The Heart of Tony Winters

by P. S. Power

  Then they rushed into the building, which was still open. They stayed open until ten most of the time. It was only about seven-thirty. They marched quickly to the third floor, jogging on the stairs. Rick had left his office unlocked, in case anyone needed to get inside for any reason. Stealing pens or getting the keys to the building. Things like that.

  Then, even being gone for a full day, nearly two, the house had been left unlocked the whole time. That seemed insane to him still, but Rick and Jen didn’t even seem to think about things like that. It was like they came from a different world where people wouldn’t just walk into your house to steal everything you owned. Except that it wasn’t really like that. Their town had police in it. Crime and all that, too. So it made very little sense to him.

  The call to the lawyer was made from the office. For some reason, even if he probably couldn’t help the man almost instantly agreed to meet them at the police station. That was, disturbingly, not that far away from the gym. Tony hadn’t really known that before, but it only took about three minutes to drive there. They walked in directly, which showed the inside of the place was different than he would have thought it might be. The room was open inside, not having a lot of secret office spaces. Just desks, with people sitting next to them. Riley was at one of them in a plastic chair, sporting a few fresh facial bruises already.

  There were two other men who looked a lot worse for wear not too far away, all of them in handcuffs. Looking up, Riley grimaced a bit, but didn’t call out. His focus was on Rick, not Tony. After about a minute of waiting at the front desk, an older man in a gray suit jacket moved into the place through the outside door. He was a little overweight, his hair thinning on the top. He had glasses on, with gold rims. Everything about the fellow seemed well put together.

  Tidy and ready, even if he couldn’t have done more than throw a jacket on and leave his house directly. Unless he’d been in the office at night on a Sunday. Even if that was the case, it couldn’t be that far away. Not getting there at nearly the same time they had.

  “Mr. Winters!” The man walked forward, his hand out to shake.

  “Mr. Bauer. That’s Riley James, over there. I haven’t spoken to anyone here. Oh, this is Tony. My nephew.”

  The words got an abstract nod, along with a hand pushed toward him suddenly. That was soft, but Tony didn’t hold that against the man. The goal of a lawyer wasn’t to be physically hard, just to keep people out of jail. That or get them into it.

  “Nice to meet you. Now, I need to collect some data here and then arrange to speak with my client.” They were nicely ignored after that by the gray haired fellow. It wasn’t done to be mean, given it was clear that he knew what to do. That involved harassing the police a bit, getting them to part with their files in a way that Anthony doubted would work for a regular person. The man behind the desk didn’t even bother struggling that hard to hide things.

  Then the guy had Riley taken to a back room, so that they could speak. Alone. Unlike a doctor’s office visit, Rick wasn’t allowed to go back in order to help or anything like that. It meant sitting in the front, along the wall, for a while. Waiting for things to shake out.

  The only entertainment was the man behind the desk, who Tony watched carefully, if covertly. After all, the man might feel a sudden urge to kick him in the face. That had happened to him before, so Anthony decided to be a bit wary about the man in blue. True that had been a Las Vegas officer, not one of theirs, but being too relaxed wasn’t going to help him stay safe. Still, the point of him being there was to help Rick and if possible, Riley.

  About forty minutes later, Mr. Bauer walked out, smiling.

  “I need to make a few calls. Are you both good holding out here for a while? I think we should have Mr. James released in a bit here. It might help to have someone waiting however.”

  His uncle nodded.

  “We won’t leave one of our people behind, if we can help it.” The tone was a bit dark, as if they were talking about prisoner of war camps, not the local police station, but the other man acted like it was normal to hear that kind of thing in real life.

  “Excellent. Now, please excuse me? I have a judge to bother at home. I’m certain she’ll love that…”

  If she was bothered by the idea, it didn’t show in her reactions, since she got Riley let go, based on the fact that he’d been attacked with potentially lethal force. One of the men was in the hospital from the fight against him, which was why he’d been taken in at all. There was video from the store showing that it had been a flat out attack, not anything that Riley had provoked. The cops knew that, but apparently their job wasn’t to think or guess what would be happening, just plug in the rules and make sure they didn’t let guilty people go too easily.

  Probably the innocent ones as well, if they didn’t have good lawyers. Then, no one with half a brain would ever assume that having money didn’t matter under the law. In this case, Rick’s cash did the work, but it made a real difference.

  It took nearly two more hours to get Riley free from the place. The other two men weren’t nearly as lucky, being sent off to the local jail for the night. Then, they were the kind of jerks that jumped people for no real reason. Probably thinking it was funny or something to try and knock a person out from behind. Riley had seen or felt it happening and ducked instead. Then he’d just punched until no one was coming at him. The injured man had been battered around a bit, but hit his head on the parking lot asphalt, which had required stitches.

  Mr. Bauer simply looked straight ahead as they left the building.

  “Naturally, they shouldn’t have arrested an attack victim like that in the first place. Well, very little harm done that way. We’ll have to go to court of course, but it will be several weeks and I really doubt that Thompson, the prosecutor for the area, will go after you for simple self-defense. Even arguing excessive force won’t play here. You stopped as soon as they did, from what I gathered from the tape.”

