And he had learned early that a man will move out of a neighborhood faster over paperwork than over threats and that paperwork does not go on video. He was not angry at Sherman Atwater. That was the part Celeste could never make people understand later. He was not even interested in him. He simply had a son who had gotten himself into a story.
And the cleanest way to end a story was to end the man in it quietly. With fees. But Braxton did not want Quiet. Braxton wanted the rematch on camera, and he wanted it at Lomax Combat Academyy's fall fight night at the Larkin County Civic Center. And by the second week of June, he had talked his father into paying for it. $20,000.
One exhibition round, 3 minutes. Gloves. Ah, referee. A doctor. All of it legitimate.
All of it filmed by four cameras that Payton had already booked. Truit Lomax filed the event paperwork on a Wednesday. Somebody would go looking at that paperwork later and noticed that the insurance writer Lomax submitted 6 days before anybody ever asked Sherman Atwater to sign anything. Already listed the opponent by name. Sherman said no.
He said no to trouit Lommax on the phone and he said no to Sheldon Winthrop on the front step and he said it without any heat at all which was somehow worse than shouting. That was Thursday. On Friday afternoon, Braxton Winthrup drove to Marlo Street and walked into Bellite physical therapy while Celeste had two patients on tables and a 79year-old man on the bike. He had the belt on his shoulder. Is this the wife or is this the help too?
Celeste kept her hands on her patients ankle and did not look up. The room went very quiet. The old man on the bike stopped pedaling. You need to leave. Sweetheart, you people came to the wrong street.
Braxton picked her business cards up off the counter, fanned them, and let them go over his shoulder on his way out the door. They came down all over the floor of a clinic she had waited 9 years to open. He was still filming when he said the last thing. And he said it to the camera and not to her. Tell your husband 3 minutes.
Tell him I will go easy. Celeste closed at 4. She swept up her own cards. She drove home and she did not cry until she was in the garage with the door down and Sherman found her there. He did not say anything for a while.