Knockout

“And I know who’s behind it.”

“Bonita?”

“Has to be. You know, Crystal keeps going on and on about Tony Perrone and Bonita joining forces to take over our fighters, and she says they have something on Terry Keenan. They want him to go down in round five. She said she heard them. She’s got this whole conspiracy thing going on.”

“Yeah, but she thinks she was alien-abducted during puberty.”

“I know. But she says she heard them.”

“Why would Perrone mess with Bonita? I mean, sure, allow the fights to be held at the Majestic, but get involved? Get his hands dirty?”

“I don’t know.” I suddenly doubted the whole thing. “Maybe Miguel did just have an off night.”

“Let’s just go home and think about all this before we go confronting Keenan—or Miguel.”

“All right. I feel sick to my stomach, anyway. What a lousy night.”

The two of us had ridden to the Las Vegas Metro-dome arena in Deacon’s Mercedes. We drove out of the city of Las Vegas toward our home. I planned to try to get Crystal to think harder about exactly what she’d heard happening in Tony Perrone’s office.

As we drove into our gated community, the houses sparkled with their outdoor lights twinkling beneath the Nevada sky. Deacon had taken his boxing earnings and endorsement deals he and my father did—a series of commercials for razors, and a popular one for Cadillac—and invested it all in Vegas real estate before the big boom hit. He had enough to live on in style for the rest of his life.

My uncle and father pretty much raised me together. Deacon never married nor had children, so it seemed as if I was his just as much as my dad’s, the way he doted on me. He never fell for fast women and phony friends.

My father, on the other hand, had no phony friends but loved cheap women. He was saddled with me as a full-time father when my mother, whom he married in a Vegas quickie wedding, decided to divorce him equally quickly after I was born, leaving me behind, and moving to Hollywood with a B-movie producer she met while cocktail waitressing. I don’t remember her, and frankly, I never missed having a mother, except when it was time to buy my first bra. Deacon and my father stood in the department store arguing over whether I should get the sexy black one (my choice—I wanted a boyfriend), plain white cotton one (Deacon’s choice) or the sports bra (Dad’s choice).

“Deacon, maybe we should have Big Jimmy around for Crystal. Just in case all this stuff she’s saying is true.”

Deacon nodded. I could tell he was still thinking about Miguel.

Big Jimmy was our cornerman and a former motorcycle club member. He was also Crystal’s last boyfriend before Tony Perrone. He still loved her, I think.

As we pulled into our driveway, Deacon said, “I forgot to turn on the outside lights.”

“Light’s on upstairs,” I said, nodding at my bedroom window.

Deacon parked the car, and we got out and walked up to the front door.

“Christ,” I whispered. “It’s open a little.”

An uneasy feeling settled over me, and I looked at Deacon. Then we cautiously stepped inside. Two goons stood in the foyer, holding Destiny, who was kicking and clawing like a feral cat.

Deacon punched the one without Destiny powerfully in his sternum, sinking him to his knees with a loud grunt. I took aim at the other one, but he held Destiny up in front of him. She shrieked—loudly.

The goon Deacon punched was now leaning forward, almost to the floor, clutching his gut and gasping. I grabbed the brass lamp from the front hallway table and brought it down on his head. Then I turned and kicked the other guy in the balls. He doubled over for a second, then popped up madder than before. Sticking Destiny under one arm like a sack of flour, he reached out with his fist and tried to punch me in the face, managing to land a strong blow on my forehead.

But I didn’t spend my life in boxing gyms for nothing.

I held both my hands up in a boxer’s stance and ducked from his next blow. Then I delivered my own right hook to his jaw. Swinging around with my left, I connected with his nose, which spurted blood as he screamed in pain. He dropped Destiny, and I scooped her up.

Boxing is a sport of kings. And gentlemen. Apparently, no one told him the rule about fighting fair, because he withdrew a semiautomatic from a holster at his waist and fired several rounds as I dived for cover into the den and overturned the coffee table to protect Destiny and me. She was screaming again. Deacon tackled the gunman. The guy on the ground stirred and rose unsteadily to his feet.

“Give up the kid, and you won’t get hurt,” he shouted out.

“Fuck you!”

“One more chance…then you will get hurt. All we want is the kid.”

Destiny looked up at me and clutched my arm.

I was trapped. I knew they would come into the den and shoot me unless Deacon overpowered them both. I heard fighting, the sounds of fists against flesh, and I peeked over the table. The guy with the gun was now on the floor, courtesy of my uncle, his gun clattering across the hardwood.

“Wait here,” I whispered to Destiny. Then I took a brass urn and hurled it, catching the second guy in the head. I leaped from behind the table and screamed, “Get out!” at the top of my lungs, rushing up to him and kicking him in the stomach. Deacon was fighting the second guy as if it was a title match. The bad guys fought back, blow for blow, but Deacon definitely wore them down, and I was hurling anything I could at their faces. Eventually they backed out the door and ran to their car. Deacon and I decided not to give chase, and instead came over to Destiny.

“You okay?”

She nodded, and I picked her up and handed her to Deacon so he could hold her tight and calm her. He shushed her and rocked her gentle as a teddy bear. I remembered when he used to do that for me.

“Crystal?” I looked at Deacon in a panic and went running up the staircase.

I prayed she was cowering in my bedroom, though I couldn’t imagine her giving up Destiny without a fight. I went to my room and pushed open the door.

She was in my bedroom, all right. With a tourniquet around her arm and a needle hanging out, her big blue-green eyes staring straight up at the ceiling.

Rob looked at me as I finished telling him everything that happened. “You know, I could have dated a schoolteacher, a nurse, a librarian. Someone with a nice, quiet profession. But no, you have to be involved with the most crooked sport on the planet.”

“Deacon and I aren’t crooked.”

“No. But my guess is after tonight, you’re both as good as dead.”

Chapter 2

Rob called 911, and while we waited, we got our stories straight. Yes, Destiny had been at the house that afternoon, but she wasn’t there now. Perhaps they should begin their search with Tony Perrone.

“See,” I said to Rob. “Tony has the money to pursue custody. Crystal never named Destiny’s father, so he’s the closest thing she’s got to one. But, on the other hand, he may be the one who murdered Crystal.”

“Now, wait a minute. She’s got a bag of heroin up there and a needle hanging from her arm. Those two guys may have been up to no good, but they didn’t murder her.”

“Don’t you watch Law and Order, CSI?”

“No. I have too much to do keeping track of my fiancée to watch TV.”

“Girlfriend.”

“Fiancée. You accepted the ring. It’s just a long engagement, given we don’t want a wedding at the state penitentiary.”

“No. He has to walk me down a real aisle.”

“Fine. Let’s just call you my girlfriend for the moment, okay? So what are you saying? That they forced her to do heroin? Come on, Jack. This was just a bad scene all around.”