Shit. Bitches. What more did they want from him, anyhow? He’d enlarged his vocabulary. He’d enlarged his dick, too. He’d evolved as a person. But that didn’t stop Porschia from walking out on him.
And look what had happened since Porschia left. Some geriatric light-heavyweight beat the shit out of him. The fight scheduled three weeks hence was canceled as a result. He had fucking Popsicle sticks taped to his fucking busted nose, and his voice was so whiny and nasal and terminally white that he couldn’t even recognize it.
Porschia. Man, but he missed her. Even if she did give him shit about ice cubes and stuff like that. But now he had the new refrigerator. Hey, that was a big change right there. Maybe he could call Porschia, tell her about it. Tell her about his fucked-up nose, too. Maybe she’d even feel sorry for him—
Tony glanced at his watch. The last show at Skull Island would be over by now. Porschia would be in the dressing room, changing with all the other bitches. Tony snatched up the phone and dialed Skull Island.
The switchboard operator put him through. “H’lo,” he said in his fucked-up voice. “Borschia Gees, bleeze.”
“Who?”
“Borschia Gees.”
“You mean Porschia Keyes?”
“Yes,” Tony said, trying hard to enunciate.
“Who’s calling?”
“Tony Katt.”
“Oh, gee.” The woman on the other end of the line paused. “I guess you haven’t heard, Tony. There’s been an accident.”
“Huh? Is Borschia otay?”
“What?”
“Is Porschia okay?”
“Well, we’re waiting to hear. See, Porschia danced the lead tonight. She was doing that big number with the animatronic King Kong, the one where they dance the macarena. Everything went fine until the part where Kong picks her up . . .” The woman sobbed. “It was horrible, Tony. The engineers think there was some kind of computer glitch. They couldn’t get the monkey’s paw to open . . . instead it kept on closing and Porschia was squeezed something awful . . . we could hear her ribs breaking and the way she screamed . . .”
The woman started crying. Tony hung up the phone. Wow. Porschia was in the hospital.
But, hey, those were the breaks.
Tony picked up the phone and dialed Caligula Tate’s number.
Tate said, “How’s it going, champ?”
“Good. The nose feels better. You get in touch with Baddalach yet?”
“No. But I’ve got a deal all ironed out with Skull Island. Baddalach will bite as soon as I pass on the offer. Believe me. He can’t turn down this kind of money. You’ll have the chump in the ring just in time for your birthday, and you know that ain’t far off.”
“All right,” Tony said. “I’ll hit him once for you.”
“Good. I never liked the son of a bitch.”
“Is the money good?”
Tate whistled. “Astro-fucking-nomical. Everyone wants to see this fight. You’ll clear twenty million. Maybe thirty.”
“I love my job.” Tony laughed. “Thirty million bucks to bust up a guy I’d meet in an alley for free.”
“Only in America.”
“Amen, brother.”
“So how’s everything going?” Tate asked. “The new fridge okay?”
“Yeah. The fridge is fine. But my girlfriend got hurt.”
“What happened?”
“Porschia got squeezed by a robot monkey. You know—that one she dances with at Skull Island. She’s in the hospital.”
“Sorry to hear it. You want me to send some flowers for you, champ?”
“Sure. Maybe some candy, too.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Tony said. “Send me another girl.”
“Any particular kind?”
“As long as she can make a kamikaze, she’ll be all right with me.”
***
Man, it didn’t take long at all.
A car pulled up in the driveway just as Tony climbed out of a hot shower. He toweled off and peeked through the window.
Check that. It wasn’t a car at all. It was a truck. A beat-up piece of shit Chevy. This had to be a mistake—
No. It wasn’t a mistake.
The woman who climbed out of the truck was fine. Tony watched from above as she appeared, section by foxy section.
Black stiletto heels.
Black fishnet stockings.
Black leather miniskirt.
Black bikini top.
Raven hair.
Tony smiled at his reflection in the mirror.
“Brother,” he said, “it’s going to be one long night.”
