Chapter 9

Fight day. I was nervous as Hell. I played the clip of Brad shooting his mouth off a couple of times to give myself a reminder that someone needed to hurt tonight. Then I went for a sensible breakfast and a light workout in the gym. I felt good and there were a lot of reasons for that. I was getting locked in the cage tonight. I was looking forward to it. I was trained for it and my new strategy would victimize anyone that watched my old fight clips. Ganju had worked on my strike accuracy and my blocks. Ganju liked to carry a stick. Block it or suffer.

Finally, it was time. I weighed in, did my pose on the scale, squared off with the mastodon who was either going to crush me like a grape or spend tomorrow wondering how life had gone downhill.

I had some lunch after the weigh-in, Ganju was encouraging me to eat, but not too much. He didn’t want me bloated and sleepy in the middle of the fight. We had some more time to do some stretching and I got into some ground game with him. This was the one area where I was a little better than Ganju. I’d had years of mat-work. He was still good enough to take advantage when I made a mistake. We had some dinner and he told me that he thought I was ready.

“Ready for the winner’s circle or an ambulance. Not sure which,” he said with a smile.

“We’ll flip a coin later,” I shrugged.

I was the second fight of the night. The first was a featherweight bout. Good news for me. Featherweight injuries weren’t usually catastrophic. When I was wheeled in, the doctor would be able to get to me right away. I went out to the ring, accompanied by Ganju and not another soul. My regular guys couldn’t get the time off for a trip to Vegas just before Christmas, so we were the Army of Two.

We were announced and then it was time to tap gloves. I got a look of sympathy from him when we were in the middle of the ring. “Sorry about this,” he said, looking a little guilty. Decent enough guy. So was Brad. Loved by all. The switch flipped in my head.

I returned to my corner and Ganju looked in my face. He nodded. “That’s what I wanted to see,” he said approvingly. “Tonight, you win.”

He backed away from the cage and we were off to the races. He was expecting me to charge, so I ran in. He moved to block high and I landed three leg kicks in rapid succession, chopping down the tree. He backed up and got his head in the game. We danced around for a little while and Ganju and I knew he’d try to go for the take-down. We’d practiced this defense extensively and I danced away lightly, punishing him with three or four laser-precise jabs to the nose and another leg kick to remind him I was quicker than him.

I was calm, but I was coiled. As soon as I saw weakness, I was gonna explode. It was halfway through the round when he finally tagged me with something more solid than a glancing blow. He rocked me sideways into the cage with a stunning blow to the head. I went with it and bounced back off the cage, retaliating with one of my own, cracking him on the chin. I was roaring with rage and followed it up with a flying knee and a combination of leg kicks and jabs to the nose. I saw Brad. I was hitting him. I was loving it.

He hit me with another big right and it rammed me into the cage hard enough that I saw stars. I marched back into him and went to guns on him. I kept slapping kicks into his leg and hitting him in the face to keep his attention divided.

Then the round ended and we were back to our corners. I was loose. I was impatient. I didn’t need rest. I needed Brad to come up and take his medicine. “GOOD!” Ganju shouted encouragement as he looked me over. “Keep up the leg kicks. He’s starting to limp.”

I nodded, my eyes locked on the shape across the cage. I didn’t waver, I barely blinked. Ganju stepped out and then it was time to go back to work.

I walked out to the center of the Octagon and beckoned him closer. I don’t know whether it was the gleam in my eye or the menacing smile on my face, but he paled. He’d started to swell up from the beating I’d delivered in the first round. I was looking forward to adding to the picture.

He came in tentatively and started fighting me more defensively. I was lighter, more agile and had better endurance conditioning. I dissected him with leg kicks and jabs, staying away from the clubs he was trying to hit me with. The second round wasn’t a hugely exciting one to watch until the last minute. He tried another take-down and I threw a few jabs, putting them around his eyes and the bridge of his nose. I was trying to get his eyes to tear up and cloud his vision some.

