Inside, beefy bikers with side arms and knives were dropping off their hardware before passing through a metal detector. The casual attitude of last night was gone, baby, gone. This was the real deal, big show, Fringe Circuit showstopper. Malcolm and Milkwood flashed their betting and contender cards and entered the main hall.
“That’s the Judge,” Malcolm said through a pursed mouth and gritting teeth.
An old, bald man was behind the bar, working on drinks and laughing with his patrons. At first glance he seemed like any other dude in his late sixties until you caught the mashed ears, deviated septum nose, and knotted hands that were not the work of arthritis but from years of hard pounding. Milkwood had heard dad talk of Judge Sayers as one of the meanest and dirtiest shooters in the game before he left wrestling and headed toward real fights. He revelled in the pain he inflicted; one of the reasons he never went the route Dad took, of illusion and bullshit. He needed to know he was hurting someone, or else the work was just not worth doing. Took his money and became a local crime boss with an army of thugs he’d trained. Now, he made his big money in prostitutes and the circuit.
A local legend. That was Judge Sayers. King of Princess Street.
The old man caught sight of Malcolm. Smiled and waved as kind as any grandfather, then patted the front pocket of his blue flannel shirt. Sticking out was Malcolm’s passport. Then he looked at Milkwood and laughed, shaking his head, shoving a chunk of lime in his mouth, complete with rind.
I’m going to enjoy disappointing you, Milkwood thought.
Cheap rye and cheaper perfumes stained the sweaty necks of the crowd as they jostled for position. The aroma was an awful taste. All the tables had been moved from the main arena. This was ballsy. The Judge clearly did not fear cops tonight. There were no cowboy hats and trash scags at the bar, the usual gang at the Iron Horse. Nope, tonight it was just the circuit folk. Gutter boys shaking tickets in their hands hoping to win their next fix. Diamond dolls hung off the arm of three-piece suit players who wore shades. Those big deals were stretched around a wire cage that had been bolted to the floor, sawdust covering the inside like ground up corn. A welfare version of the NYC tourney octagons. Minus the barbed wire on top.
“Like someone stole a kid’s baseball diamond cage and mangled it for our purposes,” said the dark-haired woman, trench coat gone to reveal a Wermacht officer jacket and shirt with a razor-short skirt and Ilsa, “She Devil of the SS,” leather boots. She kneeled down to Malcolm’s ear. “Still, it should be better than the flesh disaster last night, right?”
Malcolm smiled, weakly. “Bet on it,” he said. She gave his shoulder a pinch then hit the bar.
“That your girlfriend?” Milkwood said, standing beside him, poncho still on.
“Not my style.”
“Don’t like woman who dress like Rommel?”
“Who?”
“Doesn’t matter. Big crowd. And dangerous.”
Malcolm nodded.
Unlike the exhibition, where only the MC had a gun, the crowd was also peppered with coolers with pistols, silencers and scopes already on. And with good reason. All but the starting contenders roamed free in the crowd, talking trash with their entourages. The only thing keeping their ‘roid rages in check before go time? The shaky red dots on each contenders head.
Can’t wait to join that club, Milkwood thought.
Up in the rafters were black-clad bodies with hand cannons. Looks like the Judge’s two daughters had back up, painting all their targets with cherries. Connecting the dots, Milkwood found Kudor, arms taped, the same bored look on his face as twin glamour-pusses rubbed the upside-down cross on his bare chest.
Milkwood smiled. I can’t wait to make you eat your ego, tough guy.
In the back, in what had once been “the Champaign Room” from the Iron Horse’s peeler days, were booths barely seen above a wall topped with a smoky glass frame. Contenders Alley.
Just one night ago, Milkwood had been having his ass handed to him. Now he was in a big time fight…and his face looked as good as new.
Shit, he thought. That’s a problem. “I have to use the bog, back in a minute.”
Malcolm crossed his arms. “I’d say ‘promise’ but I know that doesn’t mean shit to you.”
Milkwood took the insult on the chin and headed to the shitter as the nail began to twist. Dad’s voice was clawing through his head with smoky cadence. “To make them believe they have to see the wounds, feel them, taste them. Sympathy for an underdog comes from him being ugly. And that’s an advantage now, isn’t it my boy?”
