The Sparring Partner

Rita, she got herself some serious problems," Papa John Crines says to Louis, who's standing on his left, wearing pillowy sparring gloves and a protector strapped over a pair of sweatpants. They're watching a woman with honey-colored skin doing stretches in the ring. "This big Dutchman use to train her when she was kickboxin' been comin' round here houndin' her ass. Sayin' he gon' drag her off to Amsterdam. Scarin' the shit out of her. She gettin' her ol' bad habits back."

Tiny, wizened, black. Bald as a bean. Even with his wire-rimmed glasses and baggy jogging suit, Papa John looks like he should be hanging off a rearview mirror, somebody's voodoo souvenir of Haiti. His scalp smells of aftershave, and talcum powder cakes the creases of his neck. Every so often his mouth works and he spits the husk of a sunflower seed into a foam cup. On his right, a skinny guy in a powder-blue sports coat and a bad toupee glances up at the woman, who's begun to shadowbox, then returns his attention to a muscular blond kid gazing at a speed bag as if it's a fat red teardrop that has just materialized from midair.

"You can't call him his real name," the skinny guy says to Papa John. "Kid looks like a goddamn beer-truck driver, for Christ's sake! You let him fight calling himself Bobby Brothers, people be laughing their ass off. He needs a name that sounds mean."

"I come up with somepin'. Don't worry." Papa John gives Louis a nudge. "See there! See how she draggin' that back foot. Every kickboxer I ever seen, drag they back foot. I had her stopped from doin' it till that Dutchman come around."

Louis studies the woman as she stalks her invisible opponent. She's too mechanical, and she carries her left extremely high, which makes him think she's overcompensating. She looks strong, though. Thick through the shoulders. Corded thighs and cut biceps. He tries to picture how her body would look without the black satin trunks and orange singlet and the molded plastic breastplate beneath it. He's not especially attracted to her, but he wonders what it would be like to fuck her. All that strength.

"How 'bout we call him Big?" the skinny guy says with an air of revelation. "Like in the movie."

"When you get in there," Papa John says to Louis, "keep circlin' left, way you done with Chavez. Sooner or later, she gon' unnerstan' she can't be draggin' that back foot if she gon' stick you with the jab."

"She's not going to stick me with shit," Louis says.

"Well, I don't know 'bout that." Papa John squints up at him. "Rita 'bout the best woman boxer they is."

"That's like what?" Louis says, annoyed. "The baddest poodle on the planet?"

"It's the future, right?" The skinny-guy spreads his hands as if creating a screen on which to play his movie. "Everything's gone to shit. And the guy that rules, the evil dictator, they call him Big Brother. So"--he pauses for effect--"Bobby 'Big' Brothers!"

"Go on, get in there," Papa John tells Louis. "Give her lotsa movement." He turns to the skinny guy. "What the fuck are you talkin' about?"

•

Louis dogs it with her a little, bouncing around the ring, flipping out a nothing jab, disrespecting her the way he would a gym rat. Not that he's such a world-beater. His record, 30-6, was compiled in towns like Yakima, Pocatello, Spokane, fighting old men with neurological deficits, farm kids who slump to the canvas when he taps them on the shoulder. But while he never had any power, he could always move, and he figures no woman is going to touch him up now. Then she takes a quick step to the right, cutting him off, and throws a left hook to his ribs. He's been hit harder by men, but not a whole lot harder. From that point on he's focused, locked in on that impassive face framed by headgear with the satin word Everlast inscribed on the brow, her calm brown eyes nailing him, breath chuffing through the scarlet pad of the mouthpiece.

Two weeks of staring at that face and it comes to seem beautiful . . . magnificent. A broad nose and sculpted lips, the mixed genes of Holland and Malaysia, the face of an Asiatic idol fashioned of golden wood. There's beauty, too, in her strength. In the way she learns to walk him down, the way she controls him on the ropes with her shoulders. During clinches, which he tries to prolong, the smell of some core sweetness, a scent that speaks of a frangible quality like the yield of a crushed weed, overpowers the odors of sweat and Vaseline. He likes her quick right hand, how she maneuvers him into the corners. She's better than he is, he realizes. Surprisingly, he likes that, too. But he's not clear on what he wants from her until he walks by accident--or maybe it's not by accident, maybe it's something he wouldn't have had the balls to do if he didn't disguise it from himself--into the women's locker room. She's standing beneath a dangling light unwrapping her hands, stripped to a pair of shorts, her breastplate and a padded bra lying on the bench beside her. She glances up, sees him gawking, meets his eyes for a two-count, then goes back to her chore, not registering the slightest change in expression, not acknowledging his muted "Sorry."

