Bad Luck

by Anthony Bruno

  “Well, I—”

  “C’mon, Henry. My timing’s bad, real bad.”

  The trainer raised his bushy eyebrows and shrugged. “I guess . . . I dunno. Five minutes?”

  “That’s all,” Joseph said.

  “All right, sure, I guess. There’s some gloves over there.” He nodded to one of the corners where a few beat-up pairs of gym gloves were hanging from the turnbuckle.

  Joseph picked out two pairs and handed one to Gonsalves.

  The old trainer pulled the cigar out of his mouth. “Hang on. Gotta get rid of this.” He ducked under the ropes and climbed down to go put it someplace. When he came back Joseph helped him with his gloves. “I used to do this for Sal when we were kids,” he told Henry as he carefully pulled the laces tight and tied them with double knots.

  Joseph went over to help Sal with his gloves then. Sal grinned as his brother tied bows in his laces.

  Joseph moved out of the way when he was finished, and Sal started toward Gonsalves in an exaggerated crouch, dragging his feet. “Okay, Henry. Here I come now, here I come.” He threw a few weak punches at Gonsalves’s gloves. The trainer looked confused and a little embarrassed by the whole business. He still didn’t know what to make of it. “Tell me not to drop my right, Henry. I always drop my right. That’s what you told me.”

  “Yeah . . . that’s right. Don’t drop your right.” Gonsalves moved away from Sal, cautious. He remembered Sal’s right.

  Sal kept coming at him, throwing weak, sloppy punches. “C’mon, Henry. Tell me what I’m doing wrong. Tell me what to do. You tell the champ what to do, don’tcha?”

  “Yeah, sure, Sal . . . I tell the champ what to do.” He kept moving away.

  Sal moved in and cuffed Gonsalves’s ear with a soft left. “He’s a good guy, the champ, isn’t he? He listens to what you say, right? Even if he’s the champ, he’s gotta listen to you. Right, Henry?”

  “Yeah, Sal, he listens to me.”

  Sal cuffed the ear again, a little harder. “Yeah, Walker’s a good kid. He listens to everything you tell him. Everything. You’re like his father, right?”

  “Walker’s a good kid, yeah.”

  Sal smacked that ear with a sharp pop. “When I was up at the hospital—you know, the hospital?—I heard that guy on TV with the funny hair say that you’re the only one the champ listens to, Henry. They all say you’re the only one he listens to.” Another pop to the ear. “He’s like your dog.”

  “No, Sal, he’s not—”

  Another hook to that ear. Harder. “They say if you told him to jump off the Empire State Building, he’d do it, Henry.”

  “No—”

  Whap! A little harder.

  “They say if Henry Gonsalves told Tain’ Walker to throw a fight, he’d do it.”

  “No—”

  Whap! Harder. Gonsalves winced and covered up.

  “That’s what I heard, Henry.” Sal broke up the cover-up with a right uppercut. “That’s what I heard.”

  “That’s not—”

  Whap! Whap! Two quick rights, half strength.

  “I bet he’d do it if you told him to, Henry.” Whap! “That boy loves you. Like a father, Henry.” Whap! Whap!

  Gonsalves bent over and tucked himself in like an armadillo. Sal unleashed a deep uppercut and blew the old man open.

  “Okay, okay, enough! That’s five minutes—“Whap-whap!

  “How ’bout if I told you the champ should throw the fight, Henry? How ’bout it if I made you a very good offer to let Epps take it in the third? An offer good enough for you and the champ. Would you tell him to do it?”

  “No, Sal—”

  POW! Right uppercut to the gut, full power. Henry doubled over, hanging on Sal’s arm.

  “I’m gonna ask you again, Henry.” Sal untied the bow on his right glove with his teeth. “What would you say, Henry? For three mil, say.” He shook off the glove.

  “Enough, Sal—”

  “Hey, take it easy, Sal.” Joseph yelling from outside the ropes. “You’re gonna kill ’im.”

  Shut the fuck up, Joseph.

  Sal balled his fist and threw a right cross. Gonsalves’s head whipped around, blood flowing from his nose, smearing his upper lip.

  “I’m asking you, Henry. Will you tell him to do it? Huh?”

  Oooph!

  Sal lifted him off his feet with an uppercut to the stomach. He untied the left glove and threw it off, then started on that ear again. “I don’t hear you, Henry.” Whap! “I don’t hear you.”

