Shadowboxer Read online

  I felt good.

  All of a sudden there were bodyguards trying to grab me and people were yelling—Eva was videoing us with her phone—and I had to run before somebody creamed me.

  I ran right into Khari’s arms.

  ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa,’ he said. ‘This is not good.’

  There you go. Khari’s always real astute at pointing out the obvious.

  I Let My Ass Do the Talking

  SO ME AND Eva got hustled into Mr. B’s office behind the door with the white sparkly star and the name Bernard Jumsai stencilled under it. No biggie for me. I was used to being chewed out, detained, made to stand in line-ups. For Eva, though? Girl started to sweat and fan herself. She was worried.

  ‘It’s so stuffy in here,’ she said, edging away from me. There wasn’t much room in Mr. Big’s office. Most of it was taken up by the desk, a cheap metal thing piled with papers and coffee cups and somewhere under it all, a keyboard and mouse. Mr. Big had a screen that showed him the CCTV views of the gym, and of course there was his special two-way mirror. He watched us train while he was wheeling and dealing on Skype, talking with promoters all over the world for hours at a time. The office had a back entrance, too, so you were never really sure whether he was in or out—or who was with him. Mr. Big liked to keep everybody guessing.

  Behind the desk was Mr. B’s shrine. In contrast to the rest of the office, the shrine was immaculate. Today there were fresh flowers and a pile of peanut M&Ms. A pair of Rangers tickets. I could never be sure whether Mr. B took his Buddhism as seriously as he seemed to, or whether he was just one of those people who want to cover all the bases. Either way, he never failed with the offerings.

  There were dusty marks on the walls where pictures of Linda and the kids used to be. She’d left him two months ago for a carpet-cleaning franchise owner from Pearl River. Mr. B was upset. When I’m upset, I pound the bag until I can’t move, then eat a whole carton of cookie dough ice cream, and then get over it. But Mr. B, he bought himself a consolation Humvee.

  Seemed like we were waiting forever. I went behind the desk and pulled up one of the CCTV screens. The media people were standing out front, talking on their phones.

  ‘Jade, what are you doing?’ Eva hissed.

  I turned up the sound on camera one.

  ‘Yeah, his face was a mess. Looks like Khari Nkondo clocked him. Might have been a fight over this ring girl... what’s her name? Eva Skye?’

  Eva gasped when she heard this.

  ‘Armando? Get me whatever you got on Khari Nkondo. Not just his fights, I want to know if he has a criminal record, any drug history, past issues of violence involving women... you name it.’ The guy hung up and gestured to his cameraman to follow him inside.

  Another reporter, standing close to the microphone pickup, whispered, ‘Skye’s real name is Kowalski. Leonard, check her out under that name.’

  I grinned at Eva, who turned pink.

  ‘Kowalski?’ My voice cracked with laughter. ‘Why’d you change it? It’s so much more romantic than Skye.’

  She looked away. Her foot started tapping.

  ‘I can go over to Mattress World and interview the staff. Somebody might have gone outside for a smoke and witnessed it. And I’ll try to get the CCTV.’

  Mr. B’s voice cut through them all. He appeared in shot, making grand gestures with his arms.

  ‘Thank you all for coming, we are so honored to have you all here today. As you may have heard, Mr. Zhang had to leave on an urgent matter. You can call his press officer. Meanwhile, I have to ask you all to go home. Mr. Zhang’s people will be clearing the building.’

  Chip the Viking started herding everybody, grabbing cameras and phones as he went. ‘Right, everybody, let’s all be cool. Nothing to see here, nothing to see. Sorry, was that your camera? Here you go.’

  ‘Where’s my memory card?’

  ‘I don’t know where the memory card is, man, you must not have loaded one before you came.’

  ‘Hey! Hey, that guy stole my pictures!’

  ‘I’m not a thief,’ said Chip in a rehearsed voice. ‘I’m a security consultant. Do you wish to consult with me?’

  ‘You’ll hear from our legal department,’ said the smaller man, backing away in a hurry. ‘It’s already all over Twitter, anyway. Ha!’

  Me and Eva looked at each other. She was excited.

  ‘You think they want to interview me?’ she said. ‘They think I’m playing Khari and Tommy Zhang at the same time. Wow. I could get in People for that.’

