Suckerpunch: (2011) (27 page)

Eddie crossed his legs. “My guess? Knowing Kendall, he just wants to watch you freak out. He wants to put as much pressure on you as possible, and when you fail, he wants to see you crack.”

I couldn’t get my head around it. “How is this a sure thing? I’m not taking a dive. This isn’t a fixed fight.”

“As close as I can get. This isn’t Japan. If I tried to fix a fight at this level here, too many people would sniff it out.”

“What if I win?”

Eddie looked sad for me. “Brah, come on. You’re going to get manhandled out there. We did our best to hype it up as a grudge match, but everyone knows you don’t stand a chance.”

I stopped pacing. Eddie tried to hide beneath the couch cushions, but I wasn’t focused on him. “Will he really kill her?”

Jairo stepped away from the door to listen.

“No doubt,” Eddie said.

We put Benjamin on the couch and smacked him around until he woke.

“He’ll have a headache,” Jairo told Eddie. “Give him ice water and some aspirin.”

Eddie looked skeptical of Benjamin in general.

“Yeah.”

The door opened, and one of the undercard fighters, a lightweight kid named Piper, jumped into the room with soggy tape trailing from his hands. He and his cornermen were hopping up and down and whooping and beating their chests. Piper saw Eddie and froze. “Oh, shit. Hey, Mr. Takanori.”

“Eddie, please. And congrats. Great fight.”

“Thanks, thanks.” Piper looked at our faces and landed back on Eddie’s. “Dude, have you been crying?”

“No. Hey, we have to run, but Benjamin here needs your couch for a few. Just ignore him.”

“No problem,” Piper said. To me: “Good luck out there.”

“Thanks. And congratulations.”

“Hell yeah.”

Jairo and I followed Eddie out the door.

Behind me Piper asked, “Who shit their pants in here?”

Eddie pulled us farther down the hall toward what I hoped was our prep room. People wanted to stop Eddie but resisted the urge when they saw and smelled Jairo. I still stank, but he had wavy lines coming off him. We came to a closed door with my name taped to it.

Eddie faced me and said, “Look, just give a good show. There’s no reason to embarrass yourself.”

“You never answered my question. What happens to Marcela if I win?”

“Man, with Kendall, I have no idea.”

“He told me, win or she’s dead. You say if I win, his bet goes to shit and she’s dead. Which one of us is right?”

“Which one involves more money?”

“So she’s gone either way.”

“I didn’t want to say it.”

Jairo kicked a rack of folding chairs. Parts tinkled onto the concrete floor.

I tried to think it through, find a gap I could get my fingers into and pry.

“I gotta go,” Eddie said.

“Just hold on.”

“Dude, there
is
a live show going on right now.”

“Be quiet and hold still, or I’ll make you eat your hair.”

“Okay. Jesus.”

There had to be a gap. The mess with Chops and Tezo was connected to Kendall, but it was a dead end. Eddie owed Kendall, so he didn’t have any leverage.

But like Eddie said, everybody owes somebody. “Did Kendall pay off all your debt?”

Eddie shrugged. “I didn’t ask. All I know is, I don’t have to wince when I start my car anymore.”

“Call somebody in the Yakuza. Somebody who’ll talk.”

“About what?”

“Kendall and whatever deal he worked out with them.”

“Why?”

I put my nose in his eye. “Just get your goddamn phone out. And first thing, ask if Kendall’s there watching the fights. Maybe these guys are all pals now.”

Eddie looked like he regretted life. He got his phone going and walked a few yards away and stuck a finger in his ear.

I asked Jairo, “You want to go in the room and get everyone caught up?”

“I want to choke this little shit and make him cry some more.” Jairo grabbed the knob.

“Two knocks if that needs to happen. Keep Gil in there, will you? If it’s not too late, I don’t want Eddie holding any grudges against him.”

Jairo nodded and went in. I heard rapid-fire Portuguese before the door closed.

Eddie put his phone in his pocket and walked over. “My guy is pretty low on the org chart—nobody higher up bothers to talk to me anymore—but he said Ken dall didn’t offer cash. He offered a payoff, something big. And everyone is
very
interested in your fight.”

“Was Kendall there?”

“He said no. Why?”

“Because if he was I’d say fuck all you and your bets and go get Marcela.”

“Mm-hmm. That seems unlikely.”

“Maybe to you. So, what, Kendall rolled your deal over to them? Told them to bet big on me to lose?”

“Good a guess as any,” Eddie said. “Or put his own money down, with some of the winnings going to them.”

“Why didn’t you make them the same offer?”

“Man, I do that, they’ll want a say in everything. Pretty soon we’d have a straight-up judo guy who doesn’t speak a lick of English wearing the heavyweight belt.” He shook his head. “No, I gotta have a buffer between them and the sport. Even if it’s an asshole like Kendall.”

I chewed on it all until Eddie said, “Seriously, dude, I have to go. Are we good?”

I gave him a look that made his eyelashes curl.

