Chapter 20
WAVES
Marni’s waiting for me when I turn up at Callahan’s three days later, her blonde hair in a neat updo, a plunging red top revealing all her assets.
She knows how to rock what she’s got. Rig’s words about wanting more have been rattling around in my head ever since he turned up and made me another bacon sandwich. She taps a long talon on the tabletop.
“Hon, I’ve got news.”
This is the only night I’ve got off this week, and I haven’t been sleeping much, so I’m not sure I’m up for Marni and her enthusiasms tonight.
I grunt at myself: I’ve paid Luis one month’s rent now, but the thought of how far I still have to go with the debt and the card payments is making my body droop.
“He’s fighting up in Chicago! We have to go!”
“Who’s fighting up in Chicago?” Although I’ve got an idea from the way her eyes are shining at me.
“Rig!” She squeaks the word.
Oh my God. He’s been avoiding that forever. When did he agree to this? And why didn’t he tell me?
“Are you still providing services to Angelo? Is that where this came from?”
“Gah! Don’t give me that. Angelo and I have an understanding.” She slaps my arm. “You have to go!”
One of these days, a whole pile of shit is going to land on Marni, and I’m going to be the one who has to dig her out from under it. She’s probably going to be stabbed by an irate mafia wife.
“It’s a huge pot, or so I’m told,” she says.
“Marco’s beside himself, strutting around like a peacock.
Angelo’s very nervous. He told me he doesn’t trust the organizers in Chicago as far as he can throw them.
He thinks there’s mafia involvement.” She waves her hand.
“I mean we talk about Marco being mafia, but he’s not the real mafia. ”
She’s probably right. We’d have a lot more extortion and murder in this town if he was. Who’s got time for that in a small backwater like this?
“Tell me you’ll come with me,” she adds.
“You’re going?”
She shifts forward, voice dropping to a whisper. “Women never go to the fights in Chicago, hon, but Angelo says he’ll get me in.” Her eyes are still shining. “Just imagine!” She squeaks again.
Wow, Angelo must really like her.
“I get no time off, you know that,” I grumble. Christ, this is going to be awful. I barely survived last time, and neither did Rig.
Marni leans farther over the table, her voice dropping to a whisper. “It’s Rig, hon! You’ve got to go. Word got around about his fight with the Bear, that he had him beaten until the end. It’s Rig these guys want. They want him on the circuit up there. Marco’s got him a lot of money.”
My stomach churns. “And he said yes? Crazy lunatic. He said he didn’t want to get on the mafia’s radar.”
I’m not sure I could bear watching a confrontation like the last one. He said those Chicago fights were brutal, and he wouldn’t do them. Why the hell has he agreed to it now?
A half hour later, Marni heads off for some “rendezvous” she won’t tell me about—I suspect with Angelo—but given that she’s also seeing some guy who works for the county and sleeping with her boss, I don’t push too hard for more information.
And Rig’s appeared at the bar, broad shoulders filling out a long-sleeved T-shirt that’s rolled up to his elbows.
So I stand up and head over to him, but before I can say anything, he wraps an iron hand around my elbow and steers me to a quiet table in the corner, sliding in opposite.
“What’s this about fighting in Chicago?” I say.
He growls. “Marni’s got a big mouth. Saw her talking to you looking like the cat that’d got the cream. How’d she find out? I only fuckin’ agreed to it yesterday.” He runs a distracted hand through his unruly mop of curls.
Do I tell him? What if I give away that she and Angelo are …
“Angelo,” he says, out of the blue. “Goddamn, that man needs to keep his dick in his pants.”
I roll my lips together. “To be fair, I suspect Marni’s got some wicked blowjob skills.”
He groans. “I don’t need that kind of information about your friend, babe. But be warned, Angelo’s wife’s a lunatic, just like him. She’ll come after Marni with a machete if she finds out.”
His hand shoots out and wraps around my neck as he leans over the table.
“No one knows about this. No one. You hear me? Tell Marni, too. It’s dangerous enough without a load of townspeople getting all excited and coming up to Chicago and into an unsafe situation … distracting me from what I need to do.”
“An unsafe situation? And what do you need to do?”
“Not get myself killed.”
“Killed?” I squeak.
“These guys are crazy vicious, I told you. You saw the mess I was in after I fought the Bear. I could hardly walk, and the fighters up there are as bad as him, maybe worse. I’ve gotta go up, check out a few fights, work out how to fuckin’ survive it.”
“Jesus, Rig. Why did you agree to do it?”
He sighs as he stares over my shoulder, his jaw moving like he’s grinding his molars.
“I need to get out of here. Straighten the farm out and buy the place I want. Get my dream. I’ve been coasting along, and life is ticking away. It’s a lot of money. Too attractive to turn down. Ten times what I’ve fought for before. Even if I lose, it’s big money.”
He said the pot for the last fight was three thousand, so now it’s thirty thousand?
Holy shit.
He blows out a long breath. “This is the big leagues.”
Terrifying is what it is. And he’s right: I did see how bad his body was last time. I smooth a shaky hand down my leg. But he’s leaving? He gave me his rough version of starlight and flowers and now he’s going?
“How come they’re paying you so much?” I say, pushing past the sudden ache in my chest.
“Word’s got around about my fight with the Bear, how close it was.
The Bear is well respected in Chicago. There are a lot of people with a load of money in that city who like to bet big.
It’s all rivalry. They’re not happy the other side has got the Bear fighting for ’em.
They want someone on their side. Marco’s done a deal with them. ”
“When’s it happening?”
“Two weeks.” His eyes rove over my face. “Will you come?”
“You want me to come?”
He sticks his tongue in his cheek, and my face flames. He leans over the table. “You know how I feel about you coming, babe,” he grunts as his mouth twists.
Fuck. I don’t need to be thinking about his huge hands and his big … “I thought I distracted you in the last fight. You don’t want me there.”
“I want you there,” he growls. “I want to know you’re watching. I want to be fighting for you.”
My mouth drops open.
He scowls at me as his eyes narrow. “Wanna get you out of here, too. I’m doing this for you.”