Louis' motel lies a five-buck cab ride from the gym, in an inglorious neondepleted section of Vegas where the air is full of blowing grit and seems blacker, hotter. The hookers prowling the parking lot look like hookers, not actresses, and a chubby middle-aged. Mexican coke dealer mans the office. That night Louis switches off the AC and lies on the bed until his body beads with sweat and sees Rita again standing, intent on the bandages, a classic pose like that of a figure on an amphora. He recalls her combination of male power and female softness: chiseled muscles, sleek belly and tennis ball-size tits tipped with cinnamon. He calculates the comparative weights of her silence and her two-second stare. He'd take her on a vacation to Miami, he thinks. They'd rent a speedboat, burn a white wake along in front of the big hotels. Dance in a garden restaurant to a Cuban band. Lie spent on a satin bed. And for weeks thereafter, as they go about the business of their joint career, trainer and fighter, Miami would give heat to the relationship.

He has no reason to think any of this is possible, but it seems now that when he saw her in the locker room, he heard a metallic chink inside his head like the shutting of a bolt, the meshing of desire and possibility. In all the fume and sputter of his disordered life, days weeks months wadded and pitched into corners like soiled rags, he's never heard that sound before, never felt such clarity. This is his chance to climb out of the crooked furrow he's been plowing through the world's dirt and find a place to stand.

Outside, a car horn hoots in short bursts, over and over, and Louis can hear the hookers laughing. He switches off the bedside lamp and lets the dark settle around him. Maybe not Miami, he thinks. Tahiti. He sees himself sprinting along a beach. Glowing green water, combers white as toothpaste. He's churning up the sand. Wearing a bathing suit and an expression of gleeful effort. He tries to bring Rita into frame, but fails. She, or whatever it is he's pursuing, won't be caught tonight. He turns toward the window, where a seam of red-orange glare between the drapes suggests that the hookers may be laughing in the face of a great burning.

•

A couple of weeks before her fight Rita asks him out to dinner at one of the new casinos, a domed room with what appears to be a drug-addled Hollywood set designer's notion of Renaissance decor, dominated by a golden griffin 15 feet high with red wine spilling from its beak. Three-foot candles tower in tall wooden stands. Immense tapestries depicting hunting scenes hang from ceiling to floor, so bright and ineptly crafted, they have the decorative value of souvenir bath towels bearing crude images of Elvis. Rita's sleeveless white dress accentuates the dark honey of her skin--it's the first time he's seen her in anything other than gym clothes--and as she walks toward their table, the waiters and the other diners stare at her as they might at a movie star. Trotting at her heels, Louis feels like a mongrel plucked off the streets by a princess, but once they're seated she puts him at ease, (continued on page 90) Sparring Partner (continued from page 82) gets him talking about himself. He tells her about growing up in Missoula, how his father, the mad professor, taught him at home until he started high school, gave him an education in the classics, lessons imprinted by lashes with a leather belt.

"Once I got out from under him," he says, "I did everything I could to piss him off. That's why I took up boxing." He chews a bite of salad. "Didn't work out so hot for either of us. He didn't get the Shakespeare-quoting aesthete he wanted. I ended up fighting prelims for shit money in Idaho."

"Aesthete?" She rests her elbows on the table, smiles. "At least you have a good vocabulary."

"Yeah, I forget to dumb it down around the gym, guys stare at me like I'm talking Swahili." He has a sip of wine. "Probably been better off doing what the old man had in mind."

"I don't know. You fought very well against Chavez."

"Chavez isn't what he used to be."

"Nevertheless, you fought well."

Louis sets down the wineglass, fitting it into the depressed circle in the tablecloth where it's been resting. "Know what I made for Chavez? Contract was for 25 grand. My manager walked me over to the casino and had me cash the check. He took the money, counted me out eight hundred-dollar bills. Said the rest went for expenses, money I owed him. He had his bodyguards along. I couldn't do fuck-all."

She lowers her gaze to the flowers at the center of the table, looking dismayed, and he wonders if in her eyes the portrait he's painted of himself is that of a loser. He has, he realizes, a bad habit of attempting to create false impressions by telling the truth; maybe because the truth doesn't seem quite real.

"It's for the best," he says, and taps his head as if knocking sense into it. "Finally sank in I needed to cut loose from the bastard."

Chatter from the adjoining tables fills in the crack in their conversation. Rita fiddles with an earring, a gold hoop that's half-hidden in sunstreaked brown curls. "I'm not sure how to say this," she tells him. "There's a tension between us. And it's . . . becoming a distraction."

Louis interprets "tension" to mean attraction; he's tempted to make her acknowledge this, but thinks better of it. He cuts a piece of steak, waits for her to go on.

"I have to focus on the fight now," she says. "I can't handle anything else."

"You're going to kick her ass," he says. "If you can keep up with me, you'll track her down no sweat. But I hear what you're saying. I'll do whatever you want."

"I don't think there's anything you can do--unless you can put it from your mind."

"That 'tension' thing, you mean?"

The slightest of smiles. "Yes."

"Sure, I can do that. Papa John's been telling me to go after you more. Guess I should start trying to tear your head off."

He expects a real smile this time, but she only nods and says, "That's probably a good idea."

They talk about the cheesy decor, the upcoming Trinidad bout--Rita's on the undercard. Louis would like to extract her promise that after the fight they'll explore the nature of the tension between them, but he can't think how to do this except by asking outright.

