Southern Gothic Read online

  “Max, wake up,” Drummond said, snapping his fingers before Max’s face. “You’ll miss an entire fight at this rate. Now, get down there and make your bet.”

  “Maybe it’ll be better to watch this time.”

  With a sigh that sounded more like a haunted moan, Drummond said, “I understand you’re nervous, but you’re going to win. So, relax. Besides, nobody comes here just to watch. If you don’t bet, people are going to get suspicious, and you’ve already got enough unwanted attention being here. You don’t exactly fit in.”

  “I noticed.”

  “Then get moving.”

  Grumbling that he didn’t even understand this sport, Max walked over to a crowded table where men shouted out names and numbers. He nudged his way into the line and when he reached one of the house bookies, the man at the table spit out words rapid fire. It took Max a second to realize the man spoke in Spanish.

  “I want to make a bet,” Max said.

  The man smiled and shook his head. “No problem, man. Who you want and how much?”

  Max glanced at the betting form, but he already knew the names on the list. “Gonzalez for two hundred.” He half-expected the bookie to throw out a Jeopardy-like answer waiting for the winning question.

  “What round?”

  “Huh?”

  As if talking to an idiot, and Max couldn’t blame him for that, the man said, “You can bet on the round Gonzalez wins or you can bet on a TKO or on a decision at the end.”

  “Can’t I just pick the winner?”

  “Yeah,” the man said with a bit of disappointment.

  When Max got back to his seat, he told Drummond what had happened. Drummond nodded. “Place like this, the payout doubles if you pick the winning round, but if you’re wrong, you lose the whole thing. Since the fight is fixed, they already know you’re gonna win, so by not picking the round, you guaranteed they’ll be losing some money to you tonight.”

  “You couldn’t have told me that before I went to make the bet?”

  “I thought you knew this kind of thing.”

  “What kind of thing? I’ve never been to a boxing match before.” Two men further along the bench glanced at Max before shifted away from him. In a lower voice, he added, “All I know is that two guys get in the ring and beat each other to a pulp.”

  “It’s a lot more than that.”

  A portly man in a tuxedo stepped into the ring. “Gentleman,” he bellowed, and for the first time, Max noticed that the audience was entirely male. As the man spoke, the first fighter entered wearing a white robe. Two men — his trainer and another — entered with him. “For the next bout, in the right corner, weighing in at 187 pounds with a record of five knockouts, ten wins, and two losses, Hershel Jackson.”

  The audience cheered and Jackson walked around the ring with his gloved hands held high. He was a muscular black man with a vicious look in his eyes. Max wondered how much they had to pay the guy to take this dive because he certainly looked like he could win a fight with ease.

  “And in the left corner,” the announcer continued as the other fighter approached, “weighing in at 183 pounds with a record of one knockout, four wins, and four losses, Hector Gonzalez.”

  Gonzalez bounded into the ring, his handlers ripping off the gold and silver robe, and he pranced around the ring thumping his chest. Some cheered, but the majority booed. Max hoped the upset that was about to happen didn’t cause a riot.

  Moments later, the ring cleared, the ref spoke to the fighters, the bell rang, and the fight began. The two men circled each other, jabbing out their arms, but not making any big moves.

  “This is it?” Max said. “I thought they were supposed to be pummeling each other.”

  “You sure got blood-thirsty fast.” Drummond stared at Max a moment and finally gestured to the ring. “Look, this isn’t some barbaric gladiator kind of thing. Yeah, it’s a fight, but it’s really like a living chess match. Lots of strategy and thought goes into every moment. See, right now, there’s plenty going on. They’re feeling each other out — trying to determine each other’s fighting style. Also, they’re quickly learning their distances — how close can they get without getting hurt. Now, did you see that? Jackson shifted his feet and started circling the other direction.”

  “So?”

