A Week Later, Jack woke up at four in the morning.
Wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Visions of Tony Katt and piranha and suckling pigs dancing in his head.
He decided. What the hell, I’ll go for a run.
Many moons had passed since he’d done that. These days he never ran unless someone was chasing him.
But in the old days he could really run. Man, he loved the bum. Notch four or five miles and he was floating in the rhythm. He always did his running early in the morning, before the rest of the world was awake. The light-heavyweight champion of the world, putting in the time.
Jack pulled on some old jeans and a sweatshirt, filled Frankenstein’s bowl with dog food, and headed for the golf course. The one by Tony Katt’s mansion.
He checked in with the guard at the gate. A fighter running on a golf course in the predawn hours was not an unusual thing. In Vegas, the boxing capital of the world, it happened all the time.
The guard wasn’t about to turn away Jack the Giant Killer. Besides, he wanted to know if there was anything new with Tony Katt.
“Still missing,” Jack said.
“I guess you scared him but good,” the guard said.
“Yeah.”
The guard flashed Jack the old thumbs up. “I know you’ll beat him in the ring. I’m lookin’ at the next heavyweight champ. I’ll bet green money on that.”
Jack only grinned at that last part. He parked the Celica and started across the green. It wasn’t even five a.m. Not a soul in sight.
The air was still a little crisp, but Jack could tell that it was going to be a hot one. He threw punches in the air as he ran, short hooks and uppercuts that bunched his shoulders. His breathing hit a ragged rhythm, but he loved it. His lungs hadn’t felt this kind of burn in a long, long time.
The grass was wet, and soon Jack’s shoes were soaked through. He headed toward a little grove of fruit trees about a mile distant.
He picked a couple of oranges and ate them in silence. The sugar hit his empty belly and it was heaven. The black sky smeared gray as he ate, and then the dawn came on.
Jack grabbed another orange for the road. He ran another mile, and suddenly he felt like walking.
He passed the Skull Island corporate mansion where he had danced his dance with Tony Katt. Porschia Keyes was recuperating there after her accident. At least that’s what Jack had heard. Skull Island management was being especially nice to Porschia. They didn’t want to get sued.
So Porschia was sitting pretty. But Tony Katt would never walk through those mansion doors again.
And Jack would never meet the heavyweight champion in the ring.
He would never get up at four in the morning and run because he was set to face Tony Katt in a month, or three weeks, or six days. .
He would never sit under a tree and eat an orange while he planned the traps he’d set for Katt with his quick jab. . how he’d stick and move, bip bip bip, in and out. .
And he would never buckle that heavyweight championship belt around his waist.
Jack peeled the orange as he walked toward the parking lot. There was no sense thinking about any of it. Just lately, it didn’t seem that thinking had gotten him anywhere, anyway.
Because every time he needed to think things through, there wasn’t enough time for it.
When Angel Gemignani opened that door, and Tony Katt grabbed her, Jack chose his path in less than a finger snap.
He didn’t think about money, or the heavyweight championship of the world, or his place in the universe. He didn’t spare a second questioning the fate of his immortal soul. He didn’t wonder if killing another human being was immoral. He didn’t ask himself if a slime like Tony Katt even was a human being.
No. When Tony Katt grabbed Angel Gemignani, Jack shot the motherfucker in the head.
He didn’t need to think about it. He only needed to react. He only needed to draw on something that was hard-wired into his soul a long time ago.
Jack trusted that thing, whatever it was. He really did.
He finished the orange and tossed the peel into a garbage can. The morning was coming on fast, orange sherbet riding the flip side of indigo blue.
Jack felt good. He didn’t know why. But he went with it.
He wasn’t the heavyweight champion of the world. Hell, he wasn’t even the light-heavyweight champion of the world. He was just a guy named Baddalach who occasionally baby-sat consumptive Chihuahuas.
Shaking his head. Jack unclipped the cellular phone from his belt and tossed it into the Celica. Man, was he a case.
Maybe that phone would never ring.
But Kate Benteen was out there somewhere. At least he hoped that she was. He still had her picture on his desk. Maybe she thought about him once in a while. Maybe one day she would stop thinking and just go with it and dial his number.
Maybe, one of these days. Jack’s phone would ring.
If that ever happened, he knew exactly how he’d react.
Exactly.