Knuckles Page 7

  “Whatcha want?” she asked, leaning in close so that he could hear above the shouting. Her breath reeked of stale cigarettes.

  Coggins’s eyes flicked to the tray of drinks, and he licked his lips.

  He wanted a drink; he really wanted a drink, but what he wanted more at that very moment was to talk to Tony and then get out of this shithole.

  Get out of this hole of a life he had crawled into.

  “Hey? Don’t want a drink? I got somethin’ else that might perk ya up.” She leaned in close. “Lemme smack ya.”

  Coggins shook his head.

  “Nothin’,” he replied. The woman’s expression soured, before she spun on her heels and disappeared into the crowd.

  Coggins moved in the opposite direction, pushing his way toward the back of the warehouse, toward Tony’s office. He hadn’t moved but ten paces before his heart sunk. There was a clone of the thick men at the front door standing outside the office, and it was just his luck: he hadn’t been on any dead drops with this man, either.

  He cursed under his breath and squeezed between two short men that seemed out of place in this land of the overweight bikers. As he passed, he glanced down, and for a split second, he thought he saw a skull tattoo peeking out from the collar of one of their plain white t-shirts.

  Coggins stopped cold and stared.

  Could it be? Could—

  The man looked up at him, and while he was Mexican, that was where the similarities stopped.

  “Sorry,” he grumbled, and continued past them, aware that while he had averted his gaze, the two Mexicans hadn’t given him the same courtesy.

  What are—

  A thick hand landed roughly on his shoulder, snapping him out of his head and stopping his forward progress.

  “Hey, bud, fight’s thataway.”

  Coggins turned and was relieved to finally find someone he recognized.

  “Oh, it’s you, Coggins,” the man said quickly, his tone softening. “You here for the fight?”

  “No—I’m here to see Tony. He in there?”

  The man grimaced.

  “He’s in there, but I’m supposed to turn everyone away.”

  “I need to talk to him, Glynn. I need to talk to him about what happened.”

  Glynn looked away for a moment, his eyes drawn to the commotion near the ring. Someone was clearing a path from the locker room toward the ring.

  The fight was about to start.

  “Tony knows what happened. Yori was here yesterday.” Glynn turned his eyes back to Coggins. “Look, man, Ima be honest with you. He was grateful for what you done, but he’s in a fuckin’ mood right now. Like, seriously. Why don’t you just watch the fights, have a drink, and come back later? Better yet, why not tomorrow?”

  And there it was again: have a drink. Just one drink. What harm can it do?

  He sighed.

  “No chance I can get in there? Just for two minutes? Not even?”

  Glynn shook his head slowly.

  “Sorry, but no. Not tonight. Tomorrow, maybe. But not tonight.”

  Coggins nodded and turned his back to Glynn. While he contemplated what to do next, leaning toward the idea of just taking off, heading south, maybe, without so much of a whisper in Tony’s direction, the lights suddenly flicked and a voice crackled from somewhere overhead.

  “It’s time for the main event of the evening—the fight that you’ve all been waiting for!”

  The crowd erupted into cheers.

  “Riot 7 is about to go off! The reigning champ, Peter Glike, versus his opponent, Jermaine Pinker!”

  The crowd cheered Peter, but booed Jermaine. Coggins was ambivalent; not only did he have no idea who these fighters were, but he could care less who won the fight.

  Deciding to leave before things escalated, he tried to turn, but the crowd surged toward the ring, and he found himself being forced along with them, like a dead fish at the whim of the surf.

  There was a strange energy in the air, which seemed foreign to Coggins, even preceding a fight. In another life, he had attended a few local MMA bouts, and while testosterone always hung in the air like spores, this seemed different. There was something else going on here, something brooding below the surface.

  And Coggins wanted none of it.

  A shiver coursed through, and he again tried to push back against the crowd. To his surprise, he actually made some progress this time. Just when he was about to make it to the periphery, his elbow jammed into the ribs of the woman who had offered him a drink moments earlier.

  “Take it easy,” she grunted.

  Coggins apologized and helped her straighten. As he did, the woman’s pale blue eyes stared up at him. He was struck with the sudden realization that this woman reminded him of someone.

  It wasn’t her face, her age, or even her hair.

  It was her eyes.

  They were sad, tired eyes, ones that told him a story. A story of addiction. Of desperately not wanting to be here, but having little choice.

  They were Alice’s eyes.

  Coggins swallowed hard, feeling sweat start to form on his brow.

  Just one drink. What harm can it do?

  Without further thought, he reached up and snatched a beer from her tray, replacing it with a crumpled five dollar bill from his pocket.

  “Thanks,” he muttered.

  The woman blinked, and the similarities vanished. She snarled something at him, but with the noise and music blaring from the speakers now—the fighters were making their way to the ring—he didn’t make out the words. Coggins gulped half the beer and resumed his efforts of making it toward the doors. But with the fight about to start, the crowd had grown.

  He was going nowhere.

  A minute later, Coggins found himself staring at the ring as the two fighters, faceless men with eyes filled with rage, squared off against each other.