AFTER A DISCREET VISIT TO A VETERINARIAN IN HENDERSON, SPIKE THE CHIHUAHUA WAS RESTING COMFORTABLY. Angel Gemignani could rest easy, too, but of course that wasn’t Angel’s style. She shifted into slam-dance overdrive. After all, her girlfriends had come to Vegas for a bachelorette party. Under Angel’s direction the affair became a forty-eight-hour nonstop marathon of indulge-o-matic bliss.
Jack was invited, of course. He bowed out politely, mostly because he wanted to give Angel some breathing room. The secrets they had shared at Jack’s condo gave them a special bond of intimacy. Jack had told damn few people anything about Kate Benteen, and Angel was certainly the first person who forced him to admit that he loved Kate. And Jack was pretty sure that there weren’t too many people who knew about Angel’s run-in with Tony Katt or the insecurities she hid beneath a rattlesnake tattoo.
Besides that, Angel had plugged the redhead at the Frank Newman’s office. Jack knew he owed her for that.
The feeling of mutual attraction that had burned between Jack and Angel the first couple of times they bumped up against each other had turned into something special. Not romance, and certainly not love. But something that might, given time, become friendship. Angel had called him just last night, saying that she wanted to get together for lunch before she headed back to Palm Springs. She didn’t say anything directly, but her tone of voice told Jack that she hoped they could be friends, too.
Jack felt good about that. There wasn’t any doubt that he’d gotten off to a rocky start with Angel. Things were working out okay, though. Spike was safe, and Angel hadn’t heard another word from the dognappers. The police were investigating the shooting at the vet’s office, but so far no one had connected Jack or Angel to the trouble. The police couldn’t identify the dead redhead, either—she wasn’t carrying ID, and computer searches of several law enforcement databases had failed to match her fingerprints.
Not that the media were screaming for more info about the dead redhead. In fact, the news reports of the incident hardly mentioned her. Journalists seemed more interested in the “murdered” Komodo dragon. Several animal rights groups were offering rewards for the endangered lizard’s assassin.
But Jack wasn’t worried about Tarzan the bounty hunter showing up on his doorstep. For now, he was willing to leave the dognapping gang to Freddy G’s hotshot investigator. The guy was trying to track Harold Ticks through the California Department of Corrections computers, but it looked like Harold had jumped parole some time back. The investigator hadn’t been able to get in touch with Tony Katt, either. Not that Jack figured the guy could sweat Tony. If Jack was any judge of human nature, the baddest man on the planet wasn’t going to give up his buddy, not now.
Jack took it easy for a couple of days. He didn’t do much more than sit on his couch and read paperbacks. Anybody called, he let the answering machine pick up.
Every once in a while he made himself a couple of White Castle Burgers or Pop Tarts. He watched some television, too. The Tony Katt/Jack Baddalach story was still going strong. Caligula Tate was lobbying for a big money fight between the two men. He had phoned Jack several times.
Jack had spoken to the sports reporter from CNN, just to get the guy off his doorstep. He pretty much spent his five minutes of prime time ducking and dodging the reporter’s questions like bothersome jabs. But the reporter couldn’t get
a word out of Tony Katt. No one had seen him. His bruised ego and busted nose were obviously in hiding.
Katt’s disappearing act bothered Jack. It interfered with a decision he had made.
He wanted Tony Katt.
In the ring.
***
Jack wanted to make Katt pay for what he’d done to Angel. Sure, that was part of the reason he wanted a fight with Tony the Tiger.
But Jack was motivated by more than revenge. And it wasn’t just the money, either. Which was looking pretty spectacular, by the way. Johnny Da Nang was turning out to be one hell of a negotiator. He had jacked Caligula Tate’s initial offer of five million to nine million two, plus a healthy percentage of the pay-per-view action, rebroadcast rights, and live gate. The plan was to let Tate sweat for a couple more days, at least until Tony Katt showed his ugly face again. When that happened. Jack would sign on the dotted line . . . he’d take a Katt fight anywhere, anytime, anyplace.
Money was nice, but it could be a pain in the ass, too.