He stumbled and suddenly the chance was there. He had his back half-turned to me and I jumped on, wrapping my arms around his head and neck in a choke. I had my legs wrapped around him and there was no way he was shaking me loose from there. He fought it, pulled at my grip, but I had visions of squeezing the life out of Brad just like this and I was enjoying myself.

Unfortunately, the round ended before he tapped or passed out. He was close, I thought, but that was just me. When the final round started, I hit him with the head-kick. He hadn’t been expecting it and straightened up in time to see the hay-maker inches from his face. He collapsed like I’d cut his strings.

That was it. The switch flipped and it wasn’t Brad any more. It was some poor bastard that had no clue why I was so mad at him. I knelt down beside him and shook his hand. “You okay?” I asked him.

“Yeah!” he said, dazed. “I don’t ever want to fight you again, man. I surrender.”

I laughed, leaned over and hugged him before helping him to his feet and giving him another hug before we separated. Ganju passed me a t-shirt that we’d prepared beforehand. The logo said “This space for rent” in block letters. I needed sponsors if I was going to have the rest of the team on the road with me. I stood up for the announcements and got my hand raised. I got my interview, made a joke about my name and then it was off to get checked and get my drug test.

I was done and stuck around to watch the rest of the event before I went back to my room. Ganju, helpful as always, declared that I could now look for company. “Enjoy. Training starts in the new year. This is your free time now.”

I went upstairs and there was a voicemail waiting for me. It was from Cecilia. I called her back right away. “You watched the fight?” I asked.

“We did,” she confirmed. “Marty won big in his office pool. He bet on you. Barb seemed a little surprised by the relative size of your opponent. For that matter, so was I. He was huge. How did you prepare for that?”

“The little guy that was in my corner...” I said lightly.

“Yeah?”

“He’s a Gurkha. Military trained. He’s got decades of experience fighting larger guys.”

“Well, thank him for all of us for keeping you safe,” she said and then paused. “Barb wants to talk to you,” she told me before she handed over the phone.

“Are you okay?” Barb asked urgently. “I saw the fight. When he hit you...”

“I’m fine. He can hit hard, but I’m capable of taking a couple of those,” I assured her. “I’ll be a little bruised, but I’ll be fine. The fight doctor looked me over and didn’t see anything troubling. No concussion, broken bones or major problems. I didn’t even break a nail. How are you?”

“I’m ... I’m okay. He tried to call me today. I didn’t answer. I’ll stay here tonight and then I’ll go home late tomorrow night, so I’ll be ready for work on Monday.”

“Okay. Be safe. If you’re nervous, then I have to believe you know him well enough to know that something’s wrong. When you go home, make sure to call Cecilia so that they know you’re safe, or ask them to follow you back to the house so they can make sure you get in okay.”

“I probably will,” she said. “Maybe I’m being silly, but when he showed up there, it was too much.”

“It may turn out to be nothing, but he made you uncomfortable,” I said. “You have every right to worry that he’s capable of more.”

“Yeah. Well, I’m glad you won your fight. Maybe that’ll make him nervous. I’ll talk to him at the office on Monday and see if he’s backed off some.”

“I personally think you should stop seeing him,” I told her. “All the other reasons that have everything to do with me aside, he’s getting clingy, possessive and demanding. If you need to keep the arrangement, find someone more capable of being what you need.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said. “We spent a lot of time at the other house today,” she told me, changing topics. “The three of us went through and cleaned the house. It was too short-notice to get a company to do it all. They gave me an appointment date in the new year. We’re gonna go back tomorrow and clean out the stuff he touched.”

“You know what,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. Just the bed and bedding. That’s the only thing that really matters. I can handle using the same TV remote that he touched.”

“Okay,” she said with obvious relief. “I’ll order a new bed on Monday.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I think I’m gonna go. I want to put ice on my hands for a while before bed.”

“Do they hurt?” she asked.

“A bit. They’ll be swollen tomorrow though, so I want to do a little to ease the swelling tonight.”

We said goodnight and I went to get ice. I filled the bucket up with water to the top of the ice and stood at the sink for twenty minutes with my hands plunged into the ice, grateful for the cold. I dried off my hands and crawled into bed, hoping that they wouldn’t be too stiff in the morning.

