Sucker Punch (27 page)

“I never thought of losing, but now that it's happened, the only thing is to do it right. That's my obligation to all the people who believe in me. We all have to take defeats in life.”

If it's good enough for The Greatest, it's good enough for me.

“You sure you don't want to stay the week?”

“Nah, Phil, I think we're better off just going home. I got the money for the tickets, I might as well use it.”

Standing outside the Ramada Inn, bags packed. I already checked the both of us out. Left the duty free behind, packed the cigarettes. I'll be paying over the odds for the flights, but it'll be worth it. I want the plane back to be as direct and as fast as possible. No more changes, no more foreign airports than we need. They discharged Liam yesterday, gave him a cleanish bill of health and sent the other one to our travel insurance place. He's still shaky on his feet, pale, has the puffy features of someone who's spent too long asleep, but he'll get better. I don't want him hanging around Shapiro's gym, though. Nothing against Shapiro — he's been a diamond the last two days — but the atmosphere of the place might bring back a few unpleasant memories for the lad. No sense in torturing him with what might have been. Let it stay here in Los Angeles.

Right now, Liam's sitting in the back seat of Shapiro's car. He's chewing gum and staring out of the window, in a world of his own. He's been like that since he got out of hospital. If I think about it too much, I'll get worried, so I attend to the job in hand. Pick up the bags and put them in the boot of the car.

“He alright?” says Shapiro.

“Fine.”

“About Callahan …”

“We've been through it,” I say.

There wasn't a lot Shapiro could've done about the bribery thing because there wasn't a lot of proof — I'd already spent a hefty chunk of the money on cab fare and now plane tickets. Callahan tried to play the victim, swearing off his broken nose and threatening to sue me for the cash it'd take to have his beak reset by a professional. Shapiro had a quiet word in his ear. If Callahan didn't press charges, Josh was still welcome at the gym and it would go no further. Shapiro did tell me they were on their last warning.

“It's not what you would've done, I know,” he says.

“Well,” I say, slamming the boot closed. “You're a more tolerant sort than I am.”

“I want you to know, you're both welcome any time you're in Los Angeles. I mean it, you want to come over, you can always depend on my hospitality.”

“That's a nice thought, Phil, but I don't know how often we're going to do this trip.”

“Just keep it in mind. Liam's a good kid.”

“I know.” We walk to either side of the car. “I appreciate what you've done, mate.”

“Wish I could've done more.”

“Yeah, well, me too. But that's not the way it went, is it?”

He looks like he's about to say something, but keeps his mouth shut. We get into the car. I want to be in the back seat with Liam, but the lad still needs his space. It would be easier sitting back there, though. Then I could pretend Shapiro was a cab driver or something. Because I don't know, but there's still something about the man I can't get a handle on. Maybe it's that he's done time. No, that shouldn't bother me. Maybe it's the God stuff. Not that he rams it down your throat, but I've been around too many people who claim God saved them from booze, drugs et cetera, and they replace their vices with one virtue. Way I see it, even divine intervention can't change a leopard's spots. A leopard's born that way, has to see those spots every day at the watering hole and he's constantly reminded of his nature. There's no way around it.

So I watch the city dissolve again, feel my hands tighten in my lap. Streets become freeways, billboards proclaiming the latest hot movie.

I'm constantly surprised by the space in this country. Back in Manchester, there's no such thing as
this
much space. The city centre's become a shrine to high-rise buildings, people shunted into tiny apartments, paying over the odds to enjoy wooden floors and sky-high urban living. Students and young professionals everywhere, multiplying like a hostile virus. But here a man can live without seeing another individual if he wants to. It's a comforting thought, that kind of isolation. I've lived too long under people's feet, or with people under mine. Might be good to get away from it all out here.

It's a fantasy. A ridiculous fucking dream, but that's what this country's all about.

