Sucker Punch (16 page)

No, this is Nelson's work.

Liam moves with confidence. He sees an opening, he takes it. But he doesn't hammer it. Patience is now his prime virtue. That, and a keen eye for a weak defence.

Second round and Polito's getting hazy. He starts throwing amateur punches, easily seen and avoided. His feet keep working, but working too much now. He's heard about Liam, he's expecting the explosion. When Liam moves, I can see Polito almost flinch. Liam knows it, too. But he's not about to start playing up. When the bell rings, Polito looks borderline exhausted. Liam's scored enough decent punches to mark the round his.

Third. Polito storming out. He's been fired up by his cornerman. Obvious now that the next bout's with Josh Callahan, and Josh is a nasty fighter. Polito needs to counter this, needs to get out there and show this Wooley kid who's the fucking boss round here. But he can't find the power behind the punch. Seems like every jab, hook and uppercut, Liam's got a definitive answer for. Playing peek-a-boo with a tight cross guard, bobbing his head to draw the jabs out of Polito, then sinking a one-two to the torso. Polito shakes his head, backs a way off centre. Trying to re-evaluate, but running out of ideas. He looks to the ref, but the ref's no help, can't tell him how to penetrate that defence.

Liam pushes forward, always pushing forward. Not vicious, but calculated. Keeps his gloves high, knocks back Polito's serious blows with a deft swat. Keeps the pressure on, his offence as tight as his defence.

Two minutes fly by. And the next two see Polito lose his patience for good. He thunders at Liam, and Liam's got him caught dead cold. One solid glove through the headgear knocks Polito onto the canvas. Polito's quick back on his feet, but whatever he's been told has been knocked out of his head. He wanders about the ring as if he's not sure what the hell he's doing there. Liam keeps his cool, doesn't go for the easy win, lets Polito pull himself together.

It never happens. The bout ends with Polito back in his corner, staring at his lap.

I go to Liam's corner, Reuben grinning from ear to ear.

“You see that?” he says. “You see that kid? I told you, all he needed to do was keep his left up, and he's got it made.”

“Well done, Reuben,” I say.

“Damn straight well done.”

Liam's announced as the winner. He doesn't play it up, accepts the win like it's a simple fact of life. But there's a smile on his face, a sparkle in his eyes that means he's well into what Nelson's been teaching him. He pulls off his headgear as he gets out of the ring, Reuben in his ear now, telling him what a great job he did.

“I don't know what got into you, kid, but you nailed it.”

Liam looks at his gloves, nods slowly. Looks up at me. I wink at him.

“You got Josh next,” says Reuben as we move away from the ring. “You act with him like you acted tonight, you'll be fine. I know you got bad blood with him—”

“It won't be an issue,” says Liam.

“Better not be. You don't want to mess it up because of bad blood.”

“I won't.”

I usher Liam to a bench. Look across the club, and I see Callahan chewing something, watching us. He stops chewing when he sees me looking at him, then moves to the exit, rubbing at his nose as he walks.

“You got Josh's father scared shitless,” I say.

Liam looks around the club. “He here?”

“Josh? He's gone.” I see Callahan leaving. “That's his dad there.”

“You remember to keep that defence tight,” says Reuben. “You remember that, you'll have nothing to worry about…”

“I know, Reuben,” says Liam. “You got it told.”

Liam's gloves are off now. He stretches his fingers. Scratches at a spot above his eye. I look at the lad, and there's not a mark on him. I wonder how the hell he managed to do it. But then there's that defence that Reuben's still wittering on about.

“We should get going,” I say.

“Wait a second,” says Reuben.

And I see Phil Shapiro walking across to us. The Chihuahua is nestled in his arms and he's got what appears to be a grin on his face. As he approaches, Liam stands up. Shapiro holds out his hand and the pair of them shake.

“Good bout,” he says. “You did well.”

“I was telling him, Phil, he's got to keep his gloves up.”

“And he did.” Shapiro raises one finger to Liam. “Charlie Polito's one of the best boxers we've got in here. To be honest with you, I didn't think you'd handle him as well as you did.”

“Then you thought wrong,” I say.

Shapiro ignores me. “You know it's Josh next.”

Liam nods. “I'm fine, Mr Shapiro.”

