Trust (7 page)

Lee’s hands were round one of his opponent’s thighs, trying to pull him off balance, and the two stumbled and turned around the ring again, in a perverse dance.

The Russian gave up the twisting, drew one fist back and pounded it into Lee’s face.

I heard Dean’s agonized scream above all the other noise in the place.

I turned away from the ring. I’d seen a spray of blood flying away from Lee’s face.

Somehow I ended up in Dean’s arms, my head on his shoulder, and I couldn’t help but think of the way the two fighters had been grappling in each other’s embrace only moments before.

When I looked back over my shoulder they were circling each other again. Lee’s face was red and shiny with blood coming from his nose and maybe his mouth, and the Russian was smiling and beckoning again.

Lee took a step and swung. His fist connected with the Russian’s chin, and the big man went flying back against the mesh cage, arms spread wide.

Lee followed in with three jabs to the ribs, left, right, left, and for a moment I thought the Russian was going to crumple.

Instead, he wrapped those long arms around Lee, drawing him into a bear hug, stifling his blows, robbing him of momentum.

They stumbled away from the mesh, still in each other’s arms. Somehow Lee manage to force himself away from his opponent, so he had room to draw back his fist again.

The Russian just looked at him, as if still dazed from that pile-driver to the chin.

This was surely going to be the end.

Lee swung, and almost in slow motion the Russian watched his fist, swaying and ducking under it at the last minute.

Lee’s momentum took him staggering forward, and then the Russian’s shoulder was in his belly. When the Russian straightened, he lifted Lee clear of the ground, folded over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

The Russian twisted at the waist, then flipped his body backward.

Lee flew away through the air, crashing into the wall of the cage, then sliding down to the ground.

Still, he would have been able to get up if the Russian hadn’t followed through, dropping backwards onto him with an elbow landing hard in Lee’s gut.

I heard Dean’s cry again, but couldn’t look. Couldn’t tear my eyes away from the Russian as he twisted, pinning Lee to the ring with the weight of his body as he drew his arm up high and then swung down.

The soft, meaty impact of fist on face cut through the roars, was followed immediately by a massive, collective groan. Then the Russian drew back and swung again.

Again.

Again, until the referee was hanging onto his arm, his whole body lifted into the air as the Russian tried to strike one more time.

Dean brushed me aside, now, pushing away from the table, pushing through the crowd.

“Lee!” he cried. “Dear God, Lee!”

You know the risks when you set the stakes this high. When you’re playing the game.

Dean Bailey knew them. His kid brother, Lee, certainly knew them.

But still...

As Dean barged through the crowd thronging around the cage, all he could see was that image of Maliakov holding Lee in a headlock and driving his fist into the kid’s face. Of the blood geysering out. The sound of the Russian’s fist impacting on Lee’s face one, two, three times before the referee was able to stop him.

“Lee!”

His fingers twined through the mesh, taking his weight painfully as he tried to haul himself up, as if he might somehow manage to climb right over.

Lee lay there, inert, while the blond Russian swaggered around the ring, fist raised in some kind of power salute.

Bodies pressed against Dean, and he had to relinquish his grip, slide back down.

Turning, he forced his way through again. He had to get to Lee. Had to see if the damage was as bad as it looked.

§

Earlier, he’d done what he’d had to do. He’d placed his bets, he’d glad-handed the guys – the ones he could trust, and the ones he couldn’t.

You get a nose for it, in this life.

He’d seen Putin leering and crowing. There with some of the big guys, the ones you never see on the street. They’d come for the night out. They hadn’t anticipated anything other than victory, and the first of a succession of nails in the coffin of the Bailey Boys.

If Lee lost this fight the Russians would be lording it. They’d believe then that they owned this city, if they could slap the Baileys down in so public a manner.

All this had hung on the fight with Maliakov, and Lee had been beaten to a pulp.

Now, Dean found himself at the foot of the steps that led up to the cage entrance.

The mesh gate was open. Someone had got there ahead of him.

A doctor he hoped. Please let it be a fucking doctor!

He paused at the foot of the steps, suddenly wanting to prolong these last few moments when he didn’t know how badly damaged his kid brother was.