  Chapter 17

  Chris knew that he shouldn’t be there—everything in his entire being told him that he shouldn’t be at the fight. It wasn’t just because of the bet he had placed.

  Or because he had stolen heroin from one of the fighters and Tony himself.

  Or because the money he owed Tony was due today.

  In fact, Chris could come up with more reasons to wait at a local pub and call Will in an hour or so than grains of sand on the Siesta Key beach. And one of these grains was the tension in the air in Tony’s Gym, heightened by the presence of many tattooed Mexicans and the two dozen Harley Davidson’s out front. This was a toxic mix, he knew.

  There was a lot riding on this fight, and if it went the way that Chris thought it would—that he had bet it would—then a lot of people were going to be very upset with the result.

  Tony included.

  The man had shown him compassion in his warped way, but he had a feeling that today, tonight, he might not be so forgiving.

  Chris grimaced and tried to relax the arm in his makeshift sling. The half dozen or so Advil helped numb the pain, but it was still there.

  It was always there.

  No, he knew that he should have been far away from this place, but Chris just couldn’t help himself. This was his chance, his chance to make it big, to make enough cash so that he wouldn’t have to do stupid shit like make counterfeit one dollar bills.

  Or get involved with Mexican gangbangers that ultimately ended up dead, riding the coattails of his conscience on their way to the afterlife.

  Chris shook his head, trying to focus, to maybe even enjoy the fight.

  A haggard looking woman in a leather skirt that ended just high enough to reveal a dark blue network of veins on her thin-skinned thighs came by with a tray of beers, and Chris took one, paying with a handful of his counterfeit ones. He wasn’t sure why he had done that, as he still had some fifteen or so regular dollars to his name, but in retrospect, it wasn’t the brightest decision. But like everything that day, the most logical of choices seemed to elude him.

  The lights suddenly flicked,
and the announcer read off the records of the two fighters as they made their way to the ring.

  Chris stood on tip-toes to try and get a good look at Peter’s face as he made his way to the ring, but he couldn’t see above the gray ponytails of the bikers in front of him.

  A commotion to his left drew his attention, and he turned in time to see a Mexican gangbanger shove one of the bikers, sending him reeling. The biker was caught by two of his colleagues, and he was thrust back in the direction of the banger, his hands knotted into fists. But before he could throw a punch, one of Tony’s men stepped between them and shouted something that Chris couldn’t make out with noise all around him. The biker glared at the Mexican, who was at least four inches shorter than him, but the latter didn’t back down. More words were exchanged, but then the lights flickered and the situation was momentarily diffused.

  Yeah, there’s a shitload of tension here.

  The announcer instructed the men meet in the center of the ring, and a man dressed all in black, with a long gray ponytail reminiscent of the bikers that filled the gym, joined them. They were given further instructions by the referee, then receded to their respective corners.

  Chris glanced around, trying to gauge how many people were attending the fight. It was hard to tell, but it was easily nearing four figures.

  They must have paid off the police, he thought. Otherwise, this sort of gathering would have garnered interest from the blue and white.

  There’s something else going on, something big…

  Or maybe Yori had convinced his superiors, whoever they were, to back off for the night. To let things play out.

  Another not so subtle hint that it was best to be elsewhere on this night.

  An audible ‘ding’ played through the makeshift sound system announced the start of the fight and dispelled these thoughts from Chris’s brain.

  Spying the ring through the arm of a much larger man, Chris watched as Peter stepped forward, Jermaine Pinker meeting him in the center of the ring.

  They touched bare knuckles, and then Peter took a step backward.

  Jermaine did not.

  Instead, the man took advantage of this momentarily lapse and lunged, driving his fist into Peter’s midsection. The champ’s face twisted in pain and he bent protectively to that side.

  The hush fell over the crowd.

  Peter delivered a flurry of punches next, but most either fell short, or Jermaine was able to block the brunt of them with his forearms. When Peter paused to take a breath, Jermaine responded with a crisp 1-2 combo. He blocked the first punch, but the other slipped between his arms and clipped him on the temple, sending him staggering backward.

  It was so quiet in the gym, that if it weren’t for the grunts and wheezes coming from the ring, Chris might have thought there was something wrong with his ears.

  Peter rebounded off the ropes and he flung himself forward, leading with a looping right hook.

  Jermaine easily dodged this punch, and as Peter’s momentum sent him stumbling forward, the other man followed, delivering three rabbit punches to the back of his head. The ref tried to get between them, but Jermaine shoved him out of the way.

  The crowd suddenly came alive, a cacophony of boos echoing off the concrete ceiling.

  To Chris’s dismay, it appeared as if Peter was going to be knocked down by the barrage that followed, but the man somehow managed to pivot and spin out of the way. He was breathing heavily, his muscular chest heaving, and his left eye was swollen to the point of being nearly closed.

  Chris swallowed hard, his heart racing in his chest—he felt as if he were the one taking the beating in the ring.

  What the fuck are you doing?

  Chapter 18

  What the fuck are you doing? Third round—I said, the third round, you idiot!

  Dirk had found a crate to stand atop near the back of the gym before the place had become so rammed that it was nearly impossible to move. But now he wished he had picked a more limited vantage point.

