I walk for a long while. It takes some time for the deadbeats and derelicts to fade away and a decent supply of cabs to appear. It seems like you can walk forever in this city and still be nowhere.
I finally hail a cab and hop in the back. I put my hand to my face, trying to wipe away the sweat and frustration of my encounter with the boxer and his trainer. I couldn’t care less what Lester decides to do. He’s buzzard meat either way. I feel something poke me in the chest. I look at the inside pocket of my jacket and discover the nuisance: a well-fattened envelope. Things got so heated back there I forgot to give Lester the courtesy of hearing Count’s counteroffer. Why would Lester listen to me? After I left, I’m sure Mike convinced him to go through with their original plans. It would be a shame to let such an opportunity pass me by. I hold the envelope in my hand, weighing my options.
“Hey.” The driver cocks his head toward me without turning around. “Where you going, man?” He has a Spanish accent. Rosary beads hang from his rearview mirror.
I put the envelope back inside my jacket. “Where would one go to find a bookmaker?”
“Que? Los bookies? You wanna make a bet, man?”
“That’s right.”
He looks out the window at passing traffic and then looks at me through the rearview mirror. “Look, I don’t speak English so good. You know?”
I know his game, so I retrieve some money from the envelope. “Among other things,” I say handing him the money, “Benjamin Franklin was a pretty good translator. You know?”
When I get back to the hotel, Gant informs me that Martin isn’t feeling well and that our meetings have been canceled for the day. This gives me some free time, so I decide to see how Candy would like to spend it. But when I knock on her door, she does not answer.
I’m glad I stayed in my room tonight. Just cigarettes and a bottle of Thunderbird—hobo’s lemonade. I need some time alone to convince myself that I am not mad about Candy’s disappearance. I have a mind to go over to her room and break the door down to see if she’s still breathing.
Who am I kidding?
That sinister guesswork is only a salve for my ego. She’s probably out there trying to become a star. Isn’t that how it happens? Country girl with neon ambitions comes to Hollywood, and a handsome movie star dazzles her with celluloid promises. Probably having cocktails right now with Belafonte—no, Poitier—she likes them stony and mysterious.
Yeah, Atlanta ain’t Hollywood, and I brought her here.
I hear a deep resonant voice out in the hall. It sounds familiar. I make my way over to the door, open it, and peer out. All I see is a girl walking away. I can’t see her face, but I can tell, just by that walk, that she is beautiful. She seems to be wearing a wig—too blond and stiff to be real. She holds her high heels with two fingers hooked inside, and her stockings are now a sheer scarf draped across her neck. My door creaks and catches her attention, but I close it before she sees me.
The hallway air makes me realize the smoke is piling up. I need to air out the room. The window opens to reveal a fire escape and the back of a building that’s painted completely black; everything, including the windows, is coated with black paint.
It’s a familiar setting. I’ve seen it in the movies. The weary hero retreats to a fire escape like this one to smoke, to think, and to retrieve wisdom. Always at night, he hovers above the city on an iron cloud, contemplating the chaos and cruelty down below.
I want to go out there, so I put a chair close to the window and put my bad leg out first, followed by my good leg, using it to pull my behind over the sill. I reach out to the railing and pull myself up. Exhausted with my efforts, I reach for my cigarettes—but I left the damned things inside.
I stare at that black wall, its black windows, and take in a lungful of hot air. This is definitely the desert. None of this should be here. But my excesses seem at home in LA—maybe too much.
I look around at the other fire escapes below and above me. I look to my left and then I see him, two escapes away. Of course, we would have the same idea. How long has he been out here? Did he watch me struggle? I try to wave at him casually, but I’m sure it looks exaggerated as I try to maintain my balance with one hand.
Martin waves back and then points at me. “You’d better pray,” he calls over to me.
Guilt travels at light speed in the night. His preachy command makes me feel ashamed. I don’t like his accusatory tone, so I act like I didn’t hear him.
“You’d better pray there isn’t a fire,” he says louder, and follows with a laugh.