Liam's still staring out of the window, caught up in dreams of his own. He's stopped smacking the gum in his mouth. I wonder if he's thinking the same thing. Wonder what the hell he
is
thinking. Because I haven't seen the lad lose it once yet. If I'd gone through his last couple of days, I'd be a wreck. I just put it down to his sedation at the hospital, but now there's no reason for his mood. No tears, no recrimination. He's accepted Nelson's death with the blink of an eye, like it was most normal, logical thing in the world. Can't say I've had the same attitude. I wanted Nelson caught, tried, in jail. Or else shot down by the police. I wanted something dramatic for his death, but all I got was a whimper in the desert.

I turn away from Liam, concentrate on the scenery.

There's something not right about that lad.

When I come back with the tickets, Liam's standing by the bags looking bored.

“Bulk heads,” I say. “Got some leg room.”

He nods. Shapiro's long gone. Dropped us off at the terminal and we said our goodbyes quickly and without sentiment. I was glad of it. I didn't want to be around Shapiro any longer than necessary and Liam looked like he wanted to be far away.

I pick up our carry-on luggage, head through to the waiting area. Liam picks up a boxing magazine from a newspaper kiosk, sits down a seat away from me and starts leafing through it. I half think about getting something to read myself, but realise there'll be plenty of movies to sit through on the plane. Besides, we need to talk.

“How you feeling?” I say.

He doesn't answer me.

“Liam.”

“You keep asking me that,” he says.

“I'm interested.”

“You asked us at the hospital. You asked us when I got out the hospital. And you've been asking us pretty much on the hour until now. You going to ask us on the plane, too?”

“If I get a straight answer out of you, no.”

“How am I supposed to be feeling?”

“I don't know.” I rub my nose. Could do with a cigarette, should've had one before we got in the car. “I'm sorry.”

Liam stops reading. “For what?”

“For Nelson.”

“You didn't know.”

There's a pause as Liam turns the page.

“They give you any medication?” I say.

“No.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

I reach into my jacket, wrestle with the lid on my pills. The noise bothers Liam. I smile at him. “I can never get these things open on the first try.” I pop the lid. Shake out two pills and swallow them. “I would've thought they'd give you something.”

Liam watches me, then turns back to his magazine. “I'm not in any pain.”

“Not physical, no,” I say.

“Not any,” he says.

Silence between us. Goes on so long, I can't stand it.

“I'd be pissed off,” I say.

“Course you would.”

“Fuck's sake, Liam.”

“What?”

“Do something, mate. Take a fuckin' swing at me, anything. I got you in that position with Nelson, the least you can do is vent or something. You want to take a free swing? You'll probably kill me, but it's the least I can do.”

“The least you can do is leave me alone, Cal.”

“What's the matter with you?” And I'm honestly interested. Sick of this silent shite he's been playing since he came out of the hospital, the stoic wee prick. He thinks he's what? Above a little emotion? He's got every reason to be raging right now, tearing the place apart with his bare hands and me with it. Just had his dreams stamped on because of me, just had the light snapped off on his golden fucking future. So I've been expecting the cracks to show, but there's nothing. If anything, the lad's stonier than ever.

Liam closes his magazine carefully. “There's nothing the matter with me, Cal. I just got out the hospital. Feeling fine.”

“Well, you look like a psycho.”

He narrows his eyes when he looks at me. “The fuck you want us to do?”

“Anything you want. But don't bottle it up.”

“If I go nuts, Cal, what does that accomplish? If I get out of this seat and I knock you out for putting us in the hands of a guy who drugged us and fucked my chances at ever turning pro, what does that accomplish?”

“It makes you feel better, Liam.”

“No, it doesn't make me feel better. Because I do that, and nothing's changed except I've made the world a messier place. Fucked up some airport cleaner's day because she has to scrub you off the seat. It doesn't change the fact that I lost something without getting a chance to hang onto it. Doesn't change the fact that when we get back to Manchester, I'm going to have to explain what happened to Paulo.”

“I'll explain it to Paulo—”

“You'll explain nowt, Cal. You'll get a few drinks down you to pluck up the courage and by that time it'll be too late for you to slur out the truth. Fact is, I said that I'd walk if I wasn't confident with Nelson. You remember that?”

“Yeah.”

“So if I didn't want to do it, I wouldn't have done it. I'm my own man. I make my own decisions. You want to keep treating us like a fuckin' kid, I got no choice but to remind you I'm not.”

