Southern Gothic (5 page)

Max paid, took his form, and noticed that the layout of names followed the list he had swiped from Baxter House. He walked into the main room. The noise assaulted his ears as did the thick odor of sweat. This place had been designed to store boxes for shipping, not run a sporting event. Max wondered if this little business operated under the property owner’s nose or if the owner got a cut of the proceeds.

Drummond clapped his hands as he slid alongside Max. “I’m so glad you decided to come here. I haven’t been to a local fight in years. Decades, really. I’m looking forward to this.”

Max found an empty spot along the temporary metal bleachers set up around the ring. The ring itself looked professional enough. Two racks of lights had been mounted on thick poles, and long cables ran off to a generator. A few space heaters warmed those working the judges table and elsewhere, but mostly it was the body heat of the crowd that kept the temperature up. Still, everyone kept their winter coats on, and hot coffee appeared to sell far better than cold beer.

Two sweating middleweights slugged it out while the ref circled the fight. They kept clutching each other and some in the crowd booed. Neither fighter moved with much gusto. Max figured he had come near the end of this particular bout.

“What are you sitting down for?” Drummond asked. “Go make your bet.”

“Relax. That fight isn’t for a while and I want to look around first.” Now that he was there, Max started to wonder about Sebastian, the murder, Baxter House, and the paper that had led him to the Midnight Fights. How did those things connect? And who actually owned that house?

That question smacked Max in the head as hard as the punches being thrown in the ring. He had been so wrapped up in losing his client, his fight with Sandra, and his visit from Cecily Hull, that he never asked some of the most basic questions. It wasn’t Sebastian’s house — the man had made it quite clear how little money he had. It didn’t look lived in, though it was immaculate and clean. Yet books overflowed the shelves of that study and those papers were on the desk. Somebody used that space. Why had the police bothered calling in Max when they had more obvious people to inquire about — like the owner of that house?

“Max, wake up,” Drummond said, snapping his fingers before Max’s face. “You’ll miss an entire fight at this rate. Now, get down there and make your bet.”

“Maybe it’ll be better to watch this time.”

With a sigh that sounded more like a haunted moan, Drummond said, “I understand you’re nervous, but you’re going to win. So, relax. Besides, nobody comes here just to watch. If you don’t bet, people are going to get suspicious, and you’ve already got enough unwanted attention being here. You don’t exactly fit in.”

“I noticed.”

“Then get moving.”

Grumbling that he didn’t even understand this sport, Max walked over to a crowded table where men shouted out names and numbers. He nudged his way into the line and when he reached one of the house bookies, the man at the table spit out words rapid fire. It took Max a second to realize the man spoke in Spanish.

“I want to make a bet,” Max said.

The man smiled and shook his head. “No problem, man. Who you want and how much?”

Max glanced at the betting form, but he already knew the names on the list. “Gonzalez for two hundred.” He half-expected the bookie to throw out a
Jeopardy
-like answer waiting for the winning question.

“What round?”

“Huh?”

As if talking to an idiot, and Max couldn’t blame him for that, the man said, “You can bet on the round Gonzalez wins or you can bet on a TKO or on a decision at the end.”

“Can’t I just pick the winner?”

“Yeah,” the man said with a bit of disappointment.

When Max got back to his seat, he told Drummond what had happened. Drummond nodded. “Place like this, the payout doubles if you pick the winning round, but if you’re wrong, you lose the whole thing. Since the fight is fixed, they already know you’re gonna win, so by not picking the round, you guaranteed they’ll be losing some money to you tonight.”

“You couldn’t have told me that before I went to make the bet?”

“I thought you knew this kind of thing.”

“What kind of thing? I’ve never been to a boxing match before.” Two men further along the bench glanced at Max before shifted away from him. In a lower voice, he added, “All I know is that two guys get in the ring and beat each other to a pulp.”

“It’s a lot more than that.”

A portly man in a tuxedo stepped into the ring. “Gentleman,” he bellowed, and for the first time, Max noticed that the audience was entirely male. As the man spoke, the first fighter entered wearing a white robe. Two men — his trainer and another — entered with him. “For the next bout, in the right corner, weighing in at 187 pounds with a record of five knockouts, ten wins, and two losses, Hershel Jackson.”

The audience cheered and Jackson walked around the ring with his gloved hands held high. He was a muscular black man with a vicious look in his eyes. Max wondered how much they had to pay the guy to take this dive because he certainly looked like he could win a fight with ease.

“And in the left corner,” the announcer continued as the other fighter approached, “weighing in at 183 pounds with a record of one knockout, four wins, and four losses, Hector Gonzalez.”

Gonzalez bounded into the ring, his handlers ripping off the gold and silver robe, and he pranced around the ring thumping his chest. Some cheered, but the majority booed. Max hoped the upset that was about to happen didn’t cause a riot.

Moments later, the ring cleared, the ref spoke to the fighters, the bell rang, and the fight began. The two men circled each other, jabbing out their arms, but not making any big moves.

“This is it?” Max said. “I thought they were supposed to be pummeling each other.”

“You sure got blood-thirsty fast.” Drummond stared at Max a moment and finally gestured to the ring. “Look, this isn’t some barbaric gladiator kind of thing. Yeah, it’s a fight, but it’s really like a living chess match. Lots of strategy and thought goes into every moment. See, right now, there’s plenty going on. They’re feeling each other out — trying to determine each other’s fighting style. Also, they’re quickly learning their distances — how close can they get without getting hurt. Now, did you see that? Jackson shifted his feet and started circling the other direction.”

“So?”

