by sibelhodge
‘I’ve been watching Levi’s fight tonight on pay per view,’ Brad carried on. ‘He’s just gone down in the sixth round by TKO, but something about it doesn’t look right.’
‘What’s a TKO?’
‘Technical Knockout. You’ve never watched a boxing match before?’
‘A few, but that was mostly because I wanted to see two fit guys with six packs and hardly any clothes on. I don’t know anything about the rules.’
‘It’s a knockout declared by the referee when he judges one of the boxers unable to carry on with the fight.’ Brad paused, waiting for me to take this in. My mind was still on the fit guys, though. ‘It means the other guy won because Levi couldn’t continue with the fight.’
‘So why is that unusual? Doesn’t that happen a lot?’
‘It’s not unusual, but something feels off to me.’
‘OK. What happened to Levi Carter so he couldn’t carry on fighting?’ I sat up on the sofa, all ears. Brad’s instincts were as good as my own. If he thought something was off, it probably was.
‘He had a bad cut on his eye by a blow from his opponent. He’s at the hospital at the moment, and the doctors say he’s got a torn retina. It’s quite a common injury for boxers.’
‘And let me guess… Levi’s insured with Hi-Tec for any medical expenses due to boxing injuries?’
‘Yep,’ Brad said. ‘Although the expenses covered by his policy are fairly limited. Any payout we make is pretty low – minimal, in fact. There aren’t many insurance companies who would give a boxer high risk medical insurance.’
‘Huh?’ My eyebrows furrowed. ‘So if any payout we make to him for medical expenses are negligible, why all the fuss on a weekend? Why not just wait for the medical reports to come in and see if he makes a claim. Aren’t you getting a bit ahead of yourself?’
‘Let’s just say I’ve got a personal interest in this one.’
That got my interest aroused pretty quick. Brad didn’t do personal, unless it involved a few select people – me included. ‘OK, I’ll play. If he’s got a common boxing injury, what is it that doesn’t look right with the fight?’
‘That’s why I need you. I’ll have to show you at my place.’
‘I’m on my way.’ I grabbed my rucksack, which was filled all sorts of investigatorish tools, like a stun gun, my SIG Sauer handgun, camera, voice recorder, notepad, and headed out the door.
****
Brad’s place consisted of a spacious – and very expensive – barn conversion. Huge ceilings and windows, stark white walls, lots of exposed wooden beams, minimal furniture, and no personal knick-knacks gave it a show house kind of feel. Brad didn’t do clutter. I couldn’t live like that. Give me clutter and stuff any day. In fact, give me five minutes with this place and I could clutter it to death. The place was spotlessly clean, as usual. A guy who could kill people with his bear hands and do the housework – a rare find indeed.
‘Here.’ Brad opened the door and handed me a glass of red wine.
‘Trying to get me drunk?’ I arched an eyebrow and dumped my rucksack on the floor.
‘Me?’ He faked a shocked look. He looked like he was fresh out of the shower – his cropped hair was damp around the edges and he smelled of… I sniffed…I wasn’t sure, but it was pretty scrumptious whatever it was. Something sexy and manly. Pheromones Pour Homme. He wore butt-huggingly sexy jeans and a black T-shirt that showed off his muscular body. I secretly thought that SAS stood for Sexy Arse Soldier.
I took a sip of wine and followed him into the huge downstairs living space. ‘OK, what’s so important you have to entice me here tonight?’ I rested a hand on my hip.
Brad pointed to his humongous flat screen TV that took centre stage on one wall. A freeze-frame picture of a boxing match caught my eye. Two sweaty, well-defined black men took up the whole screen.
‘I’ll replay it for you,’ he said.
I tilted my glass towards the TV. ‘Which one’s Levi?’
Brad sat on his black leather sofa opposite the TV and patted the empty space next to him.
Hmm. Probably not a good idea to sit that close considering the last time I’d had a drink in his company. What if I lost control of myself and we ended up doing something I’d regret in the morning? Not that we actually did do anything that time, but, well…it was complicated.
