Shoot the Moon

Chapter Twenty-Three - Fight Night

From the outside it looked like an abandoned factory. The building occupied an entire block. All the windows were blacked out. We entered through a small double door at the corner that was kept by two gorillas in sport shirts and black leather jackets. Once inside, you could hear the muffled shouts of a crowd and as we walked down a long hallway the shouts got louder. Cruz started to smile more often. He was snapping his fingers happily.

"Ever seen dogfights?" he asked.

I nodded.

Echo said, "Of course not!"

"You're going to like this." he said.

"I doubt it," she said.

Ahead of us double doors were thrown open by two more beefy attendants and the roar of the crowd smacked our faces like a gale force wind. I saw a large room mobbed with people and fogged with the smoke of a hundred cigars. Echo clutched my arm.

The room was two stories high, dug down into the basement level in order to give plenty of headroom for whatever machinery the factory had once contained. It was as big as a hangar at a small airport. Directly in front of us, sloping down to the floor on all sides, was a square grandstand filled with spectators. No seats there, just concrete tiers. There were maybe five hundred people in the crowd. Every man seemed to be waving a fistful of cash, looking to cover his bet. The atmosphere was electric, and I discovered that my thumb was riffling the edge of my bankroll and that, on some level, I was trying to find a way to calculate the odds on action I knew nothing about.

The sounds of men screaming for blood rocketed off the concrete walls and the echoes seemed to pick up steam rather than die away. The smell of deep-fried food hung in the air, lacing through the cigar smoke. There were a couple of large stands on this level vending an assortment of things to eat and drink.

On the floor below was a small wooden ring on which two dogs matched in size had locked down on each other, big wads of neck flesh clamped in each other's jaws. I heard Echo catch her breath and I reached for her hand as she reached for mine. Neither of us could look away.

The dogs' sweating handlers screamed encouragement. Both dogs had a grip and were pulling with all they had. This was where Fred had lost his ears. And a large chunk of flesh at his throat.

A fat man in a shiny silver-gray suit that may have fit him twenty-five pounds ago made his way toward Cruz. He was wiping sweat from his face with a bright red handkerchief and smiling so hard his ears were trembling with the effort. He called out in Spanish and Cruz answered him. I didn't understand but from the tone it was the usual soft soap. Every maitre d', from the Four Seasons to Caesar's Palace greases the big shots the same way. The only difference was that here the main course was dog's blood.

The fat man gestured for Cruz to follow and he turned and led the way, squirting through the crowd like a giant obese watermelon seed. The waves, however, parted for Cruz. Men stepped back as they saw him and struggled to twist their faces into pictures of respect. Those that failed looked terrified, looked enraged. But everyone acknowledged the power as we passed.

The fat man escorted us to the VIP section, a little elevated concrete platform with seats and a better view. Cruz sat in a seat that had been held for him. He spoke to the man next to him and he and another got up and gave their seats to Echo and me. They went and stood in the aisle with the Ghost.

Echo was pale, her eyes wide, as she watched the dogs fight. Cruz kept an eye on her to see how she took it. There weren't many women in the room, certainly not women with Echo's class and the high testosterone atmosphere emphasized her femaleness and made it shine all the brighter. I think Cruz wanted her to break open, to crack her poise, but Echo was having what she liked to call an "existential moment." She was working now, focused, making mental notes. Someday these violent shapes and figures would be appearing on stage. Her face was calm now and severe, her eyes glistening and bright in the smoky shadows. When she didn't faint or burst out screaming, Cruz nodded and a strange sweet expression came over his face. I didn't like that: he looked like a man falling in love. Even when someone came up to whisper in his ear, he never took his eyes from her.