The Unstoppable Tony Winters Page 14

  Don Teevan had no trouble with the change to things, as long as both fighters showed up and gave a good show on the night in question. Then, the man had made it clear that he barely cared about that even. He had so many pokers in the fire that losing one of the things on the bottom would barely be noticed.

  In the last week, leading up to the fight, Sally got even worse. It was bad enough that Anthony couldn’t let her be alone with him. Not even for a few minutes. When she broke, finally, it was by rubbing up on Raul, who promptly put her in a leg lock, smiling at her the whole time. Then he pretended that he figured she was trying to grapple with him when she’d been feeling him up. In the gym. In front of everyone, including Nick.

  Thankfully they managed to lock her in her room until the day of the fight. That meant a bus trip, which was going to cost Tony money, personally. Not a lot, but there was no way they weren’t staying overnight, so he had to cover fuel, food, lodging and anything else that came up.

  Still, he was excited on the night of the fight. Mainly because, win or lose, he was about to have the troublesome lady out of his life. She could go back home and work out what she wanted to do with her future. Rick and Jen both made a point of coming along, since Rick went to every match, no matter what. Ashley came along as well. There was no real reason for it, not that Anthony could see. Still, he got her to sit right next to him for the trip out, with Sally ahead of them. They got Patrick again, as their driver, which was cool. The guy was laid back and friendly. Also married, or he probably would have been getting lucky with Sally, rules to the contrary or not.

  The real issue was nerves. Apparently she just dealt with things like that in a way that wasn’t that healthy for everyone else around her. The second time she hit on Rick, right in front of Jen, the other woman took his hand and then growled.

  “Hands off. If you try that again, you won’t make it to the fight.”

  Sally huffed at that, but it was an honest enough threat. Jen could just kick her off the bus, in the middle of nowhere, which would end her trip fast.

  It made for a tense and awkward trip, but as they closed in on the place the fight would be happening at, a small arena, Tony moved up to sit next to her.

  “Review time. Head on the fight. Go over the plan for me?”

  That didn’t take long, but they did it several times, then covered what she was going to do if Diego Valdis fired off things that he’d never done before. That was a thing she could handle, if it came up. Grappling would, most likely, actually run in her favor. The real danger was the man just fighting as hard as he could, right out of the gate. Then he might get lucky and take her down almost instantly.

  Tony started to feel kind of nervous, but hid it when they went in. They were early, but not too much. Getting there the day before so that Sally could rest would have been nice, but the room was already going to cost him more than it was worth. That was part of his college fund, so he’d cheeped out a bit.

  In the end, it didn’t matter at all.

  By the time the fight was starting and the referee moved back, it was clear that Anthony had made a bit of a mistake. Not really, since it was exactly what he’d figured would be the most likely case. Diego wasn’t in shape at all. He wore his red trunks, with gold edging, but his tummy stuck out over the top a bit.

  He’d made weight, but that just meant the man was coming in with a lot less muscle than in his last fight. When the ref moved back, it got worse.

  “Get it on!” The fellow in the ring wore a black t-shirt. On his hands were latex gloves, in case anyone started to bleed. That was totally fair, of course.

  About half the time someone did.

  Diego Valdis looked all right, for the first exchange. Then he was taken down with a simple double leg and rolled to his stomach, trying to stand up. That didn’t happen. Sally climbed on his back, sunk a very basic rear choke around his neck, then waited. The guy tapped out about ten seconds later. Not even doing more than prying at her arm a bit.

  That got him to applaud. Also to run into the cage and pull Sally upright. Mainly because she didn’t know what to do, the fight having been far too easy. Almost not even a real contest, which was kind of obvious. Still, it was a win, so he hugged her.

  “There you go. Now, just get ready for your next match for real. Go and hug Diego there, if you can without him hitting you.” The man didn’t, being gracious about the whole thing.

  Really, it was like he didn’t care.