I wonder what the hell he’s laughing at, but then I look down and realize I’m just wearing my boxer shorts.
The next night I put on my good suit and head downstairs. Lester’s big fight begins in half an hour.
I hail a cab and get in, but someone grabs the door as I begin to close it.
“Move over,” Candy says.
I do as instructed and Candy slides in next to me.
“You saw the boxer already, didn’t you?”
“I left early. Where the hell have you been? I tried to find you.”
“You’re trying to do this without me.” She doesn’t look at me, but at the back of the driver’s head. “That’s not a good idea. You might need my help.”
Her fiery red dress reveals the other night’s many missed opportunities.
“Candy, I’m sorry about—”
“Let’s just not bring it up. Let’s promise ourselves we’ll do our best to forget it.”
Saying that will make it impossible for me to forget, and she knows it.
“Cosgrove Hall,” I tell the driver.
It’s hazy and dark inside the venue. A massive cloud of smoke hovers above the crowd. The glowing embers of cigarettes and cigars shine through it, like stars in a distant galaxy. But in this dress, Candy is the brightest star of all. As we head to our seats, the eyes of a few people dance between the two of us in disbelief. Some men are even bold enough to whistle. Others offer me a congratulatory nod.
The bell rings, sounding the beginning of the first round. Boca comes out swinging, but Lester is incredibly nimble for his size. He dodges Boca’s right jab and left hook as if this were a choreographed dance intended to make Boca look slow and inaccurate.
Lester counters with a combination that angers Boca. He returns the favor with an uppercut and pummels Lester’s body, but even in this flurry, Lester is unfazed. It’s like watching someone fighting with an oak tree.
Lester stuns him with an onslaught of punches that nearly sends Boca between the ropes and into the audience.
Candy does not turn away from the punishment Lester administers. She looks on with an interest for the violence you don’t see from most women.
Lester toys with him, feigning with his right shoulder and then throwing a jab with his left. It is obvious that Lester has him, but then Lester throws a wide, telegraphed punch, a hook so slow it’s practically traveling by stagecoach. Boca ducks and responds with an uppercut that sends Lester to the canvas.
The promise of money starts to whisper in my ear, but Lester has other plans for me.
He doesn’t like it down there. He’s not used to it. As the referee starts the count, Lester’s poor excuse of a mind starts to change. I can see the wheels turning in his head from here.
The crowd shouts for Lester to get up.
Even though she doesn’t say it, Candy mouths those same words.
On the count of eight, the mountain posing as a man makes it to his feet. The only thing restricting my panic is that I only bet five hundred dollars, and not the entire two thousand of Count’s money. That cab driver gave me a momentary distaste for greed.
Boca is in trouble. Lester punishes Boca’s body until he backs him into a corner. He goes to work on Boca’s head until blood covers his face. I feel sorry for him—Lester, not Boca—Boca has the ref to save him; I’m not so sure who can save Lester.
Boca stumbles around the ring like a drunke
n uncle at a wedding. But Lester’s not done with him yet. He plays with Boca, slapping him between his giant paws like a lion prolonging the killing of its prey. Lester pushes Boca into the ropes. As Boca struggles to make it back to center ring, Lester looks at three men sitting ringside. They do not look happy.
Boca’s got heart. He agreed to an arrangement, and the bloody mess standing in front of Lester wants to keep his end of it.
Again, Lester looks at the men at ringside. He looks back at Boca but doesn’t move. Boca summons up whatever residue of strength he has left and throws a wild haymaker at Lester’s head. He puts his weight into it, all 245 pounds of him. Even I could sidestep a shot like that, but Lester waits for it.
Candy’s eyes are wide. She covers her mouth.
He hits the canvas unconvincingly. He might as well be crawling into bed. The booing starts.
Boca collapses into the ropes. The only thing keeping him up is that his left arm is hooked around the top rope, but just like the rest of Boca, that left arm is tired too. When it finally gives up, Boca joins Lester on the canvas. The throwing starts: trash, bottles, even old shoes. The referee doesn’t even consider counting anyone out and leaves the ring.
