Suckerpunch: (2011) (30 page)

“That’s for brain damage.” She watched the blood course down the outside of my eye and down my cheek. It wasn’t going directly into the socket, which was all I could hope for. “If you can keep it from pooling, I’ll let it go on. But if you end up on your back or side and that eye closes again, I’m calling it.”

“Okay, yes,” I said.

“For your own safety.”

“I know. Thank you.” I bowed to her and tried to hug her. She cringed.

They all cleared out of the cage, and I heard Gil yelling at me. I looked over and he was pointing at his liver saying, “Attack it! Attack it!”

I checked Burbank. He was leaning to his right, grimacing and protecting that side. That hook must have done some good work. I could see Marcela’s name on his mouthpiece. I wanted to hit him hard enough to put it in the fifteenth row.

Wilkins warned me, “I’m watching that cut now. You ready? Ready? Fight!”

Burbank and I both moved forward with our hands up. From way out of range, practically California, I threw a left push kick that extended enough to compress Burbank’s abdomen over his liver. He grimaced and went to one knee. I had the left hook loaded and my eyes popped wide, and everything started to tense when the bell rang.

Wilkins jumped between us and sent us to our corners. Burbank’s guys had to help him to his.

Hollywood went to work on me again. His hands moved like he was playing a tiny piano on my eyebrow. Gil gave me water while Jairo wiped me down and put the ice pack on the back of my neck.

Gil said, “Man, that liver is ripe for picking. He can barely stand.”

“I was close,” I said, “this close.”

Hollywood shook his head. “Hold still, guy.”

“That liver is gold,” Gil said. “It’ll open something for sure. Just don’t let him catch a kick and take you down. I guarantee he won’t let you up. Watch for the takedown again right after the bell. He’s desperate.”

“Got it.”

“What are you going to do?”

I smiled at him. “I already told you. I told everybody. I’m going to knock him the fuck out.”

Burbank didn’t rush out for the takedown. He extended his arm and walked toward me. The third and final round, and
now
he wanted to touch gloves, a show of respect for a tough fight. I had a feeling he also wanted the extra couple seconds of recovery it would give him.

I gave his hand the finger, and he lowered it. He kept his right elbow tucked into his ribs over the liver. That brought his hand away from his face. He tried a left jab, and I moved to my left and countered with a straight that snapped his head back.

His right hand came up and exposed the liver. I cracked a left kick into it, and his eyes bugged out, squeezed shut, and he nearly crumpled. I swarmed him with punches, but he ducked and covered and survived it and shot in for a takedown. I stuffed it and had to back off to keep him from wrapping me up.

Blood landed on the canvas in front of me. I was leaking again.

Burbank tucked his elbow back into his ribs. When he stepped forward, I whipped a left kick into the nerve above his right knee. He halted and I tried a one-two-knee combo but didn’t get through to the liver; that elbow was in there too tight. I pushed off and hit him with another leg kick. He leaned to his right to protect his liver even more. His liver had full control of the rest of his body: protect me at all costs.

I threw a jab-jab-leg kick. He barely noticed the jabs and spent the whole time bracing for the kick in case it rose to his abdomen. I gave him one just to break the anticipation. It bounced off his elbow, but he winced and tried another takedown with one arm. I sprawled and shoved him to the mat and stepped back so he could stand.

He did, and then he pounced. Burbank closed in fast with his elbow tucked. He was going to get me down and smother and pound on me until the end of the round and win by decision or doctor stoppage from the blood.

He cut the cage off and backed me up. My heel hit the fence, and I came forward with the one-two combo and threw the left kick again. Burbank braced his elbow and leg to check it, but it wasn’t going to either of those places. My shin smashed into his face between his eyebrows and his nose. He turned into a rag doll. His mouthpiece spun out, and he dropped to the canvas and stared up at the lights.

I drove toward him to finish it, but Wilkins got there first and protected Burbank with his body and waved his hand in the air yelling, “That’s it! That’s it!”

I turned in a circle and put my hands over my face. When I took them down, Gil and Jairo and Javier and Edson were there, and we all fell into a mess on the canvas that made everyone in the crowd sick.

They got Burbank on a stool and gave him some water. The doctor returned and watched Hollywood close the cut over my eye with some tricks he’d learned in Haiti. I tried to see Burbank, but there were too many people milling around the cage. If he was in real bad shape, they’d take him to the hospital before I could talk to him about the mouthpiece.

Hollywood cleaned me out and put a few butterfly bandages over my eye, told me to get stitches.

Jairo yelled into the camera in Portuguese, and it sounded like he was talking to Marcela.

Wilkins tugged me to the center of the cage and raised my hand while Lincoln announced me as the winner by knockout. Some of the fans cheered me, and some cheered a great fight. Most booed.

Some tan guy in Ralph Lauren congratulated me and posed for a photo while I got sweat on his suit and frowned in Burbank’s direction. Through gaps I could see him nodding and shrugging to his cornermen. So he was talking. I pushed my way toward him and got to the layer of cornermen when a hand caught my arm.

Banzai Eddie.

