Prologue
Last night…
The tapping of the smooth silver ballpoint pen against the
notepad sounded very much like a metronome gone out of control. Crumpled balls of paper littered the handsome
wooden desk like a graveyard of bad ideas as the thinning notepad lay blank
before him. The paper’s watermark – a
green-tinged lion’s head logo – stared mockingly at him, daring him to try
again to write something poignant. Or
even just intelligent. In fact, at this
point, the lion would even have settled for something merely coherent.
He reached for the tiny bottle of vodka – airplane-sized, from
the mini-bar - that he had been sipping.
He upended it, emptying the last of the clear, caustic liquid down his
throat. He felt his face flush as the
liquor burned a path into his stomach. He
closed his eyes and enjoyed the sensation of drifting off to drunkenness.
When his mouth and throat cooled he reopened his eyes. The lion still looked at him expectantly,
waiting for him to begin this manifesto, this great work that would make her understand why. He tentatively put the pen to paper and was
trying to decide the letter’s opening line.
To whom it may concern…
He had barely formed the final “n” when he tore the page from
its pad. To whom it may concern, he thought.
How silly.
He tossed the balled up sheet of paper to the side and started
again, dating the top of the page. He
went over in his mind how letters were supposed to start, with Dear Someone, or
Dearest Whomever. He wrote: I don’t even know your name.
He smiled as he finished writing that one line. He cracked open the miniature bottle of
premium vodka queued up next to him, sucked it down and added the empty to the
paper graveyard. He was drunker than he
had been in a long time, but at least the words were flowing.
My name is Michael
Dane. I’m your father. A little Darth Vader-esque, he thought, but
it worked. If you’re reading this then I’m dead. He paused a moment after he wrote that; the
finality of those words made his stomach gurgle. Doubt, nervousness and fear crept into his
mind, all at once, and all for the first time since this whole thing
started. He wondered if this whole deal was
such a good idea after all.
Drunkenness helped him rediscover his resolve. He had no choice after all. He wrote: And
of course you’re reading this, because I know I’m going to die.
Chapter
One
The lights in the
locker room hummed and flickered above Michael Dane’s head as the last of the
gauze was taped tightly to his hands. He
looked up and held his breath for a moment as he punched the palms of his hands,
exhaling when the fluorescent rods snapped back on full strength, buzzing as if
a fly were trapped inside. Soon after,
they flickered again, and something in his stomach danced to the rhythm of the
lights. When fully lit, the locker room
was cream-colored brick from the ground up to about three feet, with drywall
painted an off-white color– beige, or maybe eggshell- going up to the
ceiling. Michael sat on an elevated
table in the center of the room, a small metal bowl with gauze, tape and
scissors next to him. The table was
brown leather and heavily padded, like the one he saw in his doctor’s
office. The lights dimmed again,
freezing Michael’s breath. He exhaled only when they came back on.
“Why don’t they do
something about that?” he said, testing the wrist support of the gauze. “It’s annoying.”
The pot-bellied black
man putting the tape on Michael’s hands stood from the stool in front of the table. “Perfect,” he said. “Let’s get the gloves.” He hustled over to the locker on the other
side of the room and pulled out a pair of black boxing gloves with “DANE”
printed on the wrists in gold block letters.
Michael took another
deep breath to try to stop the salsa dancing girls in his stomach as the gloves
were slid onto his hands. “This is it,
Dutch,” he said to the fat man as the gloves were tied up. “Showtime.”
He hopped off the table and began to loosen up, rolling his head from
side to side, and finally shadowboxing his way toward the wall, bobbing,
weaving, and striking his imaginary opponent.
Dutch quickly glanced
at the clock on the wall behind Dane.
“Easy, killer,” he said with a laugh.
“Don’t tire yourself out. We still
got at least 10 minutes. Keep your
shorts on.” Michael laughed too and
stopped shadowboxing. The dancing in his
stomach changed from salsa to a waltz.
Dutch tightened the laces on the gloves and glanced up at his fighter. “God damn it,” he said. “I can’t believe we’re finally here. Main event, title fight. It’s been a long time coming.”
