hitting the muscle web of the latissimus dorsi under his rib cage was like hitting a chain link fence. I moved back away from him. He grazed me with his left fist, and I hit him in the nose again. It started to bleed. I hoped Marge Bartlett was pleased. The silence in the open field seemed thunderous.
The sound of a helicopter, probably one of the traffic reporters, made the silence seem more thunderous by contrast. The helicopter bothered my concentration. Watch his middle, watch his feet, let peripheral vision take care of his fists, he can’t fake with his middle. Stay away. Don’t let him get hold of you. I tried a combination. Left jab, left hook, right cross. It worked. I scored on all three. But no one was counting. Harry Balleau wasn’t going to jump into the ring at the end and raise my hand. If we clinched, Artie Donovan wasn’t going to jump in and make sure we broke clean. There was a mouse starting under Harroway’s right eye. I circled him counterclockwise. Moving my hands in front of me, shuffling, keeping my left foot forward. Don’t get caught walking. Don’t let him get you between steps.
Shuffle, jab, one two, shuffle, jab, one two. Move in. Move out. I was way ahead on points. But Harroway didn’t seem to be weakening. He lunged at me. I moved out of the way and got him With the side of my fist on the temple. Don’t break your hand. Don’t hit his head with your knuckles.
Shuffle, move. Jab. The sweat began to slip down my chest and arms; it felt good. I was getting looser and quicker.
Ought to warm up really. Should do some squat jumps and stretching exercises before you have a fight with a 215-pound body builder who probably killed a guy with his fist last week. Harroway was breathing a little short. I gave him a dip with my right shoulder, went left, and dug my left fist into his stomach. He grunted. He got hold of my shoulder with his left hand. I twisted in toward him and came up under his jaw with the heel of my right hand. His head jolted back. I hammered him in the Adam’s apple with the edge of the same hand. He made a choking sound. I rolled on out away from him, breaking the grip on my shoulder as I did, and brought my left elbow back against his cheekbone with the full weight of my rolling 195 behind it. He went down. I heard Kevin gasp. Harroway was halfway up when I finished my roll and kicked him in the face. I sprawled him over on his side. He kept going, rolled over, and came up.
Maybe I was just making him mad. There was a lot of blood on his face and shirt now. Besides his nose, there was a cut under the eye where the mouse had been. The eye was almost closed. The right side of his face where my elbow had caught him was beginning to puff. He seemed to have trouble breathing. I wondered if I’d broken something in the neck. He came at me. I went to work on the other eye. Two jabs, a left hook. Move away, circle. Concentrate. Don’t let him grab you. Don’t let him tag you. Concentrate. Move.
Jab. He swung a right roundhouse, and I caught it on my forearm. The whole arm went numb, and I back pedaled out of range waiting for it to recover. Better not let that happen again. Harroway kept coming. His face was bloody. One eye was shut and the other closing. His breathing was hoarse and labored, but he kept coming on. I felt a tickle of fear in my stomach. What if I couldn’t stop him? Never mind what if I couldn’t. Think about jabbing and moving.
Concentrate. Don’t think things that don’t help. Don’t think at all. Concentrate. I jabbed the closing eye. Harroway grunted in pain. He was having trouble seeing. I hit the same eye again. There was a cut on the eyebrow, and the blood was blinding him. He stood still. Weaving a little.
Like a buffalo, with his head lowered. I stepped away from him.
”Stop it, Harroway,“ I said.
He shook his head and lunged toward the sound of my voice. I moved away and hit him a left hook in the neck.
”Stop it, you goddamned fool,“ I said.
He came at me again. I stepped in toward him like a lineman on a pass rush and came up against the side of his head with my forearm, my whole body behind it, driving off my legs. Harroway straightened up and fell over on his back without a sound. The shock of the impact tingled the length of my arm and up into my shoulder. No one said anything.
Kevin stood by himself opposite his mother and father with Harroway between them lying on his back in the sun.
Kevin said, ”Don’t, Vic. Get up. Don’t quit. Don’t let him beat you. Don’t quit.“
”He didn’t quit, kid, he’s hurt. Anybody can be hurt.“
”He let you beat him.“
”No. He couldn’t stop me. But there’s no shame in that.
It’s just something I know how to do better than he does.
He’s a man, kid. I think he’s a no-good sonova bitch. But he didn’t quit. He went as far as he could, for you. In fact he went a lot farther than he could, for you. So did your mother and father.“
Now that it was over I was shaky. My shirt was soaked with sweat. My arms trembled and my legs felt weak. I took the bullets out of my pants pocket and reloaded the gun while I talked. ”How far have you gone for anybody lately?“
The boy still looked at Harroway. In the distance I heard a siren. Somebody had called for the buzzers, and here they came. Kevin started to cry. He stood looking at Harroway and cried with his hands straight down by his side.
”I don’t know what to do,“ he said. Roger Bartlett got his feet under him and stood up. He put out his hand and helped his wife up. He fumbled a handkerchief out of his hip pocket and gave it to her, and she held it against her still-leaky nose. The two of them stood looking at Kevin who stood crying. Then Marge Bartlett said, ”Oh, honey,“ and stepped over Harroway and put her arms around the kid and cried too. Then Bartlett got his arms around both of them and held on for dear life. Harroway sat up, painfully, and hugged his knees and looked at me with his one slightly open eye.
”Slut?“ I said. He looked at me without comprehension.
I said, ”A couple of days ago you called Susan Silverman a slut.“ He still looked blank. ”Never mind,“ I said.
Chapter 26
