“I know less than you, don’t worry about it,” Behr said, trying to keep his subject confident. “So who was he beefing with? Who wanted to take him down? Who could’ve?”
Dannels paused, but it wasn’t to think, because he’d already done his thinking on it. Behr had asked the right question. Dannels got up and crossed to a desk where there was a laptop. He booted it up and Behr moved around behind him as he opened an Internet video clip.
The screen played rough footage from a mixed martial arts Web site that had been shot at an event in Chicago. After a winner was announced in a lightweight bout, a large bull of a man with a brush cut stepped into the cage and took the microphone from the announcer. “Who’s that, Francovic?” Behr asked.
“That’s right,” Dannels said. Dennis Francovic was a well-known fighter who’d been champion at light-heavy up until about two years back, when he’d fought and lost to Aurelio. Behr knew he was a ground and pound specialist with good stand-up and wrestling and enough submission experience, in combination with his unusual natural strength, to build an impressive career in the sport.
“There’s a guy here who’s got something that’s mine,” Francovic growled into the microphone. His eyes searched the crowd. “Come on, Santos, let’s do it again. The first time was a war. But you know we’ve got unfinished business together. Show me what kinda man you are. Let’s do it again!” The audience ate it up. The camera jerkily panned the crowd where Francovic was looking. It was like something out of a WWE show, but the fight he was asking for would be for real.
“When was this?” Behr wondered.
“’Bout a year ago.”
“Is Aurelio even there?” Behr asked.
“Nah, man. Not even in the building,” Dannels answered. The camera shot returned to the ring and found a burly young man wearing a bad suit and sporting a faux-hawk who was clapping and smiling in the background.
“And him?” Behr wondered.
“Promoter hoping to get it going.”
Francovic continued using the microphone to call out the absent Aurelio.
“How good is he?” Behr asked.
Dannels nodded his head with respect. “If jiu-jitsu and MMA had been popular in this country when he’d been a kid, he would have been one of the game’s all-time legends,” he said. “But there’s no substitute for time, man, and when Aurelio moved to the area and they fought, he became second best.”
“Huh,” Behr grunted.
“Not by much. But second all the same, ya know?” Dannels asked. Behr nodded. He did know. It was the kind of thing that ate at a fighter, at a man.
“So there was an issue?” Behr said. Dannels hit a key on his computer and the grainy footage paused. “Was Aurelio pissed about that?” Behr pointed at the screen. “He was retired. Was he going to come out and give him another fight? He never mentioned anything like that to me.”
Dannels just shrugged. “Fucking Francovic showed up at the academy with a camera crew a while after their fight. This was a bit before you started training there. It was a pretty big deal around the school apparently. Aurelio hadn’t been there that day, but the advanced students were up in arms that he’d been disrespected. Aurelio was pretty stoic about it. That kind of posturing is par for the course down in Brazil. You know what he said?”
“What?”
Dannels mimicked Aurelio’s Portuguese accent. “I would have run over and kick his ass for free, but I already do that in the ring and got paid.” They both laughed at the memory of their friend.
“So I don’t know if he was gonna come out. Doubt it, mate. Retiring with the belt worked for him, and that last fight was a gem
…,” Dannels said.
Behr remembered the affair as a five-round classic and made a mental note to watch it again.
“Francovic trains out of Muncie, doesn’t he?”
“He’s got a fighter factory up there. He turns some damn fine grapplers out of his gym,” Dannels said.
Behr nodded as he took in the information. “Guess I’ll go pay him a visit.”
“I showed this to the cops when they came to interview me, but I didn’t tell ’em this: you figure out it’s definitely him…,” Dannels said, “let me have ninety seconds with him before you put the cops in it.” That was the fighter’s mind-set-even a guy who gave someone better and more experienced than you all he could handle in an epic battle, and you still wanted him for yourself.
Behr thought about it for a moment, then said, “Hold on,” and went out to his car. He came back to the door and handed the folded flag to Dannels, who knew exactly what it was.
“The family asked me to give it to you.”
“Did they?” Dannels said, his eyes on the shiny green fabric.
“I mentioned I was dropping by, and that’s what they asked me to do,” Behr told him.
“Thanks, Frank.” Dannels stuck out a hand. “Thanks.”
Behr left and got in his car. He had a new direction.
TWENTY
Behr cupped his hands around his eyes and peered through the window into the darkened interior of the Francovic Training Center. A dozen heavy, Thai, uppercut, and speed bags hung dormant in the darkened space inside the brick building. There was a low wooden platform in front of a mirror for skipping rope and shadowboxing. There were free weights, benches, squat racks, dumbbells and such in a corner. A pegboard was mounted on the rear wall. A regulation octagonal cage centered several hundred square feet of mats. Factory indeed. Late on a Sunday afternoon, however, no one was there. Behr had called before driving up and had gotten no answer but had made the trip anyway on the off chance he’d run into Francovic training or doing some cleaning or maintenance.
He should have headed home to get to work on the Caro case, but he couldn’t seem to make himself leave. Instead, he hung around for half an hour, then left and cruised the Rust Belt streets of Muncie, killing time. He drove past the chain stores on McGalliard and stopped in at a Bob Evans for coffee, where he burned another half hour, and then went back to Francovic’s gym, where this time he was in business. The lights were on inside and there was movement on the mat. Behr opened the door and immediately caught a whiff of the heavy, musty sweat smell common to all the serious gyms and dojos he’d ever frequented, the kind that never had time to air out fully before the next workout, where the rank moisture built up over the years into a cloud that became another part of the challenge of attending. A small group of grapplers dressed in board shorts and rash guards were going through warm-ups, lunge walking around the mat like a line of circus elephants. At the head of the pack, leading, was the human equivalent of Jumbo. Every school or gym has its resident heavyweight, its monster. This young guy went a good six feet eight from the tips of his massive toes to the top of his blond dome and weighed three bills easy. He was one big boy.
“Let’s go, get down and deep, the way your girlfriend likes it,” Big Boy called out in a bass bellow.
Behr moved into the room but stayed well away from the mat as he was wearing street shoes. When the line made it around the corner, Big Boy saw him there.
“This isn’t a class. Team workout,” Big Boy called out. “Schedule’s on the door.”
“Not here for a class. I’m looking to talk to Dennis Francovic,” Behr said, stepping closer.
“No shoes on the mat!” Big Boy shouted.
“That’s why I’m staying off the mat,” Behr shouted back.
Big Boy broke off his lunge walks. “Keep ’em going, Tink,” he said to a middleweight who was next in line. Then Big Boy crossed to Behr. The kid sported a high and tight haircut without sideburns that made him seem like a dimwit from the Middle Ages. He already had a sheen of sweat going that made Behr wonder how deep into a fight Big Boy could take all that bulk.
“Dennis doesn’t come in on Sundays. What do you want?” the kid said. He seemed to enjoy rising up over Behr. Behr didn’t experience the sensation often-certainly not since his football days-and had to admit he didn’t