  “Well, Gonzalez did the same. So, Jackson just took control of their movement. That’s important. Whoever controls the ring usually controls the fight. Now, all those little jabs are for more than just distance. Each fighter is trying to force a reaction from the other. If I keep jabbing at you, and I notice that every time you flinch back to right, then when I’m ready, I fake a jab, you flinch right, and my full power punch is waiting for you in that spot I know you’re going for. Get it?”

  “They’re trying to set up a real strong punch.”

  “Exactly. There’s emotional stuff going on too — intimidation, breaking confidence, things like that.”

  Though Max did not catch all of what Drummond had said, he understood enough to see that more went on in the fight than he had realized. He even experienced a little tremble in his chest when he caught that Gonzalez tried to change the direction of the circling but Jackson turned that shift into an assault. The fighters exchanged four hard punches before clenching up. Without Drummond’s explanation, Max saw that while clenched, Jackson threw two more punches to the ribs. They weren’t just hugging each other, buying time — they were inflicting body blows in each clench that would add up over the course of the fight and become crucial later on.

  Except this fight is fixed, Max thought. None of it mattered. It was no more real than a reality show on television.

  “Wow,” Drummond said. “Jackson’s putting on a heck of a show. He’s a real fighter. It’s got to be burning him bad to take this dive.”

  As the fight continued into round after round, Max lost interest. No real point when he knew that no matter how bad Gonzalez looked to be doing, he would soon be making a miraculous comeback. Instead, Max scanned the crowd. He wondered what would happen if all those hard-working men learned that if they had bet on Jackson, they had no way of winning. In such a small place, the outcome would be fatal to a lot of innocent people.

  Max froze as his eyes rested on one man in particular — a black man with a stark white horseshoe of hair running around his head. Looking closer, Max saw the same overweight body, the same hooked nose, and — when the man cheered for Jackson — the same discolored yellow tooth.

  “Why would he be here?”

  Drummond kept his attention on the fight. “What? Who?”

  “There’s a guy down there — I swear he was one of the crime scene techs at Baxter House.”

  “You think that’s odd? Be glad that’s the worst thing he’s doing. Cops and techs and all the so-called ‘good guys’ have as many vices as the rest of us. Maybe even more since they’re surrounded by it all day long.”

  “Yeah, but that seems like too much of a coincidence, and you’ve certainly made it clear that there are no coincidences.”

  Drummond finally turned his head to look at the man. “You’re certain it’s the same guy?”

  “I think so.” Max dug out his phone. He figured he’d try to take a picture of the man, maybe zoom in, and see if a closer look helped.

  “No need for that. You’re right. It’s him.”

  “How do you know? You weren’t there yet when I bumped into him.”

  “I know because I just saw him glance up here, and now he’s leaving.”

  Drummond was right. The large man had sidestepped his way off the bleacher and walked around back.

  “Come on,” Max said. “Something’s up.”

  “You check it out. I want to see the rest of this fight.”

  “You know how it’s going to end.”

  “A well-choreographed fix can be every bit as entertaining as a fair fight.”

  With a disgruntled huff, Max climbed over the two benches in front of him, walked b
ehind the bleachers, and moved at a brisk pace in the direction of the man. He couldn’t run — too many people crowding the area plus doing so would have drawn too much attention. The heavy coffee aroma did little to mask the foul odors of all these bodies. Max didn’t want to know why his shoes kept sticking to the floor.

  He turned the corner in time to see the man open a door and walk through. Maybe he hadn’t seen Max in the bleachers. Maybe he simply needed to use a restroom. But with the building technically vacant, the place had no running water — no restrooms would be working. The men were expected to pee outside. Anything else was expected to wait until they went somewhere else.

  The crowd broke out a surprised gasp. Looked like Gonzalez had finally started his comeback. Max opened the door and peered in — a long hall lit by several battery-operated lanterns. No sign of the big man.

  At the far end, one door stood ajar and dim light cut into the hall. Max could hear murmured voices. He wanted to call Drummond over, but it would take too much time to get back to his seat, grab the ghost, and return. He certainly couldn’t yell for Drummond.

