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.“He’s fucked.”I turned to the kids on the bench.The one who’d spoken looked a little older than his friend.He was Latino or maybe Native American with cornrowed hair and bad skin.His friend was a sunburned towhead with a goofy swooped-over-to-one-side hairstyle and submissive, beta-dog body language.“Excuse me?” I took a step closer to them.“Cody,” the older kid said.“He’s fucked.”“Why do you say that?” I asked.“Come on, man,” the towhead said out of the corner of his mouth, eyeing me like I might bite.“She could be a cop.”“Yeah, right,” the older kid replied with a snort of lofty teenage derision.“She ain’t no cop.”“How do you know?”“Cause I know, puto.” He punched the towhead in the arm.“You ain’t,” he said to me.“Right?”“Right,” I replied.“I’m just a friend.”The older kid stood.“Okay, follow me,” he said.“But take your shoes off.”I took my shoes off, put them on the rack and followed the two kids into a small weight room off to one side of the large blue mats that took up the majority of the long open space.Hank was still busy showing little kids how to break each other’s bones.There was a large clock on the back wall that read 9:45.“What time does that class end?” I asked.“Ten,” the older kid said.“Why?”“I need to talk to Hank.It’s important.”The kid nodded and then led me over to a row of lockers on the far side of the weight room.I noticed a black vinyl man-shaped dummy leaning drunkenly against the wall by the weight rack.Someone had slipped a pair of pink lace panties over its stiff cylindrical legs.Its smooth blank face seemed to be watching us.“So.Mr.Lovell, he sets up these fights down in San Luis, on the other side of the border.Guys who fight down there, like Cody, well, Mr.Lovell has them bring stuff home with them.Bodybuilding supplements that you can’t get in the States.”“Supplements?” I said.“You mean like steroids?”“I don’t mean vitamins,” he said.The towheaded kid was looking increasingly uncomfortable about the topic of conversation.He slowly drifted away and started hitting the heavy bag with his bare knuckles.“Does Cody use steroids?” I asked, not sure why I even cared, but hoping the answer would be no.The kid shook his head.“Nah,” he said.“He’s all obsessed on the AAFC.They test.”“Okay, so then what kind of trouble is he in?” I asked.“What does this have to do with steroids?”“Well, they pack the shit into jars of protein powder and you supposed to leave the jars in your locker after you get across the border.Mr.Lovell sends his guys to pick ’em up the next morning and leaves an envelope of cash.Only when they went to pick up Cody’s shipment, it was light.”“I thought you said he doesn’t use steroids,” I said, frowning and looking over at the battered wall of lockers.“He don’t,” the kid said, rolling his eyes like I was the dumbest bitch he’d ever met.“But he uses money.”Jesus.The motorcycle.The expensive clothes.The money he owed.But why steal from Lovell to pay him back? Unless Cody was never planning on paying Lovell back at all.Maybe he assumed he would be safe once he got on TV.No way to find out now.Maybe not ever, if Lovell decided it would be best just to bury Cody out in the desert.Maybe he already had and none of this mattered.I looked up at the clock.It was ten.The kids’ class had wrapped and Hank was standing alone at the corner of the mat, squinting and lost in thought.I thanked the cornrowed kid for the info and walked over to Hank.When he heard my bare footsteps on the mat, he looked up and flashed that broad, boyish grin.He didn’t seem even remotely surprised to see me.“We need to talk,” I said.The smile faltered slightly.“Well, okay,” he said.“Not here.” I looked around.Students in their teens and early twenties were crowding in while harried parents corralled the younger kids and herded them out the front door.“Somewhere private.”“All right,” he said, taking my arm and leading me into a small office behind the weight room.“But you’d better make it quick.I got another class coming in.”This office was also decorated with framed photos and trophies, but these celebrated the illustrious fight career of one Hank “The Hammer” Hammond.I was anxious and distracted but I couldn’t help noticing that the most recent item was dated 2002.“Lovell’s got Cody,” I said as soon as the door was shut behind us.“God.” he started, but swallowed the curse before it was out.“.bless America.” He passed his hand over his eyes.“What happened?”I explained everything I’d seen and added what the cornrowed kid had told me.“Lovell ain’t gonna kill him,” Hank said.“Not yet anyway.”“What makes you so sure?” I asked.“Because he wants his money’s worth.If Cody’s dead he can’t fight, and if he can’t fight, he can’t throw it and make back what Lovell lost on him last week.”I nodded, tried to focus, to come up with some brilliant plan that would save Cody’s life, but my eye kept on going back to a large photo of a not exactly handsome, but younger, less battered Hank with his gloved fists up, wearing tiny black shorts and nothing else.I was all out of brilliant.“So what do we do?” I asked.“Well,” he said, then paused, frowning.“What did you say your name was again?”I looked into his pale eyes to see if he was joking.He wasn’t [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]