The fight was only four days away, which meant I wasn’t going to have a lot of time to train. I was better off warming up every day, eating right, and working on a specific strategy for the guy. The next five days would be like final-exam week in college. Smitty would drill me over and over on what the guy does, how he moves, how he sets up his punches. By the end of the week I’d want to kill Smitty, but it was what I needed.
Knowing he had a serious cut in his last fight was important. Smitty told me that the contract specified the popular Mexican style gloves for the bout. They were known as the “puncher’s gloves” because they had very little padding over the knuckles. They also had a slight seam running up the side, and that seam would be an important part of my strategy. I would spend the next five days throwing my jab just to the right and dragging that seam across the bag.
I set up a schedule with Smitty and headed up the stairs to the locker room. On my way I took a peek in the auxiliary gym to check out the karate club. The guys who ran it when I was a kid didn’t run it anymore; it had changed hands a bunch of times. Through the little square window I saw a class of about fifteen, mostly guys in their late teens or early twenties.
The two black belts were shouting orders in Japanese and strutting in between the lined-up formation of the students. They swaggered back and forth and tucked their thumbs inside their black belts, occasionally making eye contact with a student after eying him up and down. Their black and red
gi
s were professionally pressed, and they had their names embroidered on the left sides of their uniforms.
The shorter one, Mitchell, had a thick mop of black hair, oversized biceps, and a mouth that went crooked as he barked out his orders. Harter was taller and wirier with his blond hair pulled into a Steven Seagal–inspired ponytail. Both of them had had dragons tattooed on their forearms—Mitchell’s was red and Harter’s was green. Hey, individuality is everything.
They were obviously pumping iron besides their karate training. Their biceps and pectorals were oversized in proportion to the rest of their bodies in that way that bodybuilders create their physiques. It always looked out of proportion to me and not the least bit functional. If you look at pictures of the bodies of Muhammad Ali, Ray Robinson, or, for that matter, Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee, you’ll see physique in perfect proportion and built for function.
Mitchell had four stripes on his black belt and Harter had three, so I guessed Mitchell was one degree of douchebag above Harter. Harter, with his ultra-cool green dragon tattoo displayed under his expertly folded uniform sleeve, was going off on this one scrawny kid in the back row. The kid looked like he weighed 140 pounds soaking wet, and he had a wicked pizza face. He was on his knuckles, counting out pushups in between gasps while the black belt stood over him, smirking and letting him know he didn’t have what it took to ever be a black belt.
I hated watching jerkoffs like this get their abusive shit off under the guise of martial arts discipline. It made no sense, and karate had more than its share of assholes who thrived in it because they wanted to be in charge of someone and feel powerful. It pissed me off, but that’s how a lot of karate classes worked. The goal was to break students down before you built their spirit back up. The problem was that I didn’t see the building of anything going on. What I did see was one zit-faced kid shaking and crying from pushups.
Not my issue
, I told myself.
I showered and hit AJ’s. A lot of people shake their heads when they hear I don’t forgo the Schlitzes when I’m training for a fight. Well, I cut back, lay off the Jim Beam, and I watch what I eat a little better. I’m a heavyweight and I don’t have to make a certain weight, and a few beers aren’t going to harm me. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
“Hey, fellas,” I said, walking toward my seat just to the left of the taps.
“Rocco’s all bound up,” TC said.
“Bound up?” I made the mistake of asking.
“What’s he seeing, some dominatrix with a fetish for ropes?” Jerry Number Two said.
“I’m fuckin’ constipated again,” a very uncheerful Rocco said.
“Again … or should we say still?” Jerry Number One said.
“How about you’re an asshole again and still?” Rocco retorted.
“Isn’t that the problem?” Jerry Number Two asked. “That your asshole is still again and again?”
“Man, you did too many drugs … ,” Rocco said through a grimace.
“You should lay off the cheese,” TC said. “You eat a brick of that Cracker Barrel every fuckin’ day.”
“Talk about shittin’ a brick … or not shittin’ a brick,” Jerry Number Two said, somewhat rhetorically.
“You know, I read that when John Wayne died they found forty pounds of impacted fecal material in his colon,” TC said.
“Fecal?” Jerry Number One asked.
“You know … shit,” TC said.
“What kind of shit?” Jerry Number One asked.
“Shit shit, regular shit … you know, poo,” TC said.
“No way the Duke had forty pounds of shit in him when he died.” Rocco sounded annoyed. “You’re full of shit,” Rocco said.
“Not like the Duke,” said Jerry Number Two.
“Fuck you, Jerry,” Rocco said.
Kelley was in with his back turned away from the Foursome, drinking his Coors Light and watching Notre Dame run out the clock against Michigan State in 1966 on ESPN Classic.
“Never understood Parseghian’s move here,” he said.
“Probably impacted fecal material,” I said.
“Please don’t … they’ve been on that for two hours. It’s making me sick.”
“Howard called me,” I said.
“What?”
“The other day, it was on the machine. All he said was he didn’t do it and hung up,” I said.
“And you waited to tell me this because …”
“I don’t know. I believe him and I think no one else does.”
“You’re nuts, you know that, don’t you? A serial killer disappears after two murders and you get around to telling me the next day?” Kelley said. He looked disgusted, but then again Kelley always looked disgusted. “You’ve got to call the precinct ASAP. They’ll want to check your lines and see if they can trace it.”
“That’s fine, I’ll take care of it. Relax,” I said.
“Is there anything else you’re holding back?”
“No, that’s it.”
“You sure, or is there something I’ll find out tomorrow in between discussions of how much shit John Wayne was packing?”
“No, that’s it.”
“It’s all over the national news now, you know. It’s going to be a circus. MSNBC is going to do a live remote, and they got that asshole shrink on who used to be a forensic profiler doing commentary.”
