No one could’ve imagined this for you, Antoine. You proved them all wrong. It is the happiest thought he has ever had. You proved them all wrong.
8:51 p.m.
In her excitement, Naomi lifts Ricky off the ground. She can’t stop laughing. Ricky self-consciously straightens his button-up shirt after she puts him down, and she high-fives the richies around them, the coach in her coming out.
Far below, Antoine is being mobbed by his team, officials, casino representatives, interviewers, and cameramen. They are all packed into the ring, along with some of Konitsyn’s entourage, as well as security guards and paramedics. As for Clayface, he still hasn’t moved, though fight doctors are attempting to revive him, holding his eyelids open and shining their little flashlights.
Naomi has a smile that won’t go down. He’ll get a title fight. Perhaps become a world champion. Be a millionaire. That little boy she used to beat up. She clasps her hands together and holds them to her chest. There are tears in her eyes.
“I’ll be back,” she says to Ricky, and “Excuse me” to the richies as she passes by. She descends the steep stairs down the bowl of the arena, high-fiving people along the way.
8:54 p.m.
While all those around him are cheering over what they’ve just witnessed — or rushing to the bathroom now that the action is over — Tyron merely shakes his head in disbelief, a bemused smile on his lips. The commentators are also incredulous. “When Konitsyn shook the canvas, so too was the entire division shaken. What a thrilling performance by Antoine ‘Dex’ Deco. Surely that was a fight for the ages. And that’s right, our main event, Gibbons-Suarez, is still to come. What a card this is shaping up to be.”
“I can tell you this, Joe, each of these fighters will have his own main event soon enough. And fighting each other? After what we’ve just seen, a rematch would be the biggest draw in the sport.”
Onscreen, a third commentator crowds Antoine in the ring and aims him toward the closest camera. He starts to speak into his microphone, but even this man, for whom words are his living, is at a loss for them. After a shrug and a laugh, he says, “Antoine . . . how did you do it?”
Antoine looks at his interviewer and then into the camera. His face is battered and bleeding, his breathing ragged. He wipes sweat and blood from his left eye with the back of his hand, now cut free of its glove. From the defiant expression on his face, it seems to Tyron that he will launch into the kind of diatribe he gave him this afternoon. But then Antoine’s puffy eyes soften. “I don’t know,” he says, his voice strained. “I don’t know why the crowd helped me like that. It made a difference.”
Hearing this answer, the crowd cheers louder, an echo of the thunder they produced that final round.
“Do you think you’re ready for a title fight?” asks the commentator.
Antoine levels a stare at him. “I’m ready for any fight.”
Tyron laughs under his breath. There it is, he thinks. There’s that good ol’ Antoine antagonism. Glad you didn’t change too much, brother.
10
9:00 p.m.
Antoine taps Konitsyn’s fist after the man has come to. He nods at Antoine for the second time, and this time Antoine nods back.
Once outside the ring, on his way back to the stadium tunnel, Antoine’s elation gives way to turmoil. What if? The question keeps repeating in his mind. What if he were to actually be Antoine Deco, professional boxer? Nothing is set in motion yet. He could call it all off. Tomorrow he’ll have million-dollar deals on the table. He could do anything. Get a wife. Have children. None of this ever seemed like an option before.
People in the crowd lean over the railings on either side of the walkway and stretch their arms out in the hope that he will high-five them. He doesn’t. But he cannot fully suppress the gratification and pride their validation gives him. It is distressing, this change within him. Life has prepared him for many things, but success is not one of them.
Antoine sights a very tall and very beautiful woman in a dark purple dress leaning over the railing further than the rest. She keeps shouting his name, trying to get his attention. At first he doesn’t believe it. Thinks the punchiness is making him see things. But there is no mistake. Naomi.
He breaks from his team and security detail. Walks right up to her. She embraces him, despite his heavy sheen of sweat, and squeezes him tight. Others pat his shoulders and back. He ignores them and takes note of how her body feels against his.
