Knockout
“Terry, you heard him,” I said. “Work out with the jump rope and then shower up. We’ll look over some tapes tonight before dinner.”
Terry nodded at me. That pretty face was unusual for a boxer, and his upcoming opponent, Gentleman Jake Johnson—whose face was decidedly less pretty—had offered to permanently make Terry’s face ugly in all the prefight trash talking. Now Deacon and I both, privately, wondered if Keenan had also gotten another kind of offer—to take a dive. Benny Bonita couldn’t be trusted, and though we believed in Terry, he had an enormous family. His seven brothers—and one sister—all seemed to think Terry was the ticket to the big time. We wondered if that meant that an even bigger paycheck, courtesy of a bribe from Bonita, was awfully enticing.
Deacon and I headed out of the gym and over to the ranch house, walking over sand and passing small cacti and scrubby-looking bushes. The ranch house was a rambling building with ten bedrooms. It had been a brothel once, and after that, it had been an actual ranch of some sort. I think the former owner had gone from hustling hookers to rustling ostriches.
I opened the front door and went into the large den, where Destiny sat watching a show with a bright purple dinosaur.
“Hi, Destiny,” I said, sitting next to her and reaching out to brush a stray hair from her face.
“Hi, Auntie Jack.”
“How are you doing, kiddo?” Dumb question. How was she supposed to be doing? Her mother was dead, and she was stuck with me and Deacon at a boxing camp while we figured out what to do.
“Okay. Uncle Deacon says Mommy went up to heaven.” She said it very matter-of-fact. Deacon said children didn’t grasp the permanence of death until ten or eleven.
“Yeah…Mommy is in heaven, sweetie pie, which is really sad. But you know what?”
“What?”
“You get to have a guardian angel. Honey, she is going to watch over you.”
Destiny leaned into me, burying her face near my belly. I’d never spent much time with kids. In fact, though I felt badly for her, inside I was realizing the enormity of hiding her. I expected at any moment a phalanx of cops and FBI agents to come swooping down to grab her—and I would get a nice cell to match my father’s.
“Destiny, honey…do you miss Tony?”
“Uncle Tony? Kinda. Did he go up to heaven, too?”
“No.” Though I suppose to some people, Vegas is kind of like heaven. “He’s back at your house.”
“Did you know I have a pet tiger at our house? I couldn’t pet him, but Uncle Tony let me name him.”
“What’d you name him?”
“Tigger.”
“Cute.”
“He’s huge. As big as one in the jungle. Uncle Tony told me he could eat me in one big gulp.”
“Probably could. Did you spend a lot of time with Uncle Tony?”
She shrugged her tiny shoulders and shook her head. “Uh-uh. He was always very busy, Mommy said. I wasn’t s’posed to bother him. But sometimes the three of us did stuff together. Or Mommy would take me to his work to visit him.”
“Did you like visiting him at work?”
“Kinda. I drew pictures on paper in his office, and then the three of us would go out for dinner.”
“What’s your favorite dinner?”
“Chicken nuggets.”
“I think I know how to make them,” I said without enthusiasm. “But Big Jimmy does the cooking out here. I’ll ask him if he can make you some.”
“Big Jimmy and I made cookies.”
“Really?” I knew he was a softie.
“Uh-huh. He used to be Mommy’s boyfriend. She always talked about him.”
“She talked about him? I didn’t know that.” I thought about how Crystal left Big Jimmy. She wanted the lights of Vegas to shine on her, and Big Jimmy wasn’t part of that scene. If she hadn’t left Big Jimmy, she’d be alive and holding Destiny instead of me.
The phone rang. I leaned over to the end table and picked it up.
“Hello?”
“Jack, it’s me.”
“Hi, Rob.”
“Listen…Babe, what I’m hearing…the syringe…it had a fingerprint on it. Not Crystal’s.”
“How long can I keep hiding you know what?” I looked down at Destiny.
“I’m not sure. Not long. But for now, keep that kid safe, while I figure it out.”
I stroked Destiny’s cheek. “Like I said, you’d have to kill me first, Rob.”
“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”
Chapter 4
Benny Bonita made Don King look modest. And, quite frankly, he made Don King look like he had a better hairdresser.
