“Do me a favor,” I told him. “My Cherokee is parked over on East 6th. Go get it and drive it around and pick us up.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure as the sun’s going to come up tomorrow.” He still hesitated. “Go on,” I said, “it’s okay.” I watched him disappear around the corner and then I turned back to the other men.
“You must be the daddy,” he said to me, “sending little sonny boy off before he gets hurt.” He looked over at McCarthy. “And you must be the mommy.” He stepped out onto the sidewalk.
“Why don’t you just go back inside?” I said.
“After we kick your asses and you apologize for insulting my wife.” He charged toward me, his hand holding the mug raised, ready to swing at my head.
I threw the handful of sawdust into his face and as he tried to wipe it away I landed a pro field goal kick to his groin. He fell to his knees and grabbed his crotch. I started to follow up with a kick to his head but stopped. He wasn’t going to be a problem so I left him kneeling there, holding his crotch and making strange whooping sounds. McCarthy had waited for the other man to come toward him and when he did, McCarthy let him swing and stepped inside and ripped an uppercut to his nose. Blood exploded all over the sidewalk and the man squealed in pain.
“You broke my nose,” he whimpered.
“No, I didn’t,” McCarthy said, planting his feet and landing a straight right. “Now, I did.” The punch sent the man sprawling over a series of garbage cans and down a small flight of steps that led to a basement.
The street fell silent except for the strange whooping sound coming from the man who was holding his crotch. Then, I could hear the roar of an engine as my Cherokee came barreling down the block. Bobby braked when we reached us and we piled into the jeep and drove back to Brooklyn. Bobby wanted to hit Biff’s steam room and try and take another half-pound off.
McCarthy was flushed from the street fight and on the way to Brooklyn he started needling Bobby again. “You’d have to make the jump to ten rounds,” he said from the back seat. “You’ve never gone ten rounds. That’s a big haul against a fighter like Adams. Ten long rounds. Of course, the fight might end sooner. Adams likes to pump his jab real fast. Doubles and triples it. You can’t block them all.”
“You don’t know what I can do. Buy a ticket for the fight and see what I can do.”
“I just might do that,” McCarthy said. “Front row.”
“I saw him get knocked out,” Bobby said. “That fight took a lot out of him. He’s thirty-four and after the fight he looked it.”
“Oh, don’t worry about him,” McCarthy said, “he’s well trained. He wants that title back.”
“What makes you think I’m worried?” He stared at McCarthy. “Say, you’re a southpaw. You want some work?”
“Sparring with you? Sure.”
“Be here tomorrow at eleven a.m. Three rounds.”
“Sure you don’t want to go ten with me?”
“No, three will do,” Bobby said. His voice was calm and I was relieved that McCarthy’s needling hadn’t got to him.
After McCarthy left, we went upstairs and Bobby got a fresh towel and stripped and put his clothes in the locker. I asked Bobby what else Harry had said on the phone.
“Twenty large,” Bobby said. “Adam’s manager said he saw me fight in AC and he liked my style, said he knew I would be fighting on short notice and offered twenty thou.”
I had forgotten that Adams had managed one of the main event fighters on the Atlantic City card. He must have seen Bobby in the prelim. “I want you working my corner for this one,” he said. “You’re cut will be fifteen hundred.”
“Is that okay with Harry?
“Screw Harry. He’s just gets the fights. Your money is coming out of my end anyway. So if I say you get fifteen hundred, you get fifteen hundred.”
I walked with him to the steam room. “No more than fifteen minutes,” I told him. “And don’t rehydrate all the way afterwards.”
2.
When Bobby and Mike entered the ring, Biff Tucker came over and stood next to me. “Heard Bobby’s substituting next week in the Adams fight. Should be a good pay day for him.”
Biff ran his gym like boot camp. The gym rules were posted on every wall and were to be obeyed. Dues were to be paid on the first of the month and on the second; any locker with unpaid dues had its lock clipped and the contents tossed in the trash. While Biff loved the boxing game, he knew it was a business and maintained that any fighter that didn’t know it was a business didn’t belong in his gym.
I went over to Mike’s corner to talk to him before they sparred. He had a funny look on his face.
“You think he’s still pissed off about last night? I was just cracking on him to have a little fun; I didn’t mean anything by it?”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I want you to stay out of range and double and triple your jabs when he closes, just like Adams will. Let’s see what Bobby has today.”
McCarthy nodded and slipped the mouthpiece in. When the bell sounded he was up but Bobby was already in the center of the ring. McCarthy circled, staying away, the funny look still on his face. Bobby was having none of it. He danced left, then right, each step closing the distance, cutting McCarthy off. Mike suddenly found himself near the corner and pumped out a double jab with his right, trying to keep Bobby away until he could move off. Bobby slid to his left just before the second jab and ripped a vicious hook to McCarthy’s midsection, following with a second hook upstairs and that landed flush on McCarthy’s head gear. Even through the padding Mike was stunned and when he tried to turn and face Bobby, his movement was awkward and off balance. Bobby threw a straight right that landed flush on McCarthy’s cheek, driving him into the ropes.
“Move off the ropes, Mikey,” I yelled at McCarthy, “You’re getting paid for three rounds of sparring.”
He tried moving away but Bobby was back in front of him, sending another left hook, this time to the liver and the sound made everyone in the gym stop and look towards the ring. Just in time to see the second hook come over the top and land again on the side of McCarthy’s head, a sold thwack on the padding.
Bobby then threw a three-punch combination: a right, a left hook and another right, and when McCarthy tried to slip the first right, the left hook caught him flush on the nose and the right slammed into his cheek bone. Bobby danced back into the center of the ring and motioned at Mike to come after him.
“Just keep pumping that jab, Mikey,” I yelled, watching McCarthy shuffle towards the center of the ring where Bobby was dancing, a smile on his face. He was measuring McCarthy, waiting for him to step inside the punching arc and when he sensed McCarthy was there, he double jabbed first, both punches hitting Mike on the nose, causing a bright red stream of blood to flow. McCarthy stepped back and pawed at his nose with a glove and stared at the bloody smear on the leather.
I knew now that the funny look on his face was the look of fear. Bobby knew it too and stepped in and threw two more jabs before sliding around the counter left McCarthy automatically sent back. Bobby bent underneath the extended arm and delivered a hard right hook that some might have called a kidney punch. McCarthy dropped to a knee and stayed there, unable to move, and the bell sounded.
Back in the corner, Bobby was breathing easily. I tilted the water bottle and he rolled the liquid around in his mouth. “Just keep slipping the jab,” I told him, “but you don’t have to unload on him with everything you have.”