“Relax,” Michael said. “Everything’s going to be fine.”
“Be nice to get out
there and get it over with. I’m too old
for this stress.”
Michael smiled quickly
from the corner of his mouth. “Stop
worrying,” he said. “You trained me,
didn’t you? Haven’t we been working to
get right here, right now since I was like 12?
I’m ready, Dutch, don’t stress it.
I got a job to do.” Dane flexed
his hands through the tape and took a deep breath. Tension rippled through his
arms as every muscle bulged and relaxed in succession. “You’re making me nervous.”
“You should be. Nervous is good. It keeps you focused, careful, and on your
feet.” Dutch wrapped duct tape around
Michael’s gloves at the wrists. “You
ready?”
Michael nodded and bounced on the balls of
his feet. “Born ready,” he said as he
led the way toward the ring, shadowboxing his way out the door. Dutch rolled his eyes at the statement and
followed his fighter out.
**********
One by one, people were funneled into the MGM
Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The
crowd grew steadily to capacity, and the people coming in late were hard
pressed to make it to their seats. It
was only a few minutes before the main event was scheduled to start: the
heavily-favored IBF Light-Heavyweight Champion Quin Cortez vs. the underdog,
but well-regarded Michael Dane for 12 rounds.
The excitement was palpable as the crowd noise started to sound like
boiling spaghetti. Cortez, a lean,
chiseled Dominican with a devastating right hook, had mowed down everything in
his path to this point and his fights had been so short lately that his
pay-per-view bouts were offered by the round.
Dane, on the other hand, was a veteran who insiders felt never quite
reached his potential. He usually finished
fights with a powerful overhand right and was undefeated since his release from
prison, but many felt had lost his best years while incarcerated for a gun
violation.
The rest of the card had just been a warm-up
for this, but the early comers and die-hards wouldn’t deny themselves an
undercard fight, especially those who had paid for whole night. The fights themselves were exciting enough. One featured a couple of middleweights from
Mexico no one had ever heard of that went eight rounds before one of them was
dropped by a surprise right hook. Another
had a has-been from Miami, Florida fight a never-was from Vancouver, British
Columbia. That fight went the distance
and ended in a draw; both fighters were bruised and bloody afterwards and the
crowd showed its appreciation. They were
only filler though, appetizers for Dane vs. Cortez. The past few weeks, Cortez and Dane sniped at
each other in the press, and officials had to separate them at the previous
night’s weigh-in was stopped just before fireworks really started. The entire crowd was chomping at the bit for
this to finally get underway.
A slender, dark-skinned
man in a white suit– a three-piece he wore with a charcoal gray shirt and red
tie and shiny white leather shoes- sat cross-legged in the front of one of the
reserved luxury skyboxes, above the press boxes and high above the crowd with a
lit cigar firmly cued between his first two fingers. He checked his gleaming platinum watch
impatiently as he took a deep drag on the cigar. A thin, young usher, no more than 20 years
old, walked past him, leading a pair of middle-aged white men to the seats
behind him. The kid seated the two men
and came back to the well-dressed man.
“Sir,” he said, clearing his throat, “you can’t smoke that in here.”
The well-dressed man
exhaled thick gray smoke from his nose.
“Pardon me, son?” he said, fixing his lazy, but somehow intimidating
stare on the usher. “I didn’t catch
that.”
The usher’s hands
fidgeted a bit. “There’s no smoking in
here,” he said, trying to sound firm, but instead cracking his voice. “You’re going to have to put that out.”
The well-dressed man
reared back and let out a sound halfway between smoker’s hack and
laughter. “You can’t be serious,” he
said, letting the cigar hang from the corner of his mouth. He took another drag and blew out a ring of smoke. “You do know who I am, right?”
The usher nervously
pointed to the NO SMOKING UNDER PENALTY OF LAW sign posted directly above them. “I’m sorry,” he said, sheepishly. “I really am going to have to ask you to put
that out.”
