by F. X. Toole
He still had his room until noon checkout at the Maverick, so he headed Fresita for it as fast as the law would allow. He pulled up at the far side of the building, walked in fast, trying to get past the office and to his room. But the owner was on alert and tapped on the bulletproof window of his stall.
“You pay me mo’.”
“I got till twelve checkout.”
“No, you pay me mo’ now.”
Eloy barked, “Toma por el culo, pinche chino mamón,” in your ass, you chink suck-off!
The old Thai pulled his green-and-blue-flannel plaid shirt tightly around his neck and slinked out of the office as if running from the sun. Eloy unlocked the door to his room and went in, his eyes sifting the gloom. He didn’t have much time. He pulled off a boot and damp sock. He loved the little brown bottle morphine came in, loved its blue and white and red label.
He slipped the needle into a fat vein so he wouldn’t blow the fix. It wasn’t long before his skin tingled and his pupils clamped down. His hacking cigarette cough stopped dead. Moments later, he settled back to float in three-quarter time.
Chicky’s gear bag, packed and ready, rested on the floor in front of the door to his hotel room. His fighting shirt and shorts hung from a hanger on the doorknob. There was no way to lose or forget a thing.
Chicky’s second meal in the morning had affected him more than he’d expected. Because of the rich food, his system sent a large quantity of blood to his abdomen, facilitating digestion, but also drawing a goodly amount of blood away from his brain and inducing sleep. Chicky had planned on a quick nap, but tired as he was from the previous night, he’d allowed himself to fall completely away, secure that Eloy would wake him at ten forty-five. That would give them plenty of time to get to the Finals, and be dressed and wrapped on time.
A key, tapping repeatedly on his door, woke him. He sat up, refreshed and energized. He expected Eloy to walk in, but instead, a Mexican chambermaid peeked around the corner of the door. She excused herself, saying she’d been told the prepaid room was supposed to be vacant.
Chicky’s eyes snapped to his watch, and he was alarmed to see that it was 11:10. Eloy should have been there almost half an hour earlier. The maid apologized and left. Chicky dressed immediately, then stood still, hoping to hear Eloy approaching from down the hall. He didn’t know what to do. He was expected at the tournament in five minutes, but he couldn’t leave without his grandfather. What if Eloy was sick along the road, or maybe in a wreck somewhere, the truck turned upside down on him?
Chicky rushed down to the lobby, hoping for a message. None. He waited until almost eleven-thirty, then telephoned Eloy’s cell phone from a pay phone. When Eloy didn’t answer, Chicky left word that he was leaving for the San Nacho. He left the same information for Eloy at the front desk, then ran over to the tournament aware that he was burning energy he’d need against Sykes.
He checked in at the fighters’ entrance, where he was told he’d drawn the red corner dressing room again, Sykes the blue. He hurried, removing his shirt along the way to the dressing room. Eloy was not there. Chicky started changing, and as he finished lacing his second high-topped shoe, he asked one of the old-time trainers to wrap his hands. Still no Eloy.
Chicky was queasy with worry. Having worked up a sweat running to the arena, he now felt a chill, and hoped it didn’t mean that something bad had happened to the old man. It wasn’t until the other trainer was ready to wrap him, and asked for gauze and tape, that Chicky realized that the Cavazos were not there either.
“You ain’t seen Trini or Paco?”
The trainer shrugged, and said, “They was around earlier.”
No Eloy, no Cavazos? Chicky’s anxiety doubled. He could make no sense of it.
The first fight went off at 12:20. Chicky was frantic. He was sure Eloy was in trouble, but didn’t know what to do to help him. He edged right up to full-blown panic, hovered there, wondered where Trini and Paco were, wondered how he’d fight without his seconds in his corner, without his granddaddy in the stands.
The matches had proceeded up through the 119 -pounders, and still no Eloy. Chicky looked out into the crowd, but there were no Cavazos anywhere.
Chicky turned to one of the other fighters, a San Anto homeboy. “You seen Sykes?”
“He’s over in blue.”
One of the local officials shouted into the dressing room, “One twenty-five pounds on deck!”