  Gonsalves was gasping for breath. “I—I can’t—”

  “Easy, Sal, easy.”

  Shut up, you little fuck, you!

  Sal was thinking about Henry taking Walker to the championship and all the shitty little two-bit fights he’d made Sal fight, fights that made other guys look good, punks like Walker. He clenched his jaw, moved in, and—WHAM!—a straight right square on Gonsalves’s chin, the killer right, the right that took care of Lawson, that could’ve decked Ali. A shock of white hair stood on end as Gonsalves’s head flew back, then his knees buckled, and he collapsed in a heap. Out cold.

  “Jesus Christ Almighty, you killed ’im, Sal. What the hell good is he now? Whatta we gonna do, Sal? There goes the fight, that’s for sure. I toldja we shoulda went straight to Walker with this.”

  “Shut your fucking mouth!” Sal yelled. He crouched down and looked at the old guy. Jesus, did he kill him? Sal started to panic. Shit, if Henry dies, they might have to back out of this fight deal. Fuck. “Go get some water,” Sal shouted. “Hurry up!”

  Sal stuck his finger under the trainer’s nose. He thought he could feel him breathing. Sal was relieved but, in a way, disappointed too. Sal muttered under his breath, “You should die for what you did to me, you old fuck, you.”

  “What’s taking you so long, Jo—” Just then the front door banged open.

  “Hey, Gonz, what the fuck’re you doing in here with all them lights on, man—?”

  It was “Pain” Walker, with this black chick on his arm. The champ sensed that something wasn’t right. He froze where he stood, staring up at Sal. Then he spotted his trainer laid out on the stained canvas.

  “Gonz? Gonz, dat you?” There was panic in his voice. He shrugged the girl off and ran for the ring. “Gonz! What’d you do to Gönz, man?” Walker threw off his leather jacket and leapt up into the ring. He stopped and stared down at Gonsalves lying on the canvas, just stood there and stared. Then he started shaking. He raised his head and looked Sal in the eye. “Motherfuckin’—” The champ lunged like a panther and cracked Sal across the jaw with his killer right. It hit like a freight train. Sal stumbled back, dazed. Then Walker got him by the shirtfront and started whaling into his face. “What the fuck you do this for, motherfuckah, huh? What’choo hurt Gonz for? Why?” Walker was crying as he punched, crying and screaming and punching.

  Sal swung at him, but he couldn’t get a good shot in, not with the way Walker had him bent back over the ropes, so he tried to block the onslaught, but there was no getting away from Walker. He was all over him. Sal took a good one on the nose then, and time stopped. Then he felt it, that old familiar pain, brain-damage pain, like a spider-web crack spreading through his whole face, slowly shattering the skull underneath. Panic grabbed Sal by the balls. This fucking mental case was the heavyweight champion of the world, and he was pulling a nut on him, pulling a nut barefisted. This boy was gonna hurt him, hurt him bad.

  Walker pounded Sal’s ear. “Why you do this, motherfuckah? Why?”

  Sal covered up to protect his head. “Joseph! Jo—!”

  A gunshot cracked through the hollow gym.

  Walker stopped short, fist cocked in the air. He stared across the gym.

  “Cool it, brother, or your honey here’s gonna be looking for a good plastic surgeon.”

  Sal blinked and refocused his eyes. Joseph was looking up at them from the edge of the ring, holding his big 9mm to the girlfriend’s cheek, pressing the mu
zzle right in there. He had her arm twisted up behind her. She had that kind of straight hair black chicks have that doesn’t move. Like a Supreme. Her eyes were wide, white, and scared. Sal looked up at Walker who stood there like a dummy, trying to figure it all out. Sal pushed him off, straightened up, and smiled. Buckwheat and Farina. Thank you, Joseph. I take it back. You’re not a total waste.

  “What’choo doin’ this for, man?” Walker’s voice was high and strained. Too high for a guy his size.

  Joseph took on that reasonable tone again. “We were trying to make Mr. Gonsalves a proposition, something that would be very good for you, champ. But he wasn’t listening to us, so my brother had to press our point.”

  “You talkin’ shit, man. I don’t know what’choo—”

  “It’s very simple, champ,” Joseph continued. “You throw the fight with Epps, and you’ll end up with more money in your pocket than if you’d won.”

