by AnonYMous
There were giant brightly coloured tents and lavishly decorated stalls all around the fairground, and all of them were packed with wide-eyed tourists. The whole area seethed with humanity as people made their way from one attraction to another, to the accompaniment of several different tunes blaring from pole-mounted speakers. Sanchez cared not at all for such lesser diversions. There was only one tent he was interested in, and that was the boxing tent. The busiest tent of all. It seemed as though half the population of Santa Mondega had exactly the same idea as him: get to the boxing, and get there early. It was easy to find because lined up outside it in neat rows were hundreds of motorcycles, a sure sign that the Hell’s Angels were in town.
It took him a good twenty minutes to get into the giant tent. Inside, the hordes of people moving back and forth made it difficult, if not hazardous, to get anywhere close to the ring itself. The organizers were obviously aware of the potential for overcrowding, so the ring was set high up on a platform, ensuring everyone a reasonably good view.
There was nothing of the Queensberry Rules about the fights here. This was bare-knuckle boxing, and while biting and gouging were not actively encouraged, pretty much anything else went, including the use of feet, elbows, and the edge of the hand.
When Sanchez finally got in, there was already a fight under way. A total mismatch, too. One guy was almost twice the size of the other. The larger boxer was a huge shaven-headed thug covered from head to toe in tattoos. His smaller opponent looked very much like a family man who was only in the ring because it represented his best chance of earning any decent money to pay for food for his wife and kids. A look at this guy suggested the fight had been going on for some time. He was a bloodied mess. One of his eyes was literally hanging out of its socket, and he was staggering around the ring holding on to his left shoulder, as if he had dislocated it and was trying to manoeuvre it back into place. In contrast, the shaven-headed boxer was as fresh as the cut above his opponent’s good eye, from which blood was spurting in all directions. It came as no surprise to Sanchez that within seconds of getting his first sight of the fight it was all over. The smaller man was soon being carried out of the ring and taken out back for some fresh air and potentially life-saving medical treatment.
Once the fight had ended some of the crowd dispersed and Sanchez was able to get a better view of the proceedings. An announcer wearing a top hat and tail coat had made his way into the ring and was holding a microphone close to his mouth, into which he was shouting something which, amid the hubbub in the tent, Sanchez was unable to make out. Someone obviously could hear what he was saying, however, because before a minute had passed another volunteer had entered the ring, to huge cheers. At least this guy looked like a better proposition than the last. The big shaven-headed fighter, who, it seemed, was known as something that sounded very much like ‘Hammerhead’, had stayed in the ring. It didn’t take a genius to work out that he was the professional boxer who fought all comers on behalf of the owners.
The deal was that the challenger had to last three rounds, each of three minutes, with Hammerhead, without being knocked out or otherwise forced to throw in the towel. It cost fifty dollars to enter, but if he could last the three rounds he would get a hundred dollars back. If, by some miraculous chance, he knocked out Hammerhead within the three rounds, he would walk away with a thousand dollars. This was reason enough for any number of drunken idiots to try their luck. In fact, it was reason for plenty of idiots who weren’t even drunk to fancy their chances against Hammerhead.
The challenger who entered the ring was a fairly average-looking white man. Hammerhead must have outweighed him by at least forty pounds, so the guy was probably looking only to survive the three rounds rather than go for the knockout. Sanchez was only too happy to wager twenty dollars of his own money on Hammerhead winning in the first round. A bookie in the audience gave him a reasonable price that would see him more than double his money if he won. But Sanchez should have known better.
Annoyingly, the challenger danced around for the first two rounds, occasionally jabbing a little at his larger opponent. For his part, Hammerhead swung and missed wildly (and probably intentionally). Then, about a minute into the final round, he suddenly awoke from his lethargic start and with three rapid punches – BANG-BANG-BANG – the fight was over. That’s how these fights went. Sanchez knew it, everyone else there knew it, yet still it was the bookies who would be laughing after every fight. Bastards.
