Only the Details

by Alan Lee

  He telegraphed his big combination—squared up so I saw it coming. A jab, uppercut, left hook combo, tight and furious. Lot of power coming through technique. The uppercut missed, the hook caught me a glancing blow.

  My counterattack would’ve killed a lesser man. I move well for a bull, and I drove a right over his shoulder. Caught his jaw and he fell back, my left nearly taking his nose off. He scrambled away, his bell rung. I gave no quarter, attacking like Tyson used to do in his heyday. Thumped his body, hammered his head, which he managed to mostly block, but he would sink like wet sand soon.

  The crowd seethed and steamed.

  My mistake was I forgot we weren’t boxing. I fell into old routines, going for a knockout. The Prince kneed me in the groin, illegal in every other fight I’d ever had. But not at the Gabbia Cremisi.

  Holy smokes.

  I’d suffered gunshots that hurt less. A cold hollow feeling radiating between my legs, then a wave of hot pain.

  I backed off, trying to remain upright. Knock-kneed and hunched wasn’t a good look. The crowd roared with laughter and fury.

  Neither of us was standing well. Wobbly for different reasons. He shook his head and winced. I got my hands on my knees and tried not to vomit.

  The cello and electric guitar wailed and Ferrari called, "Due minuti rimanenti!”

  He recovered first, coming my way and shaking out his arms. I forced myself to stand, resulting in a masculine whimper.

  Wary of my fists, he tried to get me in a clench. He wanted to outmaneuver me, use his experience on the mat, but I’d spent years cage fighting in Los Angeles and knew enough to stay alive.

  Unlike my previous opponents, an insane dervish and an obese juggernaut, the Prince didn’t make foolish mistakes. So staying alive was all I did, weathering his storm.

  When the alarm sounded, he was clinging to me in a back mount. Boos and cries rained down. More flares burst to life.

  Ferrari switched on his wireless and chattered, “Il primo round è completo! Né il combattente ha subito molti danni…”

  Gunfire in the audience. Screams. Flashing Bluetooth man bolted that direction.

  I panted. “Round over. Leggo and I won’t bust your nose.”

  “Very well, American. You survived.” He still hadn’t released, talking directly into my ear canal. “But now comes the electricity, no?”

  “A shocking development.”

  “A joke? At this time?”

  “When better.”

  He released and went to his corner.

  Meg snaked an arm through and handed me a bottle of water.

  “Keep it up, Mackenzie! You’re doing great! Anything injured?”

  “Everything’s injured,” I said.

  I drank and pushed the bottle back through.

  Be nice to sit down. Be nice not to worry about electricity. Get a few more hours of sleep. At home. In America. With my wife.

  I had a wife.

  Ferrari said dramatically, “E adesso! Quello che hai aspettato. L’elettricità!”

  “Back up, Herr August,” said Ernst. “The power is turning on.”

  Zee power!

  Simultaneously several men surrounding the cage screamed and jolted backwards. They’d been touching the metal.

  Artificial crackling noises issued over the speakers.

  “Sports fanatics in Italy are lunatics,” I said.

  “It’s more than that,” said Meg. “They think tonight is the start of a revolution.”

  “Oh good. We’ll be martyrs. That’s something at least.”

  “You’re their rallying cry, Mackenzie. They’re here for you. They might carry you out on their shoulders.”

  The loud buzzer sounded.

  Round two.

  Goal—stay away from the power.

  The Prince came on. Low.

  I saw his move—I knew it before he began. He was ready to end this. He was going to shoot for my feet. Kind of a power dive at my knees, a wrestling move. Drive me backwards. He expected to catch me by surprise.

  He shuffled. Side stepped. Grinned.

  “Truce?” I said.

  “A truce once you are dead, American.”

  And he shot at my ankles.

  I was prepared. I dropped to my knees. My right knee fell onto his left shoulder. Our combined weights and force met at that juncture, a jarring collision. Instead of catching me by surprise and tossing me off balance, his momentum arrested, like a football player trying to tackle a wall, and his shoulder broke.

