Pops hurried back through the crowd to the ring. Standing in that doorway, watching him go, was harder than any fight I’ve ever been in. All we had going was Smokin’ Joe’s advice.
The action had started, it wasn’t going the way we planned, and our only hope was to trust Jilly. She was the one in the ring under the lights. It was her call to make.
And I had no idea what it would be.
But subtlety ain’t Jilly’s style. She didn’t keep me waitin’.
She was dancing in place, glaring up at the Russian all the way through the ring announcements. Ready for Freddie. Her opponent was big and battle-scarred from the cages, looked like she ate lions for lunch. Experienced and sure of herself, she glared back at Jilly with open contempt.
An expression she didn’t wear for long.
At the bell, Jilly came rocketing across the ring like a cruise missile, trapping the Russian coming out of her corner. Facing a much shorter fighter, Olga thought she could fend Jilly off, keep her at bay, out of reach.
It was like trying to hold back a hurricane with a parasol. Jilly’s punches just kept raining in furiously from all directions, nonstop. And I felt my heart drop.
Jilly was going all-in in the first minute, gambling everything on this round. It was an impossible pace to maintain. If her strategy failed, Jilly’d be totally burned out by the second — but it didn’t fail.
Trying to duck away from the rain of punches, the Russian caught a right cross flush on the jaw. Rocked by the blow, she lunged desperately at Jilly, trying to wrap her up into a clinch.
But she didn’t make it.
Her arms closed on air as Jilly danced back a step, just out of reach. Then charged back in firing off a half-dozen straight shots that caught the Borg off-balance and out of position, driving the Russian to her knees.
Waving Jilly to a neutral corner, the ref began his count: one... two...
Before he could say three, Olga’s eyes rolled up and she toppled. Wrapping a protective arm around her, the ref took a quick look into the Borg’s vacant stare, then waved Jilly off, stopping the bout!
The crowd exploded with cheers and applause, galvanized by the explosive action that ended with a first-round knockout. By a girl? Freaking amazing!
Jilly was even more excited than the spectators, bouncing around the ring like a dervish, pumping her fists in the air, celebrating...
Which was totally out of character. Irish Maguires don’t celebrate. We’re all business, all the time.
But not this time.
Jilly was over the moon!
And then she was over the ropes.
Scrambling up the ring post, she pumped her fists, saluting the fans, bringing the audience to its feet with a deafening roar. Then she leapt into the crowd!
Dropping onto the ring apron, she launched herself into the ringside seats, catching Dukarski totally by surprise as he lurched to his feet.
Slamming into Big Duke chest high, Jilly’s tackle carried him backward into the next tier, though I doubt Dukarski had any idea where he was at that point. She was hammering him the whole time, with the same furious barrage of punches that had demolished the Borg. Dukarski was lights-out before he hit the floor.
Gamez was apparently smarter than he looked. Seeing his boss laid out on the deck, the gunsel immediately backed away from Jilly and the boys with his hands raised, then turned and fled up the aisle, running like a scalded dog.
The place dissolved into pandemonium as security guards charged into the crush, trying to wrestle Jilly off Tony Duke. It took them a while. The fans fought for her, pushing them back, defending their new princess.
But chaos at a fight isn’t unusual. Order was quickly being restored. And I was on next.
Stepping back into my dressing room, I did a few quick pushups to get my heart pumping, then faced the mirror.
It was definitely time to call for the ring doctor.
But I didn’t.
I started to dance instead. Tuning up, getting my mind right.
Getting ready for Toro.
Pops found me there a few minutes later, shadowboxing.
“What the hell are you doing? Where’s the doc?”
I just shook my head and kept on punching.
“Dammit, Mick, you don’t have to do this! We’re off the hook now.”
“It’s got nothing to do with the fix, Pops. However it goes, this is probably my last night. We both know that. Dukarski and Toro are poster boys for everything that’s wrong with this sport. Jilly took care of the one, now I’m going to settle with the other. I owe it to the game, and to that poor bastard they killed in Mexico.”
“But—”
“I owe it to myself, Pops! If it’s my last shot, I want to take it. There’s no time to argue about it. I’m going on. Get me ready.”
And he did. When a gofer came to call us to the ring, he found the Irish Maguires throwing leather as hard and fast as we could, both of us grinning like feral dogs.
I was halfway down the arena aisle when the ring announcer roared out my name. I got a huge ovation that had more to do with the show Jilly’d just put on than my own record.
It didn’t matter. I wasn’t fighting for the crowd.
I was here for the guy across the ring, dancing in his corner, his face hidden by his black silk cowl. My emerald-green trunks seemed boyish as the ref called us to the center.
Neither of us heard a word he said. We both stood like stone statues, staring each other down. When the ref told us to touch ’em up, neither of us even offered. He asked again, then shook his head and sent us to our corners.
Across the ring, Toro was snarling as he slammed his fists together. Pumping himself up, his eyes locked on mine. He knew the fix was off. Knew it the moment Jilly won her prelim. Knew I’d fight him now. Straight up.
He didn’t care.
Neither did I.
Because Bobbie was right. In the end, it comes down to the fighters in the ring, matched fairly or mishandled, with the crowd screaming for blood.
With my shoulder lamed up, I knew I had no real chance against Toro.
Except the one.
A puncher’s chance. The same chance Bobbie’s father took one time too many.
The same chance we all get, every single day.
We choose to keep punching or not. To speak up or keep silent, stand our ground or step off. To tell someone we care for them. Or not.
And as long as you keep punching, one split second can change a fight. Change your luck.
Change your life.
Every fighter believes that.
Because we have to.
And because it’s the flat-ass truth.
Jim Allyn
The Master of Negwegon
From Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
“It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands.”
On this warm August morning Josh Zuckerman thought he was alone on the beach. He didn’t know he was being watched. He didn’t know he was being regarded by a set of eyes that considered him just another enemy in a country that contained nothing but, a country that Josh had never seen and never would see because he had less than ten minutes to live. He was going to live that last ten minutes on a pristine stretch of Lake Huron shoreline named after a long-dead Chippewa chief: Negwegon.
Josh was thrilled to be away from his invalid mother. During the school year, a home-care nurse helped her in and out of her wheelchair, helped her with personal things, and did routine chores. In the summer, though, to save money, they dispensed with the nurse and Josh did the work. None of the summer jobs he could get would earn as much as the nurse cost. So Josh didn’t get the summer break most kids got. But right now he had a break and was scary happy. Scary because he knew the huge, lightly used wilderness park and its seven miles of undeveloped beach was protected, off-limits to four-wheelers. He’d snuck his Yamaha Raptor into the forests and fields of the park before and there he stayed well concealed, never daring the beach. That much was easy, because the park boundary was long and roadless and only two miles from the family farm on Black River Road. But tearing around on the open beach — that was risky: just what he needed to shake the boredom of weeks of caring for a beloved cripple. He had successfully negotiated the broken trails without being spotted. Now the broad empty beach was all his, a perfect place to release the muscle of his Raptor, a gift on his fourteenth birthday.