The Pallbearers

Chapter 37

"I thought I'd lost you" I blurted, my heart still pounding. I was sweating from my panic.

"Jack saved me," she said. "He saw me getting pulled out of there and started a fistfight with some Hell's Angel in the front entrance. I slipped away in the commotion."

"God bless Jack," I said softly.

"I don't know about you," she said, "but that guy's kinda beginning to grow on me."

"No kidding."

I started the car, and we pulled away from the curb, heading home. As I drove, I felt a blanket of heaviness start to come over me. My body was starting to crash. I'd only had four hours sleep in two days. The sudden adrenaline burn and days of sleep deprivation were now bringing 011 a case of fatigue. My mind was beginning to waiver.

"Wanta hear what I found out?" Alexa said.

"Go." I struggled to regroup.

"Eugene Mesa's hobby is MMA and he owns Team Ultima. He collects these guys like fighting pit bulls. Holds their contracts, manages them, controls that Delaware corp that owns the NHB Gym.

"They're all kissing his ass because he can snap his fingers and make their fight careers overnight. Turns out in his spare time he's becoming one of the best-known promoters in the sport and has the contacts to book them into big-money MMA events on TV.

"Rick O'Shea and Chris Calabro have each had fights on Spike TV with six-figure purses. TV fights are the brass ring. Everybody at Team Ultima is trying to be like those two.

"Tonight was a tune-up for Brian Bravo. He needed to win to impress the big man, but he lost. He doesn't know it yet, but while he was unconscious on the mat, Mesa decided Brian's gonna get cut."

"Why do they all live in the same house?"

"Nobody, except O'Shea and Calabro, has any real money yet, and that's only been in the last few months when they started fighting on TV. Mesa keeps all of his fighters financially solvent so they can train all day and not have to work. He gives them a monthly stipend to live on. That house on Avalon Terrace is a place where they can live for free. They call it Fight House.

"If Mesa likes you and if you kick ass like O'Shea and Calabro, he'll loan you one of his classic Indian motorcycles to ride. It's his thing. Took me a while to get the significance, but it finally dawned. Indians live up on mesas, get it?"

"You mean he doesn't love the bikes as much as he loves the name of the bikes?"

"Near as I can figure that's more or less it," she said.

I was wishing I'd let Alexa drive because as interesting as this all seemed, I was now really fighting to stay awake.

"Anything else?" I asked.

"Yeah. He likes me."

"It always was a long line," I said. "Even when I was in it."

She smiled. "He gave me his card and invited me to a party lies throwing on Sunday." She paused, then added, "One other thing. I found out they have a big competition coming up. Another fight club called Team Spartacus has challenged them to a match.

"Mesa told me the way a team match works, both clubs put up a purse. In this case, ten grand apiece. They pair off and have seven bouts. One point for each match, the team with the best total score wins all the money. The cash goes to help support the fighters and the gym.

"This challenge match is somewhere out of town. They're very jacked about it. Excluding Mesa, if you take all twenty IQs in that crowd and add them up, you don't have a four-digit number."

I finally made it home, parked the car in the drive, and we went inside. I was totally bushed, but I took Alexa into my arms.

"You are a very beautiful and sexy woman," I said. "You had me scared to death, but you got more in one hour than I would have in a week."

Fear must be an aphrodisiac because as wiped out as I was, as I watched her undress, she was turning me on. Once the lights were out and we were under the covers, I reached for her.

"I thought you were sleep deprived," she teased.

"I can do this in my sleep."

I held her close as I entered her. Tired as I was, I was overcome with a powerful lust. We made love for a wonderful twenty minutes.

It was over as suddenly as it started, and then without warning, the bottom dropped out.

I slept until almost one o'clock the next afternoon.