  I felt it give. A dislocation or a tear. Or something. I didn’t know much about shoulder joints.

  He screamed into the mat. Something withering and accusatory.

  I asked, “How do you say ‘I bet that hurt’ in Italian?”

  He tried to shift from under my weight, maybe two hundred and thirty pounds on a good day, but my knees had him pinned hard. Each twist made him wince.

  “Why will you help me in round three?” I asked.

  “Va' a farti fottere!”

  “Was that deeply vulgar?”

  “Yes,” he said. Panting. Eyes shut.

  The audience was rowdy enough that the noise offered us privacy.

  I asked again, “Why will you help in round three?”

  “I promised to free you.”

  “Then why are you trying to kill me in round two?”

  “I promised to kill you,” he said.

  “You’re a conflicted guy, Prince. I’m unsure how to proceed.”

  He winced. Ground his teeth and pounded his right hand on the mat.

  He said, “You win, American. I know I cannot beat you with one arm. I played the loser’s game too long, no? You must kill me.”

  “Why? This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

  “If you don’t, they will know. They will suspect treason and kill us both,” he said.

  “In that case…” I said. I hammered him in the head a few times with both fists. The punches were theatrical, not as vicious as they looked. The crowd enjoyed them. “Why are these Camorra clans here?”

  “The whispers. You are rumored to kill Rossi tonight. That is why you were brought, they think.”

  “I’m flattered. And I might. Who started that whooper?”

  “We don’t have time for this, foolish American! Kill me or get up.”

  “Not gonna kill you but we need to make this look good. Hit me as best you can.”

  He did. Better than I anticipated. I was bent over to hear him and his good fist snaked all the way up to my throat and popped me good.

  A disaster.

  I fell back. My hand shot out to stop my fall. Meg screamed. My black wristband connected with the mesh cage.

  The world went white and hot. Felt like I’d been bit on the hand by a lion. Without a direction connection, the effect was mitigated but hurt like hell.

  The black band exploded. Smoked and corkscrewed along the cage wall to the far side. It landed in a sizzling pile of twisted metal.

  I regained a shaky defensive stance. Took me a second to remember where I was. The mat tipped and tilted beneath my feet. My arm hurt and I shook it but that increased the pain. The muscles tingled and quivered.

  I heard a buzzing somewhere.

  Needed water. So thirsty.

  The glove on my right hand was on fire. That struck me as significant. But I stared stupidly at the flame a full three seconds before realization dawned and I tugged it off.

  Meg and Ernst made noise but they were miles away.

  The Prince hit me. A hard right, in the teeth. I staggered and stayed standing.

  “Fucking American,” he said. “Why can’t you die.”

  My lower lip began to bleed. Blisters were raising on my wrist.

  His left shoulder joint pushed at the skin in abnormal spots, and he held the arm to his abdomen. He came again but only had his right arm to battle with. I caught the punch with my forearm, running on instinct. He tried to knee me in the g
roin but I twisted.

  Around we went. He wasn’t dazed but operated in extreme pain. I wasn’t injured but my judgment was returning slowly. I was engorged with adrenaline and cortisone but had no ability to direct it. We were a mess.

  An eternity passed and the buzzer sounded. End of round two.

  The speakers issued an artificial sound of the walls powering down.

  Men in the crowd began leaping onto the fence. The guards hauled them off or stunned them with electroshock weapons.

  Ferrari’s voice thundered from everywhere like Mars, the god of war.

  I smiled. That was a solid simile. Needed to relay it to Timothy August; he’d enjoy it.

  Meg and Ernst waved me over.

  “Hey guys,” I said. “I don’t recommend the electricity.”

  Meg thrust water at me. I drank some and spilled some down my chest.

  Ernst said, “The Italian, his shoulder is broken. Why did you not finish him?”

  “I only kill my captors.” I handed the water back. “Speaking of, it’s time for you two to go.”

  “Go?”

  I held up my wrist. There was no black band.

  “Your power is gone. Now so should you be. Before it’s too late.”

  “Why? What’s going to happen?”

  “The temple pillars will fall.”