And in the boxing world, it brought out the leeches. But Jack could deal with them. He’d dealt with them before. He wasn’t some kid who would spend a fortune before he even made one.
So he could handle the money, and the revenge angle would be sweet . . . but there was more to Jack’s decision.
It was almost kind of funny, because Jack felt that the whole Tony Katt thing was the first conscious decision he’d made in a long time. Since Spike was dognapped. Jack’s run-in with Katt was the one action he had actually planned. Everything else was like one big adrenaline rush, immediate responses demanded by stimuli that were dangerous in varying degrees.
To put it another way: Jack never acted, he always reacted.
Angel kisses him in Palm Springs, and he kisses her before he can even decide if it’s a good idea or not. Dognappers lock him up with a rattlesnake, he’s got to escape or die. Punkers attack his dog, he steps in and takes the punishment. Angel puts the moves on him in a hot tub, he makes the same mistake he made when they kissed. One of the dognappers pulls his chain, he gets into a shootout at a veterinarian’s office. A Komodo dragon goes into rampage overdrive, he has to shoot it before someone gets eaten.
But the fight with Katt was different. Jack had time to think about it. He weighed all the options. The advantages and disadvantages.
And in the end his decision didn’t have much to do with Tony Katt. It had a lot to do with Jack Baddalach and how he defined himself.
Once upon a time he defined himself as the light-heavyweight champion of the world. Then he defined himself as a problem solver for the mob. Just lately he had defined himself in varying degrees as a Chihuahua’s babysitter, a lover ignored, and Jack the Giant Killer.
Back there somewhere, behind ego and pride and all the rest of that bullshit. Jack knew better. He knew that he should define himself as Jack Baddalach. Just plain old Jack. Whatever happened to him, that’s who he was.
It was a healthy attitude. Some would call it a Zen kind of thing.
Jack figured, later for that.
Because he had to admit that he wanted one last definition on top of all those others. One that would stick until the day they put him in his grave, and then some.
Jack Baddalach, heavyweight champion of the world.
***
Jack took a shower and got dressed. It was Angel’s last day in town. They were going to do lunch at Bertolini’s in the mall at Caesars Palace.
The phone rang as Jack was headed out the door. Johnny Da Nang’s voice came over the answering machine speaker.
Jack picked up. “Hey, Johnny.”
“Good news and bad news, champ. I got Tate up to ten million five.”
“All right. You’re earning your percentage. What’s the bad news?”
“Tony Katt’s still the Invisible Man. No one has seen him. Tate’s worried about it. So am I. If the story starts to cool off before we sign a contract, I figure Tate’s offer will go soft.”
“Okay,” Jack said. “I’ll make a few calls later today. I know a couple of Katt’s sparring partners. Maybe they know what rock he’s hiding under.”
“Sounds good.”
They said their good-byes and Jack headed for the parking lot, swinging by his mailbox on the way.
A couple bills. An Archie McPhee catalog. The new Sports Illustrated featuring cover boy Jack Baddalach over the punch line, giant killer!
A large Express Mail envelope, too. Jack recognized the return address as that of the Casbah Hotel & Casino.
But he knew the address was a phony as soon as he opened the envelope and pulled out the ransom note:
Jack stared at the note. The kidnapper—for this note was signed in the singular instead of plural—had used the same font as the previous note. And the smiley face looked identical, too.
But the postscript—they make nice lamp shades—what the hell did that mean? Jack peered into the open envelope. Something was stuck to the paper, glued there . . .
. . . glued there with blood.
The tattooed face of Colonel Harlan Sanders smiled up at him from a torn canvas of human flesh.
Jack shivered as he saw the words:
Finger Lickin’ Good . . .
JACK TOSSED THE ENVELOPE ONTO HIS DESK. MAN, HE COULDN’T EVEN GET A BREAK. His brief foray into action mode was over. The reaction express had just chugged back into town.
Only this time he didn’t know how to react. He figured he should make a phone call. But to whom? The corporate bigwigs at Skull Island . . . or Freddy G . . . or Caligula Tate . . . or, hell, the Las Vegas cops?
