Birth of a Monster

by Daniel Lawlis

  I am well aware that if you do not take immediate action the current newspaper will have already left The Sivingdel Times for its various distribution centers, so if I do not see you outside taking the money within one hour I will notify my assassins that they are to perform their loathsome deeds tomorrow.

  Yours Sincerely,

  A Thousand Eyes and Ears

  Mr. Felden had begun trembling partway through the letter as the inerrant account of the day’s activities had been placed before his face and had almost wet himself by the time the letter was through.

  Fingers trembling, he opened the smaller envelope and began reading the revised headline and article.

  I suppose this could work, he told himself.

  He went outside, telling his attentive family that he just needed a bit of fresh air and alone time to reflect on the gravity of the times they were living in. He hoped he would not find the money. That might mean this person was not as powerful as he claimed, although a shiver that passed through his bones as soon as that thought had been formulated reminded him that the specificity of the information in that letter already precluded the possibility of the author not being the head of a large and powerful gang.

  As he approached the oak tree from the south he could already see a bag by the time he was within ten feet. He reached it, but as he picked up the bag about halfway he immediately began to vomit the entirety of that evening’s meal.

  Underneath the bag, lying on the ground, looking up at him in a ghastly plea, was the severed head of a close acquaintance of his—Chief Lloyd Benson.

  A note was nailed to his forehead:

  He means business!

  Mr. Felden puked some more, but tried to keep it quiet, lest his faithful family come outside to investigate the sudden illness.

  He looked inside the bag. There was a large pile of money, divided into clusters tightly wound in the center by leather. All of the currency units said “1,000 FALONS.”

  Maybe the content of that story is true anyway, he told himself. I’ve always been privately suspicious of the mayor.

  He started walking back to the house and then quickly hid the bag of money underneath his large coat.

  It’s a daring thing you’re doing, but all must be held accountable . . . even a crooked mayor.

  Chapter 25

  “You look a little young to be in here, kid. What’s your name?”

  “Richie.”

  The broad-backed, flat-nosed, ham-fisted hulk bent down and surveyed the young kid, looking like an adult male lion inspecting a new cub.

  “How old are you?”

  “Ten, sir.”

  “Well, let me tell you something, Richie. You don’t step foot in there until you’re at least fourteen and I think you can leave on your own two feet,” the hulk said, pointing to the ring, where two giants were examining each other’s skulls for structural soundness with thundering blows from their thin leather gloves.

  That was just dandy with Richie. He hadn’t wanted to come in here at all, but his dad had dropped him off, pushed him inside, and shut the door behind him, all thanks to a black eye Richie had brought home from school that day, compliments of a class bully. If he had been told he would be denied entrance into that frightening ring until he was twenty-four, he would have gladly accepted the restriction.

  “But that don’t mean things is gonna be easy,” said the hulk, grabbing Richie’s hands and lifting them up towards his chin and then plastering his elbows to his sides with a tight squeeze.

  “Now, no matter what happens, your hands is glued to your chin, and your elbows is glued to your ribs—got it?”

  A terrified Richie nodded.

  The hulk then started throwing some light slaps and jabs at Richie, pulling them just short of contact. Richie, who was used to getting a belting if he failed to follow instructions from his dad, kept his hands and elbows plastered where instructed, although his heart was beating a mile a minute.

  “Not too bad, kid. You listen, and, believe me, that’s worth somethin’ in here.

  “I’m Coach Ryler, and I own this little set of four walls.”

  “Yes, sir,” Richie said.

  “Now, relax your body, but keep those hands and elbows plastered.”

  Richie did as instructed while Ryler grabbed his shoulders.

  “Now, keep your back straight, but allow me to move it sideways.”

  Ryler then tilted Richie’s body slowly to the left and then to the right, noting with satisfaction that Richie’s posture stayed perfectly straight throughout.

  “Not bad, kid. Now, I’m gonna go just a little faster.”

  He began quickly and erratically jerking Richie’s body to the left, then to the right, then twice to the left, then once to the right, and so on in a random fashion.

  Richie’s back stayed straight but flexible at the waist.

  “Well, I’ll be,” said the gruff Ryler, having learned how to spot potential in the most basic of exercises.

  “Now, listen, son. You just do that when you see something coming at your face you wouldn’t like to kiss.”

  Ryler began throwing some controlled jabs and crosses, which Richie quickly moved clear of.

  “There might be a future in this for you, kid, but it takes more than talent. It takes coming in here when you don’t feel like it. It takes coming in here when your friends are out chasing tail—you’ll understand that one when you’re older. It takes coming in here when you’re scared because there’s somebody better than you who just loves pounding your face in, because you know you’ve got a tiger inside and one day you’ll be pounding his face in.”

  Richie just nodded. He had long since learned from his dad the benefits of nodding your head and keeping your mouth closed.

  “Okay, now you do that for two hours. And then you come in here tomorrow and do that for two hours. And if I see you in here every day for the rest of the week at least two hours doing what I just told you, then I just might teach you something new.”