“Okay, no, then. I’ll come see you after the fight. We’ll get this figured out, yeah?” He was twenty feet away with his back to me by the time he was done talking. Suits and production staff swarmed him, and he was gone.

I was alone.

I took a breath. When you game-plan for a fight, there are two ways to go. One way is to play into your opponent’s style and try to beat him at his own game. If he’s a puncher, punch harder and faster. Grappler, take him down and tear him apart. It works sometimes. Other times, people wonder what the hell you were thinking on the way to getting knocked or choked out.

The other way is to know his plan and do everything you can to turn it upside down and inside out from the beginning. Get him off balance, lost. Throw his shit out the window. Make him think about what to do next while you split his face open and crack his ribs.

Now I knew Kendall’s plan: he needed me to lose.

Was counting on it.

I opened the door and Gil was right there. “Woody, Jesus, we—what’re you smiling about?”

“I want to get in a fight.”

Gil closed the door behind me. A shirtless Jairo was speaking in Portuguese, his left hand flying all over the place miming assault rifles and bad driving while Javier and Edson tried to hold him still so they could poke at his wound.

There was a TV on a rolling cart showing the live broadcast. The camera zoomed in on Eddie glad-handing on the way to his seat. Somewhere between the hallway and there he’d changed suit coats.

Gil said, “You two smell like shit farmers. Did he get shot?”

“Yeah, listen. I just talked to Eddie. He and Kendall—”

“Does it change the game plan?”

“No. Wait, kind of. I don’t have to win by knockout anymore.”

“No shit? So now you can use your stellar jiu jitsu to win. Tell me the rest later. Get your ass in the shower; I’ll go find the doctor to clear you. Hey.” Gil pulled me around to face him. “Where you at?”

“I’m here.”

“Shaky?”

“No.”

“You can’t take her in there with you. Remember what we drilled, what we worked on. You stop to think about it, it’s already over.”

I nodded.

“Showers are through there.”

I took as much time as I could in the hottest water I could stand. The blood came off easy, but I had to spend some time on my feet getting rid of the grime from the pit. I felt pretty good. Great, in fact. With no one pointing a gun at me or trying to drown me, I had time to think about what I had to do: destroy Burbank.

After the weigh-ins, the Burbank fight had become personal. All the smack talk and will-imposing aside, he and I truly did not like each other. But with everything that had happened since then, the grudge with Burbank seemed about as personal as automated phone sex.

Fine by me. It’s hard to fight professionally and personally at the same time. It clouds things, makes you slow. Now there was no more confusion about who bet on what and why. Everything was condensed to what happened in the cage, where I lived. It was time to punch the clock and do my job.

That simple.

Right. Like touching the back of my head with my foot.

I toweled off and got into my cup and shorts, which still smelled like fabric softener, so I spent a few precious moments with them pressed against my face to combat the stench Tezo’s pit had lodged in my palette.

Edson poked his head around the corner and caught me inhaling. He looked concerned. I nodded at him and he vanished.

Jairo walked in a few seconds later for his turn in the shower carrying rolls of gauze and tape and a tube of antiseptic ointment. “If Eddie is right, if it doesn’t matter what you do in the fight—”

“It matters.”

“How?”

“Kendall said something to me about chess. This whole thing with Eddie and the Yakuza—the bets and debts, his entire strategy to come out on top—depends on me losing. If I lose the fight, he’s free to do whatever he wants. And you and I know that means she’s gone. If I win, the only piece he has left is Marcela, and he can’t throw that away. She’ll be his insurance.”

Jairo didn’t like it. “I don’t like it.”

“It’s the best we got.”

“What if you’re wrong?”

“I’m not.”

“How do you know?” he asked.

“Because I can’t be.”

The doctor was waiting for me in the prep room. He was a young, skinny guy, looked like he did a lot of running. He listened to my heart and lungs and went through the usual stuff, making sure I could see and hear and didn’t have any preexisting cuts or broken bones. He took a long look at my lumpy eyebrows and leaned in close to frown at some scrapes on my knuckles. I held my breath.

“These look like they’re on their way to infection. Hit them with some alcohol and ointment after the fight.” He told me good luck and had me sign something and took off.

Gil rooted around in his giant bag and came out with my gloves and some focus mitts. “Glove up. Let’s get you loose.”

I shook my arms and rolled my head. “I’m already loose.”

“Shut up and get over here.”

I strapped the gloves on and followed him over to the mats.

He clapped the mitts together and said, “One-two, easy to start.”

I relaxed into my stance and let the right jab out and the left cross follow.

“Nice, sharp,” Gil said. “Javier, get warm. We’re gonna do some sprawls after this. Woody, keep your chin down.” He swatted at my head with the left mitt to prove his point. “Get behind that shoulder.”

I knew what he was doing and it worked. He wanted to keep me focused on the technique and let muscle memory run the show, get me out of my head and live in my hands for a while. My body was one piece, the punches flowing all the way up from my toes. Good rhythm, power and snap.