However, expensive, flashy suits and ugly pompadour aside, the reason I hated Benny Bonita was he had worn a wire two years ago in a sting that made it appear as if my father was taking a bribe to have one of his fighters throw a match. But my father wasn’t doing anything of the sort. My father was trying to catch Bonita in his little scheme. It was just Dad’s unfortunate luck that he had a cop named Conrad Spiller on his side—a drunken oaf he played poker with who screwed up the entire matter. And Benny Bonita had the chief of police on his side—a slick son of a bitch named Lawrence Dillard. Which meant Dad got busted and Conrad got a desk assignment prior to early retirement, and I got broke hiring attorneys. It also meant I hated Benny Bonita with every fiber of my being.
And that evening, about an hour after I tucked Destiny in bed, Benny decided to show up at the ranch. With five bodyguards.
Perhaps bodyguards isn’t the right term. Donald Trump has bodyguards. Dumb blond pop stars have bodyguards. Benny Bonita had five linebackers who served hard time in prison. At least that’s how they looked. And they didn’t ring the doorbell like the Avon lady. They sped up to the ranch in two black Hummers and almost drove through the front door.
Deacon, Big Jimmy, Miguel, Terry and Eddie the Geek, another of our trainers who insisted on wearing glasses like Buddy Holly, hence his nickname, were sitting in the den watching a TiVo’d episode of All My Children. Don’t ask. Deacon got all the guys hooked on it years ago. He has a thing for Susan Lucci. Now they all have a thing for Susan Lucci.
“Good Lord Almighty! What was that?” Deacon jumped up, hearing the Hummers crash into a fence.
I raced to the front of the house and peered out a window. We had security lights that were activated when someone drove up the driveway, so the front of the house was lit up like the Vegas strip. “It looks like Bonita and several of his choirboys.”
Deacon, Big Jimmy and the rest of them joined me in the foyer. Big Jimmy was packing a gun of some sort he always wore strapped to his ankle. Deacon opened the front hall closet and pulled out a rifle, and I looked for something big and heavy to beat someone over the head with—should it become necessary. And with Bonita, there was a good chance of that. I settled on a nine iron out of Deacon’s golf bag.
“Not my lucky nine iron!” he shouted at me. “Are you crazy, girl? Grab the wood club.”
I traded out the nine iron, and Terry and Miguel adopted fighter stances. Eddie the Geek, all five foot two of him, opened the door cautiously. Benny and his goons strode in like they owned the place.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in. Six oil-slicked rats.” I sneered at them.
Bonita turned to face me. He had pockmarked skin and wore his trademark black Ray•Bans so I couldn’t see beady little eyes. “Jack…Jack…still a little girl in a man’s game. Haven’t you learned your lesson yet, like your dear old dad?”
I raised the golf club and considered just slicing at his knees. I wanted to see him fall to the ground and beg for mercy. Deacon raised his rifle and pointed it right at Bonita’s chest, causing the well-built bodyguards to all draw their weapons out from beneath their suit jackets.
“Looks like we have an old-fashioned standoff, Bonita. So why don’t you and your boys get lost?” Deacon said.
“I’ve come for something that’s mine, and I ain’t leavin’ till I get it.”
“Not a chance,” I snarled. I just wanted him to give me an excuse to club him. At that moment, I had never hated another human being so much in my life. I had visions of Crystal sprawled on my bed.
Terry Keenan was the voice of reason, coming to stand between Bonita’s thugs and Deacon and me. “Come on, fellas…Jack. Let’s leave the fightin’ for the ring. Everybody put away your weapons.” He stretched out his arms and looked from one to the other, urging calm with his steady blue gaze.
Slowly, Deacon lowered the rifle. Bonita nodded almost imperceptibly at his guys, and they reholstered their weapons. I lowered the golf club—only slightly.
Bonita’s voice was gravelly. “Now, look, sweetie, your friend Crystal took something that wasn’t hers to take. And I just want it back.”
I was completely confused. He obviously hadn’t come looking for Destiny, then. What had Crystal taken? Money? Drugs? I had to keep an advantage over him by pretending I knew what he was talking about.
“You’ll get your…stuff…back when I have assurance that Destiny will be left alone. I’m not having her raised by Tony Perrone.”
“You think he wants that brat? This is a lot bigger than your pretty little head can understand. You have no idea who you’re messing with.”
“In fact, I do. A lying, cheating snake.” I walked closer to Bonita, and raised myself to my full height to stare him in the eyes—or at least in the Ray•Bans. I could smell faint garlic on his breath.