What Sanchez needed was some inside information. He needed to know what the bookies knew or, better still, something they didn’t know. And then, while he was still cursing his luck, he spotted the golden opportunity he was looking for. At the back of the big tent, and studying the fights with great interest, were the two Hubal monks, Kyle and Peto. Despite their odd outfits, they no longer stood out like tits on a trout. In fact, they were beginning to look like they fitted in around Santa Mondega. Sanchez watched them for a minute. They were whispering to each other a good deal, nodding in agreement at whatever it was they were whispering about. A bet, perhaps? Or better still, maybe they were planning for one of them to take on the pro? These guys could really kick ass. Sanchez knew it, but the bookies almost certainly didn’t. Since he had nothing to lose, he made his way over to them. They recognized him instantly, and looked very surprised to see him coming towards them.
‘Hey, you guys, how’s it goin’? Imagine seein’ you again so soon,’ Sanchez said jovially, as if he and they had always been buddies.
‘Sanchez the bartender,’ Kyle said rather formally. ‘Nice to see you.’ Peto, nodding in agreement, half smiled.
‘Why don’t one of you two get up and fight this guy? You could beat him real easy. I seen you fight, remember? You guys kick ass.’
‘We sure do,’ said Peto. Yep, thought Sanchez, they were definitely starting to fit in.
‘Yes, we do,’ Kyle agreed. ‘But it is not in our nature to fight unless it is truly necessary – or unavoidable.’
‘What if I pay your entry fee?’
The two monks looked at each other for a second. They could not believe their luck. Perhaps they would not have to mug anyone after all.
‘Okay,’ Kyle answered.
Sanchez could not believe his luck, either.
Thirty
Chastened, if not actually terrified, after their meeting with Cromwell, Dante and Kacy left the museum and made their way to the fairground with a plan in mind. Like so many others, they headed straight for the boxing tent, although for different reasons than most.
They had been watching the bare-knuckle fighting for just over an hour before they arrived at an obvious conclusion. Hammerhead was the man in whom their money should be invested. He had fought four times and had won each bout comfortably, without showing any signs of fatigue. They had not come here to gamble on him, however. Or not in the sense of wagering money on whether or not he would win a fight, anyhow. They were thinking of gambling their lives on him.
Dante, after their experiences with the Mystic Lady and the Professor, had decided that they needed a bodyguard. If they were going to sell the Eye of the Moon to someone for a large sum of money, they were going to need some backup. Picking out the toughest guy at an open-ring bare-knuckle boxing challenge seemed like the best way to go. Kacy was already convinced that Hammerhead was the man for the job, but Dante had a few nagging doubts. He hankered to see the big slugger fight just once more, because he had a sneaking suspicion that all the fights were rigged.
Nor did Hammerhead’s fifth opponent exactly strike the fear of God into anyone in the tent when he stepped into the ring. He was a fairly small, odd-looking bald fellow, although he was wearing a neat orange wrap-around karate-style tunic and a pair of baggy black pants. After a brief discussion with the referee, during which he was no doubt informed of the – very few – rules of the fight, the little man was introduced to the audience. The ringmaster in top hat and tails seized one of Peto’s wrists, led him to the
centre of the ring and bellowed into his mike: ‘Ladies and gentlemen! The challenger for our next bout has come here all the way from an island in the Pacific Ocean. Put your hands together for Peto the Innocent!’ The small fighter’s cornerman, dressed identically and only slightly larger, stood outside the ropes at one corner of the ring, managing to look both apprehensive and miserable at the same time.
The announcement was followed by a loud booing from the crowd, most likely because they were trying to wreck the challenger’s nerves in the hopes of seeing a bloodbath. Peto was barely half the size of Hammerhead, and there didn’t appear to be many people backing him with any serious money.
Dante was shaking his head. No matter how convincing Hammerhead’s victory in this fight, he still wasn’t sure he wanted to place his life in the hands of this tattooed thug. Kacy could sense this, and believed she needed to persuade him otherwise. She wanted to be out of this place sooner rather than later. It wasn’t safe. The only place she felt safe now was in their motel room.
