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.