Afterward in front of the casino, Louis is about to guide Rita into her van, a hand on her back, when somebody calls to her and she stiffens. A big man with a shaved head, wearing a black T-shirt and pale yellow slacks, comes striding toward them, pushing through a group of weary-looking Japanese tourists burdened with shopping bags and children. He stops 10 feet away, glances at Louis with contempt. His arms and chest are massive, hips narrow. His nose has been broken, scar tissue tightens the skin above his eyes, and his glistening scalp is also scarred. But his menacing aspect is modified by the roundness of his face and a delicate Cupid's bow mouth.

"You're violating the restraining order, Bas," Rita says. She's not flinching, but Louis hears a tremor in her voice.

The man nods at Louis. "Who's this?"

"If I have to bring the police in," she says, "you'll go to jail."

He spreads his hands to indicate indifference. "I'll be out in the morning." His accent is thick--Dutch, Louis supposes.

Louis eases forward. "Jail might be the safest place for you . . . Bas."

Bas looks genuinely amused. By way of response he leans to his left, lifts his right leg until it's sticking nearly straight up over his head, and performs a kick. Then he lowers the leg, shakes out the muscles in his shoulders and beckons to Louis.

"Cool," says Louis. "Can you bend over and stick your head up your ass? I'd really be impressed then."

A crowd is gathering under the long cement awning that overspreads the drive. The lights are bright as ring lights and the stream of neon-glazed cars flowing along the street creates a braying music such as might signal the main event. Louis tries to steer Rita into the car, but she resists, and Bas shouts for him to let her go. Several security men are close by, but they're not ready to get involved.

Rita's facade is crumbling. She braces herself on the car door and shouts, "What do you want from me? You know I'm not going back!"

Bas pitches his voice low, his eyebrows lift into a V as if he's beaming a coercive thought. "I think we should talk."

Rita lets out a bitter laugh. "No thanks! The last talk was quite enough."

"Why do you have to be such a bitch!"

Louis can see that the security men are close to acting. He moves in front of Rita, ignores her attempt to restrain him and drops into his stance.

"Uh-oh!" Bas laughs. "Are you going to punch me in the leg?"

The security men begin to move in. Bas backs away, showing his hands, palms outward, and Louis relaxes. He again urges Rita into the car, and this time she complies.

Standing beyond a picket line of security men, towering over them, the Dutchman points at Louis. "See you later, little man!"

•

There's a moment back at the motel, they're sitting in her van, when Louis recognizes that she doesn't want to be alone, and it might be possible to maneuver her into his room, but he's afraid of presuming. He gets out, assures her that everything will be fine, she can call him if she wants, and watches her drive away. He takes off his jacket, walks over to the pool and sits in a lawn chair on the strip of plastic turf beside it. The motel sign reads No Vacancy, and beneath it in the brightly lit office, dressed in an orange sports coat, the coke dealer is talking on his cell phone, pacing back and forth in front of the window with the regularity of a goldfish doing laps in an aquarium. One of the hookers standing in the driveway sidles toward Louis, but he shoos her off with a wave. Sweat trickles down his chest, his back. The glowing aquamarine reach of the pool slops with inch-high swells, a tiny underwater sun ripples beneath the diving board. It looks inviting, but then he spots a used condom floating on the surface.

He's not worried about Bas. Though Rita claims he's dangerous, Bas is the sort of problem that can become part of a solution. No, what's bothering Louis is Rita's dinner conversation. He wonders if her focus on the fight will neutralize whatever feelings she has for (continued on page 144) Sparring Partner (continued from page 90) him. It's conceivable that the tension she spoke of relates merely to his attraction to her, but he's pretty sure there's some mutual chemistry happening--they just need time to let it bubble up. He's not sure about much else. He's not sure, for instance, what she sees in him; when he takes a hard look at himself, he can't find much to offer a woman. Rita DeJong is out of his league--yet he thinks if he could subtly convey that he believes she might be too classy for him, this would work to his advantage. He senses an egalitarian soul.

Another thing he's not sure of is what he sees in her. He has only the vaguest notion of what she'll be like away from training. He knows he'll have to play her, but he's hoping the game transcends the play, that she represents something more than a world-class piece of tail and a last chance at the good life, that they can be happy or at least well matched, their goals compatible. He recalls her shouting at Bas, asking "What do you want?" That's easy. The Dutchman wants the same as he does. To travel down a mysterious path in the dark until you reach a perfumed arbor with a lamp hanging in the trees and a princess sitting beneath it. To always have that place, even when you stray, to know it's there waiting for your return. To go up into mountains with peaks raised like black Ms against a violet sky, so high you can piss down on the moon and leave a mark on its yellow face that never fades, and then to run wild in the cities below. To have Miamis and Tahitis and other less illusory paradise moments. And finally to rest your head on the princess' lap and hunt forever along the pathways of her dream.

The prettiness of these thoughts leads him to remember his father and poetry lessons, and he tries to shut the process down. But the things he wants materialize before him. He knows them as completely as he knows the old twinge in his shoulder. Yet though he has faith that they are in some sense substantial, he doubts he'll be able to attain them. And though he's aware that moral concerns will have no effect on his actions--he'll do whatever it takes--the fact that he's afflicted, however mildly, by such concerns confuses him. He's not at all sure that what he wants is right.

