Spirit of a Champion (Sisters of Spirit #7) (18 page)

“It wasn’t an accident,” Kyle told him.

“Oh, no. That’s terrible. Why are you going ahead with the
fight? I wouldn’t give those gamblers, or whoever did it, the satisfaction of
having won.”

The old man looked genuinely upset, and Kyle smiled at him.
“She’s okay, Arne. Just hiding out for awhile.”

“She is? Really?”

“Really.”

“How do you know this?”

“I just left her.”

“You did?”

“Yes. And you were right, Arne. She is very much worth knowing.”

“I still say, she was trying to trick you,” said Leon, as he
walked into the locker area, a stack of papers in his hand.

Kyle slipped his hands into his gloves, wondering why Leon was
there. “I know better.”

“Just remember my words when Jerry starts pounding on you.”

“What do you need?” Kyle asked, for usually his manager was out
handling the media and not back here.

“What do I tell the sports reporters after you win? I know you
had mentioned one or two fights more.”

“Maybe one more. Tell them I’ll let them know when I’m retiring.
It’ll be soon. I don’t want to keep coming out of retirement to fight. I want
to quit while my health and mind is still unaffected.”

“You’ve got a following who wants you to continue.”

“They aren’t in the ring, taking a beating. They’ll find someone
else.” Just like he had found Stormy. He was ready to drop prize fighting all
together and take up some of her causes. As long as he was with her, he didn’t
care what he did. Together, they’d make quite a team.

“I’ll tell ‘em.” Leon left
the room and Arne tied on Kyle’s gloves.

Stormy stood in Kyle’s hotel room, transformed into granny, her
suitcase packed and ready to go. Hugo had just called her and she waited for
his four sharp raps on the door.

The fight was almost ready to begin, so she and Hugo should be
able to leave the hotel easily. There, two quick raps followed by two more. She
opened the door and stepped out into the hall.

Hugo was dressed in black, his cocky attitude on full display,
and Stormy understood why he had won her cousin’s heart. He reached up and
adjusted her wig and they walked down the hall and waited at the elevator. The
door opened, and three thugs stepped out.

They started to walk down the hall, then one of them said
something and they all stopped and turned around.

Hugo stepped up to meet them. “Stormy! Run.”

The elevator was set to open and close slowly, so that even the
most elderly had time to get off and on. Stormy didn’t bother to get in it, but
instead ran down the stairwell, knowing it was faster. On the second floor, she
spotted a room being cleaned and ducked inside.

She pulled off her granny wig, figuring it would hinder her,
walked rapidly down the hall and slipped out a side entrance. The back parking
lot looked fairly vacant of people and she walked rapidly across it and into
the casino where the prize fight was taking place.

She still had the tickets in her purse, so she went in and sat
next to Amy, figuring no one could get her there with all the cameras on her.

Amy nearly fainted. “Stormy. I heard you were dead!”

“People keep saying that. Mistaken identity, Amy.”

She looked up. From her ringside seat, she could see Kyle as
well as he saw her.

How was Hugo? Three against one were not odds she would want and
she looked nervously around to see if he had followed her in. She had run
because he had told her to. Should she have stayed and tried to help him?

She would probably have ended up being a hostage to be used
against him—like happened in the movies. She knew nothing about fighting,
and as she had turned the corner into the stairwell, she had glanced back.

Hugo was still on his feet, but one of their attackers was on
the floor and another doubled over. The third had pulled a knife.

Should she call the police?
She wished there was someone she could ask.

Kyle frowned. He had seen Stormy come into the seating area. She
wasn’t wearing her granny wig and Hugo was nowhere in sight. What had happened
to change their plans?

He took a right cross to the jaw that just about decked him.

Jerry was fighting as if they hadn’t talked last night. Leon
might be right. Maybe that was why Stormy was here—to see her brother
win.

It couldn’t be. He pushed the thought away. He had doubted her
once. He was not going to do it again. Not after that marathon swim across the
lake. Leon had heard wrong.

Kyle backed off from Jerry and looked over at Stormy. He would
never leave her. He would never doubt her.
If he lost this fight, it didn’t
matter.
Let
Jerry win.

He punched Jerry on the chin and saw him waver, and he wondered
if the chin would be okay to hit. It should be. The soft spots would be on the
brain. At the same time he saw Stormy wince, as if the blow had hit her.
Between brother and sister, he was barely hitting Jerry at all.

Then Jerry increased his flurry of punches. Kyle backed away
from Jerry and they danced around the ring for a second. Jerry dove in at him,
fists flying and he knocked them away, protecting himself while at the same
time landing blows of his own. Body blows.

Jerry came closer, clenching with him. “Round two,” Jerry
whispered. “We’ll give them at least one round.”

“Two,” he said. Could he believe him? Stormy winced every time
he hit Jerry, and he kept pulling his punches to the head. Body blows were different,
and he let them land hard. Jerry handled them fine.

The bell rang and he went back to his corner.

“What’s going on?” Arne asked handing him a drink. “You’re
giving him time to recover.”

“Just giving people their money’s worth. I’m making it last a
little while.” He wouldn’t have to guess about Jerry too much longer.

He glanced over at Stormy. She kept looking behind her, up the
isle, wringing her hands. Had something happened to Hugo? He should be with
her, guarding her. Kyle saw her take out her cell phone and speak into it. She
nodded. Hung up.
Hugo?

The bell sounded and he and Jerry faced off again. Jerry looked
okay, but he wasn’t bothering to protect his head like he should, so Kyle
jabbed him in the face. That brought Jerry’s hands up, so he looked more like
he was boxing correctly.

They danced around a few seconds, then he punched Jerry, a right
jab to the jaw, not very hard, and Jerry went down.