The 125 boy left at a run. The gloved 139 -pounder began to bang the mitts held by his trainer. Chicky, his head on a swivel, his hands wrapped and ready, went out into the crowd. Moving through people who cheered and patted him, he felt lost for the first time since he’d gone to live with Eloy. He approached the officials’ desk ringside and spoke to Lamar Steuke.
Chicky said, “Mr. Steuke, sir, excuse me, but y’all seen my corner?”
Steuke didn’t look up. “Which izzat?”
“Cavazo brothers and my granddaddy.”
“Oh, yeah, that, uh, they’re up in my office. You better hightail it on up there.”
“Why?”
“Git goin, boy,” said Steuke, “I’ll be rat up.”
Chicky sprinted up to the second floor where he could see Trini and Paco in Steuke’s glassed-in office. Chicky shoved open the door.
“What we doin up here?”
“You’re late,” Trini snapped.
Chicky assumed that being late was the problem. “Granddaddy didn’t wake me up on time.”
Trini said, “Where’s he at?”
Chicky, thoroughly confused by now, asked, “Don’t you know?”
“Why’d I know?”
“I’as just hopin you might.”
Paco looked Chicky up and down, shook his head disgustedly, then looked away. “Boy, you messed up good.”
“No, we still got time if we hurry,” Chicky insisted.
Trini said, “Not just messed up, you fucked up.”
Chicky rocked from one foot to the other. “Not me, I don’t fuck up, c’mon, let’s go.”
“Where’s your passbook?” Trini asked.
“Where it’s supposed to be, officials got it until after I fight,” Chicky replied.
“You sure about that?”
Chicky considered the implications of a lost passbook, his mind computing lickety-split as Lamar Steuke entered the office. Chicky turned to him. “You got my passbook, Mr. Steuke, tell ‘em.”
Steuke said, “I ain’t got it, what’d you do with it?”
“I gave it to you, same’s the other boys, you kept ‘em after the Semis.”
“You didn’t give it to me.”
Chicky said, “To one of the officials.”
“Which one?” Steuke asked.
“One of them outta towners, I don’t know just who.”
“We have no record of that.”
“Y’all had it at the weigh-in this morning.”
“You sayin I had it?” Steuke asked, looking Chicky straight in the eye.
Chicky was wild inside. “Somebody had it, otherwise they wouldn’t a weighed me and give me my physical.”
“Well, it’s gone, and it’s up to you to provide it before you can step into the ring.”
Chicky’s tongue was thick. “Y’all had it in the box with the others.”
“I know about the others,” Steuke said. “What’d you do with yours?”
“I never had it once y’all had it!” Chicky shouted.
Steuke said, “Wait now, I never did have it, not me.”
Tears were in Chicky’s voice, but not in his eyes. “We’ll find it later, okay? Only now I got to git my gloves on so’s to be ready—we’re runnin outta time.”
Trini lit a cigarette and coughed. “That’s what’s he’s tellin you, chico.”
“Nobody ever has to tell me to be ready, I’m always ready, I’m ready now.”
Trini inhaled again, let smoke out as he spoke. “No, you don’t understand. He’s tellin you to forgit about gitti
n ready.”
Steuke looked down at his desk and moved some papers around. “Cain’t fight, you ain’t got no passbook, you know the rules.”
Chicky yelled, “But you already got it!”
Steuke said, “Calm down, boy, no, I don’t, and I don’t know nobody what does, that’s our problem here.”
“Come on, Lamar,” Paco broke in. “You know this kid, this kid ain’t no fuckup, this is Chicky Garza, for chrissakes.”
“Yeah,” said Trini, standing up as if he was ready to fight. “Waive the rule, this kid is local, his granddaddy is the Wolf, and this here boy could go all the way.”
Steuke shook his head. “No, no, can’t waive no rule, start that rule-waivin stuff and now we’re on a terrible slippery slope.”
“Then issue the kid another passbook, that’s all,” Trini suggested.
Steuke got tight-jawed. “Can’t do that without no application, no weigh-in, no physical, no birth certificate, and no photo ID.”
Chicky had begun to sink into despair. “It’s too late for me to git all that.”
