CHAPTER THIRTEEN
MAX
“How’s it hanging, Pops?”
Dad doesn’t answer. The wind picks up momentarily, sweeping newspaper pages across the cemetery, but I don’t read anything into it. I’ve never been superstitious. Mom had more than enough superstition for all of us.
I look around. I’m the only one here. The flowers that have been left on the other graves are dry and brittle.
I crouch, running my fingers through the dust. New casino developments are closing in. Soon this place won’t see any sunlight at all. Hell, it will probably become part of the casino, a kind of morbid attraction of its own. Nothing is sacred in Vegas, least of all death. “Sorry we couldn’t find you a better place to spend eternity.”
Only the wind sounds, whistling through the stone.
I take out a bottle of Wild Turkey, Dad’s favorite. I unscrew the top and pour a finger into the dirt. It turns a dark, umber brown, the smell of alcohol strong. I take a swig, enjoying the burn of it down the back of my throat before placing it on the ground between my legs. It’s shit whiskey, but it tastes better out here.
There’s a lot I want to say, but the words won’t come. It feels fucking stupid to be talking to dust. I know I should, but now I’m here I can’t.
It’s not like we parted on the best of terms. We’d come close to blows the night before his death, the kind of grand fight us Davises are famous for. Boy, was I angry. I was living in Jersey, training. I wanted to enter the world of professional boxing, like him. He wanted me to stay the fuck away, get “an honest job,” whatever the fuck that meant. He’d be turning in his grave if he knew what I’ve become, the lowlife I had to turn into.
I finally speak. “I’m sorry, Pops.”
I stand and pick up the Turkey, adding another finger to the last, pouring it out in some strange gangster gesture of reconciliation. I know it’s for my benefit more than his. I take another sip. It’s enough.
I screw the top back on and leave the bottle there on top of the tombstone. Let the bums fight over it.
I’m brushing myself off when I hear noises.
I know when I’m being watched. It’s a sixth sense.
I remain facing the tombstone. “You better come out if you don’t want a beating,” I announce.
“Is that any way to talk to an old friend?” comes the voice.
I spin. “Sam?”
An elderly man approaches. He’s old, but he stands straight. “The one and only. How you been, Max?”
“How’d you know I was here?”
He laughs. It turns into a hack halfway through, forcing him to pull out a handkerchief. “It’s my lungs. They’re turning to shit.”
“You smoked three packets a day. What did you expect?”
He comes forward until he’s only a few feet away. The years have not been kind. “We didn’t know back then, Max. Your father wasn’t much better.”
I smile at that. It’s true. I probably smoked a pack a day myself just in second-hand smoke when I was a kid. “That’s why he spent so much time in the gym. Mom never liked him smoking at home.”
Sam smiles, big and wide. He claps a hand on my shoulder. I’m surprised how firm his grip still is, but then again Sam was always strong.
“So, you going to tell me how you knew I was here or what?” I ask.
He taps his ears. “You know me, Max. I’ve still got eyes and ears around this town. You think you could come back home and no one would notice?”
“That’s what I was hoping for.” I swipe the bottle of Turkey off the top of the tombstone, handing it over.
Sam takes it, looking at the label. “Your father always liked the cheap stuff.”
“Ain’t that the truth.”
“You know what Raymond Chandler used to say.”
I do. “There is no bad whiskey. There are only some whiskeys that aren’t as good as others.”
Sam takes a swig, coughing. “Terrible. Fucking terrible.”
I take the bottle and throw it back. He’s right. It is fucking terrible. If there’s anything Saul has taught me, it’s an appreciation for fine whiskey. All I buy these days is single-malt, but something about the taste of Turkey makes memories of Dad clearer, more vivid. It’s like he’s standing here with us berating me for not getting back into the gym. ‘The bags aren’t going to tenderize themselves, are they?’ he’d say.
Sam licks his lips, hands on his hips. His breathing is heavy and labored, far from the boxing legend I remember. “You’re not here for the slots and pretty women, are you?”
“Pretty women?” I laugh. “You have lived in Vegas too long.”
He pans his hand around. “It’s the only game I know. Business then, and what’s it to you?”
I kick at the dirt. “The usual.”
“I heard you were working for Saul Barnes.”
“You heard right.”
Sam shakes his head. “You enjoy working for a fucking animal like that?”
I shrug. “As you said, it’s the only game in town. NYC’s not exactly brimming with job opportunities for ex-cons.”
Sam chews on it. “You here alone?”
“There’s a girl. I’m helping her out.”
Sam punches me in the gut. “You dog. You always were a sucker for a fine woman, and she is fine, isn’t she?”
I think of Dawn, of her long legs and tight ass, the way her smile turns my dick hard, some semblance of life runs through my veins again. She’s the very antithesis of who I have become, nothing but hope and joy and vitality. “Yeah,” I say. “She is.”
Sam jerks his head. “Twenty questions was never my style. You got time for a stroll down memory lane?”
I check my watch, Pop’s old Chopard. I’m probably the only person left in Vegas who still wears one. ‘But a good watch is more than a timepiece, Max. It’s a statement.’ Pops knew that much even if he did dress like a hobo most days. “I got time,” I reply.