“Antoine, you were incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it,” she says into his ear. “I’m so proud of you.”
He steps back and looks at her. “What are you doing here?”
“Ty gave me his ticket. I can’t believe that you won.” She smiles that vivacious smile of hers. “I knew you would win and I can’t believe it at the same time.”
Carlos taps him on the shoulder. The casino handler is motioning for them to keep moving.
He hugs her again and says into her ear, “I’m glad you saw it. And I’m glad I saw you. Thank you.”
He lets her go and he doesn’t look back.
* * *
Inside the halls of the stadium Keenan is waiting on guard outside his dressing room. You again, Antoine thinks.
To his team he gives one nod, and they continue down the wide tunnel, knowing where they are supposed to go and what they are supposed to do. The casino aides and the security detail leave to ferry the next pair of fighters, Gibbons and Suarez — the true attractions of the night — leaving only him and Keenan in the hall.
“Well done,” Keenan says.
Antoine nods at the man and goes inside.
He forgoes a shower, instead towelling himself dry, and puts on a fresh set of clothes: grey running shoes, spongy sport socks, loose-fitting black mesh cargo pants, a black cotton T-shirt, and a thin grey nylon warm-up jacket. He leaves his boxing gear on the floor but packs the rest of his belongings into a small backpack. Then he sits on the trainer’s table and waits.
The adrenaline wears off and his head begins to throb. It hurts to breathe. His limbs are leaden and his hunger ravenous. He wolfs down energy bars and gels, and pumps water into his mouth as fast as it will come out of the bottle.
He checks his watch. 9:16 p.m.
The main event must have started already. But he can hear nothing, as the room is soundproofed. Pop stars use these dressing rooms too; they must need quiet before they perform.
He flexes his fingers. This, too, hurts. Their stiffness feels arthritic. His knuckles are bruised and scraped raw.
Why’d Naomi have to be here? Why’d she have to look so fine and act so fine? Why’d everyone have to behave like they cared just because he won a single fight?
Why now — now, as he waits — do doubts have to start creeping in?
There is a knock at the door. It opens before he can respond. The first person to walk in is a burly man about the same height as Antoine. He has a grey buzz cut and a combative face. He nods at Antoine upon entering, then steps aside to allow another man to come forward. Outwardly Antoine remains impassive. Inwardly his headache dissipates, his gaze sharpens, and his muscles slough off their stiffness.
Antoine knows the man to be in his eighties, yet the extensive cosmetic surgery gives his face an indeterminate quality. His eyes are brown and alert, and his thin wavy hair has been dyed a dirty blond, the colour it was when he was a young man. He is very short, even shorter now than he once was, and he cuts a trim figure in his charcoal grey suit. Antoine has looked at photos of this man for many years and on two occasions he has seen him from afar, but this is the first time he’s been close to him. Antoine struggles to keep his knee from bouncing and he resists the urge to swallow, though his mouth feels thick with saliva.
“Antoine,” the man says, in a nasal voice gone gravelly with age. He extends his hand. “I’m Norman Bashinsky. It’s a pleasure to
meet you.”
Antoine’s lips tighten, pulled between a grimace and a smile. His hand is trembling, so he squeezes it into a fist until it is in line with Bashinsky’s small hand, then opens the fist and closes it around the man’s papery skin. During the handshake Antoine trembles and the old man gives him a patronizing smile. “Don’t be nervous,” he says. “Think of me as just another one of your fans.”
Antoine gives a couple of quick nods and removes his hand from Bashinsky’s grasp.
“This is my director of security, Raymond Monk.” Bashinsky motions to the other man. “He’d also like to shake your hand. That was one hell of a show you put on for us, son.”
Monk’s handshake is too tight, like he’s trying to prove something. “I haven’t seen a fight like that in years,” he says to Antoine. “You’re a great boxer.”
