I was working on the cuts. Torito was a mess. I've saved fights for lots of guys who had tender faces—Saad Muhammad and Antuofermo included— but Torito made those two look like they had skin of iron. After four rounds, he had deep slices over both eyes and the bridge of his nose. I mopped off the blood, pressed a Q-tip coated with adrenalin chloride 1-1000 into the cuts, and glopped vaseline over Torito's brow.
The ring doctor tried to elbow past Gus. "He's fine," Gus said, not giving an inch. "If you want to look at cuts, go check Barkley."
Gus was right. Iran "The Blade" Barkley's face was a mess, too.
The warning whistle sounded. Gus ducked between the ropes. I followed, pulling the stool as Torito rose. "Remember, Barkley's trying to take your title!" Gus yelled, as if Torito needed reminding.
Round five. Torito came out jabbing, driving his fist into Barkley's bloody nose. Barkley bent at the middle, but he was only ducking under the jabs, not going down, and then Torito pivoted and threw the money punch—a big left hook to the ribs. Again. The Blade spit blood and gasped, then came back with a two-handed body-attack that sent Torito into the ropes. Jabbing his way to the center of the ring, Torito bent and delivered another left hook, but Barkley's right was already on its way and it caught Torito high on the head. Blood geysered from Torito's brow and spattered the referee's white shirt, and as Torito stumbled backward Barkley nailed him with another chopping right that shattered his jaw and sent him to the canvas.
The referee didn't bother to count.
"You see why I asked you to come," Rosie said innocently. "I can't call anyone else. Not with him around... not the way I am."
That last part came in a whisper, like a confession. Turning away, I opened my snakeskin bag and set my gear on the walnut nightstand. Then I turned off the TV, my hands shaking.
"How can you let Torito watch that?" I asked.
"He makes Toro watch it all the time, because just watching it makes Toro bleed now. He says it's the only way he can find Toro's weak spots."
Junkie logic. I couldn't follow it, no more than I could imagine the zombie I'd met downstairs making Torito do anything. I asked Rosie if that's who she was talking about, but she ignored my question.
"You got to hurry," she said. "You got to fix Toro and then we got to get out of here before he comes back. He went looking for wood a couple hours ago. He probably won't be back 'til morning. That'll give us a head start. If we can get to New Mexico, to the reservation, my family will hide us."
"Rosie, who the hell are you talking about?"
"Ask Toro," she said, slipping through the doorway.
Torito's hand closed over mine. "I don't want to go to New Mexico," he whispered.
"Jesus, Torito, how could you get mixed up in this shit? Who did this to you? Do you owe money or — "
"It ain't like that. The horse, that's Rosie's thrill. I don't mess with it."
I stared at his swollen brow, trying to see his eyes, trying to see if he was lying.
Torito's grip tightened. "He wants to help me, Richie. Just like he said he would. You remember. A long time ago he told Gus that he'd help me when I was through... Gus told you about that, didn't he?"
I cleaned Torito's cuts and stitched his face together. I couldn't get a straight answer out of him, but I couldn't get him to shut up, either.
"You should have seen Gus the first time he met him." Torito laughed, his swollen lips twisting into a lumpy grin. "You know Gus, by the book and everything. Well, he had to get the devil to sign some papers — "
"The devil? Cut the bullshit, Torito. Tell me who did this to you."
Torito's voice was impatient: "That's what I'm doing."
I shook my head. "Whatever you say, Toro."
"Okay. I can't tell it like Gus, but let me try. See, when I was a boy, the devil lived in a little adobe shack behind our house. Even when my mother died and we moved away, he still lived there. He liked to carve; he could put the santeros to shame. Of course, the devil didn't make holy things. He made statues of demons, the death cart, coyotes... even La Llorona. He gave them to my brothers and me, but we didn't like to play with them, and we locked them in a footlocker at night.
"Anyway, Gus didn't want to make the trip because we had to drive all the way up to the Sangre de Cristos, but there was nothing else that he could do because he had to have the devil's signature before he could enter me in the Junior Olympics at Colorado Springs. You know Gus, he complained every inch of the way.