We’re silent as we walk around the block. The neighborhood hasn’t changed much in the last ten years, but Vegas has.
Sam points at the high rises looming over us, the city slowly swallowing this neighborhood whole. “Fucking casinos cast a big shadow. Soon there will be no sunlight at all down here.”
He stops outside a derelict building I know all too well. “Here she is.”
The sign is still in place. It still reads ‘Davis’s Gym.’
Sam laughs, hacking halfway through. “Not exactly an original title, was it?”
I smile. “Originality wasn’t Pop’s style.”
Sam takes out a set of keys. “Sure as hell wasn’t. Come on.”
He unlocks the door and uses his shoulder to push it open. A wave of dust rolls out as we enter, cutting through the beams of sunlight channeling from the pock-marked ceiling above. It’s abandoned, falling apart, but it’s the gym Pops and I bought fifty-fifty all those years ago, our mutual dream.
I walk over to the ring and run my finger along the ropes. It comes away black. Still, there’s a muted beauty about it in this state. I can still smell the sweat.
Sam leans against a wall, fishing for a cigarette. He lights it, breathing it in deep before puffing out a series of wraithlike rings. “It’s a shame it never saw any real action, right?”
I walk around the ring, picturing what we’d planned to do with the place. We got as far as the sign outside before Pop passed. After that, everything went to shit. All the renovation plans we had were shelved. It decayed and never came to life. “It is.”
“You’re just like him, you know.”
“Impossibly handsome?”
“A man of few words,” replies Sam. “Though I don’t recall you ever cracking jokes. Maybe this lady friend of yours is more than you’re making out.”
I hang on the ropes. “Maybe.”
“So what? You’re going to fight for her or let her slip through your fingers?”
I’ve only known her days, but already I’m certain I’d go to hell and back to make Dawn mine, especially after what happened earlier. That was sex like I’ve never known. “I’ve got a fight tomorrow. O’Neil.”
Sam pushes off the wall, approaching me with a limp, flicking his cigarette into the corner. “I know. He’s a tough prick. You going to be right?”
It’s been since years since I was in a proper fight, and even then it was off the books, the kind of hillbilly sideshow you’re paid for in grubby bills and free booze. “I’ll be fine.”
Sam takes hold of my arm, squeezing. “Too much of the good stuff, if you ask me.”
“Says the man smoking his way to the grave,” I smile.
“Smart ass.”
“Old bastard.”
Sam gives me another jab in the gut. “It’s good to see you, Max, really.”
“And you.” I look around. “Who owns the joint now?”
Sam rattles his pocket, the keys jangling. “You think I keep these for kicks? I do, you prick.”
“You were the anonymous bidder?”
“I couldn’t let anyone else have it, you know?”
“But you’re…”
“Poor?” he finishes. “Broke? Son, I might look like I don’t have two dimes to rub together, but I did okay in a previous life. I’ve got enough.”
“But you can’t hold onto this place forever, right?”
Sam nods. “The city’s closing in, yeah. I get a developer a week trying to get me to sell this place. We all do around here, and it’s big money. Most of the folks in these parts, folks you knew before you pissed off to Jersey, have already gone, but I can’t let this place go, even if it’s the last fucking gym standing in Vegas.”
But I know how these things go. “They’ll make you. If you don’t sell, they’ll just send in—”
“The heavies?” laughs Sam. “I can handle myself.”
I look him over. “You sure about that?”
He waves it off. “Let them come. I’ve still got friends around here, friends who know a left from a right. Hell, we could use a bit of action, but fuck that, all of it. I brought you here for another reason.”
I thumb the ropes. “You want a fight? See if you’ve still got it? Because I’ll lay you flat, cripple or not.”
“Like I said, you’re a smartass, but no, call it a business proposition.”
“A proposition?”
He looks me dead in the eyes. “You win the fight tomorrow, you can have the gym. It’s yours.”
It takes me a second to process what he’s saying. “Why?”
He throws his arms wide. “I’ve got maybe three, four months tops. What the fuck am I going to do with this place?”
“Okay. Fair enough, but what’s the catch?”
He raps on the side of his head with a closed fist. “You always had brains, Max, whether you wanted to believe it or not. The catch? The catch is that you can’t sell this place. You have to promise me that.”
“I promise.” And I mean it. Things are coming full circle. I’m looking at a dust-ridden gym but I’m seeing possibility, a way out from Saul’s iron grasp. I see kids sparring and people working. I see bags waiting to be beaten, a water table, a framed picture of Pops smiling over it all. I see what we always wanted before my ego got too big for this neighborhood and I left. Biggest fucking mistake of my life.
Sam takes my shoulder again. “Thank you, Max, but a word of advice: you know what’s sexier to a woman than a bad boy?”
“An old man who dresses like a bum?”
“A grown-ass man who’s got his shit together.” He prods me in the chest to drive the point home. “And don’t lose the fucking fight.”
“I won’t.”
“You still remember my phone number?”
“I do.”
He starts to walk away. “Call if you need me. Otherwise, get out of my fucking gym. It’s not yours yet.”
I start to follow him out. “Whatever you say, Sam.”