Reese followed her wild swing with a hard, compact right that was timed a bit off. But it did its job and landed flush with a smack against the cheek of her opponent. Spittle erupted from Raven Kim's mouth and her lips curled in a sneer.

    "That all you got, bitch," Kim uttered around her blue mouthpiece. She shot an underhand left into Reese's ribs, eliciting a wince from the other fighter.

    "Break," the referee commanded. He used his arm like a scythe to separate the two women.

    Resuming, Reese didn't do as expected and lower her elbow to protect the bruised area. Instead she got up on the pads of her feet and tagged Kim with a stiff overhand left off-center in her torso. She immediately followed with the right to her stomach that caused a look of concern from the other one.

    Kim went to some foot work and moved back and to the side, hoping to clear enough space to level her own blows. But Reese wasn't going to lose the momentum and kept on the woman, taking defensive shots from Kim to her forearms guarding her upper body.

    "Back the fuck off me," Kim wheezed. The braggadocio was in her words but not on her face. She was worried.

    Again the ref issued a warning. He put a hand on Reese's shoulder who was using the few seconds of instruction to lean on Kim and get some rest. Immediately as they broke, Reese ducked while Kim let loose with a stiff hacking chop that grazed the back of her shoulder blades. Kim tried an uppercut but Reese had anticipated such a move and moved her head to the side. She backed the other fighter off with some hard ones into her body, and the two were now along one side of the ring. Kim's back was to the ropes.

    The bell signaling the end of the round sounded, and they went to their respective corners. Reese sat heavily on the stool. Drake, the corner man, squeezed water over her head and wiped at it with a course sponge.

    "Don't let her bullshit rattle you," Fletcher Rhone admonished her. "I want you to stick to the game plan. It's working, she's not rocking you and you got her looking twice." His stale cigar breath revived Reese better than any smelling salts could. Drake rubbed her arm and said, "Get her in the body, she hates that." With his thumb he worked in ointment beneath her eyes to reduce the swelling. Reese let her mind create the figure of her downing Kim with a fantastic feat of fisticuffs as her trainer/manager droned on. She was on her feet with anticipation and anxiety before the bell rang as the card girl pranced around the ring in a thong bikini announcing the next round.

    The two marched into the center flat-footed. Kim, the Korean-American fighter, shook her head, her pony-tailed brown dreads wiggling like Martian tentacles. "That's your ass, girlfriend," she promised. She went low then went up top catching Reese along the side her nose. Blood reddened the black woman's nostrils. A gleeful light shone in Kim's dark eyes. She stepped up her pace and that's when Reese sandbagged her.

    Kim had turned in the left side of her body to provide more leverage in delivering a strong right. As she did so, Reese countered with a combination that made her opponent wheeze gusts of air. Reese then got her attention with a punch to the mid-section that dropped Kim to a knee. Some in the audience clapped and others booed. A plastic cup was tossed through the air. The orange jackets quickly descended on the brigand.

    "Step back," the ref ordered, inserting himself between the two contestants. He began his count. On seven, Kim got up, bouncing to her feet and moving her head as if it were connected to her neck by a gimbal.

    "You alright?" The ref stared intently into the boxer's face searching for traces of disorientation or hurt.

    "Yeah, yeah," Kim growled. "Bring it on."

    "It's your world," the ref stepped out of the way. "Fight," he shouted.

    The two came together and mixed it up in a flurry of pummeling. Little damage was done but each licked their wet lips as they parted. Kim slapped a foot onto the canvas and twisted a fist aimed at Reese's head, using her hip for torque. The blow got a piece of the other woman who took the brunt on her tricep.

    Reese pressed in, not willing to back up and give Kim any play. She took two to the face that got parts of the crowd cheering. But the second hit wasn't as hard as the first. Kim was running out of gas, and she knew she had to get busy in a hurry.

    The Asian woman went right at the African American woman with another uppercut intended for the latter's jaw. Reese took it, and some incorrectly assumed she was going to drop at any second. And true, she was feeling woozy but she knew just what she had left in her arms.