  The thing was being televised, so Sally got to go and talk to the commenter for a bit. The man was young, but seemed to be trying hard.

  “Sally! That was different than most people expected. It’s clear that you trained hard for this fight. Are you planning on making the move to pro soon?”

  She blinked a bit, but managed to find the camera, even without her thick glasses. Then she nodded.

  “That’s up to my training team. I just hope that I can make the cut. I’d like to thank everyone! Especially Diego Valdis, for coming all the way here from Peru. Wooo!” She clapped, since her gloves were off. Tony had to tuck them under his arm to do the same thing himself.

  The whole room, which had maybe fifty spectators in it, if he were being generous, did the same thing, more or less. A lot of them were getting ready to watch the next fight, which wouldn’t be starting for a few more minutes.

  He let Sally have her say, then pulled her away before she decided to go into the whole thing with Ralph Simpson and the guys at Leverage. That whole thing had kind of gone away, thankfully. No cops had come to get them, which was a relief. It wasn’t likely, but a case could have been made that he’d broken the man’s arm on purpose. It hadn’t been that way, but there had been grumbling from Simpson over that idea. On the good side, no one cared what he thought at the moment.

  They got a cab to go to the hotel and shoved five people in it. Sally was stuck in the back, next to him, pressed into the door of the thing. It probably wasn’t legal, since they all needed seat belts, but the driver was willing to let it happen, since it was a very short trip.

  Then, walking through the very warm night air, Anthony took a deep breath.

  “That went well. Better than I thought it might. Just know that most fights won’t be like that. Keep that in mind and you’ll be fine.”

  The woman, her hair down, without her silly blue hat at the moment, grinned and tried to take his arm. Pressing her breasts into it. Which wasn’t unpleasant, except that he really didn’t want her to get the wrong idea. Besides, Jen cleared her throat at the woman. It got her to let go.

  “I don’t have to think about that. I have you to do that for me!”

  She seemed giddy and bubbly, but he wasn’t going to go down that road.

  “Nope. You, as of ten minutes ago, are a free agent once again. Fly, be free.” He did soften it with a smile for her. “I’m in full time training, meaning I don’t have time for managing yours, too. As it is I need to find someone else for Lexi. She deserves someone that can spend more time on her. You both do. Besides and I mean this with love, Sally… You’re still kind of a mess. Stay off the drugs and settle down a bit… Then I think you might make it. You aren’t a bad fighter, but somewhere along the line you got the wrong idea about what it takes to really do the job. I won’t go over it all, but…”

  He half expected to be hit, at least playfully.

  She just sighed then and kept walking. They were off the strip, but the place they were staying at was decent enough. Not too expensive for the four rooms they needed. It would have been three, but Tony had just assumed that his fighter, his former fighter, was going to go and get drunk, then probably do things that Ash wasn’t going to want to see, or hear, all night.

  For that matter, she was single, in shape and not that old. She might want to do part of that herself. Which was fine, as long as she didn’t catch a disease that would influence her fight in November.

  That meant he got his own room.

  “I’m going to
head to bed. What time are we on the road in the morning? Nine?” That was late and Rick corrected him.

  “Seven. Patrick has a room here, but wants to get home before midnight, if possible.”

  “Got it. Fine, everyone meet in the lobby at six-thirty?” Anthony smiled at the others, his eyes lingering on Sally for a moment. She was too wild and probably couldn’t really change. That was sort of sad. Also, not his responsibility.

  Even Tony was fine with that. His part had been in getting through the fight. She was probably fun for most people. She did drugs, drank and put out on the first date, he didn’t doubt. The thing there was that she was picking a life that needed her to be collected and calm, most of the time. At least while she trained.

  Saying goodnight, he got to bed, figuring that he’d need to be the first one up the next day, just in case they needed to find someone before it was time to leave. Sally was actually in the hallway when he grabbed his bag to head out, after triple checking to make sure he hadn’t left anything. The woman smiled at him, then winked.