“Well, Gonzalez did the same. So, Jackson just took control of their movement. That’s important. Whoever controls the ring usually controls the fight. Now, all those little jabs are for more than just distance. Each fighter is trying to force a reaction from the other. If I keep jabbing at you, and I notice that every time you flinch back to right, then when I’m ready, I fake a jab, you flinch right, and my full power punch is waiting for you in that spot I know you’re going for. Get it?”

“They’re trying to set up a real strong punch.”

“Exactly. There’s emotional stuff going on too — intimidation, breaking confidence, things like that.”

Though Max did not catch all of what Drummond had said, he understood enough to see that more went on in the fight than he had realized. He even experienced a little tremble in his chest when he caught that Gonzalez tried to change the direction of the circling but Jackson turned that shift into an assault. The fighters exchanged four hard punches before clenching up. Without Drummond’s explanation, Max saw that while clenched, Jackson threw two more punches to the ribs. They weren’t just hugging each other, buying time — they were inflicting body blows in each clench that would add up over the course of the fight and become crucial later on.

Except this fight is fixed,
Max thought. None of it mattered. It was no more real than a reality show on television.

“Wow,” Drummond said. “Jackson’s putting on a heck of a show. He’s a real fighter. It’s got to be burning him bad to take this dive.”

As the fight continued into round after round, Max lost interest. No real point when he knew that no matter how bad Gonzalez looked to be doing, he would soon be making a miraculous comeback. Instead, Max scanned the crowd. He wondered what would happen if all those hard-working men learned that if they had bet on Jackson, they had no way of winning. In such a small place, the outcome would be fatal to a lot of innocent people.

Max froze as his eyes rested on one man in particular — a black man with a stark white horseshoe of hair running around his head. Looking closer, Max saw the same overweight body, the same hooked nose, and — when the man cheered for Jackson — the same discolored yellow tooth.

“Why would he be here?”

Drummond kept his attention on the fight. “What? Who?”

“There’s a guy down there — I swear he was one of the crime scene techs at Baxter House.”

“You think that’s odd? Be glad that’s the worst thing he’s doing. Cops and techs and all the so-called ‘good guys’ have as many vices as the rest of us. Maybe even more since they’re surrounded by it all day long.”

“Yeah, but that seems like too much of a coincidence, and you’ve certainly made it clear that there are no coincidences.”

Drummond finally turned his head to look at the man. “You’re certain it’s the same guy?”

“I think so.” Max dug out his phone. He figured he’d try to take a picture of the man, maybe zoom in, and see if a closer look helped.

“No need for that. You’re right. It’s him.”

“How do you know? You weren’t there yet when I bumped into him.”

“I know because I just saw him glance up here, and now he’s leaving.”

Drummond was right. The large man had sidestepped his way off the bleacher and walked around back.

“Come on,” Max said. “Something’s up.”

“You check it out. I want to see the rest of this fight.”

“You know how it’s going to end.”

“A well-choreographed fix can be every bit as entertaining as a fair fight.”

With a disgruntled huff, Max climbed over the two benches in front of him, walked behind the bleachers, and moved at a brisk pace in the direction of the man. He couldn’t run — too many people crowding the area plus doing so would have drawn too much attention. The heavy coffee aroma did little to mask the foul odors of all these bodies. Max didn’t want to know why his shoes kept sticking to the floor.

He turned the corner in time to see the man open a door and walk through. Maybe he hadn’t seen Max in the bleachers. Maybe he simply needed to use a restroom. But with the building technically vacant, the place had no running water — no restrooms would be working. The men were expected to pee outside. Anything else was expected to wait until they went somewhere else.

The crowd broke out a surprised gasp. Looked like Gonzalez had finally started his comeback. Max opened the door and peered in — a long hall lit by several battery-operated lanterns. No sign of the big man.

At the far end, one door stood ajar and dim light cut into the hall. Max could hear murmured voices. He wanted to call Drummond over, but it would take too much time to get back to his seat, grab the ghost, and return. He certainly couldn’t yell for Drummond.

Ignoring the itch on the back of his neck — the one digging under his skin, crawling up to his brain and shouting
Don’t be stupid!
— Max entered the hall. The sharp thuds of the landed blows and the deep grunts of the wounded fighters echoed down the hall turning it into a carnival funhouse trick. Max’s pulse quickened and his mouth dried.

He tried the first doors on either side. Both were locked. Laughter from down the hall. Deep-toned laughter — the kind that belonged to big, dangerous men. He thought he could hear guns being loaded. But he shook off the thought — only his imagination. For all he knew, the sound belonged to the click of beer cans against a metal table.

He tried another door. Locked. He needed some place he could hide while attempting to eavesdrop. The big man had been at Baxter House,
and
he had looked up at Max during the fight, choosing that moment to leave. Maybe he could convince himself that one of these had been coincidence. But all of it? Not likely. Not remotely likely.

About halfway down the hall, Max tried another door, and this time the knob turned. Licking the sweat off his lip, he eased the door open. But as he pushed it quietly in, someone took hold and yanked it from his hand.

Max took one look in the room and his stomach flipped. In the center of the room sat an elderly woman. She had long, curly gray hair and deeply wrinkled skin. Her eyes were clouded over. She wore numerous scarves, shreds of dresses, and bruises where clothes didn’t cover her arms or legs. She looked like a storybook gypsy that had been dragged behind a pickup truck for a few miles.

Her chair had been set in the middle of a large painted circle. Numerous symbols adorned the circle. Seven candles lined the outside of the circle and provided the only light in the room. Though Max didn’t know the specific symbols, he had seen enough spells and curses to know he had stumbled into something no good. This woman was a witch casting a spell.

She raised her hand at Max, and her palm bled from where she had dug another symbol into her skin — a swirling sign similar to a yin-yang but with a river-like path running through the middle. Her dead eyes stared at him, and her mouth moved without sound. Then she screamed.