  Ignoring the itch on the back of his neck — the one digging under his skin, crawling up to his brain and shouting Don’t be stupid! — Max entered the hall. The sharp thuds of the landed blows and the deep grunts of the wounded fighters echoed down the hall turning it into a carnival funhouse trick. Max’s pulse quickened and his mouth dried.

  He tried the first doors on either side. Both were locked. Laughter from down the hall. Deep-toned laughter — the kind that belonged to big, dangerous men. He thought he could hear guns being loaded. But he shook off the thought — only his imagination. For all he knew, the sound belonged to the click of beer cans against a metal table.

  He tried another door. Locked. He needed some place he could hide while attempting to eavesdrop. The big man had been at Baxter House, and he had looked up at Max during the fight, choosing that moment to leave. Maybe he could convince himself that one of these had been coincidence. But all of it? Not likely. Not remotely likely.

  About halfway down the hall, Max tried another door, and this time the knob turned. Licking the sweat off his lip, he eased the door open. But as he pushed it quietly in, someone took hold and yanked it from his hand.

  Max took one look in the room and his stomach flipped. In the center of the room sat an elderly woman. She had long, curly gray hair and deeply wrinkled skin. Her eyes were clouded over. She wore numerous scarves, shreds of dresses, and bruises where clothes didn’t cover her arms or legs. She looked like a storybook gypsy that had been dragged behind a pickup truck for a few miles.

  Her chair had been set in the middle of a large painted circle. Numerous symbols adorned the circle. Seven candles lined the outside of the circle and provided the only light in the room. Though Max didn’t know the specific symbols, he had seen enough spells and curses to know he had stumbled into something no good. This woman was a witch casting a spell.

  She raised her hand at Max, and her palm bled from where she had dug another symbol into her skin — a swirling sign similar to a yin-yang but with a river-like path running through the middle. Her dead eyes stared at him, and her mouth moved without sound. Then she screamed.

  “Here! Here!” she said.

  From down the hall, Max heard voices. “Is that her? You hear that?”

  “Crap,” Max said as he darted out of the room.

  “Oooo!” The witch’s voice swirled around Max as he rushed down the hall. Nearing the main room where sounds of the fight rushed back at him, the doors opened and two burly men stepped in.

  One lifted a cell phone to his mouth. There was a high-pitched beep. “Yeah, we got him.”

  Max whirled around and tore off in the other direction. He sped by the witch’s door and heard her crying out. The men behind him approached with caution. Max figured they knew he had no way out and they didn’t want to get hurt if he panicked. Too late for that, he thought as his heart raced fast enough to win a Nascar event.

  He tried a door on his left. Locked. He glanced back. The two men blocked the hall with their bulk. He shuffled down to the next door, this one on the right. It opened!

  Dashing in, he saw another door on the opposite side of the room. He hurried across, stumbling into a chair, and tried the handle. It opened into another hall.

  Max sprinted off to the left, randomly trying doors, hoping to lose the men in this maze. But the more turns he made, the more doors he went through, the more lost he became. When he cut across another room, he entered a hall that looked familiar. They all looked similar, though.

  Sweat poured down his sides and his ragged breathing rang in his ears. He had to think. But he could hear the men approaching. He dashed on, turned a corner, and all hope sank. The hallway became a tunnel with only one light sitting halfway down and one door at the end. A sign hung above the door with the word EXIT above. This would have been a welcome sight, if not for the two-hundred pounds of muscle standing in front of the door.

  If Max had to be beaten, he figured one beating would be better than two. He walked toward the exit and tried to ignore the footsteps behind him. The huge man blocking the exit crossed his arms but remained in his spot.

  One of the men behind Max said, “Hey, man, c’mon. You got nowhere to go.”

  Max continued walking.

  “Just come with us. Don’t make us hurt you.”

