Yeah, it was clear now. Peak had wanted to meet him and let it lead up to something. And Jones had made at least part of that dream possible. He had supplied Richard, lured him like an unsuspecting goat to the slaughter.
Richard began to feel sick. Not only from the tossing of the sea and the smell of the diesel, but from the fact that he had been handily betrayed, and that he had to see such a thing as a man abuse his wife over a fish, over the fact that Peak had caught a lowly barracuda, and his wife, through chance, had hooked a big one.
Richard moved to the side of the boat and threw up. He threw up hard and long. When he was finished, he turned and looked at Peak, who had slid his hand under Margo’s top and was massaging her breast, his head close to her ear, whispering something. Margo no longer looked tan; she was pale and her mouth hung slack and tears ran down her face and dripped from her chin.
Richard turned back to look at the sea and saw a school of some kind of fish he couldn’t identify, leaping out of the water and back in again. He looked at the deck and saw the bloodstained shears Jones had used on the barracuda. As he picked them up, and turned, the line on the rod went out fast again, finishing off the reel. Peak began to curse Margo and tell her what to do. Richard walked quickly over to the rod, reached up with the clippers, and snapped the line in two. The rod popped up, the line snapped away, drifted and looped, then it was jerked beneath the waves with the fish. Margo fell back in the chair and sighed, the harness creaking loosely against her.
Tossing the shears aside, Richard glared at Peak, who glared back. "To hell with you," Richard said.
Two days later Richard moved out of the Hotel on the Quay. Too expensive, and his savings were dwindling. He got a room over a fish market overlooking the dock and the waters of the Caribbean. He had planned to go home by now, back to Tyler, Texas, but somehow the thought of it made him sick.
Here, he seemed outside of the world he had known, and therefore, at least much of the time, outside of the event that had brought him here.
The first night in his little room, he lay fully dressed on the bed and smelled the fish smell that still lingered from the closed-up shop below. Above him, the ceiling fan beat at the hot air as if stirring chunky soup, and he watched the shadows the moonlight made off the blades of the fan, and the shadows whirled across him like some kind of alien, rotating spider.
After a time, he could lie there no more. He rose and began to move up and down the floor beside the bed, doing a Kenpo form, adjusting and varying it to suit the inconvenience of the room’s size, the bed, and the furniture, which consisted of a table and two hardback chairs.
He snapped at the air with his fists and feet, and the fan moved, and the smell of the fish was strong, and through the open window came the noise of drunks along the dock.
His body became coated with sweat, and, pausing only long enough to remove his drenched shirt, he moved into new forms, and finally he lay down on the bed to try and sleep again, and he was almost there, when there was a knock on his door.
He went to the door, said through it: "Who is it?"
"MargoPeak."
Richard opened the door. She stood beneath the hall light, which was low down and close to her head. The bugs circling below the light were like a weird halo for her, a halo of little winged demons. She wore a short summer dress that showed her tan legs to advantage and revealed the tops of her breasts. Her face looked rough. Both eyes were blacked and there was a cut on her upper lip and her cheeks had bruises the color and size of ripe plums.
"May I come in?" she asked.
"Yes." He let her in and turned on the bare bulb that grew out of a tall floor lamp in the corner.
"Could we do without that?" she said. "I don’t feel all that presentable."
"Peak?" he asked, turning off the light.
She sat on the edge of the bed, bounced it once, as if to test the springs. The moonlight came through the window and settled down on her like something heavy. "He hit me some."
Richard leaned against the wall. "Over the fish?"
"That. And you. You embarrassed him in front of me and Captain Jones by cutting the line on the fish. He felt belittled. For a moment he lost power over me. I might have been better off you’d stayed out of it and let me land the fish."
"Sorry. All things considered, you shouldn’t be here. Why are you here?"
"You didn’t work out like he wanted you to."
"I don’t get it."
"He wants to fight you."
"Well, I got that much. I figured that’s why Jones got me on the boat. Peak had plans for a match. He knows about me, I know that much. He knew my last name."
"He admires your skill. He has videos of your fights. It excites him you killed a man in the ring. He wants to fight a man who’s killed a man. He thought he could antagonize you into something."
"A boat’s no place to fight."