  ‘Not so great for Khari,’ I said. ‘They all think he beat up Tommy Zhang, and he didn’t.’

  ‘I know.’ She fixed me with pale green eyes. ‘You did. What is wrong with you? Why you act like such a freak? Khari says you had some kind of bad childhood. Get over it.’

  I felt my nostrils widen. I was about to unleash when Mr. B swaggered in.

  ‘Girls, girls,’ he said. ‘This place is like Ringling Brothers circus.’

  He reached out and patted Eva on the shoulder.

  ‘You don’t talk to nobody,’ he said. ‘Understand? Not one word.’

  Her face fell.

  ‘But Mr. B, they all want to interview me—’

  Mr. B let out a grunt and held up one commanding finger. Eva seemed to shrink before his daddy act.

  ‘Not. One. Word. One phone call from me and you never work again in this business.’

  ‘But I didn’t do nothing!’ Eva protested.

  ‘You keep your mouth shut. Simple. You come out ahead. They offer you work, fine. They interview you for Cage? Fine. OK. But you say nothing about today. Nothing. Get it?’

  ‘I get it.’ Eva looked at me pointedly.

  ‘You can go, Eva. And tell Monika. No talking. To nobody.’

  Looking grouchy, Eva started to go out. In the doorway she paused. Looking at me as she addressed Mr. B, she said, ‘Why you give this girl so many chances? She is not so special. And by the way, Jade, I am not ashamed of my name or my homeland.’

  She shut the door. Mr. B turned to me. I gave him my detention-center stare. He shook his head, sighing.

  ‘Don’t you get it, Jade? You know I want to change image of fighters as thugs. I’m trying to go upmarket so I invite a high class, A-list celebrity to our gym to raise our profile on Battle of the Bitches, and—hello, anybody home?—this what pays rent for nobodies like you. And what you do? You embarrass me.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘But what? But he’s a jerk? But he’s fake? You think this is some kind of excuse?’

  No, actually my excuse is he’s a... what’s the scientific term for cat-hater? Like homophobe, but for cats. There has to be a word. I’ll ask Malu later.

  I said nothing. It had been a rhetorical question, anyway, because Mr. B plowed on.

  ‘I know Tommy Zhang is all image. I know he can’t fight. You know it. Deep down, he knows it. But we all got to keep up his front. He’s a movie star. Tommy’s career depends on image. Don’t you get that?’

  Still I said nothing. What could I say?

  ‘You change your attitude or pick a different business. This ain’t no sport, not no more. We are in show business. That means putting on a show. Tommy Zhang is huge. He’s starting up a new fight circuit give those criminals in Las Vegas a run for their money. It’s going to be big, and it’s going be clean.’

  He was referring to the underworld connections of Cage Federation, the biggest fight organization in the country. Some people said the whole business was corrupt and based on backdoor dealing. Of course some people would say that about boxing, too. I didn’t care. I just wanted a little piece of it, a chance to do something with my life.

  ‘Come on, Mr. B,’ I said. ‘You’re not telling me Tommy Zhang is putting up his own money? Who’s backing him, and how clean are they? He didn’t sound happy on the phone to Thailand just now.’

  Mr. B waved that away. ‘Zhang got all kind of big money contacts. And he got better TV promotion. But t
hanks to you I got to go kiss his ass, make a fool of myself, and pray what really happened don’t get out. Or we got headlines saying: “Tommy Zhang beat up by girl.”’

  Well, I thought. If the pants fit...

  ‘Everybody on our side been sworn to secrecy, but you never know what little rat might decide to cash in. Now Tommy’s gotta reschedule his photo shoot.’

  I had to work so hard not to laugh. Mr. B saw my face and got really mad. ‘He can’t take pictures with a damn black eye, Jade. You’re costing me all kinds of money with your fucking childish temper!’

  I winced when he dropped the f-bomb. One thing about Mr. Big is that he almost never swears. I better watch out.

  I looked down at the cigarette burn in Mr. B’s carpet. If I thought about anything else, I might crack and start to cry, and no way was that going to happen. No way.

  ‘I am so close to giving up on you. Anybody else, they’d be gone already, and I would tell Tommy he can press charges.’