The well-dressed man
turned his head and stared into the eyes of the usher as darted everywhere to
avert the gaze. The man sucked in a
couple of quick puffs as he reached inside his coat pocket. The usher flinched a bit and held his
breath. When the man pulled out a
silvery, rectangular cigar case, the usher breathed a deep sigh of relief.
The well-dressed man
tapped the ash on the floor. W ith a low hiss, he extinguished the cigar
against the case. “Satisfied?” he said.
“I’m sorry, Mr.
Alexander,” the usher said. “Just doing
my job.”
“You’re welcome,” the
well-dressed man said under his breath as the usher scurried off. Once the kid was out of sight, he pulled
another cigar from the case.
“Hope you have better
control of your fighter than you do your event, Dante.” The man in white looked around for the source
of this statement and saw a Puerto Rican man in a black suit sitting behind
him, smiling from ear to ear. Dante
reached into his jacket pocket for his lighter with his left hand, and flipped
the Puerto Rican man off with his right.
“Trust me, Castillo,”
he said, lighting the cigar and taking a quick drag. “Everything’s set. Just remember your end of the deal.”
Castillo smiled and
leaned back in his seat. “Don’t worry
about that. I’ll deliver when you
deliver.”
“Then shut the hell
up,” Dante said, turning his attention toward the ring. “It’s about to start.”
**********
In the hallway leading to the ring, Michael
Dane bounced on the balls of his feet, pounding his gloves together as Dutch paced
in front of the closed door. An official from the Athletics Commission
inspected Michael’s gloves for anything illegal. When he was satisfied, he signed the duct
tape and waved them through.
Security guards in
bright yellow blazers opened the door from the inside of the arena and motioned
them in. Blinding white spotlights shone
directly on the chiseled light-skinned black man with the shaved head and his
portly, broad-shouldered, darker trainer.
The roar of the crowd and the thumping bass line of Busta Rhymes’ “We
Could Take It Outside” poured through the open door as if being sucked out by a
vacuum. Dutch put his hands on Michael’s
shoulders and pushed him out.
“It’s showtime,” he
said again as he walked behind his protégé.
Michael stalked toward
the ring, close to the fans, as always, so they could touch him. He rolled his neck from side to side as he
approached the ring. Flash bulbs and
spotlights blinded him momentarily and every time his eyes adjusted, another would
go off. Dutch walked behind him, keeping
his hands on Michael’s shoulders as they made their way through the crowd. They looked up at the giant video screen
suspended above the ring and saw their high-definition reflection, 20 times
life size. Michael climbed the ring
steps at his corner, stepped between the ropes and raised a fist in the
air. After Dutch took off his robe,
Michael climbed the ropes in the corner, rubbed the panther’s paw tattoo on his
chest and pointed out to the crowd.
Chapter Two
Twelve weeks earlier…
Michael looked
over at the Dante Alexander’s massive, ursine bodyguard and pondered how he got
himself into this situation. He was
supposed to be training, in anticipation of a title fight. Now he was riding in a dimly lit 4-by-6
elevator that smelled like piss and creaked as the ancient cable pulley inched
the little box upwards. Instead of being
surrounded by trainers, he was in the company of Jason Boone, a well-dressed
6’6”, 350 pound black bear of a man, and the black bean burrito Boone kept
belching up through this interminable ride.
“I got Boone doing
something for me in the projects by Long Island City,” Michael remembered Dante
saying in his office earlier that day.
“I need you to go with him. I
normally wouldn’t ask you, but I got no one else.”
Michael chuckled
to himself. Dante never actually asked.
“What for, though?” Michael had replied.
“Boone’s a big boy, I’m sure he can handle himself.”
Dante smiled. “This is true. It couldn’t hurt to have an extra pair of
hands though, right?”
Michael was relieved
when the grimy and cramped little elevator finally opened at the 12th
floor. He wasn’t sure that it ever actually
would, and there was barely enough room in there for him, Boone and Boone’s
burrito halitosis. Boone walked out and
Michael followed, letting out a deeply held breath.
“And of course, you’ll be very well compensated for your
time,” Dante had said. Michael
remembered the smile Dante was wearing: friendly on the surface, menacing about
half a layer underneath. It was like a
neighbor’s dog about to warn you he was done playing. “Do you trust me?”