"It's early afternoon when we get to the old adobe, but the devil's already awake. He's sitting outside with a bucket at his feet and he's whittling away with a carving knife that he stole off a Penitente man. Anyway, I know better than to bother the devil while he's busy, but Gus up and asks him 'Whatcha makin'?' You know Gus—can't keep his mouth shut. So the devil holds out his hand, palm up. It's empty. Then he rolls it over and Gus can see how he'd carved his fingernails down to nothing.
"The devil shoves his bloody fingertips under Gus's nose. 'I'm making me,' he says.
"Gus almost threw up. He looked green enough. Then the devil pointed down at the bucket, at the little bits of fingernail floating in the pink water. Richie, you should have heard the devil laugh. And then he says, 'When you're done with my boy, bring him back and I'll fix him, too.'"
I was sweating. I didn't want to hear this kind of talk, and Torito could see that I thought he was crazy.
His eyes cut at me from beneath swollen brows. "You don't believe me, huh? You just look at that first contract, Richie. You'll see the bloodstains there."
Torito fell asleep. I checked his arms for tracks but didn't find any. There were three cherry-red scars in the hollow of his right elbow and another bunch on his left forearm, but they were about the size of thumbtacks—much too large for needle scars.
I packed my gear, trying to figure who'd done this to Torito. Maybe Rosie's heroin connection had gone sour; maybe Torito didn't want to admit that he'd been busted up by an ordinary finger-breaker. Then I remembered that the zombie was expecting a guy named Willie. And Rosie had mentioned Willie, too, so I doubted that there was a connection problem. That left the promoter and the cable TV people. Both had lost mucho dinero when Torito pulled out of the Barkley rematch. And they'd both made threats, admittedly the kind of tidy threats that you'd expect from incorporated organizations. But even tidy threats have a way of turning nasty in the boxing business.
I stepped into Torito's bathroom to wash my hands and almost slipped on the wet floor before I could turn on the lights. Blood was everywhere: smeared on the green tile, the mirror, and the counter. Antuofermo and Saad Muhammad could have gone a few rounds in the tiny room and it wouldn't have looked any worse.
But the mirror wasn't broken. And the bath towels hung neatly on lacquered teak racks. No sign of a struggle at all.
The pea-green basin was splattered with scarlet gore—thick, sticky blood dotted with little tan flecks. I pushed at the flecks with a toothbrush, not wanting to touch something that I couldn't identify. I remembered Torito's story about the devil and suddenly knew what I was looking at. Bits of wood, splinters and curls. And tiny chunks of flesh.
I tried to rinse the horror away, but the bloody water drained too slowly and the flecks of skin stuck to the green porcelain as if glued there. I wiped the faucet clean. My throat was gritty-dry but the thought of drinking from the tap revolted me.
I poked around the room. The bathtub was filled with wood. Kindling, really: broken survey stakes, greasewood twigs, stunted Joshua tree branches, and stubby bits of mesquite. On the floor behind the toilet, I found a claw hammer smeared with blood. Next to it was a tin can filled with rusty nails.
Suddenly I thought of Jesus on the bedroom wall, split down the middle.
I hefted the hammer. Had the blood spattered it? Or had Torito stood before the mirror, looking at himself like I was looking at myself now, hefting the tool, wondering what it would feel like crashing against his skull agai
n and again?
The cuts healed, at least the ones that you could see. Torito looked fine, a hell of a lot better than Barkley. Even I'll admit that.
In training camp for the rematch, everybody else ignored the warning signs. When Torito refused to wear headgear in sparring, they said he wanted to be macho. Same story when he started hitting the heavy bag without handwraps. And when he ran eight miles instead of his usual four, everyone said that Torito only wanted to improve his endurance.
Early one morning, I learned the truth. Torito came limping back from a run, couldn't even make it past my cabin, which was on the edge of camp. He sat on the front steps and pulled off his shoes, not knowing that I was watching. His sockless feet were wet with blood. He upended his shoes and tapped the heels. Something red sprinkled over the dirt, and then Torito rose and limped away.
I stepped outside. Little red flecks, like bugs, dotted the ground. I scooped up a handful and blew away the dirt. The hard, bloodstained slivers of pine that remained felt warm in the palm of my hand.
