Zombie D.O.A. (59 page)

By the time I got into the ring it was standing room only in the hall. The rules of the contest had been explained to us back in the dressing room. Each gang put up three fighters and the winner of each fight held the ring. So if I won the first fight I’d immediately have to take on the second fighter, if I won that, the third. If I lost, one of the other Zoot fighters would take my place. The rules of combat were equally simple, no biting, eye-gouging or hitting a man on the ground. Otherwise, pretty much anything goes.

The ring announcer had now stepped in and was doing the intros, sounding like a Hispanic Michael Buffer. All I could make out was Chris Cruisin’ Collins, New York City, Julio Cesar Chavez and Oscar De La Hoya. Boos rang out from the crowd.

“What’s he saying?” I asked Joe.

“He said you whipped Chavez and de la Hoya’s asses.”

“You know that’s not true, right?”

“I don’t think the crowd does.”

My first opponent was making his way to the ring. Half of the crowd, those from the .38 Specials, were cheering, the other half, the Zoots, jeered.

The guy facing me was the biggest of the three goons I’d seen in the dressing room, they obviously wanted to finish this quickly. The big guy was bald and flabby and covered in tattoos. He stood flatfooted in the ring and threw a couple of haymakers then shuffled into his corner and stood glaring at me.

“Right Chris,” Joe said. “I want you to get inside, soften him up with body shots, no head-hunting, you hear.”

“Joe,” I said, “Do you know anything about boxing?”

“No.”

“Then shut the fuck up and let me do my job.”

The ring announcer was just finishing his introduction of my opponent, and I thought I caught the name, Mano. The crowd jeered and cheered in equal measure.

The bell was sounded and Mano came charging out of his corner as I’d expected him to. I easily avoided his initial swing and danced passed him, tapping him in the kidneys for good measure. While he blundered into the ropes, I switched to southpaw, right foot leading. The switch confuses many fighters, but not Mano, he charged forward swinging a wild roundhouse punch that I got under. I landed a big left below the belt and Mano folded like origami, opening himself up. I drove the top of my head into his jaw and I knew he wasn’t getting up.

Of course, in a normal boxing match, I’d never have gotten away with it, but they’d called the rules and I was just playing by them. I didn’t think that I had enough in my damaged right hand to finish a fight anyway, so I was just playing the odds.

Mano was carted from the ring to cheers from the Zoots and jeers and curses from the Specials. The next fighter was ushered in, a black guy, with a much better physique than Mano but with a similar, charge and swing, technique. I finished him off quickly, this time foxing him into a corner, getting inside, putting the top of my head against his chest and working his lower abdomen with a flurry of punches. This time even some of the Specials cheered my win.

But the victory came at a price and I could feel my right wrist throbbing under the bandages. I got Joe to unravel and re-wrap them more tightly while my next opponent made his way to the ring.

If I’d got some of the Specials on my side with my last victory, that support soon evaporated now. The man stepping into the ring was obviously a crowd favorite and a cheer of  “Arturo! Arturo!” went up amidst jeers from the Zoots.

Arturo was smaller than my two previous opponents but still bigger than me, maybe a cruiserweight. He looked in good shape and as he went through his paces I could see he’d boxed a bit. I could also see that he was a leftie, which meant I’d have to switch to my natural orthodox style and rely on my damaged right hand.  As a converted southpaw, going up against someone who fights that way naturally, would have been stupid. I did however have one trick up my sleeve courtesy of Sully Seymour.     

   The bell sounded and Arturo moved confidently into the center of the ring, not charging, but flat-footed nonetheless. I stayed back, wanting him to come to me and he took the bait, pushing out a couple of right jabs then feinting with the left trying to get me to open up my abdomen. I danced away again and let him come to me, slipped a couple of right jabs, then dropped under the obvious left hook he tried.

And so it continued him chasing me and me ducking and diving. The crowd started getting impatient and giving us the slow handclap and Arturo started getting impatient and careless. He caught me a couple of glancing blows and opened my lip with a head butt when he managed to clinch me. But he wasn’t landing the big meaty blows that a brawler like him lives off and it was frustrating him. His shots were becoming wilder and he had stopped jabbing and was relying solely on roundhouse swings.

The Sully Switch, as my old trainer liked to call it, works something like this. An orthodox fighter up against a southpaw is often at a disadvantage. The shots rain in from angles that you’re not used to and can’t defend against. So the idea of the switch is to either get the southpaw overconfident by letting him hit you or getting him frustrated by avoiding his shots. Now, I’ve never liked getting hit so I’d always preferred the latter but either way the idea is to get him swinging.  Then you switch stance and get your forward foot outside of his and suddenly he appears on your radar like the biggest, juiciest target you’ve ever seen.

I did the move now, employing the little foot shuffle that Sully had taught me. Arturo looked momentarily confused, like he’d just been dazzled by a particularly brilliant piece of magic. He tried to adjust but I unloaded a left to his kidneys then went upstairs with a right uppercut that knocked him out and at the same time undid all the hard work Dr. Yonder Cartwright had done on my wrist.

“I told you this kid was the shit,” Joe said, “And you got him on the cheap too.”