  “I bet you figured that I’d be sloshed about now, right?”

  He really had, but lied, acting like he had faith in her.

  “It never even crossed my mind. I did figure that there would be three guys coming out of your room though…” That was pretty mean of him to say and got her to huff at him.

  It wasn’t angry.

  “You’d think right? No, though, I was a good girl and just stayed in my room. I know that you’re actually right. About the training and getting my act together. I don’t know if I can… But I can see that I made a pretty big hash out of things at Leverage. I do know better. I swear.”

  He nodded and started walking toward the elevator. Ashley came out of her room alone as well, making the late ones Rick and Jen. Then, it wasn’t six-thirty yet. When they got down into the lobby they had to sit and wait for fifteen minutes for them to show up. Patrick was the last one there, but he had the bus with him, pulled over to the side, waiting for them. They had to check out and return the room card keys, but that didn’t take too long, so they were still ready to go on time.

  On the way back, Tony just went over the video he needed to. Over and over again. It was boring by the end, but he finally noticed something. Erlander Hodder always fought by moving to the left on the ground. Almost everyone did that by shifting in the other direction, most of the time. The man fought right handed, on his feet, but left on the ground. That was nearly invisible, but when he checked all the fights again, it was pretty clear.

  “Ah.” That didn’t hand him an instant win or anything. It might not make a difference. Except that, at certain points in time, he was going to know what the man was likely to do, before he did it. The trick then would be to exploit that. Somehow.

  When they got in to the gym parking lot, Patrick dumped them off and took the bus away with him. Ash had her car in the back lot, but Rick, Jen and Tony had a walk to the house. Only about three blocks, so it wasn’t bad. It was dark out, but still before midnight, since they’d traveled all day, nearly.

  He hadn’t slept, but had already done his mental review, six times. That meant he was able to get right off to bed and be up early enough the next day that no one would call him on it. The new plan, starting that day, was for him to have classes in the afternoons for four hours. They’d hired a tutor for that. The woman was older, seemed to disapprove of both fighting and him already and was named Janine.

  None of that really mattered, since her plan was to basically assign reading to him and then have him write papers on every topic imaginable. That and do some math. It was a bit stripped down, but the idea was that he’d get his reading, science and history in all at once. The rest of the day was normal. Starting with a fast run, where he pushed himself for nine miles. It wasn’t like his old twelve mile runs, which had been sort of slow. No, he had to really build up now. It hurt, the whole time. The next day he got to go slower and run less though, since he’d need time to heal between maximum efforts.

  It was on his plan. Rick had drawn it up for him.

  Then he got to go and work with Jen and Raul. Mainly grappling, right after his early indoor work. Her big fight was the next week, so he’d tried to figure out what her opponent would be doing and push her on that pretty hard. She was ready however.

  Then he got two hours with Steve and Denny, since their big fights were the next after Jenny went. The whole day felt almost fun. Even after lunch when the fairly sour seeming older lady attempted to smile at him and then acted like he might not know how to read.

  It got him to grin back when she handed him a very short seeming book. Of Mice and Men.

  “We can start here. Steinbeck. If you get stuck at any point, or don’t understand something, let me know and I’ll explain it to you.”

  At five he did need to go and find her.

  She looked up, seeming pleased, since it was nearly time for him to go home for the evening. Meaning she got to as well.

  “Questions?”

  He nodded, then held the slim book up.

  “You want a paper on this? When is that due in by? Also, how long does it need to be? This isn’t exactly a complicated story, is it? I could write up the basic conflict of it? Was George correct in killing Lenny, to save him from prison? Even that isn’t hard. Legally he was wrong. Morally, he did what he thought was right. I couldn’t really defend either side from a personal level.” Thankfully he’d never been in that kind of a situation.

  He probably would have let his friend live and gone on the run with him, to be honest.

  Janine quirked her mouth like she was trying to be silly. Only it didn’t seem to be done on purpose.