“On this? Not
really.”
Dante
laughed. “I appreciate your honesty.”
“I don’t want to
hurt anyone, Dante. I’m done with that
part of my life.”
“Michael,” Dante
said, “you’re a prize fighter. You train
yourself night and day in the art of hurting people. You get paid a lot of money to hurt
people. It’s not that big of a
deal. Plus, how do you think we can
afford your training?”
Michael closed his
eyes and took a deep breath. “So what
exactly are we doing?”
“Hey, wake up,” Boone
said as now they stood in front of Apartment 12C. “You ready?”
Michael nodded, and Boone knocked on the door. After a few moments of silence, Boone knocked
again.
“I’m coming, I’m
coming,” Michael heard faintly from inside the apartment, followed immediately
by some shuffling, either of people or items.
A tall, skinny black man pulled the door open as much as the security
chain allowed and peeked out. His hair
was matted as if it hadn’t been combed in weeks, and an acrid smell seeped from
his pores and assaulted Michael’s nose. He
nervously looked to his left and saw Boone.
“Who are you?”
“Dante sent me,”
he said. “Are you Ray-Ray?”
Ray-Ray looked to
the right side of the door and saw Michael.
“Who’s this?”
Michael glanced
quickly at Boone, who took off his sunglasses and put them in his jacket
pocket. “Extra pair of hands,” Boone
said.
****************
Apartment 12C was
strangely barren. The four people passed
out on and around the couch in the living room space served as most of the
dwelling’s furniture. The one dim lamp in the center of the room, and the dull
blue static haze coming from the TV made up most of the room’s lighting. Ray-Ray had led them to a small round dining table
set up by the window in that poorly lit living room. On the table was a Bunsen burner, the kind
Michael used in chemistry class before he dropped out of high school, and a
small spoon that looked like it used to be silver. Most of the spoon’s handle still was. About two-thirds of the spoon started going
black, and the business end of it was rust-brown, scarred with flakes and heat
blisters. Michael felt his heart
implode; this is a dope deal!
“I ain’t expect
Dante to send someone so soon,” Ray-Ray said, nervously scratching his neck. He shifted his weight uneasily from side to
side and his eyes darted around the room.
“I’d have cleaned up a bit, or something.”
Boone raised his hand and Ray-Ray’s blithering stopped. “You got the money?” Boone asked.
Ray-Ray scampered across the apartment to the kitchen and
reached under the sink. He pulled out a
faded red coffee can, reached in and pulled out an envelope. He scurried back to the living room space and
handed it to Boone. “All there,” Ray-Ray
said. “Down to the last dollar.”
“I hope so,” Boone said, removing a hefty stack of
hundred-dollar bills from the envelope and peeling them off one by one. “I’d hate to be you if it wasn’t.”
“Whoa man, what are you doing? You’re gonna count that right in front of
me? That’s fucked up. Don’t you trust me?”
Boone shot him an icy glare, and once again Ray-Ray was
silenced. “Of course not, Ray-Ray. But if it’s all here, what difference does that
make?” Boone counted for what seemed like
an hour on the first pass, then counted the stack twice more before getting up
quickly and grabbing Ray-Ray’s throat in one fluid motion. “Where’s the rest, Ray?”
Oh hell, Michael thought.
****************
“Mm-hmm,” Boone said calmly into his cell phone as he held
the lower half of Ray-Ray’s face in his death grip. Ray-Ray’s scream was muffled by the huge
leather-gloved paw that covered his mouth, and Boone lifted the phone away from
his face. “Shh,” he said to Ray-Ray.
Michael’s eyes jumped wide and his mouth dropped. This situation took a hard left turn into
uncomfortable territory, and he wasn’t sure how to deal with it. “Yo, Boone,
let him down,” he said. “What the fuck
are—“
“Shut up,” Boone
said, calmly, lifting the phone from his face for a split second before
returning to his conversation.
“Mm-hmm. Okay. Got it.
Thanks.” He closed his cell phone
and got right into Ray-Ray’s face.