  When the man had seen it, Tony didn’t know. He hadn’t been allowed to. Not that it would have made a difference. On the good side, Riley seemed pissed, but not really like he wanted to hurt anyone. That could happen after being abused by the law. He really had been, since he shouldn’t have been arrested at all. Not that the courts would see it that way. The police either, most likely. It was heavy handed of them, but short of shooting someone for eating an ice-cream cone, they weren’t really answerable for anything, so worrying about it was just wasted effort on his part.

  Bauer peeled off outside the door, walking away to the left after calling out his goodbyes. Rick’s car was in the parking lot to the right, so they went that way. It took longer to get Riley back home than it had to get to the cop shop in the first place for them. Still, Rick seemed a bit happier.

  “How are your hands?” Tony glanced at the front passenger seat, where Riley was sitting, seeming a bit moody. He flexed the right one, tensing up as he did it.

  “Bruised, I think. It doesn’t have the burning that broken bones get. Those… Morons. I went to high school with two of them. I didn’t even recognize them at first. Not until they were all down. I don’t really get it. I mean, we weren’t friends back then, but it wasn’t like I’d stolen their girlfriends or something, you know? They’d, the two I knew, John and Axle, they were stoners, but not really bullies or anything. What they were thinking…” He tapered off.

  Anthony figured that at least one of them had been holding some kind of grudge. Even if it wasn’t over a woman, it would be something. It could even be that the guys had been drinking early, or doing drugs and just thought that hitting some loser from school in the head would be funny. He’d seen a lot of real world violence in his life, he realized.

  Most of it wasn’t exactly all that needed or useful, when you got right down to it. People got mad, then took it out on other people. It happened more often if they were drunk, but that was probably because people didn’t think clearly when impaired, instead of alcohol making you w
ant to harm others.

  He nodded a bit.

  “Yeah. It can be hard to know what some people are thinking. You have a fight in a few weeks? We should get his hands looked at. The face, too. Not that it’s hurting your looks.” The words came out sounding a bit playful. They were an Anthony kind of thing to say. Tony realized that they could be taken the wrong way, the other man being stressed at the moment.

  Instead he just sighed.

  “No doubt. Well, if you want to be pretty, don’t go into boxing, right? Or… I guess, don’t get sports drinks from the quickie-mart?”

  Which was what he’d been doing in the first place. It sounded pretty harmless to Tony, to be honest. People were allowed to stay hydrated. Riley was in training, but there were diet drinks that he could have without hurting anything. Not that it was that important. Even if he’d just been looking around or getting candy, that didn’t mean it was all right to jump him.

  Poorly, as it turned out, but still the whole thing was a hassle for everyone involved now. Good folks were being made to waste their time on things they shouldn’t have had to. Worse, Riley might really be hurt and just not showing it externally. Most of the fighters were so used to pain that they tended to think of things as not being all that bad, even if they were. Hence figuring that having him looked at would be the first thing they needed to do.

  Rick didn’t wait either, though he did drop Tony off at home first. After all, Riley didn’t need his hands held. Not now that he was free. Even before that, the man had been stoic about it all. Inside, Ashley was still there, along with Jen, but Raul and Nick had taken off. Everyone was exhausted after all.

  Jen just looked at him, her big blue eyes going a bit wide, since Rick didn’t come in. He didn’t make her wait, speaking up a bit so that Ash would be able to hear him at the same time from the living room.

  “Riley is out already. It was self-defense. Clearly enough that the lawyer convinced a judge that it was basically just harassment to keep him overnight. It doesn’t sound like that big of a deal over all. Rick is taking him to get his hands checked now though, in case there’s a break. I hope not.”

  Jenny nodded, then gave him a small hug.

  It was nice, but he didn’t let himself do it back. He wasn’t in need of being comforted and she was a bit too attractive to be hanging all over, given the relationships involved.

  She got that and didn’t take offense, as far as he could tell.

  “You should get some sleep.”

  Nodding he agreed with that. Then moved to the living room, to give the battered Ashley a light hug as well. After all, she was too old for him and her face was still bruised and swollen from the Rends fight, but she wasn’t dating his uncle. Not anyone else either, so if he enjoyed the contact a bit, no one should really be all that upset with him over it.

  That done, he got himself off to bed.

  Chapter four

  Tony was the first one up the next day. That wasn’t exactly some kind of big mystery or anything. He’d gotten to sleep hours before anyone else had, at a bet. Instead of waking them up for training at six in the morning, he went out for a jog. A long slow one, since he wasn’t in training now. There was no real reason to lose what he’d gained, either. Yes, he had to heal up, but as long as he didn’t do too much it should be fine. To that end he kept his exercise down to a few hours. Mainly doing cardio work for the day.

  Then at nine, no one else in yet that had been around the day before, he headed home to wake people up. Which wasn’t needed, since the nosy people with cameras had managed to do that for him. They were actually milling around the front yard, trampling the lawn, as if there was some kind of major event going on. If so, he’d missed it. That, or it was right there and he didn’t understand it for some reason.