    Reese clipped Kim in the solar plexus and got her blinking on a jab that ended at the cheek. Kim tried to get her offense in gear again but Reese had enough saved up to be nano seconds faster -- the margin that decided victors and could have beens Rhone had ingrained into her. Reese's glove found its sweet spot on Kim's chin bone and the woman's eyes did a roll in her head. Reese showed no mercy and sent the other one back against the ropes with a pop to the eye socket. She crowded in, and worked on Kim who slipped some knocks but took some more too. Her head lolled, and then the ref intervened.

    "Step back," he said, his spread fingers pushing against Reese's breast bone. He counted again and Kim shook him off just as he started to say 'nine.' Reese glanced back at Rhone who could sense it too. He gave a slight nod but Reese had already turned back around and had pounced on Kim. There wasn't much to do and her fourth rap sent the ref between them again. Kim's arms were down and a cut had been opened over the eye socket that had been attacked several times. She still had a defiant stance, but that was will power only. The crowd chanted "fight, fight," but the ref knew better.

    He made a motion to the judges and called the fight. A round of cat calls was overcome by the stamping of feet and yells of approval. The technical knock out happened two minutes and three seconds into the fourth round.

    The announcer cried, "The winner of the WCB sanctioned bout, Moya Reese." The ref held her arm aloft as her crew piled into the ring hugging each other. Reese smiled. Later, the camera that zoomed in on her would record that momentarily her eyes scanned the gloom above and behind the lights and audience. And just as suddenly the nervous knotting of her brow was replaced when she refocused on the cable announcer thrusting a mic at her swelling face.

...

    "What I tell you?" Tyler Jeffries grinned magnificently at the monitor which displayed Reese enjoying her win. "I told you Moya would clean her plow. You think just because Raven acts black she's tough." He snickered at his own joke.

    Yank Turner scratched his trim belly. "Let's just concentrate on what you gotta be doing. Get your rubdown going." He resumed cleaning the briar of his pipe with a pocket knife, knocking the remains of used tobacco against the side of a table. On the monitor suspended from the corner of the ceiling, the ring announcer introduced the third, and last under card. This bout featured two welterweights, Esteban Vargas, the current number three ranked and the younger, greener Floyd Reynolds.

    Jeffries picked up a copy of that morning's New York Times front page. He also removed a large towel from around his lower body and lay on the padded table nude. The world heavyweight champion, at least as far as two of the three entities that bestowed a belt, was six feet four inches of proportioned manhood with a 56 inch chest and a 40 inch waist. He was better read than most professional boxers, and his brother-in-law, a lawyer, handled his contracts and legal affairs.

    In '96, Jeffries failed to qualify for the Olympic boxing team. Oddly, he attributed that slight to not doing his rub down in the buff. Though previously he'd never had it done unclothed. Since then, since turning pro and generating a combined purse -- what with satellite rights and endorsements from video games to signature boxing gloves -- of more than $150 million, no one could tell him different.

    Yank Turner smiled inwardly -- goddamn fighters were a superstitious lot. They had to have their mother or their squeeze or both sitting in row four. Or take Sugar Ray Robinson insisting on drinking fresh cattle blood from the slaughterhouse before a match. He believed in the old folk ways that the blood of an animal or slain opponent imparted to you some of their strength. It couldn't be their luck, since the creatures whose fluids the fighter was gulping were the ones who’d been killed, Turner surmised.

    "I'll say this again so it's on the record," Turner said in his quiet but forceful way. "I don't much like that guru of yours roostin' in my hen house."

    Jeffries raised his eyes above the folded newspaper he was reading. "Very colorful there, Yank."

    Will Masters continued his rub down of the champ. "Is that sore?" He kneaded an area above Jeffries' kidneys. Two days ago he'd been unexpectantly blistered there by his sparring partner, Ray "Busta" Brown. He was an ex-heavyweight contender who never held a belt but came close twice. They'd picked him because Brown still had something to prove, and was known to pour it on when the main attraction lagged.

    "I'm not pissin' blood," Jeffries yawned, displaying wide, strong teeth.

    "I ain't foolin'." Turner's voice went lower, indicating how serious he was.

    "Naomi is only there to boost my Q, Yank, that's all. How I fight is your business." He continued reading an article about an experimental procedure dealing with Alzheimer's. He mused he'd have his broker look into the company advancing the work.

    "You people got too many code words goin' on, you know that?"

    "It's jargon just like in our profession or the medical field," he waved a hand listlessly, "or whatever. They've been good for me in a certain period in my life."