Again, Antoine nods and gives that tight smile, afraid of what his voice might sound like if he tries to speak.
Bashinsky looks around the dressing room, at the empty chairs. “Your people made a quick getaway.”
“I . . .” Antoine’s voice catches in his throat. He swallows, but his voice still comes out thick and unwieldy. “I’ll celebrate with them after.”
Bashinsky chuckles. “I know exactly what you mean. When I have a big day I like to —”
Antoine launches off the trainer’s table with a right jab at Monk’s throat. He feels the man’s Adam’s apple crumple beneath his knuckles. Within the same combination he springs into a left hook at Bashinsky’s temple, his feet leaving the ground as he propels his fist into contact. He leaves a dent in the old man’s skull. Before Bashinsky’s body hits the ground, Antoine has pounced on Monk, hands around his crushed throat.
Monk scrabbles feebly at his neck, but Antoine pins his arms down with his knees and digs his strong thumbs into the man’s windpipe. Grip strength is something Antoine has worked on for many years. In truth, it does not take that much strength to choke the life out of a man. What is difficult is keeping your grip when the jugular starts to pulse. It thrums repulsively. The unnatural twang of a grotesque harp string. Each throb makes you want to snatch your hands back in revulsion. It takes practice, holding on to those large veins and arteries jerking for air. For life. All creatures fight when death is forced upon them.
Antoine started with cats. He could’ve snapped their necks, but he strangled them because he wanted to feel that throbbing. He wanted to watch their eyes bug out — the way Monk’s eyes are bugging out of their sockets right now — without letting go or throwing up. How they used to buck and twist and tear at his forearms with their hind legs. Seeing his own dripping blood made him feel better, some atonement for this unholy preparation. The blood reminded him that he was not a psychopath. A psychopath cannot tell the difference between right and wrong, whereas he knew that what he was doing was absolutely wrong. His own body did its best to betray his commands. No, Antoine was no psychopath. He was someone who had the ability to push himself beyond any limit. Any instinct that kicked in, no matter how strong, any challenge that lay before him, no matter how insurmountable, fell beneath his ceaseless determination.
Monk’s eyes are so huge now, little red capillaries bursting in the whites of them, that Antoine wonders if they might actually pop from their sockets. That or simply explode. Instead, the man’s contortions abruptly end, his arched back lowers to the ground, and his blue tongue hangs from the side of his mouth.
Antoine is sure he killed Bashinsky with that punch, but he straddles the little old man anyway, wraps his thick fingers around that frail neck, and digs his thumbs in. There is no pulsing in this throat. Not like when he used to strangle pit bulls and German shepherds. In their final throes, they could do a lot more damage to him than cats, and he would have to lie behind them on the ground, keeping his face turned away from their clipping jaws, constricting them in headlocks and leglocks. His initiation kill for the Latin Knights was by strangulation. It served two purposes: it was his first human, and it was a grislier execution than the gang was expecting. Rookies to the crew normally used a pistol with a shaking hand. That got Antoine respect right from the start, which he cemented in prison by volunteering for any hits the Knights wanted done. They called him Windpipe after his first inside, and his rep was strong throughout the prison because he didn’t need a shiv. And because he could out-box any inmate.
Antoine stands and takes a moment to survey the two bodies. So quickly done, he thinks. He hoists his backpack and settles it snugly onto his shoulders. Then he exits the room.
9:23 p.m.
The door opens behind Keenan. He turns to see Antoine quickly shut it behind him. “They’re having a conversation,” Antoine says. “They want their privacy.”
“Cool,” Keenan says. “You dressed quick.”
“Got to get to the after-party. I’ll see you.”
Antoine walks briskly away. Keenan thinks there is something odd about how he hurries, especially for a man who has just suffered through ten rounds in the ring and come out with the greatest accomplishment of his career. Keenan would expect release, relaxation, contentment, but there is none of that in Antoine’s rushed gait. He supposes that’s Antoine’s secret, that intensity even now the reason he could beat a world-class fighter like Konitsyn.