Candy and I make our way through the angry crowd and head toward the area that holds the fighters’ dressing rooms. LESTER SMALLS is written in black crayon on a piece of wax paper taped to the door. No one answers when I knock, so I walk in and Candy follows. The crowd’s anger is still audible inside the room, which is more like a lifesize scrapbook than anything else. Old yellowing posters of small-time boxers and their forgotten fights line the walls: Baby-faced bantamweight Panama Al Brown versus Battling Battalino; and Mickey Rimera versus Percy Clark in the bout that left poor Mickey paralyzed.
Lester and Mike walk in and close the door on the crowd. Lester takes a seat quietly in a corner. Candy eyes his muscles, massive and glazed with sweat. Mike paces while shaking his head. I think of the money I lost trusting this fool.
Lester looks down at his gloves and touches them together. “What am I gonna do?” he finally says.
“I don’t know, Lester,” I say, “but I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
Mike stops pacing. “What the fuck you mean, you don’t know? You got us into this mess.” He moves toward me. “I outta knock your ass out.”
I stand firm and look at him over the rims of my glasses. “How did I get you into this mess?”
Mike’s face is an inch from mine. I can smell the blood and sweat on him. He looks threatening at first, but then his brow relaxes into a concerned expression. “You can’t tell Lester too many things at once,” he says. “He gets confused.”
I look over at Lester. Candy carefully dabs at his face and body with a towel.
“It took me a week to get him to understand that he was to fight hard but still end up losing,” Mike says. “He would just look at me and say, ‘If I fight hard, how can I lose?’”
I nod at what Mike has told me. Then I look at Candy and Lester again. She unlaces his gloves. Then she picks up a pair of scissors and begins cutting away the tape that covers his large hands. Every now and then, their eyes meet, and Lester looks at her as if she were the only person in the room. Mike is wrong—Lester is not as dumb as he seems.
The door opens and two large men enter, wearing menace as if it were aftershave. A small elderly man follows. He wears a dark double-breasted suit that’s well tailored but a little old-fashioned. Large dark sunglasses cover most of his face from brow to cheek. The lenses seem thick enough to double as airplane windows.
“Lester, you disappoint me,” the old man says. “Are you Sicilian?”
“What? No, sir. I’m from Georgia, born and raised.”
“Lester, you are like the man who stole food from my family back in Sicily. I killed the man who took food from my family.” He looks over at Mike, who isn’t acting so tough anymore. “Mikey, what’s the problem? Didn’t you tell me you had everything straightened out with him? You said that. He didn’t look so good out there, Mike. We didn’t look too good neither. He made me look like a fool, and you look like a liar. A liar.” He looks at me, then at Candy. “Who’s Sammy Davis and Dorothy Dandridge over here?”
Mike is becoming dangerously nervous. He only wrings his hands while looking at his feet.
The old man walks over to me. “Do I know you?”
“No, sir,” I say. “We’re just Lester’s family . . . cousins from back home.”
“Cousins, huh?” He lifts up his glasses and looks me over with an eye that’s cloudy and scarred from glaucoma or from seeing the worst humanity has to offer. “Is it you? You behind this?”
“I don’t know what you mean. We just came to see my cousin fight.”
He leans in even closer to me and then inhales deeply through his nose. He brings his glasses back down. “No. It ain’t you. Not you.” He walks over to Candy, smiling. “Now this little dish here could cause a lotta trouble. Tell me, sweetheart, are you trouble or are you a blessing?”
Candy doesn’t know how to respond, but then she decides to turn on the charm. “It depends of what kind of mood my man is in when you ask him.”
He laughs. His men laugh. Candy laughs with them.
“You’ve got a big hearty laugh,” she says, pressing her luck. “It’s nice and kind. You seem like you know how to be a good friend.” She strokes the lapel of his jacket. “So do I.”
The unnamed Italian looks at his associates. He smiles, appearing flattered and genuinely tempted. Suddenly, with unexpected speed for someone his age, he grabs Candy by the face. “If I wanted it, sweetheart, I’d take it. You don’t get to offer. Now get your nigger hands off my coat.”