‘Okay, if Hammerhead wins this one, I say we make him an offer,’ she suggested. ‘We can’t wait for ever.’
Reluctantly Dante agreed. ‘Okay. But let me do all the talking.’
‘How much you gonna offer him?’
‘I figure five grand.’
‘Five grand?’
‘You think that’s too much, huh?’ Dante asked, even though he could tell that she obviously did.
‘Well, it’s a helluva lot. But if you think that’s what he’s worth, then I guess I agree with you.’
‘That’s why I love ya, Kace,’ he said, pulling her towards him and planting a kiss full on her lips. It was enough to warm her heart and calm her nerves, all at the same time.
They fought their way through the noisy, sweaty, beer-swilling crowd until they were close to ringside. There was actually more space to move once they were nearer the ring because it was so high up that anyone who was too close would not have been able to see anything. Dante was hoping to sneak a quick word with Hammerhead before the fight started so he made his way over to the near side of the ring.
‘Hey, big guy … YO! SLUGGER!’ he shouted above the noise of the crowd. It was instantly clear that Hammerhead had no chance of hearing him, so instead Dante headed for his corner. Hammerhead’s cornerman was surely his next port of call. He was a fairly big, nasty-looking guy himself, and he had tattoos in places that suggested he could withstand a lot of pain. There were some big tattoos and some small tattoos, all of them somewhat sinister looking. Snakes and knives seemed to be a general theme, interspersed with random words like ‘DEATH’ and ‘CHOSEN’. He also had a lot of facial hair, though not exactly a thick or bushy beard, more a sort of wispy beard that covered as much of the upper part of his face as it did the lower. He was almost a foot taller than the little bald guy who was now squaring up to Hammerhead in the ring – and yet he was only the cornerman.
‘Hey, you! Can I speak with you a second?’ Dante shouted in the man’s ear in an attempt to be heard above the din.
‘No. Get the fuck outta here.’
‘Can I speak with Hammerhead after the fight, then? I’ve got a business proposition for him.’
‘I said get the fuck out. Now scram before I shove your head up your ass!’
Dante really didn’t take kindly to the man’s tone, and if a fight was to be had with the cornerman, then he was ready for it. The knife wound he had received earlier in the day in Cromwell’s office had actually healed rather nicely (not that he was about to admit it to Kacy), so he knew he could swing a few punches if the situation called for it.
‘Go fuck yourself,’ he growled back.
‘Say what?’
‘I said go fuck yourself, you ugly, monkey-faced cunt.’
Kacy was always afraid of something like this. Dante had an unpredictable habit of exhibiting this character trait. Every once in a while he would feel the need to stand his ground when provoked by someone who either outranked him at work, or, as in this instance, outweighed him by fifty pounds.
The big cornerman put down the spit bucket he had been holding and placed his face as far into Dante’s personal space as he could without actually touching him.
‘Say it again, sonny. I dare you.’ His tone was almost pleasant.
There was an uneasy pause while Dante considered his answer. Kacy did him a favour by jumping in and answering for him.
‘How’d you an’ your friend Hammerhead like to earn five thousand bucks for a few hours’ work?’ she said, smiling her widest, beamiest smile.
The cornerman was still staring at Dante, but he had heard Kacy’s offer and seemed to be mulling it over. After not very long at all, he unleashed a big toothy grin.
‘I’ll tell you what, kids, wait ’til this fight is over and then we’ll sit down and talk. Hammerhead’s due a break after this one. We can go out back and discuss your offer.’
‘Thank you,’ said Kacy, still smiling like she had a coathanger wedged sideways in her mouth.
Dante and the cornerman continued to eyeball each other for a few seconds, before Kacy ushered her boyfriend back into the crowd with her.
