Coyle was still babying his legs. “It was perfect before that Marcellus Ellis butted me at the casino. But with you training me, hey baby, I can still fight down around here.”
“You go back to chump change you fight down around here.”
“My eye is OK, it’s just blurry, that’s all, don’t you start on me, fuck!”
“It’s you’s what’s startin’.”
“This happened time before last in Mississippi, OK? And it was gettin better all by itself, OK?”
I stayed quiet, so did he. Then I said, “Don’t you get it? You fail the eye test, no fights in Vegas, or no place where there’s money. Only trainer you’ll get now’s a blood sucker.”
Coyle shrugged, even laughed a little. That’s when I asked him the one question he didn’t never want to hear, the one that would mean he’d have to give back Billy’s money if he told the truth.
I said, “Why didn’t you tell us about the eye before you signed Billy’s contract?”
Coyle got old. He looked off in a thousand-yard stare for close to a minute. He stuttered twice, and then said, “Everybody knew about my eye.”
I said, “Not many in Vancouver, and for sure none in San Antonia.”
Coyle said, “Vegas coulda checked.”
I said, “We ain’t Vegas.”
Coyle stood up. He thought he wanted to hit me, but he really wanted to hide. Instead, he moved the shotgun so’s it was pointing at my gut.
He said, “I don’t want you to train me no more.”
I said, “Next time you want to fuck somebody, fuck your mama in her casket. She can’t fuck you back.”
That stood him straight up, and I knew it was time to git. As the door closed behind me, I could hear Coyle and the tittie-club blonde start to laugh.
I said to myself, “Keep laughin’, punk cocksucker — point a gun at me and don’t shoot.”
I drove my pickup over to Billy’s office next day, told him the whole thing. It wasn’t far from my place but it was the longest ride I ever took. I was expecting to be told to get my redneck ass out of Texas. He just listened, then lit up a Montecristo contraband Havana robusto with a gold Dunhill. He took his time, poured us both some Hennessy XO.
He could see I felt lowdown and thought I’d killed his friendship.
I said, “I’m sorry, Billy, you know I’d never wrong you on purpose.”
Billy said, “You couldn’t see the future, Red. Only women can, and that’s ‘cause they know when they’re gonna get fucked.”
Billy put the joke in there to save me from myself, damned if he didn’t. I was ready to track Coyle and gut him right then. But Billy said to calm down, said he’d go over to Coyle’s place later on. I wanted to go, said I’d bring along Mr. Smith and Mr. Wesson.
“Naw,” said Billy, “there won’t be no shootin.”
When Billy got to Coyle’s, Kenny was smoking weed again, had hold of a big-assed, stainless steel .357 Mag Ruger with a six-inch barrel. Billy didn’t blink, said could he have some iced tea like Coyle was drinking. Coyle said it was Snapple Peach, not diet, but Billy said go on’n hook one up. Things got friendly, but Coyle kept ahold of the Ruger.
Billy said, “Way I see it, you didn’t set out to do it.”
Coyle said, “That’s right. Ellis did it.”
Billy said, “But you still got me for sixty large.”
Coyle said, “Depends on how you look at it.” He laughed at his joke. “Besides, nobody asked about my eye, so I told no lie. Hey, I can rhyme like Ali, that’s me, hoo-ee.”
Billy said, “Coyle, there’s sins of commission and there’s sins of omission. This one’s a sixty-thousand-dollar omission.”
Coyle said, “You got no proof. It was all cash like you wanted, no taxes.”
Billy said, “I want my sixty back. You can forget the free rent and the twenty-five hundred you got off me every month, but I want the bonus money.”
Coyle said, “Ain’t got it to give back.”
Billy said, “You got the BMW free and clear. Sign it over and we’re square.”
Coyle said, “You ain’t gettin my Beamer. Bought that with my signing money.”
Billy said, “You takin’ it knowin’ your eye was shot, that was humbug.”
Coyle said, “I’m stickin’ with the contract and my lawyer says you still owe me twenty-five hundred for this month, and maybe for three years to come. He says you’re the one that caused it all when you put me in with the wrong opponent.”
Billy’d put weight on around the belly and Coyle was saying he wasn’t dick afraid of him.
Billy didn’t press for the pink, and didn’t argue about the twenty-five hundred a month, didn’t say nothing about the lost projected income.
“Then tell me this,” Billy said, “when do you plan on gettin’ out of my building and givin’ back my keys?”
Coyle laughed his laugh. “When you evict me, that’s when, and you can’t do that for a while ‘cause my eye means I’m disabled, I checked.”
Billy laughed with Coyle, and Billy shook Coyle’s left hand with his right before taking off, ‘cause Coyle kept the Ruger in his right hand.
Billy said, “Well, let me know if you change your mind.”
“Not hardly,” said Coyle. “I’m thinkin’ on marrying that cop’s daughter. This here’s our love nest.”
Me and Dee-Cee was cussing Coyle twenty-four hours a day, but Billy never let on he cared. About a week later, he said his wife and kids was heading down to Orlando Disney World for a few days. On Thursday he gave me and Dee-Cee the invite to come on down to Nuevo Laredo with him Friday night for the weekend.
Billy said, “We’ll have a few thousand drinks at the Cadillac Bar to wash the taste of Coyle out of our mouths.”
He sweetened the pot, said how about spending some quality time in the cat houses of Boys Town, all on him? I said my old root’ll still do the job with the right inspiration, so did Dee-Cee. But he said his back was paining him bad since the deal with Coyle, and that he had to go on over Houston where he had this Cuban
Dee-Cee said, “I hate to miss the trip with y’all, but I got to see my Cuban.”
I told Billy he might as well ride with me in my Jimmy down to Nuevo Laredo. See, it’s on the border some three hours south of San Antonia. I had a transmission I been wanting to deliver to my cousin Royal in Dilley, which is some seventy-eighty miles down from San Antonia on Highway 35 right on our way. Billy said he had stuff to do in the morning, but that he’d meet me at the Cadillac Bar at six o’clock next day. That left just me heading south alone and feeling busted up inside for doing the right thing by a skunk.
I left early so’s I could listen to Royal lie, and level out with some of his Jack Daniel’s. When I pulled up in front of the Cadillac Bar at ten of six, I saw Billy’s bugged-up Town Car parked out front. He was inside, a big smile on him. With my new hat and boots, I felt fifty again, and screw Kenny Coyle and the BMW he rode in on. We was laughing like Coyle didn’t matter to us, but underneath, we knew he did.
Billy got us nice rooms in a brand-new motel once we had quail and Dos Equis for dinner, and finished off with fried ice cream in the Messkin style. Best I can recollect, we left our wheels at the motel and took a cab to Boys Town. We hit places like the Honeymoon Hotel, the Dallas Cowboys, and the New York Yankey. Hell, I buried myself in brown titties, even ended up with a little Chink gal I wanted to smuggle home in my hat. Spent two nights with her and didn’t never want to go home.
I ain’t sure, but seems to me I went back to the motel once on Saturday just to check on Billy. His car was gone, and there was a message for me blinking on the phone in my room, and five one-hundred-dollar bills on my pillow. Billy’s message said he had to go on over to Matamoros ‘cause the truck for his shrimps had busted down, and he had to rent another one for shrimp night. So I had me a mess of Messkin scrambled eggs and rice and beans and a few thousand bottles of Negra Modelo. I headed on back for my China doll still shaky, but I hadn’t lost my
