Otto Penzler (ed) - Murder 06 - Murder on the Ropes raw Read online

  His smile fading, Mick glanced the question at Nate.

  “They said it was an aneurysm,” Nate shrugged. “Cranial blood vessel burst. Died in the ambulance.”

  “But K didn’t hit him in the head. It was a body shot.”

  “It’s always an aneurysm down south. No liability for the promoters that way. A guy takes a thousand punches that’d kill a gorilla, but when he croaks it’s always from a vessel he coulda popped while he’s bangin’ his wife. Funny. You ever hear of a fighter screwin’ himself to death?”

  Mick shook his head.

  “Me neither. Want me to run it again?”

  “No. I’ve seen enough.”

  But he hadn’t apparently. The video’s grainy images kept popping onto the viewscreen of Mick’s mind at odd moments. K’s opponent hitting the canvas like a sack of cement, the ref counting, then waving for the ring doctor...

  He knew better than to dwell on it. He’d handled fear before, knew how to squeeze it down, lock it away in a small corner of his gut. But in the past, he’d had his hunger to counter it. His hopes. His will to win.

  Not anymore. He’d crossed the line now, sliding into the gutter with Tommy Duke and the rest. All he had left were his waning skills. And his guts.

  And Sunlight Shining on Water.

  At first he practiced the technique haphazardly, when he was jogging or out walking in a crowd. Eyes wide open, he’d try to visualize a lake with sunlight glittering on its surface. Couldn’t manage it. Decided the vision was too big. Tried a pond instead, on a farm he’d visited as a kid...

  That worked. After a few days, he could dissolve reality at will, filling his mind with liquid golden light. But still reacting to the world around him. Roadwork became less of a grind, more relaxing. Instead of pushing himself, he seemed to settle into a natural lope that felt like it could go on forever.

  In the gym, working the heavy bag or the speed bag, he found himself extending his drills, enjoying the workout instead of slave-driving himself through it. Going for the burn. Getting back into top shape.

  Was the Sunlight actually helping? Hard to tell. After the first week, his punches seemed a bit more fluid, perhaps more accurate. But the improvement was slight, marginal at best. Maybe even imaginary. Seen because he needed to see it.

  The change in his attitude was real, though. Working with the Sunlight technique made old skills seem fresh again. Brand new. Reminded him of the way he felt in the beginning. When his life was unrolling in front of him like a red carpet.

  Perhaps it was because he could see the end of the Game now, a last round looming in the hazy distance ahead. At first he could hardly imagine it. But as the weeks passed, a new future began to take shape.

  College. He still had tuition grants he’d earned in the Marines. With the money he’d get for his final half dozen losses and a part-time job, he could get by. Maybe get serious about Theresa Garcia-

  Assuming he lived that long.

  He started seeing Ramos around at odd times. Cruising past while Mick was running. Parked in front of the Alamo late at night. They never spoke. No need to. Mick got the message. Ramos could find him. Anytime.

  Big K was haunting him as well. Or rather his video image was. Something about the snuff film kept chewing on him. K, rude and tattooed. Standing over the dead man in the ring.

  Eventually, Mick figured out what bothered him about it.

  Not the stiff. He’d seen men knocked cold before. Put a few in that condition himself.

  It was K’s reaction to it. None. No excitement, no dismay. Shuffling his feet in his corner, coolly scanning the corpse for movement. A tic, a twitch, anything. Waiting to finish him.

  When the ref waved in the ring doctor and K realized the fight was over, he simply raised his hands in victory, marched around the ring, then waited with his handlers for the final announcement.

  Never looked at the dead man again. Not once. Putting people down was his trade. If they didn’t get up afterward, that was their problem.

  How would he react to a fixed fight? Treat it as a workout? Dancing for dollars? Or would he try for kill number two? Either way, Mick figured tangling with Big K might be the longest three rounds of his life.

  Naturally, the three weeks between were the shortest.

  Two days before the fight, out for a run, he met Theresa Garcia in the park. Dressed in faded jeans and a Pistons sweatshirt, she looked like her own younger sister.

  Her daughter was with her, a six-year-old stunner with chestnut hair and her mother’s dark, intelligent eyes.

  And Mick was lost.

