On the TV, the round-card girl, who wore a red feathered headdress and an uncomfortable-looking sequined swimsuit, finished circling the ring and climbed through the ropes as the bell rang. The two fighters left their stools and touched gloves.
“I don’t know, Ted,” said Vin with a sigh. “I don’t know how you keep up.”
Joey Snails came out of the bathroom with a nine-millimeter Browning handgun and blew the back of Vincent Russo’s head off.
He went around to the other side, put the gun in Vin’s mouth and fired another shot through the top of Vin’s skull.
Teddy looked irritated. “What happened to the silencer?” he said.
“Couldn’t find it. I thought you said you left it in the kitchen.”
“It’s the drawer where we got all the corkscrews.”
Teddy looked past his shoulder and saw a purplish red bloodstain spreading on the white shag carpet. Vin’s Ace comb was lying nearby. It had fallen out of his pocket earlier in the evening.
“For Chrissake, who’s gonna clean that up?”
Joey looked abashed. “Maybe I shoulda thought to lay newspaper. I’ll move the couch over it.”
Vin’s body gave a sudden jerk and slumped down in its seat. At least seven separate tributaries of blood were flowing down his face. It looked like someone had poured a jar of red molasses over the remains of his head. His mouth was open and twisted. The empty cellophane bag was lying sideways on his lap. Unshelled almonds were scattered by his feet.
Joey shot him a third time in the chest and Teddy jumped.
“Jesus Christ!” he yelped. “Why’d you have to do that? Can’t you see the man’s dead?”
“Hey,” said Joey. “What do I look like, a doctor?”
59
BY THE FIFTH ROUND, Elijah’s strategy had become clear. He was going to stand in the corner and let Terrence hit him until his arms got tired.
“YOU’RE BREAKIN’ HIS HEART, CHAMP!” John B. shouted. “YOU’RE BREAKIN’ IT IN TWO!”
In the meantime, Terrence was hitting him with every punch in the book: body shots, double hooks, battering rams, more rattlesnake rights, slithering lefts, jabs that came out like crocodiles to snap off little pieces of Elijah. At one point, Terrence stood back in the middle of the ring and looked at him, like: “You sure you wanna do this, old man?” But Elijah just pawed the air with a beckoning motion as if to say, “Come on and fight. This is what we came for.”
All that kept Elijah up was his ability to take a punch. His arms were like picket fences and his gloves were big meaty loaves for absorbing punishment. When a blow did get through, he knew how to move his head just a fraction of an inch to lessen its impact. Like John B. said, he’d learned to take three for every one he gave back.
But still Terrence kept coming. Jab. Jab. Jab. Each shot a little brushstroke of pain. Finally, toward the end of the round, Elijah dropped his hands and Terrence smashed him in the mouth with a devastating right hand. Just the sound of it was terrifying. You could almost hear the ocean breaking in Elijah’s head. Blood sprayed over us like water coming over the side of a boat.
And for the first time all night, John B. stopped talking.
Elijah fell against Terrence and staggered out to the center of the ring, trying to hold on to him. And just when I thought he was about to collapse, the bell rang.
He came back to the corner and sat on his stool. Dark red blood was gushing from the back of his mouth.
“Somethin’ the matter,” he mumbled. “I can move my jaw with my tongue.”
“Might be broken,” said Dr. Park, the ring physician, who’d climbed up the ring steps.
There were five of us clustered around Elijah. Me, John B., Victor the cut man, the doctor, and this cop Farley working for the boxing commission.
There was less than half a minute until the next round began. Elijah’s face was mashed almost beyond recognition. His lower features were so lopsided that they no longer matched with the upper ones. John B. was looking back and forth, unable to make a decision. Victor the cut man was busy with a cold-iron trying to reduce the swelling in Elijah’s jaw. The doctor hung back, maybe waiting for someone to promise to pay him off later.
I looked up at the spot where I’d seen Tommy Sick before. But he wasn’t there. I wondered if he’d moved down to a lower level to be closer to the action.
Elijah spit more blood in the bucket.
“He’s gotta keep fighting,” I said.
“You gotta go out there again,” I told him.
“He’s hurting,” John B. said plaintively. “I’m gonna throw the towel.”
“No, no, don’t take it away from him!” I panicked. “Let him decide. If he quits now, he’s through forever.”
The rest of them just looked at me like I’d suggested putting his head under an eighteen-wheeler.
“Brain damage last forever too.” John B. stared through me.
But no one could make Elijah do anything he didn’t want to do. The way he’d fought so far proved it.
“You all right to do this?” I said.
Elijah pushed himself off his stool and somehow managed to stand again.
“Just point me in the right direction,” he muttered through his wreck of a jaw. “I’ll find him.”
60
AS SHE DUCKED THROUGH the ropes to begin herpromenade around the ring with the Round 10 card, Rosemary heard the assholes down in front make that “alley-oop” sound again.
A thousand dollars a seat and they behaved like the morons back at the club. CEOs, heads of insurance companies and law firms, for God’s sake. Men who’d built successful businesses. You’d think they’d never seen a half-dressed woman before. It didn’t help that her sequined red swimsuit was riding up her butt again and giving her a wedgie in back.
The television cameras swung past her without much interest. Her arms ached from holding the giant card and the hot lights were melting her makeup. The ring smelled from sweat and desperation. When she’d first agreed to put on this ridiculous costume, she’d somehow convinced herself it would impress Kimmy watching on TV at home. Not like being a soap opera actress maybe, but something for her daughter to be proud of: “My mommy was on TV.” But now she was starting to accept that she looked like a cheap Vegas showgirl. Hoping Kimmy was already in bed, she affected a hotsy-totsy walk like her pussy was a bowl with boiling soup threatening to spill over the sides.
She passed Elijah Barton’s corner and saw Anthony. Would he be around later to give her what he owed her? She wondered. She finally understood that nothing he’d ever told her was true. The run-in with his wife the other day had finished it forever between them. Forget it. Kimmy had enough stress without strange women lurking around her front door. When this was all over, Rosemary would take whatever money she could get and move to the West Coast, whether she could afford it or not. If she could put up with this headdress, she could survive on food stamps. Whatever.
She looked back at Barton’s corner. The fighter literally looked dead. It was as if someone had scraped out his insides. All that was left was a husk. The cut man shoved wads of cotton into his nose and took them out all violet and wet with blood.
