Bad Luck (35 page)

Dizziness suddenly overcame Tozzi and he had to stop for a moment and close his eyes. Charles Epps's baritone laugh suddenly boomed through the PA system, and Tozzi's splitting headache was back. He opened his eyes, blinked, and started shouldering through the crowd, determined to shake things up royally. Despite his head.

“Yo, Walker!” he shouted.

No one heard him. He pushed his way to the front, right up to the champ standing on the scale.

“Hey, Walker, you ugly mother, I'm talking to you!”

Cameras flashed. Walker looked down at him, scowling. He
was
ugly. Tozzi closed his eyes, dizzy again.

Somebody took Tozzi's arm. “Come on, pal. Let's go.”

Tozzi snapped his arm away. This was their only chance to make something happen. He wasn't running on all cylinders, but he knew what he had to do.

“You're a chump, Walker. That's all you ever were, a chump. Never fought a decent fighter in your life. Charles is gonna show you. You watch. He's gonna knock you right on your ass. You watch.”

Walker's lip curled back. “Who da fuck're you?”

Tozzi gave him the bird. “You suck. You're finished. Why not just give Charles the belt now, save yourself the pain, ‘Pain'?”

Walker looked to his men. “Get him outta my face.” Two big black guys moved fast and pinned Tozzi's arms back before he knew what was happening.

Shit. Couldn't shake the dizziness. Tozzi bent his elbows, bent his knees, made himself heavy, unmovable, but this aikido technique wasn't working. He couldn't focus, and he'd lost the moment. They had him and they were dragging him offstage. Well, fuck it. It was now or never.

“What is this shit, man?” he shouted back at the champ. “Can't fight your own battles, Walker? Need your homeboys to do your work for you? Hey, forget about Epps. You couldn't even beat
me
up, chump.”

That's when things started to happen—fast. Other guys crowded around him—big guys. Someone said something about getting this away from the TV cameras, but then Walker was right in front of him, bare chest, ugly face. He muttered something that ended in “motherfuckah,” then Tozzi felt it before he realized what had happened. It was like a spike driven between his eyes, the sunglasses digging into his flesh. He'd gotten it in the nose again. Walker had punched him, right in the face. Tozzi dropped down to a squat. They hauled him right back up, curled in a ball, holding him up as he tried to cover up and clutch his face. His head felt like it was going to explode. He couldn't open his eyes. He was afraid to breathe. The goddamn nose again. Shit!

“'Pologize! 'Pologize! Talk!”

Tozzi could hear Walker's voice, but the words didn't register.

“Say it, man,” somebody else said. “Apologize to the champ. Say it or he hit you 'gain.”

Tozzi opened his eyes and it was like being underwater. Underwater with a shark staring him in the face.

Another voice: “Do 'gain, do 'gain. C'mon, do 'gain.”

They hauled him up, and Tozzi could see the shark coming through the water, the mean ugly face, the shining pecs, the fist cocked.

“No more,” he groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the next shot. “Le' go—”

“Will you look at this, ladies and gentlemen?”

The booming voice of God from on high in the form of Charles Epps.

Walker forgot about Tozzi and lunged over him to get at Epps. “Shut up your fat mouth,
ol'
man.”

Charles Epps was standing at the edge of the stage, the microphone in his hand, his big, mocking laugh thundering
through the hall. The reverberating sound made Tozzi wince with pain.

“That man is right, Dwayne. You are a chump. Lookit you. Supposed to be the world champeen, and you need all your homeboys to hold the man down so you can mug him. Sheeeet. You can't bring those boys in the ring when you fight me. You know that, don't you? You are a dee-scrace to the title. I'm gonna have to take it away from you just to rescue its good name. Beating up a poor defenseless white man like that. You oughta be ashamed.”
The booming laugh thundered. The great and powerful Oz.

Walker sputtered, looked at Epps, then looked at Tozzi, his face twitching. He wanted to say something to Epps but he wasn't finished with the white man who'd sassed him. “Let 'im go, let 'im go. Do it! Now!”

They let go of Tozzi's arms.

“C'mon now, motherfuckah. I be fair wit' you. I want you to hit me. Gimme yo' best shot. C'mon, mother.” Walker's voice was low and calmer now. Much scarier.

Tozzi touched his nose and stared at Walker. Thinks he's a clever bastard. He wants to make it look like he was attacked, so he can justify the mugging, after the fact. No way.

Walker moved in close and breathed in his face, his big fist balled against Tozzi's gut. “C'mon, motherfuckah, I telling you now. Hit me or I put this roundhouse upside yo' head, yo' ear be coming out the other side. I telling you now.”

Tozzi looked him in the eye, amazed and grateful. Thanks for the tip, champ.

The great and powerful Epps:
“What you doing over there, chump? Making love to that man?”

Walker's teeth clenched, the eyes were wild. “I do it. I swear. Make yo' brains mush.”

Tozzi stepped back, made some room, dying for Walker to do it. He smiled in the champ's face. “Suck my dick, asshole.”

Walker's face was like a comic-strip character on a wad
of Silly Putty being pulled in two directions. He was breathing hard out his nose, pissed as shit. “I tol' you!” he growled. Tozzi was ready.