  Either girl could have melted the heart of a stone statue. Together, they were overwhelming. He wanted them. Both of them. A family. More than he’d ever wanted a championship belt. More than...anything.

  Theresa seemed pleased to see him, even introduced him to her daughter as a friend. Then sent the girl off to play on the swings.

  “I got your present,” Theresa said. “Thanks.”

  “Present?”

  “Tickets to the fight on Friday. To be honest, I wasn’t sure whether to go or not. You know how I feel about violence, but...I think I’ll be there. If you care so much about boxing, it can’t be so terrible. Maybe we can have coffee or something afterward. If you’d like.”

  “Coffee or...something would be good,” Mick said, trying not to grin like an idiot. And failing.

  “Fine. See you then,” she said. “And good luck.” Kissing him lightly on the cheek, she trotted off to collect her daughter.

  Mick trotted off also, collecting his thoughts. Tickets? Wash must have sent them. A three-hundred-pound Cupid in a silk suit. The question was, did Mick really want her there?

  He’d always been a fighter, always defined himself as one.

  And now? He’d be fighting, but he wasn’t sure what it meant anymore.

  He turned to tell her not to come. And found her watching him from across the park. He recognized that look. She was measuring him. Sizing him up. He didn’t know why. But she was. And when she waved goodbye he simply waved back.

  He saw an alternate version of that measured stare the next morning during the barely controlled chaos of the weigh-in. Stripping in a roomful of people, answering loaded questions from the press, and doing it all with K checking him out with his reptilian eyes, sizing him up for a body bag. His variation of The Look.

  Sonny Liston, Roberto Duran, even Mike Tyson in his prime could psych out opponents with The Look, a dead-eyed, savage stare. When it worked, their fights were half over before the opening bell.

  Mick didn’t avoid K’s glare. Didn’t have to. He was seeing Sunlight instead. Sunlight Shining on Water. Kept the image bright in his mind during the tedious process of stepping on scales, having a ring doctor check his eyes and heartbeat.

  Afterward, Wash took him aside to ask if he was stoned.

  He’d been smiling the whole time.

  Wasn’t smiling that night, though. Hurriedly arranged, the bout was part of a low-budget card at the Motown Athletic Arena, a remodeled movie theater that hadn’t shown a first-run film since Night of the Living Dead. Place smelled like some of the flick’s zombies were rotting in the basement.

  Lying on the training table, Mick listened to boos and catcalls raining on the poor slobs shambling through the first bout. He knew how they felt, laying your soul and body on the line to entertain people you’d cross the street to avoid.

  Maybe the crowd wasn’t seeing Leonard/Hagler II, but the punches still hurt, the blood was real. Rendered hopelessly hyper by TV remotes and hip-hop videos, fight fans figure anything slower than Mortal Kombat III is snail-speed.

  As the bell sounded the end of each round, Mick got up and shadowboxed for sixty seconds, staying warm, staying loose. Then relaxing again. Or trying to.

  Ordinarily, arenas had separate dressing rooms for the fighters. Here only a blanket divided the combatants and their handlers. Mick could see K every time he got up. Not that there
was much to see.

  Wearing a black silk hooded warm-up suit, K was sitting in a metal chair against the wall. Silent. Still as death. Not asleep, his eyes were half-open. But Mick got the sense the Killer was far away, cruising some primordial sea like a shark. Waiting for the taste of blood.

  Just before the final round, the promoter stuck his head in the door. “Shannon, Kroffut, you’re up. Show ’em somethin’, okay? The natives are gettin’ restless.”

  Mick was already up, shadowboxing, breaking a serious sweat. If K heard the promoter, he gave no sign. Nor did his handlers say anything to him. He never moved.

  Good. Mick had always been a quick starter, liked jumping on guys too lazy to warm up—he shook off the thought. He wouldn’t be jumping his man tonight. Tonight he’d be fighting to win a new future. No point in planning ahead. Follow K’s lead, make him look good. Earn the damned money.

  K didn’t glance up as Mick followed Wash and Nate out of the dressing room to wait in the shadows at the rear of the arena. In the ring, the two tired fighters touched gloves, then plodded through the last round. After a brief delay for commercials, the announcer bellowed the decision to the muttering crowd. No one even bothered to boo.