* * *
As soon as Milkwood left, Malcolm scanned to see if he could find the other contenders besides Kudor, and, hopefully, Lash. Maybe she’d come, riding in like the cavalry to save the day…
But while there was plenty of eye candy, none of it was her.
Feh. Time to look at tonight’s meat sticks.
Slumped on a stool was the ragged mess of Haggerty, sipping from a flask, already looking defeated. Beside him, Manuel Fitz drank milk and stared hard at everyone and everything. Just off to the left of the bar, surrounded by women in slinky, glittery dresses and long straight hair, was Cyrus, a movie star mug, big smile and deep tan, fine clothes covering the tattoos and scars all over his flesh. Dan Sutherland was the only one near the cage. He stalked around the wire, hand tracing the metal, wanting in so bad Malcolm could feel it through the mob. Out there, somewhere, was Jeet Kusugi. For Malcolm, he was the only true wild card. All he had were stats. No visual. No dirt sheet analysis. No online video. Somewhere out there the “whirlwind” waited.
“Oh shit,” Malcolm whispered. Sitting in the contender box, all three hundred rock-hard pounds of him, was Ben Tomko, whose head peered over the glass, eating a sub.
Sitting in contender’s alley, that meant Tomko was up first, against the wildcard.
Great, Malcolm thought. Milkwood’s first opponent was the worst piece of shit in the circuit…he better finish Tomko quick or it might look very weird.
He ran the roster in his head. Exotic flavours instead of headliners. Not a bad strategy for the post NYC bust of the circuit. The Judge may be an asswipe, but he was a smart asswipe.
A static voice hissed from loudspeakers bolted to the support beams and hammered in next to the tiny digital cameras that were littered around the room. “Ladies and Gents, Boys and Girls, Children of All Ages! Welcome to the Fringe! All contenders please take their assigned seats in the back bar. The first two contenders should now be in contender’s alley: Tomko and…Wait, are you shitting me? Okay, yeah, that’s Tomko and Milkwood. Bets may be placed in two minutes.”
Laughter and consternation filled the voices of the crowd at the sound of Milkwood’s name as he came out of the bathroom, hood still on like some kind of idiot. The crowd was aghast, hearing his name as a contender. Some thought it was a mistake, most a joke, but as time slipped away they all got serious. Malcolm walked the hooded Milkwood to contender’s alley, avoiding Kudor, and sat him down. The air tasted of trash, vomit, and Mr. Clean with orange. At the far end, Tomko’s thick legs and crusted hands poked past the divider. He had on steel toe shitkickers. Dark stained shitkickers.
“You know Tomko?” Malcolm said.
Milkwood’s poncho head nodded.
“Okay. Stay sharp and away from his hands. I don’t know how strong your bones are, or if they fix real quick, but you know as well as I do that he’s here to break something off you and club you with it, and leave you as easy pickings for the next rounders, that way the fans get some slaughter for their sawbucks and no one feels ripped off at seeing you. I’ll give it to The Judge; he’s not an idiot. You can take Tomko, right?”
Milkwood nodded.
“Um…but, you can’t eat him, okay? I know biting is allowed, but I doubt they’ll let you drain him like Rip in the alley. And we can’t risk a DQ or anything that would rock the boat. Right?”
Milkwood nodded.
“Damn. I wish I had
more time, but I have to make sure the Judge has us down for the bets. Take off this stupid hood.”
He did. And Malcolm froze his expression before it cracked.
Milkwood’s face was hammered shit. Bruises, wounds, and a torn lip made him look like a car wreck on legs.
“What the fuck happened?”
The split lip smiled, sending a stream of blood down his chin, dripping on his shirt. It wasn’t very bright. “I tol’ ya, I nee’ to swell this,” Milkwood said, voice muffled and distorted like his mouth was stuffed with cotton. “Lass time they sssaw me, I wasss gwound meat. So, I gabe my knucklesss a wokout on fwesh dough and cwunchy bone. Don’t sssay I neva did anything fo ya. Oh, now, the big sssell.” Milkwood jammed his fingers in his mouth, yanked once, and showed Malcolm a palm of teeth with red roots. He gave Malcolm a hockey smile. “Here,” he said with a gummy cadence. “Sssomefing to we-member me bwy.” Malcolm took the three teeth, dark blood in the roots. “Might be somefing on da collector mahkit. Go. Make bets. I can do this.”
