Rogue Lawyer Read Online Free PDF Page B

my life that I often leave the apartment after dark with some sort of disguise—different cap, glasses, hidden hair, even a fedora.
    Partner drives me to the old city auditorium, eight blocks from my apartment, and drops me off in an alley near the building. A crowd is swarming out front. Loud rap booms across the front plaza. Spotlights sweep maniacally from building to building. Bright digital signs advertise the main event and the undercard.
    Tadeo fights fourth, the last warm-up before the main event, which tonight is a heavyweight contest that is selling tickets because the favorite is a crazy ex-NFL player who’s well known in the area. I own 25 percent of Tadeo’s career, an investment that cost me $30,000 a year ago, and he hasn’t lost since. I’m also betting on the side and doing quite well. If he wins tonight, his cut will be $6,000. Half of that if he loses.
    In a hallway, somewhere deep under the arena, I hear two security guards talking. One is claiming the evening is a sellout. Five thousand fans. I flash my credentials and get waved through another door, then another. I enter the dark locker room and the tension hits like a brick. Tonight we’re assigned to one half of a long room. Tadeo is moving up in the world of mixed martial arts, and we’re all beginning to sense something big. He’s lying on a table, on his stomach, naked except for his boxers, not an ounce of fat on his 130-pound body. His cousin Leo is massaging his shoulder blades. The lotion makes his light brown skin glisten. I ease around the room and speak to Norberto, his manager, Oscar, his trainer, and Miguel, his brother and workout partner. They smile when they speak to me because I, the lone gringo, am viewed as the man with the money. I’m also the agent, the guy with the connections and brains who’ll get Tadeo on a UFC card if he keeps winning. There are a couple of other relatives in the background, hangers-on who have no discernible role in Tadeo’s life. I don’t like these extras because they expect to be paid at some point, but after seven wins in a row Tadeo thinks he needs the entourage. They all do.
    With the exception of Oscar, they’re all members of the same street gang, a mid-level organization of El Salvadorans who run cocaine. Tadeo has been one of the gang since he was initiated at the age of fifteen but has never aspired to a leadership position. Instead, he found some old boxing gloves, discovered a gym, and then discovered he had freakishly quick hands. His brother Miguel also boxed, but not as well. Miguel runs the gang and has a nasty reputation on the street.
    The more Tadeo wins the more he earns, and the more I worry about dealing with his gang.
    I lean down and speak softly to him. “How’s my man?”
    He opens his eyes, looks up, suddenly smiles, and pulls out the earphones. The massage ends abruptly as he sits on the edge of the table. We chat for a few moments and he assures me he’s ready to kill someone. Attaboy. His prefight ritual includes avoiding a good shave for a week, and with his scraggly beard and mop of black hair he sort of reminds me of the great Roberto Duran. But Tadeo’s roots are in El Salvador, not Panama. He’s twenty-two, a U.S. citizen, and his English is almost as good as his Spanish. His mother has documents and works in a cafeteria. She also has an apartment full of kids and relatives and I get the impression that whatever Tadeo earns gets divided many ways.
    Every time I talk to Tadeo I’m thankful I’m not forced to face him in the ring. He has fierce black pupils that scream angrily, “Show me the mayhem. Show me the blood.” He grew up on the streets, fighting anyone who got too close. An older brother died in a knife fight, and Tadeo is afraid he’ll die too. When he steps into the ring, he’s convinced someone is about to be killed, and it won’t be him. His three losses were on points; nobody’s kicked his ass yet. He trains four hours a day and he’s