Pound for Pound (36 page)

“I just wanted you to know.”

“I ‘preciate it, Mr. Cooley. And I understand.”

Chicky had carried his gear out to Fresita. His hat was off and he was studying his map for a place to stay later on that night. He saw the town of Indio, located east of Palm Springs, but it brought the Indio Gym and Velasco to mind, and he decided to just drive as far as he could. Tired as he was, maybe he’d just konk out along the road like before and save money. He’d need it. If he had enough left when he got home, he’d haul his grandpa to the Paris Hatters and buy him an El Patron, too. The old man was due for something splendid, and the idea of buying a Stetson for his granddaddy made Chicky feel good for the first time in a spell.

Barky went on alert as soon as he heard a noise outside the truck, then bounced around when he saw it was Dan. Dan unlocked the door on the driver’s side and the dog dashed out, selective in his sprinkles only after he let his main load go.

Dan said, “I got some dog treats for you, and then I’m goin back inside with Earl, hear? You stay in the truck and sleep, and then I’ll take you out again.”

As they returned down the lane leading to Dan’s truck, they saw three dark figures hovering near the driver’s side of the vehicle. Off to one side was the triple-black lowrider that Chicky had seen earlier, its trunk open. Dan didn’t connect the car with the dark figures until he heard glass shatter and sudden bursts of Spanglish slang.

“¡Wátchale estúpido!” Careful, stupid!

Barky wheezed once, then tore into all three
pandilleros,
his teeth ripping into ass and balls. Desperate hands tried to drive him off. One of the gangbangers took off through the stagnant pools and muddy bottom and into the reeds of the shallow river, Barky right after him.

“Stop him!
¡Socorro!
Help! Please!
¡Por Dios!
In God’s name!”

Dan tried to stay away from the other two as they checked themselves for blood and punctured flesh beneath the rips in their leather jackets. When they saw him, they began to bellow in Spanish, and they
knocked him down and began to stomp him. Dan got in a nut shot that slowed one of them, but they kicked him back down. The second pulled a knife, and Dan scuttled away, his ribs aching and one thigh cramping in a charley horse that made his eyes water.

Chicky heard the ruckus, then saw Dan on the ground, the two ‘bangers on him. Chicky moved into both from the side, firing lefts and rights into their faces and bellies, and then he cranked a one-two combination that knocked one of them over the hood of an adjacent car. He stopped the second guy with a shot to the liver that made him drop his knife and grab his guts. Chicky slid across a fender to the first, who wobbled to his feet. Chicky dropped him again, this time with a right hook that left him twitching in the dirt, his eyes blinking in spasms.

Dan was up and drilling the second attacker when Barky came racing back. As the punk started to raise a fist to club Dan, Barky got it between his teeth and crushed the thumb and fingers. As the
pandillero
began to howl, Chicky kicked his knee sideways, and he went down on his side, his hand still locked in Barky’s jaws.

“He’s eating my hand get him off me
hijo de su chingada madre el pinche perro me está comiendo
fuckin dog’s eatin me alive!”

As the first ‘banger pulled himself to his knees, Dan kicked him in the stomach so hard that shit filled his Jockeys. Barky gave up his hold on the second one’s hand, and went for his face. Dan was afraid Barky would kill him and pulled him off, blood splashing and flesh hanging loose from the torn cheek and neck.

The two
pandilleros
saw a chance to escape and took off in a stumbling run, both falling along the way. Barky stayed on them through the mud and reeds and up the embankment and into the darkness. Dan called him back.

One of the running ‘bangers shouted back through the darkness, “Ain’t fair havin a silent dog, man!”

Barky returned, pumped on adrenaline, slobber all over, his eyes
bulging. He snorted and jumped around for approval, and then sniffed Chicky. He looked to Dan for instructions.

“This is Chicky Garza, he’s okay,” Dan said. He patted and rubbed the pooch and fondled his ears. “Good boy, good dog. You’re so pretty.”

Chicky wasn’t sure he’d heard right. Dan turned to him.

“Hey! Thank you, thank
you!
”

Chicky rubbed his hands, “I don’t much identify with truck thieves.”

Dan saw the knife on the ground and picked it up. “Who were those guys?”

Chicky pointed to the lowrider. “Earlier on, I saw ‘em in that.”