“Well, Ray,” he said, tightening his grip, “today may be your lucky
day.” He let Ray-Ray go and put his
sunglasses back on. “As you can imagine,
Dante’s not very happy about the money being light.”
“I’m sorry, man,” Ray-Ray whimpered as he gasped for breath
and massaged his jaw. “I didn’t know it
wasn’t all there. I wouldn’t do that to
Dante. I swear, I didn’t know.”
Boone put his hands up to concede the protest. “Of course you didn’t,” he said, sarcasm
dripping from his bland manner. “Honest
mistake. We understand that, don’t we,
Mike?”
Michael nodded nervously.
“You’re only human,” he said. It
could have happened to anyone.”
“Yeah,” Ray-Ray said.
“Everyone makes mistakes. I’m sorry.”
Boone smiled.
“Exactly. Dante knows you’re
sorry, and he’ll even forgive you, provided you have something he needs.” “Anything,” Ray-Ray instantly replied. “If he needs it and I got it, it’s his, no
problem.”
“That’s the kind of cooperation I like to see, Ray.” Boone cleared his throat before
continuing. “You have anything to drink
in here?” Ray-Ray hastily filled a
plastic cup with water and handed it to Boone, who downed it in one gulp. “He needs information, Ray,” he
continued. “Where’s the rest of the
money?”
“It was supposed to be there,” Ray-Ray said. “We sold some to some Jamaicans and we were
supposed to collect from them yesterday.
I-I mean, you know how Jamaicans can be flaky with this shit. I sent those dudes to collect.” He pointed over to the four men passed out in
the living room. “I don’t know what
happened.”
Boone laughed for a second and unbuttoned his suit
jacket. “You know, I told Dante the same
thing on the phone just now. You heard
me tell him that you sold it and were waiting for the payout. I did my best to defend you. He seems to be convinced otherwise.” Boone reached into his jacket and swatted
Ray-Ray in the face with the barrel of his gold-plated 9mm, knocking him to the
ground. “He also said you were into him
about fifty grand. Don’t be stupid,
Ray. Where is it?”
“I don’t fuckin’
know!” Ray-Ray said. His eyes widened
and he started to sweat.
Michael was frozen
in place as Boone pointed the gun at Ray-Ray.
“Either you’re lying or you’re an idiot,” Boone said. “In any case, if you don’t cough up the
money, the drugs, or the Jamaicans, you’re useless to Dante.” He clicked off the safety catch. “And useless means dead.”
“Yo, for real, I
don’t know!” Ray-Ray said. He was breathing heavily now, and tears
started to leak from his tightly closed eyes.
“I swear to God, I don’t know nothin’ about what happened!”
Boone pulled the
slide back and took a step away. “Well,
Ray,” he said with a heavy sigh, “that sounds a whole lot like a problem.”
Finally forcing
himself to make a move, Michael slid between Boone and Ray-Ray and shoved Boone
back. “Yo, man,” Michael said, “is you
crazy?”
Boone peeked out at the end of his own gun and smiled coolly
at Michael. “I was just about to ask you
the same thing.”
Michael looked down at Ray-Ray, on the ground with his eyes
shut tight, then at the killer end of Boone’s gold plated nine. His heartbeat grew louder as he felt it crawl
up his throat. He tried his best to
ignore the flight part of the fight or flight response.
Then again, he thought, fighting probably ain’t the best
idea, either.
“Get out of the way, Michael,” Boone said calmly.
“What are you doing, man?” Michael asked, voice quavering. “Are you out of your mind?”
Boone smiled. “You’re
asking me? You’re the one
standing between the gun and the junkie.”
Michael shook his head and took a step toward Boone. “Come on, big man, you know this ain’t
right. He don’t got what you want. Put the gun down.”
Boone reached into his jacket with his free hand and
produced another gold plated nine, pointing it at Michael. “Step aside,” he said, though Michael could
barely hear him over the sound of his heartbeat pulsing through his ears. “Please.
I don’t want to kill you.”
Michael’s body tensed and his fingers went numb. “Yo, what the fuck are you doing?”
