Dutch bounded back into the center of the ring as the referee counted “Nine …” When the referee stepped back to allow the fight to resume, Dutch faked a left jab and connected with a roundhouse right that knocked The Pig again to the canvas. Dutch looked down at The Pig, sprawled on the canvas, taking the full count.
Dutch noticed the seams running down the middle of canvas ring. The seams had stitches holding the two halves together. I wonder how many stitches there are, thought Dutch, I have to count them. He began to count, one, two, three, four …
Dutch, counting the stitches, didn’t see The Pig push himself into a standing position.
An unseen right cross caught Dutch on the side of his head, knocking him to the canvas. He came down hard, his face hitting the center seam of the canvas …six, seven, eight, nine… Dutch continued to count the stitches.
“One … two … three …four …” the referee counted.
“Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen …” Dutch counted.
Dutch flashed back on his childhood, growing up in a filthy tenement house in Brooklyn. He could see himself at four years old, playing on the dusty and sticky floor of the tiny living room while his mother snored, passed out in a vomit-stained housecoat on the piss-stained couch. He ran his hot-wheels car across the floor and watched it come to rest near a small hole in the baseboard. He scooted over to get his car and peered into the hole. Two small black eyes peered back at him and twitched a whiskered nose. He reached for his car and the creature bit him on the finger. Dutch shivered on the canvas floor as he continued to count.
“Get up! Get up!” Dutch’s manager boomed from his corner.
Dutch remembered his father in wind-smeared boxers and a yellowing T-shirt standing over his bed breathing beer breath on him as Dutch pretended to sleep, trying to ignore the biting bugs in his bed, keeping his eyes tightly sealed. He remembered getting up to go to school, putting on clothes so dirty that they were stiff. He remembered removing a dirty bowl from the sink, scraping off the biggest chunks of stuck-on food and filling it with stale cereal. Venturing into the graffiti-covered hallway, he’d had to step around a sleeping wino as he took the stairs to the street, the smell of garbage and urine assaulting his nose.
He swore then that when he grew up and got out of this place he would never be dirty again.
He wasn’t sure when it started, but by the time he was eight, he was cleaning the filthy apartment himself, washing the clothes, changing the sheets but, for some reason, he could never get the place quite clean enough. By the time he was eleven he had become obsessed with cleaning.
“Seven … eight … nine …” the referee counted.
“Dammit ref,” Dutch shouted. “You keep making me lose count!”
As a young man in the shabby apartment he was constantly cleaning. He cleaned the bathrooms over and over, scrubbed the floors on his hands and knees. He even washed the light bulbs that hung from the ceiling by single wires. He was teased constantly at school about his habits, wiping off his desk seat before he sat, cleaning the water fountain before he drank and cleaning the cutlery in the cafeteria before he ate. He wiped off the dodge balls in gym class with wet wipes before he would touch them.
Teasing led to confrontations and confrontation led to fights. Soon, Dutch was fighting and winning against boys twice his size. He was a fighter, a clean fighter. Over the years the cleaning led to other obsessions – counting, ritually touching things a certain number of times, flicking lights on and off …
“OUT” shouted the referee as he reached out and took The Pig’s gloved hand and held it aloft.
“Too bad for The Cleanser,” announced the first commentator.
His partner, the co-commentator, spoke up. “I talked to his trainer before the match and he seemed to feel that Dutch had his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder under control. I guess not.”
“Too bad,” the first commentator said. “He was clearly the better fighter.”
Cutter and Dee Dee stared at each other. Evil smiles bloomed on both faces like black roses.
Back in the ring, Dutch continued to count the stitches.
When The Pig danced around him in the ring in victory, Dutch counted. When the referee climbed out of the ring and headed for home, Dutch counted.
When his manager muttered that he would never, ever, manage a fighter with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder again, then packed up his sponge and bucket and walked sadly toward the locker room, Dutch counted.
The crowd filed out of the arena and Dutch continued to count.
Roland pushed the button on the remote control, and the television went black. He poured a shot of tequila into a shot glass with a little skull and cross bones on it and slid it towards Cutter. “How much did you lose this time?” he said.