Dan crossed over and knifed the tires, then got Barky into the pickup. He put the truck into low, and rammed one side of the lowrider with his reinforced-steel push bumpers. He backed around and got the other side, then bashed in the customized grill and the rear end, the open trunk tilting off to one side.

Dan said, “We better clear out of here.”

Dan drove to a nearby truckers’ café where they served homemade pie. Chicky, wearing his El Patron, followed in Fresita. They ordered pie and coffee and then they began to laugh. They finished their pie, laughed some more, and then ordered more pie.

Dan said, “That’s some red truck you got.”

“Belonged to my granddaddy,” Chicky said, feeling crossways with himself. Things were complicating up. He wanted to say more about his grandfather, but didn’t feel he could now that he had denied knowledge of Eloy. “This pie’s good stuff.”

“They make great bread pudding, too.”

When they finished, Dan took a double order of bread pudding out to Barky, who was still charged and shivery and going
gnuff-gnuff.
The bread pudding disappeared in one gulp, and then Barky sat politely back and licked his chops.

“Some dawg.”

“He’s my baby boy.”

Chicky said, “I had more fun back there than I’ve had in a coon’s age.”

“Me, too,” said Dan, knowing how lucky they were not to have been killed. “Say, cowboy, you can crack.”

“Yeah,” said Chicky with a sad smile, “not that it matters much now.”

“What do you mean? You could get somebody good to train you. Hell, I’d work cuts, if you wanted me to.” Dan wobbled back.
What? Did I say that?

“Much obliged, Mr. Cooley. But see, I already quit my job and all.”

“Well, uh …” Dan could see what he had in mind, but he couldn’t come right out and say it. “You could leave tomorrow same as tonight, right?”

“Not really,” the kid said, rubbing his hands again. “See, I already checked out of my room, too.”

“Look,” Dan said, “you saved my ass. I owe you.”

“No, you don’t”

“Yeah, I do. So why don’t you follow me back to my shop?”

“Now?”

“Half hour this time of night. You can check out my gym.”

“I was fixin to leave, Mr. Cooley.”

“Tell you what. If you don’t like what I might have in mind, I’ll put you up overnight at the Four Seasons Hotel on Doheny Drive in Beverly Hills.”

Chicky said, “Let’s do it.”

Dan used his cell phone to call Earl.

Earl said, “Where the hell are you?”

“I got into a beef with some thieves tryin to steal my truck. That Garza kid saved my ass.”

Earl said, “Where you callin from?”

“We’re on the way back to the gym, uh, to the shop.”
Earl smiled, had a hunch his partner was near healed, but was careful not to sound too interested. “Can you trust the kid in the shop?’

“Hell, Earl, the kid saved my fucking life!”

Earl put his hand over his mouth in glee and bobbed his head.

Dan showed Chicky around the shop, but didn’t mention the shot-up Caddy under the tarp. They moved out to the gym, and Chicky saw how it could be entered from the shop. He quickly understood that this was a holy place to Dan, sensed that Dan was revealing something of himself that not many were allowed to see. He also saw the hand-lettered signs on the wall: “Good Fighters Don’t Need Water and Bad Fighters Don’t Deserve Water.” “Learning’s Hard, Doing’s Easy.” “The First Rule of War Is Don’t Shoot Yourself.” Chicky understood them all, and saw their sense.

Dan also told the kid about Earl and Momolo and how he had several Mexicans working for him. He also mentioned that he’d been out of the game awhile, but didn’t say why, though he did explain briefly how he’d come by Barky in El Paso.

Chicky said, “I like that ol’ dawg.”

Dan said, “And he talks Spanish better than English.”

“No.”

“Talk some lingo to him.”

“Naw.”

“Say somethin in his native tongue.”

“Dame la patita.”

Barky sat back and held out a paw.

Chicky took it, and shook it, and doffed his Stetson. “Well, if that don’t beat all.”

Dan hemmed and hawed. Against his better judgment, he blurted out what he’d been bubbling to say. “I got to clear this with Earl, so maybe I’m talking too soon, okay?”

Chicky didn’t understand, but said, “I guess.”

“What I’m getting at, is that you could work for me and Earl in the shop.”

“I’m a country boy, Mr. Cooley.”

“You could learn a trade so you’d make a good living outside boxing.”

“Outside? I don’t have no
inside.”

Dan said, “You will if you train with Earl and me.”

“You joshin, Mr. Cooley?”