Benjamin was with him, looking like a soft, saggy version of himself. Eddie shook my hand and clapped me on the shoulder and smiled. He had the executive talent of appearing and speaking in polar opposites: “You really fucked me here, you know?”

I grinned back. “Yeah.” I do not have that talent; I was genuinely happy about it.

Whether he was curious or concerned, what Eddie said next may have saved his life. “So what happens to your girl now? Can I help?”

“In the prep room. We’ll call Kendall.”

“Sounds good. Hey, you’re one of my superstars now. I gotta take care of you, right?”

“Don’t ruin it.”

“Fantastic.” He shook my hand again for the cameras and pushed his way through Burbank’s crew. He rubbed his vanquished poster boy’s head and talked into his ear. Burbank nodded and apologized, which made Eddie shake his head and talk some more. Probably telling him, “Great fight. Don’t worry; you’ll be back.” Leaving out, “As long as the crowd pays to see you.”

Eddie finished and backed out, and I slid in before the cornermen could close him off again. They congratulated me and I thanked them.

When the love fest was over, I said, “Give us a minute.”

They moved a few feet away, and I knelt in front of Burbank.

He smiled. “You got me again, you asshole.”

My smile was tight. “Yeah, neither one was easy. You got plenty of time. You’ll be on top eventually.”

“When are you going to retire?”

I had to laugh at that. Then: “So, about the mouthpiece.”

He waited.

“Anything you want to tell me?”

“About what?” he asked.

“Marcela.”

“Oh, you know her? I hope she said yes.”

“What? Why was her name on your mouthpiece?”

One of his cornermen reached over my shoulder and handed him an ice pack. Burbank folded it in half and pressed it between his eyes, which were al ready showing the raccoon bruises he’d sport for a few weeks. “Some dude gave me ten grand to write her name on it with a Sharpie. Said he was going to propose to her during the fight.”

“Was his name Kendall?”

Burbank squinted to think about it and winced. “Ah, I don’t know. I didn’t get his name.”

“So you don’t know Kendall? Big Jake? Tezo?”

“No, man. Those all sound like cartoon characters.” He laughed. “Shit, maybe I do know them and you hit me so hard I forgot.”

I let out a lot of air. I respected Burbank and wanted to like him now that the fight was over. He was just a piece on the chessboard like me. “Great fight, man. The toughest one I’ve ever had.”

“Yeah. Let’s do it again in about twenty years.”

Some of the crowd wanted high fives or fist bumps on my way backstage. I let Edson take care of it. Eddie was waiting outside the door of the prep room talking with a group of young guys in suits. None of them had adopted the dyed faux hawk yet, but it was the last stage until full assimilation. I wondered which one of them called in the bet Tezo made against me.

Eddie saw us coming. “It’s the . . . eye of the tiger. It’s the thrill of the fight, ri—”

“Get your phone out,” I said. To the suits: “Beat feet.”

They looked at their chunky watches and decided it was time to be somewhere else.

Eddie watched them go with envy, then fished a sheet of paper out of his inside pocket. “I got a list here of guys you can fight next.”

“Are you on it?”

“Come on, man.”

Gil reached past me and plucked the list. “You and I will talk, Eddie.”

Eddie made a show of leaning around me to say, “Thank you. It’s nice to have some professionalism.” He looked at me to let the point linger. Two seconds later he had his phone out. Smart guy.

“Start dialing,” I said.

We piled into the prep room and watched Eddie work his phone. Gil yanked my gloves off and started working on the right hand tape and gauze. Eddie handed me his phone.

Kendall answered on the third ring. “Well, well. Congrats, champ.” The gum was getting worked like a balloon in a car wash.

“Are they knocking on your door yet?”

“Who’s that?”

“The Yakuza.”

Eddie winced.

Silence on the other end.

I said, “Let me talk to her.”

“Still don’t care about Lance, do you?”

“Now that I know he works for you? Not really.”

“Damn, you have been a busy boy today, huh?”

“You have no idea. Put her on.”

“That’s a tough one right now, sport.”

I stopped breathing.

The gum clicked and snapped. Kendall said, “We’re what you might call
in transit
at the moment, and there was some concern sweet Marcela would jump out of a moving vehicle—mostly because she said she would—so she’s in the trunk.”

“But she’s okay.”

“For now,” Kendall said. “But I gotta tell you, you put me in a tight spot here. My day is pretty much shot to shit at this point.”

“Boo hoo.”

“Fair enough. Point is, it’s no longer entirely up to me whether she stays in one piece or not. So here’s the updated agenda: There’s some boys with fast little cars and loud guns who’re looking for me. They’re gonna want a shit ton of money or someone to cut up, preferably me. I could try to give them your girlie, but I figure, why not give ‘em the guy who owed in the first place?”

I did not glance at Banzai Eddie. “Okay.”

“So let’s trade. Marcela for Eddie. I don’t care how you get him to me or what state he’s in, as long as he’s got enough air left in him to scream for the Japs. And just you and him; I got a call from Tezo about an hour ago, sounded like he was talking through a mouthful of marbles. I don’t need any more crazy fucking Brazilians around me.”

“Where and when?”

“Start your engines. We’re headed to a place Lance says is safe as it gets in this town. Says you know it—some kook named Chops?”