Seconds later the bell went and the fight started. It was a short fight. Dante and Kacy watched in awe as Hammerhead charged across the ring to get in an early blow before the bell had even finished ringing. The little bald fellow in the orange tunic turned from his corner straight into a sledgehammer blow to the head that nearly knocked him right out of the ring with less than two seconds on the clock. He recovered his composure surprisingly quickly, however, and then, much to the astonishment of most of those watching (including Dante and Kacy, but not Sanchez) the little guy gave Hammerhead a pummelling unlike anything he’d ever known in his life.
First, with unbelievable speed, the little guy directed what looked like a fairly solid punch to Hammerhead’s throat that sent his larger opponent back on his heels, struggling for breath. In a split second this was followed by a flying kick to the side of the face, and before Hammerhead knew what had hit him he was in a headlock, and his windpipe was closed. Lights out, Hammerhead.
The fight was all over in less than thirty seconds. At first the crowd stood silent and stunned for a while, not sure what they had actually seen. Each and every man who had backed Hammerhead to win (and there were plenty of them) badly wanted to believe that the fight was fixed. Any fight where a smaller guy won always looked fixed in a situation like this. Unfortunately, it just didn’t look like it was this time. Hammerhead would never let himself get beaten so easily by a small and embarrassing-looking opponent like ‘Peto the Innocent’. This had to be real.
When it finally dawned on everyone in the audience what had happened, a huge roar went up, a mixture of jeers and cheers. Jeers because just about everyone had lost money, and cheers because it was quite a pleasant change to see an underdog win so convincingly against a bruiser like Hammerhead.
Confused by the uproar, Peto and Kyle stood in the ring while the inert Hammerhead was carried off, to more boos. They guessed that Peto had won himself the position of the fighter to beat. Now everyone in the tent wanted to see him fight again. Question was, who would be his next opponent?
Thirty-One
Sanchez was ecstatic. He’d made a grand out of Peto’s swift annihilation of Hammerhead. All it had cost him was Peto’s entry fee and a fifty-dollar bet of his own at odds of twenty to one on Peto winning. If he’d had the nerve to put money on the monk winning in the first round he’d have had a lot more too. Not that he was too bothered. The monks owed him a favour. He had paid for their entry fee; with luck he could now exploit the gullible fools and get Peto to fight again and win in whatever round he told him to.
He could tell Kyle was grateful when he offered him a fifty-dollar share of his winnings. The monks had picked up a thousand dollars cash in prize money for Peto’s quick demolition of Hammerhead, grudgingly doled out in filthy notes by the ringmaster, but Kyle had happily accepted th
e extra fifty from Sanchez. They had obviously got a taste for money, and indeed for gambling, Sanchez thought. Men after his own heart. He could see these two weirdos becoming good friends of his. For a short while, at least.
Twenty minutes had passed and Peto had promptly despatched the new club fighter, a fairly average journeyman named Big Neil, who had been brought in to replace Hammerhead. Sanchez, who was now acting as both adviser and manager to the two monks, negotiated with the ringmaster so that Peto could fight on against all comers. Pretty soon, Sanchez, the monks and the ringmaster were picking the round in which Peto was to win. A group of punks looking to make a few bucks for themselves were despatched to place anonymous bets for them, and before they knew it Sanchez and the two Hubal monks were quietly making a killing at the expense of the bookies.
Two hours seemed to pass in a flash as Peto demonstrated his full array of martial-arts techniques. By the time the young monk had defeated his fifth consecutive opponent, Sanchez was up by about twelve thousand dollars. Kyle had started off with a much smaller stake, but when his winnings had been added to the prize money Peto was accumulating they had made just over four thousand. Only another ninety-six thousand dollars to go before they had made all their stolen money back.
The problem they now faced was finding opponents. Most of the crowd had worked out that Peto was choosing when to win his fights; more importantly, they could see that he was winning them all with ease. In his five victories he had only actually been hit by his opponents three times. This meant that even though they were men who thought they were tough enough to land a hard punch, they had no stomach for wasting their chances against a man they couldn’t hit. But then, just when it seemed that no new challengers were going to come forward, one appeared. And he appeared in the most dramatic way imaginable.