•

Three days later Louis is toweling off in the locker room, inspecting the new graffiti, when Papa John walks in and drops onto a bench. "Rita been tellin' me y'all run into the Dutchman the other night," he says, and heaves the sigh of a man sorely tried. "Muthafucka callin' her all the time, makin' her jumpy. I don't know if she gon' keep it together."

"She'll be all right." Louis pulls a T-shirt down over his head.

Papa John scowls. "Easy for you to say. You ain't got a million bucks ridin' on this fight and a crazy Dutchman on your ass."

"A million?"

"Jus' got off the phone with HBO. They wanna break women's boxing big, and they figger Rita's the one can do it. They're offerin' four fights for a million dollars. They keepin' a date open for her two months from now. She the cofeature with Zab Judah."

Bobby Brothers and his sparring partner enter the room; they bang open locker doors at the end of the row, and Papa John snaps at them, saying. "Hold it down, goddamn it! We talkin' bidness here." Bobby's expression is so boyishly forlorn, it's as if someone has told him his puppy died.

"They could be somethin' for you with this HBO deal," Papa John says to Louis. "Judah's people lookin' for an opponent. Seein' you went the distance with Chavez, they wouldn't mind havin' they boy take a shot at you. Pays 35 grand. But it ain't gon' be no cakewalk like you had with Chavez. Zab gon' come after you hard."

Judah's the best fighter in the world at 140 pounds. Incredibly fast and powerful. Louis is being asked to take a beating, but the money's right.

"You want, I can he'p you train," Papa John says. "I 'preciate the work you done with Rita, so jus' gimme my expenses and we call it square."

From this, Louis suspects that Rita's had a hand in his good fortune. Papa John is as venal as they come; he'd never work for expenses unless under pressure to do so. But Louis can't decide if this speaks to Rita's intention to keep the two of them in the same place or if it's a bone she's throwing him, a kindness offered in lieu of a relationship.

"Where's the fight at?" he asks.

"Right here in Las Vague-ass." Papa John heaves creakily to his feet. "Sayin' you want it?"

"Yeah."

Papa John heads for the door. "I'll start 'em on the contract."

Louis drapes the wet towel over his head. He's been kissed off before, and wound up with a lot less than 35 grand, but even if that's what's happening--and he's not convinced it is--it's time to be a player.

"Hey, Louis?" Bobby Brothers, 240 pounds of sweet-souled idiot, peers down at him. "Whatcha think 'bout my sparring?"

What Louis thinks is that Bobby's too nice to be a boxer, he doesn't enjoy hurting people and he'd be better off pounding nails somewhere and going home at night to the wife and kids. However, all Louis says is, "Looking good, champ! But don't forget the left hook. That left hand's a ticket to the big time."

•

Spending the evening on the phone, Louis discovers that a Bas Lutens is registered at the MGM Grand and frequents a bar next to the sports book. He also learns the Dutchman has won a number of ultimate fighting tournaments in Asia and has a reputation for excessive brutality. It is something of a surprise that anyone could be considered excessively brutal in a game whose sole proscription is on the gouging of eyes.

The next afternoon he hikes over to the Grand. The streets are rippling with heat haze, crowded with cowboys, early gamblers hunting for a cheap breakfast, and family groups, mom pop kids all sporting the same dopey T-shirts. The buildings along the strip, so garishly splendid by night, appear drab and hastily constructed in the bright sun. Louis enters the casino through a giant gilded lion's mouth and hurries past a room filled with slots, resounding with electronic beeps and sirens and bells--it might be the inside of a huge pinball machine. He locates the bar, black Formica tables and leatherette chairs arranged on a raised dais along the wall, and sits sipping diet soda for the next hour, playing eye games with the blonde waitress who gives him a view of her freckly pushed-up tits each time she brings a refill.

Around three, Bas emerges from the sports book and takes a nearby table. He orders a Seven and Seven and seems to be brooding. When he spots Louis standing beside him, he meets his eyes briefly, then goes back to staring at his drink. Very similar, Louis notes, to the way Rita reacted when he walked in on her.

"You got the wrong idea about me and Rita," Louis says. "I'm not involved with her, man. I'm her sparring partner is all. The other night we were just having dinner, talking about the fight."

Bas shifts his volleyball-shaped head to look at Louis. He purses his cherubic lips but says nothing.

Louis sits opposite him. "Reason I got in your face, you came on pretty strong. I didn't know who the fuck you were. I felt I had to be, you know, protective."

For all his stolidity, Bas radiates a creepy vibe, and Louis braces his legs so he can push back quickly from the table.

"I don't want to get between you two. Fact is, I can help smooth things over."

Suspicion touches Bas' face. "Why would you do that?"

"Look, I don't care who she sleeps with, who loves who, none of that. OK? All I'm interested in is getting her ready for the fight. Way she is now, all worried about you and shit-----"

"She has no reason to worry about me."

