Rosemary stared at him. She’d once read a newspaper story about a woman chopped up and left in an oil drum, and wondered what kind of man would do such a thing. Now she knew. What surprised her was that she wasn’t more scared. But then again, maybe somewhere between losing a child and getting into the back of Honda Preludes with strange men, she’d lost her fear of the worst that could happen.
“Does Anthony know you’re talking to me about this?”
“Anthony’s like his mother,” the old man said in a voice as dead as stone. “He flies off the handle sometimes and he needs someone to bring him back.”
“Is that a yes or a no?”
He showed her a half-smile and a few more broken teeth. “What’re you, tough? You like to talk back?” He took a step toward her and raised his arm, like he was getting ready to backhand her across the room.
“I just want what we agreed to.” She pulled out some of the bikini that was sneaking up her butt again. She wished she had something more substantial back there for protection. “A deal’s a deal.”
“Pack your fucking bags and don’t ever let me see your face again,” he said. “You can pick up your last paycheck in the parking lot.”
She raised her chin, like she was giving him a free shot at it. “It better have every dime I’m owed, or I’ll make a stink about that too.”
He laughed and it sounded like a truck stopping. “Tough broad, huh? If I’d a been twenty years younger I might’ve gone for you myself.”
She didn’t smile. “Mister, that is the scariest thing you’ve said so far.”
42
EVER WONDER WHAT YOU must smell like to other people?
I knew what my kids smelled like. I could tell them in the dark. When Rachel threw up, she smelled like an old man disgracing himself in a bar. The farts out of little Anthony would drive the rats off a garbage scow. But when you stuck your nose in their hair, they smelled as fresh and sweet as the woods after a hard rain. You can learn a lot about a person from the way they smell. A guy can lower or raise his voice, put on a hairpiece, change his clothes, but no matter how much perfume or cologne he puts on, his true odor always comes through. The honest sweating-through-the-underwear funky smells.
So as I was sitting there in Frank Diamond’s $5,000-a-night hotel suite, I naturally started worrying about how bad I smelled. Because with the way Frank was looking at me, I must’ve stunk like a pile of old gym socks.
“You know, I helped build this place,” he said, rubbing the top of his shaved head. “It’s true. I was one of the original lawyers who helped structure the financing. Everyone thinks it was the mob and Teamster pension funds that built the casinos, like in Vegas. It wasn’t. It was the junk bond market, But I’d imagine all that’s a little too sophisticated for you.”
I hadn’t really had a chance to check out the room before. It was one of those high-roller suites named after a famous pirate like Jean Lafitte or Freddie the Casserole. There was a gold Jacuzzi over by the window, a Louis XIV cabinet with a huge color TV rising out of it, separate entrances for servants and children, and a bar stocked with 150-year-old bottles of wine.
Still, five thousand a night seemed a little steep. The colors weren’t as vivid as I thought they would be and the furniture didn’t look that comfortable. But it must be worth it, I figured, just to know that the guy downstairs only had seventy-five-year-old wine. No question, this was the place to be if you didn’t want to be anywhere else.
“So that was a cute play you did with Terry and that girl of yours,” said Frank, who was wearing a maroon polo shirt, white pants, and white slip-ons without socks.
I was surprised he wasn’t more angry with me, but I played it cool. “I don’t know about any play. It was just nature taking its course.”
And that was all I had to say about it. I stared at him. He looked disappointed, and after a minute he changed the subject.
“So what about your entry fee?”
“Entry fee?” I wasn’t sure if I’d heard him right. “I’m not giving you anything. We’re co-promoters now.”
He chuckled to himself. “I believe you mean you’re the co-manager of one of the fighters.”
“Okay, all right.”
“Well as the manager of the challenger you’ll be expected to put up some of the money for the sanctioning fees and the other expenses ...”
“Fuck you,” I said. I couldn’t have been more indignant if he’d walked right over and stuck a hand in my pocket. “I already paid the sanctioning fees. Are you going to try robbing me too?”
