The Pallbearers

Chapter 36

There was a bouncer on the door who looked bright enough for the job, but, as it turned out, not quite.

"I'm a Shooto fighter from NHB," I said, pointing to the butterfly bandage and the ugly cut on my forehead.

He nodded and let us inside without even asking for ID. Maybe it was because he couldn't take his eyes off my wife.

"Hi," he said, as she walked past.

"Not yet." Alexa smiled seductively.

Once we were inside it was pretty easy to mingle. The club was large, the theme corny. The Hayloft had a few old, worn saddles on poles sprinkled around as barstools, and there were bales of hay piled up for people to sit on.

There was a crowd of at least seventy-five people, most of them shouting encouragement at two bare-knuckle fighters who were going at it inside an octagon cage that had been set up in the center of the room. It was so loud it was almost impossible to talk.

One of the fighters was a sumo-sized white guy-a big, sloppy, slow-moving, four-hundred pounder with ugly rolls of body fat and Teutonic folds of flesh on the back of his neck. He threw looping punches in slow motion that took forever to land. His opponent was only five foot nine or so and about half the weight. But he was quick.

"What a mismatch," Alexa yelled in niv ear pointing at the two disproportionate combatants.

As we watched, it was clear the smaller man was scoring most of the points. After researching this today I now knew a little about the many different MMA fighting styles. The little guy was what this sport called a striker. He was using his speed to stay away from the giant grappler in the center of the cage, peppering him with brisk punches that landed efficiently on the big sumo's forehead. He'd already opened a nasty cut over his opponent's left eye.

Then the sumo made a sudden, unexpected charge. He grabbed the striker's legs, and both men went down. T he crowd went wild.

"Get him, Fannon!" a tattooed bald guy next to me screamed.

"Which one is Fannon?" I yelled over at him.

"Little guy. Fannon Bradshaw," he yelled back. "Kenpo Karate guy. They call him the Cannon. Fast as shit with heavy hands. He's gonna eat that tub a lard for lunch."

That was pretty much exactly what happened. It only took him three and a half minutes.

Alexa and I found out that this underground match was a no-holds-barred event. The gym in downtown L. A. owned by Team Ultima was obviously named after this fighting style.

It seemed like anything and everything was legal except hitting your opponent with a barstool. No gloves or weight classifications, and the most complete fighter, regardless of size or technique, should win. There were also no rounds, and different fighting styles were pitted against each other.

Alexa and I mingled. We found out from a bartender that Brian Bravo from Team Ultima was coming up shortly. We learned his fight name was "Little Bull" and that he was a middleweight who was the newest member of Team Ultima. The bartender told us this was only Brian's third unsanctioned fight.

Eugene Mesa was seated on a raised platform of tables in the back, surrounded by his peeps. His group had taken over four booths next to the rail.

"There he is," I told Alexa when I spotted him. We watched from a distance while a waitress took the Mesa groups order, then left.

"How re you gonna do this?" I asked. We had found a place near the fire exit where we were more or less out of the mix.

"I'm gonna be his cocktail server." Alexa smiled. Her eyes never left the waitress, who was a dumpy-looking ash blonde in tight short-shorts.

"Give me fifty dollars," Alexa said.

I dug into my pocket and handed her two twenties and a ten, then asked, "What are you up to?"

"Watch."

She waited for the waitress to fill her tray with drinks, then moved up and cut her off before she got ten steps from the end of the bar.

"Hey, is that for that group up in the back?" Alexa pointed at Mesas tables, and the waitress nodded. "Can you do me a favor and let me deliver it? They're friends of mine."

"No way, sis. You'll get me fired," the waitress said.

Alexa put the fifty dollars on her tray.

The woman looked at the cash, had an abrupt change of heart, then handed the tray over. "Knock yourself out, honey."

Alexa took off with the drinks.

I moved in as close as I dared. O'Shea and Calabro knew me, and they were at the crowded tables with Mesa, not too far away from where I stood.