“He lost two large.” Tony said then laughed as Cutter downed the shot. Roland poured him another.
“But you gotta get back on your regular losing streak if I’m gonna get back the fifty grand you won off me on that NASCAR race,” Tony said. “Who the hell would have ever thought Rebel Buford would win Daytona?” Tony genuflected and said, “Bless his soul.”
Tony smiled to himself. He had bet ten large himself on Rebel Buford winning Daytona and cleaned up.
“Bless his soul,” echoed Cutter and downed his second shot.
“I think you need to take a little drive over to Tampa,” Dee Dee said to Cutter.
It took Cutter less than an hour to drive from St. Petersburg Beach to Tampa. He entered the empty boxing arena, and found Dutch, still lying on the canvas, counting stitches.
At last, Dutch stood and announced with pride, “Three thousand, four hundred and sixty seven!”
He looked around and beheld an almost empty auditorium. Only one man sat in an aisle seat in the back of the auditorium. “Where did everybody go?” Dutch was surprised and a bit dejected. He touched the ropes at each compass point of the ring three times, climbed through the ropes, slipped into his robe and began to trudge up the aisle toward the locker room.
As he passed, Cutter pressed a small slip of paper in the boxer’s hand. It read:
The Fugu Lounge
In the Santeria Hotel, St. Pete Beach
Extreme Dining at its Best
Good for a free entrée
And a one-night stay
An hour later Cutter pulled into the Santeria hotel and crossed the parking lot toward the Fugu Lounge. As he approached the door he heard a loud “Pssssst” from behind the dumpster, then he heard “Cutter? Is that you?”
Cutter wandered over to the dumpster. A skinny black woman was peeking out at him. Cutter looked down beside the dumpster and beheld a pile of fornicating felines going at it hammer and tongs. He heard a hiss and followed the sound to the snarling, black cat sitting on the top of the dumpster, glowering at him.
“Not you again,” Cutter said to Stinky, and again, slapped Stinky from the dumpster with the back of his hand.
“You are soooo dead.” Stinky aimed glittering green eye-daggers at Cutter.
“Bella!” Cutter said. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Hussey,” Bella said. “The folks at the college said she gave this hotel as her permanent address.
“Yeah, she works here now; has a room on the second floor. Why are you looking for her?”
“Hussey has a book I want,” Bella said conspiratorially. “I need to get it back.”
“I thought you were blind,” Cutter said, “what happened?”
“I got better,” Bella said. “I need you to help me get that book called Conjures Mama Wati gave Hussey.”
“Jeez, I don’t know,” Cutter said, “she already thinks I’m a shit. If she catches me sneaking around her room stealing stuff, she will never take me back.”
“Take you back? Are you two on the outs?”
“Yeah, I lost all of our money gambling and she won’t even talk to me, but I won some of it back and we have a plan to make a lot more to b
oot.”
“Oh yeah?” Bella said. “What kind of plan you got? And who is ‘we’?”
“Me and this girl, Dee Dee. She’s the sushi chef at the restaurant. We’re turning athletes with psychological problems into zombies and then betting on them. When they win, we clean up. It’s a sweet deal. I already won fifty thousand on the NASCAR driver we turned into a zombie. Actually, we tricked Hussey into turning him into a zombie. We’re going to do a boxer next, guy named Dutch ‘The Cleanser’ Lewis.”
“That’s interesting,” said Bella, the wheels turning behind her dark eyes. “You tricked Hussey into using her Mambo powder on a human? I bet she’d be madder than a hornet if she found out. Now, about that book, I think you are going to get it for me.”
“I told you I couldn’t do it,” Cutter said.
“Want me to tell Hussey you tricked her into making a human zombie?”
“Please don’t tell Hussey. She’ll never speak to me again.” He realized he had said too much.
“Get me that book and it’s our little secret,” Bella said. “I’ll meet you here tomorrow night and you better have that book.”
As Cutter and Bella Donna went their separate ways, Stinky climbed back on top of the dumpster. “Someday I’ll have my army of minions, and that man will pay for his insolence.”