  “Bullshit! Can’t—”

  “Three million, champ. All for you. Just stop and think, now. How much of that seventeen mil will you see if you win it? How much? You know how it works, champ. I don’t have to tell you. Uncle Sam takes his big piece, the state gets their piece, the casino gets some, the promoter takes a lot, Henry gets some, then there’s all the fees, and this guy’s gotta get paid and that guy and the other guy’s cousin, and when it’s all over, what’s left for you? Not too much, right? You take our deal and no one will know about it. Put it in a bank in the Islands. Nobody knows nothing. All for you. What do you think, champ?”

  “Dwayne!” The girlfriend squealed, pleading.

  Walker glared at her, hate in his eyes. This was a little too much for his limited capacity. You could see he was trying hard to sort it all out, but he had a slow processor and he didn’t like being pressured by the babe. He didn’t give a shit about her. That was for sure. What was probably making him mad, Sal figured, was that somewhere deep in the back of his head he was already making up his mind about throwing the fight, and now he was just pissed that she’d heard about the three mil.

  “Dwayne! He’s hurting me, Dwayne!”

  “What you want me to do? He got the gun. Tell him.”

  Sal had to laugh. He pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at his nose. He was surprised it wasn’t bleeding. He grinned to himself. Always could take a punch.

  “So whattaya say, champ?” Joseph said. “It’s a good deal.”

  “I, I . . .” Walker couldn’t get the words out. He stared down at Gonsalves on the canvas. “I don’t know.”

  Sal folded the handkerchief and put it back in his pocket. “Listen to me, champ.”

  “Whattaya doin’, Sal? Don’t be stupid. Let me talk.” Joseph looked hurt again. He was too sensitive.

  “It’s okay, Joseph. I want to make the champ understand a few things.”

  Joseph shrugged, disgusted. He didn’t like it when Sal stopped playing dumb without warning. He liked being the mouthpiece. It made him think he was really in charge.

  Sal turned to Walker. “You know, champ, you have to understand that this isn’t Wheel of Fortune we’re playing here. It’s not a take-it-or-leave-it situation. We want you to throw the fight, and if you don’t want to cooperate, you better start thinking about being a janitor or a doorman or something suited to your abilities, because if you don’t do it, you’re finished in boxing.”

  “Fuck you, man. You don’t know nothin’.”

  “Oh, no? Well, chew on this, brother. You don’t throw this fight, I find a convicted drug dealer who’ll swear on a stack of Bibles that he sold you steroids, coke, crack, heroin, you name it. I’ll get two fucking drug dealers.”

  “That’s bullshit, man. I don’t take no steroids.”

  Sal shrugged. “So what? The accusation alone will be enough to get the Boxing Commission on your ass, and everybody knows how they feel about you. Those old guys are dying to make an example out of you, Walker. Guilty or innocent doesn’t matter. As soon as you’re connected with drugs, there’s no way they’re gonna sanction a title fight with your name on the bill. Forget about it. They’ll strip you of your title. And who the hell’s gonna want to fight you if you’re not ranked? That’ll be it for you, pal.”

  Come on, Walker. You’re gonna do it. You wanna do it.

  The champ was speechless. Comatose was more like it. He stood there, his chin on his chest, staring down at Gonsalves, waiting for him to rise from the dead and tell him what to do. He got down on one knee, touched the trainer’s neck, his chest, his face. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing. He just wanted Gonsalves to get up and handle this, be his daddy and take care of the tough decisions. Hell, he was just supposed to fight—Henry was supposed to take care of the rest. Henry had a way of making his fighters dependent on him like that. That’s why he and Sal had never really hit it off. Sal had other obligations.

  “You gotta think for yourself, champ,” Sal said. “Henry means well, but he’s a little old-fashioned, if you know what I mean. Sure, you can whup Epps. Everybody knows that. But in the long run that’s not gonna put the cash in your pocket. Don’t be stupid. Always go for the money, champ. You can’t go on forever. Everybody gets old. It’s a fact of life. You gotta think of your future. The smart guy always goes for the big money, champ. Be the smart guy.”

  “Dwayne!” Joseph was squeezing the black chick again. It was more braciòl’ than he’d squeezed in a long time.

  “Dwayne, he’s hurting me!”

  “Shut the fuck up, bitch!” Walker looked like he wanted to punch her lights out. He turned back to Sal and whispered. “Three million dollars, you said?”

  Sal nodded.

  “And nobody can touch it but me?”

  “You throw it before the fourth round, and the money’ll be waiting for you in a bank in the Cayman Islands. All for you. Nobody else.”

  Walker started nodding like he was in a trance. He was mumbling something.