There was a fighter up there who was already stripped down to his fight trunks and was moving around on the platform nearby, ducking his head, bobbing and weaving, shadowboxing by the table, sweating profusely. The guy was way too pumped, overdosing on his own adrenaline. He looked to be about five seven and one fifty, with a ripped, conditioned body. Had to be Brian Bravo.

Alexa moved to the table and began flirting with the group as she served the drinks. The table got very animated as they all started competing for her attention. A couple of men grabbed for her, but she laughed and slipped around them as she handed out the last cocktail. Then they must have asked her to join them. She looked around as if she were trying to spot her boss, shrugged, and sat down.

I moved to a table that had just come empty several booths away and sat with my back to them, facing the octagon, where two ring attendants were wiping the sumo s blood off the mat. By using the antique mirror on the wall next to my table I could keep an eye on the action at Mesas booth behind me.

I was scared to death for Alexa s safety, so I never took my eyes off the glass.

I already knew that there was something decidedly wrong with these characters from NHB. I didn't like seeing her sitting with Eugene Mesa surrounded by street fighters and easy women. But she seemed to be handling it. She was chatting them up, and from what I could see in the mirror, Eugene Mesa was clearly enchanted.

As time wore on, Mesa began getting bolder. He changed seats with Calabro. A few minutes later he tried to put his arm around my wife, who smiled but brushed off this clumsy advance.

I was too far away to hear anything, but Jack Straw had spotted me when he passed by my booth on his way back from the can.

After that, he kept leaving the Mesa crowd and going to the bar, where he turned and faced me from across the room.

I could see him trying to catch my attention. When our eyes met, he would start shaking his head slowly. Once he actually drew his index finger across his throat.

Just before Brian Bravos fight began, I picked up some company at my table. Four dockworkers from San Pedro sat down uninvited. I didn't protest because being in a crowd called less attention to me than sitting alone.

When his fight finally started, Brian "Little Bull" Bravo only lasted four and a half minutes. He was a wrestler who also used tai chi, but according to my tablemates, who were deep into this sport, he was up against a very efficient Muay Thai practitioner who was undefeated and outweighed him by at least eighty pounds.

Brian Bravo didn't have a lot of cage experience and seemed burned out by all that prefight energy he'd wasted showing off at Mesa's table. He walked into a devastating short right and went down. The damage he sustained rendered him unconscious in the next five seconds.

After Brian Bravo was revived, Team Ultima made a mass exit. Alexa was pulled along with them.

I didn't know where they were heading, but I was damned if I was going to lose her in this crowd. I tried to stay close, but as they headed toward the exit, I got blocked.

A fistfight had unexpectedly broken out in the parking lot. People were clustered in the main threshold in front of me, yelling encouragement to the fighters, blocking my exit. Two guys I could barely see through the crowd were trading punches just outside the door. The bouncers swarmed in, trying to break it up.

I pushed a big tattooed ape out of the way and almost got flattened for the effort. But I ducked past him and made it out into the parking lot. By the time I got there one of the combatants, a big tattooed biker, was already down. The other fighter had disappeared.

I looked up and saw that Team Ultima was just pulling out of the lot. Their motorcycles and cars were all rolling. This time as they left, everyone turned in a different direction.

I couldn't tell which vehicle Alexa was in, or if she was on the back of one of the Indian motorcycles. Her car was parked a block away, and I was on foot.

My heart started pounding. I'd totally fucked this up. I'd lost her, which was the one thing I'd promised myself I wouldn't let happen.

I took off running toward her BMW.

I sprinted as fast as I could to the spot where we'd left the car. I didn't know how I would ever find her. I was too far behind. My only idea was to go back to Avalon Terrace and hope she was there. But then what? Go inside alone and throw down on this bunch of animals?

I snatched the hide-a-key from the magnetic box in the rear wheel well, barking my knuckles and tearing skin in my haste. Then I fumbled the key out and into the lock. I yanked the door open and jumped behind the wheel.

As soon as I was inside I saw her sitting there.

She was leaning against the passenger door, still looking smoking hot.

"Where you been?" Alexa said, smiling.