  A woman he didn’t recognize moved in on him, yelling as she did, even if there was no real reason for it. After all, he was no more than four feet from her. She was off to the side, but he used the front walkway, like a regular person.

  “Tony! Tony Winters! Are you coming to visit with Ashley Lancaster? What do you think about the Fox Rends positive steroid test? Do you think that trans people should be allowed to compete in sports?” It was rapid fire, meant to get him to make mistakes. The smart move would be to not speak, he knew that, but being covered with sweat from his running and rope jumping, he already looked kind of bad. His hair was short, but very damp which with him would mean spikey. He probably smelled a bit as well, if only of salt. Thankfully the halfway cute woman didn’t get that close to him. None of the others did either.

  “I hadn’t heard about that.” He winced and shook his head. “The test came back positive? That isn’t good. I mean she was tested before the fight, wasn’t she?” That got the woman to put the mic in front of her own mouth, the very tall guy running the camera pointing it slightly in her direction.

  “That’s right. The results just came in two hours ago. Some are saying that this could be the scandal that ruins mixed martial arts. It would take a cover up at the highest levels to make that kind of thing happen. Some people are also saying that allowing men to compete as women is a sign that the whole system is broken.”

  She didn’t seem to be happy about that part of things, at least, which meant it was being given to Tony as a trap. He was probably supposed to freak out and act like being trans was a crime or something. That having once been a man forever made it so that no woman could ever win against you. Instead he shrugged.

  “Trans people deserve to be allowed to fight, or play sports, or even be in… I don’t know, beauty pageants or whatever, just like anyone else. It might not always be perfectly fair, but some people are just stronger than others to start with anyway. Should we ban them from competing because of their unfair genetics? Part of being good is always down to luck, in any field. Besides, this situation isn’t about trans issues at all. Fox Rends is one person. She messed up, I guess. We can’t let that become some big thing for everyone else that just happens to be similar in one way. Besides, we should all keep in mind that she lost to Ashley Lancaster. Twice. That tells me that people complaining about her birth gender are just kind of blowing smoke for personal reasons. This is about cheating. Maybe about lack of personal control. Nothing else.” Then, not bothering to knock, he walked inside. Several people tried to follow him, which got the door shut in their faces.

  Rick came to the door, having heard it open. His cell was pressed to his ear.

  Clearly giving an interview live.

  “Right. We can’t have this kind of thing. It’s damaging to the sport. To all sports. It isn’t just MMA either. Most of them have something like steroids going on, which is harmful to our best athletes.” That seemed to be the party line for the day.

  At least Ashley was in the living room, saying something similar. The big difference there was that she had a reporter with her and a camera crew. Though when the man spoke it was kind of clear that it was just a minor commentator, not a real news person. Not yet. Steve Lopez, in fact. That made sense, given that he had an in with Ash that almost no one else in the world did. The others there as well.

  “He even gets along with that Tony guy. That has to take work. What a tool, am I right?” Anthony smiled to himself, but had barely whispered the words.

  Jenny, being smart, had pulled back to the kitchen, speaking to someone herself. Rick followed him, waving with his free hand. It seemed like he was just saying hello, instead of asking him to do something in particular. What he could do at all wasn’t really apparent. He nearly offered to fix food, but it was clear that they’d managed to eat already. Not a lot, but there were dishes in the sink, which meant that they’d been ambushed with the news suddenly. Otherwise Jen would have done those already. Or Rick would have. They didn’t often leave that kind of thing sitting around.

  Nodding he waved at them, pointing into the sink, which got a grin from Jen as she spoke. Then she walked out of the room, so that he could clean them up witho
ut being too loud for her phone call. It took about four minutes, since he washed them with dish soap, but then went to load the dishwasher. Which had clean dishes in it. Not being needed for anything else he took care of that first, unloading it all quickly. It still didn’t take that long. There were only three of them and it was run every night they were in town. Even the large meal with guests the night before wasn’t that hard to handle that way.

  Then he scrubbed the counters followed by sweeping the room. It wasn’t bad at all, but they had people in the house and Jen would feel bad if anyone thought they were messy. As in it would actually bother her later, if there was a crumb in the wrong place and anyone could have seen it. After that was finished he glanced around and shrugged. He had class with Janine after lunch. Until then there was very little for him to do. So he sat back, watching Ash and Steve cover the news of the day. They were speaking a lot, going over everything imaginable. It wasn’t until Steve suddenly sat up and waved that Anthony understood the whole thing. They’d been live. From Rick and Jen’s living room.

  “We have a five-minute break. Great work, Ashley. Tony! You went running already?” He looked guilty, rather than judgmental about his being a bit damp still. That kind of thing was just a part of all of their lives. You worked out and got wet. It happened. More than once a day part of the time.

  “Yeah. Long and slow. Then a bit of rope work. I’m supposed to be resting, but…” He didn’t explain. Taking it easy was one way to rest as well.

  Steve nodded.

  “I’m not. I should have been out, but I got called in for some extra work. I’m not in training right now, thank goodness. That would be a disaster. I can’t actually tell the network no. Not if I want to keep my job with them.”