Sunday was a completely wasted day. I spent a little time icing down my hands and the rest of the day bouncing between checking the recordings on the cloud and getting out of the hotel room. I went to one of the casinos and played some slots, winning a few bucks before losing it all again. I wasn’t huge on gambling, so I got bored in a hurry. I found a strip club not too far away and spent the rest of the afternoon, leering at the dancers until I got hungry and decided to take my chances back at the hotel. I ate in the hotel restaurant. Ganju had cut me loose as soon as the fight was over, but that was my expectation. He told me to find a nice lady and he intended to do the same. He said he’d meet me in the lobby on Tuesday morning at 10. We were flying out Tuesday afternoon and that would give us plenty of time to get to the airport in time for the security crap.

That, unfortunately, left me without anything to do tonight and most of tomorrow. I had a meeting to review the fight and talk about my next fight, but that probably wasn’t going to take all day. I thought about going back to the gym, but I wanted a little cheat time and Ganju seemed to agree. I decided to go back to the casino and hit the tables for a while.

I was pretty good at poker in college, so I found myself at a Hold ‘em table with a half-dozen other souls and settled in. I chatted jovially with the rest of the players, not touching on any subjects that could anger anyone. It was part of what had made me successful at this in the past. I’d keep people talking and they’d continue to bet, connecting the conversation with the game and vice versa.

I talked about my job, the fight that brought me to Vegas, my trainer, friends, LA and just about anything else. We played cards, exchanged chips back and forth and had an atmosphere more like a game at a friend’s place than a professionally run game on a casino floor. Everyone contributed to the conversation, talking about their hometowns and their reasons for being in Vegas, their lives and their work. I ended up closing the game out when the last of the players checked the time and decided that he’d try roulette for the rest of the night before I bled him dry.

We shook hands and he told me he’d enjoyed the conversation and the game. I took my winnings and cashed out, opting for cash rather than a check. It was only $4500. It wasn’t like I couldn’t make that disappear in a hurry in Vegas.

I went back to my room and thought about hiring a hooker for the night. I hadn’t had any since Cecilia had reconciled with Marty. As tempting as it was, I just packed most of the cash in my luggage and took a few hundred down to the hotel bar. I figured that there were probably working girls that cruised the bar and the casino. If I kept my eye open, I might spot one of them. If the sight of them was tempting, I might pounce, but I was in a strangely mellow mood, so I really didn’t care if I hooked up or not. Good thing, too. The best looking woman I saw was a bored-looking executive-type that was probably a little older than Cecilia and not nearly as alluring.

I finished my drink and decided it was time to go back to my room and consider some in-room drinking if I wanted to continue. I went upstairs and sighed at the empty room. I made a halfhearted attempt to look for a lead on a working girl online, but gave up and crawled into bed with fond thoughts of my time with Cecilia. I made some plans for when I got back to town and what I intended to do to Brad Davis to repay him for the insult of coming to my home, not to mention the snide remarks he’d had. I smiled at the ceiling and drifted off slowly with a combination of pleasant memories and satisfying plans swirling through my head.

Monday was filled with meetings. I got to meet a few of the higher-profile fighters, shook hands with Dana White and talked about when I could fight again. “May, huh?” I asked when they proposed a fight date. “I could swing that. I could probably fight sooner, but that’s your call.”

“Were you interested in fighting in your weight class this time or complete your commitment to larger opponents early?” they asked.

“I was kind of thinking that I’d probably take all five fights out of my weight class,” I said with a shrug. “It hasn’t really been a problem so far.”

They made a note of that and promised to send me details on my next opponent as soon as possible. We reviewed the footage from the fight and they gave me a copy of it for my fight library at home. I talked to several companies about sponsorship deals. I got a pretty sweet deal from Trojan to put their logo on my trunks and wear a hat for my ring appearances. The hats were nice. I was gonna wear them anyway. The irony of having someone named Hooker endorse a condom company was too good to pass up. They were talking about getting me to do a commercial, but that would be a separate deal.