Kyle saw the stricken look on Stormy’s face. She was worried,
even though he had told her the plan. He walked over to his corner and waited.

The referee counted to ten before Jerry started to get up, fell
back and then got up again. It was pretty good acting. Hopefully it was just
acting.

Just then Hugo joined Stormy ringside. She smiled and said something
to him. He smiled and waved his hand as if to chase away her fears.

Relieved, Kyle walked to the center of the ring as Jerry headed
towards his corner. The referee lifted Kyle’s hand as the championship belt was
placed around him and people cheered. He was glad it was over. Stormy was
smiling and Hugo was next to her. He figured Hugo could take care of her in the
crowd, although now that the fight was over, she probably wasn’t in any more
danger.

A sudden, collective gasp went over the crowd, and the room
turned silent. Kyle looked around to see what happened and realized that Jerry
had collapsed.

He tried to get to him, but the doctor was there first. Stormy
was holding Amy and staring at him, her stricken expression telling him he had
failed. If Jerry died, would she ever forgive him?

He had been so sure that this would work. Why hadn’t he pursued
the idea of demanding that his doctor examine Jerry? Why had he thought he
could do it this way?

As he looked out on the crowd, he saw Leon giving a discreet
thumbs up to someone...a well-known gambler, who smiled and returned Leon’s
signal. So that was why Leon had told him Stormy was trying to trick him. His
anger built. He’d deal with him shortly.

He glanced back to his corner. Arne was picking up the gear and
getting ready to leave, seemingly unaware of what was happening. Arne probably
wasn’t involved. He was not a wheeler-dealer like Leon was.

The announcer was trying to talk to him, but Kyle shook him off.
“Later,” he said.

They were bringing in a stretcher, and he was momentarily
forgotten. Good.

He climbed through the ropes. With Arne following, he pushed his
way through the murmuring crowd to his dressing room.

 Once there, he held out his hands for Arne to take off the
gloves.

“What happened?” Arne said. “You weren’t hitting him that hard.”

“We’ll find out,” Kyle said, his stomach churning. Jerry hadn’t
said he was going to continue acting like he’d been hurt. It must be real.

If Jerry died, it was all over. He’d lost Stormy. She wouldn’t
want to marry the man who killed her brother.

At that moment, Leon raced in, all smiles. “Great fight, Champ,”
he said, giving Kyle a thump on the back.

Kyle glared at him, disgusted. “You’re fired.”

“What?” Leon’s change of expression was almost funny.

“I told you when I hired you, I’d have no dealing with
gamblers.”

“Now look...”

“No, you look. I’ll have you black-listed so no one else will
hire you. You won’t even be able to manage a car lot. Get out of here.” Kyle
released all his built-up anger and worry and doubt upon Leon.

Arne’s face was one of complete bafflement. He looked at Kyle
for an answer.

“He’s got a deal with the devil—the head gambler he said
he’d never do business with,” Kyle told Arne, then turned back to Leon. “Get
out. Now.”

After Leon left, Kyle hastily showered and pulled on his
clothes. The doctors would need some time to stabilize Jerry, so he knew he
would not get any information right away.

He shrugged into his jacket. “Arne, go celebrate. You did a
super job of getting me ready, as usual.”

“Where you going?”

“To see Jerry. I’ve never killed anyone before, and I hope I
haven’t now.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” Arne said.

It reminded Kyle of what he’d said to Stormy. He knew better, of
course. He could have just refused to fight Jerry.
Why hadn’t he?

He grabbed his wallet and hurried out of the room, barreled past
the waiting media crowd with their microphones, and ran down the long white
tunnel to the outside stage door. He knew where the main Las Vegas hospital
was, and he drove there as soon as he got his car.

“Jerry Drake?” he asked the front desk lady.

The pleasant-looking woman smiled and said in a soft, calming
voice which she must use on hundreds of people, “Are you a relative?”

“No. He’s a boxer. I was the one he was fighting.”

“Oh. Well, he’s being examined. You’ll have to wait. I think his
family is with him.”

“Is he still alive?”

“Yes. At least he was when we admitted him.”

Kyle let out his breath, which he realized he’d been holding,
and sat down in the waiting room. The TV was set to a news channel and it
showed the last few minutes of the fight, then Jerry going down. Getting up.
Going down again.

It looked pretty bad.

He sat there for quite awhile before he realized he still had
the cellphone that Hugo had given him. He dialed the number.

“Hugo? How is he?”

“He’s fine. Where are you?”

“In the waiting area. They wouldn’t let me come in. What
happened?”

“The doctor examined Jerry and found the soft spots. Jerry had
the doctor call in the boxing commissioners. He explained that he still had one
more fight to his contract and that there was no medical clause. Well, the
boxing commissioners assured him that they would get hold of his contract
immediately and make it null and void. They told him they don’t want a death at
one of their fights. And they apologized to Stormy. They are going to make sure
those promoters can’t put on any more events. They said they will take all
their contracts away.”

“Wonderful. How is Stormy?”

“Just fine and dandy,” a female voice said behind him.

He spun around. Stormy was there, with Hugo. “Thanks to you,”
she added.

Relieved, he caught her to him, and she kissed him.
Home run!

Hugo smiled, looking like a benevolent older brother. “Jerry
faked the collapse. It forced the doctor to examine him, publicly. The doctor
said that if you had hit him harder, he'd be dead. He can’t quite figure out
how he survived fighting you. But Jerry is officially retired.”

“Wonderful,” Kyle said. “I’m retiring, too. I came too close to
killing someone. When I started boxing I was young and realistic, I thought all
I had to do was fight strong and win and that was all there was to it. Now I
realize what a mess it can be...corrupted, with my manager involved with
gamblers. Besides I don’t want to fight my brother-in-law.”