anyway?”
“In the bathroom. Where I always keep it.”
“That the one you’re gonna use?”
“Yeah. You got a problem with that?”
“Just don’t fuck around. He carries one in his waistband.”
“Don’t worry,” said Joey, grabbing the doorknob. “I ain’t gonna shoot the place up.”
“That ain’t what I’m concerned about,” said Teddy. “You aren’t careful, you’ll get us both shot. He’s a tough old man. I know him.”
“Yeah, I know him too.”
“Where’s Richie?”
“He said he’d stop by later.”
“Tell him to hurry. We ain’t gonna be here all night.”
Joey sucked his cheeks in concentration. “Maybe I’ll pick up some chink food while I’m out. I ain’t had any dinner.”
“Yeah,” said Teddy, “and don’t get too many of them almonds. They’re hard on my stomach the way it is.”
57
IT WAS HOPELESS, I thought as I walked through the tunnel under the stands. Elijah was too old, too slow, and too sad to keep up with Terrence. My only solace was that Teddy would probably have me killed before I’d have to watch Elijah carted off to a home for the mentally disabled.
Just then, Rosemary came tottering toward me on high heels, wearing a tight red sequined outfit with bird feathers on her butt and holding a huge plumed headdress. I’d gotten her a job as one of the round-card girls as a show of good faith that I’d pay her the money she was owed. But here she was with one of those four-alarm-chili, boiling-mad looks on her face.
“I have had it with you. Understand? I have had it.”
“Why, wha, what’s the matter?”
She pulled on her tail feathers like they were itching her. “It’s bad enough I have your father abusing me in my own dressing room, but now I have to deal with your wife?!!”
“What are you talking about?”
“she had a gun in her bag! She was like Al Capone! She was going to blow my head off!”
I looked at her like she’d lost her mind. “Just put on your fuckin’ bird outfit and start acting normal. I don’t have time for this.”
I heard the swelling murmur of the crowd above us. Elijah would be coming out of his dressing room at any moment.
“I don’t have time either.” Rosemary clutched at the zircon necklace around her throat. “After tonight, I never want to see you again.”
“Very nice,” I said. “After I went and got you this job tonight, so you could be a star.”
“A star?” She looked like she was about to throw the plumed headdress at me. “Anthony, stars do not walk around in fishnets carrying numbers. Just give me the money you owe me and let’s forget about the rest of it.”
“All right, all right. Meet me in the parking garage after the fight. Section E 16. One o’clock. I’ll give you the whole breakdown.”
Though I didn’t know how I’d tell her that Frank had rooked me out of the full amount. I’d already turned over two hundred forty thousand dollars’ worth of chips to John B. The other sixty thousand were in the hotel safe.
“You better have the whole breakdown.” Rosemary started to walk away from me, going out the exit into the main arena. “Or else.”
“Or else what?” I ran after her.
“Or else...”
The rest of the sentence was lost in the crowd noise, as I followed her down the aisle toward the ring. We were in the lion’s den, surrounded by fifteen thousand people, twenty-five tons of jewelry, and a small river’s worth of cold sweat and adrenaline. A bank of colored lights was suspended over the ring. Various television cameras and news photographers jockeyed for position along the periphery.
I turned and saw Elijah and his entourage coming down the aisle from the dressing rooms, hands on each other’s shoulders, like the world’s most macho conga line.
Over the P.A. system, they were playing his theme song, the Commodores’ “Brick House.” The crowd cheered like they were greeting an old friend. Elijah climbed through the ropes and began sauntering around the ring with that drunken sailor gait he had. His blue-and-white robe looked like a cardigan somebody’s uncle would wear. I began to worry about him all over again.
The worry turned into a snake in my guts when Terrence didn’t show up for another five minutes. It was clearly part of some psych-out game meant to tax Elijah’s patience and concentration.
But instead of just standing there dull-eyed and slack-jawed, letting it get to him, Elijah turned the whole thing around. He began working the crowd like an old revival-show preacher. He looked at his wrist like he had a watch on. The crowd laughed and clapped appreciatively. Then he tapped his foot. When that didn’t produce Terrence, he grabbed the American flag off one of the ring posts and started waving it around in his gloves.
The place went nuts. By the time Terrence finally made it into the ring, skipping around and forcing his seconds to chase him to get his robe off, the crowd was a hundred and ten percent against him. Boos rained down like a pestilence. I still had this awful feeling, though, almost a premonition about what was going to happen.
I looked up toward the mezzanine section and thought I saw Tommy Sick standing there by the railing, wearing a red shirt, red pants, and a blue blazer. I remembered Tommy once telling a story about shoving a gerbil up the ass of a guy who owed Teddy money, all the time laughing and shrugging: “What can I tell you? I’m sick!”
There was no two ways about it—there was barely even one way. I needed to have Elijah go the distance. If he didn’t, my life was over. They’d be hanging parts of me from the telephone lines on Florida Avenue and feeding the rest to a gerbil. My future was riding on every punch.
The Marine color guard came into the ring to hold up the flag while some girl group from Terrence’s old neighborhood in the Bronx lip-synched the national anthem. I stood and sang every word with my hand over my heart. The land of the free and the home of the brave. But I still wasn’t sure if being brave was what set you free.
The referee called the fighters to the center of the ring to give them their final instructions. Elijah had this soft half-smile on his face and his eyes were shining like buffed marbles. Goddamn it, I thought as I climbed the steps into his corner. They must’ve given him painkillers in the dressing room. The fighters touched gloves and went back to their corners. The bell rang.
Terrence moved out first. He was all spring in the legs and coiled strength in the arms. Elijah plodded out after him, his stomach jiggling like pudding. They met in the middle and Terrence snapped my guy’s head back with a jab like a cobra out of wicker basket.
“STICK AND MOVE, CHAMP!” I heard John B. shouting, “STICK AND MOVE!”
But Elijah just kept lumbering in a lazy circle, his right leg dragging behind him as if it was caught in a bear trap. Terrence was prancing from foot to foot, rocking his shoulders, bobbing his head. Like he couldn’t wait to get this over with so he could go chase girls at a disco. He lunged forward and hit Elijah again with a right like an M-80 rocket. Elijah fell back a few steps and I saw his mouthpiece turn sideways. My jaw ached, like I’d been punched too.
“YOU GOT ’IM NOW, CHAMP!” John B. yelled. “YOU GOT HIM ON THE RUN!”
Terrence planted his feet and hit Elijah with a left cross that sent him spinning into the corner diagonally across from us. Oh shit, I thought. Here’s where the beating begins. Terrence chased after him and for a few seconds all I could see were his shoulders and elbows, pumping like a couple of pistons. The crowd kept going
