“Motherfucker!”
The man swaggering toward me is huge, obviously takes care of his body, trains a lot. His long arms are perfect for fighting, and his low waist gives him a great center of gravity; right in the mid-point.
“Duncan motherfuckin’ Malone,” the man says, clapping his hands together, shaking his head in disbelief. “What the hell are you doing in my gym?”
Everybody training – and I mean everyone, from the young teenagers at the punching bags to the young men hitting the weights – turn their heads to us. I see the looks of recognition on their faces.
Damn it, Pierce Fletcher always did like to make a scene.
“Hey,” I say, sticking out two fists. He bumps them with his own, before taking my hand into his, gripping it tight and giving it a shake.
I see him check me out, the way a fighter sizes someone up. Traps, shoulders, neck, arms. Legs, feet, stance. Distribution of weight, balance, hands. Righty-or-lefty? Knuckles, how worn? Scars, demeanor. Confidence?
“I never thought I’d ever get to meet you.” He pauses, cocks an eyebrow, then turns around to face all the members in his gym. “What the heck are you all looking at?” he barks.
They all go back to training.
“Come on, come in the back,” he says, gesturing for me to walk with him.
“Nice set up,” I tell him.
The gym is great, modern, spacious, and brightly lit. It looks totally legit, and most of the people working out are just boys, young teenagers.
Some of them look like they’ve seen some shit. I know the type. It’s in the eyes. When they get older, they’ll learn to recognize one of their own, too.
“Thanks. Most of it is quite new.”
“You got a lot of kids in here.”
He nods. “They need somewhere to be.”
“All of them?”
“No,” Fletcher says. “But a lot do.”
“It’s good of you.”
“The training gives them self-confidence. You know, most won’t keep at it forever, but for now it helps.”
“I know first-hand.”
Fletcher regards me out of the corner of his eyes. “I heard that it was rough for you growing up.”
“Could have been worse.”
He shakes his head. “Bad home?”
“Not good.”
“But then Johnny Marino took you out, right? I read about that in an article.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Trained me.”
“Good man?”
“No. I heard you retired from the underground, but didn’t believe it. You were a force. Why’d you quit?”
“Shit got crazy in a real way.”
“Bad enough to make you stop fighting?” I ask. It doesn’t matter that he’s not being specific. Being an underground fighter always seems to attract trouble… not that that’s unexpected.
He regards me for a moment. “I wasn’t alone anymore. I had—”
“Someone to protect.”
He nods. “Yeah.”
I lick my lips, wondering at the strange coincidence between us. Two underground fighters now both out of the game. Two with something to lose… something to save.
I notice then the fresh scar above Fletcher’s eye. It’s a fighting scar; he took a hit or a kick, and skin stretched and split on bone.
Then I pick up his slight limp. It’s barely perceptible, but there.
It’s part of my training to notice these things, the physical aspects of people, that it becomes second nature. I do it when I’m not in the cage. Everybody is measured up.
Fighters do it all the time, and they never miss it when someone does it to them.
“I got shot,” he tells me, understanding that I’ve caught on to the slight unevenness in his steps.
We meet eyes for a moment, and I wonder distantly what he got involved in.
“Any nerve damage? Ligament?”
“No. Went straight through, nicked nothing serious. Had to fucking fight on it straight after.”
“Jesus,” I say, frowning. Whatever trouble he got into was big if they shot him, then made him fight. But if there’s anybody in the world who could do it, it’s him.
Well, him and me.
We first started talking when I stumbled across one of his underground fight videos. His fighting style was haphazard and undisciplined, but fuck his natural talent was off the charts good.
After that, I started researching him, interested in what I could learn from his style. His first fight he danced around a man named Crazy Carl for twenty-two minutes, but beat him eventually.
A rook coming up against a seasoned fighter… the odds of winning are near nil.
Word quickly spread about him, and soon it was clear he was the best underground fighter in Australia, and one of the best in the world.
And if he ever decided to go pro, he’d be one of the best there, too.
But the pros aren’t for everybody. There’s too much bullshit to wade through.
Some people just like to fight.
From what I know, Fletcher liked to fight and fuck. Can’t say I blame him; the girls are always everywhere, fawning, inviting.
In a different life, it might have been me. But Deidre always had me snared, from the first moment I saw her.
We go into his office at the back, shut the door. He opens his mini-fridge, pulls out a small plastic cup, unmarked, plain white.
“Here.”
I smell it. “Homemade?” I ask him.
“Lipoic acid for glucose uptake, ginger root for focus and energy, sesamin for energy expenditure efficiency, and the usual shit, electrolytes, minerals, vitamins. Been using it for years. Give it a try, tell me what you think.”
I take a sip. It tastes bitter, and spicy from the ginger.
“Sesamin?” I ask.
“A sesame oil extract, supposed to aid in more efficient energy utilization; the metabolism of glucose. Trials inconclusive, but I tried a month on and a month off and found a difference.”
“Tastes like shit,” I tell him.
There’s a pause. Though Fletcher and I have conversed over email about fight tactics, and the evolution of MMA, we never really small-talked. It was always business.
“What brings you to Australia, Duncan? Specifically, to my gym?”
“A girl,” I tell him.
“Fuck, it was a girl I got shot for.”
“You know Johnny Marino, right?”
“By reputation. Both as a boxer ahead of his time, and also as a mob boss.”
“He once told me,” I say, remembering it vividly for some reason. “That girls unravel athletes.”
