"But what about a public defender?" I said.
"That's what I told her. But Grandma wouldn't hear of it. She said I deserved better."
"She was right," I said, thinking of the worst-case scenario. If things had gone badly, Lawton might be sitting in prison right now, as opposed to sitting with me.
"By the time it was done," Lawton said, "she owed more than the house was worth."
"Oh wow," I said, letting that sink in. "That's awful."
"And what's worse," he said, "it wasn't all to the bank."
"Who else did she owe?" I asked.
"This local guy, specialized in high-risk loans."
"You mean a loan shark?" I said.
"More or less. Though he didn't like to be called that. Don't ask me how I know."
"So who owns the house now?" I said.
"The bank, probably. When Grandma died, she still owed a lot of money."
"To the loan shark?"
"No. Him, I paid off."
"How'd you do that?"
"One day, he saw me mixing it up with a couple of guys in the neighborhood. Said he liked what he saw, offered me the chance to work off some of the loan."
"By fighting?"
Lawton nodded. "It was the one thing I was actually good at. And for whatever reason, people liked to watch."
This was totally unsurprising. All I had to do was look at him. His body was a work of art, and he had a face to match. I liked to watch him no matter what he was doing.
"I can see why," I said.
He turned to look at me, a smile tugging at his lips. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," I said, hearing the breathiness of my own voice. "Totally."
How Lawton had survived unscathed, I had no idea. Well, actually, I did. I had never heard of him losing a fight. And the way he moved, it was deadly poetry. No matter what he did, he made it look easy. But the way it sounded, easiness was a foreign concept in his world.
"So anyway," he continued, "one fight led to another. Every time, the money got a little better. And then there was that fight video that made the rounds." He shook his head. "I still don't know that got out. The organizers weren't too happy about that."
"Because the fights were illegal."
"That and taxes," he said.
"Taxes?"
"Yeah. They didn't like to pay them."
"Oh."
Outside the car, I saw the first sign of life. A couple blocks in front of us, a lean, scruffy man with bushy hair weaved his way from one side of the street to the other. As he walked, he stopped every once in a while, peering into the few beat-up cars that dotted the oddly quiet street.