“I’m only an honest fight promoter.”
“Spare me your sarcasm.”
“Look, it’s an ugly business, Jack. And it’s no place for a lady.”
“You referring to me or Crystal?”
“Both,” he snarled.
That’s when I’d had enough. I punched Bonita in his soft belly as hard as I could, twisting my fist upward and making sure I landed in the vicinity of his diaphragm, knocking the breath out of him. Bonita was a fight promoter. And unlike my father and uncle, he really wasn’t a fighter—not a very good one at least, even in his prime. And he was soft. Too many women, too much booze and cigars and good casino buffets. Too much time surrounded by big burly guards who did his dirty work so he didn’t have to do it himself. Just had to give the order.
Quick as lightning, he reached out a fist and grabbed hold of my hair, pulling me close to him. “Wouldn’t bother me one bit to watch you die. You’re just another Rooney in my way.”
He released me and shoved me toward my uncle. Deacon wrapped a protective arm around me. “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.”
“Yeah.” I glared defiantly at Bonita. “What my uncle is saying is you’ll get yours, Bonita.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged and signaled to his guys to leave. “But chances are you won’t be around to see it.”
“Don’t count on it.”
His bodyguards closed ranks around him, and they headed out the door. “Remember, Jack…” Bonita gave one last glance in my direction. “I want what’s mine.”
With that he shut the door, leaving me confused—about what he wanted—and worried. It hadn’t gotten past me that Terry Keenan was the one to step between Bonita and me. I wondered whether that was out of concern for me and Deacon or a secret new loyalty to Benny Bonita.
“Is nothing sacred?” Deacon asked. “Comes to a man’s home in the middle of All My Children, interrupting a man’s private time to relax.” Switching gears, he said, “I wonder what Crystal took.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Deacon, can I have a word with you?”
He nodded at the rest of them. “You all go and rewind to where we left off. And Eddie, how’s about you reheat some of that jambalaya from supper? I’ll be joining you in a moment.”
Deacon followed me down the long hallway to the office. Walking in always filled me with a swarming sense of sentiment. I once told myself it felt as if a beehive had taken residence in my belly. While Deacon and I both had boxing memorabilia in the house, the office here at the ranch was where pictures of my life played out in living color—albeit some of that living color including putrid shades of tie-dye overdose in the outfits my father and Deacon wore in the sixties. There were pictures of the two of them as champs. But once I arrived on the scene, there were pictures of the two of them with me in diapers, with me the first time they took me fishing. Always, in every shot, Deacon was on my right and my father on my left. It was as if I had two proud fathers—and two overbearing ones the first time I went out on a date. Other pictures were of them the day they bought the gym, and then this camp. They were so proud. They had come up from nothing, two boys from a poor family in rural California. Then their father had dragged them into Los Angeles while their father and mother had struggled to find work. Deacon and Dad had dodged bullets on their way to school. And it wasn’t much better in the projects at night.
Like many boxers, they had turned to the sport as a possible way out of the projects. Both brothers urged each other on. They were inseparable. And they both made it big and eventually relocated to Vegas. I was so proud of the two of them. The office was a shrine to all they had achieved—including raising me.
“Deacon…why did Terry intervene?”
“He didn’t want to see anyone hurt.”
“It could also be because he’s on Bonita’s side.”
“I don’t think so, Jack. Not Terry. He’s worked too hard to get to this place. To have a shot at the title.”
“And no one’s ever thrown a title match before?”
Deacon sighed.
“Would you have, Deacon? If the price was right?”
“Never. Your name is all you have in this world. You can be stripped of your possessions, even sent to prison, but an honest man has his name, his reputation. And I had a reputation as a fighter. I could walk proud.”
“What about Terry, though? All those brothers and sisters looking for a handout. They call here with their problems—can I borrow a thousand for a down payment on a new car, my kid needs braces. Whatever. One even called begging for money so he could start this ‘sure thing’ business selling water filters or something. Multilevel marketing. A scam.”
“Yeah, but remember when Terry came back? He wanted to win so badly he could taste it.”
Terry had swallowed a lot of pride to come back and train with Deacon and me. As it was, a lot of people in the fight biz assumed once my father got sent to prison, the Rooney fighters would leave in droves. After all, they were used to training with two champions. Not one champion and one girl. Terry had walked out just at the sight of me. But when he came back to the Rooney camp, he was willing to train with a girl, willing to do anything to win.
