“Go ahead, Jack. Rain on my fucking parade. Kick me when I’m fucking down.”

  The smile stayed put on Jack’s face. “Not when I can sink your fucking battleship.”

  Two Bloody Marys later, Freddy G settled down to business.

  “So,” he said. “Take off the cheaters. Let Papa see.”

  Jack sighed but did as he was told, folding his sunglasses and setting them on the table.

  “Christ on a cross, will you look at that. Are those your eyelids, boy, or did you get kidnapped by a mob of little old ladies who tried to make a patchwork quilt out of your face?”

  “C’mon, Freddy. Give me a break. It’s not that bad. The stitches come out next Tuesday.”

  “Your skin’s getting too old for this shit.”

  “It was those damn Reyes gloves. Everybody in the business knows they can turn a guy who punches like Twiggy into Jack the Ripper. I swear they’ve got razor blades in ’em. It would have been a different story if the commission would have gone for Everlast. But no. What Sugar Ray Sattler wants, Sugar Ray Sattler gets. Jesus. The guy’s had two title defenses. I had five. And half of mine were in the other guy’s backyard.”

  “Yeah, it’s a long, sad story. If you would’ve had those Everlasts, things would have been different.” Freddy shook his gray head. “Face it. Jack. It wasn’t your night. If someone had amputated Sattler’s right hand, you still would have ended up on your butt.”

  Jack grinned. “Show a little mercy, huh? Remember, Freddy, I’m in pain. And the truth definitely hurts.”

  “How’s the nose?”

  “Well, the left nostril kicked in yesterday. That was a relief-all that mouth-breathing was making me feel like an extra from Deliverance. I’m hoping the right will get embarrassed and join in tomorrow.”

  “Like hell. You couldn’t breathe through the right side before Sattler kicked your butt. You’ve got a deviated septum, Jack. You ought to get it fixed.”

  “Look, I’m not going to pay anyone to break my nose. Some guy gets a free shot at me, I’m the one who’s going to get paid. Especially if he gets to use a hammer.”

  Freddy laughed. “Is that a miserable excuse for a segue, my boy?”

  “Well, the commission’s still holding up my purse. And I’m sitting on my wallet, Pops. And it sure ain’t causing me any back problems at the present moment.”

  Freddy moved behind the bar and freshened his Bloody Mary. Jack rolled the beer bottle back and forth across his aching knuckles. Two weeks since the fight, and it was still murder making a fist. Just a couple years ago he could have sat down at a piano and played a fucking concerto a few days after a twelve-rounder. If he’d happened to know how to play the piano, that is. But these days. . well, these days it seemed his hands always hurt.

  Jack gripped the bottle. Hard. Trying to keep it light was turning out to be a much taller order than he’d expected. And there was a good reason for that. Deep down, Jack realized the hidden purpose of this meeting.

  Freddy was calling him on the carpet.

  Shit. Even Ray Charles could see that.

  Jack Baddalach could feel it in his bones. This was going to be the big kiss-off.

  The road he’d traveled with Freddy G had been a long one. He’d had most of his fights at the Casbah. Jesus, he’d made his professional debut in the stadium/parking lot behind the casino back in ’78. He’d won his title in the same ring in ’86. But it had been quite a few years since anyone had strapped a belt around his belly, and now that he’d battled a young lion and come out looking like roadkill. . Well, he’d promised himself that the fight with Sugar Ray Sattler would be his last hurrah-win, lose, or draw. It had been easy, saying that before the fight, believing he could walk away from it all.

  Winning would have made it easy. If it hadn’t made him hungry all over again, of course. And a draw he could have lived with. But losing. .

  And there was no question that he’d lost. Badly. The ref had counted ten over him. And if it wasn’t bad enough getting KO’d by some candyass nicknamed Sugar, there was the humiliation that came after that.

  Jack didn’t remember it, not really. But thanks to the magic of videotape, he’d seen it a dozen times. Sattler’s asshole promoter, he of the electric hair and audiophile-quality bullshit, had jumped in Jack Baddalach’s bloody face after the fight, barking, telling Jack that he was nothing but a washed-up pug. He opined that Jack Baddalach was an embarrassment to the pugilistic brotherhood, nothing less than a fraud. Him, a guy who’d never laced on a pair of gloves in his life, an ex-numbers runner with a big mouth. And when Jack shoved the promoter, the guy started in on Jack’s skin tone, saying that Jack’s complexion was the only reason he’d made the connection with a class act like Sugar Ray Sattler.