I realized then that after a while pain is just pain, and there's nothing you can do to make it into glory ever again. I told Torito what I thought, and even though he denied trying to hurt himself, he decided to pull out of the rematch. Gus and the promoter and the TV people gave him a hell of an argument, but with Rosie's help Torito held firm.
My heart thundered. I looked at my reflection in the blood-streaked mirror and saw a sweaty old guy who was about to have a heart attack. I'd done that once already, and it hadn't been fun.
I sucked a deep breath. Okay, hot shot. You're out in the desert, surrounded by nothing but miles and miles of cactus and nasty reptiles. Maybe there's a sadistic mob-enforcer out there, too. And a candyman named Willie. Hell, maybe they're one in the same. For company you've got a couple of junkies and a masochistic former middleweight champion who's in presently undefinable deep-shit trouble.
What next?
Number one: Torito needed help, but he needed help that knew how to keep things quiet. Number two: Vegas wasn't my turf. In this case, one plus two equaled Gus. He'd spent lots of time in Vegas over the years. He wasn't a saint, but Torito was always "his boy." I fished through the business cards in my wallet and found his number in L.A.
It was quiet downstairs. No sign of Rosie or the zombie. I flipped on a light in the kitchen, lit a smoke to mask the stink of old grease and moldy Spanish rice, and dialed Gus's number.
"Whoever the hell this is had better be makin' me money, callin' at this time of the night."
"No money, Gus," I said. "It's me, Richie."
"The crazy Italian cut man! What's up, paisan?”
I sucked on my cigarette. Briefly, I explained what I'd found.
"Doesn't sound good."
"No shit. And it isn't over. Rosie says that someone's coming back to finish the job. She wants me to take Torito to New Mexico."
"What does Toro say?"
"Not much. At least, nothing that makes any sense."
Gus broke in with a few choice words. "Jesus, this is perfect fucking timing. Can you believe that I was talking to Barkley's people today? The crazy SOB's want to go pay-per-view. They're offering two mil for Toro on marquee value alone. I haven't even put the screws to 'em yet. I mean, if Duran and Hearns and Leonard can make five-ten mil, why not my boy?"
"Gus, there's no way. The kid is drowning. Something is very wrong here, and the last thing we can worry about is Toro climbing into the ring again. That's crazy. If you could see him — "
"Christ, it's that bad?" For the first time, he sounded truly worried.
"Yeah... can you get someone over here?"
"I'll see what I can do. I know some Italian boys over on the Strip. I'll give them a call, tell them a fellow spaghetti-bender is in trouble."
"Thanks," I said. "Gotta go."
"Richie?"
"Yeah?"
"Don't get all weepy on me. I need you strong, pal. I'm counting on you to protect my investment."
I started to curse him, but Rosie screamed, and I dropped the phone and headed into the dark hallway.
Bleached-out halogen light spilled through the open door, silhouetting Rosie and the zombie. A man came over the threshold, his moccasined feet silent on the Italian marble. He grabbed a handful of the zombie's hair and kicked his legs out from under him. The zombie went down hard.
"I told you not to come back here," the man said, kicking the zombie's stiletto across the floor.
The knife hit the wall and snicked open.
"You don't know nothing about blades," the man said. "You don't know nothing about my family, either." He drove the zombie's face against the cold Italian marble, shattering his front teeth. "You get out now, or I'm gonna teach you about blades."
Whimpering, the zombie crawled outside. The man slammed the door and scooped up the stiletto. "Sorry I'm late," he said, frowning at Rosie. "I met a guy named Willie down the road, and I had to straighten him out on a few things."
He stared at me then, and my chest tightened.
"Rosie," he whispered, "is this the man you told me about?"
Her eyes brimmed with tears. She looked at me. "I... I didn't tell."
"Just because you didn't say anything doesn't mean that you didn't tell." The man closed the blade and pocketed it. "Aren't you going to introduce us, then?"
"Richie, this is Toro's father."
I looked into the old man's eyes.
Something exploded in my chest.
