Kelly filled those seconds with his fists, held back nothing. There was no future to his strategy, only a winnable present. He heard the dulled and distant roar of the crowd as he drove the contender to the mat, nearly punching him all the way down, as he stepped away from the falling body and into the rising sound.
The old ringing in his ears. The sound of the fire. The sound that existed long before the fire. He spit out his mouthguard, found the name caught behind his teeth.
Bringer, he said. Stand up.
The referee counting: one second, two seconds, three.
Bringer, Kelly said. Come on.
Now the contender standing into the same noise, the cries of the crowd, their vocalized belief in the possibility of his defeat. Now the contender left with no choice, now the outcome requiring a knockout because nothing else would satisfy the crowd. Now the trainer howling ecstatic, in love with his orchestration of the disaster.
Kelly raised his gloves, jerked his fists toward his body, called in the blow. Thou shalt not kill suspended for another minute and a half. He didn’t have any legs left but he raised his gloves and with them he said Kill me and when Bringer came carrying the killing punch across the mat Kelly surrendered into the absolute absence of doubt: If Kelly died the target would go free. If Kelly lived he would take the target. If Bringer struck him right he might never experience doubt again, instead only this fear perfect enough to swallow him whole, a whale of fear, and from inside its black body he saw more darkness, and from the dark he watched Bringer’s last punch leave the shoulder at speed, bringing with it the first pinpricks of light appearing somewhere in the black, stars come to see him home, constellations lit for no one else.
When the punch arrived Kelly felt every higher function stall, his body tumbling, feet turning under softening ankles, calves collapsing, the knees going sideways, the stupid body crashing like a carcass from its hook. The judder of the mat coming up to meet him. Behind closing lids he tried to protect the memory of the impossible thing he’d seen: the knockout blow you were never supposed to see coming, how as it had moved through space to strike his body Kelly knew he would never die. It was as if the match had not actually ended. Before the knockout Thou shalt not kill had been suspended and for as long as the injunction remained absent Kelly might do as he wished.
When he opened his eyes the contender was already leaving the ring, the trainer and his assistant both by the contender’s side, the crowd heading out into the night satisfied, high on the simulated destruction of a man. Kelly was alone upon the mat with the ringside doctor, who checked Kelly’s open eye, pronounced him concussed, guided him to the locker room. The doctor tested his reflexes, listened to his breathing, bandaged a cut atop his bruised cheek. Kelly measured the tightness in his chest, the numb ache in his limbs, said nothing. He was seeing two different rooms, one out of the closed eye, one out of the open eye, but he didn’t describe either to the doctor. He hadn’t eaten a meal all day but his stomach felt full, bloated. He’d known it could come to this but he kept quiet, wanted the ticking clock in his chest left untouched.
Or else not a ticking but a thudding, the wet slop of uneven blood forced through the centermost chamber of his body, a wet clock counting down to calamity.
After the doctor left Kelly opened his locker, found the promised cash waiting for him in an envelope folded into the back pocket of his jeans, the envelope thinner than he expected but the money all there.
Outside in the parking lot Kelly fell asleep behind the wheel of the truck, the engine off, the cab cold. He woke up, turned the key, put the truck in gear. The engine rumbled to life, the dash lit, its dials incomprehensible enough Kelly knew there was more damage. Or else his life had become a dream, because here was the impossibility of numbers and letters in dreams. He was tired but even tired he was strong. He thought something was punched loose and he thought it would let him do anything. There were a certain number of hours of night left and they would have to be enough. It would be over by morning or else it would never end.
11
HE HAD PRETENDED HE HADN’T built the body for this purpose but here was the powerful body in perfect motion: The target stepped out of his car, turning to lock the car door as the left fist struck his head twice, as the other arm snaked around the head, catching under the chin with the crook of the elbow, the same hand catching the opposite bicep. The right hand gripping the back of the skull, pushing forward. The elbows brought together, a steady pressure, the free hand squeezing the hold shut.
After Kelly let go he had to mind the seconds, work fast against the count. As soon as oxygen returned so would the world, beat by beat: the parking lot outside the apartment complex, the lit rooms above, the television glares and radio bass. He picked the dropped keys off the pavement, opened the trunk of the target’s car, lifted the groggy target inside. The body heavy and already stirring so he had to strike the target again, every movement nervous now, less controlled, until Kelly landed a punch across the side of the face disorienting enough to let him get the target’s hands behind the back, to get the wrists taped. The legs were stronger, took longer spins of the tape. He didn’t want to suffocate the target but he had to cover the mouth too, ran the tape around the head once, twice, trying to keep it below the nose but working fast.
Kelly shut the trunk, got behind the wheel, locked the doors. He checked his phone, considered the time remaining. It was late but there was plenty of night left. Had anyone seen him? Most of the apartments he could see were dark. The rest were lit by televisions, monitors, the eyes inside the apartments pointed anywhere except the windows. If you lived in a place like this maybe you tried not to look at it.
Now the black plant rose again before Kelly, some beginning and middle and end all contained within the plant’s long decline, its still-undemolished structure. Kelly navigated the plant’s expanse of concrete and brick, its streets that would have been strange in the uninhabited deep of the night even without the new snow falling wet and heavy, the slush on the road making the unfamiliar car harder to handle. He parked the car in a brick alley, close to the entrance to the underground. He stepped out into the falling snow, opened the trunk, waited until the target’s eyes found him before displaying the black pistol. He gave orders, explained next steps: How the tape around the ankles would be cut. How the target would get out of the trunk but not run. How running was the biggest mistake the target could make. How they would walk from the car through the open wall of the nearest building. How inside the building there was a broken floor, an aperture beneath which he would find a subtle path down into the basement. How you had to know to look for it. How in the basement there was a hallway that led to a room. How inside the room a metal chair waited. How the target would sit down on the chair.
When the tape was cut the target tried to run but the pistol was there to strike the back of his skull, to prod his stumbling in the right direction: the entrance to the building, the closed door, the collapsed floor, the pitched descent. The gun held the target steady while Kelly worked the padlock installed at the door, then again in the low room, when the target couldn’t find the chair where he’d been ordered to sit, instead reeling around the dark like Kelly had in the ring, the world he’d believed he inhabited having ended so violently it was as if it had never existed.