"Well, whatever, way she is now she's likely to lose. Fight doesn't go Rita's way, I'm gonna catch some of the blame and Papa John might drop me. My financial interests are on the line." Louis allows himself a pause. "Course, maybe I'm wasting my breath. Maybe you don't care she loses."

It appears that Bas is a structured thinker, puts every little piece together before he responds. "I want her to win," he says at length, with the air of a man who's reached a decision.

"Then you got to leave her alone. Just till the fight. Ten days. Meantime, I'll work on her. I'll get her to meet with you. I'll give you a call day after the fight, we'll set something up."

Bas mulls this over.

"She's not going anywhere, man. Couple days off, she's back to training. She's got another fight lined up in Vegas six weeks after this one."

"This is true?"

"Check it out, you don't believe me."

Another prolonged internal debate cinches Bas' face with strain. "All right. But I want you to tell her something."

There follows a lengthy list of blame-layings, remonstrances and promises, none of which Louis bothers to file away. He assures Bas that his message will be delivered.

The freckly waitress hovers, and feeling accomplished, satisfied with step one of his plan, Louis tells her, "Nothing for me, sweetheart, but bring my man here whatever he's having."

•

The last day of sparring, Louis gets careless, half his mind off in the future, and Rita catches him on the temple with a solid right. He's dizzy, so he wraps her up, locks his gloves under her arms. But she's not sparring anymore, she's fighting. She slams him into the turnbuckle, breaks free and hooks hard to his body. He slides along the ropes, dances out into the center of the ring as his head clears. She follows him, grim faced, winging shots, trying to knock him out, and it pisses him off, it purely pisses him off that she's so into her fucking woman-of-violence trip she's forgotten who he is. He begins to fight the way he fought against Chavez, standing in front of her, moving his head, bending at the waist, slipping her heavy artillery and reaching out to touch her, not hard, just a tap on the forehead, the chin, showing her how open she is because he knows it'll infuriate her, provoke her into throwing harder and she'll leave herself even more open. But she takes a little off her punches, times him and lands a second strong right, and he can't help himself. He fires his own right, catching her on the cheek, driving her back a few steps, and now he's playing her game, trading with her toe-to-toe, getting rocked but refusing to give in. Somebody pulls him away, one of the other fighters, and Papa John pushes Rita against the ropes, and Louis thinks, Oh shit, I fucked up, he's going to drop me from the Judah fight, fire my ass. But Papa John's grinning, this is what he wanted to see from Rita, he knows she's ready, and Louis, his face numb from the punches, tastes blood in his mouth and wonders if he's blown it with her. He's certain he has, because though she offers a gruff apology, it's merely an accessory to a high-beam stare of heated animosity.

Even after a shower, he's so adrenalized he decides to walk back to the motel, but before long starts to feel the shots Rita landed on his ribs, and he ducks into a small casino off the Strip, finds a seat at the bar. He orders a draft, studies the reflection in the mirror, the red and gold stagecoach motif of the wallpaper, the flashing lights of the Keno game, the milling about of the low rollers: old blue-hairs packing briefcase-size purses stuffed with cartwheels and breath mints; a blissed-out college-age couple playing the slots, arms around each other, like how can they lose if they're in love; a bunch of sailors trailing behind a chesty waitress, like hyenas waiting for a wounded gazelle to drop--she's wobbly on her spike heels, flustered-looking, trying to ignore the shit they're giving her. In the mirror he sees a fit little man drinking his beer alone, his face beginning to show the years of accumulated damage. He's as futureless and forgettable as they are. It's not a new insight, but on this occasion it's accompanied by a feeling of terrible despair and he has to close his eyes against this hive of bad luck, these representatives of the incidental billions.

•

On reopening his eyes, it seems that the mirror behind the bar has been transformed into an enormous 3D screen on which he sees himself fucking Rita against a backdrop of clouds whose shifting surfaces look normal at first but gradually become figured with an infinity of faces like those eternal Wheel of Life friezes sculpted on the facades of East Indian temples--except these keep changing all the time. They're both bloody and bruised, tearing at each other. Rita fishhooks his mouth with her fingers, he yanks her by the hair. No matter which position they assume, they continue their violence, biting and clawing, until their flesh is slick with blood and they begin to slither about one another, entwining with serpent grace, achieving knotted intricacies of involvement beyond anything in Hindu sex manuals, merging, mutating into a single monstrous creature that's ripping its own skin with its teeth, fucking itself, humping and squirming. The female half arches her spine and hisses. The male lifts his head as if to roar and exhales a reddish mist. And then, suddenly, they're still. Utterly inert. Floating in the silvered depths of the mirror like vast cosmic beings waiting for the next creational spasm to rip them apart so they'll have to fuck to the death again in order to restore a perfect unity, the universe expanding and contracting as they strive. Their doubled body pales, recedes into the clouds of nonbeing, the vision fades--and Louis is amazed to find himself sitting at the bar, not strapped to a gurney in the back of an ambulance.

