A Piece of the Action

It’s the smart ones who’re hard to find. So full speed ahead, boyo. Make her happy, if you can. Make her happy, but keep your hands to yourself. I want my daughter to come to the altar in a white gown, as pure as the day she made her first Holy Communion.”

Moodrow didn’t bother to look around when the door to his dressing room opened and Sergeant Peretti, Allen Epstein’s assistant, announced, “Five minutes, Stanley. The light-heavies are outta the ring,” but he felt his gut begin to knot up. It wasn’t the importance of this particular tournament that bothered him. It was the caliber of his opponent.

Liam O’Grady was quick, smart, Irish and a lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department. He’d mastered a strategy available to few fighters, amateur or professional-the art of hammering his opponent while moving away. On the face of it, O’Grady’s technique defied the laws of physics. A fighter had to be moving forward, to get his whole body into the punch, if he wanted to hit with power. But rules were made to be broken and Liam O’Grady had broken all of them (along with Stanley Moodrow’s nose) a year before. O’Grady had danced around the ring like a giant Sugar Ray Robinson, while Moodrow, a clumsy Jake La Motta, lumbered after him, punching air.

There were differences, of course. Sugar Ray Robinson was a consummate professional. He could stay on his bicycle for fifteen rounds and still be throwing punches at the end. O’Grady, on the other hand, was only a gifted amateur. He could stick and move for three rounds, not fifteen. And this fight wasn’t going three rounds. In deference to its importance, the bout, like every fight in this all-star tournament, had been scheduled for six. And the fighters were to wear eight-ounce gloves instead of the customary ten. Most important of all, the referees had been instructed not to stop a fight unless a fighter was out on his feet.

“You ready, Stanley?”

“Huh?”

Epstein frowned. “You’re not focused, Stanley. You’re not here.”

“Then where am I, Sarge?” Moodrow began to put on his robe. He was smiling.

“You tell me?”

“What are they callin’ this tournament? The First Annual Inter-Service Boxing Championships? The Golden Gloves and the Olympics all wrapped up in one?”

“So what, Stanley? This isn’t the first time you’ve gone up against a fireman. You’ve gotta see it as just another fight. Stop putting pressure on yourself.”

“Who’s here tonight, Sarge? Who’s out there screaming for blood?”

“This ain’t helping you.”

“The commissioner’s sitting ten feet away from the ring. The chief of detectives is right next to him. There are city councilmen out there, the borough president, a deputy mayor. If I win, I’m a hero. If I lose, I’m a bum. My daddy always told me not to be a bum. He told me bums were the lowest form of life on the face of the earth.”

Epstein draped a towel around his fighter’s neck. “I could never tell you anything,” he said. “You think you know it all.”

“You could never tell me anything, because you don’t know anything. Not about fighting. Let’s go.”

As they stepped into the narrow corridor connecting the boys’ and girls’ locker rooms with the gymnasium, the crowd in the tightly packed gym sent up a roar.

“O’Grady’s in the ring,” Epstein observed. “Now, it’s your turn.”

As if on cue, the crowd began a chant that was close to a moan. “Moooooooo-Drow, Moooooooo-Drow, Moooooooo-Drow.”

“Your fans await you.” Epstein’s smile was closer to a grimace.

“You trying to say the vampires are hungry, Sarge? That’s all that’s happening. The vampires need to be fed. My blood or someone else’s. It’s all the same to them.”

Epstein started to answer, but Moodrow turned away and marched into the gym. The room was packed, firemen on one side, cops on the other. Moodrow walked between them without turning his head, stepping up onto the ring apron and ducking between the ropes with practiced grace. Once inside, he raised his arms in premature triumph. The crowd went wild, stomping, whistling, cheering. He wondered if they even knew that Liam O’Grady had kicked his butt a year ago? Or cared, for that matter.

“Siddown, Stanley, lemme get the gloves on.”