    "Turn over," Masters said.

    Jeffries rolled fluidly onto his back, holding the folded newspaper over his face. "And anyway, Yank, I've been --"

    There was a knock at the door and before any one could answer it was opened. In stepped Wilfred Haulsey, head of security of the Nymnatists. He was tall, white, blue-eyed, mid-fifties and in great shape. He was a ramrod sharp in his steel blue suit and polished burgundy wingtips. The security chief was a casting director's idea of what an ex-military man should look like -- because he was.

    "What?," Turner barked.

    "Everything okay, Tyler?"

    "Of course." Jeffries stretched like a lion deciding to chase its food or get more sleep. "I don't have a care in the world."

    "She just wanted me to check." Haulsey had been in the Army Rangers for some twenty years and could take in a room and asses potential danger in a fraction. He purposefully avoided locking eyes with the glaring Turner.

    "You checked," the irritated trainer-manager snarled.

    A twitch came and went on one corner of Haulsey's line of a mouth. "Very good, then." He narrowed his slits and left quietly.

    "How does that punk sit down with that big a stick up his ass?" Turner railed.

    "He just does that because he knows it gets to you. Relax, Yank."

    "You do the relaxing and let me handle the worryin.'

    On screen the challenger got a good one in on Vargas. The later reeled back and had to get his arms up as the kid pressed him. Masters finished his rub down, setting aside a liniment of his own making.

    "Get twenty, okay?" Turner shut the monitor off as Vargas was getting his rhythm back and was backing the kid up.

    "I'm already there, baby." Jeffries let his eyes close as Masters turned off the lights and he and Turner stepped out of the room. The champ began to doze, collecting his energy and reviewing how he was going to school that clown Muhammad. Joaquin Muhammad, what kind of name was that for a dude from El Salvador? Ragosa, that was his real name. Man has a name, he ought to use that name. Not be something he ain't.

    But then, what did they say in the Nymnatists, ‘Recreating oneself is part of the process of removing all shackles. By adopting the persona, we unlock the inner truths whispering to us.’ Yeah, Tyler, get your Q together, brother.

    Jeffries daydreamed that he was driving a bulldozer and had picked up a bunch of dolls in the scoop. He was delivering these dolls over a craggy landscape where bombs exploded in the far distance. His destination was a large house on a hill. As he got nearer to the house, he could see the front door opening. In the doorway stood his wife, the woman he'd recently been separated from. He'd told no one, not even Yank. But the old pro probably suspected something since she had yet to appear at the stadium.

    His wife, Charisse, had a quizzical look on her face. it occurred to him she was looking past him and the bulldozer he rode on. What the hell was she looking at and why did she seem so agitated?

    "What I tell you," a sloshed Anson Hiss slurred. He leaned onto the ledge of the sky box, his hot breath frosting the glass in front of him. "Didn't I tell you Jeffries is the man?"

    "There's plenty rounds left," Kuwada observed. He tried to look composed but worry had tightened his lithe form. In this fifth round, Muhammad had been on the receiving end of an aggressive attack by Jeffries. He moved his head from the monitor to looking down at the ring, as if one version would be better than the other.

    "Not enough for your boy to get good," Hiss gleefully replied.

    In the ring, Jeffries had backed up the boisterous Muhammad on the ropes and was methodically hammering at his midsection. Muhammad's tongue slapped against his mouth guard, and a welt was reddening on his cheek. But as Jeffries came up with a cross to the other man's nose, Muhammad slipped in a blow that caught Jeffries full on the jaw.

    Vociferous crowing went up from the crowd.

    "That's what I'm talking about, Larry," former heavyweight champ George Foreman said excitedly as he provided color commentary at ring side.

    Muhammad had stunned the champ and now was boxing his way out of immediate peril.

    "That remind you of Kinshasa, George? When the other Muhammad, Ali, worked his rope-a-dope on you?" Larry Merchant waxed euphorically next to his peer.

    "Right, exactly, Foreman answered. "Jeffries better figure out who should be whispering instructions in his ear, if you understand my meaning."

    "Oh, I do, I do," Merchant agreed.

    Back in the sky box, Moya Reese was wide-eyed as she too stood to view the combatants. "Come on, Tyler, come on." After her match Chainey had phoned downstairs for her and reinvited the new champ upstairs.