He's experienced hallucinations before, on acid and ecstasy, but none so vivid, and he wonders if anybody noticed, if he was making noises or something. But no one is paying attention. It could have been a foretaste of punch-drunkeness--not that he really gives a shit. He prefers to take it as a sign. A premonition of their future. He feels better having decided this. It's just the sort of hippie crap his father would decry.

•

Rita's opponent, Judy Crouch, is a lanky brunette outfitted in a singlet and trunks emblazoned with the Union Jack. She's a mover with long arms and a decent jab, but Rita's learned her own lessons well. She cuts off the ring on Crouch and wears her out, dropping her for the count in the third with a right cross--left hook. Afterward she hunts Louis down, kisses his cheek, thanks him for his help. She's excited one moment, affectionate the next. It's as if their gym war never occurred. Louis is uncertain what this shift in mood portends. He tells himself not to push it, to see where things lead.

They're standing high up in the arena, gazing down on the hotly lit ring as Bobby Brothers climbs through the ropes. Bobby's wearing a porkpie hat and a tear-away black suit and white shirt. He goes lumbering around, getting the feel of the canvas, throwing jabs and hooks as the announcer introduces his opponent, a pudgy Latino heavy with the look of a designated victim. Then it's Bobby's turn. The announcer intones, "In the red corner, he hails from Pershing, Arizona, now fighting out of the Lucky Street Gym in Las Vegas, making his Las Vegas debut, weighing 244 pounds, with a record of 10 wins, no losses, all 10 wins coming by way of knockout . . . Bobby! The Blues! Brothers!" Bobby performs a clumsy version of the Twist, Papa John comes up behind him and rips off his costume, revealing his mesomorphic chest and arms, and the crowd roars in approval.

"Oh, God!" says Rita, and Louis says, "Papa John's got himself a new freak."

The bell sounds, Bobby misses with a jab, lands a glancing hook that sends his opponent cowering against the ropes.

"Would you like to go for a drive?" Rita puts a hand on Louis' arm. "We could stop at one of the places out on the desert."

He's so surprised, he almost fumbles the opportunity. "You mean now?" he says.

She drives flat-out through the blue darkness, past black puffs of sagebrush and barrel cactus, broken shapes of burned-out shacks and blown-down billboards, the windshield stars jolting up as she skips over a pothole. She's wearing white jeans and a white jacket, she glances sideways at Louis, grins and shouts something he can't hear what with the wind. She points up ahead. Green neon dice tumble across the silhouette of a low flat roof, rolling a natural seven. Louis nods, and she swerves into the parking lot, spraying gravel. They pile out, hit the casino, mingle with the crowd of truck drivers, trailer park dwellers, two-star hookers, loners, lowlife aficionados and lizardlike old men--all the fringe people who haunt such places--and for the next three hours they gamble, losing a little but staying close to even, joking with the other players, getting high on the action, laughing and leaning into each other. Then Rita glances at her watch, looks apologetically at Louis and says, "I've got a breakfast meeting. We have to go." As they drive back toward the city, much slower than they came, not talking, Louis realizes that for those few hours he was exactly where he had wanted to be, thoughtless, beside her. Now it's over so abruptly he has to think again about the problem she poses. But at the motel she hops out of the van, comes around the front to stand with him, hesitates, then kisses him. It's a good, long kiss, a testing of the waters that turns into a complete immersion. He spreads his fingers to span her ass, grinds against her, getting hard against her thigh. The contact dredges up a quavery sound from her throat, and her mouth goes slack. She pulls back, her arms still around him, and gives a sigh that seems to convey both frustration and contentment.

"Call me tomorrow?" she says, and Louis, who's so rocked by the kiss that he can barely speak, says, "Yeah, uh-huh."

He stands in the parking lot after she's gone, wishing he hadn't started things with Bas, wishing he could have known in advance that Rita would come around. But he tells himself that Bas will have to be dealt with sooner or later--it might as well be now.

The manager of the motel is watching through his picture window; the plastic palm tree beside him--his little alien buddy--reaches to his shoulder. Stuffed into a yellow jumpsuit tonight, half a pound of gold chains, couple of rings on each hand. When he sees Louis walking toward him, he scoops a small paper bag from the top of the registration desk and puts it in his hip pocket. "What's up, my friend?" he says as Louis pushes through the glass door into the crisp coolness of the office. "You out late tonight. Don't you got to work tomorrow?" He adopts a boxer's stance, a fierce expression, throws a playful right hand and grins.

"Tomorrow's Sunday," Louis tells him.

"Sure, Sunday in Vegas, that's a big church day!" He laughs, comes out from back of the desk. He's got a watermelonsize belly, and the yellow jumpsuit makes him appear jolly. His black hair is oiled, he needs a shave and his plump face is almost completely unlined. "That woman you was jus' with, man. She that muscle bitch that fought on the pay-per-view tonight?"

"Muscle bitch?" Louis does not have to affect irritation.

"Don't get me wrong, man. She's a beautiful woman. Concha pura! But those arms"--he flexes his biceps--"they fuckin' scary." He drops into a rattan chair by the window, crosses his legs. "Yeah, I thought you was gonna get lucky, man."