No, he couldn’t call the cops. That was definitely out. There was too much back story that he couldn’t explain— the dognapped Chihuahua and the reason behind Jack’s run-in with Tony Katt, for starters. And if the cops talked him into a corner . . . well, Angel had killed the redheaded dognapper at Dr. Newman’s office. Jack didn’t want her to end up as Court TV’s designated celebrity murder defendant of the season.
Jack’s hands weren’t exactly clean, either. After all, he had assassinated a rampaging Komodo dragon. According to some people, that made him Public Enemy Number One. Jesus, he didn’t want animal rights activists picketing outside his door.
A chill iced Jack’s spine. At least he hadn’t skinned anyone alive. Tony Katt, Jack’s only link to the gang, was learning some serious lessons about honor among thieves. Man, there were easier ways to get rid of a tattoo.
Hardball time, that’s what this was. The main event. The road to hell wasn’t paved with good intentions; it was paved with ten million bucks. In an effort to collect that kind of scratch, the dognappers had turned on one of their own.
Now they were Kattnappers.
Or Kattnapper, singular. That’s what the ransom note indicated. Still, Jack had a hard time believing that one person could pull off something like this.
Jack sat and stewed, playing it over and over in his mind. Who to call—
He glanced at his watch. First of all, he had to cancel his lunch date. He dialed the Casbah and the operator put him through to Angel Gemignani’s suite.
“Jack,” she said, “I was just going to call you, but I figured you’d be on your way over.”
“I kind of got sidetracked. Something pretty important. I’m going to have to take a rain check on our lunch.”
“No. You’ve got to come over here.”
“Sorry, Angel. I’m serious—”
“So am I.” She paused. “This is really important. Jack. See, we were sitting around, drinking champagne, doing the bachelorette party thing, and Evie—she’s the one who’s getting married—put on this porno video she bought at a shop near Fremont Street—”
“A porno movie? C’mon, Angel, I don’t have time for this. Someone has snatched Tony Katt. I think it’s the same bunch who kidnapped Spike. They sent me one of his tattoos in the mail. They want ten million dollars for the rest of him.”
“Jesus, Jack.”
/> “Anyway, I’ve got to call the bosses at Skull Island, or maybe Caligula Tate—”
“Settle down. Jack,” Angel said. “Grow some patience, huh?”
“I don’t have time for patience. Especially when it comes to porno movies. If you’ve got something to tell me, make it fast.”
“Okay . . . I recognized one of the actresses in the movie—a redhead in black leather.”
“Oh shit. You’re kidding.”
“Jack, I couldn’t forget this woman if I tried,” Angel said. “Because the last time I saw her, I put a bullet in her head.”
***
The movie was called Little Bitches. A costume piece featuring three-way action, early American style. Louisa May Alcott was probably rotating in her grave.
“Recognize them with their clothes off?” Angel asked.
“I can make them out.” Jack sat on the bed, watching the screen. “Jo and Amy are definitely the two we ran into at the vet’s office. And the one with the wrist braces, Beth, she’s the one I knocked out when the gang grabbed Spike.”
Angel nodded. “So what are we going to do about it?”
“I don’t know.” Jack looked at the video box, but the only address he found was a Las Vegas post office box. “I guess we could get in touch with the investigator Freddy was using. Maybe the guy could use the video to track them down.”
On screen, Jo and Amy and Beth were taking turns with Professor Bhaer.
Angel shook her head in disbelief. “I guess they left this part out of the Winona Ryder version.”
Jack grabbed the telephone. “I’ll give Freddy a call.”
“Wait a minute.” Angel snatched up the remote control and thumbed the rewind button. “There’s something else you need to see. Something I forgot about.”
Oh, man, Jack thought. Don’t tell me Grandma plays the mother . . .
Angel restarted the tape. She fast-forwarded through several phone sex advertisements and hit the pause button when a notice from the producer appeared on screen:
The Ten-Ounce Siesta Page 17