“Maybe you’re right, Deacon. I don’t know. Since Miguel lost so badly, since Crystal, I’m paranoid as hell.”
“Me, too,” he said quietly. “How’s Baby Girl?” He had taken to calling Destiny that.
I shrugged. “How could she be doing? Her mother was murdered, she’s sent out to the desert to a camp with a bunch of virtual strangers. She’s suffering, the poor thing.”
“You know sooner or later Rob’s going to come out here with an order to take her. If we’re lucky, he’ll be able to do it without all of us getting arrested.”
I looked on the wall at a picture of me when I was Destiny’s age. Maybe I had grown up in gyms that reeked of sweat, watching men try to beat each other up, but it was an idyllic childhood in many ways. I had always known I was loved.
“I’m going to check on her.” I kissed Deacon on the cheek and left the office and walked down the long hall to the bedroom Destiny and I shared. We had decided after her trauma, it would be best if she could look over and see me there next to her at night.
The light was on. She insisted on it, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to argue with her after all she had been through. The TV was on, too, “for company.” She was watching the Wiggles video, which was her favorite. She watched it over and over and over again. I was getting rather sick of The Wiggles. Five men in asexual turtlenecks singing songs and prancing about with an octopus. Kind of weird.
She was still awake.
“Hey there, sweetie pie. Can’t sleep?”
She shook her head.
I sat next to her and stroked her cheek. “I know things are really scary right now. Really confusing. But I promise you I’m going to take care of you. Do you know that, at least?”
She nodded. “My mommy said you were her best friend. You and Big Jimmy were her two favorite people in the world—except for me. I was her favoritest favorite.”
I smiled. “What about Tony? Wasn’t he one of her favorites?”
She scrunched up her face. “She said it was complicated.”
“Yeah, well, with grown-ups, sometimes life is pretty complicated.”
“I saw him, you know.”
“Who, honey?”
“That bad man. Tonight. I heard the crash, and then I looked out the window. I saw him and hid under the bed.”
“Benny Bonita?”
She nodded, wide-eyed.
“Don’t worry, he’s gone.”
“I know,” she whispered. “He scared my mommy.”
“How do you know that?”
“She said so.”
I slid down so that I was lying next to her on the king-size bed. “You know, let’s not think about all this right now. Let’s get some sleep, okay?”
“Can we say prayers?”
My father was steadfastly agnostic. Deacon filled my head with the Lord this and the Lord that. And as for me, praying wasn’t my strong suit. “Sure kid. You have one in mind?”
“No. I just say God bless Mommy. And God bless Big Jimmy. And God bless Auntie Jack. And God bless Uncle Deacon. Amen. Oh, yeah. And, God? Please make Mr. Bonita stay far, far away.”
“I’ll say amen to that,” I whispered, and held her hand until she fell asleep.
Chapter 5
The next morning, early, Destiny woke me up. I groaned. “Kid…it’s way too early to get up. Why don’t you watch those wiggle-worm guys.”
She giggled. “The Wiggles.”
“Yeah. Them.” I rolled over and pulled the covers over my head.
“I’m hungry.”
“Go get yourself something to eat,” I said from under the covers.
“Like what?”
“Deacon will make you a smoothie.”
“He makes gross ones.”
“There’s leftover jambalaya in the fridge.”
“Yuck. For breakfast?”
“I’ve been eating cold leftovers for breakfast since before you were born. They’re good for you.”
“Breakfast is s’posed to be something like cereal or pancakes.”
“That’s a conspiracy dreamed up by Mr. Kellogg and Mr. Post.”
“You’re not very good at baby-sitting,” she said.
So the little pip-squeak guilted me into getting up. I pulled on a robe and shuffled out to the kitchen where Deacon—who always rises before dawn—was sipping a smoothie the color of what the devil spewed in The Exorcist. It was enough to make me gag.
“Hello, Baby Girl.” Deacon smiled at Destiny. “Hello, not-so-baby girl.” He looked up at me.
“Don’t press your luck,” I snapped. “The kid here wants breakfast food. Pancakes or cereal.”
“How about eggs?” Deacon smiled at her again. I remembered that smile. He was always smiling at me when I was little, seemingly delighted just to be around me.
“I don’t like eggs.”
“Pancakes it is, then.”