He turned his back to me for a second, and very casually opened a tall black cabinet and took a cassette out of an expensive-looking Japanese tape deck. He’d been recording our whole conversation.
“You mind turning that off?” I asked, trying to remember if I’d said anything incriminating.
He hit a switch, fading the little red lights.
“Listen.” I started to sit down on a rich blue sofa with black swirls. “I expect to do some serious negotiating. Now, I’d appreciate it if you made me a real offer. It’s only two weeks until the fight...”
“Don’t sit on that,” he said suddenly.
“Why not?”
“They just Scotchgarded all the furniture in the room. You can’t sit on anything for an hour. We have to use these.”
He pointed to two big brown beanbag chairs shaped like boxing gloves, side by side in the corner.
“Gifts from a potential sponsor,” he explained, sitting down in one of the giant gloves and trying to get comfortable.
I sat down in the glove next to him and felt my ass sink deep into its pocket. “I don’t imagine this is very good for your back.”
“I was thinking of giving you something in the neighborhood of three hundred thousand dollars for your fighter and options on his next three fights.”
“Are you kidding?”
He frowned like a wine steward who’d been handed back a bottle with a screw-on top. “No, I am not kidding. Most managers would pay me to get a shot at the title.”
“I guess if you don’t ask you don’t get.” I squirmed in the glove. “All you’re forgetting is there’s a girl who could knock the whole fight off the rails.”
I peered across the room, trying to make sure he’d turned off the tape recorder.
Frank Diamond changed the position of his eyebrows so he could play the role of the aggrieved businessman. “My offer is still three hundred thousand.”
Obviously the key to this game was staying cool. I perched on the edge of the glove and crossed my legs. “I thought the casino and the TV people were putting up twenty million dollars for this fight.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” he said, his bald head touching the top of the glove. “And now that we’re using Elijah instead of Meldrick, the figure is closer to ten million.”
I didn’t say anything for a minute. You had to hand it to the man. He lied with the greatest of ease. It wasn’t that he expected you to believe any of it. It was just that he knew he could wear you down by holding back the truth. I could learn more in an hour with this guy than I could in ten years with Teddy.
“Look.” I tried a new tack. “I don’t care about having my name on the poster or any of that bullshit. I know about printing costs. I can wait until the next fight.”
Frank glanced down at the glass of vodka by his side. If my head had been small enough, he would have tried drowning me in it.
“I’m man enough to admit what I don’t know,” I said, heaving myself out of the beanbag chair. “All I want right now is five million dollars and a chance to hang around and learn the ropes.”
“Oh, that’s all.” Frank smiled. “And where’s that money supposed to come from?”
“Your fighter’s getting most of the ten million, right?”
“That’s deceptive,” Frank said. “There’s a lot of money going in and out. It gets very complicated. Terrence’s manager gets a third of what he makes.”<
br />
“His manager? I didn’t even know he had a manager. I knew he had a trainer and a promoter, but what’s his manager’s name?”
“William Diamond,” Frank said absently.
“Who’s that, your brother?”
“My son,” he replied with muted pride. “Who else is supposed to manage him? A stranger?”
“But where is he? I haven’t seen him around here.”
“It’s not necessary. He’d be redundant. Between his trainer and me, we’ve got everything covered. My son is not that interested in the business anyway, I’m sorry to say. He is a musician,” he said calmly, balling up his fists and pounding the sides of his beanbag chair with them.
“I’m glad he’s only taking a third then.”
“It’s all that’s permitted under state law.”
“That still leaves two-thirds.” I went over to the bar to make myself a drink. “Maybe we could take some out of your end.”
Frank Diamond laughed for a long time.
“All right, forget about it,” I said, looking for some ice but not finding a bucket. “That still leaves the fighter, and he’s got at least five coming by my count. Why can’t you give me two million out of his share?”