“You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Because you look fine. You do look fine.” He smiles again. “I can't believe this kid. One day he's fighting like the world's after him, the next he's like a seasoned pro. What happened, Liam?”

“I got some good advice.”

“You did, huh?” Shapiro nods. “Wish Josh had been given the same advice.”

“He's sloppy,” I say. Probably because he was drunk last night, I want to add. But then that would open up a whole new can of worms. And there's no reason for the conversation to get nasty.

“I don't think Josh was on top form,” says Reuben. “He was lucky.”

“You've got a day off tomorrow,” Shapiro says to Liam. “Don't go nuts and we won't have any problems.”

“I'm going to train,” says Liam.

“Well, I'll look forward to seeing you.”

“Yeah,” says Reuben. “We’ll work on your feet. Couple of slips tonight. Nothing serious, but it's work needed.”

“Okay.”

I pick up Liam's bag. As we're leaving, I pat the lad on the back.

“Nice work, mate.”

“Thanks.”

The ride back to the hotel is silent apart from the radio, but it's not through any discomfort. Liam's content to look out of the window. When Johnny Cash starts singing, he doesn't say anything, so the lad must be happy. I park up, carry Liam's bag up to his room. He says goodnight and I wander down to my room.

Something red blinks in the darkness. I turn on the light and walk over to the phone. I have a message waiting for me, apparently. Pick up the receiver and mash the keypad until I get voicemail.

I listen. Smile. Then grab the vodka and a clean glass, pour myself a nice shot. Listen to the message again and punch in the number that's left.

This is going to be good. As the booze hits my stomach, there's a pleasant warm sensation. Could be I'm just feeling smug.

On the phone, the strange purring tone that means it's ringing.

And when he picks up, I say, “You rang, Mr Callahan?”

Early morning sober, the sky a washed-out grey blanket. No longer in Los Angeles — this is Santa Monica. Nobody can say I'm not seeing the sights. But I'm getting pretty fucking tired of following directions, it has to be said. I lean against the railing, watch the surf kick at the beach. By now it's obvious that Callahan is a no-show.

“We need to talk,” he said last night.

“So talk.”

“I'd rather do it in person.”

“And I'd rather not do it at all.”

“Tomorrow morning. Early.”

And he gave me directions to this Santa Monica spot. It reminds me of an upmarket Portobello, but that could just be the white noise of the sea. The place has a mixture of faded coastal charm and new money. Probably hip and happening at one point, a little bit edgy, a little bit bohemian. Easy to imagine the arts and crafts crowd milling around. But like most bohemian places, Santa Monica swooned at the scent of hard currency. The piers are shopping malls, packed with boutiques that no doubt do good business and chain bookstores where the staff actually care about your choice of reading material. Juice bars and coffee shops. No real bars that I could see. Healthy living where the only comfortable sin is caffeine.

Yeah, I've driven around. Mostly because the directions Callahan gave me were pish. Down to my last three cigarettes and sick of waiting.

Nothing's open yet, but the cats are out to play. I spotted two, then four, their numbers rising until I began to think there was something I should know. Now it feels like I'm about to be mugged by the furry wee buggers; they're circling like it's
Assault On Precinct 13
. The cats must be stray, but I've never seen this many congregate. And I've never been much of a cat person, so the sight of them now is enough to give me the all-over shivers.

There's the sound of a car drawing close and I drop the Marlboro half-smoked. Squint in the early morning light at the vehicle, and if it's Callahan he's dropped more than a few notches in the automobile league. This is a beaten-up, unwashed rustbucket heading my way. I keep a close watch on it, though. Just in case. The last time I didn't watch a car, I ended up rolling over its roof.

The rustbucket pulls up about a hundred yards away. The cats stop whatever they're doing, tails in the air.

I watch a woman get out of the car with some difficulty. She's short, dumpy, looks like she's wearing all her clothes at once. The cats all trot towards her, some of the skinnier ones picking up their feet to a gallop, the only sound now the crash of waves and a cacophony of mewing. The woman makes weird noises at the onslaught of cats, some clucks, some clicks. Every now and then, she'll throw out something that sounds like a short, high-pitched trill. She reaches into the car, pulls out two large boxes and shakes them like oversized maracas. The cats go nuts, the mewing turned to screeching, look like they're about to attack. A couple curl around her tree stump legs, bashing their heads against her shins. One big black monster threatens to trip her up as the woman waddles her way to the grass verge. She's still making those clicking, purring noises. Like she's some insane Queen of the Strays, a crazy cat lady gone all the way feral.