  I hoped. Grandiose words with only a prayer behind them.

  I turned my back on Meg and Ernst. Raised my fist to the audience. Thumbs up. Pumped my arm. The crowd reacted like I was an orchestral conductor.

  Yan-kee, Yan-kee!

  Seams I’d never noticed in the center of the mat opened. Like a trap door. A new section of floor rose in its place, bringing weapons for our use.

  There were two hammers and two knives.

  The hammers were heavy medieval-looking things. The head was covered with small spikes. One good whack would kill a man.

  The knives were Italian cinquedeas. Almost a short sword, broad at the base.

  The Prince stood close enough to the weapons that his toes touched them. Arm cradled. He took deep breaths.

  “I admit it,” he said. I barely heard him over the din. “You are worthy.”

  “Worthy of freedom?”

  “Freedom, yes. And worthy of her.”

  “Her who?”

  He used his foot to slide a heavy hammer my way. Keeping my eyes on him, I crouched and rested my forearms on my knees, the hammer between my feet.

  He bent to retrieve a hammer and sword. Moved like an old man. Raised up, grimacing. The long knife he shoved under his belt. The hammer he held in his right fist.

  “There is another rumor,” he said. “There’s an assassin. Sent by your countrymen.”

  “I heard. We’re a nation divided.”

  “I cannot help you with that, American.”

  “I know.”

  Ferrari’s chatter intensified.

  Ernst the German bounty hunter called, “The fence, Herr August. It turns on again.”

  The Prince nodded to me. Closed his eyes.

  “Good luck, American. Who knows. Maybe we meet again one day,” he said.

  The fence buzzed.

  The horn sounded through the speakers, like an alarm.

  My mouth bled.

  The crowd raged.

  And that was when the power in the Teatro di Montagna went out.

  Part II

  22

  Veronica Summers sat on a kitchen stool at the home of Timothy, Mackenzie, and Kix August and Manny Martinez. Her legs were crossed and she drummed her manicured nails on the counter. She glanced at her watch again. She got up, stretched her arms over her head, and said, “I despise waiting. This is fucking torture.”

  A young prostitute named Ebony sat on the leather sofa, suede knee-high boots crossed at the ankle on the cushions. Ebony looked up from her iPhone and watched Veronica the way a young and unproven actress might watch Sandra Bullock or Meryl Streep. With deep reverence.

  She said, “Why’s this place so clean?”

  “I already answered that, Ebony.”

  “Why again?”

  “Because the men who live here are clean. Fastidious, as one of them would say.”

  “But it’s so nice, like a movie, you know?”

  “It’s perfect, in my opinion.”

  “And you’re with one of them?” asked Ebony.

  Veronica still wore a pencil skirt and gossamer white blouse from work. Her heels rested by the door. She ran a hand through blonde hair that reached past her shoulders, shaking out non-existent tangles. “Yes. I think.”

  “But you’re screwing around.”

  “It’s complicated, Ebony.”

  “And he ain’t gay? That’s weird.”

  “Somehow it’s not. I love him. And he loves me, I hope. And we’re waiting to be intimate.”

  “Why?” inquired Ebony.

  “I can’t remember.”

  “He let you live here?”

  “If I asked.”

  “He hot?”

  “Mackenzie is very attractive, yes,” said Veronica.

  Timothy August, sitting in a reading chair in the corner, placed a bookmark inside the hardback copy of the recent Jeffrey Deaver novel and closed it. He gave a half smile at the questions. “His mother was foxy.”

  “Oh,” said Ebony. Her attention wandered to and from her phone. “You his dad?”

  “We’ve already been over this, sweetie,” said Veronica.

  This wasn’t an ideal night for Ebony’s pimp to threaten her with physical harm, but it had happened anyway. Veronica was new to the prostitute reclamation business and she didn’t know what to do with the girl yet, especially because Ebony expressed no desire to quit.

  Manny Martinez walked in at midnight. As usual, the man earned a second glance from Veronica. So gorgeous he almost looked feminine, but the breadth of shoulders and the muscles were masculine. She didn’t like pretty boys; she liked her men to look fresh from a fight, scarred and fierce. But it was impossible not to admire the man standing in the doorway.