  And then it was Mick’s turn, trotting down the aisle with Nate massaging his shoulders, the old excitement galvanizing his guts.

  Crudely assembled in the center of the huge room, the ring was circled by roughly two hundred metal chairs. Fewer than half were occupied, street toughs and gang-bangers mingling with Ecorse rednecks and yuppie execs from the Renaissance district. Typical Motown fight crowd.

  With one exception. Theresa Garcia was seated fifth row back, near the center. Wearing a fashionably battered leather jacket, with her hair tied back, she looked like a college freshman on a first date. But, she seemed to be alone. The seat beside her was empty. Good.

  Scanning the crowd as he neared the ring, Mick spotted Tony Brooks, impeccably turned out in a fawn Armani jacket. Brooks rose, applauding as Mick passed, nodding a hello.

  The only other suits in the arena were the ring judges and Tommy Ducatti’s crowd. Tommy Duke had taken an entire row at ringside, close enough that his cigar smoke was wafting into the video lights overhead, close enough that his three-thousand-dollar blue pinstripe was already spattered with bloodstains.

  Mick drew a smattering of applause as he stepped through the ropes. Not much. Once, he’d been a white hope. Now...?

  In his corner, dancing in place while Nate massaged his shoulders, Mick realized he couldn’t remember the last time a crowd had cheered him, even when he won. Should have listened to that silence. They’d seen this night coming a long time ago.

  He did a perfunctory circuit of the ring as his name was called, then waited for K, who was taking his sweet time. Playing the big star already.

  K was only halfway down the arena aisle as the announcer roared his name, hands on his trainer’s shoulders, face hidden by his black cowl. As he stepped through the ropes, the crowd fell strangely still. It was Kroffut’s first Detroit appearance but every fan in the joint knew his story. Boxing is a blood sport, unarmed combat with serious injury or death always a possibility.

  K gave that possibility a shape and the crowd recognized it. In his hooded suit, K couldn’t have symbolized Death any better if he’d carried a scythe.

  The silence turned to a buzz as he shed his suit. Black trunks, black shoes. The Tyson Ensemble, no frills, all attitude. Mick’s emerald green trunks seemed boyish as the two stood in ring center, ignoring the ref’s mumbled balderdash about protecting themselves at all times. Eyeing each other.

  K was giving him The Look again, and this time Mick felt its impact. The ferocity. Any doubts about Kroffut’s mind-set vanished in that instant.

  K didn’t give a damn about any fix. He meant to make himself a reputation. That’s why Tommy changed his mind, gave Mick the fight. And offered him money by the round. This was a payback for mouthing off.

  Trotting back to his corner, Mick felt his belly clench into an icy knot. Worse than fear. Despair. The price for selling out was going to be a lot steeper than he’d thought. And it kept going up.

  As he scanned the crowd, Mick realized the seat beside Theresa wasn’t empty anymore. Ramos was there. Theresa was waving at Mick, cheering him, unaware of who Ramos was. But he was definitely aware of her. As his eyes met Mick’s over the crowd he raised his hand in the shape of a gun. And smiled.

  Instant chill. Turning back to face K, Mick felt like he’d been kicked in the belly. Sweet Jesus, they weren’t taking any chances. A setup. All the way.

  Okay. He was a pro. All he had to do was get through this. Stay with the guy, throw enough leather to make it look legit. Take a few lumps if he had to. How tough could it be?

  He found out at the bell. K came charging out of his corner like a freight train, straight up, fists at his waist, head and upper body unguarded. No feints, no bobbing, he came in firing body shots with both hands, belt level.

  Mick caught the first few on his elbows, felt the full power of them. On film they hadn’t looked like much. Easily blocked. Which is exactly what K wanted.

  Forget the corpse and the string of knockouts. K was a pure body puncher. Using the leverage of his squat frame, he’d hammer an opponent’s arms until his defenses slowed, then dismantle him. Knock down the body, the head falls with it. The crude strategy made Joe Louis a legend. Now it was K’s turn.

  Sidestepping left, Mick fired a right cross, snapping Kroffut’s head back, trying to slow the onslaught. It didn’t.

  Swiveling like a tank turret, K followed him, still punching. Backpedaling now, Mick blocked a half dozen powerful shots with his forearms and biceps. Felt like he was being beaten with a baseball bat. Then K was on him again, and all he could do was trade inside, trying to drive him off.