Chapter Sixteen
Voodoo For Dummies
The sun-cured, sausage-casing bodies bobbed in the pool of the Santeria Hotel, par broiling in the brutal Florida sun. Watching them from the window at the front desk, they reminded Roland of the sea lions that languished on San Francisco’s Pier 39. From the shady coolness of the office Roland could almost see the sparks guttering off of the paler-skinned bodies and hear the faint electrical crackle as if someone had placed an iPod in a microwave.
Maybe heaven’s like that, Roland thought, drifting around in a pool all day on a floating noodle, having someone bring you drinks. It occurred to him the snowbirds hadn’t placed a drink order all day. They were usually on their third round by now, measuring the time they had been out there in rounds. He also noticed that they seemed a little more languid than usual, standing there, staring off into the Gulf, not moving. Roland noticed Stinky sitting in the shade under a pool umbrella watching the pool people.
“There has to be an answer,” purred Stinky to himself. “When the slutty woman gave them the drinks they came back to life and now they do what she says. They are totally under her control. Imagine a pussy cat army, all under my control. I could rule the world. I must find out how to do this.”
Roland watched Stinky sniff the air as if he was picking up some message in the sea breeze, as if the wind was giving him the answer he desired. Stinky shook his head and streaked into the bar.
Before Roland could follow Stinky into the bar to see what evil he was up to now, a bear of a man swaggered through the door, and across the room. He stood at the front desk, squirted anti-bacterial gel on the bell and pushed the button cautiously with one finger. Roland turned to greet him. The man looked like he could break the desk in half without much trouble.
“What a filthy place!” the man said. “When was the last time anybody dusted this counter? Where’s the manager?”
“That would be me,” Roland said, putting on a fake smile as he turned toward the man. “What can I do for you?”
“I want a room. I got this here free card,” Dutch said.
Roland looked down at the card. He knew he hadn’t printed it, or authorized it. It must have been Dee Dee, he thought. “Where did you get this coupon?”
“Look buddy,” the big man said. “I got a fight coming up in a few days and I need a little R&R before I take on ‘The Germ.’ So get me a room, OK? And nobody will get hurt.”
Roland looked over his shoulder at the empty slots where keys to vacant rooms vacationed. He found a lone key to a room at the end of the second floor and asked for the man’s credit card.
“I thought the room was free,” the man said.
“Just in case there are phone charges or whatever,” Roland informed him. “So, you’re a boxer?” Roland made conversation while he processed the card. “I think I’ve actually seen you fight on Pay per View. Didn’t you fight ‘The Pig’ in Tampa last night? Dutch Something, right?”
Dutch hung his head. “Yeah, that was me,” he said to the floor. “It wasn’t one of my better moments.”
“I have to make sure the room is ready,” Roland said. “In the meantime why don’t you have a drink at the bar?”
Roland led the man into the Fugu Lounge and found Dee Dee behind the bar chatting with Cutter. Hussey was busy cleaning off tables. Tony was seated beside Cutter polishing off a beer. “Gimme another one,” said Tony, “I’m drier than an English sense of humor.”
“Dee Dee,” Roland said, strolling up to the bar with Dutch in tow. “Make this man a drink on the house. I’m going up to check his room.”
Dee Dee shoved a frosted mug under a tap and poured Tony a beer. Cutter smiled at Dee Dee and nodded toward Dutch as he motioned her to come closer, “That’s the guy,” he whispered to Dee Dee, “the boxer.”
“What can I get you to drink?” Dee Dee asked, her voice pure honey as she turned her attention to Dutch.
“Gimme a Zombie,” the boxer said.
A wide grin spread across Dee Dee’s face.
“I have to go take care of something,” Cutter whispered to Dee Dee as she mixed the drink. He looked over at Hussey to make sure she’d be busy cleaning up for a while. “I’ll be right back.”
