Ringside (12 page)

Angel

The right way to
train is like you’re training for a fight that could end your life. That’s what
I always told myself, just like I told anyone who asked me what it took to stay
in shape.

Train like the guy
you’re going to get into the ring with is
already
training. He’s lean. He’s mean. He wants to pound you into the ground and spit
on your grave.

So I kept my head
down and worked the speed bag over, peppering it with lefts and rights, working
on my timing.

More importantly,
I concentrated on my feet, circling the bag and keeping them moving, feigning
punches and ducking to the left or right, sidestepping phantom strikes and
doing my best to improve my footwork.

It wasn’t easy.
Sloane made it look effortless whenever she showed me what she wanted me to do,
but I did my best anyway.

“Hey, Angel!” I
heard from the other side of the gym. It was Jai. I’d been true to my word and
gotten him in. He was working with a coach right now who’d told me yesterday
that the guy had talent. Maybe, after some hard work and a couple of months of
training session, he’d make something of himself on the circuit

I stopped what I
was doing, wiping the sweat from my eyes and looking over to him.

“Your phone keeps
ringing, man. You want me to bring it over to you?”

“Thanks,” I said,
waving him over. Maybe it was Sloane. She was either back at the hotel or in a
ballet class, in theory.

Jai brought me the
phone and then went back to training.

I looked down at
it. Three missed calls. Frowning, I looked up the number that had placed the
calls. It was hidden, but it wasn’t one I was familiar with either.

Could it be
Sloane?

I hit recall and
put the phone up to my ear. It rang a couple of times, and then a gruff voice
on the other end answered.

“That you, Angel?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Who’s
this?”

“You ever heard of
a guy named Kellerman?”

I frowned. The
name rang a bell, but I hadn’t heard it years and years. “Berel Kellerman?”

“The one and
only,” he growled. I got the feeling from his voice that he was, what seventy?
Eighty? “I won’t waste your time, son. And you don’t have to believe me if you
don’t want. I would, if I were you, but we’ll see if you’re smart enough.”

“I suppose that
depends on what you’ve got to say,” I told him.

“Fair enough,”
came the answer. “I know that the Carellos made your opponent throw your last
fight. It was stupid. Sloppy. A blind man could have seen that shitty fall he
faked for what it was, but the crowd wanted the underdog to win and you gave
them what they wanted.”

I took a few steps
away from the middle of the gym, sitting on a wooden bench in a quieter section
of the building. “I didn’t have anything to do with that,” I said, making sure
to keep my voice low.

Kellerman laughed,
a raspy noise that grated in my ear. “I know that, you idiot. The other guy was
kicking the crap out of you. He could have ended it whenever he wanted.”

I wanted to argue,
but there wasn’t any point. The old man was right.

“The reason,” he
said, pressing on, “it was so sloppy was that Nitro had to be coerced. Your
earlier opponent pulled out, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Wrong. The
Carellos put a gun to his head and took him out. He didn’t want to throw the
fight, you see.”

I swallowed hard.
It was certainly possible. These were dangerous men, and the sooner I got out
of their grasp, the better, for both Sloane and myself.

Kellerman sighed.
“I’ve seen it before. In fact, they did the same thing to a friend of mine,
years ago. Set him up by throwing a fight in
his
direction, just like they did for you. Of course, you know what
comes next, right?”

My heart sank. I’d
been trying to talk myself out of the reality for a couple of days, but no
matter how hard I tried I could only come to one reason they’d done it.

They wanted me to
lose the next one. My underdog win would make me the odds on favorite to win my
next fight. They’d bet against me and win big when I hit the mat.

Kellerman laughed
again, only this time it was a sad, drawn out sound. “I’m going to guess by
your silence that you do. You lose the next match and they get rich. Your
career ends, probably. Even if it doesn’t, once they pull your strings they
never get cut.”

I wanted to throw
the phone across the gym. “So what, Kellerman? You called me up to gloat?”