Moodrow dropped to the stool and extended his left hand. His head swiveled until he was staring directly across the ring at a smiling Liam O’Grady. Though he would have liked to return the smile, to meet arrogance with arrogance, he dropped his eyes to the canvas. If O’Grady wanted to think it was going to be easy, Moodrow had no objection.

“Whatta ya say, Stanley?” Ed Spinelli was a deputy supervisor in sanitation by day and a referee by night. He’d been chosen for his experience and his neutrality. “Lemme see the gloves.”

Moodrow, without bothering to reply, held both gloves out for Spinelli’s inspection. It was going to be a long night for the little referee, though he didn’t know it. At a hundred and sixty pounds, Spinelli was too small to control a pair of determined heavyweights. He’d need the fighters’ cooperation and he wasn’t going to get it.

His gloves laced and inspected, Moodrow got up and began to move around the ring. O’Grady did the same. Both men were sweating profusely and neither wanted to cool off before the opening bell. Inevitably, they passed each other in the center of the squared circle.

“Do yourself a favor, flatfoot,” O’Grady snarled. “Fall down early.”

Moodrow let his eyes flick up to meet O’Grady’s, then jerked them away. There were no scars over the fireman’s eyes and his nose was as straight as a ruler. That was going to change. Liam O’Grady, the Fighting Fireman, might come out of this fight a winner, but he wasn’t going to come out unmarked.

“Go back to your corners,” Spinelli ordered. “They’re gonna do the intros.”

Deputy Mayor Gold was short and forty pounds overweight. Even with a cop and a fireman to hold the ropes apart, he had trouble getting into the ring. The crowd jeered, then broke into laughter. Moodrow heard none of it. He’d never been more focused in his life, never more determined. The Gold Shield was riding on the end of his right hand. Once he had it, he’d never again fight for someone else’s amusement. He’d never hit or be hit, never taste the blood running from his nose or be sprayed as he drove his fist into a cut on his opponent’s face. The glory he’d once reached for had died a second death at his mother’s graveside, two years before. He’d gotten through his mother’s death by deciding not to break down, by telling himself to “do what you have to do.” He’d been living by that rule ever since.

“In the red corner, at two hundred and eight pounds, the Fightin’ Fireman, ‘Irish’ Liam O’Grady.” Deputy Mayor Gold, drenched with sweat, waited for the roar to die away before he continued. “And in the blue corner, at two hundred and forty-seven pounds, New York’s Fightin’ Finest, Stan ‘The Man’ Moodrow.”

The referee motioned both fighters to the center of the ring and began to recite a set of instructions he’d already given in the dressing rooms. “All right, boys,” he concluded, “touch gloves and let’s have a clean fight.”

It was supposed to be a gesture of sportsmanship, but that first contact, just the touch of leather on leather, coursed through Moodrow’s body like a match tossed into a pool of gasoline. Now it was out in the open. It was war. You had to fight to survive.

When the bell rang, Moodrow moved to the center of the ring as if staking out a claim. O’Grady came out to meet him, then began to circle. Moodrow advanced at an angle, cutting the circle, and O’Grady reversed direction, then suddenly closed, throwing a quick combination before bouncing away. Moodrow took the punches, catching three out of four on his arms. The last one slammed into the narrow space between his left elbow and the top of his trunks.

Moodrow was aware of being hit, but he felt no pain. Tomorrow, he’d have trouble getting out of bed; tonight, he had a job to do. He continued to advance, forcing O’Grady back toward the ropes, throwing an occasional jab at his opponent’s dancing head, punching air.

O’Grady gave ground willingly, just as he had in their first fight. Sooner or later his back would be against the ropes and both fighters knew it. Meanwhile, he continued to inflict damage, snapping jabs between Moodrow’s gloves, following with short, vicious rights to the body, slipping Moodrow’s clumsy attempts to counter.

It took Moodrow more than two minutes to force O’Grady into a corner, to render his opponent momentarily stationary. He absorbed a lot of punishment in the process, but found no reward at the end of the road. Before he could take advantage of his power, before he could throw a single punch, O’Grady ducked between his arms and