I keep quiet. Still. Unsure if my presence is welcome. Thinking that one false move is all it'll take for this woman to slip into hardcore mentalism and sic her feline army on me.

She shakes the contents of the two boxes into the grass and the cats fall into a huddle of fur and tails. A pair of tabbies — one ginger, one grey — hiss and swipe at each other. A tortoisehell tub of guts crawls and kicks its way over a mound of ratty fluff, who stops eating for a split-second to move aside. The rest of the cats shift and bump into each other. They're used to this. I watch the woman ruffle whatever cat is nudging her to get to the food. She sits on the grass among them. When I catch a look at her face, she's smiling. The eye of the storm.

Too weird. I get the chills. Reach into my pocket and light the second last cigarette in the pack.

“You're late,” I say.

“I said by the beach.”

“This is by the beach.”

“You can go further down.”

“And how am I supposed to know that? Do I look like I'm from around here?”

Okay, so Callahan's late, the last Marlboro is now a blackened filter by my feet and I went and forgot my fucking pills so my back's giving me hell. No need to forgive my mood when I've got valid reasons for it.

“Can you bitch and walk at the same time?” he says.

“I can certainly try.”

Callahan leads the way with large strides. Not the walk of a man who just got up. That very special breed of arsehole: the morning person. I hobble after him, my jacket pulled tight, feeling the cold of a two-hour wait at dawn. He glances at me.

“Your leg giving you pain?” he says.

“My back.”

“I'm similarly afflicted.”

“Oh,
are
you?” I say. “You don't fuckin' look it.”

“Morning walks are the key, Mr Innes. Morning walks, a good diet and physical therapy.”

“Yeah, I know someone else who swears by it. What did you want to see me about?”

“One second.” Callahan drops a few steps to the beach. He moves out across the sand as if he's savouring every painless step. Then he turns, looks at me. “This is why I live here.”

I stay where I am. Not keen on getting sand in my shoes. I glance back up at the road, can't see my car. Getting antsy about leaving it out there in the open. It's hardly likely that someone's going to steal a Geo bloody Metro with a dodgy door, but I'd like an easy escape route if things turn sour.

“I've seen beaches before,” I say.

“I used to run along here. Very bracing, good for the circulation. Really gets the blood going.”

“Look, like I said, I've seen beaches before. We have them in Britain. It's an island, so we've got plenty of them all around the coast, funnily enough. So if you've brought me down here to show me where dirt meets fuckin' water, you've succeeded and I'm unimpressed.”

Callahan smiles to himself. It doesn't flatter him, makes him look smug as fuck. He takes a few steps forward and points up the beach. “You see that?”

I strain to see what he's pointing at: a large white house right on the sand.

“You know how much that place cost me?”

“I'm sure you're going to tell me.”

“No, that would be vulgar. But it cost a lot.”

“I heard you were minted. Must be if you've bought a house right in the middle of the sea.”

“
Ocean
,” he says. “And it was just a wise investment, that's all. Sound business sense can get you a lot in this world. Of course, taking a chance pays off more.”

“Glad to hear you're a bit risky.”

“You'll forgive me for saying, but you don't look like a man with his toe in the property waters.”

I shrug. “Well, y'know, there's the villa in the Maldives. But most of my cash is tied up in stocks and bonds right now, Mr Callahan. You know how it is.”

“You could use some money,” he says.

“I could always
use
some money. That's why it's called money.”

“You're being sarcastic.”

“Nah, mate — I'm having back spasms. And I'm cold. And I'm tired because it's stupid o'clock in the fuckin' morning. And I'm still wondering why you wanted to see me.”

“I think you have a good idea why I wanted to see you.”

“Do I? 'Cause I'm having trouble, I'll tell you. I can't think of a single reason why you'd want to drag me out of my pit and make me stand here freezing my bollocks off other than simpleminded sadism. Or maybe you just wanted me to see your house before a tidal wave took it away.”