“But what about a strategy?”
Milkwood tapped his head. “Up here, kid. Twust me.” A buzzer sounded and the Notebook men in pork pie hats were swarmed. Five minute warning: last call for putting down cash. “I’ll get back what you lotht. Thorry it couldn’t be bettah.” He stuck out his hand. Malcolm shook it. It looked so weak but the feel was like liquid steel. “Go on. Make ssssure the Judge hasn’t sssscrewed us worsssse than your bwother.” The ugly fuck smiled a dark, wet grin. “Then, get a good ssseat. This ssshould be fun.”
Malcolm gave Milkwood one last glance, then bolted, shoving the teeth in his back pocket. As he made his way to a Notebook Man, he slipped on a beer and landed on a peanut shell encrusted floor and he wondered just how long his clothes would last before they came alive and got the hell away from him.
With a worm’s eye view, he saw a familiar silver anklet around a stockinged foot in a high heel, walking right toward him with a drunk cadence. A jean skirt and leopard skin blouse coiled around a sinister figure. Looking up, he saw a savage smile and glasses looking down. The long strawberry blond hair was now bright red and tight in a high ponytail.
“Hello, hello, pretty,” Lash said, glasses slipping to the tip of her thin nose. “Enjoying the view down there?”
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
TOMKO’S KNEES WERE BOUNCING like he couldn’t get in the ring fast enough. His reputation as a complete shit heel for hire had forced him outside the NYC circuit and now he was trying to make good scratch in the Fringe.
Milkwood sucked on the ragged flesh where his teeth used to be and wondered what the Judge hoped to see with this first rounder. Slaughterhouse match? It made a sick logic. The only way to make me worth being in this ring tonight is to escalate things past the exhibition match. That means tearing me apart and leaving a corpse behind.
Milkwood chuckled. He can tear me apart, all right, but tonight, I’ll be the one leaving a corpse for the trash men.
Milkwood grinned, red and meaty. The ease of killing another guy, even a fucktard like Tomko, had grown so steadily that it unnerved Milkwood a little. When he was hungry, it was pure business. Life and death. But even then, he’d gotten good at taking just enough, like from that bouncer last night, so they’d be sick but back to work in a few days.
Milkwood was no stranger to death. He’d seen it work its dark magic on the streets. Homeless folks whose hopes had washed away, finding a warm dry place to lie down and die. Knife fights in the squatter sectors of Toronto and Montreal. Waking up with a knife in your throat, the guy’s hand warm on the blade, terror in his face when Milkwood’s red eyes went wild…Death was a bramble patch in his life, biting into his clothes and hair and skin and not letting go.
“Hey.” Tomko’s voice broke his concentration. It was coarse. And the cigar smoke puffing out of the ugly mug gave the reason why. “Hey, Milkwood. You awake?”
“Sowwy. Meditating.”
Tomko poked his head out. “Quick question, freak. How the fuck did you get in the tourney?”
“Sshlept with the Judge’s dawters. You?”
Tomko laughed with a gritty, throaty musical grunt. “Lucky you’re dying tonight, otherwise the Judge himself might kill you for saying that about his skanks. Word is, you polished Jackson Lord’s cock with that toothless mouth and got a circuit breaker.” There was a lisp to his words. As if he were trying not to slur.
Milkwood smiled, all gums, and hoped the asshole would shut the hell up.
“Not sure why you want to die young, little man, but I’m happy to oblige.”
“Gwad to know I have your sssuppowt.”
Tomko laughed like a drunk who’s found a wallet full of bills. “Don’t kid yourself. If you have a god, I’d pray now. Not that it’ll help.”
“Lucky I’m an atheist.” Tomko fumed. He wanted the last word, and it wasn’t happening.
“Funny comebacks are hard when you’re choking on your own damn teeth.”
“Good thing I know how to ssswallow. Like I did with Jackson Lohd.” Milkwood smiled again.
“Keep it up, maggot. When the cage door closes, I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He chortled, head on a loose but massive neck. If Milkwood didn’t know any better, he’d say Tomko was drunk. Sure, the asshole usually had a few drinks in him, but never drunk.