“Oh fun,” I said.
I got off the topic and had a few Schlitzes before heading home. I told the fellas about the fight in the Garden and they congratulated me. On the drive home I listened to Elvis’s ’68 Comeback Special and gave some thought to Howard and why I felt strongly about protecting him. I didn’t know much about him, he didn’t know much about me, and he really only confided in me once. Elvis was singing “Where Could I Go But to the Lord” and segued into “I’m Saved” as I hit 9R. The one thing I was sure about with Howard was that he had no one else in the world who would vouch for him.
Maybe I just answered my own question.
Al kicked me in the nuts when I came to the door and he barked for five minutes straight. It wasn’t clear what point he was trying to make, but clearly he felt strong about it. I fixed him a dish of lamb and rice and topped it with half a can of sardines and he calmed down. My trailer smelled like the combination of hound, hound flatulence, and canned sardines—aromatherapy.
I had two messages.
“Duffy.” It was Marcia and she was sniffling. “I had a bad day. There’s too much sadness in the world. Call me,” she said.
She was a barrel of laughs.
I hit the button for the second message.
“Duffy, you gotta help me.” It was Howard and that’s all he said.
5
The newspaper account of
the McDonough High quarterback slaying used the words “gruesome,” “grim,” and “grisly” quite a bit. For nostalgic sickos it was quite a treat because he was found propped up against the same tree that Howard’s QB was, doing his Ichabod-Crane-meets-Johnny-Unitas pose. The cable news people were having a field day and ushering in a whole host of experts about serial killers. They also did profile after profile of Howard, discussed how he was missing, and went over and over his previous murders. This was getting scary weird.
I turned off the TV and called the Crawford police to let them know Howard rang me up. I was put on hold and then spoke to two different very official-sounding cops, and they both told me to not touch anything and that they’d be over right away. Within fifteen minutes, three police cars, all with their lights flashing, and a so-called unmarked car with three detectives pulled up. It was unmarked but unmistakably a cop car, with its six-foot antenna, drab blue color, and lack of hubcaps. I never understood making unmarked cars so obvious because I didn’t know anybody who couldn’t pick out a cop car from a mile away.
They all decided to come into the Moody Blue, which made for a tight squeeze. The Blue had been modified and customized, but it was still a trailer. I don’t know if it was the extra bodies inside the metal tube I call home or the intensity they all brought with them, but the Blue was getting warm.
Al wasn’t pleased with the company. As a former member of the Nation of Islam, I’m sure he had experienced his share of harassment, and he was letting the eight police representatives witness his own brand of nonviolent uncivil disobedience. He wouldn’t shut up.
“I’m Detective Morris, would you mind …” The cop who appeared to be the highest-ranking guy tried to introduce himself. He was a short guy with a thick neck and a wicked five o’clock shadow.
“WOOF, WOOF, WOOF,” Al said.
“Al, shut up!” I said.
“WOOF, WOOF, WOOF,” Al said.
“Uh, sir … ” Morris tried to start again.
“WOOF WOOF, WOOF WOOF.” Al switched to a kind of staccato beat using two barks then a slight pause followed by two more. It had kind of a Rasta feel. The hair on Al’s back was standing up.
“Sorry,” I shouted. “The last time I had an unexpected visitor Al got hurt.”
“WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, WOOF.” Al returned to the rapid-tempo single barks.
“Do you think you could possibly …”
“WOOF, WOOF, WOOF, AHOOOOOOOO.” Al started to bay.
The cops all wrinkled their brows and rolled their eyes and did their best to look impatient. That seemed to piss Al off more.
“AHOOOOOOO … WOOF, WOOF, AHOOOOOOO,” Al said.
“Let me try to put him in the bathroom,” I said.
I went to grab Al by the collar, but before I could get my hands on it he turned and ran. Al has a long frame, and doing a 360 for him is like an eighteen-wheeler doing a three-point turn. Just the same, he was surprisingly agile.
He started to run all crazy around the Moody Blue and just when I thought I had him, he’d run right under the coffee table. He was so low to the ground that I couldn’t get at him under there, and he knew it. Al ran circles around the cops, who really didn’t seem to have much appreciation for the wonderment of nature, and then ducked under the table. The last time through, he faked me left, went right, and ran for the table. It was like trying to get Walter Payton, and Al’s change of direction screwed me up.
He went under the table and I ran head on into it, cracking my shin in the process. The table flipped over and I was hopping on one foot repeating the word “Fuck!” about twenty times, which Al found funny, and that got him baying again. The cops didn’t find it funny and didn’t bay. In fact, they just glared at me as if they were way too important to spend their time watching a dog play with his man.
“AHOOOOOOOOOO,” Al said as I grabbed him.
I scooted Al by his collar and closed him off in the bathroom. This made him bark more, though it was muffled.
“Thank you, sir, we’re sorry for the trouble. Would you mind giving us the details of the phone calls you’ve been receiving?” Morris said. The other guys stood around trying to look intense and not bored or unimportant. When Al was barking at them, they mostly looked annoyed.
I explained what I knew, which was that I had two messages and didn’t know anything more than that.
“Tell us about what this guy Howard was talking about in his therapy session,” the guy next to Morris said. He was tall and blond with a blond Larry Bird kind of mustache. He had a crew cut and it looked like he tried extra hard to look tough to somehow compensate for his fair complexion.
“I can’t do that,” I said.
“Excuse me?” Larry Bird said.
“C’mon, you know the rules.”
“Sir, two teenagers have been slaughtered and you are going to interfere with an investigation?” Bird said.
“Hey look.” I was starting to get pissed. “I called you guys here to do the right thing. Don’t ask me to do something I can’t.”