“Actually it comes to a little bit less than that.” He took a Kleenex out of a gold dispenser and blew his nose. “Because Terrence has got an entourage and all kinds of other expenses. I mean, just his training camp in upstate New York costs him more than a thousand dollars a day.”
“Let me guess. It’s on your property”
“What am I supposed to do? Loan it to him? It’s not a charity operation, you know.”
“And it’s legal for you to do that?” I found the ice tray in the freezer, but it was empty.
“Why not? I’m feeding them, paying property taxes
“You’re already taking a third. I thought that’s all you were allowed.”
Frank Diamond leaned back against the thumb of his glove, finally finding a position that allowed him to look powerful and debonair.
“Nothing done by me or any other members of my family is illegal,” he said forthrightly. “Is it unusual? Maybe. But a lot of things are unusual in boxing.”
“Jeez, this is some business.” I finally figured out how to get some ice from the slot in the wall. “Let me ask you something. How’d you get this kid Terrence to go with you as his promoter when you make deals like that?”
“He had no choice.” He sat back and put his hands behind his head, so I could see what good triceps he had for a middle-aged guy. “I had the champion before him and in order to get a shot at the title, Terrence had to give me options on his next six fights. Otherwise I’d never let him get in the ring with my guy.”
“How do you get away with that?” I asked, not without admiration.
“Whether you succeed or fail in this business depends on one thing: strength of character.” He took a pipe off a table near his chair and stuck it in his mouth. “Remember that. All other qualities come and go. Character endures.”
Character endures. The business where you could say things like that and make money like this was the one I wanted to be in. Growing up around wiseguys was the best preparation I could have had for the fight game. The only difference was one thing was legal and the other wasn’t.
“So after taxes and all that, you’re talking about one, maybe one and a half million left over for Terrence,” Frank said, lighting the pipe. “So I can’t cut you a million out of that. It wouldn’t be right.”
I noticed there was no smoke coming from his pipe. He didn’t even have tobacco. He was probably one of those older men who’d been advised to give up smoking, but retained the affectation with the pipe.
“Tell you what,” he said quickly, putting down the pipe and picking up a calculator. “Let’s work something out.” He punched in a few numbers. “We can start off with a more compact unit.”
I was trying to figure out the amount I’d need to pay off Danny Klein and Teddy while leaving myself enough to start a new business and send my father to Florida. Frank Diamond handed me the calculator. The readout said “$325,000.”
I just looked at him. I was trying to figure out how many people my father and Teddy had shot or beat up for showing this little respect.
“What’re you doing?” I asked.
“How do you mean?”
“I ask you for five million, you’re showing me three twenty-five. Why would you insult me like that?”
“It’s not an insult, it’s reality,” Frank said, standing up to show me he was about three inches taller than I was. “I’m having to put up my own money for this fight.”
I was sure this was a lie.
“Look,” I said, “if this girl starts talking, there isn’t going to be any fight. Because your guy is going to test positive for drugs. Because I know he’s got a record and if she says what he did, he’s gonna get tested. All right? And that’s gonna cost you a helluva lot more than three twenty-five if he can’t go and fight.”
Frank was still unmoved. “Pay-per-view television receipts,” he said, taking the calculator back from me. “That’s what you’re waiting for. That’s when you start seeing real money, when those subscriptions come in. Up until then it’s chump change really.”
He was talking about cable TV receipts while I was trying to stay alive. Still, my respect for this man grew and deepened with each lie he told. Dan Bishop was a face in a magazine. Frank was real. He was the mentor figure I’d been waiting for all my life.
“What about the gate?” I asked. “They’ve been selling tickets for weeks now. You gotta be seeing some of the box office receipts already.”
Frank Diamond held up his hand in the scout’s-honor salute. “The market’s soft. So far sales have been slow.”