  “You’ve finished already? I wasn’t certain you could read, to be honest. Good then. Skip the paper on that and well move on to something a little drier and more challenging. You like to read about history, don’t you?”

  Anthony nodded.

  “Almost anything, to be honest. I haven’t had a chance in a while, but I used to read all the time. Even some of the classics. The Three Musketeers. Ivanhoe. The Count of Monte Cristo.” More than that, but he wasn’t bragging, just suggesting that they not repeat things he’d already hit.

  The woman looked at him for a moment, then made a low sound in her throat.

  “Hmm! All right then. I’ll bring in a selection for you. Very good. Tomorrow you can pick what to do next. We’ll also be covering math. There will be a test, so come ready for that.”

  Instead of mopping up Cardio-Boxing sweat, he actually got to go home then and was supposed to rest until bed time. Most fighters actually did that, without the schooling being involved. That meant he had to train harder, but for less time each day, for a while.

  So, for one of the first times in months, he was home alone, watching one of Hodder’s most recent fights, when someone knocked on the door. Not even thinking about it, he just opened the thing. That would have been too dangerous for most of his life, but he’d gotten a bit lazy, over the last months.

  The world was pretty safe there, after all.

  When he got the door open, politely smiling, he saw that there was a decently tall man standing there. Six-two or three. He was also well muscled and had wavy brown hair. His eyes were blue, but had that almost wolf like look to them. It was kind of creepy.

  “Hello?”

  “Ah, hey.” The first two words gave away that he had an accent. English most likely. It was, if Tony had the idea right, a fairly upper crust sounding thing. That could be wrong, since he was going off of what he’d heard on television. “Um… You’d be Tony, right? Anthony Winters”

  It was true, so he nodded. The use of his full name got him to be suspicious. No one did that.

  “Yes. Unless you’re serving papers? In that case I’m Jesus Rodriguez and you have the wrong place.” Anthony was willing to back that up with the five Spanish words he could remember at the moment. Not that it would be needed.

  “You’re A
dam Forsythe?” He’d never bothered to look the man up. Not even to see a picture.

  After mentioning that the test results would be available the next day, Rick had never brought it up again. Honestly, Anthony had just figured that it was negative. The man wasn’t his father at all and they’d been wrong. That was fine and probably better for the guy in front of him.

  Except the now nodding man wouldn’t be there just to meet some kid that wasn’t his.

  “That’s right. Um, this is a bit of…” He stopped then and smiled. It was better than the eyes. That was about the color though, not the lines around them. He only looked to be about Rick’s age.

  “You know, I must have planned out fifteen different little speeches for this. I can’t remember one of them right now. You know who I am… So, Rick told you about the results? That I’m your father?’

  Anthony laughed a bit, deep in his throat.

  “Nope. This is the first I’m hearing about it. Well… Do you want to come in? I was just re-watching old fights for the eightieth time. Trying to work out how not to be instantly creamed in my next fight. I…” He grinned and shrugged. “I think we have water? Cold? Jen and I are both in training. You get the idea there.”

  He was a fighter after all, so he nodded.

  “I do, indeed. She has Sue Griffin? The rematch. You’re going up against Erlander. Good kid, Lander. I trained with him a few years back. Same camp, not working together, obviously. Rick mentioned that you were starting classes? A tutor? Also that you plan to give fighting the old heave and take up medicine?”

  There was a strange sound to his voice, but Anthony nodded.

  “If I can do it. I should be going to normal school, but people needed my help. So that the Pay-Per-View thing would happen. That’s kind of big, for some of my friends. Hodder, too. Which won’t stop me from trying to win. You do fighting stuff?”

  That was a good guess, but the man shook his head.

  “I’m on the promotion and training side now. Mainly in New York. Kind of like what Rick has going here, only trust me, my place isn’t nearly as big. More isolated. You were up at Leverage, right? I saw that thing with Simpson. Piece of work there. Blindside a kid, then claim you went for him… How did that tape get out?”