“I’m serious,” Dan said, his mind racing ahead, gamboling now, having fun as things suddenly fit as tightly as a wrapped hand in a fighting glove. “You could work part-time in the shop. Say twenty hours a week so you could rest and train. Ten dollars an hour, under the table. That’s two hundred a week to start, clear. You could take over my room here, no rent. If you’re not happy in six weeks, you’ll have a thousand dollars in your pocket to go back home on, plus what you already got. But you gotta run in the morning, five days a week. After work, you train in the gym five days a week, plus a light workout on Saturday.” Dan hesitated. “You turn out to be a flake, I give you a free week’s pay just to get rid of you, and you’re outta here quick as you came in.”

Chicky smiled. “What if I ain’t no flake?”

“I don’t see you like that or I wouldn’t be talkin to you. See, I have to hedge here a little, because I can’t tell the future. But if you’re happy, Earl and me’ll be happy. You’ll get fights that are matched right, and you’ll start to make money once we get you up the ladder a ways.” Dan hesitated briefly. “I got to say this. At any time, either side can pull out, no questions, no hard feelins. That sound okay to you?”

“Yessir.”

“If you stick, whether you get a title shot will depend most on you, but also on a thousand other things neither one of us can think of right now. But you’ll have somebody in your corner who’s got some juice and who gives a fuck about you, I can guarantee you that. But if you screw around, this ain’t Santa Claus Lane, and you’re outta here.”

Chicky said, “Goshees, all a this is comin outta nowhere, Mr. Cooley.”

“Like I say, I got to clear it with Earl in the morning.”

“Where do I stay tonight?”

“Four Seasons, like I said before, or you can bunk with Barky in my room up those stairs.”

“Where’ll you sleep?”

“I got my house a few blocks over.”

“You got clean sheets upstairs?”

Dan drove home. He opened all the doors and windows to air the place out. He pulled the bedspread back and fluffed the pillows. He washed up, removing the wrapper from the new bar of soap on the washbasin. He closed all the doors, but left some of the windows open. The crucifix was still on the wall. He thought he’d taken it down. He began to take off his shoes.

D
an and Earl sat in their office drinking coffee. Chicky waited in the customers’ lounge downstairs.

Dan said, “Believe me, this is some kid, so if you don’t have nothin against it, I thought we could take him on. He could run with Momolo at the golf course, and they could give each other sparring once we fatten the kid up.”

Earl was happier than he’d been since before the death of Tim Pat, but he didn’t feel he could show his hand yet. “Well, it sounds all right, maybe, but it’s a big step, what with me workin and trainin Momolo alone. I’m not so sure I could make time for someone else.”

Dan said, “I was thinkin that I could start doing my regular work in the shop again, and the kid could drive the truck part-time, somethin like that, work clean up, you know.” Dan hesitated, then jumped in with all four feet. “That way I could train him, instead of you havin to do all the work.”

Earl had to look the other way to keep from busting up. “What, you’re already cuttin me outta this deal?”

“Hell no! You’re in fifty-fifty like always, I just didn’t want it to be too much for you, that’s all.”

“He’s left-handed, right? Getting him fights won’t be easy.” Earl pretended to have doubts. “You think he’s worth it?”

“Maybe you could switch him from left to right.”

“But not if he don’t want to.”

“Shortcake switched you to the right side,” said Dan.

“I wanted to.”

Dan felt dread. Maybe Earl was opposed. Dan couldn’t blame him, and thought about vodka for the first time in a while. “He’s a tough hombre, Earl, with one hell of a amateur record. And he’s as smart and nice as he is tough. I see grit in the kid, like in your dad.”

Earl missed his daddy every day. Fucking Dan. The Irish could talk. Like the brothers, they could go to the body with words. Earl swallowed hard, but kept bobbing and weaving, countering with his own shots. “Lotta work, him bein a lefty and comin from other trainers, and all. What if he’s locked into his old ways?”

“At least he can make a living if he stays with us,” said Dan, feeling it all slip away. “Or he’ll have the money to go back home, and still have some when he gets there. But suppose we catch a break and he gets to be somebody? You never know, right? Suppose he starts to cash in? Suppose he gets a title shot, maybe wins a belt? A title, that’s what all this’s about, for him and for us.”

“How do we know he’s that good?”

“We don’t. Not yet. But he can hit, Earl. Kid can crack.”