  In light of the words that followed, that comment was actually polite. Quaint, in its own way, like calling Jack a great white hope.

  The barrage that crossed the pay-per-view airwaves that evening was rattler-mean and gutter-nasty. Even though Jack didn’t remember any of it, he saw what was coming when he watched the tape. First he sighed. Then he shook his head. His lip twisted into a disgusted smirk. And all the while, the promoter kept on yapping.

  Once more, the word complexion reared its ugly head. As the promoter spat the second syllable, Jack launched the best left hook of his career. It landed flush, and the promoter bit off the final syllable and a quarter-inch of overworked tongue. Going down, he looked like a side of beef that happened to be wearing a tuxedo.

  “You need some dough. Jack?” Freddy asked.

  “Naw. You already did enough, Pops. Hell, you could have bought your own pirate ship with the money you put up for my bail.” He shrugged. “And you know me, I don’t live all that big.”

  “Yeah. But these days even that costs money.” Freddy G sat down next to Jack. “Don’t worry about it, kid. The guy won’t press charges. He’ll just play it for publicity. With his record, he doesn’t want any part of you in a court of law.”

  “Yeah. . well. . we’ll see about that.”

  “I gotta tell you, Jack: you impressed me the other night. Flattening the guy the way you did. It was something to see.”

  “C’mon. It wasn’t much. I mean, I already had the gloves on. I sure didn’t do much to Sattler with ’em. Seemed a shame to call it a night without cleaning someone’s clock.

  “Naw. I ain’t talkin’ about the punches. I’m talkin’ about the trouble.”

  “Trouble?”

  “Yeah. You got a talent for it, Jack. I can see that now. How you’re handling this whole mess. Like it doesn’t faze you. I never knew you were built that way. Christ, you’re a born pro.” He sipped his Bloody Mary. “You know me, Jack. I like to cut to the chase. Bottom line is this-I think you’ve come to the end of one road, and I’d like to help you get started on another.”

  Jack’s eyes narrowed. “I need it a little plainer than that, Freddy. I came here expecting the big kiss-off. You know: you’ve seen your day, kid. It’s time to hang ’em up. Maybe we’ll get you a job playing golf with the shmoes."

  “That ain’t what this is.”

  ‘Then what is it?”

  “You said you want it plain. Okay. I’ll make it plain.” Freddy drained the Bloody Mary but didn’t go after another. “Got a guy been working for me the last six months. Name of Vince Komoko. Vince, he’s a go-getter. Some of the boys met him out in Hollywood last year-guy was actually some kind of war hero who rode the fast track to celebrityland. Went to work for us out there, made some moves smoother than Ex-Lax. Lately he’s been running the vig for us. That’s the money we skim off the top-”

  “C’mon, Freddy. I’ve been around this town a few years, you know?”

  “Okay. Well, he’s running the vig, Vince is. Where it comes from, you don’t want to know. Where it goes, you don’t need to know. All you need to know is that in between it’s supposed to detour through a bank in Dallas, and Vince gets it from here to there in a car. Vince was supposed to show up in Dallas two days ago, and he never made it.”

  “So somewhere between here. . and there. .”

  “You’re getting the picture.”

  “What kind of money are we talking about?”

  The big man swore. “Close to two mil in hundred dollar bills.”

  “Shit.”

  “That’s a fucking understatement.” Freddy sucked a deep breath. “Now, here’s my proposition. You seem to have some free time on your hands. You have a pretty decent head on your shoulders-”

  Jack waved him off. “You’ve got plenty of guys working for you, Freddy.”

  “But they ain’t you." Freddy threw up his hands. “They ain’t smart like you. They’re not the kind of guys got the stones to get in the ring with a hotshot like Sugar Ray Sattler, and they sure ain’t got the stones to punch out a millionaire boxing promoter. They’re guys just like Vince Komoko. . and he’s the guy caused me this problem in the first place. Christ on a cross, if my guys found out how much those pirates are making across the street, they’d be first in line when Captain Kidd gets waterlogged and takes early retirement. I don’t need a guy like that. What I’m looking for is a little thing called loyalty.”