Pierce shakes his head.
“Anyway,” I say. “Something’s come up.”
“How can I help?”
“Marino is after me, after my girl, and after my baby.”
Fletcher’s eyes ice over. “Your girl and your baby?”
“Yes.”
“Who is your girl?”
“His daughter.”
“Your foster sister?” Fletcher asks without pause. It’s curious to me that there’s no surprise or disbelief in his voice.
“That’s right.”
“What does Marino want with your kid?”
“Does it matter?”
Fletcher pushes his lips together. “No. When’s he coming?”
“I don’t know. He could already be here in Melbourne.”
“Has he got a crew?”
“What do you think?”
“Can you go to the police?”
“Absolutely not. Dee’s here on a fake passport.”
“Shit,” Fletcher says.
“It’ll get ugly. Storm’s coming, I can feel it. And even if I’m wrong, and it’s not, I still need to be prepared.”
“Tell me what you need.”
“A safe house in case we need it.”
“I got a nice place, out of the way.”
I nod my thanks at him. “Resources.”
Fletcher shifts in his seat. “Like what?”
“I need a gun.”
“Fuck, Duncan, I don’t know if I can get you a gun here. This is Australia, not America.”
“Can you try? Look, I’ll be poking around myself, but I figure you know people, more than me. I just got here, man, and if I’m going to protect my family against Marino, I’m going to need one.”
He takes a slow breath, and his brows pinch together. “Yeah. I think I got a couple of people who might be able to help you out. But I can’t risk anything. You meet them on your own.”
“That’s how I would have it,” I tell him.
“Do you want me to ask some of my boys to keep a lookout for Marino? They know the streets here, and if you give us a photo—”
“No!” I say. “Not the boys, leave them out of it.”
“Hey, I wouldn’t be telling them to go hunting, just if they see him.”
“Trust me, Pierce,” I say, leaning forward. “If these boys are growing up how I did, they’ll want to go looking. They’ll think it’s fun and cool. Don’t get them involved.”
Fletcher nods. “You’re right.”
There’s a moment of silence between us.
“He wants to take my boy, call him his own.”
“That’s fucked up.”
“You’re telling me.”
There’s a camaraderie between fighters, even the ones you fight. In the cage, you’re pit bulls trying to tear each other’s throats out. Shit, even right before the fight, before you even step into the cage, you’re enemies to the core.
But if one of us gets in trouble outside of the fight, it’s the other fighters you can count on more than anyone else.
Not your agents, your managers, your handlers, your whatever-the-fucks.
It’s the other men like you who take a beating for a living, who can come within inches of taking a life every single time they win a fight… who can come within heartbeats of losing their lives every time they lose a fight. Who risk permanent injury or brain damage every time they climb into the cage.
When you live on the edge, the only people who really understand are others who do, too.
Make no mistake, fighting is a controlled sport, not just a science but also an art. But when you’ve got your opponent in a Pace choke, and you’ve cut off all the blood to his brain, you’re a hair’s breadth away from taking a life.
The life of a man with a mother and father, siblings, a wife, kids, friends. A whole network of people you could steal him from if you lose your cool, go too far… miscalculate.
No fighter ever forgets that. It’s a weight on all our shoulders, something we try not to think about, like race car drivers try not to think about crashing.
Fletcher pulls a card from his desk, scribbles a number on the back.
“Get a prepaid, don’t use your roaming as anybody can track that. This is my number, it’s on twenty-four-seven. I’ll keep it off silent, call me if you need anything. Write down where you’re staying, I’ll have somebody leave a location in your mailbox to get the gun. Text me in a couple of days, let me know if it all worked out.”
“I appreciate it,” I tell him.
“Is there anything else?”
“One more thing,” I say. I sigh, pinch the bridge of my nose. “I need a gig.”
“You’re not out?” Fletcher gestures vaguely at my body. “You look like you haven’t been training.”
“I’ve lost some weight, yeah,” I say. “But I need the money. Can you put me in touch?”
“I know there’s an underground tournament coming up. Multiple rounds, some pretty seasoned guys but I think you’ll have a good shot. Winnings for second and third placers, too. Interested?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” he says. “You call me on this number tomorrow, I’ll have the details for you.”
“Thank you,” I say.
“Don’t worry about it.”
I start to get up when the door opens, and a pretty face appears in the crack.
“Oh, sorry!” she says, closing the door.
“Pen!” Fletcher calls.
She opens the door again and steps in. She does a double take at me, and then sticks out a hand. On her arm is tattooed a full sleeve; gnarled beanstalks disappear up beneath the sleeve of her t-shirt. I notice the same pattern on the top of her foot – she’s wearing flip flops. It’s intricate work, very impressive.
“You’re Creature,” she says excitedly, as if she’s announcing it to me. “Pierce has shown me loads of your videos. He’s a huge fan.”
I grin at her, then look back at Fletcher.
“A fan, huh?”
“Wouldn’t go that far, pal. This is Penelope Wordsworth.”
I exchange greetings with her, then glance back at Fletcher.
So this is the girl he got shot for.
“Talk later, yeah?” he says to me.
“Yeah.”
“If you catch some time in the future, come around the gym and spar with the kids. They’d love it.”
“Shown them my videos, too?”
Fletcher shrugs. “It’s an education.”
“When I get everything sorted, I’ll make it a point to.”
As I leave, I hear Penelope’s voice through the closing door.
“What was he doing here? You should have gotten his autograph to put up on the wall.”