  I said nothing. Mr. B’s tone changed. ‘You know you are like my daughter.’ I felt my cheeks getting hot. ‘Your mom and Linda are best friends. Your mom came to me when you got in trouble with the police. I took you on. I talked to your school to take you back, I helped you get that job you need. Me and Linda got our differences, but we promised your mother we would look out for you when she went to the Dominican Republic. Your mom didn’t want to leave you here. She let you stay because of me.’

  ‘And because Malu moved in to my house,’ I added. ‘You kept me so I could train.’

  ‘Exactly. You’re talented, only a year away from turning pro. But you’re not eighteen yet. You got to listen to us, Jade. Me, your mom, your cousin Malu, all of us are your family. If you don’t listen we can’t help you.’

  He was expecting me to look at him or say something. I was still concentrating on the cigarette burn.

  ‘Jade?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered, finally, without looking at him. ‘I’m really sorry. I didn’t think.’

  I felt my throat tighten as I let myself think about what this gym meant to me. My future here, all my hard work, my dreams of a pro title... I blinked back tears, refocusing on the carpet. Nothing can get through to you if you focus your attention on something very specific and refuse to let go. Nothing.

  ‘You ruined the deal,’ Mr. B. said. ‘Tommy Zhang won’t do business now. If I keep you, he’ll find a way to hurt me. If I get rid of you and somebody offers you money to talk, and then the whole thing comes out.’

  ‘I wouldn’t! I wouldn’t talk, I swear—’

  ‘You’re just a kid. You don’t know this business. Cage will find out. Somebody will find out. I got Khari wiping out all the memory cards. But Tommy Zhang hates us now.’

  ‘He might change his mind,’ I said. ‘He must be worried, what if somebody finds out he got beat up so easy? If he stops doing business with you, he has to tell people why. There’s the show. His lawyers will want to know. What’s he gonna say? There must be a way to make it right. What can I do? Can I apologize? Send flowers? Should I grovel? What can I do, Mr. B?’

  Mr B snorted. ‘What can you do? I don’t know. Leave the country?’

  He threw up his hands dramatically and spun around to turn his back on me. His elbow bumped into the gecko statue he kept on his shrine. I saw it start to fall. Before I even knew what I was doing, I’d lunged across the room and caught it.

  He turned around and looked at me, astonished. Hell, I’m fast. I’m not bragging, but I got the reflexes of a fighter pilot.

  I held the statue out to him.

  ‘OK,’ I said, giving him my biggest, cutest smile.

  He didn’t take the statue. He just looked at it, then at me. His face crunched up like he thought I was playing some trick on him.

  ‘What you mean, OK?’

  Good question. What did I mean? Think fast, Barrera.

  ‘Um... don’t you want your lucky gecko back?’

  He took the gecko and nervously replaced it on the shelf. He made sure it lined up just right next to the incense holder. Then an idea flashed across my mind.

  ‘OK, I’ll leave the country,’ I said. Actually, it wasn’t even like I said it. I was totally talking out of my ass. Yeah, my ass must have said it. And the words came spilling out so easy they almost sounded plausible. ‘How long should I go for? Two weeks? Three weeks? Until it blows over and the shows are under way and everybody’s focusing on something else?’

  Mr. Big rolled his eyes. He didn’t believe I was serious.

  ‘A month? My last exam is on Thursday. After that I could go stay with my Nana in the Dominican Republic, but you know she’s sick. And I wouldn’t be able to train there.’

  When I said it I realized how much I was missing my mom. And how sad I was that Nana was dying and I’d never see her again unless I went out there...

  Mr. B shook his head. He looked at the gecko. I knew I had him now. I saved his gecko. Or did he have another motive?

  ‘Thailand,’ he said suddenly, narrowing his eyes. ‘You go anywhere, you go there. No age restrictions. You can fight pro there. Then we find out how tough you really are.’

  This wasn’t what I had in mind, but I nodded, still letting my ass do the talking. ‘I’ll ask my mom. Only thing is, I don’t have airfare.’

  ‘I buy the ticket. You go in my cousin’s camp. You train. That’s it. No beach, no party. You train. And you fight.’

  ‘Got it, boss,’ my ass said. ‘When?’

  He shook his head. Went to his laptop and started looking up flights. Was he serious?

  ‘You got a passport?’

  ‘I think I know where it is...’