    Chainey raised an eyebrow. "Tyler, huh?"

    Reese ignored the comment. "Left, get your left up and your shoulders squared, come on," she muttered. "That's it, that's it," the woman boxer said louder. "Move to his right and work that side." Reese began to go through some motions, seeking to telekinetically transmit what she wanted Jeffries to do directly to the muscles of his body.

    Solomon and Chainey exchanged glances. Tosches watched Reese go through the motions. Victoria Degault studied the monitor, enraptured at the savage grace of the contenders going about their job.

    "Didn’t know you were such a fan, Victoria," Hiss commented. He twisted the top on his umpteenth beer.

    "Neither did I."

    On screen, Muhammad solidly hit Jeffries along the temple as the bell rang ending the round. The camera followed Jeffries to his corner. He sat, sucking in air as his corner man squeezed water from a sponge over him. Yank Turner was talking to him and Jeffries was nodding, his eyes locked across the ring.

    Turner's mike broadcast his short, clipped admonishments. "Goddammit, go to his left more, use that speed to get him wary, ya hear me? Stop trying to show everybody how tough you are and stand there taking his punches. This ain't no fuckin' show like wrasslin' This is a goddamn for real boxing match and you use everything at your command to outsmart the other man, ya hear me?"

    "Yeah, yeah I'm on it, Yank," came Jeffries muffled reply as his face was wiped with a towel.

    A female hand came from between the ropes and for a second Degault assumed it belonged to the champ's wife. But she realized the hand was white, and could then see it was Naomi touching Jeffries' arm.

    Turner looked down at the leader of the Nymnatists who was standing outside the ring and also talking to the fighter. So much for radioing in her bullshit he reflected.

    Naomi wasn't mic'd so her words weren't being picked up. But Turner's grumblings were very audible.

    Picking up on the vibe, Foreman piped in, "This is what I'm talking about, Larry. I'm not one to tell anyone what religion or way or whatever you want to call these Pneumatics --"

    "Nymnatists," Jim Lamply corrected.

    "As I said, whatever," Foreman went on. "I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, but you don't see me having my pastor in the corner with me, do you?"

    "Well, George," Lamply demurred, strictly speaking the Nymnatists by their own reckoning are not a religion."

    The sixth round bell rang. "My point is there ain't but one person you need to be listening to at a time like this, and it ain't somebody with nice nails."

    Muhammad was dancing, his arms relaxed in an effort to sucker Jeffries into taking a punch. The champ knew that game and bided his time, racking up the punches thrown stats as he leveled a series of one-twos at the darting and ducking Joaquin Muhammad.

    "Still confident in the outcome, Anson?" Kuwada smiled sideways.

    "I got a hundred says I am, Mister Car Manufacturer." The alternative news publisher produced a crisp note and gently laid it on the coffee table. "I realize this is just lint to you, but how 'bout it?"

    "Anson," Solomon warned.

    Kuwada placed his tumbler of Glen Fiddich next to the bill. "You're on, my friend."

    The two shook hands.

    Under the lights Muhammad smacked a fist into the champ's hard gut, and a collective "ah" erupted from the gathered in the sky box. Lamply was spitting into his mic and Jeffries countered with a stiff left that clearly stunned the challenger.

    "Hmmm," Hiss bobbed his head appreciatively. "Now who's the man?"

    "I wouldn't get all giddy just yet, Mr. Hiss." Victoria Degault sat forward expectantly, her forearms across her spread legs.

    Tosches took this in. "Not worried are you?"

    "There's no sure bets are there, Dean?" She held out a hand and he took it. He stood next to where she sat, their fingers gripping the other’s with force.

    Muhammad pounded several into Jeffries ribs while the other man got some raps into the challenger's upper body. The crowd was ecstatic and the noise they generated vibrated on the windows of the skyboxes. The chants of each man's name was like two competing cults were having a showdown, each seeking to demonstrate that its magic was more potent that the other's.

    "Use your arm length, Tyler, use it to get breathing room." Reese was still at the window, transfixed by the scene below. Her words were chants to empower her Templar of the squared circle. "That's it, Tyler, work it, work it." She was throwing shadow punches and accidentally knocked over the small backpack/purse she'd brought into the room. Some of its contents littered across the floor.