I eyed the spare seat. OK, what was the worst that could happen? We’d just talk about the case and that would be that. Hey, it was Saturday night, after all, and maybe I could fool myself into thinking that a hot-blooded woman should live dangerously sometimes.
I sat down, my thigh close enough to feel the heat from his. He glanced at me, haunting grey-blue eyes seemingly piercing my thoughts.
I coughed and leaned away from him, keeping my eyes firmly locked on the screen.
‘Levi’s on the left,’ he said. ‘The other guy is Ricky Jackson.’
Levi looked in his early twenties. He was good looking, unless you counted a nasty bruise around his swollen left eye with blood gushing from a cut above it. Ricky had a few cuts and bruises, too.
‘That’s the eye with the torn retina?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’ Brad reached for a remote control on the arm of the sofa. ‘Let me show you what happened before the injury.’
He rewound the fight at high speed and stopped it. ‘OK, watch it from here.’
I watched Levi dance around Ricky in the centre of the ring. For a guy who must’ve weighed about two hundred and twenty-five pounds, Levi was very light on his feet. I was mesmerized by his speed and agility. I thought back to Muhammad Ali’s catchphrase, “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” If Ali had still been in the ring, Levi looked like he would’ve given him a run for his money. He looked at the peak of physical fitness, too, like he was buzzing with energy, whereas his opponent, Ricky, was more out of breath as he dodged Levi’s quick jabs.
Ricky managed to catch Levi with a punch from his right hand, his glove smashing into Levi’s left eye and opening a nasty gash just above it. Blood mingled with sweat, trickling down Levi’s cheek and spraying onto the ring as he danced out of reach, before coming back and connecting with a right and left punch to Ricky’s head. A succession of fast blows by Levi followed with Ricky struggling to move out of reach. Levi backed Ricky onto the ropes with nowhere to go. Levi was in the middle of a bout of short punches to Ricky’s head when the bell sounded and each boxer returned to his corner where frantic activity took place on both of them.
A close-up shot showed a man in Levi’s team pressing an ice bag to his cut eye as another man squeezed water into his mouth from a bottle. Levi swirled the water around and spat it into a bucket. The man with the ice applied something to Levi’s cut with a cotton bud, then rubbed some sort of gel on his face.
Levi came steaming out of his corner at the sound of the bell, ready for action. He was just about to land a punch to Ricky’s head when it looked like he was distracted by a sound from the outside of the ring.
Levi’s outstretched arm was aiming well to hit Ricky on the cheek, but his punch seemed to falter through the air, skimming off Ricky’s ear. Levi whipped his head around towards a middle-aged man who was now in full frame of the camera behind the fighters. The man stood in front of the ring, shouting something, his arms pointing up at Levi and waving frantically. The man’s face had turned a shade of red that was a cross between tomato and eggplant. Levi’s face froze in a scared mask, and his ebony skin seemed to lighten several shades in front of my eyes. As the man carried on shouting, Ricky made use of Levi’s distraction, taking his chance to land a forceful punch to Levi’s left eye, opening the gash further. Blood poured from the wound, dripping onto the floor of the ring.
Levi sagged to his knees before rolling onto his back. The referee moved forward, ordering Ricky to one of the corners while he took up position next to Levi’s head. Then he started counting to ten.
One!
Levi squirmed on the ground, his gloves pr
essed to his face.
Two!
Levi’s right arm came away from his face and, eyes closed, he rolled onto his side.
Three!
Levi removed his left hand from his left eye but kept his eyes closed.
Four!
Levi scooted into a sitting position and squinted through his right eye.
Five!
Levi managed to drag himself to a standing position on wobbly legs. He clamped his left glove over his eye again.
The referee got in Levi’s face, saying something I couldn’t hear over the shouts from the crowd. He whispered something to Levi, who removed the glove, giving the referee a good look.
The noise from the crowd got louder as the referee led Levi back to his corner, where a guy with Doctor sprawled in yellow letters on his jacket was waiting to check him out.
Levi’s team crowded protectively around him like vultures circling carrion, blocking any view by the cameras.
Shortly after, the referee declared Levi unfit to carry on fighting due to the deep gash above his eye and pronounced Ricky Jackson the winner by TKO. Ricky bounded around the ring like an excited puppy, punching his arm in the air and smiling so wide I could see his gums.