The boxer passes out of sight, lost down a bend in the hallway, while Keenan wonders whether he should have gone with him. He was told to guard the dressing room as long as Antoine was in there, and that others would come to lead the boxer away. But Antoine left so suddenly that Keenan didn’t think to ask questions.
Whatever, it’s not like Antoine can’t handle himself. And Monk and Bashinsky are inside; Keenan doesn’t want to leave them unguarded. Weird that they’d have a private conversation in Antoine’s dressing room, but if something comes up, you got to discuss it wherever, Keenan guesses.
He waits, thinking what a boring job private security is. He misses the force. Lately he has been trying not to wish that he could take back that moment. It serves no purpose to constantly regret, but — Christ — if only he could take back that moment! His life is now divided between before and after it happened. Because of that one moment, I’ll never be happy again, he thinks. He admonishes himself. Quit your grumbling, you whiner. Thanks to you, that kid doesn’t even have a life to be miserable in.
This is a long conversation these guys are having. Normally Keenan wouldn’t disturb such important people, but an anxiety that he can’t explain is gnawing at him. He knocks on the door. Waits. There is no answer. He knocks again. No answer. He depresses the handle and opens the door just enough to stick his head inside.
Keenan throws the door wide and removes his pistol from its holster. He moves swiftly between the two bodies and shoves in the door to the bathroom. Clear. He looks at the bodies. Doesn’t bother checking for a pulse; he’s seen dead men before. He runs.
His Reef cap flies off as he sprints down the stadium hallway. There is no sign of Antoine. Keenan does not stop running. The passages are eerily quiet. Everyone is out in the arena monitoring the megastars, Gibbons and Suarez.
Monk was my father’s friend, Keenan thinks as his legs pump. I’ve known him since I was a child. What the fuck, Antoine? Keenan has to catch him.
There are two arena staff up ahead. They leap against the wall before Keenan barrels them down. “Antoine Deco! Have you seen him? Antoine Deco. The boxer. He just won a fight. Did he come this way?”
The man and woman stare at him bewildered, and it isn’t until he grabs the man by the arm that the woman points further down the hall and says, “He went into the parking lot.”
Keenan hasn’t sprinted like this in years. He chases signs that point to parking.
What the fuck? What the fuck? Monk and Bashinsky dead? What the fuck is wrong with Antoine? He just won the biggest fight of his life.
Keenan kicks open the heavy door that ex
its onto an elevated walkway between the stadium and a multi-level parking garage. The night is crisp. A breezy chill has swept away any remnants of the heat. Pistol in both hands, arms extended, he advances across the walkway. He checks over the side but there is no activity on the tarmac below. He enters the parking garage.
Gun and gaze swivelling, he scans the cars surrounding him. There is no one in sight. He listens. Thinks he hears footsteps on a lower level. He lopes down the curving road to P2, and there up ahead of him between the cars, still walking briskly: Antoine.
Keenan takes flight and by the time Antoine has turned he has closed most of the distance between them. Keenan sets his feet and aims his weapon. “Antoine! Hands where I can see ’em! Don’t move!”
Antoine’s swollen face doesn’t react. He stops where he is and raises his palms to shoulder height.
Gun trained on the man’s solar plexus, Keenan walks forward until they are less than ten feet apart. Now that he is stopped, Keenan notices how much his lungs and throat are burning. His voice hoarse, he says, “What the fuck, Antoine? You killed those guys?”
Antoine stares at him, his eyes impenetrable, his body perfectly still.
“Tell me what the fuck is going on.”
Antoine keeps staring. He lowers his arms to his sides, blinks, and says, “They killed my father.”
Keenan’s face scrunches in confusion. “Who?”
“Monk and Bashinsky. And one other. They killed the Shaws too.”
Keenan begins to lower his gun. “What?”
Undercard Page 11
