Homemade Sin (34 page)

Dutch landed the first blow, a jab to The Germ's chin. The Germ took the punch and sent a return roundhouse punch wide, barely missing The Cleanser's nose. The two fighters clinched, pushed each other away and circled. Seconds later The Germ stunned Dutch with a left jab to the face that sent him reeling, staggering back toward his corner.

Bella watched Dutch stumble, stop, turn and face The Germ again. She waited until he looked in her direction. Catching his staring eyes, she shook the doll at him like a bulldog with a sock. Dutch focused past The Germ, saw the doll and went pale. As Dutch stood, frozen, Bella reached into her pocket and retrieved a ketchup packet she had picked up at one of the food kiosks on the way to the ring.

The Germ saw his opportunity: Dutch stood immobile, defenses down. The Germ stepped into an uppercut that caught Dutch on the bridge of his nose. In The Germ's corner Bella tore off the corner of the ketchup packet with her teeth  and squirted the ketchup on the doll's face. A thin trickle of blood ran from a cut above Dutch's nose. The referee stepped in between the fighters and pointed the Germ toward his corner, while he examined Dutch's nose. Blood was flowing freely from the gash, forming rivulets round his mouth, converging on his chin and dripping onto the canvas. The bell rang as the referee directed Dutch to his corner.

Dutch's manager immediately reached for an anticeptic wipe and held it toward Dutch's nose.

Dutch snatched the wipe from his manager's hand and casually wiped the blood away. When the manager held out a plastic bag for Dutch to deposit the wipe Dutch ignored it and tossed the wipe on the floor.

Dutch's manager was dumbfounded. Normally, Dutch would be freaking out at the sight of his own blood, demanding antiseptic, iodine, myriad anti-bacterial remedies. And he threw the wipe on the floor!

“Cut me,” Dutch demanded.

“What?” his trainer said. “Cut you? “You're terrified of blades, needles … actually any sharp objects, blood and germs, what's gotten into you?”

“Cut me,” Dutch said again, emphatically.

The trainer reached into a canvas bag and removed a sterilized razor blade. While Dutch stared straight ahead, stoically, the manager made a small incision in the cut and swabbed it with a styptic pencil to stop the bleeding.

As his manager held a bloody towel to Dutch's nose, the bikinied ‘round girl' stepped back in the ring carrying a card that said ‘Round Two'.

When the bell rang Dutch snatched the towel from the manager's hands, tossed it into the crowd and charged the Germ. He connected to The Germ's chin with a right that snapped his opponent's head back. Two more quick rights and a piston-like left knocked The Germ's head back again and again and his feet back-peddled.

The Germ was dazed and reeling.

Dutch advanced, throwing alternate rights and lefts at will. He landed shots to The Germ's head and his chest. The Germ was on the ropes; his arms fell to his sides as Dutch connected again and again with jackhammer punches.

The Germ, his hands up to protect his face, was buckling under the volley of punches, slipping down to his knees.

At the Fugu Lounge Tony smiled at Roland and held up his empty beer mug nodding at the screen. “Looks like you were wrong about ‘The Cleanser,'” he said with a smug look on his face. “More importantly, I was right.”

“It ain't over until it's over,” Roland said. He pulled a fresh frosted mug from the bar freezer for Tony.

Hussey was staring at the screen, as the camera focused on The Germ sinking to the canvas. Behind him she saw Bella smile as she removed an obscenely large knitting needle from the somewhere in her hair.

“Oh no!” Hussey gasped as Bella jammed the needle into the doll's hand.

Dutch bellowed in pain and stared at his right hand as if a horrible pain was shooting through it. He shook it in the air like a fluttering bird as The Germ went down on one knee. Dutch let his right hand fall limply to his side and wound up to deliver the coup de grâce to his opponent with his left.

The camera panned down to get a shot of The Germ's face as he slid to the canvas. The lens caught Bella, on her feet in Dutch's corner, holding the doll in one hand, a needle sticking through its hand. Bella removed another huge knitting needle from her hair and as Dutch drew back to land the finishing blow, Bella plunged the needed into the stomach of the doll. Dutch stopped in mid-punch, grabbed his stomach with both hands, bent double and fell to his knees.

Bewildered, the referee stared, then stepped over to where Dutch was curled into a fetal position on the canvas. The Germ was getting his breath back and pulling himself up with the help of the ropes. He staggered to his feet and stood over Dutch, puzzled.

The referee shrugged and started a ten count.

“Get up, get up!” screamed Dutch's trainer from the corner. “He never laid a hand on you!”

“Get up, get up!” shouted Cutter and Dee Dee from Dutch's corner. They were jumping up and down and grabbing onto the ropes.

“Get up, get up!” yelled Tony, launching his substantial girth up from his seat at bar and in the process knocking over his beer.