I downed the last of my wine and Brad paused the playback before pouring me another.
‘OK, did you see that Levi was distracted by that guy who was shouting at him?’ Brad said.
‘Yes.’ I thought about the scene I’d just witnessed. ‘Did you see the look on Levi’s face when he heard him? Levi’s head whipped around to face the guy, and he looked really shocked by whatever he was saying. Scared almost.’
‘That’s the impression I got, too. Levi is a professional boxer – he’s trained to not let anything going on outside the ring distract him, but he was certainly distracted by that. It doesn’t seem right to me.’ Brad turned to face me on the sofa and stretched his arm along the back so his fingers were within easy reaching distance of me. They radiated heat like a furnace.
‘So, what, you think that little scene was staged to make Levi throw the fight and go out deliberately in the sixth round?’
Brad thought about this, head on one side, for a moment. ‘Probably not. I don’t think any boxer would want to risk unnecessary injury by not keeping his defence up. There are easier ways to throw a fight, if that was the intention.’
‘What then?’ I sipped my wine, staring at the screen to avoid thinking about the crackling tension I could feel through the small gap between us. ‘Do you know the guy who was shouting at Levi? I recognize him from somewhere.’
‘You should do. He’s Carl Thomas: he and his wife live near your parents.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, that’s it. He’s the CEO of that bank…what’s the name of it?’
‘Don’t you remember? It was plastered all over the newspapers last week.’
I turned and rolled my eyes at him. ‘When do I have time to read the papers? My boss has me worked off my feet!’
‘You love it.’ A grin danced around the edges of his mouth.
Well, yes, I suppose he had a point there. In between debating my love life, I lived for my job catching bad guys. Actually, no, that wasn’t strictly true anymore. When I was a cop, I caught bad guys. Now I investigated insurance claims, but somehow I always managed to catch cases that still involved the bad guys. Lucky or crazy? I’m not sure which. This was precisely why I needed my investigatorish tools of a stun gun and my SIG handgun. I was a good shot, too. I’d even popped a cap in my ex boss’s ass. Not that I’m proud of it, really. OK, maybe just a little bit. It’s a long story and she more than deserved it.
‘OK, I’ll help you out,’ Brad said. ‘The bank is Kinghorn Thomas, owned by Carl Thomas and Edward Kinghorn.’
My eyes widened. ‘The same bank that had a safety deposit box robbery last week?’
Brad gave me a cool nod. ‘The very same.’
‘Romeo is investigating that case.’
‘What did he tell you about it?’
I tilted my head down and avoided his steady gaze. ‘Not much. The only thing I know is they haven’t caught anyone responsible yet.’
Brad raised an eyebrow. ‘Aren’t you discussing cop talk in the bedroom anymore?’
I suddenly found my nails incredibly interesting and stared at them until my eyes watered.
‘Well?’ Brad said.
Damn. He wouldn’t stop until I gave up some information. ‘Well if you must know, we’re on a break at the moment.’ I fixed my eyes firmly back on the TV. I really didn’t want to get into this discussion with Brad. Bad things might happen if I did.
Slowly he reached out and twirled a strand of my hair around his fingers. ‘Interesting. And why are you on a break?’
I tried to ignore him, but it was becoming increasingly impossible. I studied him from the corner of my eye. If I had to rate Brad out of ten, he’d be so far off the scale he’d be hitting quadruple figures. There was no denying how attractive he was. All the elements were there: the grey eyes that had a hint of blue when the light hit them just right, lined at the edges, giving him a dangerously sexy look; the solid cheek bones; the toned sleekness of a big cat; the full and particularly kissable lips – lips which at this moment in time looked like they wanted to kiss me.
Did I want him to kiss me, though? That was the question.
I batted his hand away to stop him molesting my hair any further, but he slipped his fingers through mine before I could stop him.
‘I told you before – stop fishing for information.’ I looked up and my eyes caught his.
I couldn’t tear them away from his. It was like he’d turned on some kind of invisible magnetic pull.