Walker threw the roundhouse, true to his word, threw it hard. Tozzi slid in fast to beat the punch, caught the crook of Walker's elbow with one hand, the side of his face with the other, and—
wham!
—threw the champ down flat on his back, hard.

Tozzi grinned.
Tsuki kokyu nage.
Too bad his
sensei
wasn't here, he thought. Ought to be able to jump a rank for this.

“Whooooweeee!”
Epps was impressed.

Cameras flashed. Pandemonium in the aisles, chaos onstage. The homeboys jumped Tozzi from behind.

“The chump is down for the count!” The
great and powerful Epps was howling. The reporters were howling.

Tozzi curled into a ball again, worried about his nose but happy with himself.
Whooooweeeee
, indeed. The press boys would have plenty to report now.

Tozzi covered up as the homeboys started to drag him offstage again. “You dead now, sucker. You dead now.” Tozzi tried to make himself heavy, but one of them had him by the collar and the satiny material of the Mets jacket slid easily on the polished wooden floor. He struggled to break free, grabbing at their clothes to haul himself up, but they kicked him with their knees and one caught him on the side of the head. He stopped struggling, suddenly dizzy again, sick to his stomach. Head spinning and pounding—a little guy with a jackhammer trying to break his way out of Tozzi's skull, right through the middle of his forehead. Tozzi covered his face, but touching his nose was like putting ice water on a tooth with an exposed nerve. He was stiff with pain.

The noise of the crowd was fading. The space around him seemed smaller. They'd gotten him into the wings, out of the crowd's sight. Oh, shit . . .

“Get 'im down the hall, down that way. We show him. He one dead fucker now.”

“Stop right where you are and release that man immediately. He's under arrest.”

Tozzi opened one eye and peered up at the familiar voice. Gibbons waving his ID, jacket open so they could see his holster, pushing the homeboys out of the way. “Come on, get away. Move it. He's mine.”

“Who you, man? You don't look like nobody to me.”

Gibbons drew Excalibur, barrel pointed up. “Am I somebody now, asshole?”

The homeboys made room, lots of it, backed away grumbling, returning to the stage.

Gibbons took Tozzi's arm, helped him up, breathed in his face. “I ought to arrest you for that stunt. What the hell do you think you're doing?”

Tozzi blinked his eyes, tried to focus. “I'm making things happen.”

Gibbons started to lead him down the hall. “Yeah, that accomplished a whole lot. You're a real piece of work, Tozzi.”

“No, think about it. If you were Walker, would you throw the fight now? After some guy comes out of nowhere and humiliates you in front of a million reporters, I mean.”

Gibbons's face changed. He was considering the possibility. “Who knows? It's no secret that Walker's got a chip on his shoulder. He may have something to prove now. He could change his mind.”

“That's what I'm figuring.” Tozzi was able to walk on his own now. They came to the stage-door entrance, and there was a War Down the Shore poster taped to the door. Tozzi remembered the easel in Russell Nashe's office, their little chat.

“Walker gave you a pretty good shot there. I saw it. Let's go find a hospital, have a doctor look at you.”

“No, I'm okay.” The little guy with the jackhammer was still working on his breakout. “Really. I'm fine.”

“You look like shit. You sure?”

“I'm fine.” He pushed through the door with the poster
on it and winced as the bright sunlight assaulted his eyes. “What time is it?”

“Almost two.”

Eight hours to fighttime. Tozzi nodded to himself, wondering where she might be now. “I gotta go see someone.”

“Who?”

He shaded his eyes and looked straight up at the big white building next door, Nashe Plaza. “I've got an urgent rumor to plant.” On the seventeenth floor.

Gibbons made a face. “What're you talking about?”

Tozzi didn't answer. He was focusing on the windows on the seventeenth floor.

il had her wrist crooked around Sal's elbow. Sal patted her hand and smiled at her, glad that she'd decided to come to the fight. People in the crowd made believe they weren't looking at her—a nun at a prizefight wasn't something you saw very often—but Sal didn't give a shit about the attention she drew. It was the kind of attention he didn't mind having. He knew there'd be cops and feds around—a big event like this, they're always around. Tomasso and his friends. So let them take all the pictures they want. He liked it when the papers printed those kind of pictures, him with Cil, the poor numbskull palooka being led around like a little kid. It was just what he wanted everybody to believe.

He looked at Joseph sitting on his other side and wished to hell Cil had been a boy. Cil had smarts, Joseph was a
jooch.
Look at him with that suit. Sharkskin, for chrissake. Who the hell wears sharkskin anymore? No brains this guy has. I tell him don't get the real good seats, just close
enough so we can see something. We gotta blend in with the crowd, Joseph. So what does he do? He gets seats ten rows from ringside and he wears his glow-in-the-dark Guido suit. Shit for brains, that's what he's got. What's the use? Can't say anything to him here. Someone might see.

The card girls climbed into the ring then, and the catcalls started. A blonde and a black chick, spike heels and bathing suits, like the Miss America contest. They walked around the ring for no particular reason, just giving everybody something to see while they were waiting for the fight to start. The black chick grabbed the ropes and started doing bouncing squats, like she was warming up for a fight herself. From where they were sitting, they had a good view of her ass coming down on her black heels, real
Penthouse
stufi. Cil was frowning. She didn't approve of this kind of thing, women looking nice like this.