“No, son. I told
you what they did to my friend. You knew the name Kellerman, and I’m betting
it’s because you heard, years and years ago, that the Carellos ruined me. They
love that story. Use it to scare you young kids. Well, I want to hurt them
back.”

“How.”

“I want you to
win. I’ll make sure the Carellos bet everything against you.
Everything
. Once I’ve done my job,
they’ll have every penny on the table against you.”

“And you want me
to win? It’s not that easy, man?”

“Angel, if you
win, I’ll make sure your safe. The Carellos will have nothing. No influence. No
power. You and I can change the game here…”

Sloane

My apartment
didn’t get to see me much after that. Angel still had had access to the suite
at the Ritz for another couple of weeks, though I was sure that would vanish as
soon as he got a fight scheduled and he flipped the script on Jessie and the
Carellos.]

Hopefully…

I was skimming the
New York ballet forums later than usual. Even though I should have gone to bed
hours ago, I knew that finances were going to get bad soon, for both Angel and
I.

Room service was
still being paid for too, so at least we wouldn’t starve while he trained and I
tried to find some work that would further my career.

We.
Listen to me. Angel and I… Well, was
there even an Angel and I?

I liked to think
there was, but he and I hadn’t discussed it. He acted like that wasn’t
necessary, like it was simply unspoken that the two of us were in it until the
Universe somehow managed to pull us apart.

Angel was out on
one of his runs, and even though he’d be back soon I figured it would do me
some good to get out of the hotel for a while and walk down the street for some
groceries. After all, room service all day everyday
sounds
nice, but sometimes you just want a salad…

I threw a jacket
on over what I was already wearing and headed down in the elevator, giving a
little wave to Marcus, the hotel’s doorman. He was the sort of guy that opened
doors for you and wished you good day not just because it was your job. He
actually meant it.

Marcus waved back,
though when he saw I was headed out and not just down here looking for Angel,
he headed over.

“Miss Sloane.
Everything okay?”

I nodded. “Just
headed down the street for some things.”

He made a face, as
if the very thought of a woman having to do such things at this hour was a
tragedy, and not just the way it had always been for me. “Write down the items
you require and I’ll have them brought up with the morning paper,” he said.

I knew he wasn’t
bluffing, too. Marcus prided himself on extending every courtesy to his
clients, those people living, as he said, ‘in his house’. Still, I was looking
forward to the walk.

“I’m good,” I told
him. “But thanks for the offer. A chance to stretch my legs is exactly what I
need right about now, anyway.”

He gave me a grin
and pointed down the street with a flourish of his white-gloved hand. “Very
well. Two blocks down and one to the right, you’ll find a store open all of
these twenty four hours each and every day, designed for your convenience.”

I laughed. Marcus
always said stuff like that. It was if he were a relic of an earlier time, though
I suppose that’s exactly what he was, now that I thought about it.

“Stay safe,” he
said.

I wasn’t too
worried about
that
at least. Over the
last week or so I’d seen enough to know that, poor or not, Angel really did
have the respect of the people I rubbed shoulders with, in his part of the
world. Everyone down here knew I was his girl, as he said, and there wasn’t
anyone game enough to mess with me, because it would quickly mean that Angel
messed with
them
.

All of that will probably change, and change fast, if
and when he wins his neck fight
, I warned myself.

It was true, but
for now I walked down the street with a purpose, composing a shopping list in
my head. I’d get some things to make Angel some pasta. It was one of the few
real dishes I felt like I’d been able to put my own unique spin on, and he was
always looking for ways to bulk up his-

I’d gone the two
block Marcus had directed. In fact, I’d almost missed the left turn he’d told
me to make, though I quickly crossed the street and rectified that.

A screech of tires
and the screech of a van’s door being dragged open cut off my thoughts, and I
whirled around in time to see a black guy behind the wheel staring at me.
Behind him, a man I recognized was holding open the van’s sliding door.