Louis is having second thoughts about what he's about to do.

"Yeah, she all over your ass, man. You gonna be gettin' yourself some of that pretty soon."

The manager shifts in his chair, plucks at a frond of the plastic palm, and after a few seconds of silence a bemused expression fits itself to his face and he relaxes. Stretches out his legs. Folds his hands on his gut. He seems to understand the situation.

"Don't be shy, man," he says. "There somethin' I can do for you?"

•

Louis calls Bas in the morning, arranges a meeting for eight that night at the gym, when no one else will be around. Then he takes the cocaine he bought from the manager, enough to warrant a Possession With Intent charge, and goes to the MGM Grand, where, after tense negotiation, a parking valet provides him with the keys to Mr. Lutens' rental car. While hiding the drug in the car, he tries to convince himself that a drug charge will be enough to ensure deportation, but he knows if he calls in anonymously, the Dutchman may walk. He figures an assault charge along with the coke will be a sure winner; he'll have to eat a few shots, but how bad can that be? No worse than getting his ass handed him by Zab Judah.

•

At 7:15 he walks the two blocks from the Strip to the gym, unlocks the door, leaves the entranceway dark but turns on a bank of lights above the ring. He clears away weight bars and dumbbells, anything that might be used as a weapon. Quarter to eight, everything's set. He sits down on the ring apron and waits. At five to eight Bobby Brothers strolls out of the locker room, dressed in shorts and a Phoenix Suns T-shirt. He spots Louis and grins. "Wow! I thought I was gonna hafta sleep here. I was takin' a shower. Papa John musta forgot and locked me in."

Alarmed, Louis jumps to his feet. "You better move it, Bobby. I'm ready to close."

"Lemme get my bag." Bobby heads for the locker room, then turns back. "See the fight last night?" He flourishes his left fist. "I didn't forget the hook . . . like you said."

"Great! C'mon, hurry it up. I gotta be somewhere."

But Bobby glances past Louis and says ruefully, "Sorry. We're closing up."

Bas is standing at the entrance to the darkened corridor, wearing a blue blazer and white slacks, like a well-tailored WWF doll. He's brought a small bouquet. He frowns at Louis. "Where's Rita?"

Even if Louis wanted to back down, he knows Bas won't let him. Maybe having a witness will be helpful. "She couldn't make it," he tells Bas. "Truth is, she wasn't ever going to make it. I was just fucking with you."

Bas doesn't require his usual deep study to comprehend this. Furious, he hurls the bouquet at Louis. "Where is she?"

"You'll never know," says Louis.

"Piece of shit! I'll kill you!" Bas clenches his fists, his head tipped forward, the scar tissue on his scalp gleaming like patches of cellophane, and Louis, whose mouth is dry, heart rate skying, prepares to defend himself.

"Hey, guys!" says Bobby. "What's goin' on?"

Mocking the Dutchman's accent, Louis says, "I'll kill you." He's expecting Bas to rush him, but the big man glides forward, his hands in punching position. Fingers curled, though. Not fisted. The gracefulness of the movement intimidates Louis far more than Bas' size. He has time to think that eating a few shots is not wise, he should run like hell and hope attempted assault will do the trick, all that in the instant before Bobby steps into the picture and launches an ever-so-slow, completely telegraphed right hand. Bas catches Bobby's wrist, twists the arm and drives the heel of his own right hand into Bobby's jaw below the ear. Bobby's head whiplashes, he drops facedown, and Bas spins, slams a kick into Louis' shoulder and sends him staggering.

Bas, Louis realizes, is way out of his league. But he goes after him anyway and receives a kick on the hip that nearly paralyzes his leg. He slips a punch, then takes a glancing shot over the left eye that stuns him. The Dutchman's too fast, too strong, and Louis breaks for the exit--he's almost to the door when Bas snags him by his shirt collar. He doesn't see the blows that strike him, he's turned the wrong way, and after they land he doesn't understand the damage they've done, nor does he have a clue how he winds up lying in the street. His right eye is blurry, and he can't see at all from his left. He wipes at it--blood comes away on his hand. When Bas looms before him, a dark blue distortion, Louis is so dazed he doesn't recognize the threat until a kick explodes into his rib cage, Next he knows, he's trying to crawl, toppling, scraping his cheek, doggedly scrambling up to hands and knees, concerned only with going forward. He hears shouts, then somebody grabs him under the arms and hauls him upright, and he takes a wild swing at the guy, who's apparently not Bas. A hot pain skewers his side, doubles him over. Holding his ribs, he stumbles toward what looks like a distant gateway of glittering gold that interrupts the dimly lit abstractions shifting around him.