"He doesn’t care where he fights. Actually, he wanted to get you mad enough to agree to come to his island. He has a little island not far out. Owns the whole thing."
"He thinks he can take me?"
"He wants to find out... Yes, he thinks he can."
"Tell him I think he can, too. I’ll mail him one of my trophies when I get home."
"He wants it his way."
"He’s out of luck."
"He sent me here. He wanted you to see what he’d done to me. He wanted me to tell you, if you don’t come to the island, he’ll do it again. He told me to tell you that he can be a master of misery. If not to you, then to me."
"That’s your problem. Don’t go back. You go back, you’re a fool."
"He’s got a lot of money."
"I’m not impressed with his money, or you. You’re a fool, Margo."
"It’s all I’ve got, Richard. He’s not nearly as bad as my family was. He at least gives me money, attention. Being an attractive trophy is better than being your father’s plaything, if you know what I mean. Hugo got me off drugs. I’m not turning tricks anymore. He did that."
"Just so he’d have a healthy punching bag. A good-looking trophy. 'Course, he’s not treating you so good right now, is he? Listen, Margo, it’s your life. Turn it around, you don’t like it. Don’t come to me like it’s my fault you’re getting your ass kicked."
"I could leave a man like Peak, I had another man to go to."
"You sound like you’re shopping for cars. You see what kind of money I got. You’d leave Peak for this? You want a dump like this? A shared toilet?"
"You could do better. You’ve got the skill. The name. You’ve got the looks to get into movies. Martial arts guys can make lots of money. Look at Chuck Norris. Christ, you actually killed somebody. The media would eat that up. You’re the real McCoy."
"You know, you and Peak deserve each other. Why don’t you just paint bull’s-eyes on yourself, give Peak spots to go for next time he gets pissed."
"He knows the spots already."
"Sorry, Margo, but good-bye."
He opened the door. Margo stood and studied him. She moved through the doorway and into the hall and turned to face him. Once again the bugs made a halo above her head. "He wants you to come out to his island. He’ll have Captain Jones bring you. Jones is taking me back now, but he’ll be back for you. It’s a short trip where you need to go. Hugo told me to give you this."
She reached into a loose pocket on her dress and brought out a piece of folded paper, shoved it toward him. Richard took it but did not look at it. He said, "I’m not coming."
"You don’t, he’ll take it out on me. He’ll treat me rough. You see my face. You should see my breasts. Between my legs. He did things there. He can do worse. He’s done worse. What have you got to lose? You used to do it for a living. We could do all right together, you and me."
"We don’t even know each other."
"We could fix that. We could start knowing one another now. We knew each other, you might not want to let me go."
She moved toward him and
her arms went around his neck. He reached out and held her waist. She felt solid, small, and warm.
Richard said, "I’ve said it. I say it again. You can leave anytime you like."
"He’d have me followed to the ends of the earth."
"I’d rather run like a dog, than heel like one."
"You just don’t know," she said, pushing away from him. "You don’t know anything."
"I know you’re still turning tricks, and Peak’s a kind of pimp, and you’re not even aware of it."
"You don’t know a goddamn thing."
"All right. Good luck."
Margo didn’t move. She held her place with the bugs swarming above her head. Richard stepped inside his room, and closed the door.
Richard lay on the bed with the note in his hand. He lay that way for a full fifteen minutes. Finally, he rolled on his side and unfolded the note and read it in the moonlight.
MR. YOUNG:
COME TO THE DOCK AND TAKE JONES’ BOAT BY MIDNIGHT. HE’LL BRING YOU OUT TO MY ISLAND. WE’LL FIGHT. NO RULES. WE FIGHT, IT’S BEST FOR
MARGO. YOU WIN, I’LL GIVE YOU TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS. I’LL GIVE YOU MARGO. I’LL GIVE YOU A RESTAURANT COUPON FOR FIVE DOLLARS OFF. YOU
DONT COME, MARGO WILL BE UNHAPPY. I’LL BE UNHAPPY AND THE COUPON WILL EXPIRE. AND YOU’LL NEVER KNOW IF YOU COULD HAVE BEAT ME.