“For once you weren’t bullshitting me, putana. I think maybe your boy here could have taken Chavez and De La Hoya. Just like maybe Tiger could have made a put with that piece of shit bent putter you gave me.”

“Yeah, whatever, homes. Next time I’m in town maybe we’ll play a few rounds.”

“Whip you ass again, white bread.”

“In your dreams, Chi Chi Rodrigues.”

“Listen, before you go, I got something I wanna give your homeboy here.” Julio nodded towards the house and one of his kids, a boy of about ten, went running up the path and game back hauling something almost as big as him. As the kid approached I recognized the green leather strip with the decorative metal disc at its center. Julio insisted on putting the WBC Championship belt around my waist and proclaiming me the ‘world champion of East L.A.’.

We left with me riding pillion to Joe on a BMW 650. My wrist was throbbing like crazy despite the anti-inflammatories I’d taken and I wasn’t able to operate the throttle well enough to ride. All the way to Yorba Linda, Joe complained about the belt pushing into his back, but I wasn’t about to take it off. It had been exhilarating to be in the ring again and despite the damage I’d done to my wrist, I felt a familiar old buzz that I’d never thought I’d experience again.

We reached Yorba Linda in the early morning and made our way to the encampment where I’d met Sam Suchet just a few days before. With all that had happened, it felt as though it could have been lifetime ago.

   “Never figured we’d see you again,” Suchet said. “We went back down to Palos Verdes and saw the bike there, figured the Corporation had either killed or captured you.”

“Oh, we tried,” Joe said. “Takes a lot to make this son of a bitch cry uncle.”

“We?”

“Yeah, I’m Joe Thursday, Head of Security, Pendragon Corporation.”

“What the fuck is this Collins? You set us up?”

“Chill,” Joe said, “How about you rustle us up some chow, and we tell you the whole story.”

“How about you tell me the whole story or I throw your ass out on the street.”

“I thought you said these people were hospitable, Chris.”

“Hospitable? Who the fuck…”

“Whoa!” I said, “Time out. Lets calm down, okay.”

“I don’t like his attitude,” Suchet said.

“You and my ex-wife both, buddy.”

“Guys?”

Joe and Suchet stopped trading insults and took to glaring at each other instead. “Right, let’s try this again. Joe Thursday meet Sam Suchet. Joe saved my ass back in New York City and a few other times besides, and if it wasn’t for Sam, I’d never have made it to Palos Verdes alive.”

They continued glaring until I said, “You can shake now,” and then they gripped hands in what was more of an arm wrestle than a shake.

“Pleased to meet you,” Sam grunted.

“Charmed,” Joe said with a healthy dose of sarcasm.         

“Sam,” I said, “We really could use something to eat if you’ve got anything going begging. I could do with a shower too, if that’s not to a problem.”

“You can use the staff showers in the department store across the way, Mike will show you. And we’ll fix you some breakfast. But then I’m going to need some answers as to why you’re here and why you’ve brought this corporation man with you.” Joe started to say something, but I shot him a look and amazingly he shut up.

Mike walked us over to the department store and suggested we pick out some toiletries and shaving gear before our shower. I also found a brace for my wrist and some aspirin. The showers were single units, one in the men’s quarters and the other in the ladies, which Joe insisted that I use.

By the time, I’d finished showering and shaving, Joe had already left. I walked across the lot towards the Sunshine Realty office that served as Sam Suchet’s headquarters. As I approached I could hear the sound of raucous laughter.

“You’re shitting me,” I heard Sam Suchet say.

“I shit you not,” Joe said, “She says, so are you going to do me or not.”

“So what did you do?” Suchet giggled.

“Mister, I hightailed it out of there like someone lit a cherry bomb in my ass.” Suchet laughed so loud I actually thought he might choke.

“Glad to see you too have kissed and made up,” I said walking into the office.

“Where’d you find this crazy son of a bitch?“ Suchet said, his face flushed with laughter.

  “I think he kind of found me,” I said.

“Cherry bomb up your ass,” Suchet giggled to himself, shaking his head.

After breakfast, Joe and I faced Sam Suchet over his desk and explained our plan to him. “An attack on Pendleton?” Sam said, “Man that sounds risky, and what would be the point anyway? Surely the Corporation’s got other bases.”

“They’ve got lots of bases,” Joe said. “But we take Pendleton and we take them all.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ve got lots of friends on the inside and we’ve been working on this for over a year now. The thing is to take down Rolly Pendragon. Once he is out of the picture I already have the people in place to step in.”

“But surely Pendleton’s going to be well guarded? I doubt we have the manpower to take on a base that size.”

“They’ve got about four hundred men down there…”

“I’ve only got about eighty,” Suchet said.

“More than enough. The troops down at Pendleton, across the entire Corporation for that matter, would have laid down their lives for Knox Pendragon. I can assure you, they don’t feel the same about Rolly.”

“And if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not wrong, but even if I am, we can take them. Rolly will have removed most of the commanders and booked them into the Pendleton Hilton. He’ll have put a bunch of sycophant, yes men in charge who don’t know shit about soldiering.”