Lester rises. “You came here for me. I’m right here. Let her be.”
“Easy, Lester,” one of the large men says as both of them reach under their coats.
“Wait a minute,” Mike says, finally gaining the courage to speak. “We did what you told us. He didn’t win, okay. Goddamnit, he didn’t win.”
“Enough!” the old man shouts, pointing his finger at Mike. “You had your chance to talk, Mike. All you had to do was get Lester on board. You screwed up. If I hear another sound from you, I swear to Christ I’ll cut out your tongue.” His wide lenses are dark mirrors reflecting the entire scene. He turns those big glasses of his on Lester. “Lester, I don’t want to see you no more, okay? No more,” he says shaking his finger back and forth in front of Lester’s face. “LA ain’t for you. You understand me? If I ever see you again I’ll have your black ass skinned and turned into a punching bag.”
Lester grits his teeth, probably thinking of the hundred different ways he could hurt this old man before his men even drew their guns. He thinks better of it and nods instead.
“Good boy,” the old man says. “Good boy.”
As he goes to leave, he takes one last look at Candy. In a startling shift of demeanor, he says, “Sorry about my hostility, sweetheart, but it comes with the territory. Thank you anyway for the offer. You make an old man feel young again.” He reaches toward her face, without aggression, but she recoils. His hand hovers for a moment and then he gently pats her face.
He heads for the door, and his two men let him pass. They walk out still facing us, with their backs to the door.
Candy lets out a pained sigh of relief and starts to cry. I move to comfort her, but Lester has already pulled her close to his chest. He strokes her tenderly with his large, rough hands. The whole thing seems false and comically incongruous to me. I think of King Kong, and a young Fay Wray sitting in his hairy palm.
They scrapped the fight like it never happened. They call it a mutual forfeit—nobody wins. Mike wished Lester all the luck in the world, but he insisted they had to part ways. Mike didn’t feel it was safe for him to leave from the exit like everyone else, so he squeezed himself through a small window, and just like that, the man who had been like a father to Lester was gone.
I take the long rid
e back to the hotel alone. Candy’s off with Lester, I guess, to make sure he gets home safely. What a difference a few nights can make. I came to LA with the intention of offering Lester a lesson in manhood, but he’s shown me a thing or two. Maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. Lester is a gladiator. His talent is punishment and survival. In ancient Rome, a woman like Candy would have been his reward. Maybe his time has come around again. That’s easy to picture, but where do I fit in?
I spend most of the next day in my hotel room. I don’t bother to see if she’s in hers. I’m unprepared for the answer, and I am definitely not prepared to deal with Gant right now.
The phone rings a few times, but I don’t answer. Instead, I stare at my closed curtains and wait for the day to finish its striptease and shed itself of light.
I throw on some clothes and head to the hotel bar. There’s a band preparing for its set. The party girl at the end of the bar does her best to show that she’s not interested. It’s fine—I’m not in the mood for much other than drinking.
The bartender serves me my gimlet, and I’m already regretting my choice: all bitters and no lime.
“I would ask you to order me one too, but you don’t seem to be enjoying yourself.”
I am too busy stirring my drink to notice that Candy has found me.
“Can I sit?” she asks.
“Do as you like,” I respond.
She starts to talk, carefully making no mention of Lester and the night before. Our conversation is mundane at best, empty prattle to fill the void. It’s tolerable. This I can stand, but the way she looks at me has changed. The wavering affection was always there—I could see it—but now she gives me a look of indifference, marked by a high degree of permanence. I fear we have reached the end of our game. There are no surprises to hope for.
She keeps talking. The liquor’s starting to sink in, and in my head, I start working on an apology for not being able to fuck her good and proper. As I start to speak, the hotel band begins a mediocre version of “Lover Come Back to Me,” and then Lester arrives in a tight, short-sleeved shirt that makes all the men question whether they’ve successfully completed puberty.
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