It was Nitro, the
guy that had thrown Angel’s fight a couple of weeks ago. “Get in,” he said.
“I’m not going to make a bunch of threats. I’m bringing you to Jessie. He wants
Angel, but I figured you’d be able to talk some sense into him that your
boyfriend wouldn’t.”

I got in.

Angel

Normally, I’d have
been back to the hotel an hour or ago or more, but tonight I wanted to give
Sloane her space.

She had a lot on
her mind. Now that she knew the truth about me and the fact that money I’d been
splashing around wasn’t going to last, the fact that she didn’t have a steady
job must be even more frustrating.

It doesn’t matter,
I told myself angrily.
Put that shit out of your head, or you’re
going to waste the only chance you have.

I wondered if I
could trust Kellerman. Way back when I think he’d been a fight promoter. Either
that, or a manager. The way the story went, the Carellos wanted him to ‘work’
with them on a match, and he refused. They’d asked again, with ever so slightly
more insistence. After Kellerman told them to go to Hell, they’d had his boxer
gunned down in broad daylight to send a message.

I didn’t remember
the name of the slain fighter, but there was no doubt that the man was the
friend Kellerman had told me about.

I ran a little
faster and lifted my legs a little higher, trying to burn enough energy that I
could push myself into the zone, that place of tired repetition where thoughts
like the ones I was having didn’t have a place.

No luck, though.
At least not yet.

If I won the
match, would the Carellos really be down and out? I supposed that there was a
chance. I mean, times were tough around here on everyone. Even the Carello
brothers could make a mistake, and if they were certain I’d throw the fight, I
could see them overextending themselves to bet against me.

I knew right then
and there that there was no way I was going to throw the fight. Not this one,
not the next, not any of the ones I’d ever step into the ring to fight. That
wasn’t what I was there for.

It wasn’t who I
was.

Which meant that I
either got in against their fighter, a man they’d have handpicked to knock me
out just in case I didn’t play along, and won, or I didn’t walk out at all. If
I lost they’d assume I’d thrown it, and no amount of convincing them would
work. I’d be under their thumb until I got out of New York, and with Sloane’s
dancing being based here I didn’t know when that would be.

No, I had to win.

I picked up the
pace even further, turning what was supposed to be a long jog into a sprint,
making my lungs scream for air and my already tired legs scream for mercy.
Three more blocks to the Ritz, and I wasn’t going to stop until I got there.
The easy way wasn’t the right way, and I told my body to shut up and obey me as
I raced home.

Two blocks. I
could see the hotel now.

All I had to do in
the fight was concentrate on what Sloane had been trying to drum into my head.
Move my feet. Anticipate. Think of the world as a dance and look for the steps
before they happen.

One more block.
One more block and I’d go up and shower and show Sloane how much I’d been
missing her all day. After that, if she was in the mood for talking, I’d tell
her about the phone call I’d had with Kellerman. She always seemed to know what
to say, and I found that I was already relying more and more on her advice.

It was strange,
how a woman like that can slot into your life so perfectly. It had only been a
week or so, but I already couldn’t dream of a life without her.

I slowed to a jog
again as I got to the Ritz. Marcus waved me down at the door before I could go
inside.

“Angel!”

“Yeah?”

He was still
wearing his ever-present smile, but I could tell that there was a layer of
stress thrumming just underneath the surface. “Sloane went out for a few
things. I offered to have them brought up to the room, but she said she needed
some fresh air and a walk.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I sent her to the
one down the street.” He pointed, and I knew that he meant the CVS on 5th.

“How long ago was
that,” I asked, suddenly working out why Marcus was worried.

“Little more than
an hour ago…”

Too long. “Cops?”

Marcus shook his
head. “I didn’t call anyone. I know you two are in a sensitive place. Involving
the boys in blue may get her hurt, that’s what I figured.”

I nodded. “Good
man.” I took out my phone, looking for texts or missed calls and finding
nothing. I stood there, trying to slow my breathing, and called her number.