grabbed Moodrow’s huge chest. Now it was perfect. They’d come full circle, repeating every element of their first fight.
“New game,” Moodrow whispered to O’Grady as Spinelli tried to pull the two fighters apart. He wrapped his left glove around the back of O’Grady’s neck, pulling him forward and down, then jammed the point of his right elbow into the soft spot just behind O’Grady’s collarbone. O’Grady tried to jerk away, but Moodrow, much the stronger, held him close.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Spinelli shouted. “No holding, Moodrow. Don’t grab him.”
Moodrow let the ref tug on his arm for another few seconds before releasing his opponent. Grinning, he waited for O’Grady to move back to the center of the ring, then began to advance. For the first time, he allowed himself to look directly into O’Grady’s eyes. He was hoping to find doubt, but he settled for anger. If O’Grady lost his cool and stood toe-to-toe, it would be a very short fight.
Moodrow moved a little faster this time, ignoring the jabs, not even trying to counter. O’Grady was staying closer, waiting for an opportunity to throw his best punch. He found it with fifteen seconds left in the round, a whistling right that slammed into Moodrow’s forehead. Moodrow ignored the blow, didn’t, in fact, even feel it. He pressed forward until O’Grady’s back was against the ropes, then threw his own right. O’Grady’s head moved slightly, avoiding Moodrow’s fist, but not the forearm that followed. It smashed into the side of his skull, driving him sideways along the ropes.
Moodrow grabbed O’Grady behind the neck before he could escape and the fireman instinctively tried to pull away, lifting his body erect, opening his ribs to the right hand. The bell rang an instant before Moodrow could react to the opportunity, but that didn’t stop him. He drove his fist into O’Grady’s chest, then turned and walked back to his corner.
“You’re cut, Stanley,” Epstein said.
“Bad?” Moodrow suddenly became aware of the drops running along the outside of his right eye.
“Not yet.” Epstein took the edges of the cut between his fingers, squeezing them tightly together. He held the cut closed until the bleeding stopped, then filled the gash with a thick coagulant. “You could use a real cut man for this one. If he keeps tagging you with the jab, it’s gonna get messy.”
“Don’t worry about it, Sarge. They’re not gonna stop this one for blood.” He glanced across the ring, but O’Grady’s handlers had him surrounded.
“Look here, Stanley.” The referee’s face swam into view. “I want you to stop the bullshit. Right now. Stop grabbin’ him. Stop the elbows. I’ll disqualify you.”
“The crowd’ll love that,” Moodrow grunted. The truth was they’d probably tear Spinelli to pieces and Spinelli knew it. O’Grady was on his own.
The second round, in direct contrast to the first, was slow and dull. O’Grady got on his bicycle, staying far enough away from Moodrow to spin out before his back was against the ropes. The strategy was effective in that it prevented him from being trapped, but the distance was too great for any meaningful offense. O’Grady looked like a scared fighter and the few jabs he managed to land did nothing to change that impression. By the time the bell rang to end the round, the crowd, including a few of the firemen, was booing.
In the third round, O’Grady again reversed strategy, staying close to Moodrow, as he had in the first. Moodrow wasn’t surprised. Irish fighters were expected to be especially courageous. O’Grady would have to return to the firehouse as soon as his injuries, should he suffer injuries, healed up. He couldn’t very well go back to his buddies if he came out of this fight labeled a coward.
Moodrow led with a hard, straight right. It missed, but not by much. O’Grady didn’t bother to counter. He came inside and banged his forehead into Moodrow’s nose. Moodrow heard the cartilage in his nose snap, but he had no sense that it was his own flesh being torn. It was more like someone in another room had broken a pencil. O’Grady, aided by the referee, tried to pull back, but Moodrow held him long enough to put his glove on the fireman’s cheek and rub the laces across his face.
O’Grady managed to jerk away and the referee, incensed, stepped between the two fighters before Moodrow could take up the pursuit. “I’m takin’ a point,” he shouted. “Y’understand? I’m takin’ a point for that.”
Spinelli signalled his decision by turning to each of the three judges and raising his index finger. The cops in the audience sent up a howl. They’d been fairly quiet before, not sure how to react to Moodrow’s tactics. Now they were screaming for O’Grady’s (and Spinelli’s) blood.
The bell rang a few seconds later and this time O’Grady didn’t wait to be hit. He bounced away like a puppet on the end of a string. Moodrow, standing in the center of the ring, turned to the crowd, spread his arms in a gesture of wonder, then minced back to his corner. The cops roared with laughter.
“How’s the eye?”
“Forget the eye,” Epstein nearly shouted. He pressed a hot-water bottle filled with shaved ice against his fighter’s nose, trying to spread the swelling out over Moodrow’s face. “Your nose is broken. I think it might be split.”
“I know. I can taste the blood. It’s kind of salty. Maybe we oughta save it and pour it over a hard-boiled egg.”
“You’re a funny guy, Stanley. But this ain’t
“The fight’s over, Sarge,” Moodrow replied calmly. “He’s mine.”
“This I already know.”
O’Grady began the fourth round with a five-punch combination that stopped Moodrow in his tracks. Instinctively, Moodrow grabbed O’Grady and pulled him close. Spinelli, still furious, yanked at Moodrow’s left arm, tugging it back far enough to allow O’Grady to drive his right fist into Moodrow’s ribs.
Stunned at the turn of events, Spinelli let Moodrow’s arm go and started to say something to O’Grady. He wasn’t fast enough to get his message across. Moodrow grabbed O’Grady’s face with his left hand and stuck the thumb of his glove into O’Grady’s eye. Once again, O’Grady tried to pull away, but this time Moodrow’s follow-up right caught the top of the fireman’s head.
O’Grady responded by coming directly at Moodrow for the first time. And Moodrow, for the first time, began to give ground. He took a step backward, then another, then another, then set himself and put every ounce of his 247 pounds into a short left hook. O’Grady ran directly into the punch. It stopped him in his tracks, paralyzed him just long enough for the following right hand to catch him flush on the jaw. He trembled for a moment, like a sapling hit with a sledgehammer, then his body went limp and he dropped to the canvas. Moodrow, looking for any sign of consciousness, knew the fight was over when he distinctly heard the crunch of his opponent’s skull smashing into the floor of the ring.
“Jesus, Stanley. Jesus Christ.” Epstein ran to the center of the ring and tried to remove his fighter’s mouthpiece.
Moodrow, his arms raised in triumph, ignored his trainer. He walked over to the ropes and saluted the assembled brass. The cheering continued for several minutes, then finally died away. Moodrow dropped his arms, weary for the first time. The pain was coming. He could feel it in his nose and ribs, only a dull ache now, but soon it would overwhelm him. Still, he wanted to drag it out as long as possible, to imprint his victory in the minds of every cop in the crowd.
“Go shake your opponent’s hand, Stanley.”
“What?” Moodrow looked down at his trainer as if surprised to find him there.
“Go shake his fucking hand. Tell him it was a great fight. Tell him anything, but don’t leave him sitting there.”
“You’re right,” Moodrow admitted. “I forgot.”
O’Grady’s handlers had him up and sitting on his stool when Moodrow approached. The fireman stared at the bloody apparition kneeling in front of him for a moment, then nodded his head. “You fought hard, Stanley,” he said. “You deserve it. But I want a rematch. One more fight to settle the issue.”
“Sorry, pal,” Moodrow replied evenly, “but you’re gonna have to learn to live with this one. I’m retired.”
Three
January 3