    Solomon winked at Chainey. "Yo," she said quietly into her friend's ear, "what up with that?"

    "Maybe she's got a wad on him," Chainey hazarded. She bent and helped Reese retrieve her items. She picked up a slip of yellow carbonless paper. "The boxing game is picking up, huh," she quipped, handing the woman back the receipt. It was from the Terrace, one of the themed restaurants inside the Treasure Island Casino and signed to her room.

    "I'm doing all right," Reese allowed, straightening up to see more of the fight.

    "Is that previous remark of yours supposed to be a double entendre, Ms. Chainey?" Kuwada had his eyes locked in on the screen.

    "How ever you like it."

    That got his attention and the two momentarily forgot about the fight. Then George Foreman bellowed.

    "Like his namesake, Muhammad can take a punch," the ex-champ and greaseless burger grill pitchman blared into his mike. "Jeffries is pouring it on but Muhammad is still on his pins, slipping some blows and getting some in too."

    Jeffries' head was snapped back from a crisp right and Muhammad got overconfident and tried to finish him off, crowding in close. For his effort, he received a sharp blow that got him blinking.

    "Well, well," Hiss kidded, slapping Kuwada on the back. "Care to go double or nothing?"

    "My pleasure," Kuwada said, a flinty edge to his voice.

    The bell separated the two and Muhammad trudged back to his chair, his big arms lank at his sides.

    "I don't know, Jim, looks like the Salvadoran Scrapper is about out of tricks." Larry Merchant appraised.

    "That's a possibility, Larry, "but don't forget there were those counting him out seven months ago against Ringo Threadgill, and he came back and won in the 10th round."

    Merchant chortled. "Jeffries is a different matter all together than Threadgill, mi amigo."

    "On that we do agree."

    Over this viewers saw Juno Caprice's butt. He was bent over his fighter, hands kneading his shoulders as he gave him instructions. His mic picked up his words. "Look, Joaquin, don't go right at him, you know that's not what we trained to do. I want you back on your bicycle, make him come after you. He hates that especially when he figures he's about to put someone down."

    Muhammad's reply was drowned out as the view was switched from the corner to another camera on the audience. There was a flurry of arms and shouting and the lens zoomed in on a throng of people toward the upper decks.

    "What the hell?" George Foreman breathed into his mike.

    "Indeed," Lamply concurred once more.

    Several men in iridescent retro Super Fly suits topped with hats that had bright feathers sticking out of them were involved in some pushing and shoving with middle-aged women in full nun regalia.

    "Only in Vegas," Larry Merchant noted.

    A camera went to Jeffries who wasn't watching the ruckus. He was sizing up his opponent. Conversely, when the camera swung to Muhammad, he had a bemused grin on his face as he watched the goings on. The disruption was dealt with, causing a delay of some four minutes. Thereafter the fight resumed.

    Several seconds elapsed as each man sought to get their rhythm back as they stormed around the center of the ring. Jeffries banged Muhammad under his heart and he woofed out a ball of air. He counter-punched then got clear. Following his trainer's advice, he got moving, earning an exasperated look from the title holder.

    "Uh-oh," Foreman warned. "Be careful, Tyler. Don't get too anxious."

    Jeffries was swearing over his mouthpiece. "Stand still you fuckin' rabbit." He stalked Muhammad, trying to cut the ring off on the other man.

    "Your mama," Muhammad got him with light taps of the back of his hand. "I'm gonna give you a boxin' lesson, homeboy."

    "I got your homeboy," Jeffries grunted. He pounded forward and let loose with a strong right that Muhammad managed to duck most of its force. Muhammad moved backwards out of range again.

    "Shit," Jeffries charged and threw another right. As he did so, Muhammad delivered his own right and grazed the champ's jaw.

    Jeffries upper body suddenly stiffened.

    "Is this like Ali's invisible knock out punch of Liston?" Merchant extolled.

    Joaquin Muhammad was open-mouthed as Jeffries toppled over flat on his face. The referee stepped forward and pushed the challenger back. The ref started to count then stopped before he finished. He bent down.

    Everyone in the sky box stared at the screen. Reese had a hand over her mouth. The camera dollied in, the image went out of focus and it was several moments before the lens was rotated to provide clarity. The referee was looking all around, unsure of what to do next.

    "He's dead, he's been shot," he said in a strained voice.