“Please,” Boone said, louder and more assertive,
cutting Michael off. “Move.” Michael hesitantly stepped to his left and the
barrel of Boone’s gun followed him.
“Now, as I was saying, Ray-Ray, I need to know where the Jamaicans are.”
Ray-Ray’s eyes were wide and glassy. He took, short shallow breaths as his eyes
darted back and forth between Boone and Michael.
“Ray, wake up,” Boone said.
“I asked you a question.
Jamaicans. Where are they?”
“I don’t know, man,” Ray-Ray whined. “I swear.”
Boone turned the second gun on the crying addict on the
ground and Michael let out an audible sigh of relief, despite himself. He caught himself saying, “Oh thank God,”
involuntarily as his body relaxed.
“That’s not the answer I needed to hear, Ray.”
“It’s the fucking truth, I swear to fucking God. I haven’t seen or heard from them. I thought they was dead or got popped by the
fives.”
“Come on, Ray, stop fucking with me. If you don’t have my money, my dope, or the
information I need, why are we letting you live?” He flipped off the safety catch on the other
gun and used his free fingers to pull the slide back. “You’re useless.” “I’ll get it!”
Boone paused. Michael
was again frozen in place, and for a moment, the only sound in the room was Ray-Ray’s
panicked whimpering. “I’ll get it,” he
said again. “Tell Dante I’ll get it.”
“Get what Ray?” Boone said.
“What are you getting?” “Information. On how to find those motherfuckers. They have Dante’s money. I’ll get it. J-just please, don’t kill me.” Ray-Ray’s words turned into barely
comprehensible sobs. “Just please don’t
kill me, please, please don’t kill me.”
Boone’s finger hovered over the trigger for a couple of
moments before he flipped the safety catches of both guns back on. Ray-Ray let out a sigh of relief and a stream
of urine in his pants as Boone put the guns back in his shoulder holsters. Boone looked over at the still shell-shocked
Michael and nodded. He extended his hand
to Ray-Ray and helped him to his feet.
Ray-Ray shivered as Boone adjusted the man’s tank top and mussed his
matted hair. “Well, damn brother,” he
said in a calm whisper, “that’s all you had to say.”
****************
Boone drove along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway on the way
back, just above the 35 mile-per-hour speed limit. It was almost 10:00 p.m., and the highway was
about as empty as you could expect in New York on a Wednesday night. Boone drove straight and just fast enough to
not slow up traffic. He turned on the
smooth jazz station and drummed his fingers on the wheel, humming along to the
wordless tune that came in over the radio, seemingly oblivious to the chaos
that had just transpired.
Michael sat in the front passenger seat. He hadn’t spoken a word since Boone drew a
gun on him, but his heartbeat was returning to normal, finally. He took a deep breath and gazed over at
Boone, who appeared content – or, rather, as content as Boone ever appeared. He didn’t look like someone who had two men
at gunpoint 20 minutes earlier.
Michael didn’t realize he was staring until Boone cleared
his throat and said, “I hope you don’t think I’m cute.” Michael was jolted out of his daze. “What?”
“It’s a miracle, you can speak,” Boone said dryly. “I thought you went mute on me.”
Michael rolled his eyes and looked out the passenger
window. “Yeah. I’m fine.
I’m all right, considering, you know, you had a gun pointed at me.”
“Come on, now,” Boone said, stifling a laugh. “What that was back there was a classic case
of ‘good cop, bad cop.’ It worked perfectly.”
“You pulled. A
gun. On me.”
“Nothing personal, dog.
Don’t be mad.”
“Nothing personal? I
thought you were gonna shoot me!” Boone
thought about it a moment. “For a
second, I was.” Michael’s heart
stopped for a beat and his eyes gaped.
“Oh relax,” Boone said.
“Stop being such a bitch, will you?
It’s not like I’d have killed you. I’d probably have gotten you in the arm or
something. A flesh wound. I know you got the big fight coming up. You did the smart thing though, and got out
of the way. You let the bad cop do his
job.” Michael hissed through his
teeth. “You’re fucking crazy, you know
that?”
“Like I said, it was nothing personal. It’s just business.”
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