HUGOPEAK
Richard dropped the note on the floor, rolled onto his back. It’s that simple for Peak, Richard thought. He says come, and he thinks I’ll come. He’s nuts. Margo’s nuts. She thinks I owe her something and I don’t even know her. I don’t want to know her. She’s a gold digger. It’s not my problem she hasn’t the strength to do what she should do. It’s not my fault he’ll kick her head in. She's a grown woman and she has to make her own decisions. I’m no hero. I’m not a knight on a white charger. I killed a man once by accident, by not staying with the rules, and I’ll not fight another man without rules on purpose. The goddamn sonofabitch must think he’s a James Bond villain. I won’t have anything to do with him. I will never fight a man for sport again.
Richard lay in the dark and watched the fan. The shadows the fan cast were growing thicker. Soon there would be no shadows at all, only darkness, because the moonlight was fading behind clouds. A cool, wet wind came through the open window. The smell of the fish market below was not as strong now because the smell of the sea and the damp earth had replaced it. Richard held his arm up so that he could see his watch. The luminous dial told him it was just before ten o’clock. He closed his eyes and slept.
When he awoke, rain was blowing in through the window and onto the bed. The rain felt good. He didn’t get up to shut the window. He thought about HugoPeak, waiting. He looked at his watch. It was 11:35.
Peak would be starting to warm up now. Anticipating. Actually thinking he might come. Peak would believe that because he would consider Richard weak. He would think he was weak in that he wanted to protect a woman who had no urge to protect herself. He would think Richard’s snipping the fishing line was a sign of weakness. He wouldn’t think Richard had done it to make things easier on Margo. He would think he did it as some sort of spiteful attack, and that Richard really wanted to fight him. That was what Peak would be thinking.
And Richard knew, deep down, Peak was not entirely wrong.
He thought: If I were to go, I could make it to the boat in ten minutes. It’s not that far. I could be there in ten minutes easy, I walked fast. But I’m not going, so it doesn’t matter.
He sat on the side of the bed and let the rain slice into him. He got up and went around the bed and opened the closet and got out his martial arts bag. He unzipped and opened it. The mouthpiece and safety gear were there. He zipped it back up. He put it in the closet and closed the door. He sat on the side of the bed. He picked the note up and read it again. He tore it into little pieces and dropped the pieces on the floor, frightening a roach. He tried not to think about anything, but he thought about Margo. The way her face had looked, what she said Peak had done to her breasts, between her legs. He remembered the eyes of that dying cat, and he remembered Margo’s eyes. The same eyes, only she wasn’t dying as fast. She was going slowly, piece by piece, committing suicide. He remembered the horror of killing the man in the ring, and he remembered, in some hidden, primitive compartment of himself, the pleasure. It was a scary thing inside of him; inside of humankind, especially mankind, this thing about killing. This need. This desire. Maybe, he got home, he’d go deer hunting this year. He hadn’t been in over ten years, but he might go now. He might ought to go.
Richard got up and took off his clothes and rubbed his body down with ICY-HOT and took six aspirin and downed them with a glass of water. He put on a jockstrap and cup and loose workout pants and pulled a heavy sweatshirt on. He put on his white tennis shoes without socks and laced them tight. He got his bag out of the closet. He walked to the door and turned around and looked at the room. It looked as if no one had ever lived here. He looked at his watch. He had exactly ten minutes. He opened the door and went out.
As he walked, the ICY-HOT began to heat up and work its way into his muscles. The smell of it was strong in his nostrils. Another fifteen minutes, and the aspirin would take effect, loosen his body further. The rain came down hard as steel pellets and washed his hair into his face, but he kept walking, and finally he began to run.
He ran fast until he came to the Anchor Inn Restaurant. He slowed there and went around the corner, and there was Jones’ fishing boat. He looked at his watch. He was right on time. He walked up to the fishing boat and called out.
Jones appeared on the deck in rain hat and slicker. Water ran off the hat and fell across his face like a beaded curtain. He helped Richard aboard. Jones said, "It’s just that I needed the money. I owe on the boat. I don’t pay on the boat, they’re gonna take it away from me."
"Everyone needs something," Richard said. "Take me out, Jones, and listen up. After this, you better hope I go home to Texas. I’m here, walking around, I see you on the dock, anywhere, you better start running. Got me?"