  Max pressed on. He knew he should stop. He knew that they had him no matter what he did and that wherever they took him, more pain would follow, so why make the pain start now? But he couldn’t stop his legs even if he tried.

  The boulder in front of him appeared to grow larger. He became a mountain blocking Max’s way. The mountain put out its hand, much like the witch had done, only this hand had no bloody symbol carved in the palm — this hand merely said Stop, or you’ll be sorry.

  Max cringed as he stepped closer. But the man’s hand started to shiver. His eyes widened and his mouth dropped. The two behind Max stopped, and one of them muttered, “What’s wrong?”

  The mountain dropped to his knees. Drummond floated behind with his hand buried into the guard’s back. The ghost screamed out as the guard did so, too.

  Hearing Drummond’s pain snapped Max into action. He bolted ahead, leaped over the guard, and slammed through the exit. The two behind him followed, one stopping to help the injured guard.

  “Get to your car,” Drummond said, slouching in the hallway. “I’ll catch up in a minute.”

  Max darted across the parking lot, heading straight for his Honda. The frozen night air cut into his lungs, but he kept running. His mind could only process one thought — get to the car. So, even as he noticed the wide puddle on the broken asphalt, his mind never warned him that in North Carolina the night air often dropped low enough to freeze water. He hit the ice and his legs went out from under him. His side slammed on the hard ground and he rolled a few feet further.

  As he struggled to get back up, a meaty hand grabbed his shoulder. He looked up in time to see a tight fist approaching his face.

  Chapter 6

  Max’s eyes fluttered open against harsh fluorescent lights. Cold concrete pressed against his back while he smelled old feet from the thin pillow under his head. That poor head — the ache started in the back near his neck, wrapped straight over, and settled on the bruises covering the right side of his face. When his eyes finally adjusted, Max confirmed where he thought he was — jail.

  Groaning, he sat up. The cot offered nothing in the way of comfort, but he hadn’t expected much either. Off to his left, through the jail cell’s bars, he saw the tan wall of a hallway.

  “So, this is jail,” he muttered. He had never been in a cell before. His calm demeanor surprised him at first. But the more he thought about it, he realized that he remained calm partly because his body hurt too much to worry and partly because he knew he wouldn’t stay in that cell for long. He couldn’t imagine the charges being anything worse tha
n attending an illegal boxing event or disorderly conduct. Whatever the charges, his record didn’t have anything serious before. He might end up with some community service hours, but it wasn’t as if he stared at years behind bars. A few hours, a day at most — he could handle that.

  “Well, ain’t this a pickle?” Drummond said as he entered through the concrete wall opposite Max.

  Max thought he should revise how long he could endure being in a cell, if Drummond decided to stay. “No need to hang around. I’m sure I’ll be out soon.”

  “You could use a few more hours in here. Your face looks horrible.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “They worked you over hard.”

  “I had no idea. I thought the pain in my head came from you yapping away all the time.”

  “Hey, don’t get all uppity with me. I saved your ass, remember.”

  Max scooted to the edge of the cot, leaned over, and cupped his chin. “I know. Thank you. Seriously. Anyway, what did you find out?”

  “Huh?”

  “Come on. I can see the sunlight down the hall. I know you didn’t spend the whole evening watching over me. Not with all that happened. So, what did you get?”

  Drummond grinned as he tipped his hat back. “Good to see you’re really getting the hang of all this. Well, while you slept off that beating, I followed that fat man to his home.”

  “Do you have to say it like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like being fat is a bad thing.” Max waved off his complaint when he saw the confusion in Drummond’s face. “Forget it.”

  “You people today get so crazy about the names of things. Sheesh.”

  “Right. We’re all PC screwed up. Now, get on with it — you followed the heavyset man, the crime scene tech, to his home.”

  Drummond peeked down into his coat pocket, listened, and shrugged. “Okay, okay. Leed wants you to know that really it was his idea to follow the guy home.”

  “I don’t care who had the idea. It was Leed’s idea. Fine. And?”