  ‘Your exam is Thursday? You leave Thursday night,’ he said. ‘Cheap ticket on standby. Until then I don’t want to see you. Give me your phone.’

  ‘My phone?’

  ‘You don’t talk to media, you don’t talk to nobody.’

  ‘Not even my mom?’

  ‘Leave her to me.’

  I thought for a second. If he didn’t tell my mom what I’d done, he was saving my life. Because she would flip out in an epic way. But me going to Thailand, alone? There was no way she was saying yes to that. She still holds my hand crossing the street to ShopRite.

  ‘You don’t need this in Bangkok. What you gonna do, play games on there? Twitter? No. This is serious. No distractions.’

  ‘Mr. B, please, not the phone...’ But I said it weakly.

  ‘You put up your hood and go out the back door. You don’t say goodbye to nobody. You go to school, take your test, act normal until Thursday. I set it up with Coat.’

  ‘Coat?’

  ‘My cousin. He coaches, like me. Small gym, some good fighters. He’s Cake’s trainer, you know?’

  ‘Isn’t he the guy who doesn’t want Americans in his gym?’

  ‘That’s him.’ He handed me a printout. ‘Your flight. Go home. Call me later.’

  He reached in his desk and pulled out some Tiger Balm, spreading it on his forehead and closing his eyes.

  ‘Thanks, Mr. B. I promise I won’t let you down this time.’

  He kept his eyes closed. ‘I got a feeling you will, and I’m making a big mistake, but I got a soft spot for you, Jade. Now leave me. I got lot of brown-nosing to do and I hate that.’

  I was leaking tears when I closed the door behind me. It always makes me feel worse when people are forgiving, and I guess Mr. B knew that. If somebody had belted me in the head, I would have been able to deal with it. The ‘straighten up your act and by the way here’s a cookie’ approach totally threw me.

  I took a deep breath and filled my mind with images of the good Jade I would become. The dedicated, sportsmanlike Jade. The non-vengeful, smiling, tolerant Jade. Helping old ladies cross the street. Turning the other cheek. Getting splashed on by buses and not swearing and kicking the bus. The New Jade. She would be me. Starting right now.

  Khari intercepted me just outside the locker room
. He grabbed my arm and pulled me against him, held me steady. Ooh, is he nice? In the next couple of seconds I flashed a mini-movie starring me and him on the mat. We’re working on grappling, but then it all turns horny. Images of Eva walking in on us, turning even paler than she already is, and Khari saying, ‘Sorry, Eva, but Jade’s all the woman I need.’ Images of Eva then shooting herself in the head with a pair of sixguns and in a final, glorious picture, me and Khari are lying on the mat, arms and legs all mixed up, drinking Gatorade while Eva’s blood pools under the weight rack.

  So much for the good Jade.

  Unfortunately, Khari wasn’t cooperating with my fantasy because when he leaned down to murmur in my ear, instead of offering to work naked submissions with me, he just said,

  ‘Whatever else happens, I just wanted to tell you that was a sweet left hook, you know what I’m saying? Sweet. I’m gonna remember that one, girl.’ Then he let me go, put his finger to his lips, and walked away slow—OMG what an ass!

  ‘Thanks,’ I whispered, forgetting all about the New Jade.

  Damn.

  The Forest

  ‘FASTER, MYA,’ MR Richard gasped. ‘I can’t stay here long.’

  Mya’s muscles burned with the effort of dragging the injured man. Beside her, Mr. Richard did nothing to help. The altitude had set him gasping for breath from the moment Mya’s meditation had brought them to the forest. In the outer world it was rainy season, but everything was different here. Sometimes when Mya came to the immortal forest she found lush mangroves, sometimes bamboo jungle. Today it was cold and the air was thin. Trees spiked the blue sky, ending in the snowfields of the Himalayas. There were fir needles under her slippered feet.

  The young man’s skin was fever-hot in the cold air. His face was bloody, clothes slathered in mud. Johnny and the boys had already beaten him into a stupor, and then Mr. Richard had injected the night orchid extract into his neck. The night orchid grew in the immortal forest, and Mr. Richard used small amounts of it himself to cross the border between worlds. A big enough dose would send a person into the forest even without a guide—but it was a poison. Without the antidote they could not return to the living world.