He's so woozy and disconnected, he's lost track of what's happening, he just keeps moving toward it, buoyed by a simple faith that the light embodies resolution; yet as the choking asphalt heat intensifies, and the gasoline stink thickens, he has an urge to sit down and let whatever he's running from overtake him. Behind him a siren is switched on, then off--a squirt of electric noise that spurs him to go faster, jogging sideways to accommodate the pain in his ribs, and then he's out onto the Strip, hobbling toward a tall building, vast and bright, like a suburb of heaven with a conical green hill at its base. Brakes squeal, horns blare. He fetches up against a car that's stopped to avoid him. Leans on it, breathless, staring at the hood, at the neon signals reflected there. It seems almost possible to decode their message. His blood drips polka dots onto the polished enamel. Partly masked by reflection, a desiccated-looking woman with tanned, cracked skin and a mane of mauve hair, like a mummy in a wig, regards him with horror from behind the wheel. There's a rumbling, fire erupts from the green hill. Everyone cheers, and the cheering ignites a reflex--he lifts his arms, shakes his fists in victory. The effort drains him, and as he slumps down beside the bumper, he realizes that the cheering's not for him, but that he has, indeed, won something. He is absolutely clear on this. Something more significant than the winning of a fight. He's still trying to figure out what it is when the policemen arrive to peel him off the street.

•

Louis shares a hospital room with an old man whose bed is hidden behind a curtained screen; a pretty dark-haired nurse with a kittenish quality sits by his bed, emerging every so often to run some sort of errand. She smiles at Louis; once she helps to rearrange his pillows, enveloping him in a scent of flowery bathwater. He's feeling thickheaded and dysfunctional. He asks the nurse what's wrong with him and she has a look at his chart.

"Concussion, broken ribs. Contusions." She hangs the clipboard on the foot of his bed. "You're a mess, but you'll live. Your friend has it worse." She points to her neck. "Cervical damage. He's not paralyzed, but he's going to need a long rehab."

"You talking about Bobby Brothers? Big blond guy?"

"Yes... I think that's his name."

"Shit!" Louis turns his face to the wall. That's going to do it for Bobby. And they'll have to find another whipping boy for Judah. Which is fine. He's had enough of beatings.

"Can I do something for you?" The nurse rests a hand on his shoulder. He shakes his head no, and wishes he hadn't fucked up Bobby's life.

He expects Rita to visit, but the morning passes without a sign of her. He watches TV--the volume's so low, all he can do is watch--and he worries, but he's too medicated to concentrate, and his thoughts subside into dull unease. Finally, at noon, she enters the room and stops at a distance from his bed. It's obvious she's angry. The way she stands, arms folded, holding herself in. Her absence of expression. She looks terrific, though. Wearing her white jeans and a silky green top.

"We're going to take care of your hospital bills," she says flatly.

We, he says to himself. What the fuck is we?

He asks what's the matter, and she spits out a laugh. "Haven't you heard about Bobby?"

"I didn't know he was going to be at the gym," he says. "I was just trying to get rid of Bas for you."

"I didn't want you to get rid of him! I was handling it!" She paces toward the screen that hides the old man's bed, and Louis sees the nurse peering at them through a gap in the curtain.

"You were trying to control me," Rita says. "I had enough of that shit with Bas." She softens a bit. "I know you meant well, but I can't have this sort of thing in my life." Her anger returns. "I don't want anyone near me who'd do what you did to Bas."

"What I did to him?"

She grips the railing of the bed. "He'd never do drugs. Never! He may be a bastard, but he doesn't deserve what he's going through now."

Though fragments of argument and explanation drift through Louis' mind, he realizes that any form of arguing would be futile.

"I have to go," she says, drawing back.

"Rita. ..." he says, but she holds out a hand like a traffic cop and says, "No!" She seems about to say something else, but repeats "No!" and walks briskly out into the corridor.

Louis can't get too depressed, thanks to the meds, and also because he's never been sure of anything with her, not even what he feels. He hopes the things he felt were elements in a game he was playing and not the more potent deceptions of the heart.

The pretty nurse steps from behind the curtain and asks if he's OK. With an air of uncertainty, she approaches and says, "I didn't mean to overhear you and your friend. But. ..." Her lips tighten, as with indignation. "I don't know how she could treat you like that. I. ..." She puts a hand to her mouth, shushing herself. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right," Louis says.

She glances at his bed table, pours his water glass full. "Do you want the TV louder?" She gestures at the curtain. "He's going to be sleeping for a while--you could have it a little louder."

"Sure. That'd be great."

She's tiny, and she has to stand on tiptoe, one foot coming off the floor, in order to reach the controls. An actor with the bland manliness of a shirt model is telling a willowy redhead he's sick of waiting for her to decide.

The nurse returns to her patient, but Louis catches her peeking at him now and again through the gap in the curtain. He pictures her reaching for the volume control, breasts straining the starched front of her uniform, skirt hiked up in back to reveal a neat thigh sheathed by an opaque stocking, in her demure sexuality like a good-hearted princess who might need to be saved. He wants to think that if it weren't for the meds, he would feel at that moment the conclusiveness that's yielded from a convergence of two perfect ideas, the clarity that comes when something pure offers itself so completely, so unexpectedly, it makes a bright sound in your head.

They continue their violence, biting and clawing, until their flesh is slick with blood, entwining with serpent grace, achieving knotted intricacies way beyond anything in hindu sex manuals...