  Ryler gave him a slap on the back, and Richie set to it. And set to it the next day. And—

  “Message delivered,” a konulan said, interrupting Righty from his pleasant daydream. Righty was on Harold’s back many hundreds of feet above ground.

  “Good work, friend,” Righty said.

  Now he just had to wait to see if Mr. Harry Felden came outside to take the money . . . or rather, Harold would have to see it. Righty saw little besides darkness and amorphous shapes below.

  His mind slipped back . . . .

  That Friday, Coach Ryler had approached him grinning.

  “I didn’t think I’d see you on Tuesday much less the rest of the week. Usually, a little praise is all it takes to convince a man or a boy he’s got something licked, and he’ll never practice again. But you’re made of different stuff, aren’t you?”

  Richie nodded more out of fear of contradicting the hulk than genuine belief. He didn’t think it would be helpful to mention that his dad would have belted him if he had failed to come in.

  “Well, I’m a man of my word,” Ryler said, good-naturedly.

  He put Richie into the same defensive stance and said, “Now, relax your knees, keep your back straight, and allow your body to move up and down in a slight circle.”

  Richie nodded, and Ryler held his shoulders, moved him just ever so slightly to the right and then down, back to center, and then straight back up. He repeated the process about ten times and then switched sides.

  “Now, you do that whenever you see somethin’ comin’ at your face you don’t wanna kiss.”

  He then began throwing some hooks towards Richie’s head. First, slow, and then working up to intermediate speed.

  “You’re coming along real swell,” Ryler said.

  “Now, you do that two hours a day, Monday through Friday, for two weeks, and I’ll show you some real fun stuff after that.”

  Richie happily complied, and after two weeks Co
ach Ryler showed him how to spring upwards from that crouch with a left or right hook onto Ryler’s outstretched hands.

  When Richie made Ryler’s leathery old hands sting a tad while he held them out in lieu of the regular boxing mitts, he knew this student had something special. And though little Richie did not know it, he had discovered something special. It was his signature move, and he used it not only defensively but also offensively, using it to fake out his opponent about his next move because he could spring up from that crouch with a nasty straight punch or hook just as easily.

  Ryler had put Richie into the ring at age twelve, rather than fourteen, because he knew by then there was no way he could take Richie’s skill to the next level based on drills alone. That was when Richie had met one of his first big challenges in life: Mike Brewster, better known at the boxing club as Mike the Bruiser.

  The name was no exaggeration. At three years Richie’s senior, he was far stronger and technically superior to boot.

  “This is when your training becomes psychological,” Coach Ryler said to Richie when he caught a few tears escaping from his eyes after a royal beating.

  “You’re strengthening your very soul,” he added.

  Richie nodded. The coach had brought him this far; he trusted him.

  “Technique’s important, kid, but it’s time you started putting on a little muscle. Come this way.”

  Richie followed him over to a rusty, old bar—clothed mostly in leather, but worn through in places. Richie looked up at it, realizing it was out of his reach.

  “Don’t worry, kid,” said Ryler, dragging a chair over to it.

  “Hop up.”

  Richie did so and grabbed onto it.

  “Drop down and pull yourself up as many times as you can.”

  Richie’s trembling toothpick arms managed to pull him up a couple times, and although he made a Herculean exertion, the third rep was outside the realm of possibility.

  “No problem, kid,” said Ryler, grabbing Richie’s feet and giving him some light assistance, which became greater and greater as he brought Richie to his tenth rep.

  “This is your new girlfriend,” Ryler said gruffly. “Spend time with her every day for at least an hour. Rest, then pull. Rest, then pull. Then, one day, Mike Brewster’s going to cringe when he sees you stepping into club, not to mention the ring,” Ryler added laughing.

  Richie took an immediate liking to the old bar and began stopping by an hour before school as well.

  Four years later, Richie was sixteen years old and two hundred pounds, without a speck of fat visible to the naked eye. He did two hundred pull-ups in the morning and three hundred chin-ups in the evening after everyone else left the academy, and he could do eighty reps of either exercise in a single stretch.

  He was also no longer “Richie.” Mike the Bruiser—who was now nineteen and had a respectable record of ten wins and two losses professionally—had first recommended the nickname “Righty” after Richie had caught Mike’s iron-like abs with a vicious right uppercut, making them feel like they were made out of plywood, and causing Mike the Bruiser to double over in pain and drop one knee in a sign of defeat.

  And Coach Ryler’s words had proven prophetic, as Mike the Bruiser looked at Righty Rick in dismay every time he saw him enter the club. Mike had switched clubs after that, claiming he had outgrown the small-town club, and at age seventeen Righty met him in the ring, making his professional debut. Righty had knocked out the frightened Mike with vicious body blows in the first round, after which he moved to another state, assuring himself that—while he still had a bright future ahead of him in boxing—he didn’t ever want to meet Righty Rick in the ring ever again.