  “Dogs are loyal, Freddy.”

  “Dogs don’t make what you’ll be making.”

  “Which is?”

  “I figure fifteen percent is an appropriate finder’s fee.”

  “You give a waiter fifteen percent, Pops.”

  The big man laughed. “Make it twenty.”

  “Off the top of my head that sounds pretty good.”

  “You get out your calculator when you get home,” Freddy said. “It’ll sound a whole lot better.”

  Jack set his beer on the table. The bottle was still full, still cold, but he didn’t need it anymore. Somehow, his knuckles felt a whole hell of a lot better.

  “So,” he said, “how’s the Casbah’s health plan, boss?”

  “You ain’t gonna need one,” Freddy said. “You’re gonna make out fine.”

  An envelope changed hands.

  “What’s this?” Jack asked.

  “The key to a pirate’s treasure trove,” Freddy said, and then he laughed.

  TWO

  Baddalach waited at a traffic light on the corner of Casbah Avenue and the Strip, his ’76 Toyota Celica vibrating like a cymbal in a strip club, aka overtime.

  These days the Strip practically stretched all the way to the desert hamlet of Baker, California. Baker was famous as home of the world’s tallest thermometer, which was sometimes known to hit the 120-degree mark. Jack didn’t know how accurate the amazing colossal thermometer was. Skeptic that he was, he wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that it was the world’s least accurate, a scam to drag sun-roasted tourists into town for a couple of cold brewskis.

  But Baddalach knew better than that-the “least accurate” part of the equation, anyway-for he actually owned the world’s least accurate thermometer. Well, thermostat, anyway, but Jack wasn’t one to quibble when it came to definitions, especially definitions of the automotive variety.

  The thermostat in question was part of Jack’s Toyota, and at present he was staring down the gauge that tracked its efficiency with such murderous intensity that he might have been mistaken for Mike Tyson himself.

  But staring didn’t seem to intimidate the gauge. The Celica’s radiator needle edged toward the danger zone.

  Sweat beaded on Baddalach’s upper lip.

  The needle clipped the red sliver at the high end of the gauge.

  Menacingly, a red light ignited on the dashboard.

  At the same moment, the traffic light flashed to the cool, unreal green of a suburban lawn. Baddalach dug out while the digging was good. He shut down a coughing Pinto and cut in front of a VW bus that looked like it had survived the summer of love, the days of disco, the era of voodoo economics, and was still holding tough in the days of corporate downsizing.

  Such a maneuver was quite an accomplishment on the Toyota’s part. Making it gave Baddalach an undeserved sense of confidence. Or maybe it was the vision of Freddy G’s twenty percent dancing in his head. Whatever the cause, Baddalach’s adrenaline had risen to Mario Andretti levels, and he took the corner of West Dunes Road like a man who wasn’t riding on retreads.

  Baddalach hit the freeway. Fourth gear kicked in with only the slightest grinding sound. The clutch slip-slided just a little as Jack made fifth. Once secure, he wasn’t downshifting for anyone.

  Fifty-five mph. The engine started knocking. Jack sang a snatch of “I Hear You Knocking But You Can’t Come In” and headed for North Vegas, which had once been nothing more than the first step into the biggest sandbox this side of the Sahara. Currently it was one big housing tract on top of the biggest sandbox this side of the Sahara. Baddalach wasn’t surprised that one of Freddy G’s flunkies would live there. As far as Jack Baddalach was concerned you’d have to be an idiot to scam Freddy G, and only an idiot would live in the suburban wasteland called North Vegas.

  For one thing, the place had to be the air-conditioning capital of the world. Jack had read that many thoughtful residents went so far as to provide air-conditioned dog houses for their pets. On an afternoon like this one-a real sidewalk egg-frier- Jack figured it wouldn’t be a bad idea to learn to fetch and roll over if those skills could get him belly to belly with a chilly Airtemp, don’t spare the Freon. .

  Jack eyed the A/C button on the dashboard, barely resisting the temptation to press it. He didn’t want to push the engine any harder than he had to.