Deacon rose from his chair and started opening up cabinets, looking for Bisquick and syrup. As he puttered, the doorbell rang. Deacon and I exchanged glances.
“I’ll get it,” Deacon said grimly. The ranch was far enough off the beaten path that no one showed up there unless he or she was really looking for us—good or bad.
I immediately pulled Destiny over on my lap and eyed the butcher block full of knives that was two feet from us on the counter. I’d never let anyone take her without a fight.
I listened for sounds of a scuffle, but didn’t hear any.
“Look who,” Deacon said, coming back a minute or so later with Rob in tow.
“Rob!” I gave Destiny a hug, then slid her off my lap and jumped up to give Rob a bear hug. “God, is it good to see you.”
“This beats the ‘No, I’m not going to marry you yet’ greeting.” He hugged me back, and as usual, I could feel his chest against mine, solid and absolutely rock hard.
“Well, I can tell you we’re not getting married in the midst of all this chaos.”
“Believe it or not, I’m with you on that. This case gets weirder and weirder.” He looked over at Destiny and then walked over to the table where she sat. I don’t even know if she recognized him from the night her mother was killed. I was amazed at her resilience so far, but that night, she had to have been in shock. Deacon said her teeth had chattered for four straight hours after he got her to the ranch. Then she’d passed out, exhausted.
Rob knelt in front of her, I assumed to make himself less imposing. “Hi, Destiny. I’m Jack’s friend, Rob. I’m a policeman, and I catch bad guys. And I’m going to make sure nothing happens to you or Jack, okay?”
She nodded. Rob tousled her hair.
Deacon opened a cabinet door. “I was just getting ready to make Baby Girl pancakes. It’s good to have a child around this old ranch again.”
“Pancakes? You like pancakes?” Rob looked at Destiny. She nodded again. “You sure you wouldn’t rather have toasted spider legs?”
I watched Destiny stifle a giggle. She shook her head.
“What about fried cactus?”
She shook her head again, her eyes twinkling just a tiny bit.
“How about sautéed monkey feet?”
“Gross!” she said, laughing.
“Well—” Rob put on a disappointed face “—if I can’t talk you into any of those delicacies, could I make you my special German pancakes? It’s a recipe from my great-grandmother on my mother’s side, and be prepared to never want any other kind of pancake for the rest of your life!”
I loved watching the gentleness in his face. I had seen him, more than a few times, break up a bar fight or come to the aid of someone on the street, even when he was off duty. He was always supremely calm and competent. Sometimes, like when this one guy in a bar had grabbed his cocktail waitress by the hair and threatened her, Rob’s eyes went stormy and you knew he wasn’t a person to trifle with. But he and I had never discussed children. Maybe it was because I had spent my life immersed in a world of men, always trying to prove I was as tough as the guys. Maybe he didn’t think I was the “mommy” type. But he sure was the daddy type.
Rob commandeered the kitchen. Next thing I knew, at the picnic-style long table that served as our kitchen table, Big Jimmy, Miguel, Terry and a couple of other sparring partners and trainers, and little Destiny, were chowing down on pancakes fried in enough oil to lube a car. The pancakes were slightly crispy, golden and beyond delicious, and Rob went through two boxes of Bisquick feeding the gang.
After everyone was sitting around groaning about how full they were, I grabbed Rob’s hand and said, “Let’s take a walk.”
Big Jimmy looked at me and gave a slight nod. “I’ll take Destiny into the den. Come on, sugar, let’s go color.” The sight of Big Jimmy, all three hundred pounds of muscle, long black braid down his back, scooping up Destiny like a little doll, made me smile. He was the proverbial big teddy bear.
Rob and I strolled out into the rocky yard and off toward the mountains. The air was fresh, and he held my hand.
“I’ve missed you, Jack.”
“You’re just saying that, but secretly you’re glad I’m not squeezing your toothpaste tube from the middle,” I said, referring to his somewhat anal-retentive neatness and my…well, my sloppiness.
“I like when you do that. The next time I go to use my toothpaste, it reminds me that you were there. It makes me hopeful that one day, you’ll be there permanently.”
“Rob…”
“I know.” He put up his hands. “I won’t bother you about it. Just know, even with all this crazy shit going on that I love you. Even though I have a feeling you may be the reason my blood pressure is a little high and this little vein here—” he pointed to his temple “—throbs with regularity.”