‘I’m not going to give up until I’ve got you back.’ His eyes darkened with determination.
I gulped hard. Yes, that was exactly what I was worried about. Brad could win a stubborn competition easily. Then again, so could I. But who would be the best man/woman standing?
For a moment, I struggled for words, which was very unlike me. Usually, the only time that happened was when I was asleep. Brad was the only person I’d ever met who seemed to have the power to render me speechless.
The sensible part of my brain said, Don’t even go there, Amber. The hot-blooded woman side of my brain said, Stop being such a wimp and go for it. They met somewhere in the middle, and I broke eye contact before the hot-blooded side took over and my brain turned to mushy goo.
‘We’re talking about Carl Thomas, remember?’ I released my hand from his and swirled the wine around in my glass to try and take my mind off lusty thoughts before I pounced on him and ripped his clothes off. ‘So, Carl Thomas’s bank had a robbery last week where a lot of safety deposit boxes were ransacked and property was stolen. What’s that got to do with Levi Carter?’
Brad shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe nothing at all. But there’s something else that feels weird. I’ll replay it again. Keep your eyes on Levi’s manager sitting in the first row in front of the ring next to where Carl is standing. Watch his face when he hears what Carl is shouting at Levi.’ He rewound the fight again to the frame just before Carl arrived ringside.
‘There,’ Brad pointed and paused the frame. ‘That’s Levi’s manager.’ He pointed to an overweight guy around sixty years-old with creepy pale blue eyes and a freshly shaven head. He had the face and body of an ex-boxer himself – chunky and squished around the edges.
I let out an involuntary gasp. ‘Shit! That’s Vinnie Dawson. Better known as Mr. V to his friends or VD to his enemies.’ I chuckled. Childish, I know, but I couldn’t help myself.
‘You know him personally?’
‘Oh, yes, I know all about VD. I put his cousin, Lee, away for armed robbery about ten years ago. Lee and a few other lowlifes robbed the First National Bank.’ I pressed my lips together, trying to recall all the details of the case. ‘That kind of pissed Vinnie off. He and his cousin are like brothers.’ I tucked a stray curl behind my ear. ‘Vinnie did his own
time in prison about forty years ago, too, for manslaughter. He beat someone to death who owed him money. He only served five years, though. He got time off for good behaviour.’ A fake laugh slipped out. ‘Good behaviour?’ I shook my head. ‘Somehow I can’t imagine Vinnie getting brownie points for offering to do extra washing up in the prison kitchen.’
Brad nodded. ‘When Vinnie came out of prison he got into the fight promotion industry. He’s made a hell of a lot of money over the years promoting boxers, wrestlers, cage fighters, and Thai boxers. In the fight world, he’s a powerful guy. He also has a lot of inside connections to other sports like football and rugby.’
I snorted. ‘Powerful and corrupt.’
‘Did you know that, as well as being the number one fight promoter in the UK, Vinnie is also a manager? In fact, he acts as both manager and promoter for Levi,’ Brad said.
‘So what’s the difference?’
‘The manager’s job is to look out for the best interests of the fighter. The promoter’s job is to look out for the best interests of the promoter.’
‘So what does the promoter do exactly?’ I tossed the last dregs of wine down my throat.
Brad nodded to my glass, asking for my approval to refill it as he spoke. I held it out and watched it fill the glass as he spoke.
‘The promoter’s job is to set up and pay for everything involved in a fight – from publicity right down to the chairs in the corner of the boxing ring and the drinks served at the venue. Because he assumes all of the financial risk involved in the event, he gets a bigger cut of the winning purse than the fighters.’
‘And what does the manager’s job entail?’ I asked.
‘Well, the manager will usually sort out gym schedules, travel and fight arrangements, approve the contracts for upcoming matches, paying the trainers – that kind of thing. But if a manager isn’t on the ball, many fighters could get a low cut from their fights and end up broke after years of fighting.’
‘Isn’t it illegal for a manager to be a promoter as well, then? It sounds like there’s a big conflict of interest.’
Brad shook his head. ‘Well, in boxing, as long as the boxer agrees, they can have the same manager and promoter.’