  “Whatcha say, champ?”

  Walker kept mumbling under his breath, bobbing his head up and down, staring at Gonsalves. What the hell was this? Voodoo?

  “Champ, I’m talking to you.”

  Walker didn’t seem to hear him. He wanted Gonsalves to get up and make the decision for him. Fucking Henry. He turned his fighters into babies. They couldn’t shit without his okay. That’s why he’d stopped pushing for Sal way back when. Sal wouldn’t be his baby. Fucking Henry. Sal felt like stomping on his sleeping face.

  “Look, champ, let me explain something to you. Henry’s a good guy, but do you really think he’s got your best interests at heart? What the hell’s he got you fighting this has-been Epps for? You fight has-beens, pretty soon people start calling you a has-been. You should be knocking down all those guys coming up the ranks, taking fights that’re gonna keep you on top. Listen to me now. Take this deal, pocket the three mil, and you’ll be free to take any fight you want. You won’t have to be tempted by jerk-offs like Nashe waving big-money purses in your face, big money that you never even get to see. Am I making sense or what, champ? Am I?”

  Walker was looking at him, eyes narrowed, face all scrunched up like a prune. He mumbled something.

  “I don’t understand what you’re saying, champ. Speak up.”

  Walker looked down at the floor, shoulders bunched, back rounded. “I said, all right, all right, I’ll do it . . . I’ll do it.”

  Sal clapped his hands. “You’re a smart guy, champ. You made the right decision.” Sal ducked under the ropes and climbed down out of the ring.

  Joseph let the girl go, reluctantly. He kept the gun out and started backing toward the door, like George Raft. Jooch.

  Sal stood at the edge of the ring, eye level with Walker who was kneeling over Gonsalves now. “Hey, champ, listen up. This is important. You make sure you get Henry to Our Lady of Mercy Hospital over in Reading. Our Lady of Mercy. It’s about forty-five minutes from here. You register him under the name of—” Sal shrugged and frowned—“Hector Diaz. Yea
h, Hector Diaz. You got that? They’ll take care of him. No questions asked.”

  He turned to his brother. “Remember to call Dr. Steve and arrange it.”

  Joseph nodded once, his eye on the ring.

  Sal turned and headed for the door, Joseph walking backward with the gun trained on the champ. “Put that fucking thing away before you shoot yourself in the foot.” Fucking nitwit. Lou Costello.

  He looked back at the ring then. The black chick was hanging on the champ’s back, looking for a little consoling, but Walker was only worried about his trainer. His daddy. “Hey, champ,” Sal called out, “don’t think this over too hard. Just do what you promised. You think about it too much, you might get second thoughts, and second thoughts are no good for anyone. Especially you, kid.”

  The girl looked up and stared at Sal, tears pouring out of her eyes. If Walker wasn’t listening, she’d remind him. She’d remind him about the three mil too. You could bet on that.

  Sal turned away and took a deep breath. He felt nice. He felt warm inside. It was all gonna work out. It really was. “C’mon,” he said to his brother. “Let’s go.”

  ibbons couldn’t get over it. He stared across the long marble floor at the short little fat guy in the black raincoat standing in front of the big dinosaur skeleton. He’d been following the guy around Manhattan for the past three days—coffee shops, department stores, museums, Central Park, all over the place—and he just couldn’t get over it. It wasn’t just his face, the sourpuss with the lopsided mouth. It was the way he walked, the way he snapped at people and glared at them behind their backs, the way he was always straightening his tie clip, his cuffs, his lapels, the way he shook out his handkerchief and blew his nose like a fog horn. Gibbons just couldn’t get over it. Sabatini Mistretta was a dead ringer for J. Edgar Hoover.

  Gibbons tipped back his hat and looked at his watch. It was almost three. If Mistretta followed his usual pattern, he’d start heading for a coffee shop soon. Coffee, light with Sweet ’n Low, and a piece of pie. Yesterday it had been peach pie. The day before, coconut custard. Gibbons had been thinking about coconut custard pie ever since. Lorraine told him he shouldn’t eat things like coconut custard pie anymore. His cholesterol was too high. She had the doctor do a work-up on his cholesterol when they went for the blood test. It was over two twenty, whatever the hell that meant. She said she’d buy him frozen yogurt pies from now on, and that’s what she did, that very night. He took his hat off and put it back on. Yogurt is not coconut custard. Not by a long shot. Holy Matrimony. Can’t fucking wait.