  As Righty approached larger and more important fights—while still in high school; those were the good ol’ days; Janie just about swooned every time he glanced in her direction; or so he thought—Ryler sat him down after an evening’s practice and told him: “There are many different kinds of fighters, but amongst good fighters there are two general categories.

  “First, you have your safe fighter. A safe fighter’s goal is not to lose. A safe fighter goes for the decision. He looks for openings and takes careful shots so that he can rack up points. Sure, he’ll go for the knockout occasionally, but only if it’s in the final round, and his opponent serves it to him on a platter. Now, within this category, you have lots of different sub-styles: the jab artist, the footwork specialist, etc.

  “But there’s a second category, and it’s called the killer. The killer doesn’t care about points. For a killer, the object is to send his opponent into a long sleep on the canvas as soon as possible. There are many reasons this category is so rare, but the most important one is that most fighters simply don’t have the killer instinct necessary to hurt another man that badly in so short a time. The other main reason is fear. When you go for the kill immediately, it’s an all-or-nothing game. Either you succeed, or you wear yourself out with missed punches and leave yourself at the mercy of your opponent in the first round.

  “Then, there’s the strength issue. A lot of fighters just don’t have the power to knock a fresh opponent out, whether their punches land or not. Lastly, there’s the technique issue. I’ve seen a few behemoths win for a stretch because of their massive power, but their power made them too lazy to learn the proper technique. Thus, they ultimately end up punching the air against true professionals and getting knocked out once they were winded.

  “But you—you’re a killer. You’ve got it all, Righty. It doesn’t bother you one bit to hurt another man so badly in one or two minutes in front of an audience that you send him to the ground. And you’re not afraid of going for the kill and losing. I’ve seen you miss seven punches in a row and double the guy over with the eighth as calmly as if that was the punch you had been intending to do the job all along. And you’ve got the power. I’m seventy-one years old, Righty. I’ve been doing this a long time, and believe me when I say no one . . . no one punches like you.

  “And finally, you’ve got the technique. Watching you makes me think of descriptions I’ve read of a tiger killing its prey. It’s like seeing art. Your footwork, your head movement, your speed, your deception, your endurance, your timing, your accuracy, your power . . . you’ve got it all. You will transcend boxing one day, Righty, and become a national legend—a symbol of national pride. I just hope you can always properly channel your aggression into boxing. There’s something really violent lurking inside of you. You must always try to control—”

  “He’s taking the money,” Harold said, excitedly.

  Righty slammed his internal diary shut and snapped back to the present.

  “He’s leaving the house . . . quickly on horseback.”

  “In a carriage?”

  “No. I don’t even think he took the time to saddle!” Harold replied.

  “Follow him, but stay high up,” Righty instructed.

  While they monitored the movements of Mr. Felden, Righty’s mind stubbornly insisted on at least wrapping up a few key points from the daydream that had been interrupted.

  Your boxing coach died of a heart attack a year later. Your dad died the next year in a lumberyard accident. Your mom died of tuberculosis, but we both know that came from heartache. You lost your shot at national glory and became a legend only in a local bar in the one-horse town called Ringsetter.

  “The story ain’t over yet,” Righty said out loud, prompting Harold to cock his head to the side. He asked nothing. He knew the scent Righty released whenever he dreamed of his fall.

  It hovered around him almost constantly.

  Chapter 26

  “Who in the hell’s behind this?” thundered the mayor. This was no public speech. This wasn’t even a meeting with his staffers. This was his true inner circle.

  They were inside a luxurious coach, having spent a pleasant evening of dice, fine whiskey, and women, although the gravity of today’s events had
put a bit of a damper on their usually festive atmosphere. Amongst them were a senator, two city councilmen, and a private detective. Outside the coach, a fearsome bodyguard rode on each side, and two armed coachmen guided the horses.

  But there was a very palpable absence—the elephant not in the room, if you will—and that was the chief of police, to whom they so often looked for guidance when trouble with the underworld started.

  The senator, who represented the state of Rodalia, which included the city of Sivingdel, had many links to the mayor, but one of the most relevant at the moment pertained to SISA. The mayor had made a gentleman’s bargain with the senator long ago that if he voted for SISA he would give him a $10,000 flat fee plus a 5% ongoing cut of any kickbacks he got from the chief as the result of taxing the city’s drug peddlers. The chief’s obligation had been to give the mayor 50% of all his kickbacks from whatever revenue he extorted from the drug gangs, and the mayor told him he would see about greasing the palms of whoever else in the city government needed it.

  It had worked splendidly during Heavy Sam’s reign, and even for a brief period thereafter, but once the mysterious Mr. Brass had taken over, a nasty little drought had ensued. Perhaps someone had failed to enlighten the newcomer as to the ways of Sivingdel. So, the mayor had told the chief to spend no longer than three weeks investigating the gang from top to bottom and then to hit them hard and then squeeze out whatever he could from the humiliated, and enlightened, Mr. Brass.