The crowd booed and complained bitterly. Peter stopped running. When The Hulk rolled onto his back, Peter hovered over him.
“Sorry about this, man!” Peter said and slammed his heel as hard as he could on The Hulk’s groin.
The Hulk screamed like a little girl. Peter ran to the other side of the ring. But he didn’t have to worry about retribution because The Hulk was in the fetal position, moaning and crying. Peter raised his hands in triumph, and the crowd booed and threw things at him, like tomatoes, dirty washing liquid, and a small air conditioner. Peter dodged them as he took a victory lap around the ring.
“Watch out!” Piper called. The Hulk had more or less recovered, and he got up, eyeing Peter with a vengeful look. He grabbed hold of the metal barrier between the ring and the spectators, and he ripped a section off. It made a horrible screeching sound as the metal tore in half.
Peter turned around just in time to see The Hulk raise the section of metal and roar in warning.
“Fight better!” Piper urged Peter. “Fight a lot better!”
“Not the time, Piper!” Peter called back. “No weapons, Hulk! We’re not allowed weapons!”
The Hulk didn’t seem to care about rules. He rocked back on his heels and launched himself toward Peter with the metal in his hand.
“I can’t watch,” Adesh cried, covering his eyes.
Piper couldn’t stop herself from watching. She was about to see Peter die in a horrible way. Any feeling she had for him bubbled to the surface and she mourned the loss of a relationship before it had a chance to begin. She also worried that once he was dead, she wasn’t going to be long for this world. She needed his protection.
“Fight better!” she yelled, again.
“Really not the time,” he said to her as he ran by.
The Hulk caught Peter with the metal weapon, knocking him off his feet and making him fly through the air. The spectators erupted in cheers, and there was a wave of excitement as The Hulk stomped toward Peter, ready to give him the final blow.
“Retirement sucks donkey dicks,” Piper heard Peter mutter.
The Hulk slowly got down on his knees next to Peter. He raised his fist high, ready to bring it down on Peter’s handsome face. Just then, Peter rolled to his side and punched The Hulk in his already-swollen family jewels.
The Hulk screamed again. The spectators booed. Peter launched himself over The Hulk’s body, somehow bringing him down. He took to The Hulk’s back, riding him like a backpack, and wrapped his arm around his neck. Piper had seen him do this before, and she hoped against hope that it would work this time.