Steuke said, “Don’t I know it?” He slapped Chicky on the back and smiled real friendly. “Better luck next year, son, I’m terrible sorry.” “You sayin for real I can’t fight, Mr. Steuke?”
“It’s a rule,” Steuke said, ending the discussion. He looked at Trini. “The one thirty-niners’ll be started, so I got to git me back to preside.” “So what happens to me, Mr. Steuke?” Chicky asked forlornly. “You lose, automatic,” Steuke told him. “What about Sykes?”
“Sykes wins on a walkover, automatic,” Steuke replied, a note of impatience in his voice.
Trini turned to Chicky. “You know how that works.” Chicky said, “I ain’t sure if I do or I don’t.”
“Well,” said Steuke, going out the door, “you boys work her out.”
Chapter 20
Lamar Steuke left his office and hurried back to the fight. He had to grunt huh-huh in little puffs at each step down the metal stairway, but the climb up had been worth it, and he snapped his fingers as if he was listening to Ernest Tubbs. Nothing beat making a few bucks on the sly. Yessir.
Eloy, meanwhile, felt himself rising up through shades of gray water and splashes of white and yellow light. He held back, wanted to stay gone, wanted to dive down into his dark place. Something shook him. Again. Shook his body.
“Hmumph?” he grumbled.
He woke staring directly into the lens of a bright flashlight. He squinted and turned away, sure it was the police. He desperately tried to come up with a way to talk himself out of the fix he was in.
Stalling for time, Eloy said, “I didn’t do it.”
A dark form moved away and the flashlight went out. The only light left was what filtered through the blinds, which were jerked open. Eloy could see that the day had gone gray, saw that rain clouds had formed. The dark form he’d taken for the police was the old Thai motel owner, and Eloy was momentarily grateful. The old man swooped back to bedside, held the long metal tube of the flashlight like a club.
“You not dead. You pay mo’ now.”
Eloy swung from junkie panic to outraged citizen whose privacy had been invaded. “Whoa, I got to twelve o’clock here, and you got no cause and no right to be in my room!”
The old Thai said, “Today start all new day, you pay me ‘notha forty-three dollars, thirty-seven cent now.”
“I ain’t payin nothin, you old skinflint slope.”
The owner pointed to Eloy’s dark Emmy bottle, and the discarded spike. “You no pay now I call cop in hat. I call cop in hat on you Messkin shit.”
Eloy collected his works in one swipe. He was ready to throw punches until he looked at his watch. It was 1:18. “God, no.”
Eloy tossed three crumpled twenties on the bed, and stumbled as he ran to his pickup. Racing back to town along Broadway, he checked his cell phone for messages, and found one from Chicky. The pain and concern and incredulity in Chicky’s voice were clear.
“God, no,” he repeated.
Cyrus Psycho Sykes was standing in the blue corner, his arms draped on the upper ropes, his “PF Boxing” leather jacket on display. Steuke gave a wave to the ring announcer. As Sykes’s name was called as the 147 -pound winner in a walkover, he sauntered slack-limbed to the red corner, Chicky’s corner. Chicky was still in Steuke’s office, and couldn’t hear the half-hearted applause. The Cavazos had left Chicky alone and returned to the arena with a sense of accomplishment. Their cut from working twenty four-round prelim fights wouldn’t be what they got from a fix like this. Trini was proud of how smoothly things had gone. Check and mate, as in jerk and off.
Gots to be slick, gots to be quick.
As Steuke watched Sykes accept his trophy in the ring, someone from the stunned audience shouted, asking what happened to Chicky Garza. Steuke looked away.
Sykes, who had no idea that the fix was in, shouted back, “Chicky Garza got dawg in him, dass what!”
People hooted, but it would be Sykes who moved on to the Nationals, not Chicky.
Mr. George stood watching Toby and Seth. Neither had acknowledged him. Now they celebrated with Sykes. When Mr. George saw the lawyers and the Cavazo brothers laughing together, he had no doubt about what had happened.
“Muhfuhs ruin a boy an’ feel good about it.”