Then he climbed the steps.

In the ring, across towards the far side where he’d fallen, Lee still lay flat on his back, arms and legs spread wide.

Starfishing, they’d always called it: when you finish a fight and the other guy’s lying like that. You want to get him starfishing.

Lee Bailey was no starfish. He’d gone fifteen fights since anyone had stopped him, and
that
one was still controversial enough to be talked about regularly in pubs right across London, and beyond.

There were people around the fallen fighter. The referee, the doctor Reuben used – a safe pair of hands who still owed the Baileys a few favors – and Reuben himself, the top man, the one who put these fights together and provided the security that allowed some of the capital’s most sought-after villains the confidence to get together like this.

Dean approached cautiously, his throat tight.

Stooping, he put a hand on Reuben’s shoulder, said, “Hey, man. What’s the damage?”

Reuben turned his head. He was a wiry man with cropped curls of thick black hair and a piercing blue eyes, and a habit of constantly moistening his thin lips with the tip of his tongue that made Dean think of snakes. Kaa, the python from that cartoon,
The Jungle Book
.

“The damage to Lee, or to your reputation, Dean? Know what I mean?” He laughed – a thin, dry sound – and turned back to the doctor, a fastidious Indian man with silver hair and round cheeks.

Dean squatted, looked at his brother. “Hey, Lee, what’s up, mate?”

The kid’s face was a state. Lower lip split, nose a puffy mess, one eye black already and swollen shut. Blood smeared everywhere.

The doctor used gauze pads to dab away some of the blood as he examined Lee.

The kid wasn’t responding.

Dean couldn’t see if he was even breathing.

“Lee?”

Then the good eye opened, found Dean. Puffed lips pulled back in a crude approximation of a grin, and that working eye flickered shut and open again, a wink of sorts.

“Hey, bro’,” the youngest Bailey Boy grunted. “We good?”

“Fuck, kid,” said Dean, fighting back the surge of emotion. “It wasn’t supposed to go like this, you know? You were supposed to beat the crap out of
him
...”

Reuben put a hand on Dean’s arm now, and said, “It’s okay, Dean. We’ve got him. Sajeev’s going to take the boy somewhere safe where he can patch him up. We’ve got it.”

“You sure?”

Reuben nodded. “We’re good, mate.”

Dean reached out, gave Lee’s shoulder a squeeze. “You hear that, Lee? Going to be right as rain.”

§

Down the steps, and the crowd was starting to thin. People had drifted away to the bar, or were leaving already, the action over.

Putin was still there, though. Standing, arms folded, his minder, Timoshenko, at his shoulder. A cocky grin smeared across that thin mouth of his.

Dean straightened, pushing his shoulders back. It was all in the attitude, in not letting yourself appear rattled, gun in your face or not.

“Putin,” he said. “Invaded any more small countries recently, have you?”

Putin knew about not getting rattled, too. His expression didn’t flicker.

Instead, he just gave a slight shake of the head, and said in that smooth, slightly accented English of his, “You’ve lost it, Mr Bailey. You were losing it already, of course, but after tonight... You know momentum, yes? Your momentum is bringing you down.”

Dean stood facing the two Russians. A small space had opened up around the three, perhaps just a natural consequence of the thinning of the crowd, but maybe something more.

“You’re never going to run this city, Putin,” said Dean. “You know why? You don’t get it. You don’t get it in
here
–” To illustrate his point, Dean thumped his chest, over his heart. He stepped forward, on the point of forgetting altogether that thing about not letting himself get rattled.

Putin shrugged, turning the corners of his mouth downwards. Taking his time, knowing he was playing Dean on the end of a line now, just waiting to reel him in.

Finally, he said, “How is your brother?” Just those words, that smirk, that cocky way of standing, his arms still folded.

Dean lunged.

Putin stepped smoothly out of the way and it was Timoshenko who met Dean’s attack.

Dean swung, the Russian dodged, caught his wrist, twisted.

Dean squealed like a pig, and Putin laughed.