  And even as he was fighting for his life, Mick couldn’t shake the picture of Ramos beside Theresa. His fault. He’d bought into this. But what it meant was even worse...

  He’d lost focus. Big mistake. Three punches into a combination, K slipped a hook under Mick’s guard. Mick deflected part of the blow with his elbow, but it still bit into his rib cage like a meat axe.

  Mick felt himself hunching over, knew it would be fatal, and fired off two quick jabs as he backed out. He had nothing on them, but the second jab derailed K’s timing a tad and his next punch missed.

  A good thing. The right cross blazed past his chin like a lightning strike, so close Mick felt the breeze. Missing the punch threw K off balance, spinning him halfway around...

  And there it was. For a split second, Mick saw the opening. A clean shot past K’s shoulder to his jaw. Almost took it. Almost blew his payday. And perhaps Theresa’s life. And then the gap slammed shut as K pivoted, coming on again, hammering Mick’s midsection like a wrecking ball.

  Mick survived the round, barely. K caught him in the corner at the ten-second warning, might have driven him through the ring post if the bell hadn’t sounded.

  The ref, a retired light-heavy named Grissom, had to pull K off. Nearly caught one himself as K whirled on him in a killing fury. Mick could almost hear the clank as K’s brain registered the difference between the tall black man in the white shirt and the Irish pug in green trunks crouching against the ropes.

  Shaking off Grissom, K stalked angrily to his corner while Mick shambled to his, collapsing on the stool. Nate pulled out his mouthpiece, Mick rinsed his mouth and spat into the bucket, then leaned back, breathing deeply.

  Crowd sounded unhappy. Mick wondered if they were bitching about his lousy showing or because K hadn’t killed him. Yet.

  As Nate sponged him down, Wash knelt beside Mick. But for the first time in four years and a dozen fights, the fat man was silent. No chatter, no coaching. No need.

  Leaning forward, Mick whispered to Nate, gesturing into the crowd.

  “What the hell you doin’?” Wash asked.

  “Showing him my girl,” Mick groaned,
slumping back on the stool.

  “Screw that. Get your head back in the ring, Irish. K’s tryin’ to make his name on you.”

  “Think what his gate’ll be if he kills two guys. Any advice,

  Wash?”

  “You doin’ all right. You still here.”

  “Glad to hear it. I was wondering.”

  “Seconds out!” the timekeeper called.

  Nate slid in Mick’s mouthpiece, then ducked through the ropes and hurried off. Mick stayed on the stool, resting until the last possible second, rising at the bell.

  K came storming out like The Terminator, irresistible, bent on destruction. This time Mick tried circling right, jabbing, staying on the outside, away from K’s crushing body blows.

  And it worked. For nearly half the round, he kept K at arm’s length, trading long-range leather. Boxing, not slugging. Crowd didn’t like it much. K didn’t either. Mick didn’t care. Fighting outside was his best chance to reach his third-round payday alive. The extra few inches K’s punches had to travel gave him the split second he needed to block them with his gloves rather than his arms.

  Visibly frustrated, K’s swings were getting wilder, showing Mick some openings. The guy was ferocious but not invincible. Mick even risked a quick glance into the crowd at Theresa—

  But K spotted the lapse. And lunged! Enraged by the booing, he slammed into Mick like a linebacker, knocking him off balance. As Mick stumbled into the ropes, K hammered two vicious shots to his midsection, following with a murderous right cross.

  This time it didn’t miss. Mick saw it coming, turned his head away but couldn’t avoid it. Took it flush on the jaw.

  Felt his legs dissolving, turning to water. Mick tried to clinch but K shoved him off, hitting him twice as Mick stumbled to his knees, fouling him so clearly that the ref grabbed K’s arms, wrestling him away.

  Furious at being manhandled, K wasted precious seconds struggling with Grissom, delaying the count. Not that it mattered much.

  Still on his knees, swaying like a willow in a hurricane, Mick was two thousand miles and ten years away. Walking into Olympic Stadium with hundreds of athletes, hearing the crowd roar like great waves breaking. Yet somehow he didn’t fall. He looked up instead, into the glare of the television lighting, into the golden sunlight above the stadium, feeling its warmth on his face.