  With every punch thrown—every punch landed on Peter’s already bruised and battered face—he felt the anxiety in his chest build.

  Something’s not right.

  Peter was a better fighter than this; by all accounts, he was a much better fighter than Jermaine Pinker. And yet it was only the first round and the man was taking a pounding. Twice he had dropped to one knee, the second time it had taken him considerable effort—a standing eight count—to rise again.

  Dirk didn’t know if the man was playing possum, or if he was just too distracted to perform.

  Either way, he had to keep it together until the third fucking round.

  The bell rang signifying the end of the first, and Peter staggered back to his corner, slumping onto the stool, his shoulders rolling forward. From atop the crate, Dirk could clearly make out thin streams of blood trickling from both of Peter’s nostrils. His corner man placed a bag of ice on the back of his neck and then started yelling something at his fighter, but Dirk couldn’t make out the words.

  When he had met Peter in his locker room the day prior, there had been something in the man’s eyes, something that for a split second Dirk thought meant that the man was unwilling to throw the fight, as if he were conflicted.

  But now he was just hoping that Peter could survive until the third round.

  Dirk turned his eyes to Jermaine Pinker next. The man was bathed in sweat, his dark skin glistening in the harsh overhead lights, but he wasn’t breathing nearly as heavily as Peter, and he didn’t seem to have a scratch on him.

  Thirty seconds passed, and the bell chimed again. The combatants stood and the stools were quickly removed from the ring.

  The second round started much like the first, and Dirk's neck started to ache from his perpetual grimace.

  Jermaine came out strong and landed a combination to Peter’s midsection, followed by a right cross to the jaw. This seemed to awaken Peter and he fired back, finally landing a glancing shot on the man’s chin that made his right leg buckle.

  After feeling Peter’s power, Jermaine remained cautious for the rest of the round, throwing only pawing shots when they were at distance, covering up in tight. And aside from that one shot, Peter barely threw another punch in round two.

  But while Dirk started to breathe a little more easily, the crowd reacted differently, becoming increasingly hostile, jeering and shouting insults at the two men. One biker even went as far as splashing Jermaine with beer when his back pressed up against the ropes. Jermaine’s corner man leaped from the ring apron and rushed at the culprit, fists at the ready, the boxing continuing behind him as he ran.

  One of Tony’s men appeared out of nowhere and stepped between them, wrapping the biker in a tight headlock before throwing him toward the door. Another man roughly escorted him from the premises, while the first tried to calm the corner man whose face had turned a dark shade of purple.

  The second round ended, and the man hurried back to the ring.

  Dirk felt pressure mount in his chest.

  This is it; the third round.

  Both men were breathing heavily on their stools this time, but when Peter’s coach went to put ice on his neck and shoulders, the big man shoved him away.

  A ding erupted from the speakers, so loud this time that they seemed to crackle.

  And then the men were back on their feet again, moving toward each other in the center of the ring.

  For a brief second, Dirk and Peter’s eyes met, something that should have been impossible given the size of the crowd. But it was as if the latter had searched him out.

  And Dirk saw fury in those dark pits, and his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach.

  He—they; he and Tony—were naive.

  Peter wasn’t going to go down. Not in the third, not in the fourth.

  Not ever.

  As if to prove his point, Peter strode forward purposefully. Obviously expecting the third to start much like the second had ended, Jermaine threw a lazy le
ft, which Peter easily avoided by side-stepping in that direction.

  “No,” Dirk muttered as Peter’s right hand shot out of nowhere.

  Peter’s bare knuckles collided cleanly with the side of Jermaine’s head and face. It wasn’t possible for an echo to be heard in the warehouse, of course, not with the crowd jeering the way it was, but Dirk would have sworn that there had been one.

  A crack, a slow blink.

  There was no dramatic, delayed, wobble and then collapse, as Dirk might have expected had this been a Hollywood version of the fight.

  But this wasn’t a movie; this was real life.

  Jermaine’s knees immediately locked and he fell backward, unconscious long before the back of his head slammed against the ground.

  A moment of silence, like mourning at a funeral, preceded all hell breaking loose.

  Chapter 19

  Coggins never saw who threw the first punch. If he were to bet, he would put his money on the large bald man with a beard that began below the ears.

  But it didn’t really matter who was first, as after that first blow was delivered, all the dominos fell.

  With only tempered interest in the boxing match, Coggins had remained stationed outside Tony’s office, waiting patiently to meet with the man despite Glynn’s warnings.

  And because he was allowed to stand here where others were ushered away, he had a fairly good view of the brawl that ensued.

  After the first punch was lobbed, so very much unlike the crisp punch that Peter Glike had delivered to Jermaine’s temple that it was nearly comical, a half dozen Mexicans flooded toward him. They jumped on his back, wrapping their tattooed arms around his thick neck, while others kicked at his knees and feet, trying to take him down.

  Several other bikers joined in, peeling the Mexicans off nearly as fast as others that jumped on.

  “Fuck!” someone swore from behind him. Coggins turned to see Glynn’s red face rushing toward him, using a massive hand to guide him out of the way.

  Two bikers moved between Glynn and the brawl, intent on stopping his forward progress.