I came to in a chair in Torito's bedroom. At first I thought the old man had shoved the stiletto into my heart. But the pain was familiar, something I'd felt before, and I tried to sneak careful breaths around it, tried to keep alive.
The old man bent over me. His hair was as white as the marble floor downstairs and his eyes were a polished, sparkling brown. "I think you're gonna make it," he pronounced, the cool scent of pinon on his breath. "I think you're gonna be fine."
He sat down on the foot of the bed, a carving knife in one hand, a fist-shaped piece of mesquite in the other. Torito watched him from behind, saying nothing. The old man whittled away, his blade whispering over the wood. Every now and then he looked up at me or stared over at the big Mitsubishi, which was again replaying Torito's fight with Iran Barkley.
"It's a funny thing," the old man said as Barkley trapped Torito against the ropes. "When wood is alive, it's strong. You can drive a nail into it... doesn't matter, it'll keep growing. But dead wood, wood that's seen too many seasons, that's different. Drive a nail too hard, dead wood splinters on you." He flicked shavings over my lap. "After awhile, you don't even have to use a nail. You just put that wood out into the sun, the sun that it's seen a million times before, and it rots and falls apart." He glanced at Torito, and then at me. "You understand."
The bell rang. Torito dropped onto his stool, his eyes closed, the cuts swelling. I watched myself working with adrenalin chloride 1-1000, with vaseline, blood smeared on my fingers.
"You understand."
I stared at the TV. Torito taking punches. I glanced at Torito, helpless in bed. A line of stitches split open on his brow and his cheek turned the color of a rotten plum.
The old man smiled. "You understand. The TV, it's like the sun."
The fist was taking shape. Thick at one end. Almost pointed at the other. The old man worked the knife like a gouge, carving a network of veins over the top.
The bell rang again. Torito rose from his stool. His face was lumpy-smooth, slick with vaseline.
In bed, Torito grunted and spat blood.
"You did good work," the old man said. "You know, you could have learned to carve."
I sucked a shallow breath. "Torito says that you're the devil."
Flick flick flick. The old man worked the knife like a sixth finger.
"Rosie says that you want to hurt your son."
He grinned. "She's wrong. She doesn't want me to help her... she doesn't want me to help my boy. She doesn't even know
what he is."
The veins were finished now. The old man started on the fingers. But they were bent and arthritic, turning back on the hand, and each one ended at the first joint.
The crowd screamed, "BARK-LEY, BARK-LEY, BARK-LEY!"
"Rosie just wants the drugs," the old man said. "She's afraid of the things I can do for her... and for Torito." He looked at his son and smiled proudly. "Torito's not afraid, though. He's brave. He wants me here."
"BARK-LEY, BARK-LEY, BARK-LEY!" A left hook from Torito. "BARK-LEY, BARK-LEY, BARK-LEY!" Barkley's punch already on the way... "BARK-LEY, BARK-LEY, BARK-LEY!" Torito's blood geysering through the air....
Blood spattered the padded leather headboard.
Torito screamed.
A bitter metallic taste washed over my tongue. I clenched my teeth against the sour pain.
The old man watched his son go down. "He was beautiful when he was young. One day I took a burro and a cart, went up into the mountains. I found a big old tree up there with roots that ran so deep you wouldn't believe it. I burned it down, dug a trench around the stump, peeled it back and hauled the green core down the mountain. Let it season for five summers." He smiled. "Then I went to work. In another year I had my son."
I doubled over. My face came near the mesquite fist, and I saw that it wasn't a fist at all. It was covered with veins, but what I had taken for fingers were actually arteries.
The old man patted my shoulder. "You're lucky that I found this piece today. I don't think that anything else I have would've worked."
He passed a strong hand over the smooth wood, and the mesquite heart began to beat.
I awoke in another room. The old man stood over Rosie, who lay unconscious on a low couch. Soft light filtered through a heavy green lampshade to her right, bathing her sharp features in a liquid glow.
He moved away, wiping his bloody blade on a white handkerchief. Rosie's right arm was laid open to the bone. Blood dripped from what remained of her fingers and splattered on the heavy carpet, the Caesars Tahoe carpet, and on the smooth wooden arm that lay in the green shadows.
Bad Intentions Page 5