Illegal Entry: Chapter 5
Prize fighter Joe Bosley begins to face up to the consequences of causing the death of another boxer.
To read earlier chapters of Steph Spiers' vivid novel please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/2008/10/sunday_morning_1.php
Mechanically, Joe pulled a crumpled T-shirt from deep inside a carrier bag and slipped it over his head. ‘Pull it right down,’ ordered Dixie, ‘so it hides that sash round your waist.’ Glancing across from the wheel as they turned off the main route into a deserted side road, Dixie noticed deep bruising around the heart area and rib cage of the older man as he covered up. The fighter’s cheek was turning purple blue round the good eye too. The winner was in a right state – his face looked like a dog’s breakfast. The experience had knocked him sideways. He was probably in shock. Many a time Dixie’d seen Joe look better when he’d lost a scrap.
Dixie conceded, his old man was right about one thing. He said as much, ‘I’ll give ya that. Lidderdale was winning. I mean, come on Dad. Ten years younger, he was expected to win. Look at the odds the bookies were giving.’ Dixie couldn’t help himself the torrent of disappointment just sort of welled up and spilled out. ‘Leon was only doing a bit of sparring to loosen himself up before the title fight.’
Dejected by the truth, Joe’s chin was touching his chest, all the fight had gone out of him now. Dixie couldn’t stop, ‘A pocket money carib, a piece of cake.’ Dixie felt his hands shaking on the wheel, and he was gripping it too tight, his breath rasping out of his chest much too fast.
‘What to do? Where to go? We can’t go back to your place or mine. That’s the first place they’d look.’ The full enormity of the situation was becoming ever more apparent the further away from the warehouse they drove. Walsall signs were beginning to appear, without realizing why, they were heading towards Walsall.
‘What a cock up. Typical. Why can Joe Bosley never do anything right? Why break the habit of a lifetime today?’ A trickle of spittle escaped to run down and across the deep unshaven cleft which split his chin through the middle. ‘Why knock out the naffing contender? There was big money riding on the carib. Killing the contender! We’re all dead!’
Joe grunted and griped at his biceps again. ‘There’s nothing I can say.’
‘I couldn’t have believe it happened if I he hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes. Tell you what’s worse Dad, I’d bet Fergal O’Rourke knows by now, some slimy toe-rag or another will have let Lidderdale’s Manager know.
Joe sighed from somewhere low in his chest then coughed from the effort.
Dixie ignored him, ‘There’s a thing. Strange Jemmy O’Rouke wasn’t minding his boy today. If Jem had been there – he’d have stopped it straight off. If only he’d have been there - no messing.’
‘You got that right son, Jemmy usually does the minding this close to a big match. Weird he was missing.’
Dixie pondered this line of thought. This was weird; Fergal’s number one son was elsewhere. Why wasn’t Jem keeping an eye on their investment, especially as Fergal’s travelling fairground, famed for their boxing booth, had set up at Steppleford over a week ago. As he calmed down the more Dixie was seething, this cock-up would cause a lot of aggravation all round and especially for him: hadn’t Jemmy slipped him two hundred quid already to be sure Lidderdale won?
He couldn’t resist turning the knife, ‘Have you thought about Vanno? Vanno Botham’ll be right upset. This will lose him fifty thousand pound, or more . . . and if . . . if the title match has to be scrubbed. . . . A bundle of losses just ’cause a sparring carib’d got out of hand. We’re walking dead men. Oh God.’
The full weight of the question hit Joe like a blow. Did he want to be the one to upset Fergal O’Rourke or worse . . . Vanno? Oh hell no.
As they turned right at the island heading into Walsall proper Joe started with the tremors again, he was a simple man, he liked simple things in life like his knees bending in the middle of his legs – preferably both of them.