Mr. George approached the jubilant Toby and Seth, who were shaking hands with Trini and Paco. Toby raised Sykes’s hand as if he’d just unified a world title. Mr. George got closer, and Toby tried to look away, but Mr. George wouldn’t let him.
“Yassuh, cap’n, you for sure got you that win.”
Toby said, “Yeah, right, isn’t it great?”
Mr. George talked more down-home than usual. “Yassuh, it be so great you can pay me my las’ hunna-dolla bill an’ I be gone.”
Toby said, “Oh, yeah, that.” He offered his hand in a courtly way, and Mr. George took it friendlylike. Toby shook hands harder than a fight guy would. He said, “Yes, well, since you were unable—and/or unwilling—to help us out, per last night’s conversation—”
Mr. George interrupted Toby with his own squeeze. Mr. George said, “You means the conversation we had what never happen?”
The crowd milled around, moved near, kept Mr. George up close to the lawyers. Toby didn’t like it, but neither did he want to create any sort of scene that might tarnish Sykes’s victory. He tried to remove his hand from Mr. George’s grip, but couldn’t. Mr. George’s eyes had become darker than black.
“Look like to me you got all the he’p what you needed, yassuh,” Mr.
George told him, making no effort to keep the contempt out of his voice.
“No comment on that,” Toby said.
Mr. George applied more squeeze. Toby’s voice trailed off, his knuckles colliding like icebergs, his fingers starting to creak. He cleared his throat before he could speak. “See here,” Toby said, “my partner and I, on behalf of our many investors, concluded, as a result of your lack of full participation in project Primal Force Boxing, that you had defaulted on your commitment to those investors. Accordingly, our position is that you are not entitled to further compensation.”
“Uh-huh,” commiserated Mr. George, who waited a split second, then cranked down double hard.
Toby’s face went from cocaine pallor to drained white. He reached over with his left hand and grabbed Seth by the back of his collar. Toby said, “Why don’t you just go on and give Mr. George here his hundred.”
Seth said, “I thought you said fuck the old booger.”
Mr. George clamped down another ton.
Toby hissed as loud as he dared in front of witnesses. “Give him his hundred, damnit.”
Mr. George squeezed some more. Toby thought his bones were ruined. He smiled through his clenched teeth. “Give him two fuckin hundred, now!”
“Two or one?”
“Two, goddamnit!”
Seth peeled off two worn, stinky C-notes and Mr. George got his due. He
tipped his cap politely as Toby backed away rubbing his bloodless hand.
Mr. George said, “Y’all be fine gennemans, yassuh, fine gennemans.” He left by the front door and never looked back.
Eloy parked, and noticed Paco’s blue-gray Chevy pickup on the far side of the San Nacho parking lot. Next to it, Trini’s taco wagon had been backed into another space. Once inside the arena, Eloy was immediately aware that the light-heavies were fighting, the 178 -pounders, three classifications past Chicky’s. He hurried through the crowd looking for the kid and for Trini. As he passed the ring on the way to the dressing rooms, he was surprised to see Trini and Paco standing close to the lawyers who were backing Sykes. As Eloy eased toward Trini, he saw one of the lawyers flopping one hand around like it was a fish on the end of a line. Eloy also saw the second lawyer slip something white to Trini. Trini immediately took off for the men’s room and Eloy followed. As he went through the door, he saw Trini standing facing the toilet in one of the stalls. When Eloy got close, he also saw that Trini was counting a thick stack of bills. Trini sensed something behind him, and when he saw Eloy he quickly stuffed the bills back into the white envelope and stuck it up under his arm and down into the sleeve of his jacket. Eloy didn’t understand. If the lawyer was Trini’s drug supplier, then Trini should be the one making the drop, not the lawyer. Trini pretended he was about to piss.
“Chicky still here?”
Over his shoulder, Trini said, “Creo que sí.” I guess.
Trini’s answer confused Eloy further. “Chicky whipped the loudmouth’s ass, right?”
Trini said, “He’ll run it down to you.”
Eloy said, “But he didn’t lose, did he?”
Trini zipped his fly, and turned to leave the stall. “I don’t speak for Chicky no more.”
“Since when you don’t speak for my kid?”