  He settled for the fan instead. Notched that sucker to the max. The hot air that blasted from the vents sent a collection of white tabs torn from the lids of fast-food coffee cups dancing across worn floor mats. The shards of white plastic kind of looked like big snowflakes. Jack sucked a deep breath, inhaling the wintery scent of the pine tree air freshener that dangled from the rearview mirror, but he didn’t feel any cooler.

  Maybe singing would help. A chorus of “Jingle Bell Rock” or something.

  Jack resisted the temptation. The off-ramp he wanted was just ahead. Reluctantly, he geared down. Reluctantly, the Celica cooperated, taking the ramp without complaint. Jack was just about to double-check the directions Freddy G had scrawled on the back of a cocktail napkin smeared with Bloody Mary mix when he noticed a garage on the corner.

  A new thermostat, how much could it cost?

  Hell, how much could a new radiator cost?

  A new clutch? Tires? Maybe a rebuilt tranny?

  Baddalach didn’t know. He only knew that however much it was, it wouldn’t put much of a dent in Freddy G’s twenty percent.

  The service manager’s name was Pablo, and Pablo could write up one hell of a work order. Took him two forms to prep Jack’s rice rocket. He even had to stop and sharpen his pencil.

  It didn’t matter to Jack. He was feeling pretty good. Finally, it looked like he was going to make some dinero that would be his and his alone.

  That was one thing that always annoyed him-everybody assumed that boxers were rich. Sure, some of them were rich. Filthy rich. The Tysons, the Foremans, the Leonards, the Haglers, the De La Hoyas. But guys like that came few and far between. The truth was that most fighters-even the ones who had once been world champions-were left out in the cold once they retired. At the end of the trail they were no better off than guys who had toiled in steel mills with bad pension plans.

  The economics were actually pretty brutal. The championship purses announced in the media might sound good, but some promoters were financial butchers who’d cut them down to size before paying off, blaming their losses on weak pay-per-view or any number of dodges that were difficult to track. And even under the best circumstances, a fighter’s cut dwindled considerably after the payoff.

  It worked this way-first, of course, came the tax man. Then the fighter’s manager took a big cut. Next came training camp expenses. Sparring partners had to be paid. Cornermen too-a name trainer like Georgie Benton or Emanuel Stewart didn’t come cheap. And neither did a decent cutman, of which there were maybe five in the entire business. And if a fighter was young and impressionable and stupid enough to take on an entourage. . well, the human leeches who hung around the fight game knew how to make boxers bleed green, and there wasn’t a cutman alive who could staunch that kind of wound.

  Fortunately, Baddalach had never gone that route. Sure, he’d had a good time or two, but for the most part he’d watched his money. But the sad truth of the matter was that the Sattler fight had provided his first decent purse since losing his title four years before, and those four years had pretty thoroughly tapped out his savings account.

  Jack shook his head. It didn’t matter. Now, with this new setup. . Well, things were going to be good again. Tracking down some guy. Some Hollywood guy. How hard could it be?

  Pablo finished scribbling and passed the work order to Jack. “Fill out your name and address and we’re in business, amigo.” Jack did as asked, then returned Pablo’s clipboard.

  The service manager stared at the name. ‘Thought that was you behind those shades.” He shook his head. “Jack ‘Battle-ax’ Baddalach.”

  “Never much cared for that nickname.” Jack grinned. “I always thought there was kind of an uncomfortable Nordic-Viking-KKK ring to it.”

  “Oh yeah? Why didn’t you change it?”

  “When I turned pro, they wouldn’t print the word Badass in Sports Illustrated.”

  Pablo nodded. “I see your point. These days marketing is everything.”

  “You got that right.”

  “Well, she’ll be ready to roll manana, buddy. Me and my boys, we work all night.”

  Jack thanked him, and they shook hands. “Maybe you can help me with one other thing-I’m crashing out at a friend’s tonight. He lives in this neighborhood. You know where Rancho Rojo Lane is?”

  “Sure thing. Three blocks up, turn toward the Pacific ocean, one block over. Can’t miss it.”

  ‘Thanks.”

  “De nada.” Pablo smiled. “Fact is, I should be thanking you.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24