I finally got done calculating what I’d need to get by. If Elijah got $1.5 million, I’d be entitled to twenty percent as his co-manager, or three hundred thousand. About a hundred twenty thousand would go toward covering my debts to Teddy and Danny Kein. The rest would easily cover my wife and kids’ expenses, my father’s Florida trip, and my new business. I might even have enough left over to make another dent in the mortgage.
“Enough,” I said in a steady voice. “I want a million five. And half of it up front. That’s non-negotiable.”
Frank looked at me for a long time. He seemed to be taking my measure. Maybe he had the sense I’d recently killed a man. They say that can hang over you like an aura.
“I’ll have to get back to you,” he said finally. “The most anybody gets up front is a third. And I usually don’t give that. You only get the rest after the fight if you’ve fulfilled all the conditions of the contract.”
I sat back on the couch, feeling kind of warm inside. I’d held my own with him, at least for a few seconds.
His face turned dark. “That means I don’t want to see any stories in the newspapers or get any calls from lawyers about this girl of yours. You’re sure she’ll keep her mouth shut?”
I realized I’d barely spoken to Rosemary since the day we set Terrence up. I decided to stop by the club and see how she was doing. I looked at my watch and saw it was almost ten-thirty. She’d just be starting her act now.
“She’ll be fine,” I told Frank.
“Good thing, too. There’s been enough surprises around here already.”
43
ROSEMARY WAS STILL FURIOUS at ten-thirty when she came out to do her last show at the club.
The cycle was complete. Every man she’d ever known had let her down. Her father had died, leaving her and her mother broken and mired in poverty. Her husband, Bingo, decided he loved heroin more than he loved her and had probably passed on the weakened immunities that killed their second daughter. And here Anthony had broken his promise to provide for her after she’d helped set up Terrence. Sending his father back to menace her. These deals you made with yourself. They were never worthwhile.
Just to make matters worse, the
club had added a special feature tonight, inviting male members of the audience to join her and the other Foxy Boxer in the ring. A drunken insurance salesman who called himself Ben stumbled between the ropes, wearing a pair of green-and-pink-plaid pants, a navy blazer, and a bright yellow necktie with naked mermaids on it. Rosemary forced herself to smile.
What was it about men? Did their brains release a secret enzyme that rendered them unreliable once they reached a certain age? The bell rang and the match began. She had to tell Ben to wait in her corner. He was just the manager, there to give her a rubdown between rounds. But he followed her out to the middle of the ring anyway, reaching around to squeeze her tits. She gave him a playful shove back into the corner and got down to the humiliating business of wrestling another woman. Miriam the busty redhead was making a big show of scratching and biting tonight. Rosemary had to keep throwing her into the ropes just to get away from her.
As the bell rang to end the round and she returned to her corner, Rosemary happened to glance up and see Anthony waving to her from the club’s entrance. The lousy prick. He didn’t even have the nerve to fire her himself. She’d been treated with more class in the backs of Hondas. She resisted the urge to give him the finger and instead turned her attention to Ben the insurance salesman, her “manager.” This jerk had already stripped off his jacket and shirt, leaving his tie hanging listlessly between his sagging hairy pectorals. He reached for her again and she could smell the Jaegermeister he’d spilled on his chest. When she put up a friendly hand and asked him to slow down, he tried to pull off her bikini top.
The men in the audience began to stomp and shout, “GO FOR IT!” She had to slap Ben’s face to get him to stop.
“Don’t make me do that again.” She smiled.
But after the next round, old Ben was coming at her again, trying to throw her down and get on top of her. The men in the audience were on their feet, cheering louder, their voices like storm troopers’ boots on a tarmac, “FUCKHERNOW! FUCKHERNOW! FUCKHERNOW!”
They were all the same. All trying to strip her of whatever pride and dignity she had left. It was enough. Something inside her snapped. She grabbed Ben’s flabby arm, and using his sluggish weight against him, she performed an old-fashioned judo flip, pulling him over her shoulder so that he landed on the canvas with a loud thwacck!! He lay there for a few seconds with his eyes glazing over, like an immense useless baby.
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