Jones nodded.
"Take me out."
The wind picked up and so did the rain. Richard’s stomach began to turn over. He tried to stay in the cabin, but he found that worse. He rushed outside and puked over the side. Finally, he strapped himself into the fighting chair and rode the boat like a carnival ride, taking great waves of water full blast and watching lightning stitch the sky and dip down and touch the ocean in spots, as if God were punishing it.
It wasn’t long before the lights of the boat showed land. Jones moved them in slowly to the little island, finally came to a dock and tied them up. When Richard went to get his bag out of the cabin, Jones came down from the wheel and said, "Here, take this. You’ll need it for strength, all that pukin’ you done."
It was a thick strip of jerky. "No thanks," Richard said.
"You don’t like me, and I don’t blame you. Take the jerky though. You got to have some kind of energy."
"All right," Richard said, took it and ate. Jones gave him a drink of water in a paper cup. When Richard was finished, he said, "Water and jerky don’t change anything."
"I know," Jones said. "I’m going back to St. Croix before it gets worse. I’d rather be docked there. I think it’s a little better protected for boats."
"And how do I get back?"
"Good luck," Jones said.
"So that’s how it is? You’re all through?"
"Soon as you get off the boat." Jones stepped back a step and produced a little .38 from somewhere under his shirt. "It’s nothing personal. It’s just the money. Margo was pretty convincing too. Peak likes her to be convincing. But it was the money did it. Margo was just a fringe benefit. The money was enough."
"He really wants to fight to the death, doesn’t he?"
"I don’t ask about much of what he wants. You got to see it from my side, taking big shots out in boats all the time, getting by on their tips. It costs to
take out a charter, wear and tear on the boat. I’m thinking about doing something else, going somewhere else. I might hire some goon like me to take me out fishing. I might go somewhere where the biggest pool of water around is in a glass."
"You’re that easy for money?"
"You bet. And remember, I didn’t make you come. Get off."
Richard went out of the cabin and climbed down to the dock. When he looked up through the driving rain, he could see Jones looking down at him from the boat, the .38 pointed at him.
"You go up the dock there, toward the flagstones. Follow those. They lead around a curve through the rocks and trees. Where you need to go is back there. You’ll see it. Now, go on so I can cast off. And good luck. I mean it."
"Yeah, I know. Nothing personal. Well, you know what you can do with your luck." Richard turned and started up the dock.
The directions led him up through a cut in the rocks and around a curve, and there, built into the side of the mountain, was a huge house of great weathered lumber, glass, and stone. The house seemed like part of the island itself. Richard figured, you were inside, standing at one of the great windows, on a good day, you could look out and clearly see fish swimming deep in the clear Caribbean waters, see them some distance off.
He followed the trail, tried to get his mind on what it was he was going to do. He tried to think about Thai boxers and how they fought. He was sure this was how Peak had trained. Peak’s shins were a giveaway, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t done other things. He might like grappling too, ground work. He had to think about all this, but mostly, he had to think about the Thai boxing. Thai boxers were not fancy kickers like Karataka, or Kung Fu people, but they were devastating because of the way they trained. The way they trained was more important than what they knew. They trained hard, for endurance. They trained themselves to take and accept and fuel themselves off pain. They honed their main weapons, their shins, until the best of them could kick through the thick end of a baseball bat. He had to think about that. He had to think that Peak would be in good condition, and that, unlike himself, he hadn’t taken off a few years from rigorous training. Oh, he wasn’t all washed-up. He practiced the moves and did exercises and his stomach was flat and his reflexes were good, but he hadn’t sparred against anyone since that time he had killed a man in the ring. He had to think about all that. He had to not let the bad part of what he was thinking get him down, but he had to know what was bad about himself and what was good. He had to think of some strategy to deal with Peak before Peak threw a punch or kick. He had to think about the fact that Peak might want to kill him. He had to not think too hard about what kind of fool he’d been for coming here. He had to not think about how predictable he had been to Peak. He had to hope that he was not predictable when they fought. He had to realize that he could kill a man if he wanted to, if the opening was there. He’d already done it once, not meaning to. Now he had to mean to.