Yeah, this big man, eh? “You're not a kid, why'd I have to come with you?”

“Because you needed a holiday. Everyone says you've been mental since you got back, y'know. Like you're sick, you need all those fuckin' pills.”

“It wasn't so long ago you were mugging grannies,” I say.

“Bad things happen to good people,” he says. He looks at the cover of his magazine. “Bad things happen, you can't stop them. Best you can do is get up and battle on.”

“Shapiro tell you that?”

“I told him that.”

“When?”

“When he checked up on us.” Liam opens the magazine. “That first night I was in. Which is more than you ever did.”

“I checked up on you,” I say.

“When you thought it was safe, Cal. You can guilt trip yourself all you want. I don't blame you for what happened, and I'm not going to swing for you, either.”

That's the last thing he says to me. It boils my piss. I keep trying at him, but he's put a wall up. We get on the plane, the first thing he does is bury his nose in that magazine. When the plane's up, he fiddles with the armrest, brings out the wee TV screen and pulls it up so it's a barricade between us. Then he starts messing with the remote, trying to find something to watch.

I give up on him. Let him be a lairy little fucker if he wants to be. Fuck him if he doesn't want to talk this through like an adult. Bad things happen to good people. Too much time around Shapiro, he's gone all spiritual. You battle on. Doesn't sound like too much battling to me. Sounds like you take your punches and don't throw any back. Turn the other fucking cheek. And if he thinks that's the secret to the way the world works, he's dead wrong. Someone hits you, you hit back. Christ, that's the backbone of boxing. A hundred tiny revenges in two minutes. Then it's back to your corner to figure out how to score a hundred more. You keep going until one of you wins. That's the way it is. It's hardly fucking rocket science.

Battle on. Yeah, that's about right. But there's got to be a moment when the battles are over and the war is won.

I press the button in the side of my seat, recline and pull my own TV screen out. Nothing decent showing, so I listen to piped Yanni until sleep catches up with me.

Battle on.

Liam and I take separate cabs from the airport. It wasn't my choice. I wanted to go back to the club first, get the explanation out of the way, but Liam darted for the first black cab he saw before I got a chance to stop him. Then the taxi took off into a typical Manchester summer landscape, drizzle slow-soaking everything in sight.

Looks like I'll have to explain the last week to Paulo myself. I hoist my bag to my shoulder, slide into the back seat of a cab and tell the driver to head for Salford. He grinds the car into gear and we head off.

I'd like to say it's good to be home, but the smell of plane sweat and damp clothes takes the shine off my arrival. Besides, there's still too much to do before I get to the flat. Trying to piece together the past couple of days, weave it into some kind of story I can tell Paulo that doesn't make me look like a complete arsehole. The usual struggle, trying to figure out where it all went wrong, then flipping back, branching out. What did I do right? Replay it until the image degrades and realise there's no way of telling the truth without accepting it myself.

“Can I smoke in here?” I say.

“Nah, mate.”

Figures. No reason to cut me a break now.

Bloody hell.

Not even a week and I'm talking like an American.

The cab drops me off on Regent Road. That's as far as my limited pounds sterling will get me. I pull my bag from the back seat, turn up the collar on my jacket and start trudging up towards Gloucester Street. Flanked on either side of the road by industrial parks with no industry. A hotel and a Sainsbury's. A casino and a couple of fast food places. If it wasn't for the signs, you'd swear they were all the same buildings housing exactly the same things. I cross, stare up the road at Paulo's club. The doors are closed.

As I get closer, I notice the large steel bar across the doors to the club, a brand new padlock securing it in place. Along with the rain, there's a smell of stale smoke in the air. I drop my bag on the ground, notice the blackened edges of the double doors, some of the paint blistered and chipped.

I head round to the back of the club, where what used to be my office overlooked the bins. The back window's boarded up, but someone's chipped away at the wood. I peer through the gap. The office is charred. Squint a little, and I can just about see the door to the office is open. Other than that, it's black. Someone gutted the entire building. The stench is overwhelming, carried out on a stiff breeze.