Well, better stay away from his mouth after I waste him, Milkwood thought. I’d rather not have whatever he ate sticking to my skin, shirt and shoes when he vomits his guts out.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
MALCOLM SCRAMBLED UP, dusting peanut shells off his sleeves, then gripped Lash’s wrist and pulled her to the bar, behind the crowd and out of sight. She followed with the stumbling cadence of circuit babe leaving a private bathroom, drinks spilling in one hand as the other tried to hold on to a wall.
When he was sure Milkwood could not see them, he spoke. “You bailed on us.”
She caressed peanut shells off his cheek. “Pretty, I had to split to make it here alive. And I like to live. If I hadn’t, I’d be dead and couldn’t hire your sure thing tonight.” She leaned down and took a deep breath by Malcolm’s ear. “Nice jacket. I wondered where Royce had fucked off to.”
Malcolm stepped back. “He tried to take off Milkwood’s head. As you can see, that third-rate Bruce Lee didn’t come close.”
“Well, the jacket looks better on you, anyway.” She winked and grinned, leaning her elbow at the bar and crossing her heels.
Malcolm pushed his fists deep in the pockets, stifling the hundred questions about the grey-faced man breeding in his mind from escaping his mouth. “Milkwood doesn’t want the job.”
“Ah.” Her smile was playful, eyes bored. “Told you bad things about me. Lies, I can assure you.”
“Not all of them.”
She adjusted her glasses, a purse swinging on her arm, purple lipstick almost silvery in the bar lights. “So. Do you want my honey pot, or not? It’s all here in the Judge’s safe in the basement. All you have to do is say yes.”
A Klaxon voice buzzed through the air with a metallic bite. “One minute to final bets on round one or for tourney long shots. Tomko at plus 150. Milkwood at minus 300.” Tomko’s name rebounded through the lips of the betters at the Notebook Men, most of them making the serious wagers on side bets regarding Milkwood’s imminent demise: would Tomko snap his neck? Just break a knee? Double or nothing on him walking out with the guy’s eyes in his fists.
“He really is an underdog in every sense of the word,” Lash said, taking a tall brown drink from a blue-blazered better whose back was turned. She played with the straw as the seconds tore away from Malcolm’s resolve. “Sure there’s nothing I can do to change your mind?”
“Thirty seconds and counting,” said the Klaxon, but most of the crowds had already dispersed, most wishing the wild card was something a bit more sensational than the flabby corpse-in-waiting Milkwood.
“We’ll take it,” Malcolm said. “On one cond
ition.”
“Well aren’t you just a hard-nosed negotiator.”
“You tell me everything about the grey-faced man chasing you.”
And for a heartbeat her face was in shock. “Oh. Of course. So long as Milkwood will be my boytoy?”
Every bruise, every cut, every scar flared on his body against the guilt exploding in his stomach. He stared at her heels, veins under her stockings like thin snakes. “Yes.” Sorry, Milkwood.
She sighed dramatically. “But is that tub really worth it?”
“Stop the bullshit. Final offer.”
Her smile was a whiplash. “Deal.”
As the crowd hushed, returning to their positions around the cage, Malcolm sprang on a Notebook Man and “Judge has me down for Milkwood, but I need to add some—”
“Just hurry it up.”
“Ten Gs on Milkwood. Ten on it being a knockout.” His voice cracked and his face went red.
The guy rolled the toothpick in his mouth. “Yard ape, you better say that again.”
Malcolm growled. “Double deuce for Milkwood wining by knockout, you deaf fuck!”
A buzzer cut through the crowd. A handful of eyes stared at the kid who had just bet the farm on the worst chance in circuit history.
“You heard the little man,” Lash said, running her warm, long fingers through Malcolm’s hair, nails caressing his scalp and sending a hissing good sensation through his body. “Everything on the fat baby.” Firm yet slow, she pulled back his head as the Notebook Man vanished in the crowd with a bizarre expression of disbelief eating his face. “I had no idea you were such a risky boy. Me? I like sure things.” She let go.
“Sure things are for pussies,” he said, wiping his head, as if he hadn’t loved every minute of her touch. Wait, he thought, Milkwood is a sure thing. Lash caught the query in his face and laughed, then stole a tall drink with a pink umbrella from some arm candy that had wondered off.
The Klaxon voice rattled through the air. “Round One Fight Starting in Five Minutes.”
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