With Roland not minding the bar and away from the front office Cutter took the opportunity to slip the master key off the pegboard behind the desk and into his pocket. He strolled outside into the parking lot and lurked while he watched Roland enter one of the rooms. Cutter surveyed the row of rooms and crept toward Hussey’s door. He slid the master key into the lock, crept inside, and headed straight for the closet. He found the ‘Conjure’ book under Hussey’s medical bag, and stuffed it into his pants, pulling his shirttail over the bulge it made. Crossing to the door, he peered out of the peephole to make sure no one was in the walkway as he slinked out of Hussey’s room.
Making a bee line for his van, he deposited the book under the passenger seat.
“Your room’s all ready,” Roland said to Dutch as he entered the bar and spotted Dutch and Dee Dee seated at a corner table. He dropped Dutch’s room key on his table.
“Dutch here is going to have a little dinner before he goes to his room,” Dee Dee called out to Roland.
Roland nodded and headed to the bar where Tony was draining his beer. Tony slammed the empty glass on the table, turned to Roland and said; “Pour me another beer! I’m as dry as a peyote button in Palestine.”
Dutch was perusing the menu and checking for spots on the silverware, trying to decide between the Nikogori and the Usuzukuri as Dee Dee slid her chair closer and leaned in, her lips almost touching his cheek. “I hear you’re a boxer,” Dee Dee said in her throaty, seductress voice. “You sure got the body for it.”
“Thanks,” Dutch said, “But I ain’t much of a fighter. I have OCD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. It kind of distracts my focus in the ring. I lose a lot.”
“Go win fights,” Dee Dee whispered into Dutch’s ear, her lips pressed close.
“What?” Dutch said after a swallow of his Zombie.
“Just practicing.” Dee Dee giggled. “What did you decide on for dinner?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what any of this stuff is.”
“Tell you what, I’ll go fix you something special.” She smiled as she walked away.
Dutch watched Dee Dee work intently as she sliced fugu. She reminded him of a sculptress as she wielded her knife through the fish. And she wasn’t bad on the eyes either.
Dee Dee arranged the sliced fish on a plate and sauntered over to his table, a slow swing in her walk like New Orleans’ blues. As he stared at the slices of fish Dee Dee slid back into the
seat beside him and scooted up even closer than before. “Isn’t OCD neurological?” Dee Dee said as she took his fork from his hand. She stabbed a chunk of fish and lifted it to his mouth. Then another.
“I don’t feel so good,” Dutch said after Dee Dee had forked him thoroughly with fugu. “My tongue and my lips feel numb, and I feel a little queasy.”
“Why don’t I escort you to your room?” whispered Dee Dee. She helped Dutch to his feet. “You can lie down for a while if you like. I’ll even lay down with you and do anything I can to make you feel better.” She grinned a lascivious grin. She nodded to Cutter who joined her in helping Dutch to his room.
As Dee Dee and Cutter dragged Dutch out of the bar Stinky fell in behind them and followed. When Dee Dee opened the door Stinky slipped between her feet and slithered under the bed unnoticed.
Cutter looked down at the prone body of the boxer as Dee Dee placed her fingers against his lips to make sure he was still breathing. “Man, I’d hate to be a zombie,” Cutter said, “you sit there transfixed, staring straight ahead, oblivious to the outside world, eyes glazed over, jaw slack.” He checked his watch. “Oh shit, the game’s on.”
He searched for the remote control and brought the television to life. He searched the channels for the game.
When he found it he sat on the edge of the bed and stared straight ahead at the screen, transfixed, oblivious to the outside world, eyes glazed over, jaw slack.
As Dee Dee reached into her pocket and retrieved the bottle of purple Mambo powder, two green eyes watched from beneath the bed. Dee Dee poured some of Hussey’s voodoo powder into a glass of water and poured it down Dutch’s throat. She slipped the vial back into her apron pocket, removed the apron and laid it down on the foot of the bed. Stinky stared at the apron, grinning an evil grin.
Dutch could feel his stomach cramping, he felt nauseous. He could feel his arms and legs but he couldn’t move them. He was paralyzed. He stared up at the two people who hovered over him with glassy eyes. He saw Cutter as the old wino from the hallway and Dee Dee as his mother in her filthy bathrobe.
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