The referee finished his ten-count and waved his arms in a crossing motion indicating that Dutch was out. He stepped over to The Germ and lifted his right arm in the air declaring him the winner.

Bella could be seen behind the referee, doing a happy dance in The Germ's corner. A thin olive-skinned man with a prominent roman nose was standing beside her. She abruptly stopped her dance and held out her hand while the man placed a stack of money in it. Bella hugged him and stuffed the cash into her pocket. The man hunched his shoulders and slunk off.

“Cutter is so fucked,” Tony said under his breath as Roland, with a wide smile, wiped the spilled beer from the bar, and refilled Tony's beer mug.

In the TV room at the Sons of Sicliy Italian Club, Vito Viagra turned to Gino the Greeter and shook his head, “Tony is so fucked.”

“How could he lose?” Cutter said to Dee Dee as he drove across the Howard Franklin Bridge between Tampa and Saint Petersburg. “We did everything right, zombies aren't supposed to lose. And now he's in a coma, I wonder if there's a Hallmark card for zombies in comas? Something like, ‘I'm truly sorry that you're undead, hope you're soon up and out of bed.'”

Dee Dee was fuming in the passenger seat as she stared out at the turquoise water of Tampa Bay. “You're such a re re,” Dee Dee said. “He shouldn't have lost, unless we screwed up with the zombie powder or somebody did something to him. The other guy didn't even hit him, he just toppled over. It was so weird.”

“I think we did the voodoo thing right. Maybe it was Bella.” Cutter cocked his head, considering the possibility. “She was sitting in the other fighter's corner, rooting for him and sticking pins in that voodoo doll.”

“Bella?” Dee Dee was now interested in what Cutter was saying.

“Yeah, she used to work for Mama Wati, the old lady who taught Hussey voodoo. She blackmailed me into getting Hussey's voodoo book for her. I don't know why she was rooting for the other fighter. I told her we were turning Dutch into a zombie.”

“Jesus,” Dee Dee said under her breath, “you really
are
almost retarded.”

When Dee Dee and Cutter arrived in the parking lot of the Santeria hotel they found it packed with dogs and dog owners. Hussy was standing in the middle of a crowd of canines waving her arms, trying to shoo the pooches away.

“What's with all the doggies?” Dee Dee stopped to ask Hussey on her way to the lounge.

“The damned St. Petersburg Beach Times strikes again,” Hussey said and thrust a folded newspaper into Dee Dee's hands.

“I'll read it over a drink. I really need one.” Tucking the folded newspaper under her arm, Dee Dee drifted off into the lounge with Cutter in tow.

“Please heal my dog,” a man in the crowd begged Hussey, “he has a harelip.” As if on cue the black lab beside him began to bark, well, not exactly ‘bark'. The sound he made was more like ‘mark, mark, mark.'

“Find him a new owner,” Hussey said. “Someone who appreciates him for what he is, maybe someone named Mark that would like a dog that can say his name.”

“My poodle is depressed,” boomed a bouffanted woman who resembled a Mary Kay Cadillac: large, pink and shiny.

“The poor thing is wearing a rhinestone jacket and a tiara,” Hussey said. “And what's around its neck? A Fendi purse? Hell, I'd be depressed too. She's a dog, not a fashion statement. Take that crap off her and she'll be happier.”

“My Weimaraner is an elitist snob,” shouted a dreadlocked man in a Che Guevara t-shirt and hemp sandals.

“That's a thousand-dollar puppy you got there,” Hussey said, “and he probably knows it, so of course he is going to feel superior to you. Either try to live up to your dog's expectations or give him to a nice Republican family.”

“My Irish Setter has a drinking problem,” slurred a ginger haired man with florid gin blossoms on his cheeks.

“And where does he get the alcohol? You need thumbs to open the liquor cabinet.”

The man looked sheepish.

“Stop giving your doggie booze and he won't have a drinking problem.” Hussey sighed. “At least limit his drinking to Saint Patrick's Day.”

“My German Shepherd keeps occupying other people's yards,” said a man in red swim trunks and a red tank top that said ‘Lifeguard' in large, white letters. The man looked a lot like David Hasselhoff. “Adolph has taken over most of the yards on the block, the French poodle next door is terrified and the English bulldog on the next block is starting to get nervous.”

“When Adolph occupies the Polish deli around the corner, get back to me,” Hussey said.

“My Dalmatian is insane,” said a man dressed in a T-shirt emblazoned with the insignia of a local fire department.

“All Dalmatians are insane,” Hussey said. “Get used to it.”

“Look people,” Hussey shouted over the din of the milling mob. “I helped a couple of dogs … one was a working dog that had a traumatic experience and couldn't work. The other one was near death. Your dogs are spoiled and they're a reflection of you. Take your dogs home; give them healthy food and lots of exercise; spend time with them; reward them when they are good; discipline them when they are bad. Love them for what they are.”