Chapter 23: The Cellar Closes

The champion got to his knees and held out his hand for the microphone on the apron.

Nobody stopped him. Dev put it in his palm.

"My name doesn't matter," the man said.

His voice shook the speakers.

"I fight for Stahl. I've broken eleven hands for him."

The Cellar went still.

"One of them was his."

He nodded at Dev.

"Stahl never wanted that fight won. He wanted a Kilbride who couldn't lift a glove again, so the name stayed a joke and the Cellar stayed his."

Up in the glass booth, the blinds snapped shut.

A second later the speakers cut out, and the champion kept talking without them.

"The water's his too!"

His voice carried to the back wall.

"Ask who's been sleeping through the last round of every fight he bet on!"

In the front row, the owners of all eight gyms were on their feet.

The woman from Fishtown whose son I had put down in the first round was the first one to shout.

"Where's tonight's purse?" she called.

"He's got it in a bag!" a man yelled.

"He's got the bottle!" Finn yelled, pointing at the apron.

Stahl's sealed gift still sat there in full view.

"Look at the seal! Look at the glue!"

A hundred people closed in on the bottle at once.

The booth door opened.

Stahl came out onto the catwalk in his camel coat.

He had a leather bag in one hand and a bodyguard on each side.

He did not run. He walked, quickly, to the iron stairs on the far wall.