Page 31 of Dirty

“Grab your phone,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“Grab your phone.”

He reached into his vest, pulled out his phone, and gave me a look. “What now?”

“4-4-2-4-4-7-1-0-3-5.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s my number,” I said.

He grinned, making the lines on the sides of his eyes wrinkle. “Oh. So, you’re comfortable with me now?”

I nodded. “Very.”

He stood. “Ready for that ride?”

“I’ve got a question first,” I said.

He popped his knuckles. “Okay.”

I locked eyes with him. “Did you come here to see me or my mother.”

He grinned. “You.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m ready.”

NINE

Cholo

I looked around the crowd. About 100 people had gathered for the event. In the last thirty minutes, they’d began to grow restless. I took a drink of beer and looked at Pee Bee. “When’s this supposed to start?”

He shrugged. “Dunno.”

“Should have started about half a fuckin’ hour ago,” Crip said.

“Here before long, every wannabe bad-ass in the crowd will be picking a fight to prove how tough he is,” I said.

I wanted to talk to Pee Bee about Alexandra, but didn’t want to do so in Crip’s presence. We were at a warehouse in Vista, which was 10 miles east of Oceanside, to see a fight between a former Marine and a former Navy SEAL.

As were all bare knuckles fights; the fight was illegal. If they didn’t get it underway quickly, the cops would show up for sure. There were far too many cars and bikes parked outside not to draw attention to the fact that something sketchy was going on.

Kelly Duntz, the half-assed promoter of the majority of bare knuckles fights in the area stepped into the makeshift ring. The area wasn’t really a ring, it was a spot on the concrete floor that had been marked by yellow tape as an area to fight in.

Although rules of similar matches varied – depending on the location and the fighters – the fights that we frequented were nothing more than unorganized fist fights.

Kicking, biting, elbowing, and weapons of any kind were prohibited. The fighter’s hands couldn’t be taped, and there were no gloves allowed. Shirtless and barefoot, the fighters went toe-to-toe and fought until someone was either knocked out or gave up.

Typically, with the types of fighters that fought in underground matches, giving up was out of the question.

“Listen up, fellas. I’ve got bad news,” he said. “Our Navy SEAL, John ‘The Hammer’ Le Brock cracked his wrist in training this afternoon, and isn’t going to make it. So, we’ve got--”

“If he cracked his fucking wrist this afternoon, why’d it take you this fucking long to tell us the fight was off?” Someone shouted from the back of the crowd across from us.

“Yeah,” someone else yelled.