But Dean was quick. He used the momentum – yes, Putin, he understood momentum, all right – as the tall Russian tried to turn him, and pulled his rival off balance, following through with a fist to the man’s jaw.

There was a split second when the eyes swiveled in that skull-like face, opened wide, then Timoshenko fell, out cold.

Dean stood, straightened, brushing himself down.

Suddenly the sound of the warehouse erupted around him, voices at the bar and closer by, someone shouting.

More bodies closed in.

He saw Reuben’s face nearby, a couple of the organizer’s men moving in, grabbing his arms, hauling him back. He bucked his body, tried to twist free, but a fist in the midriff put an end to any resistance. Another to the face, and he felt something pop, the warm wetness of blood spilling from his nose, the center of his face puffing instantly in reaction to the blow.

He was saved by the girl. Jess.

One moment he was being held, fists flying in, the next she was there in the thick of it. She’d come across, thrown herself between Dean and a guy whose fist was poised, just ready to swing in. For an instant Dean thought it was too late, the guy already committed to the punch, about to land it on Jess as she slipped in between them, then the guy checked, stood poised for a moment, then dropped the fist.

Dean straightened, shrugging off the hands that had held him.

Then, calm as anything, he reached for Jess’s hand, folded it in his, leaned in close, and whispered in her ear, “Nice and cool, darling. Just turn and we’ll go. Just walk like you–”

“–own it. I know.”

The look on Dean’s face as he surged through the crowd, trying to get to his fallen brother, was heart-wrenching.

I craned to see.

The referee was with Lee, crouched over him, checking his eyes for response. Two men joined him, and from their body language I feared the worst. In all the uproar after the fight, the three men around Lee formed an island of stillness. It looked serious.

Then I saw Dean at the gate, forcing his way into the cage, rushing to his brother, and – at last! – movement from the fallen fighter.

I turned to Owen, the oldest of the three Bailey brothers. He was still in his seat, but he was straining forward, everything about the way he held himself tense. His eyes were fixed on the ring. The woman at his side had a hand on one of his, her thumb making tiny stroking movements, which must either be calming or irritating as hell.

I met her look and she gave a weak smile. Briefly, I felt sorry for her. She was clearly out of her depth.

When Lee turned his head and said something to Dean, Owen visibly relaxed. He reached for the bottle of champagne, checked there was some left, then topped up his glass.

“Not that we’re exactly celebrating, eh?” he said – to me or his partner, I wasn’t sure. “Useless fuck.”

§

When Dean emerged a short time later, I saw the Russian he’d nicknamed ‘Putin’ moving smoothly to intercept him. The tall henchman who’d been waving the gun about earlier was at his side, which was hardly reassuring.

Suddenly the atmosphere was tipping, from the release at the end of the fight to something with an edge of danger now. All the voices and shouting were quite unnerving, and I could see the confrontation developing long before Dean was aware that his route was blocked.

I stood.

I didn’t know what I had in mind.

I didn’t take the time to think.

Just knew I needed to be down there, not sitting back here, helpless.

I pushed my way through, and by the time I reached them Putin’s sidekick was already on the ground, propped on an elbow, one hand pressed to his head.

In the mass of bodies it was hard to see what was happening, but – yes! – there was Dean. His arms were being held, his face covered in blood. Instantly another blow landed in his midriff, doubling him up.

I threw myself at him, my body shielding him from more blows, just as he’d done in the car earlier when Putin’s heavy had smashed in the window.

Dean’s blood was wet on my cheek, but I didn’t care about that.

I looked back over my shoulder and all I saw was a fist poised, ready to strike.

This was it.

I braced, ready for a heavy, numbing impact that never came.

The owner of the fist checked himself, his eyes met mine, and – slowly – he lowered his arm.

A man to his right raised a hand. He was thin, the cropped dark curls giving him a boyish appearance that made him look younger than the thirty-something that he probably was. He gave a shake of the head, and the other guy turned away, and then the two men restraining Dean released him.

Dean straightened, rolled his shoulders, then leaned in close to me and whispered, “Nice and cool, darling.” He took my hand. “Just turn and we’ll go. Just walk like you–”