Джон Гришэм - Rogue Lawyer

When the insomnia hits and my walls are closing in, I can often be found at The Rack at two in the morning playing nine ball alone, in another world and quite happy.

Not tonight, though. I glide into the apartment, floating on the whiskey, and quickly change into my fight clothes—jeans, a black T-shirt, and a bright, shiny yellow jacket that snaps at the waist, practically glows in the dark, and screams “Tadeo Zapate” across the back. I pull my slightly graying hair into a tight ponytail and stuff it under the T-shirt. I change glasses and select a pair rimmed in light blue. I adjust my cap—also a bright yellow that matches the jacket, with the name Zapate across the front. I feel sufficiently disguised and the evening should go well. Where I’m going the crowd is not interested in misfit lawyers. There will be a lot of thugs there, a lot of folks with legal troubles past, present, and future, but they’ll never notice me.

It’s another sad fact of my life that I often leave the apartment after dark with some sort of disguise—different cap, glasses, hidden hair, even a fedora.

Partner drives me to the old city auditorium, eight blocks from my apartment, and drops me off in an alley near the building. A crowd is swarming out front. Loud rap booms across the front plaza. Spotlights sweep maniacally from building to building. Bright digital signs advertise the main event and the undercard.

Tadeo fights fourth, the last warm-up before the main event, which tonight is a heavyweight contest that is selling tickets because the favorite is a crazy ex-NFL player who’s well known in the area. I own 25 percent of Tadeo’s career, an investment that cost me $30,000 a year ago, and he hasn’t lost since. I’m also betting on the side and doing quite well. If he wins tonight, his cut will be $6,000. Half of that if he loses.

In a hallway, somewhere deep under the arena, I hear two security guards talking. One is claiming the evening is a sellout. Five thousand fans. I flash my credentials and get waved through another door, then another. I enter the dark locker room and the tension hits like a brick. Tonight we’re assigned to one half of a long room. Tadeo is moving up in the world of mixed martial arts, and we’re all beginning to sense something big. He’s lying on a table, on his stomach, naked except for his boxers, not an ounce of fat on his 130-pound body. His cousin Leo is massaging his shoulder blades. The lotion makes his light brown skin glisten. I ease around the room and speak to Norberto, his manager, Oscar, his trainer, and Miguel, his brother and workout partner. They smile when they speak to me because I, the lone gringo, am viewed as the man with the money. I’m also the agent, the guy with the connections and brains who’ll get Tadeo on a UFC card if he keeps winning. There are a couple of other relatives in the background, hangers-on who have no discernible role in Tadeo’s life. I don’t like these extras because they expect to be paid at some point, but after seven wins in a row Tadeo thinks he needs the entourage. They all do.

With the exception of Oscar, they’re all members of the same street gang, a mid-level organization of El Salvadorans who run cocaine. Tadeo has been one of the gang since he was initiated at the age of fifteen but has never aspired to a leadership position. Instead, he found some old boxing gloves, discovered a gym, and then discovered he had freakishly quick hands. His brother Miguel also boxed, but not as well. Miguel runs the gang and has a nasty reputation on the street.

The more Tadeo wins the more he earns, and the more I worry about dealing with his gang.

I lean down and speak softly to him. “How’s my man?”

He opens his eyes, looks up, suddenly smiles, and pulls out the earphones. The massage ends abruptly as he sits on the edge of the table. We chat for a few moments and he assures me he’s ready to kill someone. Attaboy. His prefight ritual includes avoiding a good shave for a week, and with his scraggly beard and mop of black hair he sort of reminds me of the great Roberto Duran. But Tadeo’s roots are in El Salvador, not Panama. He’s twenty-two, a U.S. citizen, and his English is almost as good as his Spanish. His mother has documents and works in a cafeteria. She also has an apartment full of kids and relatives and I get the impression that whatever Tadeo earns gets divided many ways.

Every time I talk to Tadeo I’m thankful I’m not forced to face him in the ring. He has fierce black pupils that scream angrily, “Show me the mayhem. Show me the blood.” He grew up on the streets, fighting anyone who got too close. An older brother died in a knife fight, and Tadeo is afraid he’ll die too. When he steps into the ring, he’s convinced someone is about to be killed, and it won’t be him. His three losses were on points; nobody’s kicked his ass yet. He trains four hours a day and he’s close to mastering jujitsu.

His voice is low, his words slow, the usual prefight jitters where fear clouds all thoughts and your stomach churns. I know. I’ve been there. A long time ago, I had five Golden Gloves boxing matches. I was 1–4 until my mother found out about my secret career and mercifully brought it to an end. But I did it. I had the guts to step into the ring and get the shit knocked out of me.

However, I cannot imagine the guts it takes to crawl into the cage with another fighter who’s superbly conditioned, highly skilled, well trained, hungry, nasty, and terrified and whose only thoughts are how to rip your shoulder out of its socket, mangle your knees, open a gash, or land a knockout punch on the jaw. That’s why I love this sport. It takes more courage, more in-your-face raw guts, than any sport since the gladiators battled to the death. Sure, many others are dangerous—downhill skiing, football, hockey, boxing, car racing. More people die on horses each year than in any other sport. But in those you don’t willingly enter the game knowing you will get hurt. When you walk into the cage, you will get hurt, and it could be ugly, painful, even deadly. The next round could well be your last.

That’s why the countdown is so brutal. The minutes drag by as the fighter fights his nerves, his bowels, his fears. The waiting is the worst part. I leave after a few minutes so Tadeo can go back into his zone. He told me once that he’s able to visualize the fight and he sees his opponent on the mat, bleeding and screaming for mercy.

I weave through the maze of corridors in the depths of the arena, and I can hear the crowd roaring in echoes, thirsting for blood. I find the right door and step inside. It’s a small administrative office that’s been hijacked by my own little street gang. We meet before the fights and place our wagers. There are six of us, and membership is closed because we don’t want any leaks. Some use their real names, others do not. Slide dresses like a street pimp and has served time for murder. Nino is a mid-level meth importer who served time for trafficking. Johnny has no criminal record (yet) and owns half of the fighter Tadeo will face tonight. Denardo drops hints of Mafia ties, but I doubt his criminal activity is that well organized. He aspires to promote MMA events and longs to live in Vegas. Frankie is the old guy, a local fixture in the fight scene for decades. He admits he’s been seduced by the violence of cage fighting and now is bored with old-fashioned boxing.

So these are my boys. I wouldn’t trust any of these clowns in a legitimate business deal, but then we’re not doing anything legitimate. We go down the card and start the betting. I know Tadeo is going to kill Johnny’s fighter, and evidently Johnny is worried. I offer $5,000 on Tadeo, and no one will take it. Three thousand, and no takers. I chide them, cuss them, ridicule them, but they know Tadeo is on a roll. Johnny has to wager something, and I finally haggle him into a $4,000 bet that his fighter won’t make it to the third round. Denardo decides he wants some of this, for another $4,000. We cover the card with all manner of wagers, and Frankie, the scribe, records it all. I leave the room with $12,000 in play, on four different fights. We’ll meet in the same room later when the fights are over and settle up, all in cash.