  Ebony gasped and said, “Holy shit, you for real?”

  For the moment, Manny ignored her.

  Behind him came Marcus Morgan and Sheriff Stackhouse. Marcus wore black wool slacks, a grey shirt, and dark overcoat. His belt buckle and watch and wedding ring all glinted—polished white gold. Sheriff Stackhouse’s uniform was jeans and a crisp white button down shirt, collar flicked wide, a tried and true outfit for modestly showing off her eye-popping figure.

  Ebony got to her feet and shuffled nervously, unaware this many beautiful adults existed in the entire city.

  Manny grabbed Veronica’s hand and squeezed. “He’s alive.”

  She released a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Holding for hours, it felt. “Where is he?”

  Marcus Morgan took note of Timothy and nodded at him. Timothy got to his feed. Marcus said in a deep voice, “Mr. August. This a good place to talk?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Guy named Darren Robbins nabbed August. I wasn’t supposed to find out. Motherfucker hid it from me.”

  Stackhouse said, “I pulled traffic camera footage. Mackenzie was loaded into a car this afternoon, outside his office.”

  “Oh fuck,” said Veronica. Her hands slid into her hair and clenched. “This is my fault. Darren put a contract on him?”

  “Hundred grand.” Marcus went to the kitchen where he knew the scotch was kept. Set out glasses and held up the bottle. Cocked an eyebrow. Manny and Timothy both nodded, so he poured three glasses. Marcus took a slow drink and said, “But the contract got bought out. Duane Chambers stepped in and asked for Mackenzie alive.”

  “Why?” Veronica lowered onto the stool again and her perfect posture surrendered a few degrees.

  “He’s being flown to Naples.”

  Manny went into the kitchen, and from the freezer he took a spiced ice cube purchased at Lucky’s, a nearby bar. He dropped the f
lavored cube into the scotch, swirled, and drank. Set the glass down and wiped his mouth. He glanced at Ebony and said, “Señorita, you want something? Soda? Milk? Apple juice?”

  Ebony, standing outside the unhappy huddle around the counter, managed to say, “Um…naw.”

  Veronica said, “Naples? Why Naples? Manny, what’s going on?”

  “Yo no se, reinita. I’m hearing this part for the first time.”

  “I did some digging,” Marcus said. “Mackenzie’s being entered into the Gabbia Cremisi.”

  Outside on the front porch, standing in the cold air, someone cursed.

  Marcus raised his voice. “You two idiots eavesdropping, come do it inside.”

  Fat Susie and Carlos walked in, a pair of behemoths. Fat Susie was black, dressed in clothes too big to fathom. Carlos was Hispanic, wore a tight red t-shirt with tattoos peeking out from beneath. Bodyguards.

  Marcus asked them, “You heard of the Gabbia Cremisi?”

  Carlos said, “No place for señor August.”

  “I’ve heard of it, too,” said Veronica, her voice small. “Darren wanted to go, but he never explained it.”

  “Someone tell me what it is, damn it,” said Timothy August. “He’s my son.”

  Marcus said, “It’s a gladiatorial tournament, kinda. Never been. A Camorra fight to the death. Big deal.”

  “What’s the Camorra?”

  “Organized crime in Italy, Señor August. But not so organized,” said Manny.

  Timothy looked at the faces and judged their severity and asked, “Is the Camorra the boss of the District Kings?”

  Marcus said, “Nah. The Kings be a power unto themselves. Though newer, they belong in the same sentence as the Sicilian Mafia or Cosa Nostra, the Brothers Circle in Russia, the Yakuza, Triads, the major players. Anyway, they all gather for the Gabbia Cremisi. A fight to the death. Each send a champion to win, or a prisoner to be executed. Kings never gone before. Duane, he a minor King. On the Board of Directors. Be my guess, he wanted to go so he bought Mack’s contract.”

  “What if Mackenzie doesn’t agree to fight?” asked Timothy.